Radha Radkar

This interview with Radha Radkar was conducted on May 20, 2021 remotely via Zoom. Radha is an educator teaching at an all-girls high school in New York City. In this interview, Radha talked about her journey in education as a student, teacher, administrator, ally, learner, and visionary. She has held multiple roles in different kinds of schools, from writing center support at CUNY for a wide range of ages and backgrounds, to administration at the Bard Prison Initiative, and finally developing and running an ethnic studies curriculum at her current school. She discussed themes of polarity between a debilitating year and a year filled with resilience, particularly for students and faculty of color. She described major points of anxiety and uncertainty in the year as falling just before September when reopening was contentious and uncertain on all fronts. She reflected throughout on her journey as an educator both in daily practice and her philosophies on education in a highly unequal system, and how this year opened new possibilities, reinforced the same grief as always for communities of color, and triggered new chances and patterns for rethinking how education happens (from essentially troubleshooting the whole year). She talked with curiosity and concern and what the next generations of teachers will be like, what their motivations, skills, and incentives will be in this kind of context. As a woman who grew up working class and of South Asian descent, she spoke in comparative terms about her parents' own past experiences and the roles of teachers in literally building up schools and education after colonialism, and what it means for reflecting on education now and in the future in the U.S.