A Conversation with Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz
In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Professor of English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, to talk about what it looks like when scholarship is built from real students, real stories, and real responsibility. Her work on racial literacy, culturally responsive education, and healing-centered approaches offers teachers something more useful than a new checklist: a way to see more clearly.
We start with the experience that shaped her most, teaching over-age, undercredited students who were carrying adult burdens while schools measured them by credits, attendance, and compliance. From there, she explains her transformative framework, the Archaeology of Self, as a practice of human literacy: learning to read ourselves deeply so we can more fully read our students. We talk about imagination, storytelling, and the need to interrupt harm rather than become bystanders to it.
Then we go where education conversations rarely go, straight into poetry. Dr. Sealey-Ruiz shares why poems and other art forms can communicate truth faster than traditional academic writing, and why expanding what “counts” as scholarship can reunite head and heart in educational research. She closes with two urgent takeaways for today’s difficult educational climate: real self-care that keeps teachers fortified, and historical literacy that resists erased histories, book removals, and misinformation in an AI-driven world.
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You can connect with Yolanda at https://www.yolandasealeyruiz.com/. You can also follow her on Instagram at @yolie_sealeyruiz
To cite this episode: Hatten, R. (Host) (2026, Sept 15). A Conversation with Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz. (Season 6, No. 12) [Audio podcast episode]. in Classroom Caffeine Podcast series.