164: Create What’s Missing: Cedric Scott, Jr. on Representation, Reinvention, and STEM

Holly Owens (00:00.718)
Hello everyone and welcome to another amazing episode of Ed Up Learning and Development. My name is Holly Owens and I'm your host and I'm super excited about this episode because this guest and I should have talked way sooner than what we're talking now, but we're finally doing it. We're finally doing it. So please welcome Cedric Scott Jr. to the episode. Cedric, welcome in.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (00:23.165)
Thank you, Holly. Yeah, and I know we've had this conversation. Yeah, well, let's...

Holly Owens (00:27.61)
And we even lived in the same area. We still didn't meet up.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (00:30.683)
Exactly. But you know, it happened when it was supposed to. So I'm just grateful to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me on and happy to have this conversation with

Holly Owens (00:34.637)
It ha-

Holly Owens (00:40.108)
Me too. I'm really excited and I know you're pretty, I want to say you're, definitely an influencer out there on LinkedIn world and I follow you and all your, different work that you're doing. That's so inspirational. But for the people that are listening right now who haven't met you before, tell us about your journey. How did you get into all these different endeavors that you're, you're, you're doing.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (01:01.491)
course. Yeah, so originally I started out actually in science. My background bachelor's degree, earliest career pathway and trajectory actually was in chemistry. So I got my degree at Virginia State University. Shout outs to the HBCUs. And I got my degree in chemistry. And then from there actually returned back home to my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Worked briefly in chemical industry.

And then I decided to pivot into education. I always knew that I would do something in that space, teaching. I'd always been supporting a lot of different people with learning, growing up as one of six children, four younger siblings, so helping with homework and that type of thing was always there. And then just being helpful and being mindful about other people, their progression, and just how I could be of support and service.

So pivoted into teaching, which landed me in Washington, D.C., which was awesome in a lot of different capacities. One is because I got the experience, of course, going into schools and engaging with youth directly. Started out originally teaching in third grade, primarily in math and science, which was really fun. I had a really good time. And at the same time, you know, I was fortunate to actually meet my wife, who is also a teacher.

So yeah, that all just really panned out really well, which then led to kind of fast forward to now, actually, I guess thinking more so about 2020 when the pandemic hit. And that was the same time that my son was born. And that was when I had basically made the decision to pivot once again, up until that point, I had been a teacher in different capacities, mostly in elementary.

and worked my way into being an instructional coach. And then my last school-based role, was actually an assistant principal at an elementary school. And when I, I a lot, I a lot.

Holly Owens (03:01.464)
Goodness, you've done it all. Do you feel, I feel old. Do you feel old when you start talking about your journey? I'm like, I can't believe I've done all this, but this is amazing. Keep going.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (03:12.019)
I've felt old since I was 10. We'll dig into that. yeah, so yeah, with my wife and I, you know, knowing that our son is coming into the world, I really just wanted to be present and really be there. And then the pandemic and everything kind of shut down. And that's when he was born, late March, 2020. And then from there, I was able to make the shift again, more so into the ed tech or kind of education industry space.

Holly Owens (03:14.501)
yeah.

Holly Owens (03:27.351)
I love that.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (03:42.009)
I began working in curriculum and product and things like that, which allowed me also to work fully remote. And I'm happy to say that I've been fortunate enough to be fully remote ever since my son came into the world. You know, he just turned five this year and yeah, so it's been great being able to be here. I can do his commute in the morning, drive him to, you know, pre-K, he's going to be starting kindergarten. And then also just being able to support and be here, be present for.

Holly Owens (03:57.203)
what a fun age.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (04:10.343)
My wife as well, who also is still teaching, but she's doing so remotely, which is great. And yeah, with creating all of this other stuff, I guess, I think the creative aspect of being an educator overall is somewhat overshadowed often. think in a lot of folks who might be hearing this or watching this episode probably attest to that. And what I found was that having more time,

and just kind of like space and opportunity to tinker, I began creating and thinking about what are the disparities in what I saw as a student, but also as an educator in the school system myself, right? Lack of representation, history, know, even things like financial literacy. So I started creating and producing based off of that. And then also gauging support from, you know, others.

Holly Owens (04:49.922)
Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (05:04.985)
outside of even the school system itself, thinking about what's happening in the homeschool world. What types of things can I put in place that could really be of benefit long term in thinking really just outside of myself and even my own family, but really looking at community and consideration for our future and our youth.

Holly Owens (05:26.06)
Yeah, gosh, you're so inspirational. I love your stuff. And you constantly reinvent things, or you just take it and you just make it something better, all the different things that you're doing. But I want to talk about all your different initiatives. So tell us a little bit about, you were mentioning before we started the episode, the STEM 1000, you've written two books, you said, A Black AI Media.

Tell us about the things that you're doing and how you're helping education systems, especially underserved communities, people that aren't organized, like you're saying about the representation, which is so important nowadays, especially with DEI programs being cut by the current administration. So talk to us about that.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (06:12.893)
Yeah, well, I'll preface it by saying that, you know, I had to anchor everything away and the way that I did what that was primarily thinking about my own reflection, upbringing, experiences and what kind of shaped and molded me. And one of those major influences, like many other people, you know, where was my family and more specifically thinking about my mom, right? If I'd be remiss if I didn't, you know, shout her out. And with that,

Holly Owens (06:17.377)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (06:36.461)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (06:41.581)
Come on.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (06:42.565)
One of the things that, you know, one of the things I had to create was a scholarship and like a scholarship fund in memory of her. Cause unfortunately I mentioned that, you know, I mentioned that I agree. No, no, no, it's fine. But no, it's I mentioned that like, you know, I haven't, I felt old ever since I was 10. And part of that is due to, lost my mom when I was 10 years old. Well, you know, my family, right? I mentioned myself, five siblings.

Holly Owens (06:53.062)
well, I feel ridiculous now.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (07:12.167)
in that upbringing and my father being, you know, an amazing person, amazing man and doing all the work and everything that he had to do to keep us moving, which I can never give him enough praise and love for that. But when I think about it, my mom was one who really instilled a lot of the passion and just like in terms of education, she was the one who was like, yes, school, do well.

do that, you know, she was all about learning.

Holly Owens (07:42.956)
Yeah, that was in green in you from the beginning, huh?

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (07:45.863)
yeah, was always there, right? So with that though, I was like, well, how can I anchor everything that I'm doing? Because I am someone who is, I'm trying to think of what's the term. It'll come back to me in a second. But multi-hyphenate, where you got multiple things going around and you're trying to figure out how to put it together. So I created the Julia Elizabeth Legacy Scholarship Fund four years ago.

Holly Owens (07:59.531)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (08:07.757)
Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (08:13.359)
And I've been each year awarding a scholarship in memory of my mom for an African-American high school student that's pursuing a STEM degree pathway. So anchoring everything there, I'm like, all right, well, everything I create and produce is going to have to kind of funnel and filter into this overarching big major ultimate goal of providing a full scholarship. Right. So with that, what I started doing

Holly Owens (08:24.344)
That's awesome.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (08:41.629)
initially with just creating was, you know, I was in education, so start producing material, content, resources. and that led me to where I am now with STEM 1000, which is kind of like my driving thing now, because if I try to focus on too many things, as most people would know, you, you, you look kind of lose sight, and, veer off track. So I'm like using STEM 1000. So STEM 1000.com as my, my grounding in a lot of this and what STEM 1000 is essentially.

It has the moniker of 1,000 books, 1,000 futures. What does that mean? So two books. I one right here, actually. This is the first one initially that I started with the kind of initiative or campaign. It's called Algorithms of Success, STEM Stories to Inspire. So within this book, there are 50 different STEM careers and pathways. I can show it just to kind of show it. And with each one of those,

Holly Owens (09:35.767)
cool. Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (09:39.271)
There's also, of course, imagery. then like, it is,

Holly Owens (09:42.51)
And this is for younger children. This is not for adults. This is not necessarily for anybody younger K to 12, but this is for younger children. This isn't, yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (09:51.045)
Exactly. Yeah, so 50 career pathways within this book, but then building on it, it's really about exposure, representation, because I like to say that exposure plus experience equals education. In order to become something, you have to know that it exists, and then you can step into that space, engage with it, and then you become educated on that thing, and then, now I can step into this world. That's how I became a chemist. I had to know that it existed first.

Holly Owens (10:17.389)
Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (10:19.441)
And then I had to get experience. I like mixing things together. I go in the lab. This is wonderful. And then on the back end of it, you learn, right? So that's where I started with algorithms of success. And I created another book that is even for younger children than this book, or ages four through seven. And that book is called A is for Algorithm. And it's essentially, you know, rhyming, very child-friendly language that introduces children, you know, A through Z.

to technology-based concepts. So, of course, A is for algorithm, all the way down to like zeros and ones and everything in between, where there's also some really kind of, I think, been able to tie in some of the more innovative aspects of creations and creativity and production, like using AI, for example, for...

Holly Owens (10:51.586)
I love this.

Holly Owens (11:13.517)
Yep.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (11:14.489)
Even in both of these books, if you go to the last page, if you get your copy, there's a... I appreciate that. But yeah, last page of them, you can actually scan a QR code. This is just an example of one thing, but you can scan a QR code, which will actually take you to a STEM music playlist that I was able to generate using AI. So it's, I think, seven songs that are all related to STEM concepts in different...

Holly Owens (11:18.446)
We'll definitely have everything in the show notes about the two books so you can get those. Of course.

Holly Owens (11:38.477)
Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (11:44.019)
types of music genres. you get an Afrobeats style, there's one that's all in Spanish. So it's a different variation, but also how we can leverage the technology for good, essentially, and being able to present something to our youth and say, hey, check this out, meet you where you are, engage, intrigue, and then really, at the core of it, it's all basically pretty much interest-driven, which is what I'm really all about when it comes to learning.

Holly Owens (11:46.264)
Like just... Yeah.

Holly Owens (12:11.564)
Yeah, you, so writing two books, I know it doesn't matter what type, it takes a while. So that was time for you. And I love the perspective that you're bringing in so that people, think so often, like I think one of the reasons we connected is we were talking about like the ed hustle when you were supporting teachers that were, you're supporting teachers that do career transitions, but now you're giving younger children the opportunity to kind of think about what their path is going to be. And I love it now.

Well, love, hate, education can be very personalized for people. I wish when we were in school that it was like that. I feel like I had to pick.

something that really wasn't interesting me. Like I was in a four year cluster situation, like cluster going to a college and things. And I didn't really get to find an interest for me. Like it's just like, this is what you're in. This is the courses you have to take. then college was kind of like that too, but it seems to there's more becoming more flexibility now in the space that you can actually focus in on like STEM and stuff like that. Is that how you see, is that how you see it? Or is that you do have a different perspective?

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (13:17.329)
Yeah, no, it's I see it that way. And I think I guess I can say I'm lucky in that because that was kind of always my my shaping and framing of it, right? even even as a even as a math teacher. And I think this this might be there might be something to be said about people who kind of move into education from a different industry, especially if

Holly Owens (13:29.354)
I love that. I did not have that. I'm jealous.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (13:45.299)
your teaching or your focus of education or instruction is aligned to that thing. So me being a science person, scientist, and then also just really enjoying like creativity, artistry, like you can see like even just the stuff, I didn't produce these, I love them, right? I mean, I created this t-shirt, hat, like, so it's, there's more to it. But whenever you have that and you step into a space where traditionally things are a little bit more,

Holly Owens (14:01.614)
Yeah, I love, I was gonna say I love your pictures. Yeah, yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (14:14.109)
for lack of better phrase, in terms of a classroom. And then you go in and kind of just shake it up. It's a little bit different, right? The outcomes are gonna be a little different. And I can say that by a couple of different, I guess, experiences based on my teaching, my background there. When I began actually in math in third grade, the approach to it was all inquiry-based. My favorite phrase to my students in my third grade math class was, don't know.

Holly Owens (14:38.38)
Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (14:43.315)
and I would just walk away, right? Like, hey, Mrs. Scott, what do you think about this? I don't know. And then it got, it's funny, I tell people all the time, it got to a point where, you know, even, you know, within that school, we would have transfers come in mid-year. That's a whole nother conversation, but we'd have, you know, students come in to the classroom, you know, from whatever other school moving or whatever. And they would ask me the questions, hey, can you tell me if this is right?

Holly Owens (14:45.163)
Yeah, yeah.

Holly Owens (14:59.501)
Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (15:10.163)
and the students who had been there with me since the beginning of the year, they'd be like, I don't know why you're asking him. He's going tell you he doesn't know. Talk to them, right? Yeah, exactly. So, yeah.

Holly Owens (15:13.134)
Yeah, yeah, just avoid that. Avoid that situation. Yeah. I love that though, because then you're, you're requiring them, you you've heard things like three before me. And even in like a professional setting, I use that because everybody just wants the answer right away. I'm like, well, why don't you explore it a little bit for yourself first? Yeah. So one of the things that, you know, AI, like you have all these different things.

It won't replace teachers necessarily. But like, what does it like to you, what does the classroom that's powered by like AI and human connection look like, like in, in real life? Like, is, what is that? How does do all those synergies come together?

That's probably a loaded question.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (16:02.483)
It is. Well, you know, it's interesting because the answers to some of these same questions now were probably a little bit different a month, two months, three months ago. Like it's, it all moves so fast because you do have implementation and some of the expansion of leveraging and using AI in schools, different changes in policies and things like that. And I actually just did a, a, a presentation last week.

Holly Owens (16:14.548)
Yep.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (16:31.421)
We're currently in what June, the week of June 16th. don't know when this is going to be, but last week, early in June for National Black AI Literacy Week, and my presentation was talking about AI education and the future of work. And part of that was really considering, what's happening right now? Right? Where are we? We do see, you know, Khan Academy's Khan Mee Go and, you know, that being used as a

Holly Owens (16:33.558)
Yeah. Yeah. It's a lie. Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (16:59.247)
a teaching assistant slash tutor. We do see a lot of ed tech companies or folks creating, I always use the air quotes solutions that apply and employ using AI. Where I see this potentially ultimately being, I think what we'll begin to kind of see more of is definitely more, I think what I would hope.

More opportunity for educators, teachers in the space to be more directly connected with students, right? And meaning more. Yeah.

Holly Owens (17:37.11)
meeting them where they're at, you know, like the resistors. I just have to mention those people that have just like New York, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is like something that like really stuck with me when AI first came out, is New York City completely banned chat GPT within days of it being released. Like nobody's allowed to use it, you know?

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (17:57.811)
Well, here's why I say for folks in education especially, I think part of our positioning and emphasis should be, not telling anybody what to do, but should be as objective as possible. That's my aim. Because we do have, and I'm not saying that anybody's wrong because I get the understanding of it from

Holly Owens (18:21.356)
Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (18:27.729)
all the sides, right? If you're looking at, we got over on here, we got the doom and gloom Terminator, the robots are coming to take over. I'm not scoffing at those people, because I've seen some interesting, I've personally ridden in a Waymo driverless taxi. So this is a real thing. And I also know people who would look at me and say, I would never do that. That's crazy, right? So there's that, fair.

Holly Owens (18:28.662)
Multiple perspectives, yeah.

Holly Owens (18:34.798)
Yeah, like Will Smith and iRobot. Yeah.

Holly Owens (18:47.508)
my god.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (18:55.077)
Other side, let's just leverage and get rich and become billionaires. Fair, right? Like because this is all like, we're talking about potential impossibility. In the middle is essentially where I try to ground myself, which for me just means that I need to be as well informed as possible to tell people on either side of the fence, this is what really is, right? Like you see it that way. That's fine, but here's the truth, right? Here's what we know.

Holly Owens (19:08.812)
Yeah, me too.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (19:24.017)
And then building on that being in a classroom where we can see this, of course, teachers engaging with students more so on a personal relationship based level. Also being able to leverage and use some of the tools for more personalization, more customization, meeting the needs of the student, which is great because I've even done this with homeschool families, you know, create a create a plan for my child whose interest is in dinosaurs. So that they don't have summer slide, right? We can we can.

Holly Owens (19:49.783)
Right.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (19:53.555)
create that type of stuff and then put it in place. But it's gonna be really interesting to see, I think, how, just how really, because the implementation of everything always falls on teachers. yeah, I mean, so it's like, can push all this stuff and put these initiatives in place and the district can have this whole trickle down effect.

Holly Owens (20:07.788)
Right. It absolutely does in education, like to test it out, for sure.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (20:18.973)
But it's really going to fall on the shoulders of teachers to say, okay, well, this is how we're going to put it in place. Right. So what does that mean for younger learners? Maybe that's, you know, AI driven centers, right? Like where we're already kind of seeing that where there's usually a technology center. If you're looking at, especially like K through two K through three. I mean, they're engaging with some type of technology, a tablet, a laptop or whatever. They log into whatever program, math, et cetera. Maybe there's something that's AI driven there.

But what we're also seeing in just some of the research that I've recently done is that a lot of teachers are more so making use of it for some of the personalization, but also in support of like some of the planning, right? And taking away some of that. Yeah, saving time, right? Those are still like the key kind of pillars that people are leaning on, but ultimately it's going to be more of like, what's pushed, what's encouraged and what's enforced so that the teachers are going to have to

Holly Owens (21:01.1)
Yeah, the workflows. Yeah. gosh. Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (21:18.375)
basically get to a point where the realization is the district wants me to do this. I have to do it in this way. So it's still very, very loose to the point where nobody can really say exactly what it looks like, but.

Holly Owens (21:32.194)
Right, we can't predict the future. didn't certainly didn't think AI was going to be this sophisticated at this point. Did we? I don't know.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (21:39.591)
No, but I mean, the main thing is how do we step in to inform people, to educate people, right? Because again, going back to my equation, exposure plus experience equals education. Exposing to this, right? To the resource, to the tool, to this whole world, right? Showcasing it, because there's a lot of people who are talking about things and they'll tell you, you know, what to do, why you should do it and when you should do it. But a lot, there's not a lot of the how.

which is what I found just with education in general, when you talk about professional development, professional learning, whenever you're able to have more of a hand holding experience, Where my, for example, my goal, relieving any PLC, any professional development session, anything like that ever is always for everybody in the space to be able to take at least one thing away and apply it the next day. Like I don't need you to be able to use this next week or next year. I need you to use it tomorrow.

Holly Owens (22:31.084)
Yes. Love that.

Holly Owens (22:37.301)
ASAP.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (22:38.545)
Right. So how are we doing that implementation? Right. If we're saying, we need to use AI, let's implement it. Let's put it in place. Okay. But make it so that it's applicable now, because again, if you put this on a teacher's desk and say, you have to do this and it's only out of compliance, are we really going to get the full benefit of it? And ultimately.

Holly Owens (22:53.037)
Right.

Holly Owens (23:04.686)
Probably not.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (23:05.725)
Well, the students get the full benefit of it if that's what we're focused, right? Or is it just like, it's another box to check. Don't do that, right? Be mindful about it. Otherwise, we might need to think about how we're approaching, right? What's the reasoning? What's the point behind this? Because if it's not for the benefit of, we'll say the teachers, but also definitely the students and looking into the future, which is where I'm kind of positioned more so, then we got to start asking ourselves questions like, well, why is this happening? What's the point?

Holly Owens (23:33.164)
That's great advice and great perspective on how to deal with that. I think a lot about the diffusion of innovation theory where there's like the Luddites at the end and the people like us who just automatically latch on and then in the middle. That's kind of where we try to find, we find that happy medium for people who are kind of like apprehensive, but people that they really do want to explore it and figuring out where we can support them and implementation. Not just like you're saying, not just telling them what to do, give them the space for trial and error. Cause that's what...

This is that sort of situation. So we're coming up on the end of the episode here, but I definitely want to, you're a transition teacher. You have quite the following out on LinkedIn. You're an influencer by all those standards. Yes. I know Cedric, people say the same thing to me and I'm like, no, that's not me. I'm just out here trying to help save the world. So what is some advice if...

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (24:17.327)
That cringe is always hard.

Holly Owens (24:28.46)
you know, as a transition teacher that you can maybe, maybe three actionable items that if you're, they're thinking about transitioning out, what could they do? You know, as we continue to expand like in the world of AI and having all these different things available, the support that you offer and making sure everybody's representative, what can teachers do to transition out? You know, what is the advice you would give? Okay. Yes.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (24:51.283)
All right, here we go. I do have this. So, No, no, you're, you So the first thing I've recommended and walked people through and actually have videos on and stuff like that is basically taking, really practical, hands on. Take a sheet of paper, fold it in half. On one side of the paper at the top, right, we're making a T-chart, right? Strengths.

Holly Owens (24:55.982)
I know I asked you a lot of interesting questions. You did great. I'm ready.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (25:20.753)
On the other side of the paper, right? Interest. We're to take a survey because what happens, especially with a lot of recommendation and advice on on LinkedIn, I've seen primarily is that people say, you got to narrow it down. You got to find your niche. You got to like target your focus. Here's how you do it. On the strength side, you list all the things that you are amazing at that you can prove. It's very important that you can prove based on your actual experience.

Holly Owens (25:45.998)
you

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (25:49.715)
All right, so list those things. For me, it's things like, I don't know, math, I'm good with leading professional development, so on and so forth, right? You can list those things out. STEM. On the other side is your interests. And some of these are gonna have overlap, which is the point, right? On the other side, you list your interests. What are the things that you actually can see yourself really doing? What do you enjoy, right? List those things out. If that's writing, if that's presentations, whatever.

Then cross-reference those columns. And then from there, you can actually start to, if you want, matter of fact, since we have AI now, I wasn't using it at the time when I did this, but you can go into a chat GPT or a cloud or whatever it is that you're using and say, what job titles align to these cross points, right? Math and curriculum, math and presentations. And then you can, from there, you can begin to generate essentially job titles and areas of focus.

that are also grounded in your success. And when I say success, things that you can point to on like, we'll say your resume, that you have been amazing at, right? Don't necessarily think so much about, know, ultimately like, I get that people have like large dreams and goals and they think that they wanna go in one direction and try this thing out.

But the first thing would be narrow down to like where you're amazing at, right? I read this book. Exactly.

Holly Owens (27:19.948)
Right, where are you going? I'm sure you've talked to transitioning teachers, like, I wanna be an instructional designer. And I'm like, in what part?

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (27:26.183)
Yes. Yeah. And also like what about your background and experience speaks directly to you being successful as an instructional designer. And like where in what you've done says I have already done this thing successfully. Because at that point you're then stepping out and saying, just give, just give me a chance. And you're competing against people who have already been successful in that world and in our

Holly Owens (27:35.915)
Absolutely.

Holly Owens (27:42.99)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (27:53.683)
Well, you know, I say I have three years of instructional design design experience and a transitioning teacher who Albeit might have 20 years experience teaching If you don't have instructional design experience specifically then that might not look great in comparison So real quick, there's a book that I read it's more so about marketing business, but it helps with this it's called brands don't win and Essentially what the the idea of brands don't win is is that you want to be able to position yourself?

Holly Owens (28:22.254)
I'm writing that down.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (28:23.313)
Yeah, it's awesome. You want to be able to position yourself in a way that you're playing the game that only you can win. Or the game that you have the best chance at winning, right? The subheading of that book or the subtitle of that book is How Transcenders Changed the Game. Change the game. Don't play the game that everybody else is. I'm not going to jump into the pool of professionals that are looking for a role in English language arts.

in my background is in math and science. I lose every time, right? I'm jumping into the pond where I'm the big fish because I was a chemist, instructional coach, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Did curriculum. I look great over here, not over here. So positioning is number one. Second thing, highly recommend, even in the midst of you working full-time, this is not, I'm not saying this is easy, but I highly recommend getting into contract work.

Holly Owens (28:53.283)
Right.

Holly Owens (29:23.448)
Yes.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (29:23.545)
if feasible. If you can land a contract, especially doing something that you think you want to do and getting a little bit of experience there, I want to go into curriculum writing. My background's in math teaching. See where you can fit and find a role, short term, something like that, contract based, doing some math curriculum development. You might find that you actually hate doing that work. But there's also, it's also aligned

Holly Owens (29:47.124)
Yeah, yeah, that does happen.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (29:52.443)
right, in terms of the experience overall outside of exactly, right? And I mean, you make money, right? Great. But at the same time, you can still be doing what you're doing full time, keep your health benefits, all that cool stuff, but get that experience, right? So that's the next phase of it is kind of building those things out. The third one, I mean, if I can throw out a third in terms of alignment would then really be

Holly Owens (29:55.246)
You can put on your resume. that's, yeah, yeah.

Holly Owens (30:16.269)
Yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (30:21.905)
I mean, networking is a contact sport. I'll be just be completely even even on even virtually on LinkedIn. Like what I'll say is, is kind of thinking about things from the stark difference between education system and education industry. Sorry, that was kind of another tip, but know the difference between there, right? Where you're pivoting now into an industry world where things are a little bit more focused on aspects like revenue.

Holly Owens (30:25.984)
I love it that you said that because it's so true.

Holly Owens (30:31.02)
Yep.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (30:52.239)
and money and growth and reach and exactly. Yeah. So I mean, the verbiage is going to shift and things like that. But what really helps more than anything when people say, hey, you know what the secret is to getting a job in EdTech or to get a job in education industry? I'm going to be honest with you. The secret is that there is no secret. Unless, unless you have somebody that is already in that space.

Holly Owens (30:55.604)
and pipelines and sales and KPIs and all the things.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (31:21.181)
who can lift up the curtain and say, come on, come underneath. That's the secret. And how do you get to that point? By connecting directly with folks, having conversations, rubbing elbows with people, joining in conversations on other platforms, whether that's group forums, engaging in different events, stuff like that, to the point where whenever a role comes out, because a lot of times, with companies, for example, a lot of the roles, the aim is to backfill them internally.

Holly Owens (31:23.703)
Right.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (31:51.101)
Right. So who do we have here already? Because we trust everybody here. Right. They were exactly. And if we, if we can't feel from within, then okay. The next phase of that is who do we know here that knows somebody that can be brought in. And at that point, I talked to Holly at this event or I saw her this presentation or I checked out her podcast. I think she'd be amazing for this. Hey, Holly, this role just came out. What do you think about this? Right now? You talk to me.

Holly Owens (31:55.278)
They know the system, they know how it works, yep.

Holly Owens (32:10.776)
Hahaha.

Holly Owens (32:18.06)
That's how it happens.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (32:20.851)
inside track, I can talk to the manager, right? Or you can put me, list me as a reference, you know what mean? Or would I have you on that application? You get filtered to the top. Now you just increase the chance there. So that would be the last thing, which is just target specifically after you've already outlined direction that you should go based on your experience, right? You started to look at, all right, well, this makes sense. I'm going to go in this direction.

What organizations, what companies, what people align with the solutions, the things that you care about, that you're amazing at, connect with them. LinkedIn, if you go to the company's page, they have a little people tab. Go to those people. I saw that this is, you know, that you work here. I saw that this is, you know, open or available. I want to connect, have some conversations that might lead to something that's a little bit more inside track. In which case you, again, how transcenders change the game.

Holly Owens (33:02.058)
Right. Right.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (33:19.283)
And, you know, we're talking about kind of separating yourself a little bit from the past.

Holly Owens (33:24.266)
Absolutely great pieces of advice and very structured like how to actually how to do it. So re-listen to that last few minutes people and take that advice. Cedric, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show and sharing all the different things that you're doing. You're so inspirational and I'm not just saying that I'm a follower. I see all the things that you're doing and I really appreciate, you know, all the resources and the information and the things that you put out there to make all everybody

successful and feel like they're a part of your community. You have a vast community. So where can everybody find you? We're gonna have this in the show notes and you're gonna have, you're gonna fill out your little guest form, but where can people find you? What do you want them to know about you? Final thoughts as we wrap up this episode.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (34:13.095)
Well, first, thank you for inviting me on again. Really appreciate it and enjoyed having this, you know, this sit down with you. But yeah, you can find me primarily, I would say go to LinkedIn, Cedric Scott, Cedric Scott Jr. with my little, you know, Masters of Education credential at the end. I got it there, right? Yeah, check me out there, connect with me, send me a message. I do respond, just just so people know.

Holly Owens (34:15.745)
Yeah!

Holly Owens (34:30.794)
I mean, yeah, I love it too. I should be writing that too. Mine's out there. Yeah, yeah.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (34:42.995)
And then my primary push again is STEM 1000. I am the founder of Black AI Media as well at blackaimedia.com, which focuses on really uplifting and empowering the Black global community when it comes to AI and technology. learning more about folks across the globe. Yeah, everyone making stuff, but yeah, really just, you know, STEM 1000 because

Holly Owens (34:43.181)
Yeah.

Holly Owens (35:02.55)
We have to do another whole episode about that. You're coming back on. There's so.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (35:11.571)
I think the urgency of thinking about the future of work, career development for our youth and really equipping them right now is of the utmost importance. That's kind of just where I'm really targeted. So you can go to STEM1000.com. You can check out the main books, which are again, Algorithms of Success, A is for Algorithm. And there's also some other resources and cool stuff there too, but those are the main things, just trying to get.

Holly Owens (35:24.792)
Yep.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (35:41.425)
the information into the hands of our youth and be able to support schools, families, everybody, right? When it comes to that.

Holly Owens (35:48.886)
Yeah, I love it so much. I love it so much. Thank you so much, Cedric, again. We're definitely, I'm definitely gonna have to have a follow-up episode for some of the other initiatives as well, and talking about, you know, the black AI media, all those different things. So, but thank you for what you do, and thank you for being a great part of this community, and a contributor, and an influencer. I have absolute, the utmost respect for you, and thanks for coming on the show.

Cedric Scott, Jr., M.Ed. (36:13.373)
Thank you so much, I appreciate it. And I've got that much respect for you too. So thanks for what you're doing. Keep it up.