• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Educate to Liberate Consulting

Engage | Educate | Empower

  • Our People
    • Marion Smith Jr., EdD
    • Nikum Pon, PhD
  • Our Core Work
  • Our Community
  • Signature Professional Learning
  • Events
  • Contact Us
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Our People

Marion Smith Jr., EdD | Founder & Chief Learning Strategist

ed2liberate@gmail.com


Nikum Pon, PhD | Chief Research & Evaluation Strategist

nikumpon@gmail.com

Guided by a moral imperative and internal, magnetic North Star, Dr. Smith and Dr. Pon were brought together (in the same place, at the same time) in the Pacific Northwest in 2015 to surface and address (aka: disrupt and dismantle) institutionalized racism in educational communities and organizational systems for the greater good of all students, especially those furthest from educational justice and equity.

As a result of their initial collaboration and partnership, they designed and co-facilitated the three day ‘Coaching and Leading for Racial Equity Institute’ that has since become foundational training and professional development offered by the largest educational service district (ESD) in Washington State.

During this time, Drs. Smith and Pon were clear: They wanted to be the kind of educators they never had or experienced during their own K-12 and college journey. As they continued their collaboration, they co-authored the Racial Equity Adaptive Leadership (R.E.A.L.) Framework, and agreed that talking about and bringing awareness about the work of equity, racial equity, diversity and/or inclusion was not good enough. They needed to create the enabling conditions for all involved to learn, unlearn and relearn what it means to “live equity”. Heidi Schillinger, founder of Equity Matters, speaks about intellectualizing the work of equity without doing the systemic work to make actual change as being fake equity or “fakequity.” To engage in true transformative work in this space, we must be practitioners who move beyond an intellectual, theoretical exercise of “doing equity work” to align what we believe and say with what we do, what is evident and how we live our lives. To do this, we must recognize that all of us have been “mummified” by Whiteness. For Black children and People of Color, and all students furthest from educational justice, to realize their fullest potential, we must unravel the linens of White Supremacy Culture (acknowledging, recognizing and understanding, from a documented historical context, how systems and institutions where designed for White people, by White people, for the advancement of White people) while collectively re-imagining ways of engagement in organizations and education systems that challenge the status quo. 

Educate to Liberate Consulting (E2LC) sets out to do just that. Let our collective journey begin!

Primary Sidebar

Our People Navigation

  • Our People
  • Marion Smith Jr., EdD
  • Nikum Pon, PhD
  • Equity Strategists

“When you begin to do things that raise the achievement of the poorest and disenfranchised student, you may not always get applause. You need to be ready for that.”

-Asa Hilliard

 class=

© 2019 Educate to Liberate Consulting | ed2liberate@gmail.com  | Seattle, WA | Engage.Educate.Liberate