500 Episodes of Nuance and Hard Conversations

Recently I reviewed the book I Think You're Wrong (But I'm listening) by the amazing women of the Pantsuit Politics podcast. Today is their 500th episode. It is by far my favorite podcast. It is the one that I listen to on the exact day that it drops in my feed without fail, and that is because podcast that has given me so much hope, peace, and calm in the midst of the contentious storm of American Politics. I have so often called them my Political Prozac that I'm thinking of trademarking the term. ;)

I talk about this podcast a lot both on social media and with the people I know and love. And that's because I cannot stress enough how they have changed me and made me a better citizen.

 And as much as I talk about my love for Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland, I've never told anyone this story about what kind, gracious, and generous women they are. Back in 2018, serendipity caused Sara Kajder and me to get to present with Beth and Sarah at NCTE in Houston. When I mentioned in an offhanded comment on a Pantsuit Politics Instagram post in late 2017 that I was part of a presentation at NCTE that year in St. Louis with Sara and she had mentioned how she uses the podcast in her classroom to show her students how to disagree respectfully, Beth replied by saying that her mom, a former English teacher, was an NCTE member and actually sat next to Sara on a flight home from NCTE once. That led to Beth agreeing to have her and Sarah present with us the next year about ways to disagree respectfully in the classroom.

I've told the story of presenting with them at NCTE to many people. What I often leave out of the story is that even though Beth and Sarah had a brand new book coming out a few months after NCTE and I had assumed that their publisher would pay for their trip to Houston, Beth and Sarah actually paid their own way just to present with us. All because Beth knew what a valuable organization NCTE was for teachers and how much her mom loved and respected my dear colleague Sara Kajder. 

And so. What I'd like to attest is that Beth and Sarah don't just SEEM like the wonderful women they present themselves to be every week, they ARE those women. When you meet them in person, they are the exact same Beth & Sarah that you hear twice a week on their podcast (or maybe three times a week if you listen to their Nuanced Life podcast too).

So congrats on 500 episodes, Sarah and Beth! Here's to 5,000 more!

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