Before Ian Rowe became a visionary educator, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, founder of Vertex Partnership Academy, and author of the book Agency, he was a 12 year old kid from Queens standing in his family's living room, crying and pleading with his Jamaican immigrant parents to let him stay at a junior high school that was about to become all black after white families fled to a newly created annex. Then Linda Talish, his sixth grade teacher at PS 156 in Laurelton, Queens, gave him something he didn't even know he needed:...
Before Ian Rowe became a visionary educator, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, founder of Vertex Partnership Academy, and author of the book Agency, he was a 12 year old kid from Queens standing in his family's living room, crying and pleading with his Jamaican immigrant parents to let him stay at a junior high school that was about to become all black after white families fled to a newly created annex. Then Linda Talish, his sixth grade teacher at PS 156 in Laurelton, Queens, gave him something he didn't even know he needed: the courage to challenge his parents for the very first time. In this deeply personal and unguarded conversation, one of education's most influential and controversial voices sits down with David Begnaud to share the story of the woman who believed in him when he was just beginning to believe in himself.
Ian opens up about meeting Ms. Talish in sixth grade, a Jewish teacher who talked about her heritage with a certain reverence and pride, even in the midst of racial tension that was tearing apart their small middle class Queens neighborhood. He shares what it was like growing up as the son of parents who came to the United States in 1968, the year of Martin Luther King's assassination, with his father becoming one of the first black engineers at IBM and his mother a financial securities analyst at Manufacturer's Hanover Bank.
He reflects on the Sunday night before transfer papers were due, standing in front of his parents in their living room, begging and crying to stay at junior high school 231, and saying the words that changed everything: Just because everyone that's left is black, why does it have to be bad?.
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Chapters ☀️
Chapters
- 00:00:00 Intro: The Teacher Who Gave Him the Courage to Say No
- 00:00:40 The Racial Tension in Laurelton: When the White Kids Left
- 00:03:54 The Play That Changed Everything: Welcome Back, Sauter
- 00:14:24 The Sunday Night I Challenged My Parents
- 00:22:42 Just Because Everyone That's Left Is Black, Why Does It Have to Be Bad?
- 00:27:27 From Brooklyn Tech to Cornell at 16: Working My Butt Off
- 00:28:10 Vertex Partnership Academy: Creating Coming of Agency Moments
- 00:38:51 The Four Cardinal Virtues: Courage, Justice, Temperance, and Wisdom
- 00:53:11 The Teachers Union Sued Us: Six Days Before We Opened
- 01:00:49 The Success Sequence: Education, Work, Marriage, Then Children
- 00:56:38 Social Capital Is the Currency of America
- 01:08:31 From 470 Million Dollars at Gates to Running Individual Schools
- 01:19:06 Have You Done Your Best? The Booker T. Washington Lecture
ABOUT THIS PODCAST:
The Person Who Believed In Me is hosted by David Begnaud, founder and CEO of Do Good Crew and often called "America's storyteller." In each episode, David sits down with world-class guests to ask one simple question: Who believed in you before the world did? Big names. Honest stories. Relatable takeaways. Different paths — same question.
David is also a CBS News contributor and host of the weekly segment Beg Knows America, which airs every Monday morning.
Host: David Begnaud
Guest: Ian Rowe
Executive Producer: Olivier Delfosse
Booker: Sully Bloch
Director of Photography: Foster Parks
Live Production Technician: Joseph Gabay & Will Whitley (Statik Creative)
Social: Maxim Trofimenko, Kylee Anderson, Gracie Pekrul
Theme Music: Slipstream
Post-Production: Longwave Digital, David & Luana Co.
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