[00:00:00] Aziza Eil’Yudah: Take stock of who they are. Sometimes that can be a challenge because we may have our version of who we want them to be. We may have our expectations of what we want them to be, but if we can really get to the core of who they are, what makes them tick, then we can tap into their genius. We can tap into their brilliance and help them achieve greatness.

[music]

[00:00:26] Gretchen Roe Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to The Demme Learning Show. We’re having an adventure today, and I’m so excited to welcome Akili and Aziza Eil’Yudah to come talk to us about how comics can change the world. We have been looking forward to having this conversation for months. I think I made their acquaintance almost a year ago. I’m really excited to have the opportunity for them to share their story with you. I’m going to turn it over to Akili and Aziza and let them talk about themselves.

[00:01:02] Aziza: Thank you so much for our introduction and for this invitation to be able to present and share our story, our passions, and our work. I’m Aziza, and this is my husband, Akili.

[00:01:12] Akili Eil’Yudah: Nice to meet you.

[00:01:14] Aziza: When it comes to our comic books, he is the artistic and creative visionary. He really handles the bulk of our artwork. He’s a lifelong artist, and I am the writer. Then he’s also my art teacher. I draw now as well. We were really inspired to take on this journey in education. We were inspired by multiple things, but first and foremost, I would say we were inspired by Akili’s educational journey and his experience in the public school system when it really came to, how can I phrase this, their inability or not being equipped to really be able to deal with support and nurture gifted learners.

[00:01:55] Akili: It started happening to our daughters. We were seeing the same things happen on my oldest daughter because our learning differences. We learn different. We saw these things happen and said, “This is time for us to take them out and really put our world into educating our kids.” It changed a lot. Then, with the comic book company, that’s really one of the reasons it started, too, is because we’re looking at, we’re looking at comic books and comic books the way that they were and how they were growing into being something that we couldn’t show our kids.

She said, “Why don’t we start our own?” I said, “All right, we’ll start our own.” That’s when we embarked on our journey in the comic book. I’m a lifetime comic book reader. I’ve been reading comic books all my life, Marvel, DC. I’m a Star Wars fan. I’m a Trekkie. Whatever you want to– I love science fiction. I used to see a lot of all these things in our books.

[00:02:48] Gretchen: As somebody who planned her college classes around Star Trek reruns, I know now why I love you both.

[laughter]

[00:02:57] Akili: I got my kids, they love Star Trek. They love the old ones, new ones. We’re real big sci-fi fans over there.

[00:03:04] Gretchen: Awesome. Whatever it takes to interest a child in the process of reading. I think, Aziza, you were the one who convinced me that your story is so compelling because you’re creating a space where the child who doesn’t see themselves as a reader can find their own voice through the vehicle of a comic book. Tell us how your comics came to be. Of course, we will include in the show notes a link back to your website so people can see that, and also so they can read Akili’s story because I think it’s pretty powerful.

[00:03:47] Aziza: All right. To touch on your first note about comics and reading, and really sparking a love for reading in children who may not fit the mold of what we’ve been given when it comes to modern education. In English instruction, I’ve worked with at least 2,000 kids. When it comes to English instruction, we started out– Our educational journey really began with our children in homeschooling. We both come from families of educators on both sides.

We come from families of educators, but we really took on the arts and entertainment as our early passions. When we started our family, we really realized what our children needed. We took all our nerdy energy and then turned it to being able to educate our children and researching and researching learning styles and instructional methods and individualized learning, and child-centered learning, and all of these different philosophies. We really immersed ourselves in that when it came to educating our own children. Then, in search of more income streams, revenue streams, I really got into teaching English as a second language online.

I spent a few years doing that. I worked with so many kids from China and different countries to really teach English. It’s a pretty straightforward thing. As I was putting in hours and hours of instruction and really taking the time to start looking around our communities, at the time we were living in Houston, Texas, in not the best neighborhood. There’s more that goes to that story, but we were living in Houston. Actually, it’s ranked as the ninth most dangerous neighborhood in the country where we were staying at the time.

[00:05:32] Gretchen: My best friend lives in Houston, and I have probably driven through some of those neighborhoods, so I understand.

[00:05:38] Aziza: [laughs] You probably have. It’s really– Okay, I won’t get into all of the politics and socioeconomical. I won’t get into all of that right now. We were really called when we realized the need that there was in our communities for solid reading instruction, for solid reading support. That’s when we really shifted our sights from ESL and teaching international students to being able to develop a program that could really speak to the youth in our communities.

We started shifting. We started an online program. We had teachers volunteering, but we realized we really needed funding, and we really needed to have more structure to accomplish the goals that we were pursuing. At that time, we really shifted to say, “Hey, let’s launch our comic book company. Let’s write our stories. We know this is what we’re really, really good at. We know that we can inspire the world. We can sell books. By doing that, then we can help teach the kids, and we can hire teachers, and we can do those things.”

Over the years, I’ve still been tutoring. I’ve been doing reading interventions. We’ve built out our comic book genius project, which really focuses on genuine interaction, pulling out the best in kids, giving them something exciting and engaging that they connect with. We’ve been using our stories with kids in elementary school and middle school who’ve really been at risk of intervention, at risk of being held behind. After six weeks, their grades are better. After 12 weeks, they’re on the honor roll.

They’ve just seen such amazing transformations because, one, they’re excited about what we’re doing. If you don’t have engagement, it’s not going to stick. If the kid is just resistant, especially, and this is a thing that I say to parents as I’m counseling and things, COVID wreaked havoc on everyone, especially the kids. Beyond the educational piece, beyond our reading instruction, everyone having to learn online, psychologically, we’re in post-apocalyptic times right now. If you think back to it, it was all the imagery of the world shutting down, and will kids be able to go to college?

Students who have spent time working on all of these things, in our psyche, there’s a “Why bother?” There’s a “Why bother?” when it comes to a lot of our students. Our comic books are an answer to the why bother. If we’re giving them something that’s not interesting, they don’t feel like it connects to their lives, they don’t feel like it’s contributing anything to what they want to do in the world, then they’re just shutting down. They really shut down. With kids we’ve worked with, I tell people, “Can they not read, or do they not want to read?”

Once we can distinguish that, then we can get in there, and we can work on breaking apart the words. We can work on syllables. We can work on phonics. We can work on vocabulary. We can push anything forward once we know what we’re dealing with.

[00:08:38] Gretchen: I think what is fascinating to me is you all have created the art space that’s compelling. It’s drawing that reluctant reader in into a space where they want to follow the story. Tell us how you all craft your stories. Now wait. Let’s pause here for a second. You’re not in Houston anymore. You all had to move your business, and now you guys are outside of Atlanta, right?

[00:09:07] Akili: We’re in Florida, actually.

[00:09:08] Aziza: Yes, we’re in Florida. Oh, I can’t take you through our whole life journey. You’ll be here all day.

[00:09:12] Akili: Yes. We had a house fire when we got to Georgia. We’re down in Florida now, but it’s cool.

[00:09:22] Aziza: Working to be international. We’re working to–

[00:09:27] Gretchen: [laughs] My goodness. I want to back up for a second because I want to explore something that you said. You’re both from a family of educators, and then you chose to homeschool your children. How did that conversation go?

[00:09:43] Akili: Oh, I guess–

[00:09:45] Aziza: Okay, because I want to do it delicately.

[00:09:49] Akili: It wasn’t easy. We got a lot of pushback when we envisioned– We were [crosstalk]

[00:10:00] Aziza: This is like 12, 13 years ago.

[00:10:01] Akili: Nobody was doing it.

[00:10:04] Aziza: Especially not necessarily in our community.

[00:10:07] Akili: In our community, it was like, “What are you doing?” Then I had a health issue, and we put our kids back in the school for a half a year or so.

[00:10:16] Aziza: Yes, I think-

[00:10:17] Akili: Then by the end of the year, my kids were at the top of the school, their classes. It works, but then we pulled them right back out of school and continued our homeschool education. When that happened, and they saw it, then all of a sudden the world changed. We were actually on the beginning, teaching people about homeschool. Then everything really changed a lot. At first, it was a lot of work.

[00:10:42] Aziza: “Do you know what you’re doing? Can you do this? Can you do that? It just seems like they’re not doing enough.” I’m like, “If you really break down the science of it, if you really break down the science of education, if you really look at how the children spend their days in school–” Most people don’t know.

[00:10:59] Akili: We studied different educational systems. We studied education in Sweden. We studied different places around the world. We started unschooling to get them– They thought we were just going to say, “I’ll just snatch my kids out of school.” No, this is a process that we’re doing to get them back to an old way of learning where you had a schoolhouse, and you had the older kids helping the younger kids. It was a family environment more so than it’s who gets the best grade.

Then they end up getting the best grades when they were in the situation, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about them being able to love what they do when they get older and being able to help people. This is really why we started a comic book, too, because we want to help people. My talent level shows that I could go and work for Marvel, DC, whatever, but they’re not in the business of helping people.

[00:11:56] Gretchen: They are in the business of helping themselves.

[00:11:59] Aziza: Yes, exactly.

[00:12:00] Akili: Exactly.

[00:12:01] Gretchen: Now, how many children do you all have? I know the answer here, but for our viewers.

[00:12:06] Aziza: Okay. We have four. Our oldest is Amirah, and she’s turned 16 last year. Amirah’s 16. Asha’s 15. Asanti is 13, and Amaziah’s turning 12 on Valentine’s Day.

[00:12:22] Akili: Yes, about a month away.

[00:12:23] Aziza: Yes, about a month away.

[00:12:24] Gretchen: Oh, my goodness. It’s not a quiet household, is it?

[00:12:28] Akili: No.

[laughter]

[00:12:31] Gretchen: Did they help you in the business that you’re all-

[00:12:34] Akili: Oh, definitely. My daughters are brilliant artists. My 15-year-old is a web designer. My oldest child, they have a magazine called TeenAged. They lay out. My baby’s a cook. That’s one of the reasons we wanted to homeschool, because we could pay more attention to these needs that they really loved. My 13-year-old and 12-year-old are writing a cookbook. They have a passion with baking and cooking.

[00:13:04] Gretchen: That’s awesome. I will tell you, probably one of the best benefits of home education was the fact that I raised six kids who can cook like maniacs. In fact, I have one who is a part-time professional wedding cake baker.

[00:13:22] Aziza: Wow. Oh, that’s amazing.

[00:13:23] Akili: That’s beautiful.

[00:13:24] Gretchen: There’s a high degree of art in that adventure. She is really something else. It’s really fun. My bottom line doesn’t appreciate it as much as it should, because I don’t need wedding cake, but it’s awesome when she’s doing a cake here. It’s really amazing.

[00:13:41] Akili: That’s great.

[00:13:42] Gretchen: Tell us how you are uncorking the reluctant reader, as far as helping them find their own voice through the art of comics.

[00:13:53] Aziza: Oh, awesome. That’s a great question. Such wonderful questions. Thank you, Gretchen. For the reluctant reader, like I said, it’s really been in the space with children who– Most of the kids who end up coming our way either deal with symptoms of ADHD, they deal with symptoms of dyslexia. A lot of times, the reluctancy isn’t necessarily– People say, “Oh, you’re lazy. You just don’t want to do it.” I’ve had parents that I’ve worked with, and it makes me tear up because they’ll get so frustrated. I’m like, “Don’t be frustrated. Try not to be frustrated with them because they’ll find themselves in this tug of war with the school system, which says they have to be performing this way, but then you have a child that doesn’t necessarily fit in that box.”

Starting with the characters and the story. As soon as I open up the books, they’re like, “Who’s that? What’s going on here?” Sometimes, I’ll just start with a little click through to just show them the artwork and show them that this is something that’s worth their time and their attention. Then, from there, we’ll go one panel at a time, one page at a time. Our stories are really written for young adults. High school level can read it, and they’ll be excited. Just readers of all ages can enjoy it.

I’ve used them with reading intervention and support for kids as young as third grade. Even though the vocabulary is more advanced because I love words, I’m big on big words, we make that a part of the lesson. As long as we’re going piece by piece, word by word, and then that gives me an opportunity, too, to help dissect what their challenge could be. A lot of times, we’ll just put a kid in a bucket and say, “Oh, okay, they’re dyslexic.” Or, “Oh, they have ADHD, and they can’t focus or pay attention.”

In these one-to-one sessions where we’re reading and we’re talking about the story, I can really see where the gaps may lie. Then we can go back and read that again so that we can bridge those gaps. Definitely story, definitely art.

[00:15:58] Akili: How about saying being a reluctant reader? Because I grew up a reluctant reader. I had a terrible time in school. I got out of high school without even reading the full novel, but I ended up getting to college. It’s like, “How did you do that?” It’s because I was a brilliant kid and I didn’t know it. I got through high school without– I only had a 2.3 grade point average. When I look at a novel, it was just all these little dots. With the pictures in there, with the comic books, it helps to break the– You say, “What am I reading about?”

It gives you an interest to a kid to say, “What are these words here for?” Versus just putting words on the page. Because I didn’t get it. I was like, “I didn’t want to read all this stuff,” but I was reading comic books. At school, I was a reluctant reader, but at home, I had 1,000 comic books. At home, I knew about particle accelerators and things that nobody knew. At home, I had a computer, and I was learning MS-DOS in the 80s, where people didn’t even have a computer.

It wasn’t something that was being taught in school, and nobody cared. What I read, nobody cared. They was like, “Oh, it’s just a comic book,” but I’m like, “But they’re words.” When we did this, it was like, the kids are going to read this, and they’re just reading a comic book. They’re mine. They’re just reading a comic book. The words in there will make them want to grow and say, “What is this word? What is an accelerator? What’s an acceleration? What are these things that-

[00:17:23] Aziza: What’s clandestine? What’s a conspiracy?

[00:17:26] Akili: Yes. Those are words that we put in our book when she reads it to the kid, and she’s like, “clandestine,” they’re like, “What does that mean?” Now that’s a word for them to learn. That’s a word that they’re going to– That’s how we pull the reluctant reader. Because you just give them “Spider-Man.” Spider-Man was the genius. That’s how we learned a lot of language and things he did because he was a genius at high school. That’s where I learned how. She saw that I had an issue with reading, and she was like, “What is the problem really you’re reading?” It was because things are butting heads. The school system-

[00:18:05] Gretchen: You also came of age in the early 80s when we didn’t know the things that we know today as far as kids.

[00:18:12] Akili: Exactly.

[00:18:15] Gretchen: It does make a tremendous amount of difference. You all said something– Aziza, you were talking about lazy children. I think it’s really important to say there is no such thing as a lazy child. There’s an impediment to their learning that we just have not uncovered. I think it’s very important for us to make that declaration because I think often parents, particularly when you’re home educating, you become frustrated because your perception is your child’s not trying. It’s like a duck on the water. You don’t see how fast their feet are going underneath the surface.

[00:18:51] Akili: Yes. Mostly, they’re scared. When I was doing this, when I was having issues, I was reading, and then a word would jump in front of another word. Then you read out loud in your class, and you read very well in your head. When you get out, and you start reading, and then someone who’s like, “Oh, man, you’re stupid.” Then you just suck in, and you’re in this classroom with 20, 30 people looking at you. You just feel like you’re tightened up, and then you’re like, “I can’t read.” Then it just grows and grows and grows, and then you stop trying to read. One thing that we want to say is, first of all, we do this from a perspective that we’re believers. When you get our comics, you’re going to see that we’re people of faith, but they’re not something that you feel– It’s almost like talk-

[00:19:39] Aziza: It’s not a religious text, yes.

[00:19:40] Akili: They’re spirituality-ness things that are in it, but like you said, it’s not a religious- Or Lord of the Rings, or– What’s our favorite one? The Chronicles of Narnia. Those are all things that– That’s where the perspective is coming. Good and evil, there’s a distinction, we used to say. It’s good versus evil. We don’t have a lot of people that are-

[00:20:08] Aziza: Morality is not ambiguous.

[00:20:11] Akili: Exactly.

[00:20:13] Gretchen: One of the things I think I found compelling in your materials is, as you said early on in our conversation, it’s harder to find comics that are edifying for kids in this day and age. I love the fact that what you have is indeed edifying, and I’ll let you all take that from here.

[00:20:34] Aziza: Crimson Hawk, he is our featured character that we’re really launching our universe around. We have over 100 characters. These stories have been in the process for, some of them, up to 20 years. Just as storytellers, we’ve always written together and been building our world together.

[00:20:55] Akili: Let’s go backwards. I forgot to tell you. This is our Avenger book. This is available online. This is our actually free giveaway online. It’s a free digital download. Then we have digital downloads of our comic books for $5. We want everybody to just really see our characters and get to know, because it’s a completely different world. We’re world builders. We created our own maps. We created our own baseball league. We created our own companies. All the things that you see are not in our world, but it’s like a parallel universe without being a parallel universe. There’s no representation of people from here over there. They have their own situation in a sense.

[00:21:42] Gretchen: What is it like when you all go through this creative process? My husband and I are polar opposites, and we’re just finishing a construction project together. It’s been an interesting adventure for the two of us to collaborate. Now, we are also beekeepers, and we collaborate all summer, and that goes swimmingly. I can’t say that the construction project has been equally easy. What’s it like to be a married couple and collaborate in the process of sharing your world?

[00:22:16] Akili: I don’t know. She’s my best friend, so we’re best art friends, too. It’s like we’re this– We’ll sit down-

[00:22:22] Aziza: That’s a big part of what brought us together.

[00:22:25] Akili: It’s always been something that– She’s always been somebody who’s supported my artistic goals.

[00:22:33] Aziza: Now, you’re going to make me cry.

[00:22:34] Gretchen: Yes, me too.

[00:22:37] Akili: It’s like a lot of people don’t understand me because I’m driven. I’m one of those people when it comes to art. She makes sure that I eat. Before I grew my hair out, I would make sure I had my hair cut and all that. She’s always been there, and then writing for me.

[00:22:56] Aziza: He’s the one who made me really realize I was a writer. Before, when we first met, I was a theater major. I graduated in theater, and I did plays, and I did some films. I did a lot of performing, but I didn’t really realize how much writing was a part of me. When we first started, we were dating, and he had all of these stories and all of this art, and he had other people who were writing some stuff for him. I was very critical of their writing because I was the library nerd.

He was out reading comic books. I was a library aide just devouring novels, left and right, left and right. He’s, ”Well, I need you to write this for me,” “I’m not a writer. I’m an actor. I have to go be on stage.” Over the years– It didn’t take too much longer. By the time we got married, I was fully into it.

[00:23:49] Akili: Art has been– I used to do more adult contemporary art, and then as my daughters got older, I realized how much I was not being able to show them. I was like the artist’s artist, nude models and stuff. Also, as I grew further into my spirituality, I really changed the way I did my artwork. Like I said, I used to be a partier and doing all that stuff, but I was raised in the church. When I started really, really coming back to my spirituality, a lot of my artwork changed, objectifying females, the things that I used to, that’s what I really wanted to get beyond.

I was raised in a culture where we objectify women. Men won’t say that, but it’s just the truth of the matter. We were raised in a way that all women in comic books need to show their cleavage. You need to show this, and you show that. I didn’t want to do that with my comic books. I wanted this– We have no gore, we have no cleavage, and we keep kids out of the bedroom. Those are rules that we have.

[00:25:02] Gretchen: I’m grateful that my children are grown, that I don’t have to navigate the world with them as children today, because trying to keep our children safe from things that are outside the realm of what we would expect them to see makes a tremendous– It’s harder. It’s so much harder for you all raising teenagers today than it was for me. My youngest is 21 now. You all are doing things within this world that aren’t just superheroes, because here there’s a baseball player as well, correct?

[00:25:44] Akili: Yes, there’s a baseball league, and the league character is a big baseball fan. I love baseball. We wanted to weave it into our story and then also help kids to learn about statistics, numbers, and things without them knowing that they’re doing it again. Then, even though I’m saying that, you’re really not paying attention because in baseball, when you look at a batting average, you’re learning about percentages. Period.

[00:26:06] Gretchen: Great. This is true.

[00:26:09] Aziza: You’re like, “How many times did he get up? How many times did he get out?” That’s the percentage. If he hit three times and he got up 10 times, it’s 300%. Then that’s little things that kids can learn the percentages, and they don’t really know that they’re learning it, but they’re learning it, and it’s fun. That’s really what we want to do, just bring fun. Learning about topography, we created our own maps. This is the smallest part of the map. This is where the story takes place. It’s called Capital City. We have a whole world. I love topography. I love looking at history through the history of topography and how it’s changed over the last couple of millenniums.

[00:26:44] Aziza: We’ve written the concept of our Adroit universe. In our universe, Adroits are the name. That’s what you call the people with powers. They might be mute, but they’re Adroits. They were destined from the beginning of really history as we know it to be protectors for humanity, without giving away too much. There’s a lineage of Adroits. Sometimes the powers may lie dormant.

Generations may go by without them resurfacing. There were huge battles at the beginning of our world’s existence. Then, for a period of time, the Adroits went silent. They weren’t here anymore. Now, we’re starting our story right now in the year 3073. It’s a totally different universe, totally different timeline.

[00:27:36] Akili: Different calendar.

[00:27:38] Aziza: Different calendar. You’re not on Earth at all. Now, Adroits are re-emerging because chaos is on the rise.

[00:27:46] Gretchen: Akili, explain your process to me because these are incredibly detailed and complex. Do you start with a pen, or do you start digitally?

[00:27:56] Akili: I start with a pencil.

[00:27:57] Gretchen: You start with a pencil?

[00:27:59] Akili: Yes. Let me see if I can find you a sketch real quick.

[00:28:04] Gretchen: While you’re looking for that picture, Aziz, I’m going to ask this question. I think you answered it, but I want to make sure that we’re clear in the answer. The question was, I would love to know how I could use this with my reluctant reader. What have you found in using this methodology to get kids to engage and then remain engaged? I think that’s the really important part of this.

[00:28:33] Aziza: What I would say is definitely not forcing, not rushing, making sure that kids are comfortable before you even begin this process, and not necessarily positioning it as, “You need to be reading, so we have to read more.” Or not even acknowledging that there’s a deficit or any problem that needs to be overcome, but presenting it as something that’s fun and exciting that we can do together. This is coming from a parent’s perspective. This is something fun and exciting that we can read together.

The simplest version, I would say just sitting down and reading together. I think that’s a big part of it because, as parents, a lot of times, we’ll want something else to be the solution that we can just say, “Hey, take this, and then you’re going to be better, or let me give this to you, and then we’re waiting. We just want to see miracles happen.” Especially being in the space of being a homeschooler, that one-on-one time is just invaluable.

[00:29:31] Gretchen: Sure.

[00:29:32] Aziza: Whether you decide that you want to hire someone, or you want to be a part of our reading camp, just throwing that out there, then that’s a great option. Just taking that time to say, “Hey, this is an awesome story. Let’s take 15 minutes a day and just read a little bit,” and then build and build from there. If it’s something that they can get excited about, they’re going to want to keep coming back for more.

[00:29:53] Gretchen: You know what? One of the things that impressed me so much, Akili, is you do so much in the drawing. The musculature is also correct. You look at this guy’s right arm up here. I’ll mirror the drawing that you have here, but his biceps are ripped, man.

[00:30:16] Akili: I’ve painted it too. I’m going to be showing the steps, too. Here’s what I used to paint. It’s called a Wacom tablet, digital light pen.

[00:30:28] Gretchen: Look at that.

[00:30:29] Akili: It’s pressure sensitive. These are my buttons right here. I have the-

[00:30:35] Gretchen: Amazing. Who knew this was going to be an art class?

[00:30:40] Akili: [laughs] Tell me about it. It’s funny. I love art, so I love talking about it. This is the sketch. Of course, like I said, I had the idea. It’s Hugh fighting against a character called Inferno. It’s a big fire in the background. He’s not finished.

[00:30:58] Aziza: You can see this flat-

[00:30:58] Gretchen: You can see how his hand is still flat, but then you’ve got the detail across the chest here.

[00:31:05] Akili: Yes.

[00:31:07] Aziza: Classic oil technique.

[00:31:10] Akili: I love the Renaissance with the really heavy light and dark. That’s why a lot of my paintings really look like Renaissance paintings in a sense. It’s not done, but this is what I’m working on.

[00:31:24] Gretchen: Look at the layers that you have here as far as the construction of the process. It’s really so fascinating to me.

[00:31:31] Akili: Thank you. If you can see in the background, the couch isn’t painted yet, and the mirror isn’t painted. This is the process, and I love it. I’ve been doing this-

[00:31:46] Gretchen: How long does it take you to do this?

[00:31:50] Aziza: If it’s an ongoing process, maybe we’ll time on what the-

[00:31:53] Akili: Yes. Because I’m doing a comic book, I don’t put as much detail in it as I would like to.

[00:32:06] Gretchen: I don’t know what our audience thinks, but to me, this is an extraordinary amount of detail.

[00:32:10] Akili: Thank you.

[00:32:11] Gretchen: I love the fact that you’ve also even gotten the light and the darkness. There’s a light source here, that has light on his forehead and on his left knee that is pushed forward, that it’s catching that light source. I think that’s so fascinating in that process that you’ve even thought through those elements.

[00:32:36] Akili: I love what light and dark does. It really can pull you in and out from something. People always say, “Oh, you’re highlighting.” I was a bit upset, but I-

[00:32:47] Aziza: They say, “Oh, you made it 3D. How did he make it 3D?”

[00:32:52] Akili: I don’t know. I just sat down, and the Father sent me this stuff, and then I work on it. Even with that, I don’t– How do I come up with it? All glory to the Father. I never thought that this was something that I was going to do. I never considered myself a storyteller or anything. My educational process, to be honest, didn’t allow me to believe that I was a storyteller. I didn’t have a good one in high school.

I had people telling me that I couldn’t. I had a lot of trouble. It was weird because I had a lot of trouble academically, but I was in the National Art Honor Society. I was a varsity football player, varsity track shot putter. It was like this weird– What is it?

[00:33:41] Gretchen: Almost like a push and pull.

[00:33:43] Akili: Yes. I was a class artist, but then at the end, I was barely making it out of English. I had a teacher tell me– I was moving up to the next grade in English, and she asked me, “Why bother? Told me, “Why bother?” You get these things, and then you’re a high school kid who’s already having issues with different things, and then family issues. You say, “Why bother? I said, “Why bother?” I got into Hampton University to this program called the Hope Program because of my art. It took me eight years to get out of there. I tell you about it, I got out.

[00:34:22] Aziza: He had to wait for me to get there.

[00:34:23] Akili: Yes. She’s 11 years younger than me. When I met her in Hampton, I was working, and she was just getting there. It really worked out with her being there to help me and rescue me because at the time when I met her, I was an alcoholic. She told me that she liked me better when I wasn’t drinking a lot. That helped me in itself to stop, and then beyond that. Now I know I don’t drink at all. I wasn’t a borderline alcoholic. I was drinking moonshine, and hard. I had issues with it after that. I can say now, I thank the Father. I’ve been sober for about 10 years now.

[00:35:17] Gretchen: I can’t believe we’re at the top of the hour.

[00:35:19] Akili: Oh, wow.

[00:35:21] Gretchen: This time has gone too quickly. What would be your parting comments to our guests today?

[00:35:27] Aziza: Don’t give up. Don’t get frustrated, even though frustration may arise. Really, when it comes to working with your child and other children, take stock of who they are. Sometimes that can be a challenge because we may have our version of who we want them to be. We may have our expectations of what we want them to be. If we can really get to the core of who they are, what makes them tick, then we can tap into their genius. We can tap into their brilliance and help them achieve greatness.

[00:35:59] Akili: Don’t stop believing. There’s obstacles that come up through your life. The story, in 1995, I woke up on July 3rd, and I lost my sight in my left eye. It just went away. It hasn’t returned. It just went away.

[00:36:23] Gretchen: Wait. Back up for a hot second here. You’re telling me you do this amazing dimensional art, and you don’t have-

[00:36:32] Akili: I have maybe 20% of the sight in my left eye.

[00:36:35] Gretchen: You don’t have depth perception?

[00:36:38] Akili: Not really. I can’t see 3D.

[00:36:42] Gretchen: Oh, my word. Okay.

[00:36:45] Akili: My kids tell me, “You’re painting 3D.” I’m like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just paint.” I have no idea what they’re talking about. I went to a 3D theater with them, and everybody was jumping and doing all this, and I’m looking at people like, “What is the big deal?” They say, “It’s coming out at you.” I’m like, “It’s not coming out at me.” I haven’t had-

[00:37:06] Gretchen: [laughs] Goodness.

[00:37:08] Akili: [laughs] I do it with my right eye.

[00:37:13] Gretchen: I have to say, in the closing moments here, that everyone should go read the story that Aziza wrote about Akili, because to me, that was such a compelling read. Of course, we’ll include that in the show notes. I want you to know that your children are fearfully and wonderfully made and imbued with things that you don’t yet know because they have not yet been revealed. Don’t grow weary while you’re waiting for the fruit of your children to be manifested because it’s so important. I think that’s the message that you all have with Adroit Comics as well. You could have led with that.

[00:38:00] Aziza: You should have started with that.

[laughter]

[00:38:01] Gretchen: What?

[00:38:02] Akili: You know what? I’d never really tell anybody. I’d just go. It’s all. I can count it all as joy. It could have been something-

[00:38:14] Gretchen: I love that. I really love that.

[00:38:17] Akili: When I say perseverance to keep going, people don’t realize that I do all my artwork with one eye, pretty much.

[00:38:26] Gretchen: That’s pretty amazing. I knew you guys were special when I talked to you all last summer, but I had no idea where this conversation would go. We’ll look forward to you all joining us again in the near future. Remember, make sure you check these show notes because they’re going to be awesome. Take care, everyone. Have a wonderful afternoon.

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[00:38:47] Voice-Over: Thanks again for joining us. We’re glad to be a part of your educational community. You can help us grow our community even more by rating, reviewing, and subscribing to the show wherever you may be hearing this. Don’t forget that you can access the show notes and watch a recording. You can find us online at demmelearning.com/show or on our YouTube channel. We’ll see you again next time. Until then, keep building strong foundations for lifelong learning.

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