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In this solo episode, Lindsay talks about how to approach current event conversations with your children at home. We delve into the importance of guiding your children through these conversations instead of letting them go to other, potentially unsafe, spaces to talk about things.
Using research-backed strategies and tools, we talk about creating an environment where kids can express their emotions and align their understanding with family values. Listeners will discover how to inspire active family engagement in social issues and nurture curiosity through creative outlets like sci-fi and fantasy. The goal is to equip families to enrich their dialogues and support their children's development in our complex world. Why? Kids need us—both parents and educators—to talk to them. If we don’t, they will find other places to go, including online spaces that are unsafe and might radicalize them. By fostering home environments where children feel a sense of belonging and emotional safety, children can have authentic, real, and honest conversations. This preserves humanity and prevents potential harm from predatory online communities. What? Lindsay promotes the head, hand, heart model when approaching conversations with children about current events. This refers to the idea that a child is a whole person, a whole human, and their mind, emotions, and actions are all engaged with these big topics. Keeping that framework in mind, here are some ways to begin conversations with your children: Step 1: Begin conversations by naming feelings. Ask children how they feel about a topic and where in their bodies they experience these emotions, especially if it’s hard to put language to their emotions. This helps create a safe space for dialogue. Step 2: Discuss values. Encourage children to identify how a topic aligns or conflicts with their values. Ask: Why is this important? How does it support or go against your values? You can also remind them of things they value and bring relevant connection points (e.g., “I know you think it’s important when your friends and family are honest with you. How does this relate to honesty?”). Step 3: Encourage questions. Ask children what questions they have about a topic. By encouraging them to ask questions, you are opening up a space for them to process and dig a little deeper into a topic. This promotes critical thinking, even as they grow older. Similarly, parents can ask open-ended questions back to their child to keep the conversation going. Step 4: Take action. Explore ways to engage in community initiatives or brainstorm creative solutions, especially those you can do together as a family. Encourage reading; sci-fi and fantasy are great ways to open up conversations about new ideas and possibilities, because they break free of the realistic constraints of our current society. You can dream with your children about what things could look like in your own context. Step 5: Use the color question brainstorming strategy, developed by Dr. Laura Lipton (listen to her interview on episode 220). If you’re in a conversation with several people, brainstorm your questions based on three colors. Green is for imagination and possibility (e.g., “What might happen if this policy is pushed through”), red for facts and data (e.g., “How many people have benefited from this initiative?”), and blue for opinions and values (e.g., “What’s the best way to address this issue?”). This can help spark vibrant family discussions. Final Tip: If you get stuck during a conversation, it's okay to be transparent and take time to reflect or research before continuing the dialogue. Be truthful and honest about where you are—it’s always okay to come back to the conversation again. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Staying Engaged in Difficult Conversations handout with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 236 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Hello and welcome to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 236. And today we're talking about approaching current event conversations with your kid at home as part of a month-long family series to support families, and thinking about how to support kids in all sorts of things Current events, topics, how to discuss politics or quote unquote controversial issues, social studies, content they may be learning about in school, ela, book themes that are emerging from books they're reading in school, interpersonal conflict, conflict with friends, conflict with family members, conflict at school or with the institution of schooling or with a specific teacher, other life things like what's going on with their bodies as they go through out of lessons, like whatever the thing is that you want to talk about with your kiddos. We want to support you in talking about that thing with your kiddos, and so let's dive into today's episode and keep in mind again, it's going to be a month-long series and I think you know we'll see how everyone feels. But I would like to bring it back as a recurring series as well, because we want to support holistically everyone in a child's life, not just educators, but families as well, so that we can truly partner as a family school partnership. So let's dive in. Kids need us to talk to them, otherwise they're going to find other places to go. Basically, I'm talking about online spaces that are unsafe, that might radicalize children, and there is going to be a link in the blog post version of this podcast episode to some research. It's summarized nicely in an NEA Today article, so I'll link that one. 01:33 But the person being interviewed here in this, amara Stapik-Araez, says when educators fail to engage students on issues that matter to them, students will look elsewhere, and I say this a lot in terms of education and teachers, but I also want to say it to family members. Right, I think, wherever we can have conversations in spaces that we perceive as relatively safe, in spaces where we have a sense of belonging or we are connected emotionally, relationally, to others, that's the space that the kids are going to have the most ability to be honest, to be curious, to really investigate what they're feeling or thinking, think about what others in the conversation might be feeling or thinking, and have like authentic, real, honest conversations that get at truth and preserve humanity. Online spaces do not always do that and in fact, many are predatory. Many communities or communities are used as kind of hubs, like YouTube or TikTok are used as hubs to radicalize particularly young boys. I think there's a lot of research on that, but I would imagine everyone who does not feel a sense of belonging and an opportunity for conversation in spaces in their daily lives, their families or their school systems, and so they turn somewhere for those conversations and ultimately are harmed right, or are harming others, or both right. So, keeping all of that research in mind and knowing that we want to create spaces for real conversation where students can explore and children can explore what they're thinking and feeling, let's talk about some practical entry points. So I've been thinking a lot about kind of like a head, heart, hands model that has been present in education and people have talked about this with teachers a lot. We talk about the whole child and the head, heart, hands, elements of just, you know, being a human. I mean let's kind of use that framework to approach the conversation. 03:33 I think often not always, I will caveat this not always, but often it may be easier to start with, just like name the feeling. So how are you feeling about? This is a question that you could ask a child. Right, they bring up a topic, or even you bring up a topic. There's like hey, I noticed this was happening or I saw this in the news, like how are you feeling about this? And obviously all of these questions are dependent on the age of the child, but I will say that they're generally applicable, with some modification. Or you know, selecting particular questions from this list, that we'll go through all ages. You know, like preschool to college, and so I think about you know I want you to think about you know, whatever kid of your age currently is as you're listening to this or engaging with this blog post, you know what would work best for your kid and then go from there. But generally, name the feelings. How are you feeling If you can name the feeling and if you can't, or even if you can, it's also an interesting companion question, I think, to think about. 04:31 Where in your body do you physically feel it? So sometimes I can't name the emotion but I can say, oh, I feel that in my stomach, like I feel that in my gut. My gut is like churning. My stomach feels like it's on a roller coaster. It's flipped upside down right or wow, my head hurts. Even trying to think about that intellectually is like what, like I'm so confused or kind of in a disorienting dilemma. As the change researchers say, you know, my head hurts or I'm feeling, like I may be, my fingers are tingling, like I'm really energized to like do something physically, like I want to make change happen or whatever the thing is Right. So you might be able to anchor in where in your body you're feeling it and then a kid might be able to identify how they're feeling, like name a motion, but I think, name the feelings first. 05:17 You could ask students and children about their values. I say students because I'm always talking to educators, even when I'm talking to families. Children, students, identify your values. So, for example, okay, the topic has been broached, why is this important to you? So, if a child brought it up to you, why is this important? Or how might it go against or support a value of yours? So I know you value, you know your kids, or you can invite them to name what they value but I know you value honesty. You really think it's important that me and your friends and your family are honest with you. So how does this, you know, relate to honesty, right? Or how does it violate honesty? Oh, someone lied to you. Oh, I know honesty has a core value of yours. Gosh, that's really frustrating. I could see why this is important to you, right? So, again, as much as they can lead the conversation, great. And then at times you may want to jump in and kind of, in that example that I just went through, kind of help them along or model for the first kind of time you're thinking through this and you'll all find your way. Right, we're learning this, as they're learning, and we're all learning how to engage together. So those are some heart questions, right, name the feelings, identify your core values. 06:25 We'd also get into some head questions. So, literally, ask the question what questions do you have? So, oh, yeah, I saw that on the news. What questions do you have about that? Or I heard that, yeah, you and your two friends got into an argument at lunch today, like what questions do you have about that? Or the school made this new policy. Oh, I bet there's a lot of questions that are coming up for you, like do you want to share some of them? You also can engage the head by thinking critically. 06:51 So what might be the underlying need? So maybe you're talking about a quote-unquote controversial issue where there's kind of a polarization of two sides or two political parties, maybe in the news, around a legal issue or some sort of policy initiative. So you might invite them to think critically and again, think about what age they are. But what might be the underlying need? What does that person maybe need, that person who's pushing that policy, or that person who demanded that thing or took that action? Like, what did they need? Like what do you think that they were missing? Or feeling like they didn't have? What were they trying to get through? That action, right? So again, scaling for language based on how old your kid is or how ready they are to engage with this. You could also do this with an ELA text, right? Oh, you're reading a story in your class. Yeah, that character took that action. That's interesting, you know. You might be reading the book along with them, so you may have a little bit more insight into all of these pieces. But what might be a reason why that person did that right? What might they need? What might that person value, right? 07:46 So, kind of at a higher level high school level I always talk about like safety versus freedom is a very big uh kind of like. Both needs are necessary or both values are necessary for society. We want to have safety. We want to have freedom. So in a conversation about gun control, right, like, okay, so this person seems to be valuing safety. Well, safety is really important. This person seems to be valuing freedom. Freedom is really important. Like where? And then that's an entry point, right to the conversation where can we find an optimal balance, what's a good balance between those two things? What does that look like for you? Right, Okay, we also can engage the hands in the conversation. And again I say, the heart isn't easiest and I go heart to head to hands, like just how I work. But other kids might want to start with hands and then kind of bounce around, like to head to heart and, you know, enter wherever your kiddos are. 08:34 So hands, you know, maybe think about what can we do as a family to take action about this? So this is really upsetting you. Is there anything I can do or we can do together? Is there anything you can do in your local community that you can think of? How could we address this problem? Right, if it's a social issue, for example, often I find that it's helpful to support a local community initiative versus to kind of start your own. There's usually something in your local area that is already in existence that you can contribute to or volunteer at or contribute money to or raise awareness of through whatever relational or social media platforms you have. 09:10 You could rate an op-ed so you can kind of process your feelings with your kiddo, and then you know, particularly if they're younger you could be the person writing it, or the kiddo could be the person writing it if they're older, then publish that or send that to a local outlet. You can also just explore or brainstorm creative solutions. If you're not quite ready to take that step to action, or you're just not even sure, maybe, what that action looks like, or all of the action plans that seem in front of you just feel like they don't quite meet the mark and you're like I think there's something different we should do, to actually do something that hasn't been done before, or creatively think about an approach to this problem, then you could just simply, you know, hang out in the explore or brainstorm creative solutions phase first. So that might mean reading together. 09:53 I often like sci-fi and fantasy novels as a way to open up conversation about what is possible, because often they break free of the realistic constraints of our everyday society and they come up with some amazing ideas, right, and then we just have to think about how do we bring those to real life, how can we take elements of that? What do we like about that? We could also just dream, right, just like dream up what that could look like and create our own, you know, short stories or novels. If you're very ambitious and kind of like creatively dream up what is possible without the confines of reality, because art is also really important, and that's another way you can do it. Right, it doesn't always have to be writing. It can be drawing, painting, some sort of art and creative art project where we're envisioning the possible together through art. 10:43 Now I had an awesome conversation with Dr Laura Lipton, who was the co-author of Groups at Work, a book that we featured on this podcast earlier, and we talked particularly to teacher leaders in school systems. But I want to bring a strategy that they recommended in their book to this conversation, because I think one of the hardest things, right we said this at the top of the episode. I said this invite students to think about the questions that they have. So if you ask your child, what questions do you have about this? That, in my experience, particularly with the investigating history curriculum implementation in Massachusetts this past year in school year 24, 25,. That was one of the hardest things that the researchers at Tufts University, part of the Circle Project, found in their research of this curriculum implementation around grades three and four specifically, but also grades five through seven. Search of this curriculum implementation around grades three and four specifically, but also grades five through seven, generating questions for kiddos was one of the hardest inquiry-based routines to do out of all of them. So looking at hard sources like yeah, that was hard but actually not as hard as creating questions, synthesizing and putting it together, making a claim, that was hard but not as hard as generating questions. And I think about you know all the research for you know three-year-olds, for example, ask however many it is now I can't even remember 300 questions a day or something like that and after a lot of schooling and society and let's be honest, I will raise my hands here to say that as parents we can't always answer all of the questions so through all of that lived experience, students and children kind once they get older, and so knowing that, you may want to think about an approach to inviting questions or modeling questions for your kiddos so that they are more able to do something like that. 12:29 So here is a strategy that Dr Laura Lipton suggested, so it's called color question brainstorming, and I can envision this at, you know, like a dinner table or something with a family where you have like two or three people or more, kind of taking turns and rounds here. So, brainstorming, they suggest a group of four. So if you can, great group of four. If you can't, you know whoever you have and you're going to list, kind of all of your questions based on these three color categories and then you're going to highlight the most relevant questions. So there's a little bit of critical thinking as kind of a part two, but the first part is to write questions on these three categories. 13:08 Green, green questions are about imagination and possibility. So a nice sentence starter for a question that's green might be what might happen if, right. What might happen if this policy gets pushed through, right. What might happen if we, you know, contribute to this local community initiative, right? Next color is red. Red questions are facts, figures or data. So question sentence starters here might be how many or how much, right. How many people have been affected by this social issue? How much money will this cost our city or town to invest in this cool project that I dreamed up. 13:54 Blue questions are opinions, values or needs. So why is this? What's the best way to Our question? Sentence starters here so why is this? What's the best way to Our question? Sentence starters here so why is this important to me? Why is this important to that person? Right? What's the best way to address this issue? What's the best way to hear from and gather input from many community members to make an action plan to move forward, right? 14:17 So again, this is color question brainstorming from Dr Laura Lipman and Bruce Wellman, and the categories are green for imagination and possibility, red for facts, figures and data, and blue for opinions, values and needs. And this is awesome because they're all different types of thinking. Your brain is activated in different ways. I can even actually see them now, literally as I'm recording this. I did not think about this prior to talking through this in this moment, but it actually, I think, mirrors some of the head, heart, hands as well, like what kind of things are you talking about? Are you in your head like the red facts, figures, data? Are you in your heart where you're thinking about the blue kind of opinions, values, needs the blue kind of opinions, values, needs. Are you in the green of like taking action with your hands, like what's the imagination or possibility? Oh, that's so funny, okay, well, there we go. It all comes back together. 15:12 So, as you have these conversations, if you get stuck, I just want to say, as a kind of final piece here it is okay if you get stuck, if you don't know what to say, if you just want to take a minute and say, hey, I'd love to talk more about this with you. I'm not sure what to say here. Just be truly transparent and honest. I need to do a little research or I need to think on that. That's a great question. Come back to it. You can always do that. 15:30 In fact, I will link a free resource that we developed for a nursery school, actually for preschool, preschool and for the family members there. It's called Staying Engaged in Difficult Conversations. It's a quick handout, so feel free to reference any of the tips on that sheet. You'll find that at today's blog post, lindsaybethlyonscom slash blog, slash 236. They also want to say we are opening EduBoost, our Slack-based coaching community for educators up to families, and we're super excited about it. So me and my colleague, cara Pranikoff, are here for you If you have any questions and you get stuck. You want to return to the conversation. You want to even take a brief five-minute pause from the conversation and Slack us and see if we're on in that moment. We'll get back to you in 24 hours with a response or relevant resources for your questions. So, families, we are here for you. Let's keep supporting one another. I'm so excited to learn more about how these conversations are going at home with you and your kiddo, and stay tuned for the remainder of this month's series on families.
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In this episode, we talk with returning guest Ari Gerzon-Kessler (check out our other discussion on episode 155). Ari has been an educator since 2000 and is currently an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school-family partnerships. Ari is the author of On The Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together.
We frame this conversation about relational family engagement in light of the current political and educational climate we’re in. Drawing on personal experiences, research, and professional perspectives, Ari showcases how small, intentional efforts can profoundly impact school communities. Building a Foundation of Trust Ari opens our conversation by telling an anecdote about his daughter’s first day of school. After dropping her off when she was teary and worried, Ari, naturally, wondered how she’d settle in. Then, just a short while after, he received a text message from the teacher saying she was having a good morning and was able to pivot and settle into the class. That moment of intentional communication fostered a sense of trust, connection, and gratitude—creating a strong foundation for the parent-teacher relationship. This is a simple story to illustrate how important relational family engagement is in creating better education environments. Shifting Our Understanding of Family Engagement Ari wants to see a conscious shift from seeing family engagement as an outcome to a strategy—something we intentionally do. There is a lot of scholarship on what types of outreach, such as relationship-centered home visits, achieve positive outcomes like lower absenteeism. Beyond the mindset shift to family engagement as a strategy, it’s important to engage with the question, What is the purpose of family engagement? Many still see it as events, and whether or not the families attended. But this can be expanded to include day-to-day communication, relationship-building, and trust. These are the things that have more impact on children’s educational outcomes. It’s a shift to human-to-human connection rather than traditional event-based family engagement. Action Steps To build positive family-educator relationships, Ari draws on his scholarship and experience to offer a few action steps educators can take: Step 1: Break barriers and build trust by using team-building or ice-breaker activities at the start of any gathering instead of “talking at” parents. This is a great way to get people talking and laughing together. In a parent gathering, share names and something about their lives to connect on a personal level and build psychological safety. Step 2: Keep communication simple. A short text or photo to a parent can mean the world of difference and build a relationship of trust. Step 3: Implement relationship-centered practices, such as home visits or virtual meetings, to build meaningful connections with families. These interactions should prioritize listening and understanding family perspectives instead of the educator talking the whole time. Step 4: Follow through by creating a sense of continuity and being concrete with what you are changing as a result of gathering and hearing from parents. Without the follow-through on ideas and changes, you won’t build long-term trust. Step 5: Set aside time for positive outreach. Educators and administration can set aside time each month to send calls or text updates to families with children who are struggling to establish that open line of communication. Challenges? One of the main challenges is overcoming time constraints and existing structures that prioritize traditional engagement methods. Educators may also feel overwhelmed by additional responsibilities. However, by integrating relational practices into existing workflows and emphasizing the long-term benefits of trust and collaboration, schools can gradually shift towards more inclusive and supportive environments. One Step to Get Started To begin cultivating stronger educator-parent relationships, start with a simple step and ask families how they would like to communicate. This simple step demonstrates respect and consideration for family preferences, while also setting the stage for more personalized and effective interactions. Stay Connected You can learn more about Ari and his work on his website, Same Team Consulting, or connect with him on LinkedIn or by email at [email protected]. You can also grab a copy of his book, On The Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together, to get more practical resources and strategies for strong relational family engagement. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing 6 Practical Ways to Develop Authentic Family Partnerships Playbook with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 235 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) We're not on video at all, right. 00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Sorry, hold on, ari. Welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast, or I should say, welcome back to the Time for Teachership podcast. It's good to have you. 00:12 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) It's great to be here. Thanks, lindsay, I always enjoy our conversations. 00:16 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely. I am really excited for kind of the frame for today. We won't ask the same questions as before, so people should go back and listen to the other episode, but you know, so much has been happening in the world with us individually, and so I kind of want to frame the context for us today. What do you think is important for folks to know in the audience, both in terms of, like, the hats we're speaking to today, but also kind of this idea of where we are as a nation and kind of as an educational kind of society or sphere of life here at this moment of recording in August 2025. 00:52 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Yeah, yeah, well, and I think most folks who've been following the news and feeling the impact of the shifting climate since just the last six months since inauguration, we know that attacks on education funding massive threats to kind of the safety and well, each month a lot of families are afraid and educators don't know how to support them. And you know, the heart of my work are these teams that bring immigrant families and educators together and there's this sense of, oh well, we, we can't deepen relationships, they're afraid to just come to school. And it's been fascinating to see that actually, as we've built initial rapport over the last year or two, that we're often getting more families that are afraid to come to school actually coming out, and I think that's in most communities. Speaking to the need, of course, the attack on DEI and the sense that, regardless of people's political beliefs around DEI, I think we all are on the same page of wanting to build cohesive school communities where everyone feels a sense of belonging, and that's really the heart of the work that I care about. 02:22 So that piece I hope is common ground, that all best practices that foster better relationships and trust are beneficial across the board, regardless of anyone's political affiliation. So, yeah, so those are some just quick reflections on the national landscape and how it's impacting, I think, our day-to-day work. And then I know you and I have talked over the years about the intersection of like being closely in connection daily with educators and then being parents working with the educators in our kids' schools, and I've had some a couple of just really meaningful, powerful experiences. Now wearing that parent hat, that's giving me insight on how to actually help other educators better support our families. 03:11 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, you had mentioned kind of the day one experience that you had with your child's school. Do you mind sharing that story? Yeah, no absolutely yeah. 03:20 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) So something that I often one of my top practices, I support schools with is increasing two-way communication and this piece that families are feeling flooded with too much communication and or they're feeling like the communication is not through the right channels. And I'm working on a piece for Agitopia right now on those two themes to themes. And so what I got to experience powerfully as a parent was day one, april 10th, my daughter's two and a half birthday. She was allowed to start school and she was nervous, pretty introverted at the time. I brought her to her first day of school and she was in tears not uncommon and I walked away feeling, of course, sad and anxious, really curious, like how her first day was going to go, and I jumped in my car, was driving to a meeting with all of our family, community liaisons, and as I arrived at that meeting I get a text from her teacher saying hey, selah is having, you know, like a wonderful morning. Now she was able to kind of pivot after a few minutes. I'll loop back with you again later in the day with an update. 04:37 So to get this text on day one built this sense of trust, connection, deep gratitude, that, like the teacher, in the middle of that morning was so thoughtful and aware that she reached out with a text instead of sending me an email five days later or whatever. And I shared that with the liaisons moments later at the meeting and said, hey, we've been working for a couple of years on trying liaisons at moments later at the meeting and said, hey, we've been working for a couple of years on trying to increase texting and reduce emails, because that's what our parents have been telling us again and again. Here is kind of proof in the pudding of what it feels like as a parent, and I now trust my daughter's school, you know, probably for years to come simply from that really positive start. So I just think that speaks volumes to intentionality and being proactive and why things practices like in the summer, calling all new families to welcome them for 30 seconds makes such a huge difference. 05:39 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh my gosh, thank you for telling that story and, in the spirit of Shane's Affair, called it story and teaching. I'll share kind of a similar my kids first school. When he was three months, he brought into kind of like the you know infant center or whatever and didn't ask like my name, his name, it was just kind of a drop off and it felt horrifying like he was fine, it was a great school, all the things, but like just that lack of communication. That lack of that contrasted with just around the same time, april of this past year, he switches to a new school, has the tears that drop off, is really nervous and they it was an email but I actually preferred email, so it was, it was perfect. And they sent me just like a picture of him playing with a toy and it was like he's fine, like you know. 06:23 You know it was a phrase, it was short, sweet, but it was like five minutes after drop off or something and it was like thank you, because now I don't have to worry all day long. And it's just the power of like where my mind went. It's funny, your mind went to like you were just going to something around family engagement. I was sitting there thinking, as an educator in a classroom, how great would it have been had I had the thought to be able to share directly with parents and family members to just say, hey, I know your kid came in having a tough day and like here's the great thing that they did today. Like even as a high school child right to be able to share that. I'm sure parents and family members would have totally appreciated that. 07:04 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Yeah, yeah, well, and you're sparking just two quick connections. One is positive outreach, which is the other in my top three practices. Positive outreach at any level. And I remember in the pandemic we established, you know, like here are the 150 high school students at this particular school, we want to re-engage and we did, you know, 20, 30 minutes a week of positive calls and that is so incredibly impactful. Yeah, and then, just you know, to your story of like the initial outreach, just that proactive piece can make such an initial difference. 07:42 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely. And I think this kind of spins into our next thing about kind of the why. Why is it so important that family engagement is a priority amidst budget cuts, amidst all of the competing priorities that school districts have? And I know you know a lot of the research on this. Do you mind speaking to kind of the benefits of doing stuff like this? 08:00 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Sure, yeah, yeah, I think, lindsay, it's a conscious shift from seeing family engagement as an outcome and something we can kind of check boxes around to. You know, dr Karen Mapp and many others in our field have said it needs to be a strategy, not an outcome, and it's a strategy that drives all the outcomes we care about out. The third practice of my three actually comes up naturally now. You know, relationship centered home visits. That's not only the research has proven, it's great for academic learning and obviously for relationship building and trust. But when a few districts in California a year ago embraced that as one of their practices to reduce chronic absenteeism, it was remarkable. I mean, I read about this in New York Times last year they knocked their chronic absenteeism rates from 30 percent of their students down to 14 or 15 percent. So that's hundreds of students and families where those home visits made a pivotal difference. 09:07 Hands out to me is our paradigm around. What family engagement is that? I think to this day in most schools we still see it about events and did they attend. And the reality is, as you were just speaking to, like the day-to-day communication, the relationship building, trust is much more impactful, as well as things like the research shows that if we get parents talking about education with their kid at home and the value of learning, that does more than anything else to predict academic success, more than socioeconomic status, parents' education level host of things. So that's one piece. 09:42 And yeah, and I was sharing this with colleagues this week that you know, I worked with some teachers and principals in Boston last summer and we brainstormed what does family engagement look like at your school? 09:54 And when I was on my flight home to Colorado I looked at the list and it didn't surprise me but it really was stark. More than 90 percent of what they put on their list of what is family engagement were events. Of what they put on their list of what is family engagement were events. So it's really seeing the value of how do we shift towards more relational communication practices, which I know we'll dive a little deeper in. And I would say, on the event front, many of us can go to school events and not forge a stronger connection with the staff or with other families. So a lot of our family and educator together teams at 31 schools now in Colorado are looking at how do we reinvent events like back to school night, parent teacher conferences, to make them much more relationship building oriented and mutual and human to human, versus the traditional approach that's just not working for families and is usually unsatisfying for educators when we create spaces to hear their experiences of these events. 10:58 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh, wow, that is. My mind is exploding right now with all sorts of ideas, but that that is so profound because I think about, you know, again, as a parent, showing up to preschool activities. Like there are some activities that I don't integrate, interact or engage with like another parent, a teacher or another child that my child is friends with, and it's like what, what was that versus? You know, having like a text thread or like a Slack coaching space or something, or, you know, whatever it is, some other means that's asynchronous. It might not be live, but it is. 11:27 You know, I often think about, like you know, I want to be seen as a person, as a family member as well, like I kind of want my child teacher to be, like hey, what do you do? Or like what's important to you, or you know these kinds of relational things because I feel like, without knowing them, you know, how do you, how do you best like have a values alignment when you're teaching my child? Right, how do you know that? Actually, I kind of reject the gender binary and I don't want to raise my child in a way that's very gendered, and like I have to actively write that in the forms when there's not a space for them, because that's not a question that someone asks, right, or there's no opening to have those kind of conversations, and so that relational versus like attendance at an event. I mean, we know with students at school you can attend school and not get very much out of it, right? Like where's the relationship, where's the engagement? That's deep and thoughtful. I love that shift. That's brilliant. 12:20 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Well, and I appreciate you sharing about wanting to be known and seen, because my older brother visited last week. I hadn't seen him in three years and he was in Canada the last seven years and we briefly talked about family engagement and what he said, you know, affirms what you were sharing and was really helpful for me because I'm always learning in this field. He said to me yeah, I went to an event at my kid's school and I wanted to get to know other families. I wanted them to ask about my hobbies, my strengths. I wanted to be able to share. I coach tennis. 12:58 I'd love to help the school, but instead the educators really, just as is commonplace at so many schools, followed the traditional mode of we're going to show we're experts and share a ton of information with you and not create the space. Um, and when I, you know, when I commented on that, he said I don't even think it was in their mindset that that they could create a more collaborative, humanistic space for sharing. And I also get as a former principal, there is this element of ooh, I'm going to have to release some control and that's tricky. Yet I also know that if we're intentional in creating nice structured spaces to hear more voices, that can also be fruitful and not, you know. Get off the rails. 13:49 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, that's a perfect segue. I would love to know from all the work you've done, like what are those ways that we do create those structured spaces for more relational dynamics and engagement with families and educators? What action steps do you have for us? 14:14 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Yeah, yeah. Well, in terms of the in-person gatherings, I mean, I think, one huge learning. What action steps do you have for us? The essence of these family and educator together teams that you know, I wrote about in depth in my book on the same team and they have really illuminated over hundreds of gatherings, what makes a difference for families. So instead of them coming into the meeting and listening to someone talk to them or at them, you know, for 10, 20 minutes this is so commonplace we start with a quick team building activity that you know some might call an icebreaker but gets everyone laughing often is a paired activity that goes across language, cultural, other boundaries and barriers. 14:57 And then we've learned again over the years to apply SEL best practices to parent gatherings, where we do an introduction circle where everyone shares their name, their child's name and something about their life and that builds the sense of okay, we're all humans here and have both rich differences and similarities, and it also creates much more psychological safety when everyone's brought their voice in. Briefly. When we're then inviting families in to share their input, they feel much more comfortable and since most of the families I work with have been marginalized in our school communities, it's just so important for us to be very thoughtful in the initial, say 20, 30 minutes of gatherings. And the last thing I would say that's really the essence of doing connection better is privileging relationship building, not going to content right away in initial meetings and then making sure that families' voices comprise as much or more of these gatherings than educators' voices, which really flips the traditional paradigm. So, yeah, I would say those have been some of the core pieces. 16:07 And a final one is you know, parents will lose trust in us if we don't show follow through. So, like creating some sense of continuity and getting concrete around, what are we changing as a result of what we learned from hearing everyone's perspective tonight? Because one of my failures as a leader of this work in the early, I'd say, three years was that we built great relationships and trust and that was a win in itself. But if we walked down the hallway to a random teacher's classroom and said, hey, it's April now, how are you doing family engagement different If they had not been a part of those gatherings? There weren't systemic changes. So I'm really keenly aware of like what can we easily and efficiently change at any given school that will have multiple benefits for ideally all members of the community. 17:01 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that. 17:01 I think that is something I'm trying to work on as well as like how can we, both as a reflective opportunity but also as a measurement opportunity, just like reflect on and kind of codify like this is the change, and like report that right Of the family members and the educators? 17:29 Is there anything that you have found to be particularly successful in terms of like engaging family members who might have, like you talk a lot and write a lot about linguistic, like linguistically affirmative spaces and affirming spaces and having like translation and things like that. I'm wondering also about like time constraints and people who you know are like oh, I don't know if I have the time to like come in and be part of that. I know you've talked about like a childcare as like actually part of the whole setup and kind of infrastructure. I'm just thinking about some of the other constraints that educators might have in their minds or families might have in their minds. It's like, oh, I'd love to be part of this and I'm thinking about this challenge and wanting to know how do I overcome it or if there's like an alternative means of relationship building that might not be synchronous. I don't know. I'm thinking about a lot of questions at once. 18:19 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Yeah, no, absolutely I mean. Yeah, I mean one thought is that we're shifting our perspective as educators to appreciate more, you know, the linguistic capital and other capital that we often, you know, we often assume like, oh, that family speaks Spanish or Hmong, they're going to have a hard time connecting with us. Instead shifting to, like they have a bilingual, multilingual child, how can we connect with them and build a bridge to them, which means concrete things like that. They get a positive call too, because I, as an educator, tap the translation line to make sure that we're building that relationship. In terms of time constraints, I'm glad you brought that up, because if we're moving away from an event focus, um, and the reality is I'm busy in in my, my two jobs as an educator right now I can't go to, you know, this saturday's event at my daughter's school, which is like the welcome back community service thing, because I'm happening to take her to like an art class, which is not I'm not normally that kind of like ambitious parent on the weekends. It's usually about rest and hang out at home. But that transparency aside, my point is the small back and forth texts, powerful one line of like, like you were saying. 19:41 You also mentioned earlier the photograph. When I was with moms at one FET team gathering a couple of years ago and we said what would be most helpful, three out of three moms in that group shared stories of yeah, when the teacher just sent me a photo with a couple words, that meant the world. And I don't need all these long emails necessarily about curriculum. So that's one example. And and then I'm also thinking about other relationship building strategies that, again, referencing my recent experience as a parent, my child's teacher emailed me for the first time, you know, since last school year ended, and just asked two questions like what are you most excited about for this coming school year and what are you curious or concerned about this coming school year? And what are you curious or concerned about? 20:29 And I sat out, you know, at night for 20 minutes after my daughter was asleep, and it sparked deep, deep reflection I was able to share with her. You know, hey, I'm an educator too. You might be interested in connecting and and. So that was great that she didn't just inform me, she posed questions and and so, and between that, home visits, which again also can be virtual. I mean, they're not the same, but I've seen the power of identifying five families in your class that didn't come to back to school night and laying out, you know, a schedule of OK over the next two weeks. Here's some blocks where I'm going to try to connect for 15 to 20 minutes to do a virtual visit with families. I think those are some of the ways to ensure we're building trust with all of our families. 21:19 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that. I think one of my takeaways from this conversation already that's such a simple shift is like, instead of talk, just invite a question. Like ask a question and invite a response. Like what a small shift, but what a powerful one. This seems like a good starter. I was going to ask you that's my one thing, what is your one thing? That like, if someone is like this feels really big, this feels like you know it's a big thing. 21:42 It's a long process to build like relational trust and all of the pieces. But you can start the momentum right. You can start with something. What would be that one thing for you that you would recommend to someone to just kind of start tomorrow? 21:55 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Yeah, no, I love that question and the timing is perfect because you know we're talking in mid-August, as school year kicks off in many states. I always say in August, the easiest and best thing you can do is just ask families how would you like me to communicate with you? And I've seen teachers leverage that information to realize okay, half of the parents want this info in an email, the other half want it in a text. It also just starts sharing power with the family where they can say you know like I'd love to be able to connect with you for five minutes once a month after school when you're saying goodbye to your students or shortly after. So I think that would be the one easy, easy question to ask families and, ideally, doing an inventory. 22:47 I talk about this when I do trainings on parent-teacher conferences. The word that comes to me is like and I did it myself the arrogance of us as educators to five, six weeks into school year to even say phrases like well, let me tell you about your child's strengths, and it's like OK, I've had my daughter or son at home for nine years and you're telling me about their strengths. So you know those inventories that make them easy on. You know families maybe ask five questions Like what are you most proud of your child about? What are your greatest hopes for their school year? Tell me a little about what they enjoy doing outside of school. Those can open up doors to just be a better teacher and support to that child and so that I guess that would be a parallel. What's one easy thing you can do. 23:41 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love those. I love that they're specific as well. Right here, if you're really like I've never asked families questions before like there you go, there's a bunch, you can just ask those now. I love that and I also am thinking that those are kind of some quick things that you can do for some longer things. I know you do coaching, you support school districts, you do kind of one-on-one stuff. What are some of the kind of range of things as an educator is listening or a family member who wants to advocate on behalf of, maybe, their child's school or school district, like, what are some of the ways that you or folks like you are kind of like supporting schools to do stuff like this? What are the options available for them? 24:19 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Yeah, yeah, and that's a great question. I mean, I would say we've touched on a number of these great practices right that can be woven in a principal can give teachers and teachers can advocate for this, or parents can 15 minutes once a month. The staff makes positive calls or they send text updates to kids who are struggling academically in a class, and I've seen it. Some of our middle schools, you know, that's a couple hundred families that get a call that afternoon. So there's all these practices that I, you know, coach and embed into trainings around. I know we're overwhelmed as a profession. How can we work smarter, not harder, and weave them in so it's not add-ons for educators to do, you know, in the evening and after school. 25:01 The other major piece that you know, I truly think is the game changer, is starting teams and creating these somewhat unique spaces. 25:11 Because what I found, lindsay, is that schools that do family engagement kind of a la carte or don't have a built-in space to discuss family engagement and to listen to families, just stay stuck in a traditional family involvement approach. 25:30 And these teams just literally creating 90 minutes once a month to come together, break bread, have dinner together, ask great questions, listen, you know, engage in team building activities is utterly transformative and I see these schools make five years worth of progress in six months compared to neighboring schools that don't have teams and don't create these spaces. So a lot of my coaching work is how do you launch a team? And you know my book is a step-by-step guide because after five, six years at 15 schools, I was like, wow, we have kind of a special sauce here. This is really needed in pretty much every school community to have this space. So I think that would be the heart of what I would encourage schools to really think deeply about and, if they have some sort of existing team, getting more clear on its purpose. And I'm doing some work this fall with some schools where they have a family engagement team, but they're doing so much around theories and frameworks and data and not doing the story-centered approach you were talking about at the beginning of our conversation. 26:42 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh, that's a really good thing to highlight just that difference, right and like oh, we're just looking at data, we're just looking at right Versus. We're listening to stories, we're inviting conversation. It is very stark that you put it that way and that, I think, is going to resonate with a lot of people. So thank you for that frame. I think, too, this is a fun question that I asked you last time. I'm curious now also, like what is something that you have been learning about lately? Either, uh, something related to our conversation or something completely not related to our conversation. Take it wherever you want. 27:15 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Yeah, um, no, that's great. 27:17 Um, I'm reading a book that my Zen teacher and one of our you know, my peers um just published and just read last night about the shadow and how much we can learn, you know, and and this new concept of like the golden shadow, which I didn't know about, which is like when you look at other people and deeply admire something about them and then you don't necessarily see that capacity and that gift in yourself enough. 27:48 Um, and so both there's the projection side of like oh, that person seems really like overly ambitious, and then turning towards like well, where do I actually have that ambitious part in myself as I judge them for their overly ambitious approach or style? So, yeah, I would say, you know, that is resonating from last night's reading. And then I continue to learn from other walks of life about family engagement, and so that's been really fascinating the last year or two to really take this lens of wherever I travel, wherever I go, can I look for examples of big systems creating more of this authentic care approach versus the more transactional, institutional way of doing things? 28:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That's such a good lens for just everyone, whatever your thing is, whatever. Yeah, oh, that's really good. Okay, thank you, I'm glad I asked that question again. Where can listeners learn more about you? Connect with you? I know you have a new website, which we will, of course, link to, and we'll, of course, link to the book as well in the show notes and blog posts for this episode, any other place that you would recommend people reaching out, or anything else you want to comment on before the close of the episode. 29:06 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Yeah, in terms of reaching out, yeah, I spent much of this summer creating a website that just was released last week sameteamconsultingorg. I'm really excited about that. Easy to find on LinkedIn. People can email me directly at ariagurzon at gmailcom, and I'd say those are the easiest pathways. And then, you know, my book on the same team is right now it's 47% off on Amazon, so it's a steal. Right now it can be found at the publisher Solution Tree site as well. 29:39 Yeah, and I think I would just close, lindsay, I was mentioning to you like there's been some powerful experiences lately. I'll just share briefly a story I had. That was one of those. Oh, we could bring this back into schools and make it an easy thing we do in terms of how we approach interactions with more intentionality. 29:58 I got on a flight a few months ago to Sacramento and usually we don't see the pilot, right, they don't come out. And pilot came out and said hi, welcome, I want to thank you for putting food on my family's table. For 27 years I was in the Air Force. I've now been a pilot for 27 years. I have 10 kids. I think they're all mine. So bringing humor, right, humor and connection. And then he took it further and he said here's my team and we count on each other. You all are part of our team as well and we count on each other. You all are part of our team as well. And then, you know, I just was moved and I thought about wow, imagine if the front office person at a school, the principal and they're welcome, the teacher and they're welcome made that sort of relational we're all one community took them all three minutes to do intentionality and purpose. 30:56 And the final part of the story, you know, is 10 minutes later we had some insane turbulence out of Denver and I have had a couple rough flights over the years and I started to get anxious and then I just paused and I was like, wait, 27 years plus the Air Force, he's got this. And that totally settled my nervous system and I had high trust and I think we can think of all the families in our nation schools that don't come in with trust or have had that trust broken and what those kinds of couple minutes can really do to shift the level of trust. So yeah, I think that's the one story I felt moved to share with you today. Oh, my gosh, that's that's the one story I felt moved to share with you today. 31:37 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh my gosh, Thank you. That's a beautiful story and I am just reminded there's been like a thread of airplane related stories that I've heard lately. I'm just reminded how, like airplane stories if you have them there are many parallels to education and life. 31:51 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) Absolutely. 31:52 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Ari, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for coming back on. 31:55 - Ari Gerzon-Kessler (Guest) A delight, Lindsay. Thanks so much for. 10/27/2025 234. Students Are Not Their Behaviors with Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith and Marlene MoyerRead Now
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode, we chat with Dr. Claudia Bertolone-Smith and Marlene Moyer, co-authors of the transformative new book, Tools Not Rules. With years of teaching experience, they discuss their approach to classroom management, emphasizing honesty and self-regulation as core principles.
The duo shares insights into fostering a culture of honesty within classrooms, using frameworks like color-coded energy zones and star charts to encourage positive behavior and accountability among students. Their method focuses on bringing a simple, direct approach that operationalizes the dreams and theories educators want to implement, but find hard to do. The Big Dream Marlene and Claudia envision an educational environment where every child feels like they belong—a place where every child sees themselves increasing in ability and feel loved and empowered throughout their education. Their dream is for classrooms to become spaces of belonging and empowerment, where students are motivated by genuine care and constructive consequences rather than control and shame. Mindset Shifts Required To achieve this dream, educators must shift away from fear-based, control-oriented methods—what many teachers know, even if it’s not their heart intention. Instead, they should embrace frameworks that encourage exploration, curiosity, and empathy. Without an effective framework, educators go back to the “least common denominator,” or what they grew up with themselves. Action Steps Educators can begin implementing a new framework of honesty, exploration, and wonder in their classrooms by following the principles and action steps laid out in Tools Not Rules: Step 1: Prioritize honesty. It’s one of the core principles—“honesty goes first.” Approach your students with curiosity and a genuine desire to understand their experiences. Allow open space that students can speak into without fear of being judged. Step 2: Introduce self-assessment and self-regulation. After establishing a culture of openness and honesty, you can encourage students to self-assess, or identify what’s really going on. From there, they can self-regulate by choosing a different word. For example, students may be “shirking” or avoiding their work, so the question becomes, “what can we do to start working?” The answers may surprise you and lead to practical steps to identify and change behaviors. Step 3: Understand the three zones of regulation. Students can be either shirking (avoiding work), working, or showboating (showing off). The first is a negative energy, working is the most stable energy, and showboating is the most full-on energetically. These match a color scale from blues to reds. Understanding where you, as an educator, and your students more naturally go can be helpful in self-assessing and regulating. Step 4: Focus on empathy-building with a “why chart.” As a class, call out different behaviors and try to understand the why behind it. For example, solicit honest reasons as to “Why we avoid doing the assignment,” or “Why don’t we come to class prepared” and dig into those behaviors. The collective “we” is important so students aren’t called out but, rather, build empathy with each other. This helps break negative cycles and rebuilds trust within the classroom. Step 5: Implement star charts to shift perspectives. This is when the teacher makes a commitment to the student to look for positive behaviors and reinforce them. It’s important for the teacher to see beyond the daily grind of difficult classrooms, but shift toward seeing the positive things students have to bring. Challenges? One of the challenges educators might face is letting go of traditional methods and embracing a new framework that relies on empathy and understanding. It requires teachers to be self-reflective and open to receiving honest feedback from students, which can be challenging, but ultimately rewarding. One Step to Get Started Start by incorporating a simple exercise of asking students to self-assess their current behavior and choose an actionable step towards improvement. Encourage open discussions and acknowledge honest feedback to cultivate a culture of trust and mutual respect in the classroom. Stay Connected You stay connected with Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith and Marlene Moyer on their website, Tools Not Rules. You can pick up a copy of the book or grab online resources, tools, and content to implement in your classroom. Feel free to reach out to the authors via their website if you’d like to talk more. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guests are sharing Student Roll out of TNR language with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 234 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Marlene and Claudia, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Thanks for having us. We're so excited to be here, Absolutely so. I think I have your book in my hands Tools, not Rules. I've been very excited I was saying to you before we record as a parent and as a teacher, really excited to engage with this. So I'm curious to know, like, what is important for listeners to know about either the book or kind of your thoughts in this moment, as we're about to head into a conversation about the book and maybe, marlene, you can start for us. 00:36 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) Sure, you know, I think you know working with Claudia was a real gift because she has a pretty brilliant mind for seeing creative solutions to hard problems. 00:46 And what I realized from this work is, with Claudia and this kind of genius breakthrough moment where she was like, right, all the kids in the classroom, let's talk about behaviors, but not that they are their behaviors. That was this moment where she uses this word operationalized she was able to operationalize something that has been nebulous and hard for us all to figure out. We read these books about theory, we read these big books about mindset shifts, but when you're in the meat of it, the moment where it's hard and hot and you feel like you're filled, you know, surrounded by monsters, it allows you to operationalize these big dreams and hopes we have for ourselves as educators by following this really simple, direct approach. So to me, that is the breakthrough, that's the difference that Tools, not Rules, brings. That's kind of the niche in the market that I think is special. So I just want to say that being able to operationalize something that I think all educators feel in their heart was the real shift and the gift and allowed us to write this book. 01:57 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) And I would add, I would add this is born of struggle, right? So this is not born of some high minded, you know situational thing where we had the perfect class doing the perfect things. It was born of struggle and it was born a little bit of desperation and also some tenacity that we just continue to say we need to shift this, but we need to shift it in a way that feels principled, that helps kids and I know in the book we talked about my son being in the class, you know so I had some definite buy-in for that. That helps kids feel, you know, that they are heard and that we see them making progress. And so I just want to say, born of struggle. Working with a co-teacher like Marlene is incredible because we kept trying different things, like did this work? Okay, it didn't work, but this piece did, so let's try this, let's try this. So that's why we feel like this book is addressing what teachers need and it's not us like a pie in the sky situation. It is. We were in there with you. 03:00 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, it definitely reads that way too. So thank you for that. And I think actually this idea of born of struggle kind of connects to this next question I was interested in so thinking about freedom dreaming. Dr Bettina Love describes this as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. So what is that dream that you all hold for education? 03:18 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) maybe, claudia, you can kind of continue in thinking about this with us yeah, sure, so, um, I talked a little bit about that, but the dream for us was that every child felt like they belonged, every child saw themselves increasing in ability and every child felt a full measure a full measure of our love, our care and, a lot of times, consequence and came through that feeling more empowered, right. So when I think of a dream and I also work with pre-service teachers, they're learning to be teachers they really struggle. They want that so bad for their students. They come in and that's what they want, but they're not sure how to get it. You know, they're not sure what to do in the classroom, how to deal with these hard behaviors, and so that was our dream. You know we want this to happen, and in the years we worked together, we really saw it come to fruition and it was an absolute amazing time, yeah. 04:23 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) And so thinking about kind of the shift away from I think a lot of teachers who may be listening at this moment are kind of like, oh, that is not how my class operates. Or you know, I read the book and like I need to get there, but I'm here right now. What are kind of those mindset shifts that could prepare a teacher or, you know, an instructional coach or anyone to kind of support this, this shift? Marlene, do you want to take this one? 04:44 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) Sure, you know, um, I think some, I think some. When we go into a classroom, we have our hope in our hearts and there I don't believe there's any teacher who doesn't. But if we don't come in with a framework and there's some other frameworks out there if we don't come in with a framework, when it gets hard, we just go back to what we know, and what we know is control and we go to shame-based kind of operating, and we don't mean to. But you know, I've been in special education meetings where people will try to inspire kids by saying things like you know, do you want to live in your parents' basement for the rest of your life? And you know things like that. Now, I know those teachers. They have love in their hearts for kids. But if we don't go in with a framework, we just go back to the least common denominator, the one that is most comfortable to us, the one that is the one that we're used to operating from. And it's not anyone's fault, it is just how we were raised, it's the school system we were raised in, it's how adults engaged with us. So I would say that a mind shift set, thank you that we need to focus on is really coming in with a framework that's going to help you in the hot moments. That's a big one. 06:00 We kind of just, like you know, hold on when something is hard and difficult and we come at it with fear and control. And I think when you have a framework, like tools, not rules, you actually don't come at things with fear and control. You come out with, you come at it with a sense of exploration, a sense of wonder, because I know it works. I've got a whole framework here that's simple to follow, that allows people to go. Okay, I know the next step and I know the next step, and I'm not going to engage in that power struggle and I'm not going to shame the kids and I think I think that's so hard to get to because really, um, we get so frustrated and and we are such human beings and you know I come at things hot and so I can come at things really hot and hard. 06:49 Claudia often will talk about that. She comes at it at maybe more oh my gosh and she retracts, and so this kind of helps us neutralize both of those behaviors. That allows us to stay assertive, allows us to stay in. So I think that's what I'd say, Mindset shift away from shame, away from control and fear, because we trust in this framework. We know how it operates, we know when we need to call in extra help, we know when we need to call in extra help for the kids and we feel supported by it and then the system can also support us. You know the larger system. So those are some of the mindset shifts I'm thinking about. 07:34 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Those are awesome. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that actually leads us really nicely into the principles. If you all want to kind of take an attempt at saying those succinctly, I know you list them succinctly, but there's just so much depth that I'm like, oh, we could go so many directions. I love this idea that eliminating shame is kind of built into that, and I know that you, as you were talking, marlene, I was kind of imagining someone in this situation and going through kind of the process that you laid out, like here's what I do next. So feel free to take this in any direction, but I'm curious about kind of the framework, the principles, and maybe, claudia, you can start us off on this one. 08:11 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) Sure, sure, let's start with honesty. And when we put the posters up, the honesty goes first. And if you can get a class to understand that you really want to know, you know I do really want to know. And that's that curiosity piece Marlene was talking about. We approach it with curiosity. So what is going on for you? And we have been surprised so many times when they know that they can tell us the truth and we're not going to have this big shameful reaction and shake our hand at them and like predict their future. They open up in really beautiful ways and and there have been so many times that we've said, we've assumed as teachers, this is what's going on. And then we say, so, what's going on for you? And we we approach it with an empty, like this. I call it an empty space, but an open space that doesn't feel filled with you know all this pointing, you know getting where you're going to be had in big trouble. It just feels open for them. I'm ready to hear you and they share what's really going on, and then we really get to work. Then that's the honesty piece and then the next piece comes, the self-assessment. So tell us where you're working right now and you can see that in the posters, and we really want them to identify what's going on. That's that self-assessment. That is all over SEL, but we actually make it happen right there. And then they also self-regulate by choosing a different word, one of the green words, you know. 09:38 So we have a serious assertive and working. So if you're shirking, for example, avoiding your work and working, so if you're shirking, for example, avoiding your work, doing all the things to not want to do the work or not get started, what's something you can do to get working? And even that's a curious question it's not like what are you going to do to get working? Because I'm really tired of you, you know, because that's where we lay the shame in. It's just like so, what can you do? And we're always surprised by that too, because sometimes they say just like so, what can you do? And we're always surprised by that too, because sometimes they say I don't have my worksheet, I forgot it at home. That's a simple fix, right? You know, here's your worksheet. Or sometimes they say I don't like the person I'm sitting with, they're bothering me, and like that's assertive and I'm like okay, we can fix that too. So, so kind of that lays out those pieces of where we start and why those posters were so important and having them do the self-assessment, self-regulation. We're constantly asking them to reflect on how it's going and so that has been something that we go to all the time. 10:37 When Marlene was talking about it's a system, oh, this is happening, this is what we do. It's a system Predictable. Students know what to expect. And back to that honesty piece If you can't make them feel safe in being honest with you, then the whole thing kind of doesn't stand on a really strong foundation. It kind of feels weak. They don't trust it, they're not sure making big shifts, mindset shifts I would say that is one of the key ones. Trust your students. You know they have stories too. They have lives and things happen, and be open to the truth of that and the honesty of that, and that's really important. 11:16 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) Yeah, I mean I would just say Claudia's point around honesty. We can't kind of overemphasize that enough. Like, if you can't create a classroom where kids feel safe in that way, where you can admit you have flaws, where you can empathize because you've been there, kids aren't going to move in this way. And so you know there's probably other frameworks that would work for people, but that isn't this framework. This framework you have to be really willing to kind of be a self-reflective person, be an empathetic person, be willing to hear the truth from kids, even if it involves you. You know I've heard some really hard truths that are really painful and hard to hear. However, it is liberating because you know like the truth will set you free, right, there is such truth to that in terms of I can admit, oh yeah, I actually think I did use that tone with you in front of people and I did say that mean thing because I was frustrated and I need to apologize. So some of that, really, you got to be willing to be that kind of teacher and I think you know Claudia and I have done a lot of trainings, we've presented to a lot of different people and that's the people it resonates with, the people who are like, oh yeah, like I'm willing to do all those things. I just don't know how to do them. I haven't put it together in a way that kind of to that point of operationalizing it. I have those dreams in my heart, I have those feelings and wishes for kids. So I would say that around kind of the principles of it, that that honesty piece, that ability to hear truth, the truth telling, and then help kids in the ways they need, it doesn't take long and then when they see it and they believe it, they're willing to do it. So we don't save some special treatment for the hardest kids. We don't save some special treatment for the kids who are honors kids, who maybe sometimes cheat on their test. We don't save a special treatment for them. They all get the exact same treatment and that's what we know. It helps every single kid. It helps those kids that are high performing, that feel the need to keep that fixed mindset in place. I have to be the smart kid and in order to be the smart kid, I'm going to copy this paper because I need to prove I can't lose that standing. So we're super excited by Tools, not Rules, because we think it doesn't just help certain kids. We think it liberates all kids and then it liberates teachers. 13:46 And so when Claudia was talking about her exchange with a student, you know like, okay, tell me what's happening. I want honesty first, and then the kid can say, hey, I'm shirking right now. Okay, amazing. So you immediately shift as a teacher because you're hearing the truth. You're not trying to dig the truth out of like stone, because the kid is already offering you the truth. And we love the truth. We love it. We can feel it in our bodies. Everything about me as a teacher melts open when a kid says yeah, I did say that swear word right to her face because she deserved it, because of this, tell me why. Okay, thank you for your honesty. 14:26 Now there's going to be some accountability. I get why you said it, but the first thing they hear back from us is thank you for your honesty. It doesn't matter what it is, how painful or shocking it is to us. It is God. It took courage. It took courage to say the truth and own it. Now there might be further things we have to do, and we are really. 14:50 We love accountability because we think accountability sets us free. In some ways, too, it allows us to right a wrong we did, but then, because we never follow it up, with shame those kids, we start fresh the next moment that that accountability happens, and so isn't that what we all want? Isn't that? What we all want in life is to be able to say I did this wrong thing, I don't want to do it again. I'd like to change the way I do this, but I don't know how. So, anyhow, we think it's good as adults, we think it's great for kids to model this, and we get feedback from kids later on or in the moment how powerful it can be, and so, yeah, we feel really grateful to be able to talk about this work. So, thank you, lindsay. 15:35 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) I just want to add one more thing. If you get us talking about this, we can't stop. So there's a lot of things out there that say connection with students is so important Connection. You need to connect with your students, okay. So, like Marlene said, when they're honest with you, everything flips. It's like oh, I love you, now we're good, we are so good, we are so square, because I know how to help you and I know that you can trust me, and so there's nothing that replaces that. You know I can do fun activities all day, or let's do this or let's do that. 16:13 But that piece it solidifies something about you and the student and what they trust you'll do, about you and the student and what they trust you'll do. And I also have to say, when the rest of the class sees that happen, no shame, honesty, accountability. There's even celebration and accountability. You did the thing. It was hard, you had to be in detention, but you did it, great job. And so that piece the rest of the students see that and and and. It does something magical to them too, like we're in this situation here and it's different. And maybe it's me too. I can learn too. I can change some of my behaviors. I can. I can excel, possibly, you know. So it opens up something for kids that they might not have sensed or felt before. 16:58 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely. And I just want to say for for listeners, people reading the blog posts and transcript, you know, whoever's engaging with this episode that the book has so many great kind of like a play by play lesson activities of how to roll this out, to create that culture of. We like I, as the teacher, have been there. You raise your hand if you've done this, Like I really appreciated the culture building and the intentionality of those activities, because I could envision someone saying like, oh, I want to do this, but how are, how are they just all of a sudden supposed to be honest, right, but there's like an intentional building of that culture which I really appreciate and feels very practical to me. 17:32 I'm also curious I know, Claudia, you started talking about this, so maybe I don't know if, Marlene, you want to take point on this the first Sabbath, but the three zones you talked about and the and the idea of like color coding and self assessing, which is a huge part of like SEL conversation. So can you talk us through a little bit about what is that? How does that work? 17:51 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) Yeah, you know, I think when we first started, claudia said, oh, we have shirkers, workers and showboaters. That was her first kind of, one of her strokes of genius on the larger program, and we changed it instead of being nouns to verbs, right, and so shirking, working and showboating and those three things, there's three different types of energy between each of those right, and there's been a lot of work prior to this on the zones of regulation. And so we, you know, once we started developing this, we got the three triads of words. You know, someone said, oh, this works really perfectly with the zones of regulation. You know, this behavior is kind of a hotter, energized, kind of coming, moving forward behavior. So we kind of we got that in the orange and the red. And then, you know, and that would have been the showboating, right, like hey, look at me, I need you to pay attention to me. And then with the shirking, that's kind of a pulling inward, it's kind of a moving away energy, and so that's a cooling off energy, right, so that's kind of the blue coloring. And then the working is that green place, that place where, you know, it feels natural, it feels maybe you're working, you're having to put energy forward. But it's not that negative energy, it's like a curious wonder or I can do this. It's finding your grit, it's all of those great words that I think people have talked about. 19:13 And so I think the color coding has been really helpful because you know, and so, lindsay, when Claudia and I talk in general, when we present, we say you know who in the audience tends to go towards those orange hot words, and for sure I raise my hand, I go towards showboating, I go towards aggression, whereas Claudia will often tell the group hey, I go towards the blue words, she pulls back, she goes into passive, she goes into shirking. And so you know, it's a marvel for kids who have been passive in school since kindergarten. That's a question we'll often ask. We'll say when did this start? And that's really helpful for us because we don't take it personally, we depersonalize it that way, and they'll say kindergarten oh, that's a long time. That sounds really painful that you have been in that kind of passive place, and it's liberating for them to talk about. 20:23 So I would just say the colors help us identify kind of the energy that we bring. But we can go to all of those and definitely we all could be in the green. So and that's you know, when we're having conversations with the kids, we'll say, let's say they get stuck. We say, look at the posters, where's your behavior, I don't know. Okay, I want you to just look at the blue words right now, because I have a sense that they're more in those passive behaviors. So I say look at those blue words. What blue word might fit for you right now? So they're great for discussion. They're great for self-awareness. Self-awareness this is work people have done before us. You know, you stand on the shoulders of giants and that's a piece that we've brought into it. So those are my thoughts right now on kind of those zones and the regulation that those bring in. 21:10 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) Yeah, and can I add to you Thanks, marlene, for saying all that. Like Lindsay said, we have all these activities that you do with the students, because one thing we realized is when we shave, a lot of times we can use words like you're being lazy, you're not doing the work. You know, you. And for a lot of students, especially ones that have been a little bit passive since kindergarten, they don't know what we mean when we say you need to start working, you know. So we do activities with the students Like what does it look like when you're shirking? They love to talk about shirking behaviors. What does it look like when you're showboating? They know exactly what it looks like. 21:46 It's hysterical when sixth graders and seventh graders start listing what they do oh, I do this, oh, I do you know. We say we do this, we do this, it's our whole class, we do this because we all can do it to get out of stuff. Or to you know what we're doing. And then we say what does it look like to work? What does that working look like? What do you see happening? And it's sometimes as simple as I have my pencil ready, I um, I, I'm sitting down, I'm looking at the teacher, and it's all generated by them. We don't tell them, we ask them what does it look like, what is it, what's going on for you? 22:25 And so it's not a case where there's a gotcha, where I bring a student over who's been passive since kindergarten and say you need to start working, what can you do? And, and because they have all these choices, like they have processed it as a class, they know what we're talking about. And it can be just this simple change. I think I'll get my pencil out. That's fabulous. Let me help you, right? So it's these tiny steps, and then one step leads to oh, I think I'll get my paper out. Oh, and I can't even tell you how many times now they're starting on the first question. Oh, now they've got two done. Oh, now they're almost done. I've never finished my paper before, you know. So it's it's kind of that whole piece that really helps them feel supported in what they can do. And we, we did a study at Marlene's school and we interviewed students and this cracked me up. One of them said I would just sit and look at the words and think how can I be more assertive? 23:17 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) You know, because we were wondering do the posters matter? 23:20 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) And it's just like they would be like how can I be more assertive? What would that look like, you know? And I was like you're kidding. And they're like, no, I do. No, it means a lot to me that I do those hard things, that I'm serious, I'm assertive and I'm working, and I was like, oh, so that was a great finding. Totally surprised us. 23:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That is so great and I love it. You have a. You made me think of a table in your book where the students are describing each of the zones, but they're also describing the why you might be in each of these zones, which I just love student voice and student words, but they just do a wonderful job of explaining that. So that was a beautiful part of the book. Thank you for including it. 23:59 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) And I, just I I I'm sorry, lindsay, sorry we get talking and oh my gosh, I really apologize for talking over you we get excited. So I just want to say to you about that, that's like the essential piece, the most essential piece, because it's empathy building. So we use the word we why do we get up and go to the nurse? Why do we kick someone out of the table? And so we use we, like Claudia said, because we all put even if we haven't done it, we could potentially do it, we all know we could potentially do it, so that that second chart what does it look like is essential. So then we can like identify oh, I'm doing that thing. And then the why is empathy building. 24:38 Because once you hear kids say things like we do it because we're nervous, we do it because I was told I was stupid, we do it because someone was super mean to me at recess, we do it because I have hated school my whole life, you know, and at first you might not get that kind of honesty, but you as the teacher, your role is to kind of probe a little bit deeper and someone's going to say it and then everyone's going to relax and breathe deeply and say, yes, that is the truth. Because you know, I teach middle school and they love to say it's because your class is so boring. If your class wasn't so boring, and I always go oh, that's passive, aggressive, but it is true, you know, like um, but you've got to dig deeper. Why is it boring? What's happening? And you and you kind of finesse the conversation to get that level of honesty. 25:27 Cause the truth is, a lot of kids are afraid, a lot of kids are hurt, a lot of kids are confused. It goes too fast. They don't know but they don't feel they can say those whys. So when we say those whys and we get some of those whys out tremendous empathy building Because kids then you say who's ever felt confused? Raise your hand, who has ever felt they don't understand what the teacher's doing? Who has ever felt embarrassed because they have no idea what's happening? Okay, so everyone's then just outed themselves and now we have something to work on, you know. So, anyhow, I would add that Thanks for pointing out that Y chart, because that is so essential. That gets us to the honesty right. So that Y chart connects us back to the honesty which creates the only kind of classroom that can support this type of framework. 26:19 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) And, in fact, when we make those lists, it's just reminding me, as they're giving us their ideas. We say thank you for being honest and type it in Thank you for your honesty. That's very honest, thank you so much, thank you so much. And that also creates a sense of oh, that's where we're heading here. It's that space of being honest. 26:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) All right, this is so good. I love all the connections to all the pieces. I have one more kind of big, meaty question and then we'll do a kind of a lightning round, because I know we're a few minutes out from the end. So, star charts Can you talk to us about star charts? I can't remember who started, sorry, claudia, maybe you could start this one for us. Star charts for the kids who, like you, know they just need a little extra. We've been, you know, telling that kid to pick up their pen or do the thing like 100 times or like. Something different needs to happen. 27:16 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) Star charts are the best thing ever, and Marlene and I always say it's not for the kid, it's for us. So just remember, if you put a child on a star chart, you're really putting yourself on a track of positive interaction. Because teachers are tired sometimes. A lot of times they're frustrated, they feel like it's the same behaviors and we kind of can get into this mindset where the child is purposely picking behaviors to annoy us in every moment of every day, and you know it's rough being in there all day. So when we start feeling that way it the star chart what it's for. We're going to say only positive things to you, we're going to notice positive things, and every time I see a positive thing, I'm going to put a signature on these 10 stars. So it takes them 10 stars to earn it and um, so what it activates in you is you've made this little arrangement with the student and sometimes they're like, no, I don't want to do it. And we say, well, we're going to do it, we're going to do it, it's important. And so we um, it's on a clipboard and as soon as the kid walks in, um, you're, you're on time today. Great job, I'm signing to start, you know. 28:37 So it's this kind of moment where we can acknowledge we can see them, we can make a quick connection and we let them know. We see you, we see that you're not all of your behavior. You are different things too, but those things were clouding my perception of you. I couldn't really see you. And it forces you 10 times to see something different about that child. And about the fifth time you're like oh, I can see, I can start to see you and I can start to see you. And then they start saying do I have 10 stars yet Do I get 10 stars? How many stars do I have? And then other you know. So it's really this beautiful way that it trains you to see the good, notice the small things. And then suddenly you see shifts to like oh, they turn their homework in. Well, I'm giving you a start with that and I can't even believe you turned your homework in. And I'm calling your parents too to let them know how excited I am. 29:19 But it's just those small, subtle shifts. You have to like take them, you know, a bit at a time, and that's building that trust, especially in kids who have had awful experiences in classrooms. And so the star chart is so great it works wonders in the classroom and it brings a levity and a happiness to you as you're teaching. That's one thing we talk about in the book Because, you know, feeling happiness, feeling joy while you're teaching that's also something people talk about. 29:48 Let's bring joy back to teaching. When you're having that conversation with a student, that's positive. They are like what? And you give them the star and you're like great job, and you see them shift. That is joyful, that is regeneration of energy in the classroom. That is kind of what we're after and it makes learning happen, you know, and it's great. So star charts and in our book we show you the star chart and also at our website you can see, you can download a star chart for yourself. If you're not going to do anything, do the star chart, because it is key to making those shifts in your classroom, especially with your hardest pants, especially. 30:29 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) Yeah, and I would add, claudia and Lindsay, that it's not that it makes you perfect. What it does is it makes you remember oh that's right, this kid. I need to pay attention in the spin that happens with this kid, because they hear often just negative things. And that's how we introduce the star chart. Hey, I think you hear just a bunch of negative things from me, is that true? Yeah, and they'll tell you and you're like thanks for the honesty. 30:59 Okay, I'm going to do it differently. I'm just going to notice good things about you and they can't believe it because it's always been quid pro quo. These kids often are the same kids or it's a new kid, because they get into a power struggle with you and your personality. But it is not. If you do this, I will do this. It is not, it has nothing to do with that, it just has me. 31:20 Just like Claudia said, she said it perfectly. I'm just going to notice amazing things about you as a human being Because they're there and I'm trying to accomplish something and we're in a power struggle or in some weird dynamic on the things I'm trying to accomplish. But that is not who you are, and so I would just say that that's. It's just so powerful in that regard to actually so I'll find myself on the kid again, I'll find myself self-frustrated again, and then what I remember is oh, they're on a star chart and I'm going to say something positive, and they light up, their souls, feel happier, they can forgive you for getting on them because they know there are things to get on. But when you then can say, hey, you already have six you know, and. 32:07 I'm whispering a lot and we're communicating, so other kids aren't really aware. Kids are kind of aware but they're not, and we go over that in the book why it really works. And kids are happy when other kids are getting help, the ones that struggle. And so I'll just be like you've got six stars and all of a sudden I've shifted again because I've went from kind of hammering them on something because it's hard not to because you're trying to accomplish things, to like, okay, I'm going to feed them back something positive and like, okay, I'm going to feed them back something positive and they, they are in it with you, they are in that positive. 32:36 And, like Claudia said, they say the hardest kids, the ones that feel the most jaded, will come up. You know seventh graders, which are a tough lot. They'll come up and say how many stars do I have? You just can't believe it. When it happens, you think, oh, my God, they remembered and we had a kind of a harder day. But they'll be like it's almost like hey, remember, I'm on this, Remember we're doing this together and it, it's really marvelous. And they get a prize and you can come up with your own prizes. We give you ideas on that and, to Claudia's point, everything we've talked about is on our website, and so you know the supporting materials for the supports for the books, the way to roll it out, a few of these other things that we mentioned, and I know you'll probably point that out for us, Lindsay, but I just wanted to say that again, that these things are on there, these tools. 33:25 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, that's a great segue. So we will link in the show notes to the website, to the book, so folks can get it. Is there anywhere else that folks can connect with you each online? 33:34 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) can get it? Is there anywhere else that folks can connect with you each online? You know, I I will say for myself we have all the things, we have the Instagram and we post nothing. So I want you to know, we're those people Like we like did all the things, and then we're like who's going to do this for us? And Claudia's like I can't and I'm like I don't think I can either, and so who's going to do this for us? 33:55 - Dr. Claudia M. Bertolone-Smith (Guest) And Claudia's like I can't, and I'm like I don't think I can either, and so so, really, it exists, it exists, and that's a step forward. We're challenging ourselves, we're on a star chart for trying to do better. 34:04 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) But you know we're really responsive through the website. So you just send us an email and we will get back to you. We will call you, we can set something up a meeting, whatever. So if you don't mind going to you, we will call you, we can set something up a meeting, whatever. So if you don't mind going to wwwtoolsnotrulescom and getting the conversation started, that would be great for us. Our skill sets isn't developed in that area yet. 34:27 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Awesome, Claudia Marlene. Thank you guys so much for this conversation. It was great. Thank you, Lindsay. 34:33 - Marlene Moyer (Guest) Thank you, lindsay, we enjoyed it. 
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In this episode, we talk with acclaimed author and educator, James Nottingham. His recent book, Teach Brilliantly, explores what will make a dramatic difference to students’ learning with small tweaks all educators can put into practice.
Drawing on years of both classroom experience and hands-on research and writing resources for educators, James brings our focus onto what’s most impactful for students. He emphasizes a shift from traditional questioning to fostering exploration to enhance student engagement. James highlights the importance of embracing challenges through concepts like the Learning Pit model, which encourages students to step out of their comfort zones and develop growth mindsets. The Big Dream James envisions an educational landscape that works for all students. Drawing from his personal—albeit mostly negative—experiences as a student, James envisions a system where all students can thrive, not just the select few. In this, his core focus is how do we make those small tweaks that make a significant difference to reach students who aren’t typically served by the current system. Mindset Shifts Required To create an education system that works for all students, educators can embrace the mindset shift away from managing student behavior to nurturing genuine curiosity and deep thinking. A key part of this is engagement—how do we engage a student body that is more distracted than any other generation? In James’ perspective, the answer is not “engaging” by controlling behaviors, but about engagement as thinking, embracing questions, and encouraging curiosity. Action Steps To engage students in thinking and create open, curious classrooms, here are a few practical steps that James suggests educators implement in their classrooms: Step 1: Swap exploration for evaluation. James shares the typical questioning process as initiation by the teacher > response by the students > evaluation by the teacher. That last piece of evaluation is usually limited to “good” and “bad,” which dis-engages students. Instead, by using a tool like a mini whiteboard, educators can ask students to explore by writing down their ideas and showing them. The teacher can then evaluate those responses privately, allowing them to come up with the appropriate follow-up questions. Step 2: Embrace exploration in dialogue. Similar to questioning, exploration is important in dialogue and conversation in the classroom. Encourage students to not rush through tasks, but use phrases like, “Yes, but what about…” or “Could you give me an example of that?” Remind students that they’re not responsible for agreeing with each other, there’s room for conversation and exploratory talk. Step 3: Introduce the Learning Pit model to help students understand and embrace the challenges of learning. James created this model in the mid-90s, and it has been influential since then. When introducing it to new students, he would explain that success is not straightforward, but takes time, effort, determination, etc., and we must go through challenges and get outside our comfort zones to get to success. The learning pit, then, is the place you are in when you take “two steps forward, one step back.” For a time, you may be “worse,” but that is the progress of learning. When you’re in the learning pit, it gets worse before it gets better and you have a choice to either quit or figure out how to get out—which always brings a sense of accomplishment and growth. This concept guides students through the discomfort of growth and towards self-efficacy. One Step to Get Started Begin by exploring James’ different practical tips and tweaks for your classroom and choose one to try out. You don’t have to do everything to start, but can begin with what resonates and what may make the biggest difference to your teaching practice now. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on his website, Learning Pit, or grab a copy of James’ book, Teach Brilliantly. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing graphics to make your own learning pit with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 233 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) James, welcome to the time for teachership podcast it's an absolute delight to join you. 00:08 - James Nottingham (Guest) Thank you for the invitation. 00:09 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I'm really, really thrilled about your book, so I have it here teach brilliantly. It's so good. Um, I think, knowing that that's kind of the context for our conversation today, is there anything you want listeners to kind of know about the book in general or about your work yourself, as we jump into our conversation today? 00:27 - James Nottingham (Guest) It's my 12th book. My first book was called Challenging Learning and I published that in 2010. And back then it was a collection of the key ideas that I'd come across as a teacher that helped me to get the most learning out of my students, the best progress for my students, and so I shared those ideas back then. After that, I took one topic per book and went deeply into it. So, for example, feedback or growth mindset or the learning pit, which is a model that I created. I took one theme and go and went deeply. Then this 12th book is, in effect, full circle and back to okay, if I had an elevator moment now, it's a very, very, very long elevator If you're going to cover everything that I've covered in the book, but it's if you want to know what will make a dramatic difference to students' learning, with little tweaks, not wholesale change, not huge great big projects, but just small, little tweaks that I can put into practice, that you can put into practice the very next time we're in the classroom with our students. Then that's what it's all about, and I've spent 30-something years in teaching. 01:59 I still teach to this day. I work with researchers such as Carol Dweck, such as John Hattie I and spent a lot of time with both of those on tour for many years. So I look at research, I look at practice. I'm always focused on okay, yes, but how does this translate into our teaching practice, into our classrooms? And one of the things I do a lot is demonstration lessons. Give me any students, any class of kids, so long as they're happy to speak English with me, then I'll work with them and I'll demonstrate any of these techniques working with your students, and then we can talk about it afterwards. So that's my focus really is how do we tweak things a little bit such that it has a big impact on our student learning? 02:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That blend of researcher and practitioner is so present in the book, the distillation of all of the meta-analyses, all of the research it is so beautifully written about. And also you don't ever feel like as a reader, I never felt that you weren't in it. You know that you weren't in front of classrooms all the time thinking about the practicalities and it just comes through so beautifully. So I really appreciate that, because sometimes we lean really far into one or the other, and it was, it was a beautiful blend. So thank you. 03:18 - James Nottingham (Guest) No, thank you for saying that. Actually, when one of my books was the first one to be translated into Norwegian I do a lot of work in Scandinavia and they really struggled to place it because they said we have the academic research books and we have the practical, nice little planning books, but we don't have this thing in the middle. And they struggled to find the voice with it and they went for the third person in the end and I said no, no, I'm sorry, that just doesn't work for me. This is me talking to my colleagues. Um, and albeit I might not have met these colleagues, we're all colleagues in the teaching profession and that's what I want it to be. And this is what I've learned by hanging out with researchers and this is what I've learned by hanging out in the classroom for that long. And here you go, dear colleague, this is what I've learned by hanging out in the classroom for that long. 04:11 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) And here you go, dear colleague, this is what I found out. Yeah, I absolutely loved that tone. I felt like I was, you know, I was in there with you, I think, taking kind of a big step back from the book and just thinking broadly across your years of experience. I like to ask about freedom, dreaming. So Dr Bettina Love talks about this as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, and so I'm curious what is that big dream that you hold for the field of education? 04:38 - James Nottingham (Guest) Let's start with a small question, shall we Goodness me Right in in there? What's the meaning of life? Well, here we go. Yeah, okay, so can I just have another sip of coffee? Absolutely, yeah, well, I think, um, I do feel as if I'm on a bit of a mission. 05:00 Um, I hated school myself as a student. You probably tell from my accent. I'm from the UK and we have a system primary and secondary or primary and high school and we switch at the age of 11. And so I went from a small little primary school with a couple of hundred students to to me, it was a big high school with a couple of thousand students to, to me, it was a big high school with a couple of thousand students. I know, if you're listening from Texas, you just think that's tiny little thing. But 2,000 to me was a lot. 05:33 And two months after I started high school, my mother died and I, and then my, my father, was sent off to the Falklands War, which was a bit of a skirmish between the UK and Argentina at the time, and so my sister was farmed off to some neighbors and I was home alone and, funnily enough, I acted up at school. I suppose pop psychology would be. I was looking for a bit of attention, you know. I suppose pop psychology would be. I was looking for a bit of attention, you know. And as so often happens, my peer group labelled me the class clown and my teachers labelled me as naughty. And I kind of lived to both of those labels and played up to them. And I got expelled from one of the high schools actually, and I went to another one. And high schools actually that I and I went to another one, and so it got worse and worse and worse. And the very best day of my childhood was the day I left school, you know. So I didn't think for a moment that I would ever want to go back, um, but um, I didn't have any qualifications, so I ended up going into pig farming, turns out. That's quite a hard job and I'm not cut out for that. And then I went into a chemical factory. That was even worse. 06:53 And then a friend of mine said he was going to Cape Town to do some work in some of the squatter camps outside of Cape Town, and this was the very, very end of apartheid. This was 1989. And in fact we were outside Victor Vestaire prison in February 1990 when Nelson Mandela was released. So it was quite a time of it, and when we were there we did lots and lots of different voluntary jobs, and one was in a school and I found my place. I thought this is amazing, I want to be there, I want to work with kids. 07:34 And when I got back to the UK, I got a job as a teaching assistant in a school for deaf children and loved it and thought that's what I'd be doing forevermore. But then it was every head of faculty was a Catholic nun. I think they probably saw the 666 on the back of my head and they said look, james, you should really leave. Oh, thanks very much. I thought I was doing a good job and they said well, you are, but we think you should be a teacher. 08:01 And so I went into teaching with that sense that teaching education does work for many. Problem is it doesn't work for all. When I think about my friends, a lot of them did well at school and they had the same teachers and they're in the same school. So why did it work for them and it didn't work for me? And so I I realised that if we started with a clean slate, we would build something very different these days for education than exists today, but I'm not so pessimistic as to think that this is entirely broken. And therefore, what can we do? And what's the point? It's like trying to put up a tent in in a hurricane. You know why bother? Well, actually, it does work very well for a lot of students. 08:55 Problem is, it doesn't work for all, and so my focus is how do we, as I tweak things a little bit to make a significant difference to all of our students? 09:08 And we were talking before we started recording about that idea of equity and one of the things that I found when going through the meta-analyses again and again and again, I see this message that this works for all students, and particularly for vulnerable students or bilingual students or at risk students or those who come from poverty, and so so these are the things that there are things we can do. Now, of course, there's a lot of things outside of our power that we can't do, but as a teacher, we have got a tremendous influence on young people and we ought to use that for good, and I believe that there are things we can do that will make a difference, and that's what I've been pursuing. That's, that's, that's really. Let's make it a better educational experience than the one I mean. I don't want to put it on a website, make it better than it was for James Nottingham. No, it's just let's make it better for as many students as we possibly can sharing your life story and your goal. 10:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I'm really really grateful to you for your vulnerability, both in the book and on here, in sharing your story, because I think, as you said in the book, you know, stories are what we remember and we connect to, and so when we're teaching, you know, remember that. But this is also kind of an illumination of that principle. It's just like people, listeners and folks who are engaging with episode will engage. So thank you for that and let's dive into some pieces of that book. So I love that you start with engagement as one of the first kind of meaty chapters and you think about kind of this idea of exploratory talk was really, really interesting to me. So I'm curious if you could talk to us a little bit about, you know, engagement, but specifically even the exploratory talk what is it, what is it different from? And then maybe we can get into some of the strategies for thinking in that chapter which I really got excited about. 11:11 - James Nottingham (Guest) So engagement? I think often we we talk about engagement that students aren't engaged. They're not as engaged as they used to be, and I think that is probably correct. Albeit, every generation, I think, complains about the next generation, and we've all done it, and our parents complained about it, and our grandparents, and so on, so on, so on. I'm sure everybody's always complained about the youth of today. But I do think it's right that we are facing a student body who have so many more distractions than they ever had before. And how on earth do we engage them? I worry that engagement is often sort of morphed into behavior. How do we get them to behave? And of course we need them to behave. 12:02 But I think that's a different category altogether, because engagement is whatever you are thinking about. So, those of you listening to this podcast, if your mind is drifted, then you're no longer engaged. If you're thinking, where am I driving, or what am I having for tea tonight, or you know you, all of a sudden, you're not engaged tonight. Or you know you, all of a sudden, you're not engaged. You, um lindsay, you mentioned that you, you're a voracious reader. Let's say you sit in a cafe and you're reading. Everybody around you if they glanced over at you, they would assume that you were engaged in that book. 12:38 But let's say, as you are reading, your mind drifts someone, someone says something else. You give the impression of engaging, but actually you engage in something entirely different, and so my premise is engagement is thinking. Now I also have strategies for helping kids to behave. But if we're talking engagement, engagement is thinking, then that leads to the next bit how are we better able to engage students thinking? And that's through. The number one strategy, of course, is questioning, and, as you'll have seen, I went into questioning quite a lot because we use questioning all the time, and early estimates had it at between 300 and 400 questions per day. More recent ones are between 100 and 350 per day. 13:29 But it's still a lot of questions we're asking every single day. I mean, no wonder we go home and say don't talk to me. And the problem is the questioning style that we tend to use is initiate, respond, evaluate. That is, I ask a question, that's initiate. I give a nod, I give a gesture, I ask a question. That's initiate. Response is students give something back and that's fine. 13:57 But the last bit, evaluate. That's where it goes wrong, because we typically say very good, well done or no, that's not right. Goes wrong because we typically say very good, well done or no, that's not right. And since students work out very quickly, okay, there's going to be public evaluation here. It tends to reduce engagement to one third because students start to think only say something if you know, you've got the right answer. Now, of course, if you're talking kindergarten, they're all just shouting out anyway, you know. But I'm talking about the older kids. The older they get, the more judicious they are in their decision-making and the more likely they are to think now, have I absolutely got it right? Even if I have got it right, is it the right thing to say, because people might make fun of me this culture in this classroom is not conducive to being willing, and so on and so on. There's all that sort of stuff going on in their head, and so the evaluative approach, even as simple as yes, very good, well done leads us to lose engagement of students. It actually reduces it to one third. 15:09 If and here's one of those an example of a tweak if we change it from evaluation to exploration, then the evidence is that lifts it to two thirds. Now it's still not perfect, but I have yet to come across a perfect pedagogical strategy, but two-thirds, of course you think all right, all right, there's a good starting point for me. And exploration means I don't evaluate publicly. Now, privately, I'm still thinking where in the hell did you get that idea from? But I'm not giving any of that away, I'm just oh, that's interesting, can you tell me more? And I piece that together with mini whiteboards. I mean that's a a strategy that you'll have seen come very strongly through the book, that I honestly truly haven't come across a piece of equipment in a classroom that makes as big a difference as a mini whiteboard. Because if I go for hands up, I might get, let's say, one third of the kids volunteering, maybe, maybe half, if I'm really really, really lucky, if I go for cold calling, okay, you at at the back, you at the front okay, then I get different kids. 16:30 But if I go for mini whiteboards and use the language to go with it and it needs to be exploratory what do you think it might be? Put down, some of your one or two of your ideas? Stare with your neighbor and then, together, put down a thought, work this out on your whiteboards and, when you're ready, show me. And that tends to get way, way, way more responses. And now what I can do? 16:58 I can look around and I'm privately evaluating because I'm thinking, okay, yeah, most of them have got this, a few haven't. I wonder why those few haven't. Is it that they are rabbits in the headlights? Is it because they weren't listening? Is it because they were just all over? Or is it that they actually really don't know? So I need to maybe ask another question to check it out. 17:20 So I'm doing lots of evaluation, but it's not public, no-transcript. I need to ask questions that will find out their reasoning for that, because it might be they just got lucky, it might be that they saw it on the wall, it might be that they've just been told it by a different teacher. I want to know is it that or is it that they knew it because they thought about it, because they'd reasoned and so and so the exploratory approach is very, very, um, much more productive. It leads to much better gains and I saw this in the research and I thought, well, let me try it in practice. And honestly, I just think it's transformed my teaching practice. It really, really has. I mean, to start with, the kids were like well, why isn't he telling us? Well, what's wrong with him? Why is he grumpy? Today I had to say listen, when I don't respond, it's not because I'm not interested, it's because I'm thinking about it and wondering and seeing what else we can ask to find out more. So that's exploratory in terms of questioning. And then there's exploratory in terms of dialogue. 18:52 And one of the things that I like to do with a new group of students is when you get them into groups, and we typically do get them into groups at different times. Problem is, most kids haven't learned how to collaborate very effectively, and so I will give them a task to do, and partway through the task, most often they've kind of rushed to get it done, and I'll pause them and I say now if you have finished or pretty much finished? If you have finished or pretty much finished, I'm sorry to say you've probably been using cumulative talk. And what I mean by cumulative talk is somebody says something and somebody else says, oh yes, very good, that's nice. And then somebody adds to it and it's all very lovely and it's all very friendly, but it doesn't lead to much critical thinking. And I want you to engage in critical thinking. 19:46 Now, of course, if I'm working with younger students, I adapt the language a bit. I might say something like it's not your job to agree with each other. Now, that's not to say I want you to have a fight or an argument, but it is your job to help each other to think more. And by that I mean I want you to use phrases such as ah, yes, but what about? Or could it be? Or could you give me an example of that? Or I was wondering about. So it's not dismissing their ideas, and you're certainly going to continue to be respectful and a good listener, certainly going to continue to be respectful and a good listener, but your response ought to be exploring their ideas rather than simply agreeing with their ideas. 20:33 It's a little bit like Goldilocks porridge. There's porridge that's just a little bit too warm and that's cumulative. It's just very, very nice, but there's not a lot of thinking, it's just about being nice and getting the job done. Then there's porridge that's just a little bit too cold, that's disputational and that's ego-driven and it's point scoring and who can be the wittiest or the cleverest? And then there's porridge that's just right and that's exploratory talk. And again, the research bears this out. And so I thought okay, let me try it. And I've been developing it more and more and more with my students, and goodness me what a difference it makes in terms of the depth of their thinking. 21:16 Now we have to also be willing for some groups not to finish quote-unquote, because all too often in lessons, as we well know, it's about industry, it's about getting the job done, and if I might bounce for my final response to that question is a bounce to the difference between setting high expectations and setting low expectations. Between setting high expectations and setting low expectations, a classic symptom of low expectations is make sure you finish your work, whereas a classic symptom of high expectations is make sure you understand this. That's a big difference, isn't it? Now, of course, in the high expectations. They're still going to be doing things, but the emphasis is on am I remembering it, am I understanding it, am I connecting it? What questions do I have? Whereas with low expectations is have I finished? 22:21 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, I love the almost like permission that you're granting to students when you're like yeah, no, agreeing is actually not super helpful to anyone. Your job is to ask questions and to push your thinking and to think more. I just, I think as a student, I am definitely like a people pleaser, I think, and it would have been so nice for a teacher to be like no, actually that's not your job. I am a rule follower, so I would have listened to that. Right, ok, I'm going to ask questions, I'm going to push back. I think a lot of students, particularly the students who succeed in traditional school, like just try to like okay, check done. You're right, like you said, low expectations actually to just finish the work, and it's such a push to be like no, I want you to explore that more and so many people are unfamiliar with it, but I mean, I was a former high school teacher that you've done school this particular way for so long. 23:08 To kind of unlearn takes some time, but how worth it would it be to do that? 23:13 - James Nottingham (Guest) It's incredible. Yeah, yeah, I did a demonstration lesson south side of Chicago. It would be less than two years after Covid began, because we're all still wearing masks and you probably have no problem understanding the accent. But I'm thinking, what on earth are these kids saying? And they had masks on as well and I'm like blinking, eh. 23:36 And it was in grade nine class and I was getting them doing some collaborative work and I'm thinking, do I just let them get on with it and then pretend that I understand what they're saying when I don't? But anyway, there was that classic thing of a few groups just kind of got it done. And even more classic was that it was typically one kid did it and the other two, three, four kids just kind of went along with it. And so I introduced what I've just shared with you and I use those three terms as cumulative there's disputation and there's exploratory, and I linked it to Goldilocks Porridge and so on. And they were nodding. Well, I think they were nodding Maybe they're nodding off, but they seem like they're interested and I said, right, have another go and this time be more exploratory. 24:30 And it's funny because one of the guys who is obviously a very dominant character in the class generally, and he was definitely leading his group. He says, well, I think we've all been very cumulative, haven't we? Of course, they all agreed with him in a cumulative way. And he says let's be more exploratory. But and I thought, isn't he just like being sarcastic here? But actually he was being genuine in it and it really did lead to because he says, right, I'm going to stop now. What do you think? You know? Come back at me, right, what questions do we have for her? What questions could we ask of him? And that I I thought isn't that fascinating in, and it was just a 40 minute lesson and that pivot that was so noticeable. Yeah, it was lovely that's brilliant. 25:17 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I I love that story. Thank you for sharing that because I could envision that in many of the classes that I taught, if I had just had the language they'd be like oh yeah, and I love the strategies. 25:24 - James Nottingham (Guest) I'm looking at my notes here. You have so many and folks should get the of the classes that I taught. 25:26 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) If I had just had the language, they'd be like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love the strategies. I'm looking at my notes here. You have so many and folks should get the book and truly explore them. But kind of like the sense of ranking, like the inner researcher in me is like thinking of like a QSort or something no-transcript, and I love the question section. But beyond even just asking the verbal question is like here's some stuff, here's some concepts, here's some terms Like play with that, explore that. It's really cool and totally would rework, I think, how a lot of teachers plan their lessons in a positive way. 26:15 - James Nottingham (Guest) Yeah, yeah, there's lots and lots of strategies that I've come across. There's one or two in the book that I've invented, so to speak, but most of them are just brilliant practical strategies that I've come across, so to speak. But most of them are just brilliant practical strategies that have come across in teaching in different countries. And you mentioned ranking. I mean it's just a lovely, lovely, lovely strategy, you know. So a good example I was working with a district in Wyoming a few months ago and I mean I work a lot in Australia and I thought Australia had some remote areas. This place in Wyoming, it took four hours to drive in a straight line from Salt Lake City and for the last three hours there was no mobile phone reception at all and I passed like three cards in three hours, you know, and there was just cows everywhere. I was just like where on earth am I? Anyway, I got there and I did this ranking thing. I said, right, okay, in groups, could you get a piece of paper, rip it up into nine little slips. On each slip of paper will you write a job or a profession. And they did that and I said now rank them. And the classic thing that students do kind of well, you can't rank them. But many groups said, yeah, fine, let's get on with it. And they ranked them. You know, and of course, being in Wyoming, it was like the life or death. You know, who do you rely on for life? And, of course, who do you rely on for life? And of course, guess what? Cowboy was at number one, you know, and teacher was at the bottom. But anyway, there was this and I said, okay, if you've, and I only gave them a few minutes and then I paused them and I did what I mentioned a few moments ago, that okay, if you have managed to rank them, I would gently suggest you've been involved in cumulative talk, which means da-da-da-da-da. Now I want you to get into exploratory talk. The energy in the room changed so much and they started questioning and challenging each other, and so then you do that with children. 28:20 So let's say, in an elementary classroom you get them to think of some characters in a book that they've been reading. I mean, if we stick with a Goldilocks porridge for a minute, you have the three bears and Goldilocks, there's four. And how do you rank them? But you don't tell them how to Say I want you to rank them and they're like, well, how? And I say, well, that's a good question. And they're like, yeah, but can you answer it then? No, I want you to think about it, have a think. What are some of the ways in which you could rank them? Older students might be could still stick with literature for a minute and take Shakespearean characters and rank them, but you don't tell them the criteria for ranking them, because you want them to think about that as well, you know. So it's this permission to think. I think that's what, what the purpose is totally. 29:14 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I, yeah, that's. It's awesome. I love how these illuminate to your. Their last story just really illuminates how multiple strategies and approaches can be kind of combined. They they're like very cumulative right. You create this class culture. Now you could do this thing. Now we introduce the idea of exploratory. It's so, so great. I think I'm looking at time like wow, the time has gone by very fast. But I would love to get into this concept of challenge. I mean, you've done so much. The learning pit is classic right in education. So I wonder if you can kind of talk us through kind of that culture of challenge and the learning pit model, if you don't mind, just so we can kind of think about how that plays into the culture that these discussions are happening in. 29:52 - James Nottingham (Guest) Ideally, Sure, yeah. So I created the learning pit in the mid-90s and it's probably worth me sharing with you how I introduced it to a new group of students, and these are the sorts of messages that I give them. I'm sorry to say that success is not straightforward. I wish it was, but it's not. If it were straightforward, every single one of us would be as successful as we want to be. I would be multilingual, for example, I'd be able to play the guitar like Jimi Hendrix. I can't do any of those. 30:22 Reason is because to become really, really successful, it takes time, it takes effort, determination, it takes good strategy or strategies, it takes some brilliant teaching, it takes a bit of luck. There's all sorts of things that contribute towards becoming more successful. What we do know is the first step, always, always, always. The first step in becoming more successful is to step out of your comfort zone. There's no choice about it, because if you stay in your comfort zone, well, it's nice, it's a nice place to be. It's a bit of a giveaway in the name comfort zone, you know, I like it. But to become more successful, I necessarily have to go beyond where I am right now, and so then, when I step out of my comfort zone, I'm going to encounter a performance dip. That's what psychologists for decades have called it a performance dip. And then I do this with students and it's a good way to illustrate it with students and that is could you all pick up a pen and will you write out your full name? Now will you put your pen in your other hand and write out your full name again and of course there's always a bit of laughter about that and so on. And now show the person next to you your two attempts and hope that they don't laugh at them too much. Did you notice your second attempt looks worse than your first and that's a performance dip, because you've gone from what was comfortable writing with your dominant hand to what was uncomfortable writing with your weaker hand. Did you also notice how much more effort it took, how awkward it felt? 32:08 Those are the sensations associated with learning, and my job as a teacher is actually to create those sensations in the classroom. I don't want you to feel socially uncomfortable, emotionally uncomfortable. I don't want that, but intellectually I want you to be uncomfortable. I want you to feel awkward. I want you to feel like you're putting in loads of effort and it's looking worse at the moment, and that's the key. It's not. It's looking worse full stop. It's looking worse at the moment. 32:43 And then this is when I draw out the learning pit. I say to them typically people talk about success, as you just need to keep taking steps towards where you want to get to, towards your goal, and so that sounds lovely. But more often than not, you take one or two steps and then you get worse before you get better. And I say this to the students I'm going to let you into a secret. When I ask teachers to do exactly what you've just done write with your dominant hand, and then you write with your weaker hand. Their handwriting looks terrible. And then I ask them how many of you are ambidextrous? How many of you can write equally well with both hands? And I promise you this there's normally about one or two teachers in the room, that's it. All the others can't, and everyone who can't is a quitter. They quit. Now, that's not me making fun of them, it's me talking about what is human. We quit with so many things because you just can't do everything, and so what we do is we prioritize. And since we prioritize, what it means is we quit with lots of things and you will find yourself in what I call the learning pit, because I draw it out and it looks like it gets worse before it gets better. 34:03 And when you find yourself in that learning pit, there are two main solutions. Number one is quit, just think it's not worth it. Number two is work out how to get through it. Is it the strategy? Is it the approach? Is it the way you're collaborating? Is it a different question you need to ask Is it a resource that you're missing? Is it some bit of information that you need? Is it that you need some advice from someone? But there are lots and lots and lots of ways to help you through the pit, and my job is to help you to get into the pit, but also to give you advice about things you can do to get out of the pit. 34:44 And now let's get to the good news. The good news is, if you are willing to work through the pit and out the other side, I promise you you will feel so much more accomplished than if you'd given up. We all do that, all of us. We quit, it's quick, but if we persevere and go through and out the other side, we know that sensation of feeling so good about ourselves because we think I figured it out, I did it, I persevered and I got here. And that's what makes it worthwhile. And then, when you get out of the pit, you think to yourself I figured it out. And since I figured it out this time, I bet you I can figure it out again and again, and again and again. And, incidentally, that notion of I can figure it out is self-efficacy, that belief that I can influence things. And so the idea of challenge is we have to create this sense in our classroom, that challenge is a good thing in a learning situation. Now, challenge crossing the road is not a good thing, but challenge in the classroom is a good thing and it's what helps us to grow. And we have to learn how to get through this pit and out the other side. And it's about I think the final thing worth mentioning is it's about the purpose. It's the purpose is to improve. 36:21 You see, the next time you get on a flight, what would you think if the pilot says well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is my maiden voyage, but listen, we all have to learn sometimes. So if you wouldn't mind, please buckle up. It's going to be somewhat of a bumpy ride. I suppose all of us would be like, can we get off, please? Because what we want is that pilot to have done so many, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of training hours that she or he could land the plane upside down on the hudson river. You know, we want them to be that expert such that they find flying the plane easy. So when I'm on the plane with them, when they have got passengers, don't take risks, just perform brilliantly. But please, please, please. At pilot school and in your professional learning, please, please, please, go on those simulators, try lots of things, work it out. What, if? What about? Could we? And that's what schooling ought to be like. 37:24 It's not performing, it's the learning phase, and so that we're ready to perform in exams or on the sports field, or in the on the stage, or playing in the band or something you know, it's rehearsals, ready for performance, and it's we really, really, really need our students to be much, much more willing to go for challenge in the learning situation. Not the crossing the road situation, but the learning situation. That's the key to it. And what I worry about is there is a meta-analysis that I share in the book covering 42 studies that show when we give kids choice, they learn less. They learn less when given choice, not because choice is a bad thing, but because most kids, when given choice, pick the easier option. 38:15 Not because they're lazy, but because they think that's what we want them to do, because they have noticed that when they get things right, we praise them and we say very good, well done, and when they don't get things right, we say try harder. Well, what we want them to think is we encourage them to be out of their comfort zone, or what I call in the learning pit, and I need to adjust my praise for that. So if they find something straightforward and easy, I need to say well, you find it really easy, let's make it more interesting. If they are struggling, that's when I need to give them loads of praise. You do brilliantly. I'm so impressed that you're keeping going with this, that look of determination, how about? And then you offer them a strategy or an idea. I've got to make challenge much, much, much more a common feature of the classroom, much, much more a common feature of the classroom. 39:06 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, oh my gosh, I'm glad you brought up the choice piece around challenge, cause I'm all about my, my background is in student voice and I'm like, yeah, let's co-create as much as possible, and that's exactly it. It's like it's not inherently bad. It is the choice that they're making is because of this culture of schooling that we've we've done, so I love the praise adjustment as the kind of a response to that, and I'm also looking at time, so I'll wrap up here, but I want to just name the 80-20 split, which I think was a really good one too, that you named right, it's like they can't be in challenge mode 100% of the time. 39:39 Right, it's about 20%, that is ideal for 80% successful, so that was a new learning for me that I really appreciate Okay good, good, good, good. 39:48 - James Nottingham (Guest) And it's the purpose. Where are we now? I don't want them to feel challenged in an exam hall or on the stage or in an interview. I want them to think this is my time to shine, to show what I'm capable of, to show what I've learned. But in the classroom I want them to be out of their comfort zone. I want them to be exploring and wondering and making mistakes and then learning from those mistakes, because that's the learning part. 40:18 Ready for the performance, let the pilots make all the mistakes in the world on the simulators and then perform brilliantly. You know, that's what we're trying to do with our kids. And if the pilots are like, oh no, I just want to show you how brilliant I am at landing the plane on the simulator, well, what are they learning from that? And yet when we see kids do things like that, so often we praise them and we say very good, well done. I'm thinking, for goodness sake, if it's the learning situation, they need to be out of their comfort zone. If they're in the performance situation, then let's see what they're capable of absolutely. 40:58 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love your, um, your adjustment to, uh, putting up work as like, don't put up the final product, put up like the butterfly. Example of like. Here is the stages of the drawing. Here is the progress that I made. It's such a bigger thing to celebrate that than like. What did the final work look like? 41:13 - James Nottingham (Guest) Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, don't just put that final pieces of work on the wall. Also put the earlier iterations. Yeah. 41:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Love that. All right, a final question from question from you. Well, final two mini, kind of really fast ones, lightning round what's one thing you would encourage listeners to do when they end the episode. So we've talked about a ton of strategies, what might be like a good starter or like the most impactful thing to like do tomorrow um, goodness me, you start and finish with a list of questions. 41:46 - James Nottingham (Guest) Oh yeah, I mean anything that you've heard that you, that interests you, that tickles your fancy really, because we're all at different places in our career and all got different interests and we're all teaching different age groups and different subjects. 41:59 So it's it's really uh, what makes, what do you suppose will make the biggest difference, a to your teaching and therefore B to the students' learning outcomes? Which is why this book Teach Brilliantly is quite an eclectic mix, although I think it hangs together very well, if I might say so. I mean, you know there's a very strong thread going through, but there's lots and lots and lots of things and I don't anticipate that people will read it cover to cover. You're self-excluded from that. I can't believe it that you read it cover to cover. But most of the time it's about dip in and find, ooh, ooh, I'm interested in feedback, or that's interesting about challenge, or that exploratory talk or that questioning, you know, and just pick something that you think, yeah, I can imagine having a go at that, and then say play with it. You know ready, play refine. 42:56 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love it. And then, finally, people are going to get the book, so I'm going to drop a link in the show notes and the blog post for this episode. But also, where do people connect with you? Where's a good place to follow your future work? 43:06 - James Nottingham (Guest) um, so um. Best one is my website, learningpitorg just as it sounds um learningpitorg. Yep, and I'm there um, but teach brilliantly through solution tree, and they've got information about me on the solution tree website as well excellent. 43:25 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) james James, thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciate it. 43:28 - James Nottingham (Guest) It's been a delight, and thanks for those huge questions. I mean, typically I only answer those questions when I've got beer in my hand. But you know, there we are, thank you. 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this solo episode of the "Time for Teachership" podcast, we explore strategies and protocols for student-led discussions, especially those that are controversial or high-emotion topics. We draw on insights from experts who have appeared on previous episodes of the podcast, including Dr. Chad Dumas, Dr. Laura Lipton, and Carolyn McKanders.
The goal here is to equip educators with practical strategies to prepare and facilitate student-led discussions that are productive and engaging. Tip #1: Set up the foundational culture Drawing from Dr. Dumas’ research (guest on episode 231), it’s key to understand that there is no trust without dialogue. In both student-teacher relationships and student-to-student relationships, healthy dialogue and trust are built on the concept of psychological safety. Teachers may consider doing a climate survey to understand whether there is psychological safety present and how to adjust if not. Here are some guiding questions:
Dr. Dumas also emphasizes accountability for upholding co-created norms and agreements. While we often identify those things, the accountability piece is harder. One of Dr. Dumas’ ideas is to randomly assign different students to break the agreement to see if the class will hold them accountable. Set up the process at the beginning and emphasise how important it is to maintain accountability in the classroom. Tip #2: Design conversations with purpose Drawing from Dr. Laura Lipton’s episode (#220), educators can embrace the concept of being purposeful with conversations and designing them with intention. This is important for any conversation, but even more so for class discussions around challenging topics. One key way to design conversations with purpose is to understand the different types of discourse. Dr. Lipton identifies three that allow educators to move through to create intentional conversations in their classrooms:
While these can all be whole-group discourses, you can also break students into smaller groups to have in-depth conversations that everyone gets to engage in. Tip #3: Facilitate the conversation in your class Drawing from our conversation with Carolyn McKanders in episode 221, there are some tips on how to facilitate the actual conversation in real time. Educators can:
Make sure to go check out the episodes featuring Dr. Dumas, Dr. Lipton, and Carolyn McKanders to dive deeper into these tips and strategies to prepare for and facilitate student-led conversations. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Co-Creating Class Agreements slide deck with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 232 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Hello and welcome to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. I am delighted to tell you that this episode is going to be implications for student-led discussions, based on the brilliant experts we had on the podcast for our July series and I think one actually aired last week in October on facilitation of teachers and teacher groups, and so I'm really excited to think about how these adult-level strategies and protocols are going to work with our students, particularly around discussing controversial or high-emotion topics. Here we go. The first idea is from Dr Chad Dumas, whose book we talked about in last week's episode and was all about kind of supporting teacher teams. Now, what I want to pull from that book that is relevant for students, I think, is to set up the foundational culture. So if you want more on the things he says, check out episode 231. He talks about a Paulo Freire quote. That's basically, like you know, we can't have trust without dialogue, and that is so critical. This idea of trust and student-teacher relationships is so common, but also student-to-student relationships is so common in what we talk about. But how do we do it right To be able to have dialogue? We often say we need trust, but that's a wonderful kind of flipping the idea on its head to say we actually need dialogue in order to have trust. So let's do it. Let's show the kids, let's show ourselves right that we can do this thing and we can do it right. I love that. 01:32 He defines Dr Dunas defines Edmondson's psychological safety term right Psychological safety being the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns. One will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes and the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. He has a bunch of items that I think you could kind of use for a climate survey, just to kind of note whether or not you know you have the presence of psychological safety, and so you can kind of itemize this for your students to determine you know, do I have these or not? Is this present in our environment? So I'll read some of those to you now, if I make a mistake on this team, it's not held against me, right, I would say, of this class. Right, members of the class are able to bring up problems and tough issues. We're able to accept others for being different. It's safe to take risk here. It's not difficult to ask other members for help. No one would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts and when working with others, my unique skills and talents are valued and utilized. So I mean, think about that for students. Are those things present? Also, thinking about a particular action that Dr Davis talks about, I loved this tip and we talked about it in episode 231, but I just really love it. For students. 02:49 We often talk about, you know, norm or agreement generation and co-creating those with students. But how do we maintain accountability for things like this? It is so hard to have even adults remain accountable to the things that they co-created, that they agreed to live out in discussion, remain accountable to the things that they co-created, that they agreed to live out in discussion. So his suggestion is that you randomly assign agreements to break to different students throughout the year. Right, and that's a way to test if students are going to hold them accountable. And I think you could even say to students you know I'm going to randomly assign students to break these so we never know if it's like someone's actually breaking the agreement or if it's just they were told to break the agreement, which also, I think, lessens the I don't know tension or people pleasing attitudes of like, oh, I don't want to correct a student or this feels uncomfortable, like, well, it's part of assessing our ability to hold each other accountable. So love those ideas from Dr Chad Dumas and again, this is episode 231 if you want more on his ideas for facilitating teacher teams. 03:48 Dr Laura Lipton we talked to in episode 220. And for this I want to pull some ideas around designing the conversation with purpose. So the biggest thing I think that we really parsed apart in that conversation and is really really important, both for adult planning of meetings and PD, but also for students, what we would often call, like you know, like a class discussion, but students' conversations in the classroom. We need to know what the purpose is and then we're going to design accordingly, right? So I think let's parse apart her definitions and I think we can figure out how best to move forward once we know what our goal for the conversation is. 04:28 So three types of kind of discourse she says One is dialogue. So this is the non-consensus model. You just want a lot of ideas. Every idea is kind of welcome, right, we're just brainstorm mode and we're cultivating a spirit of inquiry by sharing everybody's voice, everybody's perspective. It's not about agreeing with each other. But we're really in seeking to understand mode. So we might really have some questions to just make sure that we get what all of the ideas are. We're not saying I like that or I don't like that, but we're just kind of okay, here's all the things that are possible. If we are, for example, generating ideas for a civic action project, if we are trying to grapple with a really sticky, interesting, compelling question or essential question for an inquiry circle, for example, like let's get it all out, what are our initial ideas? Okay, then and again this can progress one to the other, like you could design kind of a sequence of class conversations or I think you know, you could go out of order, as Dr Lipton told us in that episode where we talked together. 05:34 So the second piece or type of discourse is discussion, and so this is moving from the dialogue where we have many, many ideas. Now a discussion is a little more discerning. She says, right, they're breaking the ideas into smaller components, many ideas. Now a discussion is a little more discerning. She says, right, they're breaking the ideas into smaller components. And so the purpose of discussion specifically is to generate and analyze ideas and also to define the success criteria. So your goal here in this type of conversation is actually to choose one, or maybe more than one idea and move towards action. 06:02 So again, you could see, for a civic action project, this is like what will we do for a project or what is our next step for gathering data or whatever. But also for a conversation about a concept, if you're discussing an essential question or the discussion question for the day right, we want to figure out where we're landing. We don't all need to land necessarily in the same place, but it would be pretty cool if we kind of have this synthesis of ideas of where we are collectively landing and to kind of have broken apart the pieces of our understanding and analyze all that stuff, right? So I imagine this working really nicely. With a question stem like you know, what would an equitable world look like? So I envision someone saying like okay, well, here are the success criteria, and so we have to discuss that, we have to agree on the success criteria of an equitable world, right? And then we're going to throw out some of those ideas or pull those ideas from the dialogue part, analyze them and figure out which of them most align to our success criteria, and then we can go forth and kind of propose as a group, you know what our idea is. 07:11 I could also envision this happening in smaller groups. So a discussion could happen, not class-wide necessarily, but this could be, you know, a group of five, a group of 10, and having multiple groups within the class. And this is kind of the approach that they're taking to get their poster or success list or whatever ready for you to present to the wider class. So I think there's a lot of different formats. This could take the discussion, the purpose really being we're choosing something at the end that we're gonna move forward with. We're either gonna implement it or we're gonna share it widely with the whole class, with external audience members, whatever. That is Okay. 07:46 And then the third type of discourse that Dr Lifton talks about is decision making. So this is after we generate ideas, we parse them out, the group can move to that choice making right, and there might be predetermined criteria. You might have decided that you might kind of parse that out a little bit more here, but the goal on this is that you're agreeing on the most viable outcome based on that criteria and building on the previous discourse steps. So when you have kind of dialogue you're very broad, right, discussion. We've kind of figured out this is kind of narrowed, a narrowed version of what we're going to implement. We're going to move toward action. We're going to define our success criteria. Whatever Decision-making is like, we're really going to take that. Or you could also skip that step right and have predetermined criteria. That's provided by the teacher, right? What's an equitable world? Look like that has X, y, z, for example, but that here you're saying, okay, so, based on the criteria that we agreed on, based on like all these components that we really got to in discussion mode, now we're going to build on that and we're going to come to kind of our final decision and that there might be some protocols specifically in here to make sure that we have consensus. So I am imagining this happening. Right, we have the question like what would an equitable world look like? Right, we have dialogue where we're just kind of all over the place. Maybe that's whole class. Here's all the ideas. 09:14 Now we break into groups for discussion. Now each of these groups are coming up with a success criteria. What does it mean to have equity in the world? Here are some of our ideas. We're going to pitch these to the whole class and now as a whole class. Potentially this does not have to go this way, but as a whole class. We're learning everyone's pitches. We're kind of seeing what the outcome of those discussions in smaller groups are. We're kind of evaluating all those success criteria and we are kind of coming to consensus, not necessarily 100% agreement. 09:42 I like to think of the fist to five as a consensus protocol. To say three and above is agreement. I can live with it. Right, five out of five would be like yeah, I really like it. And we're kind of coming to consensus. Maybe that means we're going to take pieces of this group's ideas of equity and pieces of this group so we're going to put them into something new. But we're making a final decision. We're coming to consensus as a whole class. Again, just one way I'm conceptualizing this. I'm sure there are many, many others. 10:12 Okay, now McCanders, carolyn McCanders, episode 221, if you want to learn more about her, she has a lot of stuff. I think that is relevant during a class discussion. So, okay, we're having a class conversation. We've kind of planned it out. We've talked about kind of setting the foundational culture with Dr Dumas, with Dr Lipton. We talked about designing the conversation with purpose. We got to figure out if it's dialogue, discussion or decision-making that's going to happen. And then we plan the prom. We plan the setup, format, everything's ready to go. Now we're in the discussion. 10:39 What do you do as the teacher or as the facilitator? Again, this comes from facilitating adults. That's where the original book came from, so you can imagine its applications, I think really nicely as a teacher, facilitating a student conversation. So here we go. We could record indicators of engagement. I love that she talks about the nature of participation. I think there are so many of us who have, you know, sat with a list of student names and kind of checked oh, they talked right Later on in my teaching, after I initially did something like this, I wanted to really think about were they asking a question? Were they sharing a claim? Were they sharing evidence? Were they inviting another student to talk? So what she names as like kind of the elements or different types of participation is the use of inquiry right. So I can imagine that could be a question or showing curiosity in some way, advocacy, so kind of a statement or kind of claim, aligned and paraphrasing, so kind of evidence that you are listening and you're trying to move the group towards synthesis or identifying the various pieces present in the conversation, so really being an effective group member here. 11:45 And I think you want to teach paraphrasing so McCandless you can tell from the title of that episode on our show. You know, paraphrase your butt off is a common phrase that she uses quite effectively and she talks about you know three types of kind of paraphrasing in here and she talks about, I mean, acknowledge, organize and abstract paraphrasing are the ones she writes about in the book, but in the podcast she actually gave us some examples and some new names for some that I really found compelling both for adults and for students. So here's one. One is just kind of acknowledge emotions right, I think this is basic but so important. She says you know, people want to have their emotions acknowledged and she says I always say you've got to be able to paraphrase emotions and content while keeping the resourcefulness of the person or the group. So she uses this phrase your paraphrase should light a pathway. 12:36 And she talks about how you know if we're in a group with adults and we're talking about frustration with family members not coming to a particular thing, right, we can root that and like, oh, I hear your frustration because I know that you are excited to. You know, build something together with family members to better, have a better experience for your students in school, right, like your commitment, the desire that you have is why you're frustrated, because you're committed to this thing and it leads them down the pathway to positive action and not just ruminating on you know the feelings and getting kind of stuck in kind of a negative state. So there's this idea of acknowledging emotions. We acknowledge it, we paraphrase what we're noticing and this becomes an opportunity to kind of anchor in or understand the why or move toward action. Then we have common ground. I love this. So this really listens across diverse perspectives. 13:37 She says, reaches in and grabs out a common value, common belief, common identity, a common goal and offers it to the group so they can kind of move forward together. I love this idea of you know we're kind of all over the place. I think about a lot of conversations that we hear in media, with adults, with students, I mean everywhere right where we're kind of entrenched in positions and we're kind of speaking across a divide. But how cool would it be to reach in and grab a common goal or value? Right, we're all working towards this thing, we all care about this thing, we all value this, right? I mean, I'm just going to grab something, but, like we all value freedom or the ability to make our own choices, right, okay, great, so we can ground in that. Now, where do we move from here? Knowing that that's important to us all, right? 14:23 The next piece is kind of, I think, where you could absolutely get some great nuance. I love this is kind of polarity paraphrasing, so it normalizes the tensions within a group and it says you know what you're right and you're right, your underlying values, your polarities. And again, you want to use this when we are having I always think of Dr Diana Hesse's term here, a phrase that she shared on the podcast a while back, a year or so ago on the podcast competing good values right, so competing good values, not like offensive hate speech, right. But when we are talking about good values, right, so competing good values, not like offensive hate speech, right. But when we are talking about good values, freedom versus safety right, both of you are right, right, and we actually need each other because polarities are interdependent. You can't put one down. She says if you expect a positive outcome, both the answers are needed for positive outcomes. I love how she explains this. Right, both are needed, needed. Freedom and safety are needed in kind of tension with each other. We can't have all of one to the exclusion of another. So I love this idea of just again, think of a student. 15:30 I think it would be great to do as a teacher, but even better if you can teach students to do this. Think of a student listening to people and being like, okay, I acknowledge these emotions, like I see that you're feeling really upset by this or I'm feeling you're very frustrated by what's happening in the world today. Right, acknowledge emotions, paraphrase. I noticed that we're all talking about these different ideas. It seems like we're all interested in this idea of freedom, common ground paraphrase. Oh, that's so fascinating. I'm hearing a lot of people talk about gun control from the perspective of freedom and also people talking about the perspective of safety. That's so interesting that we have this polarity happening. Right, freedom and safety, polarity paraphrase. Now, I imagine you're thinking, okay, my students are not going to speak like that, lindsay, sure, but how cool would it be if they could start to identify some of these things? And, again, we have to teach it. But I think they're definitely capable of doing it and how cool once we can sit back and just observe and listen to them be awesome, as opposed to like us constantly having to do it. I think we do it to model at first, but I think this would be super cool if we're talking about a true student-led conversation. 16:33 She also McCanders also talks about never letting a conflict go to waste. It's a whole segment of her book and one of the protocols that she suggests is an assumptions wall. So really just bringing that cognitive conflict to light. That preserves kind of that psychological safety we talked about at the top. So here's where we would have each individual list assumptions about a topic. So we're having a discussion about a topic or a conversation about a topic, let's list the assumptions, choose one that most informs their behavior and then write it kind of like a short phrase. She says eight to 12 words like a short sentence. Write it on a sentence, drop or post it, put it on the wall and then the facilitator you as the teacher, is going to model inquiry, right. So we she talked a lot about how to do this, but we basically want to invite conversation about, for example I'm curious about this. Can you help me understand what it is that you value about this or what's the belief underlying this or what data informs this. You know, why is this so important to you? That kind of thing, right. So we're modeling those inquiry questions and then the students kind of take over the inquiry, kind of a round-robin fashion. She's saying this will take about 15 to 25 minutes and you could really do this in smaller groups of like four to six. So this could be a protocol where if you have a conversation that is either just beginning and we feel like we want to get some assumptions out there, or we kind of have the conversation, we have this point of stickiness. We're like, ooh, we're stuck here, let's try to move through it by unearthing some of those assumptions. I think that could be used there as well. 18:18 I do want to note too in the book she talks about how teaching groups ways of addressing conflict generates high interest. So that is super fascinating to me on a meta level, right of students just learning how to address conflict in a healthy way. But actually we do want to nurture conflict as long as it is perceived as psychologically safe. But students are actually interested in that and adults are interested in learning how to navigate conflict because it's relevant in their own lives, in learning how to navigate conflict because it's relevant in their own lives. So, when we're thinking about increasing motivation and engagement, I know we may feel a tendency to avoid conflict, but actually if we can get through it positively, right, and we can teach how to nurture it and parse things apart and paraphrase in these ways, that actually it's gonna be beneficial to student motivation. Fascinating, okay. Final tips and inspiration from our three brilliant authors and podcast guests. So from Dr Jamis basically, kids can do it. So he cites Ferrari and Rizzolotti. I hope that's correct In 2014,. 19:15 They talked about we're hardwired to quote, understand the intentions of others and they say this is because, quote or sorry, we have the quote, quote capacity to infer others' internal mental states and ascribe to them a causal role in generating the observed behavior. End quote. So basically, we are hardwired as human beings to know kind of what's going on with people and say, oh, that behavior, that's a result of that feeling. Right, that's a result of that. I think about that a lot with kids that kid being tired, like I know that I can sense that kid being tired, right, that's where that's coming from, right? Or that kid is really sad about something that happened in their life and maybe that's connected to this topic. That's where that behavior is coming from. They just snapped at me. I understand that's coming from an emotion, an emotion of sadness, right, or anger. 20:05 From Dr Lipton she says, quote I think we really confuse purpose with tasks. We're not here to rewrite math curriculum for the teacher example. We're here to ensure there's equitable and effective approaches to math for all our kids. That's the purpose. To do that. We're going to take a look at the curriculum end quote. I think about this a lot with student conversations as well. The purpose is not to answer the essential question necessarily. I mean, yes, it is. But more importantly, lifespan wise, I want students to be able to have conversations. I want them to be able to exist in conversations about high emotion topics, about politics, about current events, whatever it is, and do well like, feel psychologically safe, help spread the psychological safety to others, nurture conflict and have disagreements, while paraphrasing effectively and being an effective participant. Right, I think that is far more critical than them being able to answer an essential question with three pieces of evidence. You know, in a claim From Carolyn McCanders. Basically there are several questions. 21:09 She says you can ask yourself as a facilitator to make sure that you are thinking in the mindset that you need to be to effectively facilitate conflict-rich conversations. Here they are. Realize the quote nice thing to do is speak up. So if you notice someone inflicting pain, saying something oppressive, like you need to speak up. Right, and I would also say this is true for students as well. 21:37 As a facilitator, ask how valuable is my personal comfort compared to the effort I would have to make to result in long-term gains for others. Right, think about the learning opportunity that is missed if you don't hop in and say something or nurture a conflict. That is happening. Right, when you are silent when someone says something. If someone says something oppressive in a conversation, ask yourself who am I or we protecting by not speaking, and how might this be affecting student learning? So so many positive, rich things to do. 22:10 And if you are thinking the what if? What if? I'm afraid that students are going to say something problematic or that will harm others, I think you follow all of these pieces early on the whole setup and then Carolyn McAndrew's final tips for us are kind of the if this happens, you jump in and here are some questions right and some mindsets to coach yourself on to make sure that you do hop in and hop in effectively. Okay, you got this. I am so excited to hear and learn and just be in space with you as you share about all of the brilliant student-led conversations that are happening in your schools and districts. Feel free to grab my freebie for this episode, which is the Culture of Discussion playlist. I should probably rename that Now. Discussion, I know, is different from dialogue, which is different from decision-making conversations. Thank you, dr Laura Lipton, but it is available for you at the blog post for this episode lindsaybethlyonscom slash blog, slash 232. 
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In this episode, we chat with Dr. Chad Dumas, an educational consultant and author of the recent book, The Teacher Team Leader Handbook: Simple Habits to Transform Collaboration in a PLC at Work. Dr. Dumas discusses key strategies to enhance collaboration within an educational setting, drawing on insights from educators and researchers.
Dr. Dumas emphasizes the importance of psychological safety, which he describes as the cornerstone for effective teacher team dynamics, and introduces the concept of paraphrasing as a crucial communication tool that ensures mutual understanding. Additionally, Dr. Dumas highlights the significance of specificity and accountability in overcoming generalizations, encouraging teams to engage in practices that maintain focus and progress. The Big Dream Dr. Dumas envisions a future where educational collaboration is done through simple, powerful habits. His dream is to cultivate educational environments where psychological safety and effective communication become the norm, allowing teachers to work collaboratively in a way that significantly enhances student learning and development. Mindset Shifts Required To achieve effective collaboration between educators, an important mindset shift is to embrace the concept of community. A community is when we’re caring for each other as the whole, and as individuals—exactly what teachers must do to successfully collaborate together. Part of building this community is creating a psychologically safe space where open expression and cognitive conflict are encouraged. Safe spaces do not always equal comfort or “being nice,” but are a place where each person comes as an equal and contributes to the shared values and goals of that community. Action Steps To build effective collaboration between teacher teams, here are some key action steps to prioritize: Step 1: Know your responsibility. Dr. Dumas’ vision for creating collaborative teacher teams revolves around understanding the three key responsibilities:
Step 2: Master paraphrasing. In Dr. Dumas’ words, “paraphrase is like magic.” It’s a powerful tool because, while it doesn’t indicate agreement, it helps the speaker feel understood and the listener understand. Adopting this habit in your teacher teams, educators can move forward with productive conflict and growth. Adopt the habit of paraphrasing in your communications to ensure that all parties feel understood, which will aid in productive conflict resolution and enhance psychological safety. Step 3: Embrace specificity and accountability. Work towards specificity in discussions to avoid generalizations that impede improvement. Develop strategies to hold team members accountable in a supportive and engaging manner. Challenges? One big challenge educators and teacher teams face is getting specific rather than relying on generalizations. In Dr. Dumas’ words, “generalizations are the enemy of improvement,” because they don’t give you real steps to improve. For example, a generalization like “students aren’t understanding this concept” doesn’t tell you anything about what specific students, what part of the concept, etc. Specificity helps teacher teams make real improvements. Another challenge for teacher teams is holding each other accountable to the pre-established norms. Dr. Dumas suggests several ways to set up systems of accountability, which are elaborated on further in his book. One Step to Get Started To begin implementing these transformative ideas, educators can access the free reproducibles available on Dr. Dumas's website and the Solution Tree site. These resources offer practical tools to help educators take first steps toward transforming teacher team dynamics. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on his website, Next Learning Solutions, or on social media: X @ChadDumas, Facebook, and LinkedIn. To help you implement today’s takeaways, Dr. Dumas is sharing The Teacher Team Leader Handbook with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 231 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Dr Dumas, welcome back to the Time for Teachership podcast. 00:06 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Thank you, excited to be with you. 00:08 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I'm so excited. I'm excited about this book and I'm also really excited I don't think I mentioned this to you but we're going to release this episode in concert with, like, several others that I think make a lot of sense, both for teacher leaders as well as kind of facilitating in classrooms as well. I think that's relevant for, like, wherever you kind of enter into the facilitation or construction of, like navigating a group and getting a group to be productive and to do all the things that you mentioned in the book. So I kind of want to set the stage there that this is being released on the heels of, like, all a bunch of other books that kind of talk with one another, and I think we'll see that today. Is there anything that you want people to know as we enter the conversation today? 00:52 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Well, I love that. You know, this book builds on the greatness of lots of people who have come before us. Right, like you maybe heard, I think I think it's in the Bible it says there's not a new idea under the sun. You maybe have heard, I think it's in the Bible it says there's not a new idea under the sun. Right, like there are a lot of great, great greatness that we come from, and then we come and we build on it. We say, ah, here's a way to organize that, or here's a way to structure that, or here's a tool to help with that, and so the intent of this book wasn't really to create like there's not a lot new in it. 01:24 It's organized in such a way that I think that the greatness of the work of people like Michael Grinder and Kendall Zoller and Bob Gardison and Carolyn McGanders and Bruce Wellman like the list goes on and on and on and I haven't even gotten into the PLC at Work people of Rick DeFore and Becky DeFore and Bob Aker and Anthony Muhammad and Mike Madden the whole list goes on and on and on. And what I have tried to do is take all of that and put it into a usable, simple format right Like the subheading for the book. The heading is the Teacher Team Leader Handbook, but the subheading is simple habits, simple habits to transform collaboration. So, out of all of the greatness of all of those people before us, how can we take that and put it together in such a way that it's simple, usable and it can do what the sub-title intends transform collaboration? 02:17 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that framing and it kind of grounds me to this first question I was thinking about, where you know, I usually ask about mindset. But you have very clearly laid out kind of the three responsibilities of that facilitator and so, yeah, I think you call them teacher team leader responsibilities, right, and so I'm curious if you can kind of ground us in those, because I think a lot of times I mean me as a teacher leader it's like, oh, the job is to like go through the agenda or read off these points. It's like that's very low bar. 02:48 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what I did was pulled together all again a lot of research from other greats and, in this case, around the responsibilities, really gets to a lot of the work of Amy Edmondson and Charles Duhigg and others and the idea. So there's three responsibilities that I identify. The first responsibility is the most important and that's to create psychological safety. If we don't have psychological safety, we're not going anywhere, like that's. That's the, to use the Latin term, the one Latin phrase that I remember from high school sine qua non. Sine qua non, without which there is nothing. If the team does not have psychological safety, everything else will become compliance, it could be toxic, et cetera. So that's the number one responsibility of the teacher team leader is to make sure that there's psychological safety. Make it safe. The second responsibility of the teacher team leader is to build capacity. The second responsibility of the teacher team leader is to build capacity. So that means that we're helping each other learn why we're doing what we're doing and how to do it. Like you said, you know, sometimes teacher team leaders think that their job is to do the work. Well, that's the third responsibility. As the team, we're going to do the work, but I propose that that responsibility is actually the least important of the three responsibilities. 04:05 The most important the two that are never talked about are make it safe and build capacity. When you are doing that, then the doing the work will become more manageable. We're sharing the load, we understand why we're doing it. We're able to do it in a space that is safe for us. And let me just say a word about safety too, if you don't mind that sometimes people confuse safety with comfort or safety with nice. I was born and raised in Nebraska and the tourism slogan in Nebraska for many years was Nebraska, nice. That's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about just like we show up and we're polite to each other and then the real meeting happens out in the parking lot with our car keys in hand. What we're talking about is a psychologically safe space where everyone is able to express their views, and they do express their views. We're able to have conflict that's cognitive as opposed to relational or affective, right. So these are the three responsibilities Make it safe, build capacity, do the work. 05:16 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love too that you just define that for us, and in the book you do that as well. You even list out Edmondson's I think it's like seven indicators or something that she like. I really appreciate the depth of that, because I do think people often say things now as like kind of a term that gets thrown around, like, oh, it's a safe space. It's like what, like? What are you even talking about, right, and you can't just declare it safe. It's something that the group what I got from your writing as well is that the group needs to. Each individual of the group needs to perceive it as safe, to actually have psychological safety. It's not something you could be like I'm the team leader and I say it's safe here right, yeah, yeah. 05:53 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) And Duhigg actually identifies two elements to psychological safety. The first element is social sensitivity, that is, the degree to which we perceive and recognize the nonverbal communication behaviors that others display and respond appropriately. The second element of psychological safety is equity of turn-taking. So there's not one person dominating, there's not one person sitting around not doing, you know, contributing at all. So that's what comprises psychological safety, those two things, social sensitivity that my book addresses through the moves and techniques that the individual teacher team leader can use and leverage to develop that social sensitivity. And then the second part is the equity of turn-taking, which is all about the strategies and protocols to be able to get everybody's voices in the room. 06:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh, I love that so much, just in the way you frame it and the way that is so parallel to exactly how your book is structured. 06:53 so intentionally yeah yeah, I love that and I think so. The other thing I was thinking is and we can quickly touch on this but I think you have so much research, as you said, you kind of build on everyone's. I mean I saw Freire in there a few times that I was like, oh yes, this totally connects and one of the things that's like kind of the reasons for dysfunction that Lencioni brings up. I think a lot of people could see that in their meetings and be like, oh yep, I've seen that come up. I know exactly the meeting that comes to mind when I think about this. So I'm curious to know if you could kind of touch on that for a minute for us. 07:24 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Yeah. So Patrick Lencioni came out with I think the name of the book is the five dysfunctions of a team or something like that, and so he identifies these five dysfunctions and then the parallel what does that look like on the opposite end when you have function? And so I just raise those five signs of dysfunction that you can see in teams. I don't dig into it a ton in the book, rather just kind of raise it as like a be aware of absence of trust, absence of accountability, absence of follow through. These types of things are indicators of dysfunction. And then what I also say is now, an absence of dysfunction is a pretty low bar, right, like I don't know if I've met anybody who says, yeah, I want to go to this meeting. That's not dysfunctional. 08:18 What a higher bar that we want to strive for is that of community, and block has a great definition of community, where it's a caring for the whole, where each of us are part of the whole, caring for the whole, and the whole is caring for us. And so I think that's really important to keep in mind that this book is part of the subtitle is in a professional learning community and community is there professional learning community and community is there? Professional learning, community those words were not chosen at random, they were chosen right. It grew out of the 60s, in the work of Shirley Hoard and the Southeast Educational Regional Laboratory and others, and so we have a long line of this phrase. And community is very intentional. And so, as a leader, as a teacher, team leader, what are we doing to build that community? And again, it goes beyond just feeling good, being nice, having good treats, although those are helpful, that's not the end. All be all a community where we are caring for each other as the whole and as the individuals. 09:25 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) You know, that makes so much sense to me, especially because I have my head on. I'm thinking about what will come out after this episode is released is that I think I'm going to do a solo show, thinking about how all of these kind of like leader, facilitator books are actually also similar, as I said, to like teaching and a class and things like that. And I'm already thinking about, right, we use the word community in terms of a class community as well, a school community, like inclusive of young people as well, and it is also so important that it's not just nice but it is truly all of that learning, you know, as part of it as well. I mean Zaretta Hammond's work kind of connects to that right and all of it. So I just I love the parallels that you're making me think about. So this is really exciting stuff. 10:04 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Oh yeah, you're absolutely correct. So I've had the opportunity as part of this book launch. Schools have reached out and said, hey, we want you to come do some training. So I've done some some one day overviews, but also some multi day. I refer to it as a teacher team leader academy and as part of those. 10:24 It's wonderful to be working with these teacher team leaders who then raise these exact point that you're talking about, this idea of psychological safety. Like you could take those three responsibilities and apply them to the classroom. Number one responsibility of the teacher in the classroom make it psychologically safe. Number two responsibility build the capacity of students to be able to understand why they're doing it and what they're doing. Number three responsibility do the work Right. Like that that translates to the classroom, and so it's really wonderful seeing teachers make those connections, that it's not just the teacher team leader in a team, but these same assumptions, mindset, habits right, that's in the title of the book. They're habits. These same habits apply in a classroom, they apply with your partner or spouse, they apply with your children, they apply with other family members, your neighbors. These really are simple habits that can transform lives is maybe a big word, but that's probably fairly accurate when people start to use and leverage these, these habits. 11:29 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I agree and I mean, what better way to like get people interested in making potentially hard changes in habits? It's like actually this is not just for work, right? This is for your whole, everyone you interact with. This is being a human, so I love that Absolutely. 11:44 Yeah, yeah, and I and I think one of the things I was thinking about too, as everyone you interact with this is being a human, so that I love that absolutely, yeah, yeah, and I, and I think one of the things I was thinking about too as well, I mean I just read um, I always forget the name of this book hands down, speak up or speak out, I can't remember, but it's like k through five conversations that are student-led and how do we, like you know, put on the students? It's a bunch of like mini moves. One of them is kind of a synthesis paraphrase, which I know Carolyn McCanders and I were just talking in the podcast about this you have named in your book and I'm curious about some actions that you might take. Your whole book is full of these habits that we might take, some strategies, some kind of mindsets, and I am curious to know about some of them. 12:21 The paraphrase what I'd love to get to, but any other ones that you want to pull in, feel free. Curious to know about some of them. The paraphrase what I'd love to get to, but any other ones that you want to pull in, feel free, like what does what does that mean when you're in kind of the moment and you're responding to lots of voices or particular types of voices, that maybe there is a little discomfort or whatever happens in a meeting Like how do I enact some of this stuff? 12:41 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Oh yeah, yeah, paraphrase. Paraphrase is like magic. So the paraphrase, actually. I learned this phrase from Carolyn McDaniels and I would use it when I would go into difficult meetings. And if there was a meeting I was going into and I knew it was going to be a challenge, I would write it on a sticky note and I'd put it on my computer in front of me so nobody else could see it, but I could. And it said this it said paraphrase your butt off. So like it is that powerful of a tool and paraphrase those two things. 13:19 When you paraphrase someone, it's, first of all, it's not. Before I tell you the two things that it does, it does not indicate agreement. I can paraphrase someone without agreeing with them. What a paraphrase does is it does two things. At first, it helps them to feel understood and two, it helps me to understand. And that's it. With that clarity of them feeling understood and me understanding, now we can move forward with productive conflict. Without them feeling understood and without me understanding, we're not able to move forward. 14:01 You've probably been in situations where you've, and your listeners have been in situations where you said something with someone and then they went a totally different direction and five minutes later you're like, forget about it, it's not even worth it. There's that cycle, right? You're like you just went down a whole path that I have no clue what you're talking about. Well, you can save all that breath, save all that energy by just a simple paraphrase, and paraphrases don't have to be long. They actually shouldn't be long. If your paraphrase is longer what somebody else is saying then work on it to get better at it. A paraphrase really needs to encapsulate the nuggets of what they're saying, and Carolyn McAnders I look forward to listening to that episode, by the way, because she is a master oh, she is absolutely incredible, can listen to her for days on end Her ability to take the nuggets of what somebody is saying and synthesize it into a few small things. 15:02 And so in the book I draw on Garmston and Wellman's work around the paraphrase, and they different folks talk about different types of paraphrase. I think their three types are the easiest to understand. The first type is to acknowledge. It's simply to acknowledge whether you're frustrated at or you're angry at, or one of the things that you've been thinking about is all I'm doing is acknowledging back what that person said. The second type of paraphrase is an organizing paraphrase. 15:37 People especially if you're in a leadership position, right, like a teacher, team leader or a principal people come at you and I sometimes use the phrase they verbally vomit on, like they just all the things. They haven't had a chance to really think through what they're saying. They're just like getting things off their chest. So an organizing paraphrase might be helpful for them. What does that look like? Okay, so it sounds like there's three things that you're talking about here, or there's two things or four important right? So I'm, I'm organized, and then I'm saying and the first one is blah, blah blah, the second one is blah, blah, blah, and the third one is blah, blah, blah. That's an organizing paraphrase. And many times when, when I engage in organizing paraphrase, people will say oh yeah. 16:22 I never thought of it that way Thank you, and off they go and then they start to solve it themselves, right. Other times they say, well, maybe it's really two or maybe there's another thing there. The point is is they're starting to feel understood and now you're understanding. So the acknowledging paraphrase, the organizing paraphrase, and the third one is the abstracting paraphrase, which I find particularly challenging myself. It's taking things from a concrete level to an abstract level, or the other way around, from an abstract level to a concrete, very challenging. I think. 16:58 It takes a lot of practice, and in my book what I do is I have a graphic that kind of lays out those three with some potential, like what they are. Some potential sentence stems how it might apply in a group setting when you're working with others, because it's one thing to paraphrase an individual, it's another thing to paraphrase when I'm in a group of two, three, four, five other people Equally, maybe even more so powerful to be able to say so. It sounds like as a team, we're saying these three things, or it sounds like maybe this might be the next appropriate step. Paraphrasing for the group is very powerful. 17:36 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, and I I mean I that's so exciting and I also think that's the hardest. And what I'm heartened by is, in this book, the K-5 student led discussion one. One of the moves was literally the abstract paraphrase. I didn't call it that, but it was like take what the group has said and and be a student who says it sounds like there's two groups of thought here, this and this, right, or it sounds like we could go in this direction, cause this is kind of where a bunch of people's thoughts are and I love that, even though it is so hard. Like if we lean into that for kids as well as adults, like everyone can be doing it and we can help people like be good at it before they get to that adult moment where they're like oh, this is really hard if we're practicing it. K-12. 18:18 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Yeah, yeah, if we're practicing and teaching and practicing with kids so that it becomes part of, in the adoptive schools, garmston, wellman, mccander's work. They talk about it becoming part of identity. Right, so it becomes who you are, not just what you do. 18:37 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that and I've been playing a lot with this idea of like values. I think fit in that abstraction piece Like can you identify the values someone is bringing to a conversation about like a political issue or something? Right, like that feels and correct me if I'm wrong but that feels like you're taking from the concrete? I believe in this policy or I disagree with this policy because this is a value I'm holding on to that's deeply important. Is that right? Okay? 18:59 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Yep, yep, yeah, and so in a paraphrase world, it'd be paraphrase Mac. So it sounds like this because of this, this is the value that you hold. 19:06 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That's helpful. Thank you, okay, so there are so many challenges. I usually ask Trevor that challenge at the end, but I feel like people are just filled with the people who have had this experience of doing teacher team leadership. They're filled with. 19:18 There's this moment where there was this challenge or even people who are just a team member and haven't been in the leader role, like, yeah, like this was the reason I don't want to go to that meeting, like as you alluded to before. So there are several you mentioned. I'm sure there are several more that we can talk about. People can get the book for the full rundown, but I am particularly interested in a few of them. 19:39 One of them, I think, as a coach and a facilitator, is like we say sometimes as educators, these really big statements that feel like they're usually like the gut check moments for me that I'm like, ooh, something feels off here, like it feels like we're not saying the thing and instead what we are saying feels maybe problematic, even potentially. And you have this beautiful I don't remember if it was a table, I wrote down a page number, but like it was kind of thinking through what are the prompts that you can offer in that moment of someone saying something that is general and not helpful to get it to the specific. I'm not talking about that. Well, can you talk us through that more? Yeah. 20:18 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Yeah, yeah, so I can remember. Actually, I was the day that I thought of this phrase that really encapsulates this idea, and I was in California, southern California, paris, california not spelled France, it doesn't look like Paris France either and had been working with some teams in that area and that morning, like I was in the shower and the flash came to me generalizations are the enemy of improvement, like. That's a pretty broad statement and I think it's accurate. Generalizations are the enemy of improvement. I'm too fat, I'm too skinny, I'm too skinny, I'm too whatever. Okay, so that's not going to help me get better. What I need to do is get specific. What are the foods that I'm eating, what are my exercise routines, what's my sleep regimen like? What is my social life like? We need to get into the specific nitty gritty, and if we just say I'm too whatever, that's not going to get improvement. Generalizations are the enemy of improvement, and so that's where this. So I said that this work builds on a lot of people's work. 21:43 There are a few things that are unique to me that I created, which is I don't know, it's kind of cool, I guess, but this is one of them where I've not seen anybody talk about this being an actual strategy that a teacher team leader uses in a team, and that is specificity, because generalizations are the enemy of improvement. We got to get specific. So when comments are made about students, staff, whatever the culture, the climate, we got to get specific. One that says here are some examples of generalizations that you might hear in a team so, at a generalization, like students, students just aren't getting this concept. Okay, so then I lay out well, why is that a generalization? And then here's a prompt that you can use to help prompt the team to move forward. So if somebody says, you know, kids just aren't getting the concept, well, that's a generalization, because which students, which parts of the concept is it? Just like, are we specific enough in that? And so then what might be a prompt? So a prompt might be something along the lines of well, so it sounds like we're frustrated because certain kids are struggling with this part, which part? And which kids? Now, let's get specific. 23:16 I was actually just working with a team recently where they said well, you know, the reason why kids aren't being successful is because they're not here. Like, if they were here then we would do better. And I said so let's look at the kids. So are there kids who aren't getting it, who are here? Well, yeah, okay. So what are we going to do about those kids? Like the kids not here? Teacher classroom you can do some things to like engage them while they're there, but that's a systems issue. We got to help get the kids in the classroom assistance issue. We got to help get the kids in the classroom while they're in the classroom. If they're there and not getting it, that's the issue we got to address. So we're getting. We got to get. Specific generalizations are the enemy of improvement. 23:58 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That's such a good example. I mean that that resonates, yeah, that people have said that, and that's like Ooh, what do you do? 24:06 with that. Thank you for that. Now I know I mean you have so so many other ones. I mean I don't think we'll have time to get to all of them. You have one I really like about groupthink, right, like bringing in external voices to combat kind of groupthink where everyone thinks the same thing. Oh, not following norms, I think was a good one, because I mean I also think about those classroom parallels. Right, we all set norms, meeting or class, you know, and then we don't follow them. So I mean, one of the ones that I really liked was that you had had you said someone like assigned people to break a particular norm on a schedule and just saw if there was accountability. Oh my God, that's brilliant, isn't? 24:46 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) that hilarious? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a team I was with. Isn't that hilarious? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a team I was with, and I shared this with other folks too, where? So? 24:53 So the idea is, we set our norms, let's acknowledge up front that every single one of us is a human being. Let's just like, let's just lay it out there, like this is a fact we're a human being and as human beings, we're going to screw up. Every single one of us is going to screw up, and we're going to screw up. Every single one of us is going to screw up and we're going to break a norm. So let's see if we're going to hold ourselves accountable to it. So this is a strategy where, early on in the year, right after we set the norms, I saw a team do this and now some other teams have shared it with and have been doing it. Let's take those norms, put them on little strips of paper, cut them up and put them in a basket. And then let's take the first several meetings and dates and put them on a piece of paper on little strips, cut them up and put them in a different basket. Each person draw out a norm and a date and that's the date that, without anybody else knowing, you are assigned to break that norm and see if anybody holds you accountable. 25:49 And holding accountable doesn't have to look like yelling at people. Holding accountable should be like a light and easy thing because we know we're going to break norms. So like have a fun way, create a system, how are you going to hold each other accountable? I was with a team that they had a thing on their agenda. It said throw something not sharp but gently at at them. Other teams will have like little plush toys. I was in a team they had little nerf guns and anybody just like to start to reach for one of those. And everybody was like, oh yeah, you're right, exactly some fun way of being able to hold each other accountable. And so then when you, when it's your date assigned, are you actually you actually held accountable? Because if you're not, then that says something about the psychological safety of the team. What do we need to do then so that we can feel comfortable holding each other accountable to our norms? 26:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that, in addition to the amazing specificity of your ideas there, I also just love that accountability is an element of this. I have seen many great teachers who are fantastic at setting the norms of getting you know everyone, all the kids, to participate, and we agree with them right in a class level as well as a teacher level, and the accountability piece is the piece that's missing, and so it didn't really even matter that we set the norms. 27:03 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Exactly. It's not worth the paper it's written on If we're not going to hold each other accountable to them. It's just a waste of time if we don't Totally, totally. And it has to be a mutual accountability. That's a key piece too. It's not the teacher team leader's responsibility to hold everybody else accountable, it's not the administration, it's the team. We set these norms. I love Bill Ferreter. He uses this phrase. He says norms are an expression of our needs. So we as a team, as a third grade team, have set our norms. Those are an expression of our needs. If our needs are not being met, then we're not going to be effective. So make sure that our norms, our norms, we hold each other accountable so that we can have our needs met. 27:50 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That is such a good phrase. That is such a good I'm like using that. 27:53 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Oh yeah, oh, bill Ferreter is incredible, yeah. 27:56 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That's so good Cause, I think one. One thing you may even mention in the book is like sometimes people struggle to come up with norms and so like figure out in your brain, like what's a meeting that didn't go well or that you didn't feel great about, and like what was an unmet need, and like how do you create a norm based on that missing thing, and so that makes total sense now that you've connected the dots for me, thank you awesome yeah yeah, yeah, and so I guess it too. 28:18 Moving to close up, it's incredible, we're almost out of time here. Uh, lots of ideas shared. What is one thing, in addition to going to get the book which I encourage people to do and we'll drop a link in the show notes that people can do, like today, tomorrow, like as they end the episode here, to get kind of started with some of this stuff. 28:36 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Yeah, yeah. So even if you don't have the book, I encourage you to get the book. Solution Tree has free reproducibles for all their books, and so those are available on the Solution Tree website. For the book you have to create an account. They don't spam you, so it's okay to get an account and I also have all of those reproducibles on my website as Google Docs. On Solution Tree's site they're PDFs, On mine they are Google Docs, so you can just make a copy and then off you go to use them, and there's about 50 downloadable reproducibles for this book and that website. I did a tiny URL for that, so it's a tinyurlcom, and then slash TTLHChad as in teacher team leader handbook Chad TTLHChad. Folks can go there, access whatever they like and start digging into the reproducibles and then get the book if you'd like. 29:31 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Amazing, and we'll link to that as well in the show notes, in case anyone's driving or doing things not writing that down. 29:36 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) We'll get you Perfect yeah. 29:38 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) And then I think I asked this last time, but I'm just always so curious for guests. What is something, dr Jamis, that you have been learning about lately? It could be professionally or it could be something else, and actually I think the last one you said was about this book in the last podcast yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I was in the throes of it. 29:58 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) So, yeah, things that I'm learning about. I love this work because I get to learn every day about how to help a team move forward. So I've got a number of books right on my desk that I'm looking at digging into here over the next couple of weeks. We're recording this in June, so I've got some work here in June, but I've also got a week actually a whole week that's just open. So I just finished reading Brig Lane's PLC dashboard, where the dashboard component, I think, is particularly powerful. For how do we know the teams are? How do we know, first of all, who we need to support and then, second of all, who and what we need to celebrate, and without a dashboard, you're not able to know that. So that's been really cool. 30:49 Also been reading about celebrations. Sean Cresswell and Katie Sue Treykoff, I think, is her last name have some incredible work around celebrate to motivate and the power of celebrations even simple celebrations and there's actually there's a Facebook group called Celebrate to Motivate that anybody can join that. It's incredible Like people go on there and post different ideas of what they're doing for celebrations. In their school I learned so much with those things popping up Celebrate to Motivate a really cool page, and I haven't read the book yet, but I'm sure it's amazing because I know those two. 31:24 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That's incredible. I mean, that's something we didn't even get into with your book, but there's a ton of stuff about joy and celebrations and there's like page numbers I noted to be like, oh, this is how you celebrate. So yeah, that's something we didn't even scratch, but that's in the book. 31:36 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Yeah, yeah. 31:37 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) And finally, people are going to want to connect with you. I know we'll drop the links that we mentioned, of course, in the blog post, in the show notes, but where can people like, connect or follow you? 31:45 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Yep, Yep, I'm well. I am on Twitter or X or whatever you call it these days, and it's a simple hashtag, just at Chad Dumas. No numbers lines, underscores anything like that, Just C-H-A-D-D-U-M-A-S. And then I also have I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook and I have tiny URLs for those as well. Tinyurlcom slash learning Chad is the LinkedIn one learning Chad and the Facebook one is FB learning Chad. So either way of those people can reach out. 32:15 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Amazing, dr Dimas. Thank you so so much for this conversation. 32:19 - Dr. Chad Dumas (Guest) Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 32:20 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Of course. 9/29/2025 230. How is Decision Fatigue and Herd Mentality Showing Up For You? with Dr. ClauDean KizartRead Now
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode, we talk with Dr. ClauDean Kizart, or Dr. K, about insights from her incredible book, Beyond Implicit and Explicit Bias: Strategies for Healing the Root Causes of Inequity in Education. Dr. K’s goal is to dig deep down into the root causes of biases, understanding what they are and why they’re there in order to foster equity and growth in the educational system.
Dr. K discusses some specific types of bias, including herd mentality bias, drawing historical connections and personal anecdotes. She also talks about the concept of decision fatigue, drawing from her 26+ years as an educator to offer practical self-care strategies to help educators mitigate biases and improve decision-making processes. The Big Dream Dr. K. envisions a future where the educational system, made up of the people in that system, fosters cognitive development—providing foundations for reading, writing, arithmetic, etc.—while still managing bias in a healthy, holistic way. She wants to create communities where educators are conscious of their biases and engage in open discussions to drive better outcomes for students. Mindset Shifts Required A significant mindset shift required is to start with the understanding that biases are not inherently negative but a natural part of human behavior. Dr. K stresses that recognizing and managing biases is crucial, rather than viewing them as a moral failing. This shift involves seeing biases as an opportunity for self-reflection and growth, enabling educators to create more inclusive learning environments. Action StepsTo start managing biases to achieve better outcomes for students, educators can simply focus on two key action steps: identify the bias and take steps to mitigate it. Dr. K’s book covers many different ones, but we focus on two in this podcast episode:
It’s also important for educators to engage in open conversations about biases, as even this process can help identify, understand, and manage them for the best outcomes. Challenges? One of the challenges in addressing biases is overcoming the fear of social alienation when confronting herd mentality biases. Educators may hesitate to speak out against biases due to concerns about being perceived negatively. Dr. K encourages educators to address underlying assumptions and engage in informational, rather than confrontational, dialogues. One Step to Get Started To begin diving into your own biases, educators can begin by taking the Harvard Implicit Bias Test. It’s a simple step to gain greater insights into your personal biases, helping educators become more aware of their cognitive processes and how these may affect their interactions in educational settings. Stay Connected You can stay connected with Dr. ClauDean Kizart on both Instagram and LinkedIn. To help you implement today’s takeaways, grab a copy of Dr. K’s book, Beyond Implicit and Explicit Bias: Strategies for Healing the Root Causes of Inequity in Education. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 230 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
00:03 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Dr K, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. 00:07 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) Awesome. Thank you for having me. I'm truly grateful that you thought about me and that for the opportunity to speak about my book with your listeners. 00:17 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely, and so, yeah, let's frame the episode with that. I think what initially drew me actually to your book so it's here in my hands and I really I enjoyed the whole title, but particularly the subtitle really really got me. So this idea of healing the root causes of inequity in education, it's like, yeah, someone's got to talk about that. So is there anything you want to say kind of broadly, before we get into specifics, to frame the conversation today around the book? 00:44 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) So I love that you talked a little bit about the title. 00:48 I can be a little long winded sometimes and so initially there it was definitely some work around like making sure the title wasn't too long, but it was also very specific and that for me, particularly as a healer, that it focused on healing right as a educator this is my 26th year as an educator we have a lot of methodology, have a lot of methodology, we have a lot of strategies, we have a lot of different types of curriculum and programs and things of that nature, and one of the things that I have observed is that you can have a lot of programs and you can have a lot of initiatives and you can have a lot of curriculum and you can have a lot of methodology. 01:44 But if the person who is in charge, so to speak, whether that is the administrator or the teacher or the superintendent, if this person who is in charge of carrying the initiative or the program or the curriculum or what have you you through has a bias, you will still have inequities right, and so I think it's really important to discuss these biases. Research says that the more that we discuss biases, the more we're able to see them within ourselves and the more we're able to actually manage them. I think sometimes people think biases are a bad thing or it makes them a bad person, and it's not Absolutely positively, it does not. Having a preference doesn't make you a bad person, right? And so I repeat that, you know, in several stages of my book, because I think it's important to have grace for ourselves and have grace for each other and in the meantime, while we have grace, to do the work to really heal those systemic inequities, in education particularly, and in the world. 02:54 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I appreciate so much of what you said. I did not realize that just discussing them is going to do all this. It makes total sense and I love that there's research behind that is going to, you know, do all this things. It makes total sense and I love that there's research behind that. I think one of the things that you know, in line with this idea of healing and in line with it, all of the pieces that you're saying, I love to ask, as one of the first questions, getting into some content, like, in line with this idea of freedom dreaming Dr Bettina Love has a great quote around it right Dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. You, you know what is that big freedom dream that you hold for education? 03:29 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) I love that question. Uh, that would. That is a first and I love it. The goal, you know, if I, I like to say if I had a magic wand, right, um, and, and talking about freedom dreaming, it would be to have an educational system. Remember, people are systems. So we talk about system, but it's the people who are the system. The system is not like outside of us. Right, we are the system, we are the community. 04:00 So when we talk about how to have, how to ensure that as a system, we are fostering cognitive development and cognitive thinkers and making sure that students have a foundation of reading, writing and arithmetic and so forth, the goal for me, or the big dream, or the freedom dream for me, would be having that opportunity. That is, I can't say without bias, right, like that's my first mind wants to say, without bias, but when I think about it, bias Dr Beverly Tatum says bias is like small, just everywhere. So it's not that the big dream is without bias. It's in a way where we manage our biases right, where teachers are having conversations and principals and superintendents and instructors and professors are having conversations with each other and with themselves about their own biases in a way that is healthy and holistic and in a way that drives us to be better and to do better for our students, right? Whether they are K-12 or college university students. 05:24 That would be the big dream, like a community of people who are like, oh, like you said before we started, I noticed that decision fatigue, bias is the same for me. After about this time, I don't really make decisions. Well, if you know that about yourself, how do I then manage that? That would be the big dream. Communities of people who know specific biases, because I think it's not enough to say implicit, or not enough to say explicit, because what are you talking about? Like, what do you mean? It's implicit, so talk to me. It's a community of people who would know that there's specific biases. There's over 250 research-based biases, right, that I think any person who is an educator or deals in any form of human services needs to know as a way of how to better work with people, right? So that would be my big turn. That would be my freedom turn. 06:23 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that so much and it gets into. I think the mindset shift that maybe some people are making as they're engaging with this episode is just bias is not bad, it is just part of things and we need to learn to identify them and manage them and that's yeah. I think that's going to be a shift for some people, which is important. 06:40 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) Can I share my other big dream, please? Can I share my other big dream? My other big freedom dream is that in teacher preparation programs there's always a session or teacher preparation organizations. I think if we had more conversations or about intentional conversations about biases, with people you know, like myself and other academics as well as researchers who are also practitioners of ensuring that you know we're managing our own biases, then as teachers go into education right and into the field, they're more knowledgeable and more reflective practitioners in that. But every teacher preparation program has a whether it is not necessarily a module, because I think that we need to have conversations around our biases, not just this electronic click here do you know this? But have conversations to unpack those right. But I think my big dream would be facilitating those conversations on large scales with teacher organization groups or teacher preparation. 08:09 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh my gosh, I think you're so right. I totally agree, because I do remember there was like a quick module or something in my teacher prep program and it was just. I mean reading your book and I'm reading. I'm also reading Reclaiming Authenticity, which is a beautiful companion to read. I read them in the same plane ride as I read your book and it was this beautiful kind of conversation. What I noticed is that all of the scenarios you include in your book and all of the kind of reflections that they have of like these misstep moments, moments where bias came in, it's just like those are the learning moments, like I need that illustrated, and how better to do that than like reflecting in conversation and sharing. 08:50 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) And and scenarios, right, I don't. I think one of the I got a tad bit emotional because I just feel like we need to prepare our teachers better. I just feel like we need to prepare our teachers better. Majority of the teachers that I know like come into education because they want to work with students. They want to make an impact in the field of education. They want to educate. 09:29 It's not, you know, some people you hear if you can't, what do they say? If you can't, whatever teach. I don't know many people who are like that. Most of the people that I know education love students and love education and want to make an impact. Right, and one of the things that kind of gets me is the preparation part. Right, we do the preparation when it comes to do you know reading methodology. We do the preparation. Do you know math methodology. 09:51 But I think we still need to do a better job, especially now. Especially now, right, our country is growing more and more different, diverse, and I think that those differences are part of our strength, right, but I think right now, it's about how do we utilize that as a strength and prepare our teachers to ensure that they are going out into the world of education that they love to deal with differences in a way that does no harm. I wish we had, like a teacher oath, like doctors have a oath. I talk about that in my book. Do no harm, right. And I think it's harmful to not know your own biases and just to just allow that to come out in your day-to-day interactions with students and not stop yourself because you don't even know that you're doing it. 10:54 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh my gosh. Yes, so true, and I think so. Maybe maybe we can do this. Maybe we can just kind of name some of the biases in the book. I don't want to give the whole thing away because people need to go get the book and we'll link to that. Yeah, it is so good, but I'm wondering if we can name some of the things for people to start being like oh, that's what you mean by a specific type of bias. How does that sound? Absolutely Okay, awesome. Are there ones you want to? You want to shout out some of your favorites? Or I have, I have my favorites that I wrote that are like really, let's talk about your favorites, oh, okay, great. So I personally resonated with herd mentality and decision fatigue. 11:31 Bias Like I could pinpoint, both for myself and for people that I've worked with, like oh, I can pinpoint moment after moment that are tied to those biases. 11:40 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) So I won't say that those two are my favorite, but I will say that those two are especially herd mentality bias. It is one of the most researched based biases that there is, and actually herd mentality bias was researched back in the late 1900s. So that's one of the things that I thought was really cool is that biases have been discussed for a very long time and researched for a very long time, but it's like we're just now really scratching the surface on them, right, which is I think it's cool. But it's like, okay, we gotta, we gotta get to get to the get to the good part where we are really discussing them specifically and managing them specifically, right. And so in I think it was 1895, there was a French social psychologist who developed. He wrote a book and in that book it was called the Crowd, a Study of the Popular Mind, and in that book he talks about herd mentality and he compares like herd mentality to like going along with the crowd Right, hence the name of the book. 13:22 We are experiencing a sense of maybe insecurity, because we don't think that we know as much as another person. They may be in a position of power, or it may be three or four people who are saying the same thing and we don't have the strength or know-how as to how to engage in a way that is not confrontational but informational. Right, and I talk about an example in my book with me, because that was something that I experienced early on when I was an educator, right, like there was this conversation about Spanish speaking students and I probably this was maybe my fourth year as a teacher and so of course, you know you're getting to know teachers, you're wanting to be in good community with teachers, and there was a few teachers in the work room, in the cafeteria not the cafeteria, but like the workspace and they were talking about a particular student who was Spanish speaking, and one of the teachers said you know, well, I hate that when they come here, that they even have an option. You know, if you're coming to the country, it shouldn't even be an option. You know if you're coming to the country, it shouldn't even be an option. You should be, you should speak English, and I knew that we were getting a new Spanish speaking student and that student was being assigned to that person's classroom and there were some other things that were said that I was like man, you know, that's a, that's a bias, and how is that student going to be treated? And, and you know that's a, that's a bias, and how is that student going to be treated? And you know, and I'm not saying that that person is a bad person, not at all. I'm saying that that person's bias as it relates to, to, to Spanish-speaking people, was very evident. You know, in the conversation and she said some other select things about you know. You know when that person gets in class that they're going to make sure that they do X, y, z, but it was like in a. It wasn't in a kind way, right, it wasn't a. How can we get the supports for this student so that, you know, we understand that English is their sacred language and we're going to have them up. It wasn't in that way, right, and I didn't say a word, right? I went along with the herd and then later on I was just really uncomfortable, so I just stopped eating lunch with them and stopped going into the room, you know, into the teacher workroom, and they were in there and that wasn't the good, that wasn't the best way to handle it. Teacher workroom, and they were in there and that wasn't the good, that wasn't the best way to handle it. Um, at the time I realized that and I remember one of my mentors saying you know, why didn't you say anything? And I was just like I didn't want to come off as you know, different I, I'm new here, I want to make friends here and that kind of thing. 16:17 And then fast forward to another incident that I speak with, speak about in my book. I was part of this organization and they started saying welcome to the jungle when they started talking about a particular predominantly black school. And I noticed that they didn't have any rhymes for other schools that were not predominantly Black. And I don't know if I go into all the details in the book, so this might be like a special for everybody, our break. And I was like, listen, this is what I'm hearing, this is what they're saying. It's wrong. I just I don't. I'll be honest with you. I said I don't want to seem like the angry Black woman because I was the only Black woman that was in there, only Black person at all that was in there and I said I don't want to seem like the angry Black woman and say something. 17:13 You know this is a new job and my mentor said Dr K, there is nothing angry about you, that's just not who you are. I encourage you to go in there and ask the question. And I was like what do you mean? He was like ask them, you know, what is it about this school that makes you have, that, makes you call this the jungle? Do you have other pet names or pet songs for other schools? And that was the thing. 17:43 I didn't know how to ask the question or what question to ask. And so now one of my things when things happen is OK, dr K, ask the question, right, and so that that that herd mentality bias can be seen in so many different ways. You know, um, and then it's also called various things. You know, there was another um, a British surgeon back in 1914 who called it herd behavior. Um, there was Sigmund Freud called it herd instinct, and so it's been like couched under different names, but it's all the same thing. 18:24 It is going along with the herd, and that can be out of fear for being different or because, hey, I just I want to go along and get along, or I don't even know what to say. You know, I don't want to seem different or I don't even know what to say. You know, and I don't want to seem different, or I don't want to make waves. Right, but when you're talking about working with students, whether, again, k-12 or higher ed, sometimes you have to be the person that asks the question. Right, we talk about being lifelong learners, but we're still learning too. Right? And no matter how young you are listen, you're right. Right, our Gen Zers no matter how young you are in education, you have something to contribute. So, whether you, if you walk in a room and it's people who have been in education for 20, 30 years, you deserve to be in that room and your voice is important. You give perspective, you know, and so be okay with knowing that your gift, your presence in that room, is a gift to the whole. 19:36 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh my gosh, thank you for all of that. Thank you for sharing. I think, again, those specific situations require so much like vulnerability to share. I I can add to like I resonate deeply with, like the sitting in a teacher's lounge or you know, and listening, and even as a coach, being like Ooh, I'm going to like pick my battles, like no, no, that, like that is, pick that one and that one and that one, like say something, ask the question. So I also appreciate that your action step of asking the question is so important and I love that for folks who are not sold yet, like get the book because it has a whole section of tips of like how to counteract, which I really appreciate. That was like the most heavily annotated part of it. I was like, oh, this is what I need to do, and I think I mean specifically to the decision fatigue one. I even like I read it two days ago and I already have in place a system for some of the tips that you had said for decision fatigue, Like I was like. 20:29 I have a coach. She's going to box me multiple times a day and just be like did you drink water in? The last hour Like did you? Did you eat food today? 20:37 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) That's good and I love that you took that step and I love and I appreciate that you are letting listeners know that. And again, the play on words, beyond implicit and explicit bias. This is not about, oh my goodness, I have this bias. This is about, oh my goodness, I am biased in this area. And now what do I do? So how do we get beyond that, beyond the shame, beyond the blame and all that other stuff that does nobody any good right. We have different lived experiences Okay. We come from diverse and different backgrounds. Okay, and now what? How do we work with that? And it's possible to work with that in a way that is beautiful and beneficial for us all. So, knowing strategies, those strategies are a way to get beyond our biases. 21:33 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely, and I know we will really end up into herd mentality or or or kind of that herd bias. Do you want to talk just for a little bit around decision? Because I I? What was interesting to me was I was like, oh, I can see these things happening, but I didn't always connect them to making decisions and the impact on classrooms, like the one thing. I'll just say I'm going to stop talking and let you talk. The one thing that really got me has been talking a lot about equitable assessment lately and when we're talking about the impact of decision fatigue on grading, I was like, oh my goodness, this is so good, so I mean bad, but good that you reveal it for us. 22:14 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) But it's come on, it's the truth. Let's just be honest. It's the truth, a hundred percent, and that's part of the work. Being honest with ourselves, right, I have been the teacher that has taken, you know, papers home to grade and really just wanted to be on my porch or really just wanted to, you know, do things with my kids, and there may be, or I just schedule a time during that time where I just dive in and grade the papers. You know, everybody has their, their theme that they're really great at and their thing that they're just not so great at, right, and for me it was grading papers, right, you know, the lesson planning, planning and all that good thing. I really enjoyed that part. The differentiated learning, I really enjoyed that part, but for me it was the grading the papers. Uh, so, listeners, don't judge me, we all have our thing. That is like I'm gonna take the sweet part, but there's also this part that I just don't like. And how do I manage that part that I just don't like? And how do I manage that part that I just don't like about my job? 23:23 But yeah, so with decision fatigue, it's very interesting because this is another bias that was coined back in. This was. But this was like 1990, 1990s, late 1990s, like 1998, early 2000s, and originally the research really had to do with what is called ego depletion and you know, ego is that aspect of us that's like I know, I know this, but after a while, everybody you get tired, you get tired. And if we're honest with ourselves, we live in a society and especially as teachers, you know there's so much that we have on our plates right, and we're often stretched very thin right. And sometimes there are some school districts that are doing a great job with, you know, reminding people about wellness and self-care and things of that nature. And there's some that are like we just got, we don't even have time, we got to keep it moving. And if you think about that in your own personal life, sometimes we're like I got to keep it moving and I may or may not eat until you know the evening where I'm realizing wait a minute, have I drank water? Have I? There's no way you can expect yourself to make quality decisions all day when you have not taken care of your physical, emotional needs. It's just, it's impossible and it's nothing we need to feel bad about. It's something we need to manage. It's impossible and it's nothing we need to feel bad about, it's something we need to manage Right. 25:13 This is the original research, which is interesting, about decision fatigue parole significantly more in the morning, right when we're fresh, right compared to the end of the day. So think about it you may have two people who are up for parole for the very same thing. This study showed significantly not just slightly significantly more that if that person who went up for parole for the same thing, same circumstances, may get parole if they go early in the morning, if they see that judge early in the morning, and if that same person came back at the end of the day for the exact same thing, exact same circumstances, race, color, creed and all that would probably get a different outcome with the parole. And so that was the basis of the study originally when it first came out back in, like I said, in the 1990s, and so now there's more and more research, including the research that's in my book about how that impacts teachers and administrators. 26:26 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I'm thinking about that immediate parallel too. I think this might've been a fictional scenario that you wrote, or maybe it was a real one where, like a principal is, you know, giving the suspension to the kid, the third kid in the day that has like graffitied the wall or the desk, and it's like the first kid it's okay, next kid, it's okay. Would everyone just stop graffiting like suspension and like that is so real, like that is so real that that is either at the school level or the teacher level that that happens and that's and it's such a simple, potentially simple thing. That's like if that teacher ate lunch or that principal ate lunch or had like 10 minute walk to like free their mind a little bit and just take a breather, like all these little tips that you give to actively take care of yourself may interrupt that bias. It's wild that that is like that's what we can do and that's what a gift to give ourselves and everyone around us. 27:20 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) I love that. What a gift to give ourselves and everyone around us. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, yep. 27:30 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you for just breaking this down for us, for I mean, you take so much research, distill it so succinctly and then give us a real like, really tangible like. 27:40 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) I connect so deeply to all these scenarios we've probably that was the goal so I'm really happy that you get that, because that was the goal not to make it too short, not to make it too long, but to make it palatable. 27:53 You know, because, again, we teachers we got we often have a very full plate and so I feel like I think that my book is a companion piece, it's a discussion piece, it's a book study piece, it's a piece that can be used in schools all around the country, all around the world, just, you know, as a book study, as a as a way to from instructional coaches, and you know it's various ways that I think the information in my book can be used, because my grandmother used to say it's a sorry dog that don't wag its own tail, right. 28:29 And so I say this yes, because I wrote it, but also because I wrote it with teachers, with educators in mind. Right, I've been a classroom teacher, I have worked in higher education, I've been an administrator, so I wrote this with educators in various capacities in mind, and so, even if you notice the scenarios, there's different scenarios with different people, with different types of educators and different types of students. All that was done on purpose, because I want everyone to be able to see themselves, but see themselves with some grace, in a way that encourages change. We don't, you don't have change through shame and guilt and blame. You have change through grace. 29:16 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) And it doesn't serve anyone to just sit in the shame and blame right yeah, Thank you for that. Or to just sit in the shame and blame right yeah, Thank you for that. 29:21 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) Or to just tell me that I'm biased and not give me strategies Like what do I do with that? 29:26 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yes, such a good point. Such a good point, and so I think you know folks are going to order the book as they're listening and while it is en route to them, I'm curious what is like one thing they could do as they end the episode, to just kind of start thinking this way, practicing some of the stuff that we've talked about and that's in your book, like what's like kind of a one thing they could do in the next hour. 29:51 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) In the next hour, better at social media and I will get better at social media. I would say follow me at DocKizArt, because I'll talk about different types of biases on my social media. Listen, I'm knocking on 50. I'm not saying I'm not young, I'm not old. There are certain elements of social media that I'm getting used to and starting to learn more about, and so I recognize that that is a good platform for learning, and so one of my goals is to utilize that platform better. So if I was a listener, I'd say listen, I'm going to go follow Dr Kisart on social media to learn more about these various types of biases. 30:40 The other thing that I would recommend is to take the Harvard Implicit Bias Test right. It's completely free. You can just do a quick Google search for Harvard Implicit Bias Test. They have several categories of tests that you can take. Some of them are religious, some of them are political, some of them are race and ethnicity, but it's a wonderful way to get insight about your. 31:11 We talk to our students all the time about metacognition, thinking about your thinking. 31:15 It's a wonderful way to think about our thinking, and especially now when there's we find ourselves kind of like there's some polarization happening right, and I'll just speak on it. 31:31 There's polarization happening where people think that, well, if you supported this person in office, then you're a bad person, if you didn't support this person in office, then you're a good person or a bad person or whatever. And we're coexisting, we're working together, right, and so I think that implicit bias test on politics is really important for us all to take, because we're coexisting, but we don't like if we're not consciously aware that I may be saying and doing things because I know that you did support this person or you didn't support this person, or all these changes are happening and so now you know. I think it's important that we know how we are showing up in our communities in a way that, like I said, it extends grace, but in a way that is honest, and sometimes, if we're honest, we can't always do that for ourselves. It helps to have tools. We give it to our students. We need to give it to ourselves. 32:37 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you for sharing that. I think that's that's so important and I I I'll close with these two questions. I think you've kind of touched on them a little bit. We'll do kind of a lightning round One. What is something you've been learning about lately? You did mention being a lifelong learner. Right, we all are. So I'm curious it could be professional related Prochain. 33:04 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) Fun. I've been learning about Prochain. I have a niece, nazari, and we were at Michael's not too long ago. I live in Virginia and they live in Chicago and I went to go visit and I said, oh, I can make you, tati Clowney, make me a scarf. I was like, yes. So we went to Michael's and she wanted a pink and purple scarf. Well, I have never integrated colors before. So I was like, oh, my goodness, how am I gonna make a pink and a purple scarf, like like I don't even know? So I am learning going to make a pink and a purple scarf Like I don't even know. So I am learning how to integrate colors when crocheting. 33:46 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That is beautiful, and thank you for the backstory of the answer, loved it. And finally, I think you mentioned this a little bit social media, but where can people connect with you? Is that the best place to go? Is there a website? We'll drop a link to the book, of course, as well. 34:00 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) Yes, absolutely so. You can purchase the book on solutiontreecom. It is a publishing company. You can also purchase the book on Amazon. For people who are still like, hey, I'm an Amazon, what is it? Amazonite Making up words now? But you can purchase it on Barnes and Noble has it on their website as well. And you can connect with me on LinkedIn, dr Claudine Kisart. You can also connect with me via email at doc D-O-C-K-I-Z-A-R-T dockisart at gmailcom. You can follow me on Instagram at doc kids art. On Instagram, I do work with schools as a you know consultant to support schools and facilitating assessments and facilitating courageous conversations around biases and things of that nature and not sorry, mr Singleton, I know I said courageous conversation and that might be proprietary for his organization, but having conversations around navigating through biases, ensuring that and again, I also wanna say this before we go Biases is not a DEI thing. 35:21 Hear me well, right, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I understand that there are schools and school districts who really are being mindful about and have to be careful because of legislation regarding saying things like inclusive or equitable or things like DEI stuff. My book is not just a DEI book. My book is again, think about it. Many of these biases were discussed and researched way before the field of DEI, right Way before. 35:56 My book is a school improvement book. My book is a reflective practitioner book for educators, irrespective of what level of education you're in, be it administrator, new teacher, you know classroom teacher that's been in school, that's been an educator for one year, two years, 30 years, 40 years, right, I wanna make sure that readers also understand that you can read this book safely. Right, your school can order this book and have book studies and book conversations. You can call on me to come support your schools with understanding how to navigate through their biases and things of that nature, because it's not a DEI book. This is a school improvement and how to close achievement gaps book. 36:54 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Appreciate that and for the people who are super into like anti-racism and DEI and like, the implications are very clear for doing this work and getting good results, absolutely, absolutely. 37:06 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) I just I think you know, unfortunately, where we are in life. It's important. And then you said something about anti-racism, right? I am often very mindful when it comes to associating my work with anti-racism because I'm pro-people, right? 37:31 I read this book a while ago about I love Buddhist philosophies, and one of the things that I read in this book it's called it's how to love is like sometimes. And then there's another book it's about the art of compassion and it talks about it. One of the things that they say is whatever you're hyper focused on is what you see. Is whatever you're hyper-focused on is what you see. And so I was like huh. And so they talked about like racism and anti-racism as an example, just, this was some years ago that I read this, and they were like you know, if you're focused on being anti-racist, right, then and this is just for me, like just how I conceptualize things, then your focus, then you're looking at things through a lens of race and racism, right, for me. 38:25 I don't know about everybody else and everybody has their lane. In my lane, I look at things through a pro-people right, not an anti-anything, but a pro-people right, not an anti-anything but a pro, uh, people, how do we, as people who have differences whether it's differences of of race, ethnicity, gender, socialization, uh, social economic ability, height, you know, weight, lookism and all that other kind of stuff how do we still work together? Right, and to me that's not anti anything, it's pro people. 39:06 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you for that. You've given me a lot to think about and, with that, thank you so much for the entire conversation. I really I've enjoyed your book so much. 39:15 - Dr. Kizart (Guest) I've enjoyed this conversation so much I appreciate being with you. You're welcome. And thank you for having me. I truly appreciate that. 9/22/2025 229. Build an Equitable Classroom with Dr. Jacobē Bell and Dr. Reshma RamkellawanRead Now
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode of the Time for Teachership podcast, Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan and Dr. Jacobē Bell dive into the transformative power of authenticity and empathy in education. As co-authors of the book Reclaiming Authenticity, they draw from their experience as both educators and researchers to challenge the current narrative that blames teachers for educational shortcomings, advocating instead for systemic change.
The episode emphasizes the importance of educators connecting with their true selves and their students, fostering a liberatory classroom environment that focuses on authenticity, empathy, and collective liberation efforts. The Big Dream Dr. Ramkellawan and Dr. Bell's ultimate vision for education is a system where reciprocal trust and humanization flourish. They dream of a system that works for everybody—students, educators, administration, and families. This vision includes breaking away from traditional structures, such as rigid classroom settings, and embracing a more holistic approach that connects education with the outside world and the land. Mindset Shifts Required To achieve an equitable, flourishing education system, educators can start to shift their mindsets beyond the technical aspects of teaching and embrace authenticity, focusing on connecting with their own identities and those of their students. This shift also involves questioning and disrupting the hidden curriculum that reinforces systemic inequalities. A “hidden curriculum” is the messages we’re sending, whether intended or not—how does the structure or layout of the classroom speak to children? How do our communication styles impact students? This is an important part to unpack and be aware of as educators pursue equity and authenticity in the classroom. Action Steps Authenticity is not just about “being real,” but takes intentional effort on the part of educators. Here are some action steps to get started: Step 1: Understand what harm is, as it can be hard to see. There are different types of harm—spiritual harm, pedagogical harm, or even curricular harm when the student has no connection to the curricula. Meditation can be a helpful practice to work through these areas of harm, acknowledging it and then working through it. Step 2: Engage in self-reflection to better understand and address unconscious biases and harm. Practicing mindfulness by using reflective prompts can help you become more aware of your identity and its impact on your teaching. Step 3: Implement empathy interviews with your students. This is simply talking to them and asking questions like, “Tell me a time you enjoyed class,” or “What’s frustrating you?” You can also try empathy 360 practices, which is students interviewing teachers or teachers interviewing families. This tool and practice helps build empathy between all stakeholders and help folks see each other. Step 4: Embrace the liberation lens. Let’s break out of the box and dream big! For example, bringing elements of Afrofuturism and speculative fiction into the curriculum can encourage freedom dreaming and envision alternative futures. Use creative activities like free writing and artistic expression to inspire students to think beyond the status quo. Challenges? One of the primary challenges in creating liberatory, authentic classrooms is overcoming entrenched systemic structures and biases that perpetuate inequality. Teachers may also struggle with balancing the demands of standardized curricula while fostering authenticity and empathy. One Step to Get Started Educators can start with the simple step of conducting empathy interviews with their students. You don’t have to start big—just a few students at a time to gain deeper insights into their experiences. From there, consider auditing the curriculum and evaluating what voices are most prevalent and which ones are missing. Stay Connected You can connect with Dr. Jacobē Bell on LinkedIn, or Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan on LinkedIn or Instagram. Learn more about their company, Equity Consulting Group, on the website or Instagram, and grab a copy of their book, Reclaiming Authenticity. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guests are sharing Recognizing the Hidden Curriculum with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 229 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:03 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Dr Rom Kalawan. Dr Bell, so nice to have you on the Time for Teachership podcast. Thank you so much for being here. 00:09 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. We're excited to be here. 00:14 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I am thrilled about the book that you wrote. I'm sure you're both thrilled as well that it is out in the world and probably took a lot of labor Reclaiming Authenticity. I want people to know that this is kind of the frame for the conversation, so we'll link at any point. You're like yep, got to get that. We will link to that in the show notes and the blog post for the episode. But is there anything that either of you want listeners or folks engaging with the episode to know or think about as we kind of enter the conversation about the book? 00:43 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) I can start us off with this. I think it's important for us to know, as authors, we are teachers first and we are coaches, and so we enter this with our teacher heart and our coach hat, and it's written from years of experience of like doing this work. 01:07 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) Yeah, to echo what Jacoby said, I think we exist in a time where teachers are often dehumanized, demoralized, seen as the main cause of all of our educational failings as a country, and we wanted to rethink that narrative and shift how teachers can be seen and like poured into when they're receiving lots of external support. 01:34 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That totally tracks. Yes, thank you. Thank you both for that framing and I think your book is, I think, a testament to this first question I was going to ask, but I'll ask it anyway. I can see it was a succinct answer, but this idea of freedom dreaming is really important to me. The show, I think, the field of education, and so Dr Bettina Love describes this as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. So I think, thinking about that, what is the freedom dream that you all hold for the field of education? 02:01 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) I think the first thing that comes up for me, rooted in this concept of transformational justice by Maisha N, is that there's reciprocal trust and humanization between students, between teachers, between administration, in that the system works for everybody. Right now, the system doesn't work for anybody, right? It doesn't work for students, it doesn't work for teachers. And so how? 02:34 My dream is for an education system where students flourish, meaning like both academically, but also their inner self as well, right, their sense of belonging, their sense of who they are, being affirmed and validated, and a system where they see people like them in the books they read, et cetera. And also for teachers, a system where teachers flourish as well, because, as we know, it's hard and it doesn't really work for anybody, which is why so many teachers are leaving the field. And so those are the first things that come to mind. And also, just like I dream of something outside the box, right, like right now, we have schools and a brick and mortar and, you know, students sit in their desks X amount of hours a day. What does it look like to take education outside, or connected to the land, or connected to outside? Things outside the walls, you know, make it more real, which might be more exciting for everybody involved as well. So those are the first things that come to mind for me. 03:58 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) Yeah, there's also this element in our schooling system that is grounded in zero-sum thinking, grounded in meritocracy, which is a false paradigm. 04:08 There's a gentleman who has done research on that and I'm drawing a complete blank on his name, but he had a TED Talk that came out during COVID, where he talked about it and said we have schooling systems and structures where only a certain percentage are able to thrive to the top and it's kind of the given norm and expectation that a certain percentage are going to fall below. 04:33 And so if we're truly pushing for this concept of equality for everyone, it means meeting everyone where they are based on their readiness, and creating schooling experiences that don't implicitly tell them their worth because of these structures that don't actually fit who they are. 04:55 As a learner, as a product of New York City Public Schools, you know I experienced this firsthand in a number of different ways, and now, working in that system and working across our country in like a number of different school systems that are similar in design and structure, and also as the parent of a school-aged child who's in a new york state school system, I see so many different layers of it where we're all. Each system is perpetuating the same rhetoric right that only certain groups of individuals are quote unquote worthy, wanting to only teach a select few, but because the system is, like, unintentionally, intentionally pressuring us to be in alignment with that rhetoric, and teachers get caught in the middle. And so how do you, as a teacher, find the balance between I want all of my kids to thrive and dream and grow up to be humans and adults in society that will feel so their voice and their lives matter when I have competing expectations. 06:13 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, actually I wonder if this is a good time to talk about that kind of hidden curriculum piece of your book, because I think that illuminates exactly what you're talking about and describing Like. I was kind of floored when I read the table and also very like head nodding like yes, I have seen this. I've seen this play out, when I don't remember exactly what you guys call it, but it's kind of like the class management approach based on kind of like a class of worker in kind of an industrial system or capitalist system, I should say. And so I'm curious if we can kind of an industrial system or capitalist system, I should say. And so I'm curious if we can kind of unpack that a little bit for folks who don't have the book yet. That can kind of give them a preview. 06:55 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) Sure. So when I think about the hidden curriculum, I think about what are the messages that we are sending, intended or not intended? Right Down to like, what is how we set up structure in our classrooms, or what do our walls say? Or what do our communication styles, like, say, and how does that differ based upon who's in front of us, who the students are in front of us or the neighborhoods in which we're teaching, right? So I think the definition we give in the book is that the hidden curriculum refers to the content, topics or ideologies that purport implicit messaging within larger nation states that citizens are expected to internalize. 07:49 And, like you said, capitalism in the US kind of like undergirds that. And so, professor Au, like A-U, I might be saying that wrong is kind of who I read to first when I was first exposed to this. And they talk about the working class and how, like, in the working class, teachers are expected. Teachers expect students to adhere to stricter disciplinary codes, submit to like figures of authority, copy things down and not really make too many decisions on their own. And how oftentimes there's like less creativity for the working class and schooling. And then, when we think about the middle class, teachers often expect students to get the right answers and understand how they got it, to occasionally make decisions, to follow directions, et cetera. And then, like the more fluent professional class teachers, expect students to, like complete more creative activities independently. Choose the methods and materials they'll work with right, there's more creativity, et cetera. Choose the methods and materials they'll work with right, there's more creativity, etc. And then the executive it's like develop analytic powers, make decisions, challenge answers, etc. 09:20 And when I first heard about this as well, I was like oh wow. It helped me also explain, like, some of my experiences living and working in New York City for the last number of years. I've worked in schools all over the city and all different neighborhoods and I remember specifically the first time I was a coach in a school in an affluent neighborhood. That first day I was there, I went into the bathroom and I cried Because up until that point I had been working in neighborhoods that were very different from that, where, you know, oftentimes students were more policed, right, and then being in this school where kids just get out of their seat without permission to go get water because they need water or to go to their backpack, you know they didn't need to get permission and just like juxtaposing that to like, like, don't get out of your seat without permission, like, or just even in creativity, some of them were sitting on the floor during lessons. You know, there wasn't this like you must be in your seats, you must sit up straight, like. 10:19 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) You know, it just felt very different and also the students in that school were from different backgrounds and I just cried because I was like, wow, like from day one kindergarten, they're interacting with schooling very different in ways that create decision making and create and promote creativity and you know all the things there's an additional layer to that too, when we're thinking about the role of teachers, um, in pushing back against these capitalistic systems and, again, capitalism is everywhere we're not gonna, we're not gonna go down that rabbit hole because, because there's like so much that can be said about it, um, particularly as it relates to schooling practice and as jacobi just alluded to, and we adults, children are not really separate from that system. And so I'm going to read a line from page 90 of the book Classism and economics are not the only factors that influence the hidden curriculum. A teacher's intersectional identity can impact the lens through which they see the content and curriculum. In chapter two, page 25, we discuss the concept of intersectionality. 11:42 People's lived differences or lived experiences, rather differ based on the intersection of their identities. And we go on to talk about what is intersectionality. What does it mean to have to unpack who you are as a person and then how that shows up in the classroom? And how do we do that for students? If we think about our own lived experiences as educators, we having an unconsciously indoctrinated with some of the ideology that relates to the hidden curriculum, that relates back to meritocracy Michael Sandel is actually the scholar who talks about that the concept of meritocracy, by the way and so we have to be continuously conscious of how these paradigms are showing up in our daily work and interactions with kids. 12:36 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) Thanks for that, reshma, because I think I was like softly alluding to that in the example where I'm like I went to the bathroom and cried, right, but it was because of the intersectionality, right, the more affluent school was like more white kids with more money, right, and the schools that I'd worked in the majority of my time up to that, um, you know, were students who, um, experienced poverty, um, and were Brown. So, um, thank you, and I also thank you for bringing up capitalism as well, because it's not like I don't think teachers are inherent, like we're born into the system that kind of feeds us towards these outcomes, cause that's what it's designed to do. So I don't, I just want to be clear. I don't think people wake up saying like, oh, I'm going to teach these kids differently because of who they are. No, it's just a part of the bigger system that we're all born into. 13:33 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, I think this kind of connects at least I'm thinking it connects to kind of the authenticity piece and the kind of framing for the whole book. So I'm curious if we could maybe go there next and connect that. Yeah, that'd be great do you guys want to define it for us and kind of think about that through line? 13:56 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) yeah. So jacoby and I went back and forth around thinking about this concept of authenticity. Uh, throughout writing the book and the definition of it definition of it truly changed over iterations. I would say that the final, like the definition that we landed on, was being able to be continuously conscientious of the identities that you're bringing into the classroom and acting on those identities in a way that allows you to teach and connect to students and humanize them, while also creating a culture of empathy that is reciprocal for you and for students. Back to you. We know that there are lots of ed books out there like Teach Like a Champion. We both came from a charter world and we don't mind some of the principles that are in those books, but when enacted, it divorces teachers from who they are and focuses more on the technicality of teaching as opposed to the softer skills that go into it. 15:03 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That makes so much sense to me. Go ahead, Dr Browser. 15:08 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) And I was just going to read a line from Chapter 10 in our book where we define authenticity. And it's funny because we talk about like some people may call it, like keeping it real, you know, like who are you keeping it real? Or like having a keen awareness of who you are. So on page 10, we say in this book we define authenticity as being in touch with your inner self, so you don't get lost in pleasing others in ways that are detrimental to yourself and your students. Right, and that's like exactly what Rashma was hinting at in terms of like, when we do technical pieces divorced from who we are, they don't work and we're not keeping it real, and kids know when we're keeping it real and when we're not keeping it real. And also it detracts from our satisfaction in the work as well, at least what I have found. 16:07 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) The quote you read, I have written down in like three different places. So, yes, I'm so glad you brought that up because I was going to yeah, that is totally, totally it. And I think I mean I'm so glad you brought that up because I was going to yeah, that is totally, totally it. And I think I mean I'm looking at my notes now and thinking about, too, how much, like, from a practical sense of like, okay, so I'm thinking about someone who may be new to some of these concepts, who's listening or engaging with the episode and thinking about, okay, so now I've gotten this kind of gut punch of the hidden curriculum thing. Whoa, that's happening. 16:34 I'm realizing that like for me to be authentic, to be joyful, to be like not causing harm, but even more than that, to like enable enacting justice and pursuing justice in my class, like I need to ask myself some questions. I think there's so many illuminating conversations I think it's Dr Bell that you had with, with the kind of a teacher who I'm assuming is kind of a pseudonym throughout and there are so many great questions you asked and great sample responses that were given. I also know that there's a bunch of tools in that chapter on harm. So I don't know if either of you want to talk through any of those pieces. There was like the unpacking harm, processing, harm tools and then the audit questions that people can ask about different aspects of pedagogy, instruction, class culture. There's just there's so much. I think, is what I want to get at. For teachers who are in that space, like I, I need to learn more, I need to do this better. I'm motivated to do this, but I need. 17:28 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) That chapter is kind of define harm right, because sometimes harm can be hard to see, right, we may know that something doesn't feel good to us or et cetera, but not always. 17:53 And so we kind of talk about harm in the different contexts, in terms of spiritual harm Right Dr Patina Love talks about, like spirit murder, right. Or the pedagogical harm, like what happens when with punishment and reward systems or non-rapport, et cetera, or even curricular harm, right, when a kid doesn't have any connections to the curriculum, or social right, going back to what Reshma was saying about intersectionality, neurodiverse you know the list goes on. You know the list goes on. And so some of the tools that we included, one that really sticks out to me is the tool of like meditation. It's something that I was never into, but then, over the pandemic, I got into it more and learned very like concrete tools that, as an educator, helped me work through harm. In our book we talk about harm for students, harm for teachers and like how do you reconcile those two or try not to do harm in those areas? But the first step is really like acknowledging it and then working through it. 19:18 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) Yeah, I love that you mentioned this point, jacoby, of like meditation, and I think for listeners, meditation might initially the first thing that comes to mind and I say this as a practicing Hindu that you're going to sit there palms up, you're chanting Aum's. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about that you are engaging in this work of mindfulness through a series of reflective prompts, which we do include throughout the book, um, and there's a graphic on 117 that I think offers a beautiful visualization of what jacob was referring to, that we come into this work with unconscious harm that has lived in us, that has either been enacted on us or we are unintentionally enacting on others. No one really gets out of the public school, k-12 system without being unscathed in some way, shape or form, and then, if you choose to become an educator, you go back into that system and these unconscious things just kind of show up in your work without realizing it, and so the visual that I'm describing is essentially a tree, and then you have the roots, which are the like, unconscious ways in which the harm might live within us. 20:29 You have the perpetuation of harm, which is where you know the larger system is represented by a rain cloud and it's like raining down on us and we are unintentionally like putting back on others. Then it's manifested through the growth of the tree, but then, when we stop, reflect and act, we can go towards like a liberatory experience which is symbolized by the sun. You know I'm an optimist, so I think I believe that educators want to do well by children. I don't think teachers, generally speaking, go into this field wanting to inflict harm, which is why the chapter is like parentheses try to to no harm. It's just how do we become more mindful of what we're doing and how we're interacting and engaging with students? 21:25 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) And a couple of the tools related to like what we're talking about. I think one of the first tools we talk about is empathy interviews, and empathy interviews are where you interview your students as a group or one-on-one, like tell me about a time you enjoyed class, or tell me about a time when you felt frustrated in class, why. You know it's. It's under like, what undergirds empathy interviews is this desire to like understand students and like what are they telling you they need from you to help you adjust your classroom instruction, etc. But empathy interviews don't just have to go one way, teacher to student. They can also go the other way as well. So there's also something called Empathy 360, where it's like all around view, you know. So then students are interviewing teachers, like if you had three wishes for our class, what would they be, you know? Or then also teachers can interview caregivers or families, like what would a joyful and good school look like for your child? So it's like this 360 view and it's a tool that builds empathy between all stakeholders in a way to help folks see each other. It's so often to get frustrated of like oh, why can't they just do this thing, or why isn't this happening? Or, you know, we've all had those days and Empathy 360 interviews really help us see each other but then also synthesize into like concrete next steps and as coaches we've seen some really powerful work come out of empathy interviews. 23:19 Something we do more on the teacher side in terms of like processing potential harm and moving forward is writing an apology to students. You know, acknowledge the wrong Students are so forgiving, so, so forgiving. I know I've had times where something small, like one of my pet peeves, is always like when students would sharpen their pencil with electric pencil right in the middle of my mini lesson. I'd be like, are you serious? You know, but my reaction like that didn't warrant that reaction. You know what I mean. So then it's like I had to apologize and you know whatnot. But so that's one of the tools we offer. And then another tool we offer is like write a letter to your early self, so your early career self. You know what do you want them to know? What is something positive you've benefited from hearing back that you would have benefited from back then. So, like Roshma said, the exercises are really meant to reflect and help people move forward. 24:31 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that minute, I love that you mentioned that. But the interviews I come from the kind of student voice field of research and so there's so much in your book that's like on co-construction and just like all of the pieces that I'm like, yes, this and so that kind of leads me to think about the Afrofuturism chapter, which I adored, and so the liberatory lens examples where you kind of were just dreaming of here's what, here's what it could be, and I thinkored, and so the liberatory lens examples where you kind of were just dreaming of here's what, here's what it could be, and I think, dr Bell, you got it. That's the beginning to talking about your freedom dreamer, like let's think about connecting to place and like being outside of the walls, like what are some of the things, either from the book or just things you would, you would add down in this conversation that you can kind of like dream up or envision for a more liberatory school, either structure, practice, way of being. 25:25 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) That's a big question, sorry, well, I was trying to let rashma go first, but I can go first well, I know the question was for you like, because I you know, in full transparency, jacoby um is a big proponent of afrofuturism in schools and learning spaces and in our work she, like, has brought it in um to professional development. 25:46 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) So I was like I feel like you should lead us in this one Kobe. 25:51 Okay, I got this. So Afrofuturism. So I find it hard sometimes because we're so conditioned by how things are and it's like easy to think about, like little changes, but when you want to think on like a macro level or whole country, like redo level, it can get overwhelming, you know, and sometimes it's like am I dreaming big enough? Right, like um. And so I turn to Afrofuturism and like speculative fiction more generally to, because where else are dreams bigger than in these, like worlds that have been built in books? And so Afrofuturism is a Black cultural lens used to consider the future, lens used to consider the future. It's also used for other things, but that's like how we take it up in the book, um, as a way to divest from the like status quo, um, and like think about something different. And there's like different tenants that come up, um with afrofuturism. So we I wrote down like some guiding questions to begin to dream what are the things we want to disrupt, being able to notice and name them first, but then also thinking about what are the habits that we need to have to freedom, dream, but then also this idea of centering humanity in it all. So thinking about the full person and the full humanization, humanization, um of folks. And thinking about like to deny someone else's like. 27:35 As Pablo Freire says, like to deny someone else's humanization is also to deny one's own um. And how it's like. Yes, it's an individual, like I can do what I can do in my classroom, but it's also like a collective endeavor as well and it involves everyone working together students, teachers, parents, admin, like you know, people working together. And then, like when thinking about full liberation, thinking about how the noticing and naming, but also like critical reflection and action, are necessary to transform Um. 28:13 So I know that's a mouthful, but I think like the core idea that I'm trying to say is like, within our dreaming, centering the humanity um and then using afrofuturism to think outside the box. So I had folks in a pd do a free writing activity, you know, thinking about, like, what brings you joy, where do you feel freedom, where do you feel more happy, what are the conditions, what do you see, hear, smell, and using that as the basis for dreaming. And then drawing a picture or doing a free ride or writing a poem or something that kind of gets at that to help folks dream, and myself included, to dream bigger. Sorry, I forgot the original question. 29:08 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I was answering. If you want to share, that was excellent, that was excellent for me. And then if you want to share some of the pieces that were on, I don't know if there was a chart there that had like a bunch of examples of like here's what it could look like through a libertarian lens. Like what could education be that it typically isn't currently? 29:30 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) I think that's in here, jacoby, is that okay? All right, so the chart that you're referring to is on 151, table 6.1. But before we talk about that, I just want to echo what Jacoby said, with drawing folks listeners' attention to page 154. If you have the book, if not, I'm going to describe it for you. The three habits that Jacoby was talking about. We broke them down to say what is habits of being, habits of listening, I'm sorry. Habits of living, habits of teaching, and then underneath each, there are a series of guiding questions, definitions and examples so you can understand what this would look like in real time. 30:08 Then, in Table 6.1, we brought it back to here are some of the structural elements that exist within schooling systems. So you have the general structure of the school, you have curriculum and instruction, you have student agency Three powerful elements that can really, when shifted to take more of a dreaming based standpoint or afrofuturistic standpoint and open up the doors for possibility. And so one of the examples that we talked about was with curriculum and rethinking what gets to be taught. So this goes back to our earlier conversation around the hidden curriculum right, like why aren't we teaching about more global civilizations in our history classes. Yes, I know, in the New York State curriculum you have, like the introductory cursory dip, your toe in the water of, like ancient civilizations. But why aren't we doing a more deeper dive, right? Why aren't we unpacking what schooling looked like in those spaces, what children might have learned, and then bringing that back into our own classrooms and classroom paradigms? 31:23 Students take more of a sociocratic approach to decisions. Where students are involved, where we put a referendum out and kids have a voice, or students have a desired outcome for their classroom or their schooling community that they are putting it forth, advocating, pushing for the change, and leaders and educators are open to hearing that. They might even I mean some people will say well, that's student government. Yes, but depending on how student government is structured, it could still limit the voices of everyone. Right, where some students might see that as an elite position that you have to advocate for a campaign, whereas from a ground-up, roots-based approach it allows everyone to have input in a say. 32:10 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh, that totally resonates, because I my dissertation was kind of on that, like problematizing student governments and like this needs to be bigger and you need to go outside of, like planning prom or whatever the thing is right, like, yes, okay, thank you for naming that. I realized that we only have a few more minutes. Wow, time flies, and so I'm curious to know I think maybe like two questions, if we could fit them in, we'll do like a lightning round One. We've talked about a lot your book has far more than we've talked about what is maybe one step that people could take after they're done with the episode and they're like I want to just start something now, like I want to do something immediately that's going to help me be in alignment, show up, be authentic in these ways that you describe. Any recommendations? 32:58 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) I think too low lift, but high impact Things might. Things might be the first one to empathy interviews. It doesn't take that much prep time to hear from students, parents et cetera. Um, it doesn't have to be everyone. You could pick five students, um, so I think that's one. I also know it's summer, though, so some people may not be in school. Um, I think another like thing that's easy to do is audit your curriculum. Look at, like, whose voices are the most prevalent there, what's missing. And I know a lot of districts mandate you have to do this curriculum and you have to. Ok, but then how do we layer on, shout out to Goldie Muhammad, how do we do like text layering or something to bring in other voices as well? 33:55 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) Those are my two too, those are like the easiest entry. 34:00 Yeah, they're like the easiest entry points into doing this work and low effort, high impact. I think the other component would be to think about just start with reflection, and I would say we have a lot of great guiding reflection questions in our book, but I think the two that you would want to start with are what does it mean to create a dream-based liberatory classroom? And then the second would be what would my life be like if I had access to that dream-based liberatory classroom? Um and we're not saying to have folks have like an existential crisis- at all right, it's more so. 34:49 it's more so thinking about if I can envision what a like a liberatory classroom like feels, like, sounds, like I could touch it. I can see it, smell it. What would that have looked like if someone had enacted that space for me as well? 35:06 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Those are fantastic. Thank you for those questions. Last question for you all we're going to link to the book in the show notes, but I wanted to know you know where can people get in touch with you or follow the work that you're doing? 35:18 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) Yes, the best place to get in touch with me is via LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn, so you can shoot me a message there. Yeah, and you can get our book from Amazon, from Solution Sharia. 35:35 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) Yeah, you can actually contact me through LinkedIn. My social media handle is Risha0927 for Instagram, and then you can contact me via email Reshma at equityconsultinggrouporg. 35:52 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Dr Ramkelewan Dr Bell, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation and for your amazing book. 35:57 - Dr. Jacobē Bell (Guest) Thank you. 35:59 - Dr. Reshma Ramkellawan (Guest) Thank you so much yeah. 
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In this episode, we talk with Jillayne Flanders and Dr. Orinthia Harris—Jill and Dr. OH—about the critical and necessary shift from compliance to compassion in education, particularly early childhood education. They introduce themes from their two books, Little Learners, Big Hearts, and Advancing Empathy and Equity in Early Childhood Education, both of which are centered on the heart—compassion as the root of all equity practices.
Advocating for embedding empathy and equity into teaching practices, Jill and Dr. OH offer practical tools to educators to move from compliance to compassion in their classrooms, centering everything they do on values of compassion, empathy, and equity. The Big Dream Jill articulates a powerful vision for education: "That every child sees themselves reflected, somehow, in wherever they are in the world.” This involves zooming out to look around the classroom to see if there are posters, pictures, books, or other things that represent each child, their families, and cultures. Dr. OH continues, dreaming of an educational space where all teachers are mindful of their interactions with students, basing them on compassion. This takes emotional intelligence on the part of the educator to self-regulate and interact with a child in a way that encodes in each student’s mind that they are worthy, belong, and matter. Mindset Shifts Required Shifting from compliance to compassion requires one big mindset shift: seeing teaching, simply, as a series of interactions. So, how are you interacting with students? Is it rooted in compassion and empathy? By shifting to this perspective, educators can focus on each interaction with a student as an opportunity to be compassionate, meeting students where they are. Action Steps Shifting from a mindset of compliance to one of compassion starts with the heart. Dr. OH and Jill developed the acronym HEART+ to show educators what this practically looks like. Here are the six steps to embody an anti-racist and pro-human educational practice: H—Hope: Start with hope. It’s what drives action and makes change. While everything can feel overwhelming, you can focus on what’s possible in your context. No, racism isn’t going to end in your lifetime, but it can end in your classroom—that’s hope. H—Education: This step is about self-education, where teachers learn about both themselves and their students. Educate yourself about what students are dealing with and suffering with. It’s not their responsibility to educate you, but yours to learn. A—Acknowledge: After you’ve learned about what your students and their families are experiencing, you must acknowledge the suffering they’re going through. We cannot abolish what we cannot acknowledge! R—Resolution: You’ve learned, you’ve acknowledged—now, what to do? Resolve to take action. Dr. O and Jill lay out many practical action steps educators can do to implement in their classrooms, meetings, or professional development settings. T—Teaching: Teaching is nothing more than a set of interactions—are they based on compassion? How are you teaching and interacting? Keep this mindset in place and focus on that individual student interaction level. PLUS: The + in the HEART+ acronym accounts for individuality and specificity to each educator, classroom, or community situation. You need to adapt and change to your specific context, not just following protocols or using resources robotically. Challenges? One of the significant challenges in this work is navigating the discomfort and resistance that may arise when discussing equity and diversity. Leaders must be prepared to support faculty and staff through these difficult conversations, encouraging self-reflection and examination of unconscious biases, while using tools and resources to support their work. One Step to Get Started One simple step for educators to get started is a mindset shift: have an internal conversation and ask, “Where am I coming from? What are my internal biases?” It’s a hard thing to do, but an important place to start. Educators can also consider a simple action step to take, such as integrating children's literature into your classroom or faculty meetings—it opens conversations and is a non-threatening entry point for meaningful discussions on identity and diversity. Stay Connected You can find this Dr. OH online under the names @STEMearly on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube and @OrinthiaHarrisPhD on Instagram as well. Both Dr. OH and Jill are associated with the Center for Educational Improvement, which you can learn more about on their website. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guests are sharing their video series How to Choose PD that Honors Early Childhood Teachers with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 228 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Jill and Dr O. Welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Hey, thank you for having us. Hi so excited you're here I'm really excited to talk about. I have both books on my table here, so we have Little Learners, big Hearts, which is kind of the teacher version, if I've got that right, and then the Advancing Empathy and Equity in Early Childhood Education, the leader kind of companion book. I've read them both. I'm excited to dig in. Is there anything that you both kind of want to frame before we jump into the questions today around the book, or kind of what's on your mind? 00:34 - Jill Flanders (Guest) Oh, please do, Orinthia, you are really good at setting the stage. 00:39 - Dr. OH (Guest) Well, first of all, thank you for having us. We're excited. I'm glad you read both books and enjoyed both books. You know everything we do is centered around the heart and what compassion and empathy and equity really look like. So just want to center this conversation on. We're really interested in moving from compliance to compassion and that's what these both of these books are really all about. Especially in an age where words like equity and inclusion are being demonized, we really want to set the conversation that the basis of all equity work is compassion, which is a work of the heart. So hopefully in this conversation you'll hear our passion for that come through, versus anything that might be considered divisive and like. I don't understand why these terms are being demonized, but I want to acknowledge that they are and just say from the get this is really about compassion, it's not about compliance. It's not about checking a box. It's about what does advancing empathy and equity really look like when it comes to our teaching practices. 01:48 - Jill Flanders (Guest) That's so well said, erinthea. And by really focusing on early childhood education, we're clear that three-year-olds don't come to us alone. They come to us with their families, and the conversation then is extended not from what just happens in your classroom or your program, but to what we can encourage around compassion and empathy for families and how they interact in the world. And I think the other theme that you're going to hear from us today is that it's not okay to do nothing. We're really going to suggest some easy things that can happen by the end of the program and then some more challenging things that educators and parents might want to choose to do to elevate compassion. 02:37 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Love that and, as I was saying to Jill right before having a doctorate, that I, as a parent of a three-year-old, right now really connected on the parent level as well as the educator level, so really excited about that piece, feels really valuable. We're already like using some of the strategies and just like thinking about the approaches, so it has been very helpful. Thank you, um and and I think one of the big questions I want to start with, so we'll get really big and then we'll come back to the book. But but I really love Dr Bettina loves like words and the way she says things, and so she talks about freedom, dreaming by saying their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, which I love, and I think it's really connected to your book. So I'm just I'm curious from each of you what is your kind of big dream that you hold for education? 03:21 - Jill Flanders (Guest) Oh, absolutely that every child sees themselves reflected, somehow reflect who you are in your family, what's your culture. We'll talk about that a little bit in personal terms for us, but it's one of the easiest first steps is just take that big scan of what's going on around you. So, absolutely connecting to Bettina Love in terms of are you reflected in your daily world? 04:08 - Dr. OH (Guest) That's good. I think my big dream is that teachers would be mindful in all of their interactions with students and that their interactions would be based on compassion, which would take emotional intelligence on the part of every educator and them being able to regulate their own emotions because kids can take us there. We say, oh, it's just a three-year-old, it's just a four-year-old, but they can take us there. And so my big dream is that teachers everywhere would be mindful in their interactions with students, knowing that when they interact with students, they're actually encoding something in their brain. And I would love for teachers to consistently encode in the brains of students, especially young students birth to five, that they're worthy and that they belong and that, even if they're getting on my nerves and I'm at my short fuse, I have enough emotional intelligence to know and self-regulation to know when I interact with this child, I am encoding something in their brain and I would love it for it always to be to encode you're worthy, you belong, you matter, even if you're getting on my nerves. 05:23 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That resonates deeply. Thank you for that. That is really good, and I think so. I think this might be a good time to introduce the hard or hard plus framework that you all talk about, because I think that really grounds and connects to what you're talking about. Does one of you want to maybe start and the other can jump in? 05:43 - Dr. OH (Guest) I'll jump in. And so this came about as we were doing this work and teachers were saying what can I practically do to be anti-racist, pro-human in my practice? Like we learned about it, we're learning about, but what can I do? What does that process look like? And so I came up with this acronym HEART, because it really is. Equity is a work of heart, right? Anti-racism, it's all a work of heart. And so the acronym is the H is for hope. 06:09 You have to start with hope. We're not going to end racism in our lifetime, but you can end it in your classroom. And if you don't start from a point of I can do something in my classroom in my lifetime, in my generation, then it's just going to seem too big and you'll get frustrated. And again we talk about how hope wishful thinking is not hopeful living right, when you have hope, hope has feet, which means I'm going to do something about it. And so you have to come in, not with the mindset of the savior complex, and also not with the mindset of being oh my gosh, this is too big, but with the mindset of in my classroom, in my time, in my lifetime, even if it's just this one family, this one student, I can make a difference. So you have to start with hope and then you have to go to the education piece. You have to educate yourself and we say self-education about your families, your students and what they're dealing with. What is the suffering that they're dealing with? It is not their responsibility to, it's not their responsibility to educate you. You have to educate yourself because they're the ones going through the trauma and the you know all the things. And so a lot of times when the Black Lives Matter movement happened and Black people as a culture were experiencing a lot of trauma Like I didn't watch the George Floyd tape, I didn't watch any of it, and my kids didn't watch the news or any of it People were coming to me saying, well, what can we do? What can we do? It's almost like if you lose a loved one and you're grieving and people are asking you what should we do? What should we do? No, just pick up a mop, bring a casserole, don't ask me Right. And so if you're dealing with students and families that are dealing with suffering, you have to educate. What is their history? What are they dealing with? What are some of the things that I can do? 08:03 And once you educate yourself, then that comes to the A, which is the acknowledgement. You have to acknowledge the suffering that people are going through, because oftentimes we see it, we educate ourselves with it, but then we want to turn the blind's eye. You cannot abolish what you will not acknowledge right and so now that? And you cannot acknowledge what you do not acknowledge right and so now that? And you cannot acknowledge but you do not know. So now that we know right, cause we've done the self-education, let us acknowledge that this is an issue. And then let's go to the R, let's make a resolution. What am I gonna do? I resolve to blank and we have a ton of resources in both books of practical things that you can do. I resolve to blank and we have a ton of resources in both books of practical things that you can do your resolutions. These are things you can do with your staff, with your students, with your families, with your own children. We give you a ton of resources so you can say you know what for this school year, I resolve to do this at the first staff meeting of every month, or I resolve to do that and then the last T. The T is for teaching. 09:12 We subscribe to the definition that teaching is nothing more than a set of interactions. Right, and so are our interactions based in compassion. How are you teaching? How are you interacting? I did a session yesterday and we talked about moving from compliance to compassion. If a student says I need water, and you throw the water at them or you give them water in a dirty glass, did you really give them what they needed? Yes, you resolved, I'm going to give water, but did you give water in a way that is receptive, that the student could, you know, literally drink the water? You know so that T is so important, because we have to remind people that teaching is nothing more than a series of interactions. So, with that resolution, yeah, we're going to do this staff meeting once a month and we're going to dig into the activity at the end of chapter five, because it's on bullying and we really like that. How are you presenting that activity to your staff? Are you just throwing them a worksheet? All right, guys, let's do this work Like no. 10:23 And then we added a plus. We said heart plus. The reason why we added the plus is because we understand that every school, every family, every community is unique, and so the plus means what are you going to do to make this cater to your school, right? So maybe we have one through 10 and you may need number 11, or maybe we have one through 10 and five doesn't resonate with your building. Okay, then, don't do number five. 10:54 A lot of times we get these resources and we want to use them as like robotic, and we cannot do that, and so that's why we added the plus for schools to be mindful that this has to be catered to your population, because it's so important that we honor those whom we serve and we don't throw stuff at them that may not fit into their culture, their tribal culture. You know their, whatever their culture, their religious culture, whatever it is in the building. So when you're looking at the heart again, you start with hope. Then you self-educate, you acknowledge the education that you've gained, you make a resolution what are you going to do? And then, when it comes to my teaching, my interaction, how am I going to do that? And I'm going to go to plus. I'm going to make sure this works for my people. That was a lot. 11:54 - Jill Flanders (Guest) There you go All of the training in 10 minutes. We're also really cognizant that it's not always in any kind of sequential order. Yes, you can spell the word heart, but you may need to jump ahead, you may need to go back and revisit, you need to read the room. In other words, and from my perspective as a former principal, that's probably the number one building block. It's starting with, as Dr Rose said, the relationships you're building, the communication you're having, getting to know your program, your community, your faculty and your families, and what are the things that will resonate with them and your families and what are the things that will resonate with them. 12:45 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love it. There's so much in there that is just like so connected. I just I love, even just foundationally, that teaching is a series of interactions, right, and this idea that it is dynamic, it is not I'm going to throw this stuff at you Like literally. I'm not going to just literally throw it at you. Yeah, okay, this is resonating deeply. Thank you all. So I think I want to make sure we get to the leader pieces, so I'm trying to pace us on time too. I'm curious, while we can like be in the teacher space for a minute, if there is a particular strategy or kind of aha moment or like thing you want to lift up from the book and I can share a couple of mine. If you want to like kick it off with that, oh yeah, I'd love to. So I really liked. 13:18 I liked the children's literature. Having a three-year-old, I immediately got Strictly no Elephants, which has become an immediate favorite. So thank you for that recommendation. But also, you know, all of the analysis of made total sense to me. So, like the sweet words, jar loves, like the calmness elevator, just like the rainbow breathing. There are so many things we're already doing in my home now because of this book. So thank you. Are there favorite pieces for you all from that? 13:53 - Jill Flanders (Guest) classroom lens, the teacher lens for you all from that classroom lens, the teacher lens. The children's literature, I think, is probably the least controversial method to begin in many, many different layers. So when we talk a little bit more about the leadership part of this, I would also begin there with children's literature In my heart. I would love to see any principal starting off faculty meetings with one good children's book that opens the conversation. I would love to see this in middle school and high school because the conversations so often have not happened there. But what a way to just open the door. We also, the book, talk about taking different paths with children's literature. You can go to Ibram Kendi and start off with Anti-Racist Baby if you really want to jump right in, but you don't have to. 14:48 There are lots of other choices and I think one of my favorite things to look at you mentioned it about the percentages of children's books that are based with animal characters. It takes a little while. You might want to spend some time up and down the aisles, but I've been looking more, you know, more focused on books that have actual photographs of real kids, real families, and this was one that just melted my heart my youngest daughter's married to a Puerto Rican, a handsome Puerto Rican man, and their two daughters have very different shades of skin. Alina the oldest, at one point when she was three or four, announced to me out of the blue, as three-year-olds do Grimmie, my skin matches daddy's, but Elise, the younger sister, Elise's skin matches mommy's, and you know what? I think that's really cool and we're both Puerto Rican, but you know what? Grimmy, Mommy's never going to be Puerto Rican. 15:53 So it's like, okay, there's a whole bunch of stuff that I knew in my educator brain. I should jump on this as a teachable moment. Of course, I just sat there with my mouth open and said, yep, you're right. But I found some awesome books that you know. One in particular is the Color of Us, and when I did bring it home and showed Alina, her first reaction at age three was to match her arm to the photos in the book. Now, we should be doing that. We have to have the opportunities for kids to be able to do that. 16:24 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely, Dr O. Do you have a favorite strategy or piece from the book? 16:29 - Dr. OH (Guest) I would also say the chart that allows leaders to know what books are where on the continuum of the conversation. So leaders are equipped by saying okay, if I start with Born on Water, here's some of the things that I can do. Here's some of the conversations that I have, and I think the book recommendation and the chart also will help leaders disarm their staff. Because when you hear Born on Water, you immediately like if you have never read the book and you only subscribe to the news media that is divisive, you automatically are like no we can't do it. 17:10 But if you actually pick up the book and read it and read through it, it's like, oh, this book is really about her being proud to actually be an American, proud of where she comes from, proud of where she is, and the book ends with her drawing an American flag. So not sure how that's anti-patriotic, but with this chart and this guide, it allows our leaders to give them. Okay, if you take this book, here's the routes in which you can go. And I think that for me, that was my favorite resource, because it wasn't simply a book list right, because anybody can give a book list but it's a book list that shows you if you're ready to dive right in turn some heads. 17:56 Here's some books. And also here's why we chose to put these books in this category, because here is some of the pushback you might get by bringing this book up. But here is the conversations that you can have. So we don't leave you hanging with just a book list and say, here you go, that you can have. So we don't leave you hanging with just a book list and say, here you go. And I thought that that resource is super, super helpful for leaders and people who really want to get their staff involved and have staff that are reluctant to do the work because they are buying into the divisive language that is being surrounded in these topics. 18:39 - Jill Flanders (Guest) You know Dr O really touches on an important part there. This can be incredibly uncomfortable and we want to acknowledge that. These are uncomfortable conversations, no matter where you start and where you lead with it. We've tried to come up with you know, be sensitive about it and come up with non-threatening, you know openers, but buried in it is taking the time to do some examination of unconscious bias, to do some reflection with you know, again as a school leader or program leader with your faculty and staff and man, that's going to be hard and we're we're honest about that. 19:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, that's reminding me of, like the tiered system of equity supports image that you have and so connected to the heart plus model, right, I'm thinking about like the education piece, like the info building as tier one, and then you have the tier two we're reducing bias. I love all. I mean I guess we'll go, we'll shift over to leader pieces. I love the kind of decision-making conversations that you have about that and I think I think the most interesting piece for me, I think paired with the this tiered system visual, was this idea of strategic planning with a healing focus, and I thought that that was really profound because, right, we think about like the divisiveness, right, dr O, that you were mentioning, and so I think the healing seems to me to be the path forward. Just the folks in education spaces who are talking about that. It's like it's deeply resonating, at least with me. I don't know about everyone else, but I think that that speaks to something that is so counter to what we see in popular media and news programming and all the things that, right, are divisive, and so I'm curious and I mean I'll again, I'll just, I'm just like repeating back to you things in the book because I just loved it, but I love that you. 20:28 You know you had the Desmond Tutu quote, who I just absolutely love about like we don't heal in isolation. You had the research on like when you add feelings to decision making, it actually improves decisions. I think of conversations I've been in and strategic planning conversations where it is so kind of traditional and like authoritarian and this is the way we do this right and we leave feelings at the door and we don't incorporate those into decisions. And I kind of want to like meld all this stuff into one question, which is can you say a bit about this idea of healing focused strategic planning? Particularly I'm curious about, like how you've had success with folks coming to that, or has there been resistance to folks coming to that or a challenge from folks approaching it in this way, and what have you kind of done to coach them through it? Sorry, that was a really big one. 21:26 - Jill Flanders (Guest) The reality is the lack of time to really spend on this and again, I'm speaking from the perspective of a principal of, you know, of a public school. 21:37 It's important to make the time because it, you know, a yes, it's going to be uncomfortable. B it's probably a conversation that has not happened with faculty and staff and the commitment to, you know, opening the conversation and then supporting the hard stuff as it erupts, because I can actually say that I have had faculty members that have had to leave the conversation, that it's just, they just can't manage it, but being, you know, acknowledging that, being open to taking care of yourself and what you need to do, but not giving up. And you know we can also tell you this, you know our proposals here. What we've written about is still, you know, fairly new. We're still working in some pilot programs in some schools with you know, how did this go? What would you change? What would you do next? And so that's one of the things we're really eager to hear from schools and school leaders and programs about what did and didn't you know go well and how can we add to our conversation. 22:46 - Dr. OH (Guest) I was going to also add that you have to make the time because if you don't, you'll be moving forward with broken pieces. So if I break my ankle and I don't allow time for it to heal, it's going to reset but it'll always be broken. Like I have a finger that you can't tell right now but I can't straighten it out because I took too long to get the cast. So by the time I went back to do the proper healing, yeah, it's fine, I can move it, but I don't have full use of it. And so I think that's what's happening is we are acknowledging the hurt and the trauma that has happened in our environments, and that's great right. That goes back to that acknowledgement piece. I think we're doing a better job as a whole in education of acknowledging Maybe not necessarily acknowledging some of the historical past, but I think collectively acknowledging that there is a collective trauma that happened from COVID. I think we're united on that right. And so there's this united acknowledgement that there is some healing that needs to happen because of trauma, but there's not the space to make it happen. And so students are self-correcting and healing without the proper, I guess, support and when that happens you're moving forward on broken pieces and there's always that trauma trigger that's in the back somewhere and when that make mistakes and to be themselves. 24:24 I had an incident with a student and actually he and for whatever reason, blew up and wrote some really nasty things about the teacher, curse words, on his paper. The teacher saw the paper and said, took the paper and said okay, bud, when you're ready to come back, you come back. If you need more paper to write, I'll give you more. The teacher never, and I mean he called the teacher some things on this paper. And when we were talking about the incident with the teacher, I just was wondering like hey, did that not upset you? Did it not make you mad? Like this is an incident that is principle worthy, ok, especially some of the things that he said, that they were a little bit racial also, and from you know, because it was two different races of kids student, I mean student teacher and he said Dr O, that's not who that kid is. He was frustrated we all get frustrated, I'm not going to take it personally and he just let it go because he was like that's, that student didn't need a trip to the principal's office. That student needed someone to say I get angry too. And you know what he said, dr O. 25:47 At the end of the day, that student came back up to me and said you know, mr So-and-so, I really apologize, I shouldn't have written that stuff about you. And he said buddy, don't even worry about it, I know I get that way. And then he said I say some things to my wife sometimes that I shouldn't say, and so I sympathize. You know what I mean. So I think, given that time and that space for students to really feel safe and feel seen which means we cannot let the rules speak louder than compassion we can't, we can't. 26:18 And so that requires us for teachers to let go of perfection and really practice self-compassion. 26:26 And also, how do I connect with my students? 26:30 And in order for that to happen, like Jill says, you have to give the space. 26:35 And when I say the space, I mean the space in staff meetings where leadership says hey guys, I know this, this and this is the policy, but if you have a student that you know this is not their nature and they're on 100, and you're able to get them from 100 back down to one and move on with your day, please don't write an incident report. 27:09 I'm giving you permission to not report that because some teachers feel like, oh my God, I have to report it. That's what they say and I'm going to. That's what I mean when I say giving teachers the permission to be compassionate, giving them the permission to say please, don't let these rules speak louder than compassion, because what is the goal of education at the end of the day? Right? So what is our ultimate goal for these students at the end of the day? And if we don't put healing back into the conversation, we're going to continue to keep moving forward and not really fully heal to the point where we're able to use all of our you know resources to the best of our ability, because we're going to be turning out students that still have trauma that they haven't dealt with and, subsequently, adults that still have trauma. 28:03 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) And subsequently adults that still have trauma. Yeah, oh my gosh. Yes, I'm just like head-sapping all over the place. My parenting brain is very into the Good Inside podcast with Dr Becky Kennedy, and so the thing that's always in my head is most generous interpretation, our MGI, and so I've like tried to practice that. I mean we could do that out loud with kids, like we'll we'll get cut off by a driver or something and we'll just be like, hmm, that person must've been in a hurry, I hope everyone's okay, right, like what is the way that we can reconceive like a perceived hurt and like you can practice in tiny ways? I just that would be such a beautiful educational experience if everyone interacted in that way. 28:40 - Dr. OH (Guest) A hundred percent, and I think it was Thoreau that said it's not, it's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. 28:49 - Jill Flanders (Guest) I was just going to say that We've been reading the same things on Facebook today, dr Rowe, but Dr Rowe just did an absolute masterclass in modeling what we're talking about as well, and this is also close to our hearts that the leaders that are trying to open up the space and the time for this work are also modeling at the same time with the other adults that they work with. Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. 29:24 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, oh, that's totally true. Yeah, right, because the kids replicate the things that they see us do, right, all the time. 29:33 - Jill Flanders (Guest) Right and yes, and yet we're not perfect. I think that's just as important. I mean, we're going to blow up, we're going to say those things to whoever cut us off in traffic, but acknowledging it doesn't. And here's another Dr O thing Acknowledgement does not mean acceptance, so applied in a variety of ways. 29:53 - Dr. OH (Guest) A hundred percent, because they mirror that children mirror. That's what they do. And what I say is could things be the way they are? Because you're the way you are, and what one thing could you change? That can change everything. You can change the way you see your students, your staff and your coworkers. If you see them differently, you will treat them differently. 30:16 And acceptance does not mean agreement. Right Acknowledgement doesn't mean I agree with this behavior. You know away with this notion that being compassionate to a child somehow means that I'm okay with the fact that they just threw a chair across the room. No, I'm not okay with the fact that they threw the chair across the room, but is me going to a hundred going to get them to where I need them to be? Is me actually the opposite? They might pick up a second chair, you know. But it definitely takes that the way. Our lenses have to change for how we see our students and also how we see ourselves, because the reason why a lot of us can't be compassionate with our students is because we're not compassionate with ourselves. 31:15 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Just going to let that one sit for a minute. Yes, yeah, that's absolutely true. All right, we wow, we have gone a lot of places. This has been a wonderful conversation. I'm looking at time Um, we'll do maybe like a little lightning rounds here with a few final questions. Um, what is kind of one practice or strategy or even mindset, like just way of thinking about others, um, or about things, uh, that you would say someone could start right now, like so they order the book, it's in the mail, but right now they want to start and do something while it's on its way. What would be that one thing? 31:55 - Jill Flanders (Guest) Jill, you go first. Yeah, I've got about six in my head. You know I'm going to sort through this and start with yourself, I think. Have an internal conversation. Where are you coming from? What might be some of your internal bias, which is a hard thing to do. It's not the easiest place to start. So then, part two is the easy place to start is what is the do? Something that you can do right away, and I will revert back to my children's literature. Find one book. Find one book that speaks to you. 32:30 - Dr. OH (Guest) That's good. That's good. I would say the one thing you can do is try to see it from the other person's perspective. So every time you feel offended or upset or frustration, or your children are getting on your nerves, you don't like your administrator, whatever those feelings that come up that are getting you to a negative state, a negative state, how might that other person be feeling Like? What is their perspective? Because, at the end of the day, everything we experience is ultimately just our perception of it and it's not the whole picture. 33:13 So can I put myself in your shoes and say how might you see this? Say how might you see this? And just simply doing that can bring us back to a state of where we are, a state of calm, a state of where we're not just reacting right, we're actually processing what is really happening in this situation. Why did my administrator say this? Why did this student go off in this way? How what could be happening from their perspective? And start centering others, which is really hard, especially when your amygdala is hijacked and you're in your feelings. But I would say, practice perspective taking of others. 34:06 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Beautiful suggestions. This question is for fun what have each of you been learning about lately? It could relate to our conversation or just be totally random. 34:15 - Jill Flanders (Guest) Oh, I'm dying to talk about this. Our focus was on anti-racism and, just because of everything, we were focused on Black children, black families. I have wandered off into. I need to know more about Indigenous families, indigenous cultures, and you know, I'm in Massachusetts. I have connected with educators in the Wampanoag tribe and there are children's books. Oh my gosh, I have a whole new pile and just I mean just the history that I was not aware of is crushing in many ways, but I'm doing something about it. 35:00 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I am learning in many ways, but I'm doing something about it. I am learning. I have to say Keep On A Muck is one of our favorite books. We jumped right to that, as we did Born On the Water and Keep On A Muck, and we should have probably started with like the Colors Of Us Right in. 35:13 - Dr. OH (Guest) Right in For me. I've been learning about a lot about biomarkers and genetic testing. I recently took a position, a contractual position, as the program director for the Color of Wellness, which is a program that's under the Touch for Life nonprofit organization and essentially what they do is kind of similar to what we do in education is they go around to conferences and they educate. You know the people in the conference on different types of cancers, breast cancers you know we talk about in education are also disparities in healthcare and the whole idea of patient care bedside manner. How are we giving the BIPOC community access? What are these barriers to access? 36:17 And, as someone who has no background in the medical field, to come into this space and be like, it sounds like we all might be dealing with something similar. It sounds like we all need lessons in compassion and perspective taking because people are not getting life-saving treatment because the barriers of who they are and similar in education, where we talk about you know, there's not a lot of representation in gifted and talented classes or the over-representation of BIPOC students in special education. Those disparities are also happening in healthcare, so it sounds like that this is not an education conversation. I feel like this book can be on the shelves of doctors as well, and nurses, because if teaching is nothing more than a series of interactions, then I would dare to say that when I'm at the doctor's office, them practicing as a doctor with their patients is also a set of interactions. 37:23 - Jill Flanders (Guest) So this tiered system of equity supports in education could easily be a tiered system of supports in healthcare, and you know, Lindsay, over time we have really found that we get it right in early education and early childhood, but we're not really good at talking about it. We know that you have to work with the whole child. There aren't separate times that you do reading and math and all those things. They're learning everything at once, all integrated and all tied together. So, focusing on early childhood because we get it right there, hopefully we'll carry on through the rest of education and, as Arinthia said, and in other fields as well. 38:14 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Amazing. Well, thank you both for this conversation. Where can people reach out to you or connect with you if they want? And we'll, of course, link to the books as well in the show notes. 38:25 - Jill Flanders (Guest) Well, we are both. Actually we're both on all of those social media platforms. Arinthia is much better at it than I am. I take that as generational and I'm okay with it. If, if you really want good connections, probably talk to the eight-year-old that's downstairs I mean mine's. By my name, by Jill Flanders. We through, I think, through the connections through Amazon and through the Solution Tree I think our emails are there as well. 38:57 - Dr. OH (Guest) Yep, and you can follow me on all platforms, at STEM Early one word S-T-E-M-E-A-R-L-Y. Or you can find me at Avinthia Harris, on all platforms as well. I might be Dr O on TikTok. I meant to go change that. So you might have to go to TikTok and you look for Arinthea Harris. You're like I don't see her. It's Dr O, but LinkedIn, facebook, instagram, Twitter, it's all Arinthea Harris and also STEM Early. So you'll see, you'll find our content on both pages. 39:33 - Jill Flanders (Guest) Arinthea and I are both associated with the Center for Educational Improvement as well, which has its own website at edimprovementorg. 39:43 - Dr. OH (Guest) Yeah, we're everywhere you want to be. 39:46 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That's so good. All right, thank you so much, Dr Owen-Jill. It has been an absolute pleasure. 39:51 - Jill Flanders (Guest) Yay, thank you so much, lindsay. 
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In this episode, we chat with SL, an equity-centered designer and researcher from Optimistic Design. She shares her journey from the tech industry to focusing on systems and services to reshape educational systems with a focus on empowering historically underserved students.
We dive into the critical importance of co-creating educational environments that honor students' cultural and experiential knowledge, moving away from hierarchical teaching structures to foster collaboration. SL highlights the need for a healing-centered approach in education, shifting from deficit-based perspectives to recognizing students' strengths and agency. This helps transform empathy into actionable change. The Big Dream SL envisions education as a powerful tool for increasing critical consciousness among young people, enabling them to become more than consumers, but "critical designers of the futures they want to see." She dreams of an educational system that not only imparts knowledge but also equips students with the tools to understand the world and take meaningful action within it. SL believes we can empower students to co-create their educational journeys and envision a future that transcends current limitations. Mindset Shifts Required Educators are often excited about student voice, but when it comes to true co-creation with students, they may be hesitant or unsure how to get started. But to truly empower students, educators must embrace a shift from being mere authority figures to becoming co-creators of knowledge with their students. This mindset shift involves acknowledging and addressing inherent power dynamics in the classroom, moving beyond token support for student voice to genuine collaboration. Ultimately, it’s about challenging the idea that the person standing at the front of the class knows best. Instead, we all learn and grow together. Action Steps To begin co-creating with students in your classrooms, educators can follow these key steps: Step 1: Acknowledge and Map Power Dynamics Educators can begin by mapping out areas where power is traditionally held in the classroom, such as curriculum choices and disciplinary actions, and identify opportunities to share decision-making with students. This involves looking at yourself as an educator, analyzing your age, mindsets, experience, etc. to see what you bring to the classroom. It can also be a collaborative process, working with other educators to map these power dynamics out. Educators can also zoom out to bigger systems in our society—the justice system or financial system, for example—and analyze how those things feed into our educational system. SL talks about the "iceberg diagram” that helps you analyze what’s under the surface, digging down into the underlying societal structure. Step 2: Create Opportunities for Student Choice After understanding where power dynamics exist, you can continue mapping out places where power can be shared and transferred. Educators can introduce small changes by allowing students to have a say in curriculum topics and classroom discussions, promoting both peer-to-peer learning and individual work preferences. Start by asking: is there choice here? How can students inform curriculum or activities in the classroom? Small steps to share power build up to shared decision-making. Step 3: Provide Tools and Transparency Equip students with the necessary tools and knowledge to navigate educational systems, and be transparent about any constraints that limit decision-making power. One key shift is creating something visual that transforms the process from simply talking about it to making it tangible and real. Step 4: Get Continuous Feedback Educators can always look out for what’s working and what’s not working—it’s how we learn. Seek continuous feedback from students as an opportunity to grow. Asking students for feedback is a way of showing them you’re really listening. Challenges? One of the main challenges in implementing equity-centered design in education is overcoming entrenched hierarchical structures and mindsets. A lot of young people experiencing marginalization are led through the educational system from a very deficit-based lens. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong, we can shift to an asset-based perspective. Young people and students have so much to offer, and it needs to be acknowledged. This shift can be key to breaking down traditional teaching methods and embracing co-creation with students. One Step to Get Started This transition can feel really big for educators—action can seem like a huge step. But to start co-creating with students, educators only need to take small steps forward. One place to begin is by starting to map out those opportunities to share power. They can be small and seemingly-insignificant things, but they build into a bigger classroom culture of co-creation between students and educators. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on LinkedIn or on the company website, Optimistic Design. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing the Modernizing math toolkit and report with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 227 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Hi SL, Welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. 00:05 - SL Rao (Guest) Thank you so much for having me here. 00:07 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. Same and let's just dive right in. I'm really excited to learn more about you and invite you to just share. You know, what should the folks who are listening to the podcast or reading the blog version of the podcast kind of keep in mind as we jump into our conversation today? 00:26 - SL Rao (Guest) Yeah, definitely so. I want to set context that I am a equity-centered designer and researcher, currently at an organization called Optimistic Design. We are a qualitative research and product design firm. We have deep expertise in education, all the way from early learning to higher ed. At the intersection of product design. We do services and strategies as well. But that's our deep expertise because a lot of us also come from the product space. So another aspect of our work is we take a systems lens and focus on learning from and with students who have been historically underserved by the existing systems. So part of taking a systems lens is also understanding all of the other variables that impact student learning and teacher practice and those kinds of things. 01:15 And then a little bit of very quick background about you know, what brought me to Equity Center Design, research and co-creating, co-designing with students is um. 01:25 I started my work in technology, actually um, but I have navigated over to systems and services, having worked in global health, in government um, designing public policy. So I've I've kind of expanded outside of just like product to thinking about services and systems and policy and how all of these things impact our experiences within the world, our behaviors and the historical contacts that are driving some of the decisions that happen today. So that's kind of the lens that I bring. Overall, throughout my career, a major focus has been kind of working with and focusing on communities, young people, students who are not served by the larger system, really recognizing that you know, it's not to be nice, but it's really recognizing that a lot of innovation, ideas, perspectives exist that we're not harnessing, and so by really focusing on communities and people who have the least access to power, we're able to design better services and systems for everybody. So that's kind of the perspective that I come from. 02:33 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Oh my gosh, that's a fantastic perspective. I love all the lenses that you bring in, all of that experience that you have that's even outside of education but so clearly relevant for education, so so excited to keep going with this conversation. I think you spoke a lot to things that I imagine are part of kind of your freedom dream, if we were to go to that question, and so I just love the language that Dr Bettina Love uses where she describes them as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. So I guess, with that framing, what is, you know, that big dream that you hold for education? 03:01 - SL Rao (Guest) Yeah, I think it's exactly that right that you hold for education. Yeah, I think it's. It's exactly that right, like education as a tool to increase critical consciousness for young people. A lot of the times, the way I was educated, I grew up in India, studying in India. I was not necessarily, I didn't necessarily see the things I was. So I have an engineering degree, for example. 03:22 So engineering, what I should have abstracted, which I had to do myself, but it wasn't necessarily something that I received as part of my education was all of the science system, classes and engineering. There wasn't a clear connection to say like here are the critical pieces or here are the mindsets that this is showing you to review and look at the world around me. So I had to do that myself. And so ways in which like education can very clearly, from the beginning, give students the tools to understand the world, take action, see their part of the system. 03:55 Because right now, the way technology is evolving, it's evolving at such a fast pace and to a level of abstraction that it's really hard to like disentangle how it actually works. And I bring up technology because we are all consumers of technology and it is continuing to revolutionize how we communicate with one another how we learn, but we don't want young people to just be consumers. We want them to be critical designers of the futures that they want to see right. So we don't want futures to just happen, and so I think education has so much to do with that and is a critical component of shifting that perspective and the mindset, and I would yeah, there's obviously already a lot of like advocacy and action and kind of demystifying happening with young people Would love that to be a critical component of our educational process and system. 04:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Wow, I love so much of that. And then, specifically, I just wrote down the critical designers of the futures. They want to see part, because I think that's so powerful and I think about that. It's so clear in kind of the STEM and STEAM realms. It's also clear, I think, to me when I think about being a former literacy teacher or social studies teacher. Right, we study the past to figure out what the future is going to look like and how we can co-create that. 05:12 Right, like literacy, like thinking about, like Afrofuturism and like sci-fi and fantasy and like imagining that idea of what the world could be in those spaces. Like there's so much that connects to all subject areas. This is so cool. Okay, let's keep going. I think, you know, sometimes teachers are, I think about teacher school right, the like don't smile until Christmas and like authority figure, you know ridiculousness. That is part of, like, traditional teaching methods. And I think that sometimes when we talk about student voice, teachers are like yeah, yeah, great, but then when we're like no, it's a true co-creation, there's some hesitancy and I'm just curious to know what mindset shifts that you would kind of coach people on to truly get to that place that you're describing, versus kind of the nominal like yay, student voice, but not really co-creating, co-creating. 06:01 - SL Rao (Guest) Yeah, that's a that's a great question. In we coach a lot of product teams, organizations around like co-design and a lot of people just want to learn the methods. They're like show me that participatory design, research method right. And so we actually step back and say like we want to understand how your organization is set up. What are the mindsets that exist within the organization? What is the culture for true co-design? 06:27 Are you actually able to shift power in ways that is meaningful and not just you know a namesake? You're just saying, yeah, you know students have power, because I've been in spaces where you know government agencies are trying to do their best. They're like we're going to bring young people in. You know the most marginalized young people experiencing housing insecurity or maybe the foster care system. We're going to bring them in to give us feedback. And when they do create that space to give that feedback, they are they're like they didn't. They didn't say the right thing, or they didn't say the thing that we wanted, right, or it's like it didn't apply to what we are doing. It's like did we spend the time educating young people? 07:05 So I think a big part for me in the mindset shift is you just mentioned is like you know, traditional teaching has a lot of like one way knowledge dumping, right, like the expert, the teacher, the, the person standing in the front. There's like a persona for that person, which is interesting even in our research, especially with younger kids, even like middle school students. When we ask about variations of like classrooms, a lot of them actually default to they want the one where the teacher knows and they tell them the thing because that's what they're used to. Right? And so really thinking about this old school belief that one person standing on the podium knows best, and a good, you know teacher has the mindset of learning together and making knowledge with students. So creating those opportunities to shift those mindsets with students, teachers and themselves, where actually knowledge making is happening together, like what are we learning? What is happening? What are we seeing? 08:02 Because students come with their own bodies of knowledge, their own cultural knowledge, and you know, we want, we want to create that space. We're doing that together. So co-creation starts there. Those like small pieces of shifting away from here's everything that we learned in history or here's everything that's happening right now. It's like the future is going to look different than the knowledge that we have. We're going to bring together and create something new that's more applicable than these, like you know, thick sets of knowledge. So, yeah, I think that would be my really big one and even for leaders, like creating that space where that's possible and I know there's a lot of other incentives that are against this where you know it's like tests and you know really thinking about these bigger incentives that de-incentivize this kind of knowledge making, but I still have hope. 08:54 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, such a good point about the de-incentivization of like, because stuff like this takes time, right, it takes time to like build the relationships with students and like get students to kind of come out of that space, because as a former high school teacher that tried to do that, I can tell you so many times where students was like just tell me what to do or what to do. 09:11 - SL Rao (Guest) Yeah, you're making too much work. 09:14 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) It's so wild and I'm like, don't you want this? And it's like, yeah, I think you probably do, and like you have just been told year after year that this is how school goes, and so it's so hard to break out of that. And so I'm really curious about the how. Like how does this work? Like, how do you share power with students in this way? How do you have, like, a steps or a framework for this? 09:38 - SL Rao (Guest) Yeah, I think this is, you know, it's small steps, right, like it's all the small things that we do. You know, even if we have shared lived experiences with students, you know we might have like age affinity or you know we might have like other like indicators that are like, oh, we have like similarities. So this is going to be very easy for us to shift that power. But really, I think a big part of it is really recognizing, as educators, as leaders in the education space, what our positionality is right, the way our society favors, like age, for example. So at any given point, a teacher is going to have more power in the system, just in society as a whole. So I think, you know, really thinking about stepping back and really recognizing, like, how are we showing up, what are we bringing into the space and how we teach, what mindsets we bring? Are there other mindsets that relate to student assets or student deficiencies or and these are things like we've, I think, over the last few years, a lot more conversation and discussion, willingness to talk about these things and be able to confront our own biases and, you know, our own, the preconceived notions that we're bringing in, to understand the underlying layers, in which ways in which, like our positionality, um, can cause these like power differentials, right. And then part of it is like being able to acknowledge that, you know, power in a space isn't bad. It is when it is, when we are pretending it doesn't exist, right, um. 11:19 And then the second piece is really uh, what are ways, small places where, as educators, we hold power? What are the ways? Like mapping those out within the classroom? So, is it in like being the knowledge share, setting the curriculum, disciplinary action, action, you know what are all of the ways, and I think that's part of like doing it with other educators as well, because they might bring up other perspectives. You also are the conduit to the parent, like the parents are going to, a lot of times, listen more to the educator than they will their own child, right? So there are these pieces of like. What are we saying? How are we saying that? And are we thinking in a deficit lens? Are we thinking an asset-based lens? Are we able to really, you know, think through those pieces? And then we start thinking about okay, where are the places along that continuum of like where power is held? Are there places where we can start creating space where power is shared, right, like there might be small things like and really we need to acknowledge that there's always a spectrum and we might not get to the final end of full collaborative. You know power sharing within the space, but there are steps that you can take where you're like really mapping that out and I think, as long as we're aware and we're not overselling it, it's okay. So you know you're, you're coming in and you're saying okay, is there choice? 12:46 We start with choice over what is learned, like what we can focus on. We go into like are there ways in which students can inform the curriculum? Are there ways in which students can inform how the class discussions happen? Again, like you know, there might be things within literature where it's like okay, peer-to-peer learning is great and we want to implement that. Can we give students choice over it? Because not all students are going to want that. Some students just want to work independently. 13:12 So the more spaces we create in, those are small, those feel very small, right, but they are ways in which we are sharing that power to get to a point where there is shared decision making happening. There's a lot more power. Are there ways in which then you know it escalates outside of the classroom Is there. You don't want to create a space where students have a lot more power in your classroom but they go outside and they're, you know, hitting up against like larger structures. Are there choices? A lot of times, school leadership will do like surveys or like listening sessions that I've heard of, but a lot of those are not necessarily implemented. 13:49 Again, with this perspective that, oh, students are telling us things that we don't want to work on or we can't work on. Sometimes you can't, you know you're, you have budgets and these other things, but can we be clear about those limitations so that students are smart, you know, we don't have to hide things from them and we don't have to give them free reign. When there isn't free reign, we can talk to them about what are these constraints and then give them the opportunity to design within that and create space, give them the tools. And a lot of times I think we don't empower young people with the tools we say we should. We're shifting power and we're like we shifted power, you're not doing anything with it. It's like do they have the tools, do they have the knowledge to navigate these spaces? And we as educators and, you know, adults who've been in the system where we have had like, uh, post-secondary education and master's degrees and maybe even PhDs. We just take some of these things for granted, even if we have a lot of affinity with young people is like really recognizing like we've had the opportunity to learn and grow in these ways and we need to create those spaces for young people. 14:53 And really I think for me, shifting away from just like talking about things and sitting there with other teachers and mapping things out make something visual and takes it out of just this language and makes it more clear. So it is a really great tool and it doesn't need to look pretty right Like it's just lines, dots, numbers. You might also something's what I do when I'm mapping out, and I think of this also as a version of a systems map, mapping out and saying like, okay, what are incentives potentially? Is there like a money incentive? Are there other structural policy related things that might impact this and how do we work within this? Or it gives us information about what are other pieces of knowledge that we need to share with students to help them, and we can start those at an early grade as well. 15:42 Right, like start giving choice variation and then extend that to get to a point when students are able to have a lot more free reign. Some structure is good, especially when they're younger, and giving choice within that, and we know that over time, like even with parenting, and really recognizing, like having them see their choices have a reaction, an impact, and what that feedback looks, because we also need to learn those pieces of it I think is really helpful. And then the last thing I want to say is like continuous feedback, right. I think as educators, leaders, we need to keep getting feedback on what worked and what didn't work, and we need to be open to that because we might put our heart and soul and a student might come back and be like I just wanted to go back to how it was and that's okay, right, like really understanding that there's feedback isn't bad, it's an opportunity to grow. 16:36 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Wow, you said so much. This is so cool. I love all the things. The things that are resonating with me specifically are like the Lundy Laura Lundy has this model of student voice that like connects very deeply to what you're saying. So the way that I'm sure that's probably what connected to what you, you guys, have put together. 16:51 So the idea of influence is really, I think, a big one, like the audience and influence piece where, like, yes, you have to listen, but then you have to come back and be like, okay, you gave us this feedback in the survey, right, here's why we didn't go forward with it, because we have these parameters, right, or whatever. 17:05 And like that means so much to kids because otherwise it's yeah, I wasn't really listened to, I'm not going to tell you and take the time to tell you the next time. 17:13 Right, it's such a critical step that's so frequently missed that it's like, yeah, I just. I love, also, from a systems lens, this idea of mapping with a team, because so many times we look at school schedules and we're, you know, doing the where everyone is and all that, and it's overwhelming, and so, for either simplicity or because we don't have better models, sometimes we're like, okay, well, we just don't have PLC or team time and you just have to figure it out and like, try to touch base in the hallway and it's like, no, this is so critical because it affects every moment of the day and it affects things like this like the true co-creation, like we're going to do just things so much better if you have that team time. So I love that you named that. I also, you know. Another piece I was thinking is strategic planning conversations from like a leader lens, but also I mean, I've had students do like root cause analysis for not a strategic planning conversation because they like found an issue they're interested in and wanted to make change. 18:10 But I've led some of these and they can be great and they can also just fall really flat. They can be great and they can also just fall really flat. And so I'm curious if you have either suggestions or like a particular experience that went well or didn't go well, and kind of an analysis of that, of just like, how do we do those better? How do we actually find a root cause and be able to move forward and like make authentic, co-created change, versus just like check the box, which I've seen a lot at, like the state level, for example, just being like we did it, we wrote something in the box. 18:40 - SL Rao (Guest) Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think the big thing with root cause analysis is we have to one understand the systems at play, and when we are experiencing the systems, it's really hard to see it. It's like you know your fish don't see the water. 18:55 I mean, it might not actually be true, but you know, we don't we don't, we don't see the air that we're actually going in, and so so systems can be like very specific and organized right, like like the education system. You can be like, ok, there is like the federal and you know there's like district level, state, district level. You can kind of identify, you're like, okay, this is kind of clear where the money flows, where the policies come in, and you know X, y, z, and then you can see some of the players. But it can also be kind of more complex systems that intersect, like, let's say, the, uh, the justice system or the financial system, where the financial system, yes, you can map it out from like a structural level, but there's so many influences where there's like, oh, there's the larger market, and I'm just sharing that it might not necessarily it does actually impact the education system, right Like it impacts like parent choice and interest, because they're like OK, now we want school choice for these very specific reasons, these financial incentives that then drive like variation and change and I'm talking really big systems. Right, like we want to be able to understand everything that could potentially impact this thing at a classroom level or a societal level. 20:07 Some people go, you know, go into like the seven whys process. I don't know if that's what you use. It's like, okay, this is happening, why? And then you answer you're trying to get to some of the deeper pieces, the deeper pieces in that structure, because it doesn't have necessarily like an expectation of hitting something, like you can just get to, like why? Because parents don't want to, but we don't necessarily understand, like is it the mindset, is it a financial incentive? Is it X, y, Z? The teacher doesn't want to? It's like they just don't want to. And it's like OK, we need to get to the bottom. So a couple of things. That which I think, as educators and you know, other people within the system, I feel like everyone is, uh, you know, has that you're constantly designing. 21:03 So, um, she talks about the iceberg diagram, where you're looking at what is about, like what is actually visible within the system and you might see the visible pieces might be the more obvious things. It's like you know, uh, maybe their behaviors, or they might be the more obvious things. It's like you know, maybe their behaviors or they might be like actual, something like more tangible. And then you start digging under the system and she has, like these very specific things that you get to. So you know, by the end of it you're trying to get to the underlying, like societal structure, those mindsets, so it's forcing you to go beyond the obvious. So that's one way to think about it. So then you're getting to some of those bigger pieces. The other one is what I've done is, after doing kind of a systems map, is using a fishbone diagram, which can also be difficult if you've done that, right, because but you have to find all of the right, you know limbs off of the fishbone. So it's like it for the viewers who can't see me randomly gesturing uh, or listeners, um, you know, there's the middle, which is the spine of the fish, which is you're getting to like your from your problems, your solution, and there are different kind of lines at a diagonal which look at different um pieces that can be influencing the problem. And within that piece, what I usually do is I write out all of the possible. 22:24 So if we say, let me give you an example, if we think about I'm going to go to youth homelessness, because that's kind of top of mind for me right now, so if we think about young people experiencing homelessness and we are like, ok, what is the underlying, what is what, why Right? And so there's the poverty is one. The other is could be racism, there could be lack of housing, and so you think about, like the socioeconomic, so could be lack of housing, and so you think about the socioeconomic. So there's that financial factor. Within the financial factor, you have workforce development, you have lack of I don't know federal funding or cuts to federal funding, so pushing families deeper into the poverty line. So you think of all of the factors that come from financial. So you have the entire map as a way to pull from and finalize like what, what we want to pull. 23:27 This is the other thing with the fishbone diagram, is it? It prevents us from getting stuck on like a single source for the root cause? I think really recognizing that there's probably multiple root causes right For, like for young people experiencing housing insecurity, it's a combination of like. Actually it's happening at the level of their parents too. So it's like there's a lack of opportunity, there's, you know, that causes poverty and systems involvement. 23:56 There might be other things that all intersect and just create this environment where the young person can no longer stay at home, and so we want to be able to be open to that and we won't find a single answer. It can feel overwhelming, especially, you know, for people who are not used to doing something and then feeling like, oh, we can't do anything with it, is really getting to this piece of what are the things that we want to act on within this, what are the things that we can influence? Right from our earlier question is like what can we influence and what can we take action on? What can we change? With the expectation that it could potentially cascade to some of the other pieces. 24:33 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you for just going there, it was a deviation from from what you're talking about, but I think there's so much in here. I mean, I love the idea of the iceberg model, thinking about the societal structure or mindset underlying it. I've thought about mindsets before. I've never thought about like let's name the societal structure. That is brilliant and I think gets to kind of the root of pieces. But I even love even more just the idea that there can be multiple and that's what the fishbone like emphasizes. 24:59 I was even thinking about right like youth homelessness could be like familial, like homophobia or transphobia. It could be like homophobia or transphobia from potential employers, and then those are actually connected even though they're different systems on the fishbone. But you could like do an annotation about highlighting how actually other mindsets come up there, like there's so much that you can kind of like blend those two things. So I love that you're giving multiple models because I see such a nice synergy there and I do wonder if that's something that even students could engage with, right in that co-creation where, like you have this either lived experience or interest, or just like you want to take on this lens of either the system or like this identity or like whatever it is that like is interesting to you and then you're going to go in this way and then, like it just so clearly, would illuminate the value of having multiple people at the table to do the thing. I it's just, it's really exciting. Now I want to go do one. 26:03 - SL Rao (Guest) I want to say um, I did this work with um, with young people experiencing housing insecurity a few years ago when I was at the state. We didn't do a fishbone diagram, we just like brainstormed together and I think what was helpful for for the young people in that process is like I was also learning, we were all learning together, right, but a lot of times they were involved in systems that they didn't even realize that the system officially existed. It was a formalized system that they intersected with because our lived experiences don't necessarily show us that those pieces right. And so they realized they were intersecting with all of these systems and they also saw that there's other young people around them, either because of their friends or, you know, the friends had involvement or they had involvement. Just noticing that that they are not alone, because a lot of times we're going through this alone. So like doing this root cause with young people is like you're giving them a lens to see the larger system. But you're also a lot of times what we do is we, we do that and we leave them there, right, and that's kind of, you know, taking someone up the mountain and just being like OK, you're done, you want the closure, so you want to move it into action. 27:11 And that's a lot of times, I think, as as adults in the system, we are like OK, we saw the system, yay, but it's actually you're leaving them in a space of like trauma, of being like what do I do now? Like you're in that like fight or flight space, of like trauma, of being like what do I do now? Like you're in that like fight or flight, you want to close it out and say like okay, how are we actually moving towards action? Like what are the action steps we can actually take? Because then you're creating a space where you're closing that out. And so I know it sounds very floofy, but really just like when we think about our own like body experiences and how we want to see things closed out, and I think it's not necessarily just to like thumbs up it, but it gives people an opportunity to act or the action and those kinds of things Right. So we want to keep them in a place of like empowerment and action and not in a place of like feeling like you're stuck in headlights. 27:53 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely, and one of the things I've been playing with lately that's going to lead us into this next question I hope this transition works is action can feel really big for both teachers and students and like, okay, we got to go act. 28:05 And people have this idea, I think, in their head sometimes that action means you need to change a federal policy or you need to go amass a thousand person protest or whatever the thing is, test or you know whatever the thing is, and that thinking again about like that bodily experience and just like the idea of healing when we're all like I just think societally, politically, like there's such an intense divide that is is actively like harming kids and and right, that like we, we need to like have conversations across difference without like harming kids, or like identities right and like making sure dignity is upheld. So I'm very interested in like these kind of like micro ways of action and like just being in community and learning a new way that has, like I've just read that you have, you know, a healing orientation to your work in education and I'm curious if you could say more about that because I'd love to learn. 28:58 - SL Rao (Guest) Yeah, definitely. 28:59 So this is built on the work from Sean Ginwright, who talks about like, healing, centered engagement, and a lot of our work is in like how, when we it's from. A lot of it is from the perspective of research, which I think can still apply here, where a lot of research, if you read online, like, even just like looking at you know behaviors of um, young people who are experiencing marginalization. It's a lot of like people who don't have that shared lived experience going in and studying um, let's say, like indigenous students in colleges and putting a very deficit-based lens on it, right. So saying things like oh, the community is holding Indigenous students back from succeeding in college because we have such a individualistic perspective of like, if you need to succeed in college, if you need to succeed in this mainstream American culture, you have to be individualistic, kind of selfish, and you're building, you're approaching it differently and we don't really look at the assets that young people come with, which is a lot. Sometimes it can be their entire community, their culture, cultural backgrounds, their resiliency and, you know, creativity and all of those pieces, right? 30:16 So when we a lot of research focuses on like, what is wrong with you? Why are you doing this. I saw this a lot when I worked in across housing, insecurity, foster care, juvenile legal systems. You know, social workers are trained in those systems to understand, like, what happened to the young person. Young person has to repeat the same story over and over and over again. So you're always asking, like, what is wrong with you? Um, what has happened to you? And you're keeping it in that space, um, and so young people are leaving those spaces still, you know, holding their trauma, and so I think even in education we don't talk about trauma as much. I'm seeing a little bit more of that. Um, also, I think there's this piece of like, when you have only a trauma oriented focus, again you're, you're, you're like empathizing, but a lot of times the empathy is in that space of like. It makes the trauma bonding, makes us feel better, but it's not actually helping the other person move forward, right, and so we feel great about having heard the story. Oh, my gosh, this young person went through so much. This young person who's in our classroom is going through so much at this moment, um, and and we, you know, ask for information and we move forward. Um, a big part of thinking about it from a more. Healing center perspective is like shifting our research practices and methods. 31:37 So it's also shifting how we engage with young people is and and focusing, um, focusing more on you know, instead of saying what is wrong with you, is recognizing all of the assets that young people are bringing into the classroom and the school, right, um, how can we challenge ourselves about how we think about the students and the young people? We have these like social norms and expectations that we kind of push on young people. That then recreates a larger expectation of, like these deficits versus really really acknowledging the ways in which they are continuing to thrive and do all of these things despite everything that's happening. Like there's an assault on their identities, there's, you know, they're on their freedom and even like preventing them from having access to information, right, and so they are learning how to work within that system where the adults are actively suppressing their educational experience and you know, not every single adult but many adults which are which can cause a sweeping like change in their experience. So so that's kind of like a healing centered orientation and again, this piece of moving to action. We don't want to stay in this piece of like let's learn about what's, what's happening, how scared you are, how tired you are. 33:02 So we had this, um, we did this project, uh, called modernizing math, and, um, part of that work was like understanding what the future of math education can look like, and it was exactly what you mentioned earlier. We understood the history to then, uh, bring young people, caregivers and teachers together to design what the future of math can look like. But we wanted it to not be without constraints. We recognize there's a lot of changes happening in the world, like climate is changing, there's technological advances, there's political changes, economic changes. What would, what would, what are potential worlds that could exist because of these changes, right? And so we worked with another organization called Knowledge Works, who does more of like futures foresight work, and so they develop these like five different models. 33:49 We immersed young people in these like worlds and had them think about what could education and learning math look like. We did see that in the beginning, you know, there was a lot of like yeah, it's going to take our jobs, there's no point, right, like there was this just like a very dark conversation that we went into and really recognizing, yes, that that could be true, yes, and what can we do about it? Given that what would we like to see, and moving that into like action. Acknowledging and then moving into action is not in any way diminishing what people are feeling, but really recognizing like our power is in. Like what does it mean to take action in these places and have agency and control? 34:33 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) You're reminding me so much of early, like right after I had graduated and done my dissertation on student voice, I was doing some presentations with a person who has a trauma background in youth and our kind of thesis was that this like voice and agency were the way that you interact with trauma is like this is the pathway. So like when we can co-create, when we can imagine this future, right, like that's, that's an action step. So I just total full circle, a little bit of like that's so awesome, and I recognize we're almost at time, so maybe we'll do a quick like lightning round for a few more questions. Does that sound? Okay, awesome, all right. So one thing usually you know there's so many ideas that people get when they listen or they read over. They're like okay, I need to like narrow it down to what am I doing in the next 24 hours or something. So is there one thing from this conversation or in addition to this conversation that you would say here's a good starting point. You can do this today or the next week or so. 35:33 - SL Rao (Guest) Yeah, I think could be. What we talked about earlier is like, if you know, people are thinking about sharing power, co-creating, mapping out where opportunities, even just starting there, just seeing it, and it feels less daunting. 35:46 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love that so much. I also know everyone on this podcast. This next question is just everyone kind of identifies as a lifelong learner, so I'm just curious, either personally or professionally. 35:57 - SL Rao (Guest) What's something you've been learning about? 35:59 I also do improv, um, I'm on the ensemble ensemble of a improv group in Seattle and, um, I think one thing that comes up to me is like ways in which like movement can really help change the ways in which we think and bring out other parts of our brain and creativity, because that's why you're doing an improv right, like people a lot of times say oh, it's so hard, I would never be able to do that. 36:24 I'm like, no, you wouldn't be able to do that right. Because it is the ways in which we intellectualize, we sit, we, we close off our bodies a majority of the day, and that's how our education system is also set up ways in which we can move to help create that space to bring up creativity, use voice, use our like imaginations in different ways. We can't go from zero to 100, but we can create that pathway through our body, our voice, our memories, our imagination and start that process. So that's something that I'm always learning and I feel like there's so such a vast space for me to learn and grow, to be a better improviser. 37:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) You are such a cool person. One and two, that is such a brilliant idea, so thank you for sharing that. And finally, just where can listeners learn more about with you or connect with you? 37:11 - SL Rao (Guest) Yes, so our website, optimisticdesign, is a great place to pop in. I'm also on LinkedIn, so people are welcome to find me with my name. And, yeah, let me know how they heard about me in the notes, so I can make sure to add. 37:28 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Amazing Essel. Thank you so much for this conversation, yeah. 37:32 - SL Rao (Guest) Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me here. |
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AuthorLindsay Lyons is an educational justice coach who helps schools and districts co-create feminist, antiracist civics-based curricula, discussion opportunities, and equitable policies that challenge, affirm, and inspire all students. A former NYC public school teacher, she holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Lindsay believes all students deserve literacy, criticality, and leadership skills. Archives
November 2025
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