I had the opportunity to go out to Washington D.C. for the Regional Golden Gloves on April 20th. It was a boxing show that was packed with entertaining, hard fought matches.. The first fight was a contested fight that occurred before the show started. It was the first time I had ever seen this, but it was good to see. I was able to referee an exciting bout between two talented 125 boxers. They fought cleanly and I didn't have to step in too much, but I did give an 8-count at the end of the match. I was nervous to get in there, but I think things went really well after a bit of confusion at the beginning of the bout. I really enjoy refereeing and getting better at it. I feel like I'm at 50% of where I want to be, but luckily I have so many great officials around that I can learn from. I judged quite a few bouts and was spot on with my decisions, so that felt good. Judging comes easily to me and I have a good sense of how to narrate the fight in my head so I can keep track of who is winning. There were approximately 18 fights on the card and almost all were evenly matched and it felt like a championship atmosphere, There was unfortunately only one female bout, but 4 other women won by walkover including Deborah Grant from Fayetteville, NC. The red corner were Virginia and North Carolina fighters versus the blue corner who were Maryland and D.C. fighters. One of the best fights of the night was contested by a couple of 17 year olds at 147 lbs. named Justin Almonte of Virginia Beach and Markell Steele of Temple Hills, Maryland. They both showed so much heart. Steele was the harder puncher and hit Almonte with some wicked body shots, but Almonte kept fighting back and had his moments as well. We only had one boxer from North Carolina compete and he was actually from Raleigh. Michael Nwaschukwu fought an incredibly entertaining fight in the 203+ division. It was the last fight of the night and the crowd was glued to their seats. He channeled George Foreman and the fight was nonstop! All the open level winners advance to the National Golden Gloves in Detroit. I am eternally grateful to LaTasha Washington, president of the PVA boxing association and Chief of Officials residing over the event. She made me feel so welcome and supported and gave me great feedback on my officiating. It was also nice to work with Lisa Cuellar, another top notch female official who comes from Virginia and has a fight background. I learned a lot from the many talented officials. The atmosphere at the event was fun. There was even a live band and ring card girls. The motto of the tournament is Heart-Pride-Desire to Win and the boxers on this night showed it. Grateful to witness and be a part of it.
I got a notification in LinkedIn for a position titled, Senior Writer Editor. It was with a company called Outlier and the goal seemed to be to improve AI prompt responses. It sounded interesting and aligned to the type of work that I was interested in pursuing. After submitting my resume, I was given the go ahead to start the onboarding training to learn more about the position. The training started off interestingly enough. I was given this doc to explain how I would be rating prompts. Basically, I was given two responses to prompts and had to determine which was better and give a rationale based on criteria provided. This part of the training was manageable and enjoyable. I liked picking apart prompt responses for elements of quality. The training identified responses along a spectrum of creative to logical/factual. They also provided rubrics that were helpful for each type of writing. Here are some examples. Once I completed a few of the rating exercises, I was then given the instructions that I would be challenged to write a response to a prompt based on my expertise in K-12 education to help train the models. Here is the prompt that I received:
Delving into Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences and recent findings in neurodiversity, how can educators ensure they are differentiating not only based on ability but also on cognitive processing differences? Discuss the interplay of content, process, product, and learning environment in this context. When I showed it to my husband, he said it sounded like something you could write a PhD thesis on and I couldn't disagree. But I decided to go ahead and give it a shot thinking I would only have to write the one. I wrote what I felt was a decent response and it took me a couple of hours. Click here to read my response. When I finished, I was provided another prompt to respond to and that was where I stopped. Who knows how many more prompts I would have had to respond to in order to finish the training? It was clear at that point that I would be required to do a lot more work than it was worth. Nonetheless, this is a new movement in AI, getting the expertise of real humans to make the AI models better. It was an interesting exercise in being an AI Chatbot and I don't regret doing it. However, I will be wary of future opportunities such as this and you should too!
Photo credits: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/
At 12 years old, Andre Ward was special. I remember seeing him move around the ring at King's Gym and wanted to imitate his style which was so smooth. He knew from that time, he wanted to be a world champion. It's amazing when you think of his long reign in boxing. He didn't lose a fight from the time he was 12. He is an Olympic Gold Medalist and a two-division multi-belt World Champion. He retired undefeated at the top of his game, was a boxing hall of fame inductee, and has been a successful commentator and voice in the sport.
I recently read his book, Killing the Image: A Champion's Journey of Faith, Fighting and Forgiveness and not only did it take me back to 1990s Bay Area, but it was a vivid telling of the struggles and triumphs of Ward and his trainer Virgil Hunter. Ward had two parents that loved him deeply but fought drug addiction. Lucky for Ward his father also deeply loved boxing and found him the right coach at an early age.
Hunter gave Ward confidence and belief in his greatness and potential. He taught Ward to use ALL his skills and talents effectively. He was also impeccable at selecting fights and challenges for his fighter. They were an unstoppable team that often didn't get the credit they deserved. Ward started with Hunter as a little kid. He also retired at the top of his game as a pro with Hunter at the age of 33. That says a lot about both of them. Just when Ward was starting to get the recognition he deserved with his rematch against Sergei Kovalev that ended in a knockout, it hit Ward one day that he didn't want to fight anymore. Hunter was surprised, but supported him with one piece of valuable advice: "Don't ever come back."
Photo credit: https://tss.ib.tv/boxing
Ward's tremendous success also extends outside the ring. He let his work in the ring speak for him instead of talking trash, but is also an incredibly articulate spokesperson for boxing with his work as a commentator even while he was boxing. Now with this book and his work as a motivational speaker, he is helping athletes learn how to do it right. He did boxing on his terms and anyone who is considering being a professional boxer should read this book.
One of my regrets in boxing is that I didn't ask Hunter to be my trainer when I was training at King's Gym at the same time as Ward. I fantasize that I could have been the female Andre Ward. I definitely got taught the skill with my first trainer and all my amazing sparring partners early on, but finding someone who was thoughtful about shaping my career would have made a huge difference. I never got up the courage to ask him and I don't know if he would have agreed to be my trainer, even though now he has trained some top female boxers like Nicola Adams. It was a different time for female boxers back then and that wasn't my boxing journey to have. Regardless, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be in the same gym with Andre for a brief time and the opportunity to read his book that reveals so much about what it takes to be successful in the sport of boxing.
When i decided to host a Women's Sparring Event at my boxing gym, I was hopeful that a handful of women would show up. I have a dream of building up women's boxing in North Carolina. My desire for the event was to share my experience and support women to get some sparring in the ring with other women, or at least come watch and see what it is all about. I was surprised (and a little overwhelmed) at the number of women who came. It was so heartwarming to see and talk to all of the amazing women warriors who were brave enough to show up and share the experience of being in the sport. There were boxers as young as 13 and as old as 65+. There were all experience levels from one brave boxer who had only had two months experience to nationally ranked amateurs and professional fighters. My goal was to give everyone a safe, positive experience and as much time in the ring as they desired. I think it was overall a really positive, but I also learned a lot about making it better for the next time. It is a lot to juggle all of the different personalities and experience levels in boxing. First of all, I learned about different fighters and coaches and what to expect from them and what they need. Of course, the makeup of the fighters who come will always be different, but we had a good turn out from a variety of gyms in the area and I know many will return. I felt a little overwhelmed at which boxers to match up and who should go in with who, but I was glad I was more cautious than not even if some were in the ring more than others. I was grateful to hear from most of the women that said they had a wonderful time connecting with other women and can't wait to do it again. Ashley, one of our boxers said, "It was fun to see all the women encouraging each other...shows how powerful we are as a group even if it's an individual sport." I hope the women and coaches know that I am grateful for each of them for showing up and supporting each other at my event. I will definitely host another event soon as well as work to give the mighty group of women from our gym who show up every week more opportunities to spar and work on their technique. A special shout out to Remy, our gym owner and our coaches Ty, Jon and Allam for supporting the event and helping out to make it such a success.
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.
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.
Image by Freepik
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.
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. |
AuthorYvonne Caples is a Learning Experience Designer who is passionate about making learning meaningful and engaging for all. Posts
All
|