This winter I had the opportunity to read two powerful works of nonfiction by Dashka Slater, The 57 Bus and Accountable:  The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed. I first heard about the two books when I read Slater's New York Times articles about both events.  Reading the articles left me wanting to know more about what had happened with each incident.  They both take place in parts of the Bay Area that I know well having spent 7 years there as an educator and college student.  Part of the power of these two books is how they are written.  Each section of the books is small and looks at the issues from a different lens or person's point of view  laying forth a nuanced and thorough telling of events that might otherwise seem cut and dry.

The 57 Bus refers to the public bus that two students in Oakland take to school who live very different lives.  There is Sasha, a genderqueer teen who attends a small private school called Maybeck High and lives in a middle class neighborhood in the foothills.  Then there Richard, an African American teen who attends a large public high school, Oakland High and lives in a rough part of Oakland.  They only spend 8 minutes together on the bus, but then in a thoughtless act where Richard lights Sasha's skirt on fire while they sleep on the bus, their lives become intimately intertwined as their families and communities wrangle with what it means to bring justice to the situation.  The book is divided into 4 parts:  Sasha, Richard, Fire, and Justice.  We get to know each teen well and then there is an in depth exploration of the crime and how justice is sought.  It is a heartbreaking series of events that ultimately leads to redemption and changed lives for both teens.  It is a powerful tale for our time and is a valuable read for teens and their parents.

Accountable:  The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives it Changed is  a story that is equally heartbreaking but seems far less resolved in the end.  There was no sense that justice was served or that many of the perpetrators ever really were made to fully understand the harm caused.  My husband attended Albany High School and I knew of the privileged space it occupied as a teacher who taught at Richmond High School that was 10. miles north and worlds apart.  Albany is a town of educated liberals many of whom work for UC Berkeley.  The people of Albany pride themselves on being informed and sophisticated in their understanding of race and racism.  Albany High has many classes where race is addressed and students have conversations about racism making it all the more shocking that this happened in their community.  The posts on the Instagram account were simply awful, but Slater is again able to cut through all the noise and sensationalism of the media and help us understand the complexity of the events and the people who were impacted.  Like the 57 Bus, it is told in a series of short pieces focused on peeling back the layers and understanding the context and perspectives of those involved.  One of the most thought-provoking pieces in the book is a section titled, Questions of Harm:

Were you harmed if your picture wasn't on the account, but your name was?
Were you harmed if your picture wasn't on the account, but your race was?
Were you harmed if your picture was on the account but you were Asian or white?
Were you harmed if you were male?
Were you harmed if people said you were on the account but you never saw the post?
Were you harmed if your best friends couldn't stop crying?
Were you harmed if you once shrugged off the jokes?
Were you harmed if everything looks different now?
Were you harmed if you decided to forgive?
Would you have been harmed if the account had never been hidden?
Would you have been harmed if it had never been found?

Slater does extensive research to listen and tell the stories of those involved.  For each of the teens willing to talk with her, she shares their struggles, hopes and humanity.  As she states in the author's notes at the beginning of the book:  "True justice requires listening with curiosity and compassion to the human stories behind the headlines.  Only then can we begin to repair what's gone wrong and reach for what's right."  

These two works of fiction are special and offer a place for authentic dialogue around issues of equity and diversity and racism.  Slate also has some wonderful resources to help work with these texts:
The 57 Bus Discussion Guide
Accountable Resource Page

When Sue Fox, president of the International Women's Boxing Hall of Fame sent the Hall of Fame induction letter to me, I couldn't stop crying.  Achieving this is the ultimate honor in the sport of women's boxing.  It feels so incredible to be honored for all the blood, sweat and tears I've put into boxing. I feel like I achieved much of what I set out to do in the sport...but this is something so special and I was left speechless. 

Despite many questionable decisions and sheer lack of opportunity to fight as much as I would have liked to, I worked so, so hard to be the best boxer I could be for over 15 years.  I trained relentlessly and studied fights of the best.  I sought out sparring partners to practice my craft.  I fought anyone, anywhere my entire career just so I could fight and took on a long list of the best at my weight class.  I remember the first time I went to a boxing gym and thought to myself, "If I can do this, I can do anything."  Little did I know how much boxing would do for me from building my confidence to healing childhood trauma and unleashing in me  a bravery and resilience that I didn't think I had.

I couldn't have done it without the long list of people who helped me throughout my boxing career.  I think of Marsha King who I met when I went to King's boxing gym in Oakland who welcomed me with open arms and Charles King who was my first trainer.  I think of Mr. Thomas, my coach, who was old school and spent hours daily teaching me the finer points of defense and counter punching and helped me go from being basic to a skilled boxer who could more than handle herself in the ring.  I think of Jim and Tom the coaches for the UC Berkeley boxing gym who let me train at the gym whenever I wanted in between studies and encouraged me to start the first women's boxing team there.  I think of my first sparring partners Ray Joshua, Patty Martinez, and Porfirio Garcia who taught me so very much in the ring and who made it fun.  I got to spar regularly with Nonito and Glenn Donaire and Gina Guidi who never hurt me and let me experience their skills and learn from them.  I think of the times I would go to Gilroy and spar with Kel-C Jeffries and up to Sonoma County to spar with Jolene Blackshear and the friendship and bond we had from it.  I remember going regulary to Al Amanecer Boxing Gym in Napa where I was welcomed by Jesus Solis to spar with the tough crew of young latino boxers he trained that gave me all that I could  handle.  I am grateful to my coach Charlie Smith who would invoke James Brown at my first amateur fights shouting, "It's Showtime....and then, "Get down with your bad self," whenever I landed a good shot on my opponent. Coach Charlie who raised my defensive skills to a whole other level was a pure joy to work with.  I cherish my times at East Oakland Boxing Gym with Stan, Paul, James and Danielle and being able to bring my first students there to give them a taste of what boxing has to offer. I am grateful for Coach Greene, Coach Gloria Peek, and Coach Michaels who stepped up to work my corner at the Nationals when I had to travel there alone.

I think of my start as a professional boxer as I picked up everything and moved to Vegas and the opportunities my one and only manager Greg Hannley provided me as he tried to put together a team of women fighters from around the globe.  I loved my time at Prince Ranch, the former brothel turned boxing training camp and exotic animal shelter.  Becoming friends with Marischa Sjauw and Laura Serrano, two of my idols in the sport and getting to train with them was priceless.  I recall fondly my time at Laila Ali's gym and getting to train alongside Floyd Mayweather and Steve Forbes.  Roger Mayweather worked the corner of two of my fights and when I worked mitts with him, he gave me my greatest boxing compliment, "She hits like a dude."  

Then there was Johnny Tocco's gym and meeting Leroy Caldwell, my special friend and coach who would see me to the end of my career and who traveled the world with me to take on the best.  What an adventure we went on as we traveled to places all over the globe!  He taught me so much about grace and staying calm in the ring.  My only sadness in getting this honor in 2025 is that Leroy passed away in 2024 after a bout with colon cancer.  This honor is his as well as mine.  I know he will be with me in spirit.
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It's going to be a party in Vegas in April 2025 and I can't wait to celebrate with my family, friends, boxing community and the other inductees of the Class of 2025.

I am always excited when the Carolina Gloves 3-day tournament comes around.  It brings together some of the best fighters from North Carolina and surrounding areas in really good matchups.  I get to see coaches I know and don't see very often with their fighters.  Since it is a big tournament, there are two rings and additional officials from outside LBCs are brought in to help.  This year we were fortunate to have officials from Washington D.C. and Georgia come to support us and what a world of wisdom and experience they brought us during this tournament.  I felt really blessed.  I got so much good feedback on my officiating and appreciated how helpful and knowledgeable all the officials were.  Marshall, our ring captain, has been officiating for 40 years!  He is so passionate and committed that we as officials get it right.  The boxers deserve to have focused and fair officials and that is something I am also deeply committed to...improving my practice and doing my best by the boxers.

LaTasha Washington was another experienced official who blew me away with her skills and knowledge.  I got to watch her referee all weekend and her calm, assertive style is one that I hope to emulate.  She reminded me to slow down and stay calm.  She's been officiating for 13 years and also officiates on the international level and I can see why.  There are so many subtle things she does that take it to another level.  We also got to pick her brain over dinner and I felt my knowledge of what I need to do grew significantly.  It was a little intimidating refereeing in front of this dynamic crew of officials, but the lessons learned were many..

The finals on Sunday afternoon were packed with top notch close fights.  It's those types of fights where good officiating is key.  They can be so close and if you lose your focus, you might not get it right.  One of the favorite fights that I refereed during the Carolina Gloves was between two 119 lb. intermediate fighters.  They were both really talented and each had their moments.  It was a clean fight and ended in a split decision, but both fighters should be really proud.  They demonstrated excellent skill and poise and I only had to make a few minor calls.  

At the end of the tournament, my brain was fried from the intensity of the matches and my focus on them, but I can't express how grateful I am for the camaraderie and mentorship I receive every time I participate in an amateur event.  Elouise Joseph, our Chief of Officials, who is a top 10 official in the U.S. and who I consider to be my greatest mentor, came up to me at the end of the competition and told me how proud she was of my growth as an official over the past year.   What can I say?  It meant the world to me.

As part of my exploration into AI, I was really interested in exploring how AI is being used to do good in the world, so I completed the AI for Good Specialization offered by DeepLearning.AI on Coursera.  It is a 3 course specialization that looks at how AI can be used in Public Health, Climate Change and Disaster Management.  The courses are taught by Dr. Robert Monarch who uses his deep expertise in AI and also disaster management to explain important concepts related to AI for Good.  The definition of AI for Good as Monarch explains is the application of AI to solve some of the biggest problems of the world related to the environment, health, justice and humanitarian action with the goal of using AI to prevent, mitigate or resolve problems affecting human life or the environment.  One important principle that Monarch discusses at all stages of AI for Good is the Do No Harm Principle which is the understanding that everyone impacted by the project is left better off.  You can tell Monarch cares deeply about ensuring that communities and individuals get the help they need.

The courses look at a range of case studies in the real world ranging from detecting baby's cries to provide medical diagnosis to air quality monitoring, wind and solar power forecasting, biodiversity monitoring, and emergency response translation applications.  For each of the case studies Monarch uses the following framework to explore the process practitioners take to develop solutions.

Additionally, there are labs to run AI models in Jupyter notebooks to help participants get a sense of the steps taken in each of the case students to use the data collected  and processed through machine learning using predictive AI.  We also hear from researchers around the world with spotlights on global organizations like Microsoft for Good and Haiti on the Rise where practitioners explain their research and the impact it is making. Dr. Monarch is a patient host and through the repetition of applying the framework to each of the case studies you really get a sense of the possibility and process for using AI for Good.

Educational, school and district leaders are scrambling to come up with policies and guidance regarding AI in schools.   Students especially high school and college students are already using AI and there is no detection system available to adequately assess when AI has been used.  Luckily there are a number of organizations working together to provide leadership and guidance.  TeachAI has created an AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit that is the result of 60+ global organizations working together.  It is designed to "help local, state, and national education systems worldwide develop guidance on the responsible use of AI, ensure compliance with relevant policies, and build the capacity of all stakeholders to understand AI and use AI effectively. "  It provides a framework for implementing AI in an educational system and many resources for policymakers and educators to consider.
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Code.org, ISTE, Khan Academy, and ETS have partnered together to create an AI 101 page to help educators think about how to use AI.  There are a series of 30 minute videos that provide wonderful guidance in terms of thinking about using AI for teaching and learning and specific examples of teachers using generative AI to create content for their classrooms.  This intro video below of Hadi Partovi of code.org and Sal Khan of Khan academy is a great place to start to think about all of the risks and benefits of AI in schools

In addition to the series of videos for educators, there are high quality videos explaining various topics related to AI and a growing collection of professionally designed curricula that students and teachers can access from Code.org.  There is a link to ISTE's course for educators on generative AI and two AI tools specifically designed for students: ETS has developed a writing tutor for students and Khanmigo is Khan Academy's chatbot designed specifically for students.  

The AI toolkit and AI 101 page offer thorough and well thought out ideas for implementing AI into school systems and both leave space for room to grow as the field of generative AI advances.

Prompt Engineering has come onto the scene as an important means to use generative AI to its fullest.  What and how you ask for information in a generative AI app can play a big role in the information you get.  One big suggestion by many is to just play around with it and try it out.  You can go to ChatGPT and just type in a prompt or click on one of the prompts that are listed.  Because generative AI uses natural language models, there is no learning curve for initial exploration.  It's also a good idea to compare different generative AI apps such as BIng Chat which uses the premium version of ChatGPT and can deal and has the most up-to-date information available or Perplexity.ai that includes sources with the information provided.  Another possibility is Google's AI assistant known as Bard.  The screenshot below shows how Perplexity.ai provides sources.

The next step would be to get the AI assistant to refine the information it provided.  For instance, in the above example about dolphins you might want to know more about the ways dolphins show self-awareness.  You can continue to refine content and chat assistants do remarkably well with follow-up prompts remembering the history of your interactions.

Chat assistants have proven to be quite remarkable in the education space for lesson planning, assessment construction and differentiation, and there are a number of sites that offer pre-written prompts for educators.  Code.org has two great prompt libraries the first one titled LLM prompts for educators. It offers a collection of prompts organized by beginner, intermediate and advanced and provides useful guidelines for creating prompts.  The second library include prompts for using with students called AI prompts for transforming student learning.  Another great place for educators to see a wide variety of prompts is  AI for Education's prompt library.  On this site prompts are organized by type such as lesson planning, administration and professional development.

There are also a growing number of courses available to help one learn how to write prompts.  I recommend the free course, Innovative Teaching with ChatGPT, to get started.  Vanderbilt professor Jules White uses very teaching specific prompts to show how to create and refine lesson plans and activities as well as differentiate for different types of students.  I recently took another course by White called Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT which takes a deeper dive by exploring some of the patterns that are useful in creating different types of prompts.  

AI is absolutely going to change the educational landscape and an easy way for educators to get started is to try their hand at prompt engineering.  I think they will immediately find that chat assistants have the potential to really save them time. 

image source:  ​https://medium.com/the-ai-education-project/introducing-the-ai-education-project-3c1f1fc31fd2

As I continue my journey exploring AI and its implications for teaching and learning, I spent some time reviewing the curriculum available at The AI Education Project.  Their site has free curriculum available for students and  educators as well as information for advocates.  They have partnered with some of the big tech companies including Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and GitHub and have a mission to create equitable learning experiences that teach foundational AI skills.  There are high interest, flexible lessons and activities that range from 5 minute warm ups to a semester long Introductory course.  The AI Education Project implements culturally relevant pedagogy and project-based learning as a foundation for their curriculum and the content choices reflect a broad range of topics that teachers of any subject matter can find relevant.  

AI Snapshots offer 180 five minute warmups organized by the four core subject areas:  English, Math, Science and Social Studies.  Each warm-up starts with a slide that asks students a thought-provoking question or design challenge.  Then there is a second slide titled:  Things You May Have Considered. That helps students and teachers explore the topic more deeply.  It's a great way to get students to begin to think about the complexities and impact of AI in various disciplines and aspects of our lives.  There are also AI Challenges that students can work through on their own that challenge students in timely tasks such as proving they are smarter than ChatGPT and  improving their TikTok algorithm.  These are wonderfully engaging independent lessons for curious high schoolers to try. 

For Computer Science and Technology teachers who are interested in bringing AI into their curriculum, the AI Education Projects offers a Project Dashboard  that provides project-based learning on a variety of topics related to AI.  One of my favorite projects on the dashboard is The 29 A.Is of Washington D.C. where students follow the journey of individual citizens and see how their lives are impacted by AI.  It is a memorable, equity-focused lesson that drives home the problem of bias inherent in AI systems.

The Intro to AI course is an incredibly thoughtful and well-designed course  that provides foundational skills in AI while having students create their own AI recommendation system using Hugging Face.  The course includes lesson plans, a teacher's guide, a slide deck and a student workbook.  While this course is recommended for 10 weeks, it could easily be built out to last an entire semester.  This course is one of the best examples of culturally relevant pedagogy in the field of computer science that I have seen.  It gets students to consider AI in ways that are based in the real world.  It has them explore biases inherent in data and gives students ample choice to explore their own interests.  Furthermore it provides teachers with explicit guidelines to teach the course in a way that makes it accessible to those who may feel a bit intimidated to teach a course in AI.

Finally, the AI Education Project offers live professional development and toolkits for educators and advocates who are interested in getting AI implemented in their classrooms, schools, and districts.  The AI Education Project is doing incredible work in the field of equity focused and civic-minded computer science education.  I highly recommend it as a place to go to find curriculum and guidelines related to teaching AI.

image credit:  https://www.independent.ie

May of this year was supposed to be Katie Taylor's homecoming.  Despite being a decorated world champion and former Olympic Gold Medal winner, she had never before had the opportunity to fight as a professional in her home country of Ireland.  When she was growing up, boxing was prohibited for girls and she had to dress up like a boy to train.  But in May, she fought in front of a sold out home crowd for the first time determined to continue her reign as one of the pound for pound greats in women's boxing in a fight against Chantelle Cameron.  Unfortunately, Cameron had other plans and came to win.  She handily defeated Taylor over 10 rounds using a strong jab and aggressive style that seemed to frustrate Taylor.  Maybe it was nerves or maybe Cameron was much better than she expected, regardless, Taylor was heartbroken by this first professional loss and wanted nothing more than to avenge her defeat.  She went back to the drawing board and trained hard for 6 months before the rematch on November 25th.

For the first time in her career, Taylor came in as the underdog.  She entered second at the 3Arena in Dublin and despite having an enormous sellout crowd of 9,000 people behind her, it was clear that Cameron had earned the respect as the current champion.  The atmosphere was absolutely electric and Taylor entered the ring with a determined and focused look on her face.  It was an incredible fight as was the first one.  Many have called it the fight of the year.  There was a lot of back and forth, but Taylor used her blazing handspeed and combinations to frustrate Cameron and won a close, extremely hard fought bout.

In the post fight interview, Taylor said, "“It was the longest six months in my life waiting for this rematch.  This is my real homecoming tonight. You saw the worst of me in May. You saw the best of me tonight. Let’s get the trilogy in Croke Park."  Croke Park is the soccer stadium in Ireland that can host 82,000 people.  Despite being written off as being at the end of her career, Taylor punctuated the fact that she is nowhere close to being done with a career-defining performance.  She was all class at the end of the fight giving props to Cameron for being a phenomenal fighter.  The heart and bravery of these two warriors can't be denied.  I have no doubt they will cement their legacies with a trilogy in the near future.  And if it does end up happening at Croke Park, I am certain they will sell it out.  A huge win for Katie Taylor, for women's boxing and for BOXING period.

I recently completed the IBM Skillsbuild Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals program which is a 10 hour program designed to help you understand what AI is and how it is being used in a variety of industries.  I thoroughly enjoyed this learning experience, not only because of the content, but it is an example of genuinely well-crafted instructional design as well.  There are 6 course in the program along with two optional bonus courses.  The lessons are easy to work through, engaging and broken up in a way that maximizes impact and interest. It would work well for high school students and educators to understand fundamental AI principles.  IBM Skillsbuild also has content and courses specifically for high school students and educators related to AI, but I have yet to explore those.

The first three course provided a clear explanation of AI, LLMs and machine and deep learning.  These courses provided lots of engaging activities, thoughtful examples and reflection questions to help cement an understanding of concepts covered.  One of my favorite courses in the series was Run AI Models with IBM Watson Studio.  The course is a simulation using IBM Watson Studio and you get a chance to see how a financial business might run an AI model.  It was fun to go through that process.  I also enjoyed the AI Ethics course that involved scenario based learning to help you think through some of the ethics issues related to AI.  Finally, the Your Future in AI course featured two videos of employee involved with AI, one of whom was an instructional designer for IBM.  I am excited to do a new certification soon on Sustainability and Technology.  I recommend the AI Foundations Course to anyone interested in getting a solid grasp of Artificial Intelligence.

I had the opportunity last weekend to attend a professional boxing judge training run by Steve Weisfeld.   Weisfeld is a NJ Hall of Fame judge who has judged over 2500 professional fights.  Most recently he judged the last Amanda Serrano fight, the Stevenson vs. De Los Santos fight and the Benavidez vs. Andrade fight.  It was an intense and powerful training and I came away with a new understanding of what it means to be a high quality judge.  The biggest takeaway for me was that you MUST be fair to both fighters.  That means judging each round individually, not favoring a boxer because they are a champion or have the crowd behind them or have a style you like, but truly looking for who throws the most clean, effective punches.  Weisfeld taught us that we must have a mental computer running where you know who is winning and by how much at every second of the round.  He notes that different people have different methods, but that is the name of the game.  As he states in the above video, "our allegiance is to the round."  In order to improve focus Weisfeld gave two gems of advice that I had never heard of before.  First, he told us to "Be Less Selfish."  The fight is about the two fighters in the ring.  You owe it to them to give the fight your full attention. Secondly, he told us that the best state of mind when judging is to be a little excited.  He says if we are too calm, we might miss something and if we are too excited, it's really hard to focus.  I had always assumed  it was important to be calm, but Weisfeld argues that we must be immersed in the action and create our own excitement to maintain serious focus on the fight.  Being a boxing judge is a second profession, not a hobby he states.  You may not make a living from being a judge, but we have the boxers' livelihoods in our hands and our decisions can impact the path their careers take tremendously.  

In the training we were challenged to score what Weisfeld called atypical rounds.  These were rounds that are especially hard to judge due to being extremely close or having other attributes that make them challenging to judge.  Weisfeld notes that most rounds have a clear winner.  He noted that in 2022 only 5% of fights ended in a split decision.  That was surprising to hear, but also good to hear.  Weisfeld carefully selected rounds that were instructive and as a group we discussed the rounds and then found out what the actual scores were and what Weisfeld felt were reasonable scores.  My understanding of judging is pretty solid, but this really helped me understand the importance of being focused and decisive in your decisions.   

At the beginning of the training Weisfeld asked us each to reflect on what brought us to being a boxing judge.  For me, I know that now is my time to give back to the sport that gave me so much, but I can't help but acknowledge the pain and loss of confidence that came from some of the decisions had on my career.  I was a fight anyone, anywhere type of fighter and I definitely lost some of my fights especially those at the end of my career.  But of the 5 World Title fights I had, I truly felt I won all of them. They were each in 5 different countries and I received a majority decision, a draw, a split decision, a loss and a win.  The loss was in North Korea, so that explains that.   Only one of those fights was in the U.S. and that was my win.  It is what it is, but it is a big motivation for me to get better at judging.  I know I still need to work on honing my focus when it comes to judging, but I do take each bout I judge seriously and I will continue to strive to do right by both fighters.  I am grateful I had this opportunity at taking a masterclass from a truly masterful judge and teacher.  Thanks Steve Weisfeld!