Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Michelle Sadrena Pledger.
Hi Dr. Pledger, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
At High Tech High Graduate School of Education, we often have our networks engage in telling their why stories, so thankfully my why story is always ready to share!
When I grew up, San Bernardino, Ca was my zone of proximal development. My daily life traversed three distinct locations in that huge county. Garner Avenue was the Latinx barrio where we lived and where the “primas” down the street, Corrina and Grezel, were my first Spanish teachers. They taught me everyday words like “perro,” “gato,” “cama,” and “bicicleta,” as well as more mature words like “baboso” and “cochina.” I even went so far as to affect a Spanish-speaking accent when I spoke to them in English. The second location was Belvedere Elementary School. My mom used my aunt’s address so that I could attend a “better” school that was out of our district. At Belvedere, I code-switched to standard American English, sometimes using a borderline valley girl accent because I knew I did not resemble my peers, and I thought if I talked, laughed, and acted like them, they could somehow overlook my darker skin tone. With an absent father and an overworked mother, our afterschool childcare was transferred to my Auntie Ruth. She had four children of her own, so adding two more did not make much of a difference. At Auntie Ruth’s house on Duffy Street, I often unsuccessfully tried to shift my speech to African American vernacular, aware that my cousins and the rest of the neighborhood kids attended the local schools nearby, not Belvedere. We played red light green light, mother-may-I, and performed rhythmic cheer routines on the sidewalk, but I could never master double-dutch.
As a child, my desire was to discover my place in the world, a place where I could feel a sense of unity. A sense of belonging. A sense of self. I struggled to find it. I was not Mexican enough for Garner Ave, not White enough for Belvedere, not Black enough for Duffy Street. To be honest, I lived in a perpetual state of discomfort in my own skin that lasted well into adulthood.
My family was complex. My father’s crack addiction took him away from our family for nearly six years. Between the ages of 2 and 8, it was just my mother, brother, and I. Even after his return, my parents were focused on repairing their relationship, balancing the bills, and keeping regret and resentment at bay. There was no time to contemplate the cultural identity crisis cultivating in their daughter.
I was supposed to work hard, earn good grades, stay out of trouble, and go to college. So that’s what I did. I’m such a rule follower, which at times makes it challenging to be revolutionary.
My schools were a place of Whiteness. I spent Pre-K thru 6th grade in predominantly White schools where I began to shed aspects of my cultural identity to obtain the prize of acceptance. I wanted to belong. By the time I started high school, a school that was rich in cultural diversity, I selected “my people,” and they looked nothing like me. For the first half of undergrad at UC Irvine, my predominantly White circle stayed the same. Then… I discovered salsa, bachata, rock en espanol, and from that point on any LatinX scene became my scene. My friends referred to me as Blacktina. I didn’t know then, but I realize now this was my first step toward embracing being a person of color, that ultimately led to my love of being a Black woman.
I had never planned to be an educator. At age 7 I had my heart set on being a country singer, then a pediatrician, then a psychologist, then a non-profit leader in Latin America. Sometimes the vision was simply “jet setting” and “doing lunches”. Teaching crept up on me. Not like in a horror movie when the killer is lurking in the shadows, but like a romantic comedy when the protagonist realizes that who she was searching for was right in front of her all along.
In 2005, I came to teach at the High Tech High K12 organization because I wanted to be a part of developing students’ unlimited potential. I had no idea how much they would develop mine. In those days, there was no Odyssey series to onboard new project-based learning teachers, no project slice, no equity, and innovation networks. My director, Kelly Wilson, essentially handed me a Buck Institute Binder on project-based learning and said, “Good luck.” My first project was a disaster, but they got better. More importantly, as I designed my own curriculum for US History and American Literature, I began to learn so much more about the African American experience, content I was not taught in high school and though it was a long time coming, I am finally in a place where I love every aspect of my cultural identity. My skin tone, my hair, my features, my voice, my people. I was finally able to find my place in the world, complete with unity and belonging…my classroom. When I was with my students, exchanging knowledge, creating meaning, and crafting beautiful work, it was both my comfort zone and my development district. All of my life experiences equipped me to be a teacher who can connect with diverse groups of students, adolescents, or adults from a myriad of racial, cultural, and financial backgrounds. I hope I helped them discover their purpose in life, and I know they allowed me to fulfill mine.
In 2017, I transitioned from our K12 organization and began working at our graduate school where I now serve as the Director of Liberation. I’m part of this community because I believe in the transformative power of human beings and our collective capacity to dialogue, learn from the past, grapple with the present, and design for liberation of self, others, systems, and society. I want to be a part of developing the unlimited potential of young people and adults so we can all live life uninterrupted by oppression and unapologetically ourselves.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road. My father became addicted to crack and when I was 2 years old, he abandoned our family for about 6 years. My mom worked incessantly to keep my brother and I housed, clothed, and fed. I guess technically we were poor, but I don’t think I really fully realized it when I was younger because I didn’t have anything to compare it to. I mean I knew I wore Pro-wings from Payless, that we put clothes on lay-away, our first tv only got 2 channels, and that all of our vacations were camping, but when you don’t know anything different, you just think that’s how it is. It wasn’t until my first sleepover that I got a sense of how people in other communities lived. Thankfully my dad got clean and little by little they rebuilt their lives together and their story of unconditional love and forgiveness has become an incredible inspiration to other couples.
Apart from financial and familial challenges, I’d say my biggest struggle was internalized oppression, not loving or valuing myself in the ways that I should have, caring too much about what other people think, and the list goes on and on. I think, well I know, that is why I worked so hard. I honestly think I was hustling for my worth, believing that if I could just do enough, assimilate enough, achieve enough, I would be loved and valued.
School was not particularly challenging (except math), and I did well in high school, undergrad, my master’s program, and my doctoral program.
What obstacles did you have to overcome?
There isn’t enough time in this interview to address them all, so I’ll just share a mix of professional and personal challenges. And, I won’t say “overcome” because some things in life may not be overcome, just navigated. An obstacle I faced as a classroom teacher were the made assumptions (sometimes accurate/sometimes not), made by parents/caregivers/students about what and how I would teach. They saw a young, Black, female teacher and filled in their own blanks. Instead of starting every year excited like many of my counterparts, I started my year anxious and ready to play defense to whatever offensive belief or behavior was going to come my way. It meant I spent much more time making sure my projects were clear, well-researched, focused on guiding students on how to think, not what to think, etc. I remember trying to get ahead of it Back-To-School Nights by sharing my approach to try and pre-empt their not-yet-deserved speculation and censure. The weight of that emotional labor impacted my physical and mental health, but I got through it.
I was in an unhealthy marriage for almost 10 years before we decided to end it. I actually consider it my first act of liberation. I stayed in it for as long as I did because of my faith and because I was worried about what other people would think, mainly my parents. But once we liberated ourselves, I was free to say yes to so many opportunities that came my way, free to live for me, and free to take up as much literal and figurative space as I wanted. It was like exhaling after holding your breath for years.
Unfortunately, the stress of work and my marriage led to health challenges, one of which was the proliferation of uterine fibroids. Research has shown that high levels of stress are associated with fibroids in Black women. We are 3 times more likely to develop uterine fibroids than white women, they develop earlier in life, are larger, more numerous, and cause more severe pain symptoms. Black women are twice as likely to need a hysterectomy as a result of fibroids. I had numerous fibroids that were causing me extreme pain and two doctors recommended a hysterectomy. But the size and positioning of a couple of them made the surgery risky so my surgeon put me on a medication that could potentially shrink them. This particular medication also throws you into temporary menopause, so you get to experience all of the symptoms that come with that (insomnia, night sweats, hot flashes, mood changes, etc.). I was on it for 8 months and it wasn’t effective, so we moved forward with the surgery. I had several post-hysterectomy complications, but I’ll spare you the details because this is not a medical journal or a horror movie.
On the same day of my surgery, my mom was in the ER. They found 17 lesions in her brain. The cancer was back. But this didn’t keep her from showing up at my house that week to help take care of me as I recovered from surgery. My mom, Sadie Theresa Pledger was by BEST friend and the greatest human I have and will ever know. As her breast cancer metastasized, life became increasingly unbearable for her. When she started hospice on October 20, 2021, I essentially moved back with parents to help my dad (and other family members periodically) take care of her. I had the opportunity to feed her, change her, bathe her, and entertain her just like I imagine she did for me when I was a baby. Those last four months with her stretched me and our family beyond measure, but I am so grateful for all the ways we were able to care for her and for being able to hold her as she took her final breath on January 18, 2022. God gave me the perfect mother for me in so many ways. I’m still grieving and will continue to love and grieve the woman who gave me life, shaped me into the woman I am and the person who told me repeatedly in my adulthood, “You are enough.”
It took a long time for to realize that “I am enough. Period.” Honestly, at times I still struggle with my enoughness. I experience self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and I have an inner critic who is mean, loud, and repetitive! No matter how many workshops I give on all of these phenomenon and more, they still show up in me, but I am much better equipped to notice, name, and navigate them thanks to therapy, coaching, a so many books! My inner queen has been exercising her agency and has gotten much better at quieting my inner critic.
So yeah, life has not been a smooth road, but any day above ground is a blessing and an opportunity to be of service to those around me. I am a woman of faith, and God has gotten me through every single tragedy and orchestrated every single triumph! I am also blessed to have incredible friends who have supported me through it all.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am the Director of Liberation at High Tech High’s Graduate School of Education which means I specialize in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)/Anti Bias, Anti Racist (ABAR)/Justice/Belonging initiatives which I summarize into “Liberation Work”. My roles and responsibilities are many and meaningful! In addition to supporting the liberation capacity building of our internal GSE, I get to work across several departments facilitating workshops, teaching courses, researching and writing articles, or co-designing conferences and convenings related to DEI or Deeper Learning.
Outside of my High Tech High GSE work, I have my own professional development and publication company called Living for Liberation where we provide keynotes, professional development, and publications. My book, Liberate! Pocket-Sized Paradigms for Liberatory Learning was our first publication!
What are you known for in your work?
Hmmm…depending on who you ask, I suppose I’m known for different things. I’m known for being passionate about culturally responsive-sustaining pedagogy, for co-directing the Share Your Learning Campaign with my colleague and friend Mari Jones, which spread student-centered practices (exhibitions, student led conferences, and presentations of learning) to 5 million students, and for being a DIVA of Deeper Learning.
In terms of my approach, based on participant and student feedback, I guess you could say I am known for thoughtful, humorous, vulnerable and authentic facilitation of content that allows participants to liberate self, others, and systems in tangible and transformational ways. I’m also known for my work ethic and my love ethic. I try to work in ways that foster human being’s ability to know, love, and trust themselves which ultimately leads to them developing their unlimited potential.
What are you focused on right now?
Right now I’m focused on getting my book into as many educators’ hands as possible. You see my dissertation research focused on cultivating culturally responsive teaching and classroom management self-efficacy in novice and veteran teachers for the purpose of improving academic opportunities and outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse students. And I learned that all educators, regardless of experience, can benefit from liberatory shifts in mindset and practices. Liberate! Pocket-Sized Paradigms for Liberatory Learning is an affordable and accessible must read for any teacher, leader, or coach who aspires to design educational experiences that are responsive to culturally and linguistically diverse young people. It’s grounded in theory and practice and provides the “what”, “why”, and “how” of cultivating liberated consciousness, curriculum, classroom, cognitive capacity bias, communication, and conduct constructs! And it’s pocket-sized, ready to reference at any given moment. It takes an hour to read and a lifetime to implement, so I hope it can be a go-to guide as educators design for liberatory learning!
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Well, I live in Escondido, and I work in Point Loma, so I’ll share what I like best about our county! I appreciate that we have a plethora of possibilities for joy, culture, and connection! I am a dancer and San Diego clubs and studios make it so easy for me to dance a wide variety of genres. I enjoy dancing salsa, bachata, cha cha, hip hop, country… you name it! I’m a member of Agogo Drum and Dance Ensemble, so I get to express myself on the dance floor frequently. Our company centers Afro Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, and Afro-Haitian dances. I love that our county has so many possibilities for pleasure. IF I wanted to, I could go hiking, wine tasting, eat at a great restaurant, visit a museum, go to the beach, go to a play, eat at another great restaurant, see a movie, and then go dancing all in the span of 24 hours! Now, I rarely have time to do all of these activities, but the fact that the options are there is fantastic!
Hmmm…What I like least about our county is that the Black population is only 5.6%, and the percentage is 2.25% in Escondido where I live so I do not get many opportunities to connect with the diaspora! That said, a few of my friends and I are planning to eat at every Black owned restaurant in the county so we can expand our palettes and our network. The history of Black people in this county is not a well-known topic, but Black people like Nathan Harrison, America Newton, and Frederick Coleman, to name a few, developed various parts of San Diego County. San Diego County is also rich in cultural diversity when you know where to go! I can go to a Kumeyaay Tule Boat making workshop in Mission Bay, sing karaoke in Convoy, dance salsa downtown or enjoy a day of mindful meditation at a Deer Park Monastery in Escondido.
Oh, and I appreciate that I live in a place where people come to vacation, which means when I return from a vacation destination, I am returning to a vacation destination. What is not to love about that?!
I am super blessed, and I know that every day is a gift, so I try not to take it for granted. I’m still working on the ability to dream and be present simultaneously.
Pricing:
- Liberate! Pocket-Sized Paradigms for Liberatory Learning is $9.95 and is available at www.livingforliberation.com
Contact Info:
- Websites: www.hthgse.edu | www.michellepledger.com | www.livingforliberation.com
- Twitter: @michellesadrena
- Email: mpledger@hightechhigh.org | info@michellepledger.com | info@livingforliberation.com
Image Credits
Michelle Pledger
Brent Spirnak
Gabe Ogilvie
Anna Petrick
Getty Images
USC Shoah Foundation
