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In this episode, Lindsay talks with Emily Read Daniels, an internationally-recognized trauma specialist and trainer in the trauma-informed schools movement.
Together, we discuss the vital concept of polyvagal theory and co-regulation in educational settings. Emily highlights the importance of focusing on the educator's wellbeing first, arguing that teachers' emotional states significantly impact classroom dynamics. She introduces her framework, "The Regulated Classroom," which integrates practices that help synchronize educators' and students' nervous systems to ensure a calm, balanced learning environment. The Big Dream Emily envisions an educational setting where both educators and students feel understood and supported. She is passionate about her work and loves being able to focus, specifically, on educators, showing that they matter and they are important. Through her work, she aims to address injustices observed in education systems, where both parties often feel overwhelmed and misunderstood. Her goal is to bring about a shift that makes regulation a priority, facilitating a safe and inclusive atmosphere that nurtures genuine learning and connection. Mindset Shifts Required A significant mindset shift involves recognizing the importance of both cognitive and physical states in teaching and learning. While the mindset is important, Emily wants educators to really feel better, safe and secure in their bodies and in the environment. This starts with educators acknowledging that they are whole beings and that honoring the body's role in emotional experiences is essential for fostering a supportive classroom environment. Action Steps To begin the body state shift that Emily talks about — feeling calm and safe in an environment — there are things that educators and students can do to co-regulate. Emily’s framework includes four types of practices: connectors, activators, settlers, and affirmations. To get started, educators can begin to notice how you feel as you enter the classroom. Tracking your nervous system state is an important first step to see if you are feeling regulated or dysregulated, particularly in moments of stress over overwhelm in the classroom. Pay attention to your physical and emotional states to become more aware of your body's reactions. This helps educators know which of the three states in polyvagal theory they are experiencing:
From here, it’s important to engage in co-regulation practices with your students, such as sensory stimulations and rhythm-making, to create a sense of oneness and safety in the environment. Emily unpacks these practices and her complete framework, the Regulated Classroom, in resources available on her website. Challenges? Educators often face time constraints and overwhelming workloads, making it challenging to incorporate these practices into their routine. Emily acknowledges that the feeling of being too busy is often a symptom of dysregulation. It’s not necessarily about getting rid of dysregulation altogether. Instead, recognizing when you’re dysregulated — because you will be at some point! — and learning how to reset is the important thing to focus on. One Step to Get Started Begin by simply noticing your inner experience. As you walk into your school or classroom, observe your feelings and physical sensations. Awareness is the first step toward cultivating a more conscious and resilient presence, which is the foundation for deeper personal change and classroom transformation. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on Instagram and website. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing Letter to Families with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 274 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
Lindsay Lyons: Emily, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Emily Daniels: Oh, thanks so much for having me, Lindsay. I look forward to this conversation. Lindsay Lyons: Same. I am really excited to jump in and, and learn from and with you, and I was just saying before we hit record, I'm really excited to dive into, like, just the concept of co-regulation and, like, polyvagal theory, something that a lot of educators do not ever encounter. And so really excited, particularly as this will be dropping at the beginning of the school year- Emily Daniels: Mm ... Lindsay Lyons: for educators to just think about, and I mean families too, but, like, everyone to really think about how we are in spaces with children of all ages, and this is just gonna be good. Oh, it's so good. Is there anything on your mind that you want people to think about as we have the conversation today? Emily Daniels: I just, I love this so much because, so first of all, polyvagal is, like, my jam. I love teaching educators about it. But what I love so much about the work that I get to do now with the Regulated Classroom is that I get to make it about the teacher first, about the educator first. And having been a former school counselor for many years myself, that was never my experience. Nothing was ever about the adult. It was always about what we're gonna do with kids or what we're gonna do to kids or how we're gonna deal with kids, you know? So it was always very student-focused, I think with good intention, but it's really delightful when we get to talk about the adults. Lindsay Lyons: What a beautiful human framing. Educators have to go through a lot, so I'm glad we're focused on them. Emily Daniels: And I say all the time, "You matter so much." Like, I, maybe nobody's ever told you that, but you matter. You matter, and it's really important Lindsay Lyons: That is beautiful. And, and kind of touching on my next question a bit, although you can take this in any direction, but I'm always curious what guests' kind of big dream is, and I like grounding it in Dr. Bettina Love's quote on freedom dreaming. So she says, "Dreams grounded in the critique of injustice." Mm-hmm. And so thinking about that, what is that big dream you hold? Emily Daniels: So when I was a school counselor, I saw so much how much students were impacted by the adults that were in their lives daily. Um, I mean, I saw it firsthand, and I, I felt and witnessed the struggle for the adults, meaning the teachers in the classroom. And I also saw it in my students that I supported, um, and just really recognized the incredible sacredness of the relationship that is shared between educators and students. And I felt like the educators were trying, but they were so overwhelmed and so stressed about the expectations that were placed upon them. Um, and the students felt like oftentimes just failures, frankly, uh, 'cause they were unable to meet those expectations. And so that, to me, that just showed up as, like, a lot of injustice. Like, I just felt like both, both parties were misunderstood, if you will. And so I really-- It's funny you, you kind of, you know, you orient in this way because it really is about trying to get to the place of, like, we're all human, all of us, and therefore, there are vulnerabilities and fragilities as a result of being human, and we have built-in biologically based ways to protect ourselves. And so, um, I guess I feel like in some ways my work is related to trying to right what feels like I've seen a lot of wrongs. You know what I mean? Like, whether that's the way students have been treated or adults have been treated in the, in the educational setting, uh, even how teachers are treated today by the public. You know, there's a lot of injustice there. So yeah, I, I try to bring regulation as the way in which to tip that scale. Lindsay Lyons: Great points all around. I am, I'm thinking that this usually, I'm from multiple standpoints here. I'm thinking of educators, but I'm also thinking of leaders who often dictate kind of what teachers are focused on, right? And so I'm thinking about what needs to shift in our kind of mental model or conceptualization of what's important in schooling so that we can actually focus on this. 'Cause it's important, yet rarely-- I mean, the most I've ever seen is in, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was very much like, "Wellness is important," but it was often lip service. It often wasn't the deep work you, you seem to be talking about. Emily Daniels: Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: What needs to shift in people's minds? Emily Daniels: Great question. So, and the interesting thing is it is a, it is a cognitive shift, it is a mindset shift, but the irony of it is, is that it's actually a body state shift that we're looking for there. And up to this point, like in all my training and all my years, um, everything was ori- oriented to trying to get us, the adults, and our children to think differently, to think better, to know better, to do better. You know what I mean? It's that idea that like if you know better, you do better. Uh, I really wish that were true. Um, because oftentimes what we weren't able to see is that we need to feel better to do better, right? And those feel- that feeling better comes from feeling safe, and feeling safe in the context of those that we share our space with, and feeling safe in the environment, the actual features of the environment and that sort of thing that inspires a sense of like, um, "Oh, I'm at home here," or, "I belong here," you know? So I think that the, the big shift in mindset is to recognize that we are a whole person, and that that starts with recognizing and honoring the role that the body plays in, in our, um, in, in our expression of human, of humanity. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, that's so good. I really needed that, like, body state shift language. That was great. And I, I'm thinking about, you know, there's so many things that I'm sure that y- you all talk about in terms of what we can learn and embody and do and, and all the things. W- what comes to mind first? Like, where should we go first in terms of, like, what does this look like in practice? Mm. Um, whether it's internal, whether it's, like, i- i- interactive. Yeah. What do we think? Emily Daniels: So it's, it's very much, uh ... So in my framework, the model that I've developed called the regulated classroom, these are practices that are practices of co-regulation. So the vast majority of things I teach people are, are things that they do, that they actually physically do um, with their students, uh, that they lead with their students and they engage in with their students. So, um, many of them include, um, certain kinds of sensory stimulation like, for example, thymus thumping, which is thumping on, you know, some acupressure points in the chest to try to signal to the body to calm and to, to de-stress. Uh, but yeah, for me in my model, the primary, the primary resource that we are, uh, leveraging is the, the, the y- wisdom and the design of the body and the brain and the connection there, and how much it plays into what we experience relationally, uh, with those that we're, we share space with. Um, so yeah, these are, these are simple, easy to do, very short practices of co-regulation. That's what I teach. Lindsay Lyons: Okay. I love that. Two questions. One, it sounds like you have a framework or a model that you, that you draw on. Could you walk us through that a little bit? Sure. And then could you maybe share one or two of those practices? Emily Daniels: Sure, totally. So the framework is, um, it consists of two educator capacities. Notice that I don't say skills. And then four core practices: connectors, activators, settlers, affirmations. Those four core practices actually represent, um, the body of a lot of different fields of research that help us understand what are the specific qualities of experience that help us reset our nervous system. So for example, um, can you do this with me? Okay. See when we do that together, I don't know if you can feel that or not, but this is a gesture. In the regulated classroom, this is a connector practice. I teach educators how to u- use gesture and mirroring on purpose in the classroom to get a sense of oneness and togetherness. So my connector practices are practices that build and repair relationships primarily through play, but not always. Um, and so that's, you know, that's what I teach them. Then you could do, um, like this one here, the thymus thumping is actually an activator practice in the regulated classroom. So if you wanna try this with me here, where we're just alternating in synchrony, pounding on our chest with our fist. If you continue this for about 60 seconds and then drop your hands down by your side and let your ar- your hands be open, you will notice a warmth, a tingling sensation, a kind of calming and centering, grounding sensation. Um, activators are forms of collective rhythm making, and they help to organize the nervous system in the collective. So it's a really powerful way to bring about, um, just organized states in the nervous system collectively. So, like, we need that in the classroom because there's so much... You know, when I was a counselor, we would joke about, it was like a game of Whac-A-Mole, right? You, you help one student over here, and then another one pops up over here with a behavior that's kind of difficult, and then another one over here is shutting down and crawling under the desk, you know? So there isn't a lot of, like, collective synchrony, and what I'm trying to do is shift that, um, and help the teacher understand how to shift that so that they can feel that profound sense of oneness and groundedness, like, and reset regulation. Lindsay Lyons: My brain is going so many places to just connect to, to what I'm thinking about. But I love this idea, and also have done, like very n- not as good. But we've done like a group clap at the end- Yeah ... of our circles sometimes. We're all trying to clap- Yes ... at the same time. Emily Daniels: Yes. Yep. Lindsay Lyons: And I would say practically to teachers, "Oh, we're doing this 'cause the bell just rang and we need to wrap up this conversation, but we can't just walk away. We need to like end it somehow." But I also am now hearing that maybe that was actually a nice like moment of collective like, "Ha," at the end of maybe a heated conversation or something- Yes ... that we just needed. Emily Daniels: Exactly. So you didn't maybe know it cognitively, but you were bringing about a state of collective synchrony, and that is a very important experience to have, especially in community, like school community, to help us feel safe with one another, right? To help us feel connected to one another. And so that's very regulating for our nervous systems, to know that we're not alone, and to know that there's a sense of cohesion among those we share space with. Um, going back for a second though, just, so the two essential educator capacities that I teach educators about is tracking their nervous system state. So it's called tracking state. So it's like the first things that I invite them to do is just notice what they can notice in their body experience, especially when they're in a moment of stress in the classroom. Like, do you notice that your heart rate increased? Do you notice that your palms are sweating or clenching? Do you notice a tense, tense, tension or a tightness anywhere? So helping them to, to actually track whether or not they're feeling regulated or dysregulated, because once they are able to do that, they are able to then determine, "Hmm, I think I might need to dose in a core practice of the regulated classroom to reset myself with my students." Because a lot of times when we start to feel and experience dysregulation, it's because of something that's happening with our students in the classroom. You know, somebody's doing something, saying something, acting in some way that's triggering our nervous system into like, "Oh, what's that kid doing?" type of thing, or, "What are those children doing?" type of thing. So, uh, tracking state is the first essential educator capacity, and recruiting the realm of social engagement means helping to, um, bring online our students' realm of social engagement, which is a whole polyvagal concept Lindsay Lyons: Okay, there's so much going on in my brain. So now I'm remembering, Dr. Bridges, Patrick will be mad at me 'cause I can't remember these, the three, but there's like the three, like r- there's like a regulated state, right? And then like a two- there's a dysregulated, there's like the I'm completely like- Emily Daniels: Okay, Lindsay Lyons: yeah ... I'm shut down. There's that, right? Yes. Can you talk us through those? Yeah, Emily Daniels: yeah, yeah. So in polyvagal theory, which is a theory about, you know, how the nervous system functions, and in particular, how the nervous system shifts into states of defense when we don't feel safe. So when something happens in our experience, and I'm talking about us, the adults, let's say a student, um, has a tone of voice they're using with another student, and all of a sudden we know that that's a clue, like, ooh, that kid might be getting ready to be argumentative or even fight with that kid, 'cause we can hear it in the tone. Our nervous system will shift into a defensive state to protect ourselves. So we might start getting anxious, we might start getting agitated, or conversely, we can shut down. We can, we can drop into a dorsal state, which is a state of numbness and disconnection, dissociation, which is also a protective state. So maybe it's that kind of thing where you hear a tone of voice happening from a student and you're like, "Whatever. He's gonna always do that. Whatever. I don't care." So the person you mentioned, what they might be referencing is sort of these three primary states that are, um, identified in polyvagal theory. There's a ventral vagal state, which is a regulated state. There is a state of mobilization called sympathetic charge or sympathetic, um, activation, and then there's a dorsal vagal state, which is a state of shutdown. So those are the three primary nervous system states in the regula- in the polyvagal theory. Um, and those are, those, that, that theory and those principles of how the nervous system functions is embedded in my model Lindsay Lyons: Cool. 'Cause yeah, I mean, the language is very... Thank you for breaking that down, 'cause the language is kind of, uh, intense. Mm-hmm. But the, the feeling everyone can connect, I think kids included, right, to, to the feelings in your body that connect to those three terms. Exactly. Emily Daniels: Exactly. And when you feel dysregulated, you really can feel it. Like, when you, you can even notice numbness, right? Even if you can't feel, that's a feeling. So you can know you're shut down in a protective state, a, a dorsal state, and you can feel when your heart is racing. You can feel when your face is getting hot. Like, you can feel these things. They're sensations that are powerful. And so the sensations tell you, "Oh, my nervous system is functioning or shifting right now to protect me," versus when you feel at ease, when you feel safe, when you feel, um, regulated, you feel good in your body. You know? You feel like, "Woo!" Like, "Let's do this," you know? And you're able to access all of your conscious capacity, so you're able to be empathic, and you're able to be creative, and you're able to be curious and have really good ideas for how to solve complex problems. Like, all those things happen when you experience a ventral vagal state or a regulated state in your body. Lindsay Lyons: I love that you just explained that, because I also am now thinking about a, a lot of work I do is about student discourse, and discourse about current events or political topics in social studies, or just things- Oh, man ... that are like... Emily Daniels: Right? Oh, man. Like, Lindsay Lyons: this is such a good- Oh, Emily Daniels: you s- you need p- Yeah. You... This, this concept that I'm explaining here has so much application in what you're just describing. Because when you have... Let's see if we can talk about, like, political conversations. Part of the reason why those oftentimes don't result in fruitful discussion is because people get h- hijacked into defensive states. Then they're not able to access their empathy, their compassion. They're not able to access other, you know, uh, turn-taking or perspective-taking. They can't think through rationally what's being said. They can't access that part of their neocortex that helps them be reasonable and rational. Like, so there's a lot. Uh, the nervous system is incredibly powerful, and the shifting that can occur happens unconsciously. So it's not like you're telling yourself, "Okay, I'm gonna become defensive." It just happens. Somebody says something, now you're triggered, and now if you don't recognize that you're triggered, you could then say and do things that are gonna make less safety in that experience than more safety. Lindsay Lyons: And so I'm thinking of peer-to-peer in that, what you're describing, and I'm also thinking of peer-to-peer for adults in like a staff meeting- Yes ... Emily Daniels: right? Oh, girlfriend, this is why the, the regulated classroom, we have like, um, in the, in the guidebook that I, that I have, y- when people open it up and they look at like activators and they're looking at practices, they'll see like a little icon next to the practice and it says staff. And that's because when I train people in the model, I'm like, "This is not just to use with your students." We, the adults, desperately need this. And a lot of schools that I've worked with actually start with the adults first, and they bring the f- the framework into staff meetings, and they dose in these specific practices, these connectors, activators, settlers, and affirmations to shift the climate and the culture of how the staff is feeling with one another. Because when staff have a toxic pattern of interaction, it's gonna be really hard to do much of ... It's gonna be hard to do good work because you don't feel safe with each other, right? And that's a really common struggle that sch- a lot of schools and districts experience, especially in the wake of COVID. Even though that's so six years ago, it's so not. You know what I mean? Lindsay Lyons: Definitely. And yeah, I ... Oh my gosh, there's so many directions we could go. I do want to circle back to like you were saying- Good ... there's a whole thing about the social. Mm-hmm. And then I think you motioned near your face. Is that it? Can you tell us more about that piece? Emily Daniels: Yeah. So the realm of social engagement, in polyvagal terms what that is re- referring to is ... And, and Porges is, is ... Okay, so Dr. Stephen Porges is the author of polyvagal theory. He's the creator of it, and he's done extensive research since he first proposed the theory in 1994. But he is so brilliant in being able to really articulate that we have these very specific features of the head that include the eyes and the capacity for eye contact, brief eye contact, um, the, the striatiated muscles around the eyes, which are directly connected to the nerves that regulate the heart. So when your heart rate changes because you become defense mobilized, it actually can be projected through the m- micro movement of the muscles in the eyes. This is why the eyes are such an important, uh, feature, social feature in, in sophisticated mammals. Um, it's why like, you know, I know eye contact is a co- has become a controversial topic. Um, but in polyvagal terms it really shouldn't be because it, there is so much biological basis for why you can see state through the eyes. You can see someone's state through their eyes, right? And so you can s- you can, you can convey cue of safety through the eyes, and you can convey cue of threat through the eyes. So you know, they're, they're powerful. They're powerful, um- They're powerful social features. I don't know how else to describe it. There's a couple other things too. So like our voice, um, and the tone of our voice, and the prosody of our voice is also sending a c- a signal to you whether or not I am safe. So if I had an agitated tone of voice like, "Lindsay," you know, you can hear that, versus, "Lindsay, I'm so excited for this conversation." Like, you can hear that, right? So that's part of the realm of social engagement. Um, he talks about the middle ear because that's where you process, um, auditory frequency and auditory, uh, stimuli. And again, that's a really quick trigger for defensiveness. It's a quick trigger to... It's a quick, um, it's a short route to the amygdala from the middle ear. Um, so these, these things that are here, like facial expression, vocal prosody, eye contact, how the ear is functioning, all of these are the social features of the realm of social engagement. And when I am regulated, I can inspire in you and in your body and in your realm of social engagement, um, for it to become active and online through my conveying my state to you through these social features. Does that, does that make sense? Lindsay Lyons: Total sense. This is fascinating. Emily Daniels: Isn't it so? Oh my God, you have no idea. It's so fascinating. It's why I constantly am studying it and trying to, like, be like, "Okay, how do I say this in the simplest of terms?" Because it makes sense even with, I don't know about you, but, like, you probably saw in the video, I have my dog here with me, but even sophisticated mammals, this is a part of the reason why they can co-regulate with us so well because, like, when my dog comes over to me and she puts out her tongue and she gives me the softest, littlest, like, I can tell by how she's looking at me that she's regulated and feeling loving and wanting to comfort me versus you know what it's like when you approach a dog who doesn't know what to think of you, and they start to kind of back off, or they kind of have a weird looking face, and you're like, "That dog does not look quite safe." You know? Like, "That dog looks a little threatening," your body is picking up on all the cues projected from the realm of social engagement. And so that's the second educator capacity is do you know how to, uh, recruit the realm of social engagement in others that you share space with and with your students? Can you do that through your vocal prosody? Can you do that through your eye contact? Can you do that through your facial expression, through your gesture and physical proximity? Lindsay Lyons: It, which makes me think of this idea, um, that I, I, I don't like when we declare a space safe, and we're just like- Yeah ... "This is a safe space," right? Yeah. Emily Daniels: God, that's Lindsay Lyons: the worst. It's like... Thank Emily Daniels: you. It is. I know the intention is good, but it's, it's- Yeah ... it's not, it's not something you can declare. Lindsay Lyons: Right. Because everyone has to perceive their own safety, right? Correct. Is that... Am I good? Okay. Emily Daniels: And not only do they have to perceive their own safety, but the vast majority of your perception is at the unconscious level. So it's, it's rooted in your lived experiences. So what is a cue of safety for one person may not be for another, and so you can never say, "Well, this space is safe." I understand what the intention is on that, so I don't want anybody to feel scolded or shamed about it, but it's very much an individual, subjective experience. Felt safety, in, in fact, that concept of felt safety is synonymous with it being understood as it's a subjective experience. Do you feel safe? Um, does this space inspire you to feel safe, right? But, but with all of that, in my core practices, I am helping teachers understand, what are the experiences you wanna purposely bring into the classroom that would most likely inspire more experience of felt safety? So there are certain things we can do with each other, like collective rhythm making, that help us to feel in concert with one another, to help us feel synergy and to feel synchrony, and to, and to know that we can be cohesive and safe with each other. So yeah, safe- you don't get to declare a s- a space as safe. You get to bring about experiences in the c- in that space that may inspire felt safety. Lindsay Lyons: Love, love the way that you put that all together. Brilliant. Okay, now I'm imagining there are people who perhaps intellectually are like, "Yep, this sounds good. I know that I get dysregulated in my class. I want to try to do this." Like, what do you find is the biggest challenge for educators who want to make the shift, but there's just, like, a hurdle that they face, and, like, how, how do they overcome that hurdle? Emily Daniels: Yeah. It's a great question. So first off, I want everyone to know that you 100% get dysregulated 'cause you know what? You're normal, and you're human. Like, so this is something, like, even today we were having a conversation earlier with my team. Something came up that was really, really dysregulating for me, and I owned it. And I said, "Okay, if I'm, like, difficult right now, it's because that thing that we're talking about triggered me so bad. I feel my defensiveness." And it will change me. It will change my presentation. It will change my affect. It'll change my tone of voice. It'll change my movement. Like, it changes everything. And then others around me are like, "Oh my God, she's being such a..." You know, in the moment. They might... Not that I'm doing things overtly to be bitchy. I don't know if that's an okay word to say. Lindsay Lyons: It's fine. Emily Daniels: But it, I can't hide that I got defense mobilized, right? And anybody who knows me knows that in the moment. So that's part of the beauty of the regulated classroom is it's like we're not saying don't be dysregulated. We're not saying that that's, like, something to try to not be. You're gonna 100% get dysregulated more than once through the course of the day. And what you want is to be able to recognize that when that's happening, and then to know what to do to reset. That, that's the thing. Oftentimes the single biggest barrier that teachers will tell me is, "I don't have time for that. I can't do that. I've got so many things I gotta try to accomplish," da da da da da, you know, all that kind of thing. And I get that, and I think when that, when that question, when that, um- challenge comes about when they, when they, when they offer that challenge, you know, that's still the s- the overwhelm speaking, that's still the dysregulation speaking. Um, because if you really are able to get into a regulated place about it, you can come to see that regulation is foundational for everything we want to have happening in the classroom. It's not something you do as a reward. It's not something you do when you have extra time. It's something that if you are not doing regularly, if you're not resetting regularly, everything else about your day is gonna be difficult. You're gonna have more dysregulated kids. You yourself are gonna be just, over time, burning out because you're overwhelming your body's biological systems, your stress response systems, and not giving them opportunities to resource and recover. Um, you're gonna see that the kids are not performing at an academic level like you would hope they had because they need to be regulated in order to access the learning parts of the brain. So it's, it's really foundational work. And so my thing is, the way that I like to talk about it, though, is like I want you to love what you do. I want you to experience joy in what you do. I want you to have a good time. I want it to be freaking fun. Like, why do we have to make it so that school is, like, so not fun? Like, let's stop doing that. You know? Like, there's this, you know, myth I feel like that persists around if we're having fun, we're wasting time. No, you're not. If you're genuinely having fun, you're building felt safety, you're creating community in the classroom, and those are the ideal conditions for learning. That is, that is the fertile ground for learning, for real learning. Um, so yeah. Lindsay Lyons: This question may have already been answered, and feel free to just redirect us to your answer, but I, I always wanna, when I start to close these conversations, and we, we just talked about so many different things. I Emily Daniels: know, I know. Like, Lindsay Lyons: what is the one thing that someone who ends the episode, walks into school today, what could they do just a, a kind of like a first step to- Oh ... do things differently? Emily Daniels: It's a great question. I haven't already answered it, and it's the one that's common. And here's what I'm gonna say, and I'm gonna invite you. As the, as the teacher or the educator coming into a new school year or a new school day, I just want you to notice. That's literally what I want you to do. When it occurs to you, I want you to notice how you feel on the inside. Like, what's coming up for you in your body experience as you step over the threshold of the front door, or you step over the threshold of the classroom, and you enter. What's, what comes up for you? What comes up for you when your students arrive? What comes up for you when you see your colleagues again? Like, how do you feel on the inside? That's the first step, is just to notice. And if you notice that, like, noticing brings up a lot of ick, eh, notice that. You know, if noticing brings up a lot of like, "Oh, this is so good," like, "I love being here. This is so exciting," notice that. Like, it's all, all worth noticing 'cause it's all messages from your nervous system telling you how you feel in the space and with the others that you're with. You know what I mean? And that is really the beginning of, well, self-discovery and change, is you g- you gotta know yourself first. You gotta e- and the way to do that is to begin by noticing Lindsay Lyons: Great advice. Okay, this next question is just for fun. It could be related to anything we talked about or something totally different, but what is something you've been learning about lately? Emily Daniels: Mm. Mm-hmm. So one of the things that I've been rabbit holed on, like dig down deep, right? And I still, there's so much to dig into, is att- is attachment. So I just finished co-authoring a new book called The Early Years for early educators and early years educators, birth to age seven, and then also for parents. Very proud of this work, very proud of this work, and I'm co-authoring it with Chrissy D'Agostino, who's also in Massachusetts. And, um, one of the things that it's done is it's caused me to have to really dig into the research around the science of attachment. And it's a whole new lens for me through which to view teachers and students, because when we've had disorganized or insufficient attachment experiences early in life, those, ugh, lackings, for lack of a better word , they show up again. They show up, and they show up in the classroom big time. They show up with us with our students. They show up with us with our students i- in different ways. You know, a lot of times we like to talk about behavior as attention seeking. If you have kids who have not had secure attachment experiences, 100%, I don't even like to use the language of attachment, or ex- um, attention seeking, but they are seeking connection. They are 100% seeking connection. And they, and they, and they may need you to anchor in as, as an, as an attachment figure. Which frankly is not a new thing. That's something that, you know, many of us have done over the years, um, with our teachers over time. That's what, mm, that's why your role matters so much, because you get to be a part of a child's life in a profound way, because it's so much time, and they, they need adults that are present with them and, and wanna be with them. Um, so anyways, attachment is something that is, um, profoundly maybe reshaping some of my thinking around stuff we see happening in our schools today. Lindsay Lyons: Fascinating. Okay, I now need to get The Early Years. That sounds like a great book. Emily Daniels: Right? Lindsay Lyons: And I, I think the, the last kind of set of questions is around your work. I know you were just saying you, you came out with something like a guide for early childhood educators. Is that right? Can you tell us- Yes ... a little bit about this? Emily Daniels: Yes. So we have, so currently I have The Regulated Classroom guidebook, which is pre-K through grade 12. However, through demand, we created an early years version of that guidebook called The Early Years. It's called The Regulated Classroom: The Early Years, and it's to give those educators and parents the, the practices to use to build safe, secure connections, uh, safe, secure attachments. You know, it's- A lot of our, our, um, early years folks and young parents today, they don't, they just don't even know what to do with their kids, especially if their children seem to be a, have like vulnerable nervous systems or be a little bit, you know, have a more narrow window of tolerance. So this book is chock-full of practices to do. Um, and it also validates and acknowledges, like parents have never been more stressed than they are today. 41% of parents report not being able to function on a daily basis as a parent. 41%. That's from the US Surgeon General in 2024. And teachers have the second highest rate of occupation-related stress. Across all professions, teachers have the second highest reported rate of occupation stress. So we've got two groups of adults that are very stressed who are in the presence of children all day long. So the regulated classroom and the early years are resources to help shift the stress crisis that we have, the stress and trauma crisis that we have, um, today. Lindsay Lyons: Wow, okay. I need to get that. So we need to ... We will link to all the things in the show notes, but where should people go to get that? Is, do you have a website? Do you have a place people could reach out to you? Where should they go? Emily Daniels: Please, please, please. So our web- our website is regulatedclassroom.com, and our, um, socials are regulatedclassroom on Instagram and regulatedclassroom on Facebook as well. And we do a lot there on our socials, um, meaning we share very generously like ideas and affirmations and, um, practices to try. We also have monthly free webinars that are open to the public. Anybody can register the third Tuesday of every month. Sometimes I do them, and sometimes my trainer consultants do them, so you'll see other people there as well. But, um, we really wanna share this information and, and, um, help people become more educated about nervous system state regulation, what that means in the educational setting, and how important it is. Lindsay Lyons: That's incredible. Okay, thank you so much for all of the things you shared and all of the work that you do. Oh. Emily, this has been such a pleasure. Emily Daniels: Same. Same, Lindsay. Thanks so much for the opportunity. I really appreciate it.
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Kicking off season 7 of The Time for Teachership Podcast, host Lindsay dives into an overview of what’s new and upcoming on the podcast. She invites teachers, instructional coaches, curriculum directors, and principals to dive into an enriched focus on student-led discourse.
In this season, we're delving into discourse as a central theme, something that resonates deeply with Lindsay’s longstanding passion. Her PhD program focused on student voice, and continues to inform her work. It is now evolving into a broader discussion on student-led and staff-led discourse across leadership levels. Some focus areas for the podcast in this season will include:
Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Lindsay Lyons: I'm educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons, and here on the Time for Teachership podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. [00:00:16] I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling, and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings. If you're a principal, assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach, or teacher who enjoys nerding out about co-creating curriculum with students, I made this show for you. [00:00:36] Here we go Welcome back to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. Super excited to be here in season seven with the season seven premiere. I cannot believe this podcast has gone on for so long, and yet I can because I love pursuing a long passion project and I continue to find interesting things in the world that people are doing. [00:00:59] [00:01:00] Some brilliant, gracious authors, teachers, leaders who have volunteered their time to come onto the podcast to share their wisdom with others. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, audience, for making this endeavor so possible and, uh, uh, you know, allowed us to continue this great work. For some updates for season seven, we have been, as you may have noticed, longtime listeners, kind of niching down over the last year or so into my favorite topic, which is discourse, specifically student-led discourse quite often. [00:01:33] And just thinking about how everything that we do and all of the mini-series topics we have done kind of touch on this. They connect in some way back to discourse. And I remember on a personal note, when I was in my PhD program, I had a professor whose job was to kind of teach the first c-course of the, the program or the first one when we were starting to really to get into our studies, and it was like, "All right, so what do you want? [00:01:57] Like, you're up there, you're giving a presentation [00:02:00] of either your dissertation or something professionally in the future. Like, what do you want the theme or the topic to be on the banner or the PowerPoint slide behind you?" Right? Like, what is the thing? And mine at the time was student voice because that was what my research was in. [00:02:12] And I-- It's funny, that was, you know, years ago. It's almost a dec- a decade ago, and it is still to this day, uh, student voice in a sense, right? It's, it's very much student-led discourse in classroom spaces and, and staff-led discourse, uh, and shared leadership kind of versions of discourse at the leadership level. [00:02:29] And so really excited to continue this and just name it as a focus. You know, maybe-- I think we'll keep the podcast name the same, but we may see some changes to or updates to kind of taglines or images as we've done over the years, but really excited about this new focus. And so with that, let's talk a little bit about how that kind of maps on to our typical categories or what I've been calling mini-series episodes as we go throughout each school year. [00:02:54] Those will mostly stay the same. I think they-- I always reserve the right to kind of evolve [00:03:00] the thinking and foc-foci, foci of the episodes. But we typically do the following, and I'll kind of name the existing focus areas and then also share how that kind of meets the discourse focus and what that means moving forward in this current season seven. [00:03:19] Okay, so leadership. We've historically done some stuff around leadership. We have focused on Kind of like leadership roles, principal district leadership. We've talked about student leadership and shared leadership, which is how we really entered that first. As I said, it harkens back to my PhD work, um, adaptive leadership as really one of the prominent leadership theories and frameworks that we operate from in a lot of our change work. [00:03:43] We lead change So governance change, adaptive student leadership. I think all of this requires discourse, because if you are engaging with an adaptive challenge, you gotta talk about it. You gotta talk about hard things, right? You have to know how to design, [00:04:00] facilitate, and reflect on or repair harm from any discourse. [00:04:04] Um, that, that's really critical. And so while we think about leadership in this kind of big way, we're also thinking about the stakeholders in the room, and not in the room, but, like, in the room when we're having a discussion, and we're dialoguing or we're deliberating. Whatever we're doing, whatever we're talking about, the purpose of our conversation, um, can be varied. [00:04:25] But how we talk to one another and how we design intentionally for multiple viewpoints to be in the room, and to ensure there's equity of voice and just, you know, all the things we talk about with discourse, I think that's gonna be kind of the lens that we look out with leadership. Okay. The next one, which was a new one this year in season six, instructional coaching. [00:04:47] So we're speaking directly to instructional coaches in the space or, you know, teacher, team leaders, things like that. This is where we want to think about how we coach discourse, so either the planning for discourse, so what's the literal [00:05:00] prompt I'm going to give students, uh, responsive moves, so what do I do as the teacher, particularly coaching that adaptive change to I used to just deliver instruction and have my PowerPoint and go slide by slide, and now I am handing over control, so to speak, to the students, and, like, not sure what the teacher role is. [00:05:16] Like, there's some responsive moves to notice and coach on as you're, um, coaching. You could also do some modeling of how to facilitate that student-led discourse effectively. I think there's a lot of rich stuff there we could do with instructional coach series. Now, our culture of challenge used to be kind of like our culture of challenge and discussion, and that would be where a lot of our discourse stuff lived, and then it just kind of, like, overflowed into everything else. [00:05:39] So that will may, like, kind of be maintained as a cultural, class culture, school culture piece. And specifically, we wanna get into cultivating that culture of challenge that enables us to have really good discourse. So bringing in kind of Hammond's Learn to Learn skills. Read a Hammond's book that came out in 2025. [00:05:58] We've had her on the podcast. [00:06:00] Go back and listen to that episode if you're curious. Super good. But really thinking about rebuilding students' learning power as opposed to over-scaffolding, uh, letting students grapple, like, how to co-create discourse agreements and what that means to have that accountability to those agreements, right? [00:06:14] Like, a lot of themes there around the culture of the class and the space. Okay. We also have been doing social studies miniseries for the last couple of, I think couple of years now. Definitely wanna continue that. I do a lot of work in social studies. Also, we may consider bringing in, you know, a literacy focus or kind of embed that um, and do kind of a social studies/literacy or, like, humanities focus curricularly. [00:06:39] That might mean that we explore curriculum-specific topics for existing curricula or, like, designing curricula with the humanities lens in mind or s- or kind of practicing specific humanities skills. Um, that could mean a lot of inquiry, which of course, and much of the stuff that we do, I just wanna add this caveat, much of the stuff we do in the social studies [00:07:00] band is not specific only to social studies. [00:07:02] For example, a lot of the social studies work we do is related to inquiry. Inquiry is totally present in many science curricula, in, in a lot of, like, illustrative math curricula. There's a lot of other spaces where that is valuable, not just humanities. Um, talking about high-emotion topics, political topics specifically is very social studies and, and often, you know, could be literacy-focused as well. [00:07:25] So we'll, we'll continue that. This is Leah popping in to share the free resource for this episode, a new discourse playlist. You can find it at the blog post for this episode, www.lindseybethlyons.com/blog/273. Now back to the show. And then systems transformation, so lots of stuff here. I mean, we could talk about kind of like adaptive transformation, so again, that kind of leading change that was similar to the leadership series. [00:07:51] We could talk about equitable assessment, which we've done for years in the past. We could talk about kind of peer-to-peer learning and how that shift, like how you shift a culture of a [00:08:00] school to, or a district even, right, from teacher-directed instruction to peer-to-peer learning from even the example, I think, often of Socratic seminars where Students will just look at the teacher when they're speaking, right? [00:08:14] Or, or sharing, and we need to get that teacher or peer-to-peer focus going. We need to cultivate kind of a sense of, "I'm here to learn with my peers. My peers' ideas expand my thinking, deepen my thinking, challenge my thinking in ways that I could never do by myself or just my interactions with the teacher," right? [00:08:32] That there's a real value add in engaging. Um, so again, there's that a- adaptive kind of mindset shift of the system there. Um, also really excited this coming season we're gonna be talking in the systems transformation lens around intergenerational learning. So r- really valuing ways of learning that indigenous folks, for example, have been doing for thousands of years, right, since time immemorial. [00:08:56] That is a centerpiece of, of education and how it is done, [00:09:00] and it is far too rare in particularly US systems that I have worked in and experienced anyways. And like, how do we do that? How do we community partner? How do we partner with families and existing stakeholders within our current school communities? [00:09:16] That's gonna be a really good one, I think. Um, families. We are gonna continue this family series where we are kind of sharing directly with families, creating episodes where you could share them with family members or stakeholders, caretakers in your school systems if that feels good to you. Also recognizing that a lot of teachers and leaders wear two hats. [00:09:36] One is the kind of the family hat, um, and one is the this-is-my-professional-role hat, and noticing, uh, like, for example, I-- my experience has always been in teaching the older kiddos, like in high school And then having a younger kid, like those are similar skills maybe, but definitely different in their implementation. [00:09:56] And so wanting to also recognize that [00:10:00] for the kind of spectrum of things we talk about, there's value at all ages, and it looks different. And so what can families do to partner with the teachers? Um, and also just given my kind of bias towards the younger like parent, uh, experience of where I am, talking a lot about younger kids there. [00:10:16] So any of our early childhood educators, like feel free to tune into those episodes as well, um, as sharing them directly, but also for your professional, uh, role. So that will continue to be a space where we talk, uh, about ideas that families can bring. So current events, how do we talk about those in the family space? [00:10:34] Um, how do we, you know, read and help students engage with books and get that critical thinking going? Uh, are there thematic frameworks that we could work with both in school and at home, and kind of emphasize in both places so that we're kind of spiraling the learning scales? When we think about curriculum design for our final piece here that we talk about, uh, thinking about a unit arc, yes, but also playing with this idea [00:11:00] recently of a discourse arc. [00:11:01] And so what are kind of the discourse activities that could form the arc of a unit? Where does discourse show up within a typical unit arc? I don't think there's any one right way to do a unit arc, but kind of thinking about what that might look like, as well as question prompts. So the literal content selection and phrasing of a question that goes in front of students for discourse is really critical, so we'll do some practice with that. [00:11:22] Historically in the past, we have had people come in and do kind of building a unit live on the show. We could totally do something like that here. Um, discourse formats, talking more about those. Uh, I'm reading a great book right now, which we'll, we'll spotlight ar- around, um, discourse formats and what that [00:11:40] how those could be elevated and tips for those, um, as well as any other resources. We'll continue to, uh, parallel the podcast in our YouTube channel with our five-minute YouTube short tutorials, spotlighting resources that complement this of course as well. Um, and, and then I also wanna just kind of extend an invite here as we think about [00:12:00] panel ideas, um, or, or guest ideas I should say, more broadly. [00:12:04] I think it would be super cool to have a panel. I've had, uh, podcast friends who have done things like this, and it sounds so awesome. So if anyone is interested in, you know, coming on a panel, we are certainly going to be excited about episode 300, which will air in mid-April of 2027. Um, that could be a fun one to celebrate, but really at any point Around any of these topics, it'd be really cool to have a panel of folks on either to, you know, share their brilliance, uh, or y- have a particular focus around coaching conundrums. [00:12:36] So like I could take on kind of a coach role or any, any of us, right? Could take on coach roles and we'll do some peer coaching, and we'll just bring a question to the space or a series of questions around a topic to the space. I think that could be really neat. We could also, this would be so cool, and I think this could fit nicely in the curriculum one. [00:12:52] Um, one of the things that I think we forget about a lot, I have certainly forgot about a lot as a coach in the past and have been [00:13:00] really emphasizing it lately, is analyzing student work. And so when you are doing this for discourse, it looks a little different or is, is a little different. And so if we could model, demo, practice, I also think it's just great to know what other people are doing and how they're processing the pedagogy. [00:13:17] Please feel free to volunteer to come on and unpack a discourse experience on the podcast with us. We could bring a transcript, analyze the transcript. You know, where are the moves that we wanna highlight and celebrate? What are our kind of next teacher moves? Where do we want this conversation to go in the future? [00:13:32] So really, really exciting things. Okay, we have so much goodness for you in season seven. We are going to have our September kickoff, so the rest of this month is going to be the regulated classroom with Emily Reed Daniel, so pulling in polyvagal theory and how do we just create a culture of perceived safety and belonging. [00:13:52] Followed by Joe Schmidt, who is the incoming president of NCSS, and Nichelle Pinkney, who talk about their amazing book, Civil Discourse. We are gonna [00:14:00] have an episode, uh, from me, just myself, where we're talking about reframing discussion prompts, which is a resource created after doing some work with Dr. [00:14:08] Eric Soto-Shud and San Francisco Unified School District and some awesome teachers there. And so how do we like literally language the prompts that we invite people to discuss and talk about? Um, as well as a little bit of a synthesis of that awesome book I was talking about edited by Jane C. Lo. Um, what, kind of why and how we wanna start classroom discussions now, like in September. [00:14:30] Uh, so that's gonna be really cool. We're gonna do an intergenerational learning series, hoping to have Dr. Anton Troyer on. Um, Karen Foley talking about grandmother circles in schools would be so amazing. Ivy Mitchell, who is a Massachusetts eighth grade teacher who has done some fantastic work and continues to do fantastic work around bridging the generations. [00:14:47] Uh, started as kind of like a, a singular event or annual event and now is m- moving into a TV show, which is so cool. Um, lots of stuff. We got stuff coming up for families around, you know, book-based [00:15:00] prompts for conversation We are going to talk about some different, like, dinner table rituals and, and protocols. [00:15:06] We'll have our annual kind of like approach to holiday conversations piece. And then in January, Zaretta Hammond is having an amazing curriculum design event this summer, and we're hoping that we can invite some participants in that to share their amazing curricular creations with us for a January 2027 series. [00:15:24] So that will be super cool. Uh, and, and yeah, oh my gosh, there's, there's so much I could go on and on. I will stop there. Uh, actually no, one more. I just read this wording, and so this is gonna be super cool. We gotta touch base again in August, but, um, Dr. Jada Colmeyer has this great chapter in this book on, on discourse I've been reading where they talk about the Socratic seminars the teachers have been doing with the Pledge of Allegiance, and it's like the first one they do in the year, um, which is why I wanted to air it in, in this month, but it's not in the cards for us. [00:15:58] Uh, it is super cool, [00:16:00] and so thinking about Socratic seminars more broadly, but also what are the specific types of prompts you could play with both like ... I mean, yes, that's a social studies thing, for sure, but I think you could do this in any, uh, you know, kind of as an intro activity in any content area so that you can build the capacity for discourse throughout the remainder of the year. [00:16:19] Because e- like if you have any exposure to schools where pledges are said, this is an entry point for students. Uh, so it could be super cool, and if you're a content teacher who is not social studies, you could co-facilitate or have some sort of like debrief activity where like the social studies person debriefs most of the social studies pieces and themes, and then you as the non social studies teacher could, uh, debrief some more of the, like, discussion format and like- Configuration, um, ways that we interact with one another, agreement alignment, that kind of thing. [00:16:55] Okay, I have talked enough for this intro episode. Get excited. Let me know if you have questions, [00:17:00] suggestions for episodes for the coming season. Really excited to have you back, and our freebie, as always, we're gonna have a freebie for this episode. Our freebie is our Culture of Challenge and Discussion playlist. [00:17:10] I'm realizing as I'm speaking this that I probably should update this. Playlist has not been updated for a bit, but it is certainly kind of a, a best of in terms of the freebies that we have, the podcast and YouTube episodes that we have that all pertain to a culture of challenge and discourse, um, from our first, you know, five seasons or so. [00:17:26] So definitely encourage you to check out the back list of all of the episodes in the past, but that's a good starting place if you are interested in this focused topic. That will be at lindseybethlyons.com/blog/273 to go grab that freebie and get a summary of today's notes from the show. If you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazzed as I am about my coaching program for increasing student-led discussions in your school. [00:17:53] Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan talk about a pedagogy of student voice in their book Street Data. They say students should be talking for [00:18:00] 75% of class time. Do students in your school talk for 75% of each class period? I would love for you to walk into any classroom in your community and see this in action. [00:18:08] If you're smiling to yourself as you listen right now, grab 20 minutes on my calendar to brainstorm how I can help you make this big dream a reality. I'll help you build a comprehensive plan from full-day trainings and discussion protocols like Circle and Socratic Seminar to follow-up classroom visits where I can plan, witness, and debrief discussion-based lessons with your teachers. [00:18:24] Sign up for a nerdy, no-strings-attached brainstorm call at lindseybethlyons.com/contact. Until next time, leaders, think big, act brave, and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. Better today, better tomorrow, and the podcast to get you there. Explore more podcasts at www.teachbetterpodcastnetwork.com. [00:18:47] We'll see you on the next episode 
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In this solo episode, host Lindsay explores the importance of assessing student-led discourse in the classroom. Often, assessment is discussed in terms of grading or projects, but discourse is also something that can — and should — be assessed as well.
While it may be easier to evaluate written work, Lindsay emphasizes why it’s also important to assess verbal communication skills. In this episode, we talk about practical strategies for collecting data on discourse, what to assess, and how to utilize self and peer reflections for continuous improvement. Why? Integrating discourse assessment into your classroom planning can help foster deeper engagement and understanding among students. Educators often rely on assessing writing only, but assessing discourse helps achieve a more comprehensive picture of student capabilities and encourages students to reflect on their communication skills and participation patterns. What? Assessing discourse involves several key steps: Step 1: Collect data. The first step is to get a transcript of a class or group discussion. This can be done by leveraging AI software, recording the conversation on video or audio, or enlisting co-teachers, coaches, or visitors to take a transcript for you. Step 2: Identify what you want to assess in a conversation. There are critical “talk behaviors” (taken from Maria Nichols’ book, Building Bigger Ideas) like asking questions, synthesizing information, and inviting new ideas that are useful to understand, evaluate, and analyze when reviewing the transcript. Step 3: Pay attention to the group dynamics. You can analyze individual and collective participation patterns to understand dynamics and engagement levels, using methods like spider webbing for visual representation (e.g., draw lines between students who are talking, evaluating if it’s going back and forth between a few or if most students are speaking). Step 4: Encourage individual reflections post-discussion. Have students individually assess and provide feedback on their discourse skills and the group's overall performance. You can give them a rubric or ask them to write a note on their strengths and areas for growth. Step 5: Engage in group discussions to evaluate the group’s discourse skills. Go back to your class agreements and see if they were upheld, or if the agreement needs to be edited and changed based on how the discourse went. Final Tip To deepen your student discourse practices, start by encouraging students to face each other during discourse instead of you. Respond to their questions by prompting them with questions that guide further thinking rather than supplying direct answers. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Skill-Based Rubric Templates with you for free, as well as Gabe Weaver’s transcript analysis practice. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 272 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.
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 272, and today we're talking about assessing discourse. Woo. Such a good topic Often we talk about assessments, and often we think about, like, w- the types of, like, grading of essays and, like, all the things. I mean, I was a former high school literacy teacher, so I mean, there's a lot of written work that we think of. But we can, and I would argue should, be assessing discourse as well, whether that is verbal, whether that is ASL, like, whatever the communication, um, is, it, style is, that is going to be really critical to assess something that is not in writing, right? So here are some of the challenges. Yes, it is easier to assess students' written work sometimes for a variety of reasons, often because of the things that we are looking for and trying to assess, but also because, uh, often it is hard when you are focused on facilitating and teaching, and often discourse is mediated by the teacher, and we don't have as much student-led conversation. When you're trying to do all of that, it is very challenging to pay attention to what the students are saying and do any sort of, of, of grading or assessment. Okay, so here are the kind of categories of things we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about how you actually collect the data so that you don't have to do everything in the moment, though you can, but there are ways to kind of collect the data to return to it later, both for your evaluative purposes or assessment purposes and feedback purposes, but also for students to reflect on their own participation, both individually and as a class. We'll also talk about what you can assess, so what are you actually trying to pay attention to and notice and give feedback on. That's gonna be kind of the bulk of the episode, I think. And then we're gonna talk about leveraging self and peer reflection, as I mentioned, and we'll end with a few tips and a freebie. Okay, let's start with collecting the data. One option, and this is a great one if you can, take a transcript. Certainly, you can use some, like, AI-based services to transcribe audio for you. I mean, Loom does it. If you have a certain package, Zoom does it. I wanna say Google Meets might even do it. Um, so you certainly can take an audio recording and then transcribe it using a specific service. But I also think that it is something that you can have, um, like a rough transcript. Like, your role, if you set it up so that the students are truly leading the discussion and you're just kinda t- typing, like, you can do that. The best way, if you have this as an opportunity, the best way I suggest is actually to use either co-teachers if you have them, coaches, instructional coaches, or other people who are kind of visiting your class. Um, say, "Oh, you wanna visit my class? Great. Visit my class, and I need you to do something for me," right? "Can you take a transcript of this whole class discussion?" Or, "We're having small group discussions. Can you please sit in with this group and take a transcript of this group?" Right? Um, you can also rotate if you're doing constant small group discussions, you can take a transcript. Let's say you do one every day. You can take a transcript. Let's say there's five groups of one group on Monday, one group on Tuesday, so on, so on You can also have, and I've done this before, when there are small groups, have groups set up a recording. Like a com- you'll give them a computer, an iPad or something, and just say, "Okay, well, you're gonna like, you know, record yourselves on video or audio," whatever the parameters for your permissions are at the school. But that way you can also just get a sense of like, okay, everyone's recording and I'm gonna be able to listen to it even though there's five conversations happening at the same time. Um, okay, another thing ... Nope, I already said that. Okay, great. So let's talk about what you can assess during a student-led conversation. So I just read Maria Nichols' book from 2019, Building Bigger Ideas. It is great. It is excellent. I think it is written for elementary, but it is totally valuable for all grades, and I'm gonna share kind of a slightly adapted version with some added thoughts of my own, um, from her list of what she considers when she is assessing discourse. Okay, number one, the use of or range of, is the language she used, range of talk behaviors and, and if they're purposeful. So talk behaviors in my mind are things like q- q- asking questions, clarifying questions, or like prompting discussions. So we have a Socratic seminar and there's, yes, a key question, but I'm gonna add my own question. I want to see how my peers respond. Could be synthesizing. So here are the points of agreement that I'm noticing in our class. Uh, here are ... is the one place that we disagree, right? We disagree on this particular thing. Can we go down this path? Um, i- identifying points of confusion. Like, okay, so we're, we're kind of talking about this in two different ways. It's not necessarily disagreement, but we seem confused. Can we go there? Uh, building on others' ideas is definitely a talk behavior that is purposeful. We wanna grow our ideas, and we don't want to just use the frame, the sentence frame. I'd like to add on to so and so because blah, blah, blah, right? But we actually want to deepen the ideas, complicate the ideas, stretch the ideas. Um, so building on i- in a purposeful way. We might also use a talk behavior like inviting new ideas or people into the conversation if they have been quiet. We might just invite to anyone. Maybe it's not a specific person, but we might say to the group, "Is there anyone who thinks differently about this?" Like, let's get a different idea in here. Those are all great talk moves that we can link to purpose. Okay. The other thing Maria Nichols talks about is individual and collective patterns of participation. So yes, this might be something like how much one person talks. Um, spider webbing is a good, like a mapping for that. So you would literally, let's say you're all in a circle, you would draw kind of a circle on the page, l- label where everyone is sitting, and then you would draw a line from one person to the next person who talks to the next person who talks. What this does is it illuminates kind of the pattern of who talks after whom. Is there a particular dynamic where people are talking back and forth and the rest of the class is kind of silent? Overall, how many lines does a kid have, you know, at the end of the discussion versus like, oh, that student never got a line, they never once spoke, right? It, it kind of illuminates things like that. Um, so frequency, pattern of talk, and also kind of like order of who usually goes first. Um, also other things to think about when we think about individual and collective patterns of participation, this may not be what Maria Nichols was thinking, but I think about body language and facial expressions and kind of how the group may... Not using verbal language necessarily, but how they demonstrate their engagement, lack of engagement, other emotions and thoughts that come up, um, in various ways. So that might be something you notice She also talks about strengths of the community regarding discourse. So I would think of the co-created discourse agreements that hopefully you came up with as a class prior to having the conversation. So how well do we adhere to these things? And I think that's a really important thing, I'll get to this later, but to note and, and have the class think about as a group after the conversation as well. But that is something you can note while the conversation is happening. Strengths of meaning-making she's talking about. I, I think this is really, like, deepening the thinking here. So are we deepening the thinking? Are we just kind of abandoning ideas? I have had the great fortune to collaborate and coach an amazing ELA teacher. His name is Gabe Weaver, and he has used reflective prompts surrounding transcripts, I'll mention one in a moment, but any sort of, like, student-led discourse. And he has in- invited students to look at a transcript and think about where could we ... where do we kind of, like, abandon idea, an idea and where could we actually tap back into that and take that into a new place or to go deeper? Like, let's reevaluate. If we could have this conversation again, where do we miss an opportunity to deepen the thinking? Which I think is a really great reflective prompt for students. Um, the other thing Maria Nichols thinks about is how much facilitation is needed. So was this truly student-led or was it, was the teacher just kind of, like, in between each student voice? Is she really or he really or are they really directing the conversation or are they, are they good to go, right? Are they talking to one another, looking at one another? Okay. Other things. And this might be ... This is how I initially started. This might be kind of your go-to right now, but I do think there's value in this, so continue to practice. Key ideas or quotes from the discussion are great things to notice. Also, this gives you an opportunity to kind of synthesize at the end if you wanna give a synthesis just in case your students don't. Ideally, it's student-led, the synthesizing. But if you're gonna do it at first and then turn it over to them later, it's great, great to model. We know this about discourse. Actually, the research bears this out, that modeling even for, like, a week's worth of discussions, like model six or seven times even, when you turn it over to students, they are doing things so, so, so markedly better. Really helpful to model. Anyways, you can identify things that are important to hold onto, so those key ideas, but you could also say, "Hey, this is questionably factual. We're gonna do a fact-checkers class tomorrow, or at least, like, 10 minutes of a class. We're each gonna investigate one of these claims." If it is a blatant inaccuracy, you can absolutely jump in and correct in the moment. I know I say teachers don't talk during student-led discourse, but you can absolutely correct blatant inaccuracies if a student does not. Um, but ones that are like, "Hmm, I'm not sure about this," or, or, "As a class it would be beneficial for us to investigate," hang on to those and repeat those later Okay, other things you can think about or notice or reflect on, subject-specific skill-based standards. So for social studies, this is often claim, evidence, reasoning. For science or math, it might be analyzing a graph of data. Like if they're using a visual support and analyzing that or pulling in information from diverse sources, all of that is really great, and those are skill-based standards that are maybe specific to your subject area. You can totally look for those. Um, we also can assess, like, how students seem to be understanding the content. We can also, thinking about our last episode from last week on the WIDA framework, we could think about for multilingual learners or any students really, the language use. So, you know, thinking again about the key language use. So are we doing like an argument? Okay, well then what are the language expectations, functions, and features of argumentative language, right? And we can think about that six-point rubric that WIDA has to support language building and development. Um, we can also-- I just also wanna name, and I don't think I said this in the WIDA episode, there is a speaking rubric for grades one through 12 that has kind of general indicators for the discourse level, so like the linguistic complexity of the student, um, sentence level, so those are like the language forms, and the word or phrase level, which would be like their vocabulary usage. So that is really helpful. And they also have a really good chart on page 20 of the framework, so again, go back to that episode to get the link, of asking teachers after you have listened to students have discourse, what can students do? What are your next teaching and learning moves? And then what are strategies to support and scaffold learning? So I mean, I think any teacher can do that for any student, but I think that's a really helpful, um, piece to just know exists. Okay, and then I have mentioned this a lot already, but leveraging self and peer reflection is really critical here, particularly because I think about the ways that we interact with our peers, with-- and students interact with their peers in non-classroom environments that are really, truly student-led or youth-led because they are not in a class environment at all. They're just like w- w- we want to be able to facilitate students to have good conversations with their peers and with other people beyond the classroom. And so it is really important that students feel they have the capacity and language to share what went well, what didn't go well, how to have these conversations, but also reflect on them. So what does that look like in a class setting? For an exit ticket post discussion, I like an individual reflection. So have students kind of assess their discourse skills. You can give them a rubric if you have one. Have them note specific strengths and areas for growth. I like to have them give examples. Like if you tell me you're really good at using evidence, well how did you do that today? If you tell me that you're really good at synthesizing, write me a synthesis. If you didn't do it verbally at least, like t-- show me that you can do that skill. I also really like the question, uh, harkening back to Maria Nichols' idea of deepening thinking, James Nottingham writes about growing the thinking, how did your thinking change? Because if it didn't, we need to do something differently, right? Um, but also how did it feel experientially? Like did you feel like you were a equitable participant in the conversation? Did you feel that the class valued what you had to say? Did it feel good to listen and seek to understand, right? Like how did it viscerally feel in your body? We can also have each individual, and collectively we can talk as a group or in a small group about the class as a whole or whatever the group size was for your discourse, and you could assess the group's discourse skills. Again, same thing, note strengths, note areas for growth, give examples, but also do an agreement check-in. So we have these agreements, did we follow them? Did we, you know, find that there was a moment where we actually needed to either adhere to something better or do we need to revise or introduce a new discourse agreement that is not currently in our list, but this specific interaction highlighted the need to add or edit? That's also very possible, right? The agreement should really evolve and grow with the class and with the experiences we have together Again, I mentioned Gabe Weaver's awesome transcript analysis practice. I'm actually gonna link, he said that was okay to share with teachers. It's so great. He has so many of these, but I'm gonna link one example of his transcript analysis. And in that, he actually says, you know, uh, it was him doing this. You can also have students. Ultimately, we want students to be doing this. But where there is an interjection from the teacher or a student move that is great, you want to highlight for them th- that happened in a transcript and invite them, "Okay, check out the highlighted sections. Pick a highlighted section and tell me what was this person doing and why did they do it?" So basically, again, thinking about Marie Nichols identifying the range of talk moves and their connection to a purpose. What was this doing? What was the talk move? And why did they do it? What was the purpose? How did this grow the thinking? How did this, you know, whatever the, the goal was. I think it would be incredibly powerful to have a transcript, share it with students, and invite reflection. And this is one question you can ask them in reflection. You could ask them many more. Gabe certainly has experimented with asking different ones throughout the years of him doing this. But I think the goal is students are not just done with the conversation, they're looking back on the conversation, and they are reflecting on, like, how to grow it next time and how it could be better. Okay, some final tips. I mentioned some of these kind of throughout the episode, but just wanna wrap up with when you are having student-led discourse, they often will look at you if this is new to them. Even if you are sitting behind students, which I recommend, let them sit and look at each other. Encourage them to face each other and not turn and look at you and talk to you. They're talking to each other. That is a big shift. It will happen over time, but do what you can to facilitate that. And if students actually, like, pull you into the conversation, if they ask you questions, often this happens, I find, in a small group setting, so like a, you know, a table talk, like a five, four or five students. Th- and you just kind of go to, uh, to listen in or pay attention to what they're doing W- what you can do in response is to pose a question in return. So, "What do you think?" is, like, my favorite. That's a super easy one to just have in your back pocket, right? "Oh, you know, Miss whatever, whatever, what do you think?" Right? Usually works in most situations. Or you might, if they're really stuck on something, you might cue them because you know they have a particular resource that could help them. Be like, "Oh, that makes me think of your whatever worksheet," or, "That makes me think of this poster on the wall." Whatever it is. You can do a light cue or just pose a question in return. Like, you don't have to completely ignore them, but I wouldn't engage and try to, like, jump in and help if, if unnecessary. Let them try to grapple with it. And they're in a group. Like, they can lean on each other. If the question doesn't work for the kid asking it, maybe one of the other kids will, will pick up. Okay, that is it for this episode. You can grab all of this information, the various links that I talked about, and the freebie for this episode, which is a skill-based rubric template for assessments, in our blog post, which is located at www.lindseybethlyons.com/blog/272 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this solo episode, host Lindsay Lyons discusses ways to effectively support multilingual learners using the WIDA 2020 framework.
The episode provides insights into scaffolding techniques, language expectations, key language uses, and language functions to enhance teaching strategies. It aims to address common challenges educators face and encourage a deeper understanding of multilingual learners' needs for better lesson planning and learner engagement. Why? In many districts, educators are encountering more multi-lingual learners, and may be unsure how to best support them. Further, they may struggle to balance scaffolding with maintaining cognitive rigor for multilingual learners. The WIDA 2020 framework provides a structured approach to language acquisition, making it easier to integrate language learning with academic content. It is designed to support multilingual learners through a research-based approach. It details key language uses, language expectations, and provides proficiency level descriptors to help guide lesson planning and learner engagement. What? The WIDA 2020 framework document is extensive, but worth working through. Here are some key areas for educators to explore and understand. Step 1: Explore the four Key Language Uses (KLUs), which help educators understand how students use language and provide a foundation for lesson planning. They are:
Step 2: Identify language expectations, which are the language “destination points,” or how we meet standards. Language expectations outline the goals for language learning, dividing them into interpretive (listening, reading, viewing) and expressive (speaking, writing, presenting) categories. Understanding these expectations helps educators learn how students are processing information. Step 3: Dive into Proficiency Level Descriptors (PLDs). PLDs use a six-point scale to describe stages of language development. These descriptors offer educators a snapshot of students' language abilities at different stages, providing a clearer understanding of their needs. Step 4: Embrace Scaffolding Techniques. Scaffolding can be approached on both macro and micro levels. Macro scaffolding involves instructional planning, and helps bridge something new to a familiar or valued experience of a student. Micro scaffolding happens during the lesson, and is responsive in the moment. Example There are a lot of ways to use the WIDA framework — here’s an example if you are teaching a science lesson. The big umbrella is that we need to use language for science. Going deeper:
Understanding this breakdown, educators can take action to support the language features. This could be a lesson to learn abstract nouns, relating verb groups to state relationships or attributes, or learning relative clauses or declarative statements. This helps break down the lesson into specific action steps to help your learners meet the language function. Final Tip Focusing on what multilingual learners can do, rather than limitations, helps leverage their languages and cultures as valuable resources in education. A lot of educators want to support their students by translating everything, but it’s important to see it as a bridge to English development rather than a replacement for supporting language growth. Translation should be used strategically and, instead, focus on what learners already know and what they’re learning. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing DESE's Investigating History Curriculum (includes folder of Language and Literacy Supports in each unit!) with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 271 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
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 271, and today we're talking about supporting multilingual learners, and we're really using some key ideas from the WIDA 2020 framework. If you are deeply familiar with WIDA 2020, this may be just a little too simple for you. If you are a person who regularly supports multilingual learners but maybe has never looked at the framework or needs a quick refresher, this is great for you. And of course, if you do not know what the WIDA 2020 framework is, you should definitely engage with this episode. So for context, the WIDA 2020 framework is a framework that is research-based. It supports multilingual learners. It talks about language acquisition and breaks down a lot of things. So a lot of schools and districts right now are trying to find ways to support multilingual learners. Many, many of the districts I work with in Massachusetts and across the nation in the United States are finding that they have growing populations of multilingual learners that they are unsure maybe how best to support. Sometimes in efforts to support, I've noticed, and I've done this myself, we, for multilingual learners as well as all children, right, we over-scaffold. We reduce the cognitive challenge of the task instead of scaffolding for a specific reason, like language use, um, or maybe for multilingual learners sometimes we're translating and it's not actually helpful. So we're gonna address some common challenges and questions today, as well as do a quick overview of the WIDA 2020 framework, and of course we'll link to this as well in the write-up of the episode so that you are able to engage with the full document, which is extensive. As well, I will just say if you are interested in this, if you want more episodes like this on this topic of WIDA and multilingual learners, please let us know. We can definitely do more later on as like a part two or an extension Okay, so WIDA has kind of this overarching framework, and then there are many frameworks inside of it. So let's start with kind of the four key language uses, or KLUs you might hear them abbreviated as. This is kind of the most common way that kids use language. There's a lot of overlap. They are not distinct. Um, but we have narrate, inform, explain, and argue. Narrate is when we are conveying real or imaginary experiences through stories and histories. Inform, right, providing factual information. Explain, this is kind of an explanation of how things work or maybe why things happen. And then argue, right, we're justifying claims using evidence and reasoning. So those are kind of big umbrellas, the four key language uses. And then we have our language expectations. These are kind of your language destination points in WIDA language, and these are really the way that we meet the standards. Language expectations can be interpretive, which is really like, you know, listening, reading, viewing. You're taking in information and making sense of it. They can also be expressive. Modes include speaking, writing, representing in some other way, right? So we're interpreting and we're expressing. Taking in, putting out And this, these language expectations, right? This includes language functions, so kind of our common patterns of language use as well as language features, which are the various language resources that carry out particular functions, different types of sentences, clauses, phrases, words, um, this is only, you know, usable for the expressive, uh, functions typically And this helps us learn how students are processing information when we, uh, get, get them talking in these ways and using these various features. So we have kind of these, right, big standards, and then we have key language uses, right? We talked about those before. Then we have language expectations, which we just talked about. And then within that, there are proficiency level descriptors. So they typically use a, uh, six-point scale, um, in the WIDA frameworks, and we'll talk about those more in a minute and where you might be able to find them in the documentation. But they will get even more specific so that you don't have to come up with the specific language expectations for a particular, uh, key language use or for a particular grade that you teach, okay? So just know that these are kind of like these four pieces that are kind of nested within one another in a kind of hierarchy setup for the WIDA framework. Now, one of the reasons this is really helpful to know is because if you are working with a co-teacher who's supporting your multilingual learners, or you yourself are just thinking about planning your lesson, and you're looking through the lens or you're exploring that lesson through the lens of multilingual learner access and language development, it is helpful to know about this framework because then, and there's a ton of resources in this framework for you, but I will just narrate kind of the general gist. You can go in and say, "Okay, well I'm teaching a science lesson," so the ELD standard is gonna be language for science, right? That's the biggest umbrella category. The key language use for this particular lesson is explain. I need students to explain, like, why this chemical reaction happens or whatever, right? Then we dig down deeper, and we say, "Okay, well, the language expectation is that they need to interpret and construct scientific explanations." So this is given by WIDA. You just have to identify that, oh, that's what we're doing. And then you would say, "Okay, so the language function that allows me to do all the things I've said so far is to describe valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon." Okay? So make sense so far. We're using language for science. We're explaining. Specifically, we're interpreting and constructing scientific explanations, and then what we are doing is describing, right? That's the language function, describing valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon. Okay. And then the very last piece, the piece that we often are going to take action around, right? All of that other stuff kind of guides, like, our focus, so we narrow down, narrow down, narrow down, and then what is the action? The action is to support the language features. Right? That support the function, expectations, key language use, and standard. And so language features we might be able to support in this lesson could be abstract nouns. This is an example given to you from WIDA too, so you could actually find this, um, it's Figure 4-3, in the WIDA framework document. Um, it could be a variety of ways to define a phenomenon, so it could be like relative clauses or declarative statements. It could be cohesion to reference ideas and information across text, which might look like pronouns, substitutions, renaming, synonyms. It could be relating verb groups to state the relationships or attributes, so using language like have, be, belong to. Now, if you are like me and you're like, "Okay, well, I never memorized all of these words that I'm noticing being used in the WIDA framework, and I'm not sure, for example, you know, what a, uh, let's see, declarative statement is or a relative clause is," right? No worries. Of course, this is like something that we can, uh, look up and learn about. But the, the general scope of things is just that we are thinking about the way that kids use language to do things like, in this instance, describe valid and reliable evidence from sources about a phenomenon in science. Right? So digging down deeper and deeper, this is why we have multilingual learner experts and, and folks on our staff hopefully to support, but if you don't, this is something that you can certainly reach out and get help with. You should have at least a multilingual learner point person district-wide, um, and request some professional learning or some, some more support. But if you know the goals, right, and thinking about kind of that funnel and those nested categories, if you know the goals, then you can think about how to niche down and bring up specific questions when you get there. But here's, here's what, what WIDA will give you. So for example, I'm looking right now at a visual, Figure 3-1 in the WIDA framework, and this is a kindergarten standard for language arts. So this is for the KLU of inform. So we got kindergartners who are trying to inform. There is, on the, the image here, um, they are talking about interpretive informing and expressive informing. Remember, those are those two kinds, and so for language expectations. And so there's a list of like what does that mean when we're talking about interpretive information and expressive informing. So interpretive might be you're identifying the main idea and key details of a text. Okay, great. Got it. Expressive informing might be that you are describing those details and facts for someone, right? Language functions and sample language features underneath the umbrella of, like, that inform- informative and informing, um, goal is that you might describe details and facts by using nouns to label visuals. I read this story. I see this picture on the page. I'm going to point to an image of an orange and name that that is orange. Or I might say something like, "That's fruit," right? I will use verbs to label actions. This person's farming, right? I will use prepositional phrases to tell about where. Uh, this farmer is working on the farm. This bird is in the trees, right? Visuals, uh, so, like, labeled drawings that someone could express. So express, remember, doesn't always need to be verbal, but it might be that they create visuals to go with their retelling, and they label their drawings to support their retelling. Okay, so there's this inform is the key language use. We know that there's interpretive and expressive examples. WIDA gives those to us. We can just identify that, yes, that's what they're doing in this lesson. We can think about the specific language functions and features that they are using to do that goal, and then we can think about, okay, well, how might I support my kiddo to recognize what verbs to use or build their capacity for verbs, right? What could I do to, um, increase their awareness of prepositional phrases? Now, the kindergartner does not need to know they're called prepositional phrases, but, you know, how do I help them describe in more detail what is happening in the story or in the image? Okay. Now, big key ideas in the 2020 edition, I kinda wanna zoom back out 'cause that's the general gist of the framework and the things that you do when planning Big key ideas include things like equity of opportunity and access. This is very important. We want students who are multilingual to be able to access the cognitive rigor and, and complexity on grade level for their optimal learning. We want to integrate content and language. This is the second piece or big idea in the twenty twenty edition of WIDA. So content and language are learned together. Here's what WIDA says about this. Basically, l- learners develop content and language concurrently with academic content as a context for language learning, and language as a means for learning academic content. Often, or I should say historically, we have separated these things, and as a teacher and coach of primarily social studies at the moment, these things are so embedded. We are doing literacy when we are teaching social studies, and the literacy develops so strongly, and we see that even in, in test scores and other types of assessment when we are embedding the literacy in the social studies content. There's often peak engagement, there's interest in the content, and language, like, facilitates that. There's also collaboration among stakeholders, so this idea of collaborative learning and the discourse at, like, the individual, like, peer-to-peer group level is so helpful, particularly when you compare multilingual learners with someone whose home language is the same. Like, oh, that's really, really cool and exciting and, and values the development of both languages. Um, and finally, the fourth idea is a functional approach to language development, right? So how is it going to be usable for our particular task? WIDA also has introduced to me this idea of scaffolding. I me- I know I mentioned that briefly at the start as a common challenge, but scaffolding, micro versus macro, is a very helpful thing from WIDA. So macro scaffolding practices refer to instructional planning before a lesson. So this might be during your lesson plan writing or, like, a, a unit plan or, or even a year-long scope and sequence plan. Here is- here are two examples I'll give you from macro scaffolding proces- practices. What does this actually mean? It means you might be thinking about how to bridge from something familiar or a valued experience of a student or group of students to new ones. So, okay, we're introducing this new content. Here's how thematically it might connect to a lived experience of a student or something we've already talked about in class. We're gonna bridge from the familiar to the new ones. We might also offer multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression. So this idea of UDL, universal design for learning, thinking about how we bring together, like, these, these ... or, I guess, expand outward these different ways to engage in something, to represent ideas, to express ideas, is really critical. I think oftentimes, yes, we wanna develop the writing, but we're so niched down into we're going to do this writing thing at all costs, all times, for all assessments, because maybe it's the easiest to grade. Which, by the way, listen to the next episode, 'cause we are gonna get into assessing discourse. Um, when perhaps verbal expression or some other type of expression is actually easier for that kid, or has developed further than th- than that particular student's writing, and it is helpful to know the ideas that they are thinking about, be able to assess the ideas, be able to understand the language they are using, and then help build up the writing. So being able to have multiple means of engagement is really helpful. That's just one small example. Okay, let's shift to micro scaffolding. This refers to interactions with the students during a lesson. So they are responsive. They're in the moment. I got this in my back pocket. I'm gonna cue you or redirect you to this thing that is going to help because I notice a very specific thing you're struggling with, and I need you to be in your zone of proximal development. So- This might look like connecting concepts to students' experiences to make them concrete. So in this situation, I am not building into the lesson this connection to a student's lived experience. I am saying, "Oh, you're struggling with that concept. Okay, got it." We're talking about migration in, you know, ancient civilizations or something, right? I might say, "Oh, hey, like migration. Do you know what that means? Okay, migration. Let's talk about migration." Migration is, you know, moving from one place to another. And so, okay, do we know anyone? Has that been you? Has that been someone else, right? And like cueing that we have either read a novel about, you've had this lived experience about, you know someone in the class who has shared about this other experience. Like, we're not connecting to another social studies ancient civilization. We're connecting to something that is a quick cue for the student to be like, "Ah, got it. I understand." Right? Another cue could be that students need just kind of this reminder or this encouragement to stretch their language as they share their thinking. So if they're starting with something and it's a pretty short or basic sentence, encourage them. "Can you say more about that?" Right? Or even get specific. "Can you, you know, add in whatever type of language you're looking for?" All right, so there's macro and there's micro. I think often we do a lot, a lot of macro, almost to the d- uh, often to the detriment of student learning because we are over-scaffolding. We're anticipating so many challenges that we don't actually like step back and let us work our teacher magic in the moment and be responsive to what students are actually struggling with. So try to lean a little bit more towards micro if you can. That's a stretch for us all. Okay, now I wanna get to some common questions or misconceptions before we wrap up the episode. Proficiency level descriptors, I briefly mentioned those as part of the overarching framework, PLDs for short. These are kind of those six levels, that kind of six-point rubric that WIDA often measures by or assesses by, and these are kind of the typical pathways of development, so from one to the next to the next, right? All six, six kind of phases of development. Sometimes we in schools, for a shorthand, will say, uh, "my level one students." Okay. Here's what WIDA says, and I agree. "A proficiency level does not categorize a multilingual learner." It is not a level one student. Rather, what this does, it identifies snapshots of what a multilingual learner knows and can do at a particular stage of language development. So you may switch to saying, for example, and being really specific, right? Th- I think this is the important part too for me. "A student whose listening performance is at a level one." Ah, okay, so now I'm not thinking about the student categorically as like a level one student, which has a certain connotation, but I'm saying the last time that I assessed their listening specifically, this one skill, the assessment came to a level one. Right? So this snapshot in time, this specific skill, it was level one, right? Um, additionally, they talk about how the PLDs should not be used as restrictive examples or as a finite list of student abilities, nor should they be used to limit access to complex texts and grade-level materials. We talked about this. Participation in rigorous learning or engagement in meaningful classroom discussions. Finally, the grade-level cluster PLDs should not be used to lower expectations or slow student growth. Okay, I think this is just, like, an important reminder. I think many of us who are engaging with this episode know this, but I just wanna encourage us to name it or change our own language if we are around it and we're inundated with it. I know that is challenging. But trying to be really specific, like if someone says, "Oh, my level one students," um, an, an often a nudge that I like to use is just like, "Level one for dot, dot, dot," right? Like, for listening, for writing, for reading? Like, like, what skill are we talking about, right? Um, and then that will prompt some kind of rethinking. Okay, the other big question that we get is when to translate. So a lot of teachers will say, "Okay, really wanna support. I'm gonna translate everything." And the amazing people who supported Investigating History, uh, which is the Massachusetts social studies for grades three through seven curriculum, um, there are some awesome folks who supported the multilingual learning scaffolds and supports and language and literacy building for the curricular revisions. They're amazing. Here is a summary of a table, and I'm gonna link to the curriculum for this episode as well, um, just because, oh my gosh, there's so much in there. So if you actually go to the curriculum, open up any unit, what you can do is you can see the, um, folder titled Language and Literacy Supports, and you can see, like a skill specific resource. Usually, it's like a one-pager that you can use pretty much in any content area, I would say, like, in, in, in multiple grade levels. I mean, it does evolve grade by grade, but I think it's really cool to give you a sense of, like, what does an appropriate scaffold look like? Okay, anyways. Translation can be a useful tool, they say, but it should be used strategically. It is important to use translation as a bridge to English development, not as a replacement for supporting language growth. When using translated materials, guide students to compare structures across both languages, and the chart below offers guidance on when translated materials are most appropriate. So I'm gonna read it to you. When to use translated materials. When newcomers need support with initial concept development, okay? So they have no understanding of this particular concept, and we have tried to, to ascertain that. We're not just assuming they don't know, right? That's important. When students develop personal multilingual dictionaries of key concepts and terms. Yeah, absolutely translation is helpful for those key vocab words, right? When students need to understand critical background information, they-- so again, when we know that they are lacking the background information, not when we are assuming they lack background information, but we need to be able to get that to them. You can give that to them, um, in a language that's most comfortable. When clarifying complex directions, obviously for assessments, new routines, directions are new. We need to make sure they understand it. You can totally translate that. That makes total sense. When we wanna use other approaches and not translate. When they need the language practice, right? Which is often, right? When language objectives target specific language structures to be used in English. When students are able to understand the content using their own multilingual knowledge or access scaffolds in English that support language development. When students need to build academic language, okay? So when they understand the gist, they understand the key concepts, and they're trying to build academic language around a topic, we want to try to use other approaches and not to translate everything, right? Okay. Great, and the last question, um, is not really a question, but just I think a like a, sometimes a confusion point of, like, what asset-based means. And so often we're talking about asset-based instruction, asset-based pedagogy. So WIDA has a can-do philosophy, which is amazing. It is like what can they do? Uh, there are 10 guiding principles from this. I'm gonna share two with you. Principle number one, multilingual learners' languages and cultures are valuable resources to be leveraged for schooling and class life. Leveraging these assets and challenging biases help develop multilingual learners' independence and encourage their agency in learning. Here is a quote from WIDA on page 18, "Drawing on students' linguistic and cultural resources is essential to helping them navigate life in a diverse world, in addition to supporting them in meeting demands of academic content areas as they advance through school." End quote. Okay, so definitely valuing the language and culture. They are resources to be leveraged. And then 10, multilingual learners use and develop language to interpret and present different perspectives, build awareness of relationships, and affirm their identities. Thinking about Gholdy Muhammad here, right? Identity affirming, really critical. The, the fact that a different experience with different language can offer different perspectives into a novel you're reading, a particular current event you're discussing, like whatever the thing is, that is a value. That is a value add, right? That's gonna deepen everyone's learning, and so let's lean into that. Okay. Finally, I want to remind you that the freebie for today is gonna be that Investigating History curriculum link. You can find that in the summary write-up of this episode at lindsaybethlyons.com/blog/271. And again, if you open up any unit, they're all freely available on that website. Click into a grade level unit, and then go to View in Drive, and you'll see the whole folder for that unit. There is going to be a folder labeled Language and Literacy Support. Click into that and you'll see what I'm talking about. It is amazing. And again, please let us know if you want more content related to multilingual learner support 
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In this episode, we talk with Patty McGee, a literary consultant and author of the new book, Not Your Granny’s Grammar. Patty discusses how traditional grammar instruction can be detrimental, and emphasizes the need for a new approach that involves sentence construction, expansion, and combining as more effective methods.
She introduces the concept of viewing grammar as a tool for expression, similar to a painter's brush, allowing for different styles and making meaning on the page. The Big Dream Patty McGee dreams of an educational environment where students find themselves and become who they're meant to be by following their passions, being loved and valued for who they are. She envisions a space where writing, and grammar, can be a powerful tool for identity exploration and voice. Mindset Shifts Required To achieve this vision, educators must reframe their understanding of grammar, moving away from viewing it as a strict set of rules. Instead, they should recognize that grammar is for expression and to create meaning on the page. Grammar falls into three buckets: spoken grammar, book grammar, and standard grammar. One is not better than the other, but all work together to convey meaning and message. Another key mindset shift is to move away from immediacy of expectations, or the idea that it’s taught once on a worksheet and immediately known and implemented. It takes time. Action Steps To start shifting from traditional modes of grammar instruction, educators can follow these suggested steps: Step 1: Understand that traditional grammar instruction doesn’t work, and may have the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of focusing on the identification of parts of speech, it’s most effective to focus on teaching grammar through sentence construction, expansion, and combining. Step 2: Redesign your unit arcs to follow how people learn: first, through surface learning, then deep learning, and then transfer. This is in contrast to teaching grammar in units (e.g. learning about nouns first, then verbs). Step 3: Place students in long-term partnerships, pairing them up for the length of the unit or even the whole year. This helps students build off of conversations they’ve had before rather than mixing it up every time. Step 4: Reduce teacher talk time by posing thoughtful questions and allowing students to explore and experiment with grammar concepts. Step 5: “Pause and ponder” -- build in time for reflection, enabling students to ponder what they've learned and spark curiosity about new grammar concepts. Challenges? Educators often face challenges in feeling comfortable and knowledgeable about grammar concepts themselves. Without a strong foundation, teachers may hesitate to experiment with new instructional approaches. Seeking out resources, like the grammar guide in Patty’s book and open-ended learning opportunities, can help educators build their confidence. One Step to Get Started To begin integrating these new strategies right away, educators can start by using grammar manipulatives. By selecting sentences they enjoy and having students break them down and rearrange them, teachers can create an interactive grammar experience that is both fun and educational. This simple yet effective technique helps to engage students in learning grammar through creativity and collaboration. Stay Connected You can keep up with Patty McGee on her website. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing Master Any Content Through the Power of Grammar with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 270 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 Lindsay Lyons: Patty McGee, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Patty McGee: Ah, thank you. I'm happy to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I am really excited. And so one of the questions that I've been opening episodes with is just, like, what's on your mind today, or what should we keep in mind, uh, you know, as an audience? And what's on my mind is your book, Not Your Granny's Grammar- which is excellent, and we were just talking about this. But it is, it is truly transformational, and not at all your granny's grammar. Yes. So I'm really excited to talk about your book today. Anything on your mind that you want people to be thoughtful about, or you wanna share with folks? Patty McGee: Oh, gosh. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm very happy that my book is on your mind, and I am thinking even more about the possibilities of grammar in other areas, and how we can reframe the way we think about it and the way that people approach it. And it's, it's something definitely, definitely on my mind. Lindsay Lyons: Well, it i- it comes through powerfully in the book, and, and we'll get to all of that. The first question, though, I wanna kinda zoom out and think about, you know, Dr. Bettina Love talks about the idea of freedom dreaming by saying their dream is grounded in the critique of injustice, which is- Patty McGee: Yes Lindsay Lyons: such a great way to think of it. And, and I'm wondering, what is that big dream that you hold for education? Patty McGee: Yes. My- Dream, I'm sorry, just, um, I've got so many and I'm trying to prioritize. Um, it's, it's really, I want it to be a place That students find themselves and become who they're meant to be by following their passions, by being loved to pieces and valued for all that they are. That's in a nutshell. Lindsay Lyons: I love that. And I, and you know, as I was reading your work, I thought about, um, Dr. Asao Aanoi's work, who was also on the podcast, and he talks about, you know, like, writing specifically as a writing professor, right? Writing is often this, this way that, you know, kids are able to express their very unique voices and, and feel valued. Particularly, I mean, his talk was around, you know, assessment of writing and stuff, and so thinking about how we do that in a way that's affirming of students. Patty McGee: Yes. Lindsay Lyons: But, like, how powerful writing as an avenue for kind of identity exploration and voice is. It... and, and being able to, like, love someone to pieces as, as a- Yeah student. You know, I- I'm thinking about all of my students who I felt even more connected with once I read their writing- Yeah ... and forms of expression, and that grammar oftentimes can be such, the way that we typically think of it, can be such a hindrance to that voice and that expression and that love. And, um, I'm, I'm just curious, is there kind of like a, a mindset shift that you think, you know, teachers, uh, anyone who's interfacing with grammar and young people, you know, we need to... used to think this, now we really need to shift over to this, and that's gonna unlock a lot of potential. Is there anything you would advise around that? Patty McGee: There are multiple things I will, again, try to prioritize. I think one of the biggest shifts, um, is going to be around what grammar is for. Grammar is for expression. Grammar is meant to create meaning on the page. Grammar is not a static set of rules. And when we think of grammar in three buckets, where we have spoken grammar, book grammar, and standard grammar, I think we start to look at grammar not as a superior goal of, let's say, the language that makes us sound intelligent, but rather one form of, of, of code switching, basically. So, like, uh, spoken grammar changes wherever you live, whatever culture, um, is yours. That is spoken grammar, and it is just as valuable as book grammar and as standard grammar. And I just think of standard grammar as the grammar standards that we are charged with teaching. And it's constantly changing. So knowing that spoken grammar and book grammar are having an influence on grammar, standard grammar, so having that type of shift of, like, grammar as style, as making meaning on the page, I often equate grammar, uh, to a painter's paintbrush, the way that a painter is expressing themselves in their art and how they use different brush strokes, uh, to create what they're envisioning. And grammar is the same type of tool for writers, and it can really be something, um, that empowers voices. Like you were saying, we discover more about our students when we read their writing. I also think a mind shift that is necessary is that we move from this immediacy of expectations. Like, often we have, uh, the expectation that, okay, we did this worksheet, now we're all supposed to know it and use it. And so if you wouldn't mind, I have a great quote from Jeff Anderson that I'd love to read. Uh, he says, "What about experimentation, play, approximation? Grammar and mechanics shape meaning, and as in all language endeavors, we must make mistakes to move toward correctness. Where's the bridge between getting started and stretching with grammar and mechanics and being wrong?" Lindsay Lyons: That's so good. Yes. Oh my gosh, I love the artistry that you- Mm-hmm I mean, I s- I see and have read the language of the artist throughout your book as well. Patty McGee: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: And I love this analogy because I think a lot of times we think about art as y- fine arts, painting, drawing, whatever, and we don't always include writing in that. And it- Mm-hmm ... uh, I mean, maybe we include poetry. We don't usually include much more than that, if that at all, and it's so beautiful that this is just distinctly including Yeah ... all of the writing in the art world. And so I, I love that. I'm curious if we can talk a bit about your book. First off, the research at the front that traditional grammar instruction doesn't help and could actually harm, could you tell us just a little bit about that? 'Cause that was news to me that I found interesting. Patty McGee: Yes. So I'm actually gonna go to that part because there's so much research there. Um, it's decades deep how much traditional grammar instruction, A, doesn't work, um, and B, can actually have the reverse effect that it's intended for. Uh, I go through so many different research, um, research studies, like, uh, just a meta-analysis on grammar instruction, um, where they quoted, "If schools insist upon teaching the identification of parts of speech, the parsing or diagramming of sentences, or other concepts of traditional grammar as many still do, they cannot defend it as a means of improving the quality of writing." That comes from Hillocks and Smith. I mean, it can't be more straightforward than that, but just the majority of research, um, that I shared here is really backing up that same statement. But then there's hope in Graham's research around the way that we can teach grammar, and the three most effective ways of teaching grammar is sentence construction, sentence expansion, and sentence combining, because the sentence is the building block of all writing, and it's the container of all parts of speech. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And I, I would love to dive into some pieces of your book and how you talk about, like, going after that, kind of pursuing what that research finding said. One of the most fantastic things I love is a good arc, and I, I love your kind of arc of your grammar study unit. I just thought, I mean, even as I mean, I taught literacy and social studies, and I was like, "Oh, you could do this in social studies, too. I imagine you could do an element of this in math or science as well." Like, it's so beautifully constructed around inquiry and student learning. And anyways, I'm talking enough. Can you talk us through- Yeah. It's okay ... kind of the arc of your, your units? Patty McGee: Yes, absolutely. Well, first of all, the concept of teaching grammar in units, I think, is rather unique, that we often in the past have done, "Okay, we're going to identify nouns." And then we're going to identify verbs, and then we go on to some other isolated, um, type of experience. But the, the arc of a unit of study, um, in grammar follows Hattie's research on how people learn, that we learn first through surface learning, then deep learning, and then transfer, and that's how we've set up the units. At least the f- chapter three is a full-on unit day by day that we really want to suggest we follow very closely. Um, but then the other chapters are using the same blueprint of the unit, and then it's kind of choose your own adventure. So we start off with this surface learning, and if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to share a metaphor that I often refer to to talk about these phases of learning. So a number of years ago, um, my mother-in-law, who is from Ireland, she came over when she was 20, and she decided it was no longer her job to be cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Um, and she told us as much, and she was right. She, you know, there's no Thanksgiving in Ireland. So what we did was we decided we would, uh, take over, and we were going to fry a turkey, which is something my neck of the woods it's, it was, like, all the rage at the time. So our surface learning was looking at videos of how to do it, getting the materials, looking at what not to do, how to avoid, um, some of the more difficult parts of it. We tried it out but with water instead of oil. We just did all of this naturally for ourselves, and then it turned to deep learning, where we fried a turkey and it was good. We fried a turkey again, and it was even better. And then the third time, we were like, "We're pro at this. Let's try some other meats and some vegetables perhaps," and that was our transfer time. So it's something that we naturally do, and that's the same way we set up the unit, uh, for grammar, was that we really harness, um, that surface learning through immersion experiences, and then we have different areas of focus that we get deeper and deeper with, um, just like our turkey. And then it sets up for transfer, and there's time to create things, um, that we'll bring to when we're writing, whether it's in different writing types or different content areas. And then the transfer just continues and spirals through. Lindsay Lyons: I love the structure so much, especially how you break it down, and I love the, there's a structured unit as well as in the book that choose your own adventure style, which I think is very- Mm-hmm ... freeing for a lot of teachers who like that autonomy to be creative. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, I also love that you included a bunch of kind of t- I would call them, like, teacher tips throughout. Patty McGee: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: Mm-hmm. And so, I mean, one of them, I'll just share a couple of the ones that I liked, and maybe you could expand upon them. Sure. I love the tip to have students be in pairs potentially for the whole year, as opposed to constantly mixing. Mm-hmm. Love that. Uh, just the advice to not talk a lot, and maybe just ask a question instead when students are grappling and learning. Um, the pacing, like, just the idea of constructing within a unit, you know, of grammar study, but also to build reflection in as a valuable lesson or lessons within the unit. Um, I don't know if you wanna expand on any of those, but I just really liked those a lot. Patty McGee: Y- yes. I'll be happy to expand on any and all of them. Um, having partnerships and long-term partnerships, which, uh, preferably would be at least one unit, if not the entire year, is an opportunity, number one, for grammar out loud. Because standard grammar isn't something that we're used to hearing. And so when we are speaking, um, and practicing and playing with, uh, say, building compound sentences, we're not only seeing it, but we're also hearing it. And then in partnerships, we're co-building this grammar know-how. If we're talking to somebody new every day, we're not building off of the conversations we've had before. And so therefore, long-term partnerships are extremely helpful for grammar learning What were the other two that you just mentioned? Um, one Lindsay Lyons: was teachers not talking, maybe posing a question instead. Patty McGee: Yes. So I have found, and I'm guilty of this myself, uh, that sometimes we as educators feel compelled to talk a lot, and also to do so with a very strict, maybe inflexible set of slides that we adhere to, and therefore are not as responsive to what students are showing us that they need. Um, and because this is so, this approach is so inquiry based, there's a greater chance of students learning if we pose a challenge or a question. So let's say students are using a grammar manipulative where they're creating compound sentences, and they didn't accurately do so. Maybe they left out a comma. Um, I might say instead, "That's almost a compound sentence. See if you can find what you're missing." And usually the other partner is like, "I told you you needed a comma." You know, it's always something in that kind of way. But if we are doing all of the talking, it's, it takes away from the experiences that we want kids to have with grammar. And I also, we recommend in the book that it's 10 minutes, three to five times a week. And so instead of thinking about them as lessons, thinking about them as grammar experiences that kids are having, if we can't fit into that 10 minutes, we should maybe reflect on how much of the talking we're doing during those 10-minute pockets Lindsay Lyons: That's a really good cue for teacher reflection. And then th- actually Mm-hmm ... that's a good segue into the third thing, was building in reflection to, as a grammar experience. Patty McGee: Uh, I might, I don't know. This whole book I have favorites, but one of my favorites is this reflection, that we pause and ponder, um, is what I call it. And the things that come out of students' mouths is just pure gold. Like a, a fourth grade classroom, um, after they had learned about simple and compound sentences and independent clauses, they were like, "Can you have more than two independent clauses in a compound sentence?" And that's accessing what's usually a seventh grade standard. It, but they're curious about it. They're wondering. Um, another, another that comes up is often, "I really wanna use the word because. It would make more sense in, in some of these sentences I've been creating. How do I do that?" And that leads us right into complex sentences. And just creating space for curiosity in those reflections of, of solidifying what we know just by pausing and, and I often say that, uh, reflection is the stickiest glue for the brain. And so we're kind of, like, solidifying that, and then using that as a springboard to think, "What do I want to know more about?" I think it's something very unique in grammar Lindsay Lyons: I, I love that. Like, all of the pieces of that are so powerful, and often I think reflection gets skipped the quickest- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm when we're stressed for time, pacing calendars are full. Patty McGee: Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: And then it's, "Oh, well, that's not direct instruction," or, you know, uh, and I guess not just the reflection- Yeah ... but all the other parts that are not direct instruction are the things that get cut, and- Yeah ... the whole thing together is what makes the journey effective. Patty McGee: Exactly. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Patty McGee: Exactly. Lindsay Lyons: I'm wondering if there are maybe one or two big challenges that you've seen teachers encounter as they try to shift away from traditional grammar and to do something like this, and how you might, you know, coach someone through that challenge. Patty McGee: Yes. So I have done a boatload of anecdotal research around what are the biggest challenges for educators, um, and it is the educators' knowledge and comfort with grammar in general. I was with a group of teachers this week, and we were working on a unit, and we got to, uh, complex sentences, and w- we had to pause, and they were so open, which is really helpful, and they're like, "I don't remember these rules. I, I didn't know there were two forms of complex sentences." And- Just to refer to the book, um, you can find answers to your questions about grammar in lots of places, on the internet and, you know, lots of handbooks and things like that. But in the back of our book, my co-author, Tim Donahue, just took his, like, brilliant grammar brain and gave us a whole tutorial in language that's accessible to understand grammatical concepts that we don't, that are very commonly misunderstood. And he even has in here, I just love this, like, concept that he came up with and how he executed it. He created videos of him teaching these grammatical concepts, and he has, uh, he set up in his basement a dry erase board, and his kids, uh, he has three sons between the ages of fourth grade and eighth grade, and they helped record them. So the type of conversations that go on in the Donahue home, like he told me that one of his kids came home and said, "Do you know that so-and-so used a semicolon today?" So like what he created back there is just so accessible that he has a fourth grader commenting on semicolons. You know it's, it's that, it's that good. And that's also just how we partnered up. He has a way of explaining grammar that's like no other that we've ever seen, and at first came to light back, uh, about 10 years ago when he was a supervisor, um, of humanities. And he was teaching us about grammar, and I was there to consult. And all of us in the room were like, "Whoa, we did not know that." And that is one of the hardest parts of, um, teaching grammar is we don't need to know it all, but that's something that's stopping us. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Actually, I, I think that is a very common thing in any inquiry-based pedagogy is- Mm-hmm what do I do when I don't have an answer to the question the kid is asking me in this moment? Patty McGee: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: And w- I think part of that is, you know, have those resources ready so you can consult even in the moment. Yeah. Perhaps in something as great as, as the resource that you have, that's probably easily findable. But even in a larger question or if you don't have, you know, the book with you, what do you think is a good response for a teacher in that moment if you don't have the answer ready? Patty McGee: I think it is, "I don't know. Let's find out together." Lindsay Lyons: I love that. And then come back. Patty McGee: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: Yep. I love it. Cool. I, I am really excited to just know that this book is out in the world- and that people are going to implement it, and that kids might actually love grammar now, which is super cool. Yes. I'm curious to know one thing, you know, if people are o- ordering the book and it's on the way, like, what's something that they could do? They just listened to the episode today, they're gonna walk into their classrooms. Is there anything they could do right away that's like a one quick implementable start to, to practicing grammar in this new way that's not like we're gonna outline a whole unit of study that we're gonna start later? Patty McGee: Yes. I think the most impactful, easy things that, um, teachers can do is to think of grammar manipulatives. That is one of my favorite parts of the book as well as in partnerships. Let's say very simply, um, do some sentences in a sentence, um, or sentences from a sentence, where we take a sentence or two that we really like. We, um, open up a doc and copy it onto that doc. We then, uh, enlarge the font, cut out each word, and in partnerships just make sentences together. It's super simple. There's n- very little prep to that. Kids can help cut or you can cut, but you only need one collection per pair or trio. And I think starting with something as simple as that can be very, very useful. I also have a blog post on, on my website. There's a lot of resources, but I believe it's also, um, through NCTE, and it is a series of just starting with compound sentences, like getting your feet wet, um, day by day, four or five days of grammar experiences. So that's also an easy-to-get resource. Lindsay Lyons: That's incredible. Thank you for having that available for people. And I love just the idea of grammar manipulatives. Yes. I had to reread that, like, four times, 'cause I was like, "Wait, what?" I was, "Oh, got it." Like, so accessible, but I never associate the term manipulatives with English. I'm always like, "Oh, the ma- that's a math thing." Patty McGee: Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: I love it. Patty McGee: Yeah. Yeah. I just love it too, and I'm so jazzed by it that I keep creating more of them. Like, when they come to me, um, I create them, but then I also see kids creating their own versions of manipulatives. Like, it's, it's just amazing to see. Like, there was a second grade I was in, um, demoing, you know, some grammar, uh, experiences, and they created, like, a kit on how to create compound sentences with directions, unifix cubes. Like, it was like, "What on earth is happening here?" It was so amazing. So yeah, the whole concept I think kids really take off with. And they're all so simple. We don't need bling. We don't need fancy things. We don't need... We just cut through the complexity of it all, and it, the simplicity is really where that power is, is found. Lindsay Lyons: I love that point because what really drew me to what you were saying at first was find a sentence that you like. Mm-hmm. And this idea that reading is connected to writing is connected to grammar- Mm-hmm ... understanding, and learning is just so beautiful that I can read whatever I need to read out in the world for school and find something I love, and then dig into that or play with that. Like, that's fun as opposed to- Mm-hmm I'm doing a worksheet. So. Patty McGee: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Okay, to close us out, this question is purely for fun, although it can relate to your work as well. Okay. What is something that you have been learning about lately? Patty McGee: Oh, I have been learning, this is so funny. I've done a deep dive into circus history. I just have a curiosity about it, and I guess that's an apropos word to be using when it comes to the circus. Um, I started to create a text set for a school for us to experience, um, text sets and, and what they can do for us, and I was like, "I think I might go in that direction." And I haven't stopped. And we have a text set that I use, but I'm still curious about it. It's just so fascinating and so many dimensions to it, like of things that are so wrong that we realize today, but then also, like the space of inclusion for people who didn't find it in the world. It's, it's fascinating. Lindsay Lyons: Wow. That feels very fascinating and nuanced. I'm- Now I'm interested. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. The last question is really just where can people connect with you, learn more about you, get your book? Patty McGee: So you can go to my website, which is pattymcgee.org. Make sure you spell Patty with a Y, because Patty with an I is a skateboarder, and I can't do that. Um, s- and on there you'll find lots and lots and lots of curated, created resources, downloadables. Um, and I'm also on Instagram and LinkedIn. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Patty, thank you so much for this conversation and for putting your book out in the world. Patty McGee: Oh my gosh, it's a complete honor to be here with you, uh, and, and talk with you. It's, it's just a professional dream, so thank you. 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode, Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey joins Lindsay Lyons to discuss the P.O.W.E.R. framework, a guiding tool for implementing justice-centered curriculum in social studies education. The conversation dives deep into this framework's essential components: Presence and Personhood, Oppression and Opposition, Wisdom and Wit, Entanglements and Empowerment, and Relevance and Responsibility.
Dr. Erker Caffrey uses this framework to provide guidance around initiating justice-oriented curricula. Because it’s such a big and complex topic, it can feel overwhelming and many educators don’t know where to start. This framework helps bring some clarity and coherence to the conversation. The Big Dream Dr. Erker Caffrey envisions that every child experiences a dynamic and justice-centred education, especially across the social studies disciplines. This means that there needs to be a transformed educational landscape where every teacher feels equipped and confident to deliver this kind of curriculum in their contexts. Mindset Shifts Required There are some key mindset shifts required to embrace a justice-centered approach to curriculum design. Teachers are often overwhelmed and worry they don’t know enough in this area — this is a valid and common barrier to implementing justice-oriented curricula. One way to address this is to embrace a clear vision of their roles in achieving equity-oriented education. Teachers need a framework, a guiding tool, that is transferable across identities, topics, and disciplines. Action Steps The P.O.W.E.R. framework is something that helps educators decrease their overwhelm and move forward with confidence. It stands for:
The framework can be applied to a single lesson, longer curriculum, year-long strategy and other components of curricula. Here’s some tips to get started: Step 1: Analyze your current curriculum through a critical lens. Consider the presence of identity and humanity in your materials and the timing of introducing topics of oppression. Step 2: Ensure your curriculum balances stories of oppression with those of resistance. Incorporate narratives that highlight both adversity and counteractions. Step 3: Foster joy and creativity in learning by integrating diverse cultural expressions and forms of wisdom. Finally, encourage student-led inquiry that reflects on these complexities. Challenges? The biggest challenge educators face is not that they don’t want to implement justice-oriented curricula, but that they are overwhelmed or unsure on how to get started. This is where an impactful framework can really help. One Step to Get Started Dr. Caffrey suggests that educators begin by examining their own curriculum to identify whether it includes elements that affirm students' personhood before delving into oppressive narratives. Small shifts in the order of content and the inclusion of diverse perspectives can make a significant difference. Stay Connected You can learn more and stay connected with Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey in the following ways:
To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing The P.O.W.E.R. Framework and the LETS ACT Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 268 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
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Genevieve Erker-Caffrey, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Thank you so much for having me. I am very excited to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I also am super excited, and so I love that before we hit record you said that you are, like, a frameworks expert. I'm also, like, a nerd of frameworks, and so I'm really excited. You- historically, people should totally listen to, and I think we should link this in the, uh, show notes as well, um, your episode on Visions of Education around the Let's Act framework was brilliant, and I loved it. Um- Thank you ... and now today we're talking about the POWER framework, which is so, so cool, and so situated in my mind in the context of, like, student leadership and awesome curriculum design and doing school differently and transformatively. Like, this is really rich, and I'm excited to get into the conversation. I'd love to know if there are things that you want the audience to kind of be thinking about or have in their mind as we go through today. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Sure, yeah. Well, I think that if teachers, coach- you know, I know that your audience is, um, varied, but I think the thing that I would try to think about is when you, when, when you are planning curriculum and trying to make it, quote unquote, equity-oriented or justice-oriented, um, you know, what exactly are you thinking about, and what are those components? And where do you feel like you do a really good job of which components do you feel like you do a really good job, um, and where do you feel like you get a little lost? Like, when, what exact topics or identity groups are you feeling like, "You know, I don't know how to make this equity-oriented." And I'm hoping that my, this conversation and the POWER framework can provide a little bit of guidance for specifying what it is we're actually talking about when we say justice-oriented curriculum, especially justice-oriented social studies curriculum, which is my area of expertise. Um, and then once we identify those components, what do those really, truly look like in curriculum and instruction? Um, because oftentimes it can just feel kind of elusive. Like, what are we talking about here? Like, okay, we're talking about diversity, we're talking about making the world a better place, we're talking about, you know. So I, it's something that I craved as a teacher, um, to help with that guidance. But, um, I'm hoping that the POWER framework provides a little bit more guidance, um, not to simplify the ideas, because it is complex. This is a complex endeavor. But to, um, to help provide a little bit of clarity and, and coherence so that we can dig deeper into complexity. Lindsay Lyons: I love that framing. Well, very well said. I wanna start, as I start all episodes, kind of with this idea of freedom dreaming. So Dr. Bettina Love describes these as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so curious what your big dream is. Maybe this is a bit of kind of a, a why behind the framework. Maybe this is a bit of a, a lot of things, but curious what the dream is for you Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Well, my dream is that every single child experiences a phenomenal justice-centered dynamic, engaging social education, social studies education, or education in general, but specifically when talking about history and civics and geography and, and economics, and these concepts that are so, um, so consequential for the ways that we live our lives and the decisions that we make. Um, I hope, my, my dream is that every student receives that kind of, of education, because some have. You know, there are some phenomenal teachers and cur- some amazing curricula out there that we... that, that certain children are lucky enough to experience. Um, usually it's piecemeal. It depends on the teacher, it depends on the unit. They get, not a lot of kids get, get it K through 12. But my dream would be that every child gets it K through 12, which means every teacher would need to feel equipped, confident with, uh, with, with delivering that kind of, that kind of curriculum. And that is easier said than done. And something that I've found in my work is that I've, I've spent, a lot of my research has been with teachers who have a critical equity-oriented mindset or commitments, and they're... actually, even administrators are supportive. Even the districts that I've worked in are not restrictive. But still, there is this struggle to figure it out, and I've kind of realized that a lot of the problems are organizational. Um, they are, there's a big fragmentation of the infrastructure, the curricular infrastructure of specifically elementary social studies education. There's so much great stuff out there, but it's all over the place, and it's a mess, and it's fr- it's fragmented, and that is dizzying for teachers. Um, and then there are so many frameworks, justice-oriented frameworks that are fantastic, phenomenal, and needed, but teachers get overwhelmed by them. So my dream is now, like now on a more practical level for myself, is to provide, um, both services that can guide districts, schools, um, or publishing companies, teams of educators of any kind, to finding the, or to, I, I would like to train these teachers, these educators in understanding, um, the overarching arc of what it means to do social studies education in a justice-oriented way, and then equip them with the, not just the resources, but the, the theories and the thinking tools, um, and then eventually the students having those thinking tools that, so that they are able to think with theory. I think a lot of times, you know, we think, "Oh, teachers just want the stuff," and they do, and we should give them the stuff. And th- that is another dream of mine to- my dream is to have my own publishing company where I'm really creating this coherent curriculum f- that, or c- taking curriculum and making it more coherent in a justice-oriented way. But, um, also tra- uh, always training teachers on what it means to think with critical theory. And I think people think that that's should be saved for the curriculum writers, the researchers, the scholars, but I think not only teachers can think with critical theory, but so can students. But w- we just have to try. We have to do it. We have to um, it's, it is again, it's easier said than done. Lindsay Lyons: I love all of those dreams. Those are great. I also recognize that you and your research and experience have worked with so many educators, and I, I'm curious about kind of the mindset shift of, I, whether it's going from, like, overwhelmed to, like, clear on how exactly to design curriculum that is justice-centered in social studies, or if it's, "I'm not sure about this," or if it's the kind of leader mindset shift around, like, how do we structurally support- Yeah this work? Like, what's a key mindset shift you've noticed in, in actually bringing to life some justice-centered curriculum in social studies? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Fantastic question, because you are right. There are numerous barriers to, um, to doing this comprehensively, to doing justice-oriented social studies curriculum. To do it sustainably c- uh, there, the, the barriers are plenty. Teachers are worried about, "Do I know enough?" I- they don't feel like their social studies curriculum was good enough, so they feel like, they often say, "How do I teach what I don't know? I know I need to teach counter-narratives, but how do I do that?" Um, and the, uh, the barriers of, yes, then of course there are many restrictive con- restrictive contexts, especially in our sociopolitical current state, that, um, people are really scared to even say the word equity or justice in some spaces. Um, then there's the organizational fragmentation. You know, okay, so I could go on and on about all... It- I just wanna validate that those are real challenges, and it's, I don't want teachers to feel like, "I'm not doing this, so there's must be a problem with me," or, "I'm not committed enough," or, you know, I, I don't actually think that this is a, um, teacher commitment issue. It's a, um, I mean, it can be in some, but most teachers really do want their students to make, to, to, they want to provide a, a responsible, engaging, and comprehensive multiple perspectives type of, of social studies curriculum, but they just are, like, really scattered on how to do it. Um, so a mindset shift in term- in terms of, um, well, with the teachers that I worked with- They had this commitment to justice and equity and, um, and diversity and inclusion and everything. But what they were saying was they needed, they, they... When they expressed their scatteredness, their, their insecurities, their challenges, and then I said, "Okay, what would it take? What would it take to make you feel confident?" Um, and they, these were teachers, this was like a small team of teachers who were, um, writing, they were preparing to write, re- overhaul the elementary social studies curriculum in their, in their district, and they felt ill-equipped in the beginning. Um, they felt like, you know, emotionally ready and... Except, but they just felt ill-equipped on a more practical level. So, um, you know, I said, "What, what would, what would it take?" And they kind of identified four things. That's, they identified four things that it would take to, like, get them to actually put it into action. They needed a framework. They needed a guiding tool, some kind of guiding tool, uh, that, number one, was actually guided, which was actually grounded in critical theory, that was truly equity-oriented, and not really, 'cause there's a lot... Like, like, again, like what does that mean? Um, number two, it had to be transferable across identities, topics, and disciplines. So even though they, I was, had, I had previously been introducing a lot of identity-specific frameworks for, like, how to teach Black history, how to teach indigenous history, how to teach, um, like, uh, something specific within civics or geography. You know, they, they were like, "These are all great, but, like, our standards and our resources, they don't just teach everything in isolation with these topics or identities." I mean, some standards literally say, "What is the, you know, what was the interaction between this group, this group, and this group?" You know? So you can't just... So there were a lot of questions like, "Does this Black history framework transfer to the Asian American history?" You know, like, it's, like, it was, um... So they n- they, uh, desired some sort of, um, overarching framework that was iden- was transferable across identities. Um, number two, uh, number three was, um, they wanted it to be sequence sensitive. They felt as if a lot of, um, I don't know, uh, leaders and administrators would kind of, like, um, like, kind of put down their desire for s- scopes and sequences, um, for be- 'cause it sounded like when they were saying, "We want a scope and sequence," I think they thought the administrators were hearing, "We want scripts. We just wanna be told what to do." But they were like, "No, it's not that we just wanna be told what to do, but we also- What we are doing here with history education is filled with trauma and depressing topics and, um, very, the, the topics that could traumatize students in our classroom. If we don't do this right, if we don't think about the order in which we are discussing these topics, we could cause a lot of trauma. So, we don't need a step-by-step checklist, we don't need scripted curriculum, but we do want this framework, this guiding framework, to be sensitive to sequencing and help us understand what comes first generally, what comes second, what comes third, what is important, um, when discussing especially really hard histories, um, or, or really any histories. Um, and then fourth, the fourth thing that they said this, this guiding framework would need was it would need to be emotionally balanced. So often they felt as if their social studies curriculum was either really depressing, so if they were talking about something depressing, they felt like bad that they could be causing some trauma for kids in the room. It was just, you know, that's not a good feeling to, you know. But they also felt like as soon as they got out of the more, quote-unquote, again, depressing or the oppression stuff, they felt as if they were maybe like whitewashing things. Like, they c- they, they couldn't-- They felt like they know joy is important, so they would go into the joy stuff. But then as soon as they were in the joy stuff, they felt like, "Oh, no, we're like, uh, are we- am I becoming one of those teachers that doesn't like, you know, really confront and interrogate the oppression involved here? Like, is this too joyous?" So, they just felt back and forth like they couldn't find. So, they said, "We would really appreciate some emotional balance across this guiding framework." Um, so yeah. So, those are the four things that I set out to, um, to accompli- to, to, to, to implement into this guiding framework. And, you know, fast-forward a year later or say months and months later, we, uh, together with the teachers, but me going back and forth between scholarship and working im- implementing the POWER framework with the teachers, um, we came up with, with, with the POWER framework. It, um, stands for different words. Um, but each, in each letter, each word, each word started with a different word at the beginning of the year with me implementing it with the teachers, and then over the course of a year, it sort of evolved, and some of the words changed. Um, because sometimes when you plan s- when you plan a framework with just scholarship, it doesn't necessarily work exactly As, as you would think it would when you put it into implementation, or the way teachers interpret different critical concepts might be different when you actually... So the words matter. The words matter a lot, and they shifted over time, but I- we ended up coming up with the, um, five dimensions that we felt, um, pretty good about in terms of this sequence sensitive, transferable, emotionally balanced, critically grounded framework. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, okay. I'm really excited to dive into this. Quickly- Okay ... I just wanna say, I think for anyone who feels like they're not quite at the space where your educators were, the ones you were working with who were thinking all these great thoughts- Yeah ... that is such a beautiful cue to be like, "Here are the important considerations." Like, all of these things you listed, right? The fact that it should be grounded in critical theory. It should be, like, kind of content agnostic, and, like, a f- the vertical alignment possibilities there is really cool. Uh, like, it, it should sequence to decrease traumatic impact, right? And it should be em- emotionally balanced with oppression and joy, and, and considering the whole spectrum of, of human emotion. Like, I just- Yeah ... it's so good. Like, just, just that. Thank you. That's amazing. I- So I would love to, to actually get into the POWER framework, if you wanna just take us there- Yeah ... and tell us- I Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: would love to ... Lindsay Lyons: what it's part... Okay, great. Go for it. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Okay. So the POWER framework, um, stands for... The P stands for presence and personhood, the O stands for oppression and opposition, the W stands for wisdom and wit, the E stands for entanglements and empowerment, and the R stands for relevance and responsibility. And one of the most common questions I get is, like, "Okay, does this framework, does this guide, like, one unit, one lesson, one, like, the whole entire year?" And the answer is yes, yes, yes, it can do any of those things. Um, the way that I tend to use it is I take, you know, any piece of curriculum, whether it is year-long overview or a one children's book or one unit. I am just sort of searching for those pieces. These, so, you know, there are five dimensions, but then two components within each dimension kind of that are intricately cannot be separated sort of. Um, and so I am, yeah, looking for those pieces. And, and the way that I use it is not, like, to, um, necessarily, again, script something, but to search for what's missing. And then say, "Oh, well, okay, you know, you have r- r- you're really strong with these components, but then one component, you know, let's say wisdom and wit, we're missing, so let's what, what can we add in there?" Um, but not every single lesson or every single unit- Can cover all five. Some do. Some, um, you know, some children's books can cover all five. Some children's books are really heavy on the P or the O or the R. Okay, so let's get into what these all mean. Okay, so the, the, the P, um, presence and personhood. Presence and personhood dimension acknowledges the presence and explores the personhood of students and those in the curriculum with dignified asset-oriented origin stories. So one of the most common pitfalls, especially in elementary social studies education, is the first time that children see Black and brown people in the official curriculum is through slavery, is they are in slave- they are in chains. We know through research, we know through all of the experience, we know that this is a bad, this is a traumatic thing for students. It's also just providing a very inaccurate, uh, picture of history, of human history, that as if, like, this is where Black history began. So, um, one of the most important things to do is, um, to, uh, the P is... I almost made the P just the word positive, but that doesn't really work. But it's we have to affirm humanity, identity, culture, lived experience, joy, genius before harm and oppression. We need to center, um, the voices of marginalized people the way that they want to be introduced. Um, stories of, um- It, we, we want, we, you know, we want the curriculum to not begin with harm or deficiency, disruption, um, but we want to affirm that communities have always existed, created, and sustained life beyond domination, and that children enter classrooms as full people already possessing dignity, complexity, agency. Um, so it's about really grounding all of our curriculum in humanity before critique. And it's hard, especially for really justice-oriented teachers. They have actually a really hard time getting away from the oppression stuff. Yeah, I, I can't tell you how many times where I'm like, "This book is great. It's beautiful. But look, there are like three pages all about oppression, and this is the first week of school, like, or the third week of school." Like, it's too early. It's, it, it's, it's... You know, so let's, let's, let's read this book, or even just read part of the book. Read the parts that you want. But, um, we really need to make sure that it doesn't seep in. And I think that's really... So presence of person, what I'm really talking about is identity, you know? Identity exploration. And oftentimes we think, oh, identity exploration, we, espe- uh, justice centr- justice-centered educators want to get into intersectional identity. And by definition, intersectionality is really about intersection with oppression. And so we have to put on some brakes, and we have to really, um, think deeper about, um- What can, how can we s- how can we get into students' identities and the identities of people that we're going to see in the curriculum without bringing oppression in, in, um, in an explicit way? So examples of that are, like, you know, for little guys K through 2, um, like, um, identity poems, um, sharing, um, like, their name stories, um, maybe, um, mapping important places in students' lives. Um, and you know, like, if they go deep, they're gonna go deep, that's fine. But we don't need to push that. Like, "Tell me about your racial history," like, right away, you know, right in the beginning of the school year. Um, yeah, so but just, like, celebrate, you know, the showing, making su- bringing families into the classroom, talking about their language, their culture. Um, and yeah, there's a lot of ways to explore the students' his- identities without centering oppression. And then with spec- since I brought up the example of slavery, you know, really starting with ancient Afri- starting before enslavement happened. And there are some phenomenal story, books out there, um, that... There's one set, one author, um, her work can be found on, um, ourancestries.com and they're these beautiful children's books that tell stories about ancient, um, ancient African leaders, mostly, um, kings and queens, but also just, um, different leaders. But they, they're told, uh, the stories are told about when they're, when they're little children, and so, um, and they're just experiencing life. It's just a, it's a story about, that any kid could relate to. Um, like, "My dad wouldn't let me do this, and so I did that." And, and so- And then, so a lot of the cur- units that I wrote with teachers to start out, um, was with these kinds of books, and it was cool because the students could see their own identities in the stories, but and then all of a sudden they're like, "Oh my gosh, like my identity has something to do with ancient history?" Like, like this is... Yeah, so it, um, I really like those, those stories. But there's obviously a lot of ways to, um, explore official historical or social studies education without oppression first. But that's... Do you have any questions about the presence and personhood, um, Lindsay Lyons: dimension? No questions. Okay. Just like- Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Let's- Lindsay Lyons: like incredible awe and like gratitude- ... I guess for you- Aw ... taking all of this theory and, and, and recognizing what happens in practice often as like something that shouldn't happen in practice, and we know we wanna do differently, and here's how to do it, and here's concrete examples. It's just- Yeah amazing. Thank you. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: That is one of the things in critical theory, and that's how I came up with this framework, was I studied all of the critical theories and synthesized them, coded them, and like hundreds and hundreds of them, of components within all these critical theories and, um, and synthesized them into these, you know, five themes. Theme, um, but I do- didn't find a lot of like components of critical theories that said, "Don't start with oppression." You know, they, that, that's a, a pedagogical thing that I had to bring in. Um, they just, there isn't a lot of order that is attended to, so, um, thank you for, for recognizing that. We, it's, yeah, it's, um, again, like just n- sometimes it's assumed, I think, but also sometimes I think, um, it's just not where the scholars' brains are. That's just not... Yeah. Um, okay, so you ready for the O? Lindsay Lyons: Yes, let's do Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: it. Okay. So the O, uh, stands for oppression and opposition. Originally, I had O standing for just oppression, and then the W was like, um, willpower or something that meant like resistance. And then I realized over time that in practice- If you're, it- when teachers started thinking, "Okay, I have to read this book up and just center on oppression," that's when we got into that really icky place where we're trying to separate emotion, and it's really impossible. Like, because there has never been oppression without resistance, and so we need to really teach those together. Um, there are, like the Teaching Hard History standards say that, you know, very explicitly. Um, but the theories about teaching about oppr- about oppression itself and interrogating power don't talk about that importance of teaching oppression and resistance together. So it was really about, you know, bringing the theory and the curricular pedagogical work together. So that's why oppression and opposition, they... So we examine systems of oppression and resistance together. It means investigating how oppression operates through institutions, policies, ideologies, cultural norms, and at the same time, centering resistance, refusal, critique, counter-narratives alongside that harm, and reiterating over and over that oppression has never gone unchallenged. Um, I think that, uh, yeah, I think it's easy to just get stuck into one or the other, but w- the reality is, is that they're intertwined. Um, but, and then I have a lot of things that I could say that I talk about when doing workshops with teachers about, you know, age-appropriateness with the oppression pieces especially. Um, but I think, I think what I've found is teachers feel a little bit more comfortable doing the oppression part knowing that the opposition is right there with them, and, like, th- then it doesn't feel as, like when, when, if you're just expected to just teach this, like to really let's, let's, let's examine this, you know, white dominance, um, or the, you know, it's like very sticky. But if you're talking about it as resist- with resistance, it's okay. But also, we don't wanna just talk about resistance We need to also examine the oppressors. So it's a balance, um, definitely. Do you have any specific questions about that? I, I, I mean, there's a lot of examples of what you can do. You know, with the little guys starting out, you can talk about, like, you can ask them about rules and if they think that there are any unfair rules, and, um, notice whose voices are included or excluded in stories. And, um, you know, they do understand. They can understand bias and stereotypes and those kinds of things. Um, and then, like, um, you know, for older students, older elementary students, you can really get a little deeper into analyzing unfair laws or just policies over time and, um, and how schools have... Uh, I, I often talk about it within the context of schools because it's so, you know, uh, familiar to them. But, um, yeah, like how language, EDL, uh, lang- lang- certain languages were excluded and then how they have been welcomed. And, you know, there's a lot of different ways and a lot of, lot of different books. I have lots of book lists of, like- Books that, um, can teach about oppression within these different identity groups. Um, I have books for every dimension of the power framework at different grade levels, in other words. But, um, but yes, so, um, oppression, opposition is, I think most people know that if you're gonna talk, do justice-oriented curriculum, you can't, like it cannot exist without discussing oppression. And, um, that's, that, that is not discussing oppression, that would be turning a major blind eye to reality and history and yes. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Thank you for elaborating the age appropriateness. I feel like I get that question a lot from educators. Mm-hmm. And I have also seen, I think in some of your resources on your site, just the acknowledgement that like, yes, we can talk about oppression when kids are young, it just might look different. And so- Oh, yeah ... I love that you just named for us some clear examples. So I think that will alleviate some of the questions the audience might be having. So I really- Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes, yes, yes ... value that I have so many things I'd love to share. I love starting-- I have some preventive da- like some, the, the biggest fear a lot of teachers have is that, um, well, one of the biggest fears when they're concerned about the students in the room. I mean, yes, there's the fear of backlash and la-la. But the teachers who, you know, really most teachers have a big heart, and they just wanna take care of their students. And they might have, in, in least the, the context that I've worked in, there's usually like the, there's a majority of white students in the room, and then there are a handful, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven teacher, s- students who are Black or brown or come from some kind of marginalized, historically marginalized community. And teachers are so terrified that the first, that, that they will say something about the oppressive history, and all the students in the room will, their heads will turn and look at that one to four students. And they'll say things like, "So wait a minute, then, like so and so wouldn't be able to go to school with us?" You know, say these off- these things that are just really, um- Hard to respond to and could be traumatizing and stuff. So, um, I, I, I want to validate that concern and be thankful that people are concerned thinking about those, those students. That is who we should be thinking about. But, um, I do have a lot of ideas and ways, strategies on how to prevent that from happening. Um, specifically practicing it with dolls, but, but about... So, so bringing in a doll that maybe if, if you... that has an identity from a historically marginalized group, but that isn't in the room. So like maybe, um, a doll, if you don't have any children with hijabs or Mu- Muslim, then you bring in a doll with a hijab. Or you bring in a doll with, that, if you don't have any students who have Down syndrome, then you bring in a doll with Down syndrome. And then you say, like, and then you practice, like, "Okay, we're gonna about to read this book about this. How might we treat this doll, like this, if this was a student in the room?" And, um, that's just one little idea. I could talk about the age appropriateness thing for a very long time. So I don't wanna get too sidetracked. But I mean, it makes sense that it comes up in the oppression dimension of the power framework, 'cause that is, that's the hardest and Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. I also wanna recognize your time. Do you have time- Yeah ... to continue? We can make this- I do ... into a two-part episode if you want. Okay. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Absolutely, yes. No, I, I have plenty of time. Lindsay Lyons: Okay, perfect. Let's do that, and then let's aim for, like, uh, 1:45 at the latest. Does that work? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: I... Yes, yes. At the very latest, yes. I do have to... I have a train to catch at 3:15, um- Ooh, yeah, okay I'm going to Kansas City, but I'm- it's fine. I just, uh... Yes, 1... Maybe 1:30? I don't know. Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Let's do it. Okay. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Okay, yes. I'll write it down. No, but I'm thrilled that you want to hear all of this. That's very Lindsay Lyons: exciting. I do. I- it's amazing. Thank you. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Aw. Lindsay Lyons: Okay, so do you wanna tell us about the W? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes, I do. Okay. So the W stands for wisdom and wit, and it's hard to say that I have any favorites, but it might be my favorite because it is a place where we... It, it's not just about joy. It certainly does generate a lot of joy, and we celebrate a lot of joy, but it's about affirming diverse ways of knowing. It's about bringing, um, ex- it's about centering the experiential wisdom and wit from communities represented in the curriculum and the students themselves. So it's, um, treating typical- treating marginalized music, art, stories, humor, dance, language, creativity as historically grounded knowledge, and that is a lot of fun. And so it's exploring how cultural expression sparks joy, but also can expose injustice, and that is fun to just, like... So it's a lot of, like, comparing and contrasting song lyric, or l- uh, studying song lyrics, um, like This Land Is Your Land, this is my land, this is my... Like, looking at what do you got, like, the, the original s- songs and how they evolved over time, and how there's a lot of wit. There's a lot of, um, um... What's the word? Satire in, in a lot of songs and art, and kids get a kick out of it. Um, so yeah. It's, um... And then, like, in terms of activities, you know, so it's for little guys, it's using storytelling, drawing, song, and movement to explore social studies ideas, creating class books from family stories and community memories. Kind of teaching them, like, sharing oral stories, oral traditions, and validating that as history. You know, it's historically gra- like, history of their families, and, um, comparing stories from different cultures and discussing, like, what they teach, making art, um, showing what students know about identity and place and belong. So, um, using multiple languages, you know, tr- using translanguaging and, um, so yeah. And then, like, older students might, um, compare textbooks. That's kind of fun with, um... And looking at the different ways that, um, poetry and music and visual art are used to, um, tell truth and express joy. Um, students might, um Just create, um, like use children's literature. I mean, there's so much children's literature out there that tells, um, these stories about the wisdom and wi-... I mean, there's, so like there's the ch- the books about how, um, enslaved people used to create, um, the, their cornrows in their hair would create maps for, uh, to lead to the Underground Railroad. You know, that, those are, that's wisdom and it's brilliant. You know, it's brilliant witty. Um, a lot of Goldie Muhammad's work comes to life through this dimension, you know, her focus on cultivating genius, unearthing joy. Um, but again, it can, it can certainly, um, dig up w- oppression again, that is, that is part of it. Um, but, um, yeah, it's a, it's a really fun one where we get into Harlem Renaissance and, um, disability arts and indigenous literacy resurgence as like, you know, like what is the literacy of, of nature, the literacy of nature. And, and by the way, like I, when I think of identity, e- nature, um, and environment and, um, those are all-- I consider that a, a historically marginalized identity group in and of itself. So, um, that is, I think, important. But, um, but yeah, so I could talk for a long time about wisdom and wit. A lot of, I have a lot of, um, children's books that I think are really fun. I mean, I have children's books that fit into all of these things, but, um, these are just really fun. Lindsay Lyons: These are incredible. And I just wanna name for the audience that we will link to the page that has a, a really cool images of children's books and how they map onto this framework. So thank you for putting that together. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes. Yes. Yes. There's something about children's books that, that's the ling- it's like speaking the language for teachers to, like, they see the covers of certain familiar children's books and they're like, "Oh, okay, now I know what you're talking about." Yeah, so I, I do have visuals of those picture, of picture books and how they might fit across, um, each of these dimensions. Lindsay Lyons: Do you wanna tell us about E? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: I would love to. Yes. Okay, so E stands for entanglements and empowerment. So I think entanglements is all about leaning into complexity and nuance, what- no matter what the topic is. Because I think that is the, um, something that we have a tendency to do, especially for little kids, we wanna make it clear and, um, we want, we want them to understand something, we wanna put it on assessment, and we wanna know if they learn it or not. But we really do them a disfavor when we, um, pretend like anything about social life is simple. And so, uh, anything about history, anything about contemporary issues, we, um, need to lean into the complexity. Even the stories about Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, some of those stories that have been so deeply simplified, um, we need to make sure that like, so Dr. LeGarrette King has, uh, the Black historical consciousness framework, and one of his dimensions, one of his principles is, um, con- historical contention, whi- which meaning historical contention within the Black community because so often the Black community gets, um, represented as a monolith that, uh, all, everybody, you know, believed the same thing about, um, about how we get our rights and, uh, and, and he, and like for example, the Brown versus Board of Education, you know, there, there are really great children's books and stories about how, um, there was contention around that, that Brown, that, that, that schools should not be integrated. And, um, there's always, I mean, it is, kinder- I've seen kindergarten teachers just read a book about Martin Luther King and then read a book about Malcolm X and talk about the entanglements of the civil rights movement within the Black community. So the entanglements don't always have to be, you know, across identity groups. Um, they are often, they always have been within as well. So, um, yeah. So it's about prompting Student-led inquiry into the connections, tensions, contradictions, and unfinished change. We have to prompt them with the, you know, these, these stories that are like, "Oh, wait, what? Not everybody was on the same page about this?" But, um, and not just like w- w- I mean, 'cause really, and, and the reason empowerment is along with it is because, you know, we want to... It's important to celebrate the, the progress that we have made. It is a big part of... It's the number one, um, component of organizing, of activism, is celebrating the wins and celebrating the progress. But, um, and, but, but at the same time, we don't want to fall into the trap of believing that progress is inevitable and that we're just gonna arrive to this place all by itself. We have to recognize the entanglements within the progress. So the empowerment is about the progress. It's about the, the ways in which people have formed, um, coalitions and they have collaboratively found agency and, um, and actually made progress, actually gained rights. And, but the entanglements are like a check on that, on that progress that, um, that making sure that we understand that, you know, it's never as simple as it sounds and, um, or it has been made to seem through certain narratives and stories. Um, yeah, so, um, it's ensuring that, you know, empowerment is not just isolated civil acts, but- Um, teaching students about the capacity to act ethically within and against entangled conditions too. You know, so there's a lot... I, I think it's, it's really about complexity of progress, the complexity of progress, the cl- complexity, but the really the complexity of everything. Um, and yes, there's a lot of... So in terms of like, um, how to do that, I, I guess I, I did mention a few story, a few examples of, you know, comparing and contrasting two different stories. Um, but you can, at the younger level too, you can ra- recognizing the, um, the tensions in the classroom, like as maybe students disagree on, um, on some routines or, um, you know, really recognizing this is hard. You know, it's hard to get along with people and, um, how can we solve this problem and learn to listen and respond, and what can we learn from these stories of people who did figure out how to work together, you know? And, um, so relating it to their personal lives, but also, um, co-creating rubrics or criteria for projects and, um, holding structured dialogues where students practice listening before responding. Um, and like building... I, I al- I think here, you know, the next one, the next letter is R and it, you know, res- it's, well, spoiler alert, it stands for relevance and responsibility. It's the taking action part of it. But I do think the E needs to, um, bring in... It, we gotta g- prepare, prepare for that action. So it's about not just learning about progress itself and the complexity of progress, but starting to plan for it, and starting to think about why, what, what it is we care about within this topic that we're learning about. What are these things that are still, um, what are the current entanglements and the current ways that we could empower ourselves, and how could we start planning student-led inquiry-based, um, action projects? But we, before we actually take the action, we have to plan it and recognize the complexity of that. I mean, it is hard, like, but- You got this classroom full of kids that all care about different things. They might not agree on the best way to solve a problem or address an issue, and so there's, you know, but typically if you sit, if you, if you just get out a chart paper and you start brainstorming ways, you start seeing different clusters of kids that really have similar ideas. So there's breaks, so they break up into groups, and they wanna do work on different projects, and it's about, um, you know, talking through the not as sexy stuff of leadership and, and coalition building and working together and organizing. It's not that exciting sometimes. It's sticky, and it's icky, and it's like, um, involves spreadsheets and Post-It notes, and it's not as, um, yeah, i- it's like we wanna just get to the change. We wanna get to the, the cool part where they're, you know, marching through the street or where they're writing the, they're, they're, they're talking to the legislator on the phone. But there's a lot of work that has to get teased through before that. So, um, that's what the E I, I think about as, um, the E is a lot of preparation for the students' own coalition building and, and, and action. Lindsay Lyons: There is so much organizing and coalition building- Yeah. ... and, like, group work dynamics on, like, a meta level for civic projects as well, so I love this, that they're learning about it- Love ... and they're preparing to do. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes. Yes. Lindsay Lyons: And finally, do you wanna tell us- It's great ... the R? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes, definitely. Um, okay, so the R stands for relevance and responsibility. Um, it's where we make the curriculum matter. Um, teachers are really good at relevance naturally, I think. Whenever teaching about social studies, they're pretty good at naturally saying, "Why does this matter? How does this connect to students today?" Um, that's just, I, I, something I've noticed, that I don't really have to teach student, teachers to make curriculum relevant. They're really good at it. Um, and a- in fact, I had, uh, one grade level, a third grade team plan their entire curriculum so that the R, the relevance part of the R, and the, and the responsibility, the R, was at the end of every unit, no matter what. Like, so unit one was, like, the P and the, and the R. And then unit two was the O and the, and then the R. And then unit three was the W and the R, and then the... You know, so the R was just, like, there no matter what, which I loved, um, because yeah, we gotta make everything relevant, and we don't wanna just have this, like, culminating big, huge student action project at the end of the year. We want it multiple times throughout the year. So, um, so yeah, so relevance is about... And it's not just about connecting the past to the present or the past to the students' lives, it's also about connecting global systems to local lived realities. The whole think globally, act locally. You know, so if you're... 'Cause a lot of kids care about something that's really big and really global, and so, you know, getting them to look at, for organizations and partnerships and with- within their community that's already doing that work, um, that's part of the relevance connection, too. Um, but the responsibility is, again, it's about creating space, making space for students to not just design, not just talk about the solving of the problem, but actually to take responsibility to do actions, um, and pursue responses to the issues that they're studying Um, and to position responsibility as informed, as ethical collective action toward meaningful change. And that can be done in a lot of ways. You know, we have, um, a lot of, you know, kids as young as kindergarten can, you know, write letters to, um, school leaders or to local officials. Um, kids can create posters, make, you know, uh, raise, like, have awareness campaigns about things that they care about. Um, uh, service projects. Service learning is great as long as there is those deep discussions, as long as the P-O-W and E came before. Um, and they could do, um... I mean, w- I've done, like, a water walk when we did, like, a world water crisis where we walk around the school with water, you know, holding water and, or we've, you can do... So that's like, that's like a walk, but not like, you know, y- teachers don't need to feel like they need to be bringing their students to, like, Black Lives Matter protests to, in order to be, like, having done action. Um, writing letters is huge. Writing letters to local or national leaders is huge. Teaching them, writing scripts, and then actually having them call, not just community, not, not just legislators, but also, like, um, there was a group of students that I worked with, with, who were, um, they cared about, like, working against factory farms and wanting to build more sustainable, um, organic farms, so, that treated animals better. And so they would call, they, they, their whole action was calling a bunch of restaurant owners around the, the city and asking them where they get their meat. And that was, that was, like, in, that was in and of itself, you know, their action. So, um, so tons of ideas. I'm sure you, that's something that you talk about on this podcast often. But, um, it's extremely important to make that space for it and, um, and, and, and, and forefront also partnerships, um, I think with other, with the community, um, and teaching students how to really reach out and, um, and look at the opportunities for solidarity, um, because that's, you know, we don't wanna all be working in isolation Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, that was absolutely incredible. Thank you so much. I wanna be mindful of your time, so we can- No, you're fine ... definitely wrap up quickly. But I love this framework. I love the examples. I love how practical it is. One of the things that's on my mind, and maybe this can be one of our kind of lightning round, 15 seconds or less answers maybe. Sure. Like, an audience member who just listened to this, right, or who engaged with the episode, they're gonna feel like there's a lot here. What's one place they can take a small action to get started with this work? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: I would say just taking a look at your own curriculum. So let's just think about, okay, close your eyes. What's your social studies curriculum? And then, um, or, or maybe just take one unit, you know, one unit and think, "Okay, do I have the P? What's, what's going on with the P? Do I have... What's, what identity stuff? Do I have any oppression stuff too early? I don't know. Okay. Maybe. Yes. All right, let's move that back a little bit." Like, what, let's think about the books. If there's anything that's, uh, brings up oppression topics, let's move it back. And okay, now it's the O. Do I have oppre- Are we talking about both oppression and opposition at the same time, or are they separate? And do we have resistance stories? You know, probably, yes, but, um, are they coming up at every instance of oppression that we talk about? And then, okay, quickly, wisdom and wit. Am I generating joy? Are my telling stories through the voices and eyes of marginalized groups, and also through their wit and wisdom, their different ways of knowing and being, and, um, and satire? Um, uh, you know, just, and then the E Is anything simplified, like overly simplified? How could I quickly, like, make sure that the c- we're leaning into the complexity a little bit more? Um, and, and of course, am I providing a space for them to think about how it's relevant to them, and how they might be able to take responsibility? And I think one thing that, a pitfall that I see often at the end of these units are that, that the teachers say, "Okay, n- guys, we've learned a lot. Now it's time to take some action. What are some things that we could do to improve our community?" And even though the, the unit was all about, um, maybe Black history, the kids start saying like, "We could pick up trash. We could, you know, save the turtles." And so, um, I think making sure that the action is actually... Like, it is okay to make that a requirement. To say like, "No, we are, we are, there, this, the, the, we have explored a variety of problems and issues," and, um, it's like within the E, it's important to talk about today. Not, not just th- this historical problem, but th- today's issues, and so, um, how can we address or, those issues, alleviate some problems in those. Um, so making sure that the action you take actually, um, has something to do. So I, I, yeah, I guess thinking about it as a quick checklist. I don't know. That wasn't super short, but, um- Lindsay Lyons: But super helpful. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Super what? Lindsay Lyons: Super helpful though. I love Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: that. Oh, okay, good. Yes, it doesn't have to be this long... I mean, I have rubrics for POWER that just, yeah, just have one or two questions per dimension. Um, and then, you know, just think, "Okay, if I don't have enough wisdom and wit, like, let's do a deep dive into joyous books." Like, that's, that's a fun little activity. Um, yeah. I love- Give me an email or a call. I'd love to share books. Lindsay Lyons: I was gonna say, that's our last question, so we'll segue there. Like, where can people connect with you? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Um, well, I can, um... Let's see. We have, I have a website, schemacurriculum.com. I have an email address, [email protected]. I still have my personal re- website that has a lot of resources on it, um, that people say they, they use still in their methods, elementary social studies methods courses. So I have not taken it down. Um, but it, yeah, that's genevievecaffrey.com, and it has a lot more of, like, my publications, my writings, um, a little bit more about my story. And, um, then all of my writings are also on ResearchGate. I have just begun LinkedIn. I, I quit social media, like, five years ago, and I always say it was the best thing of my life. So I'm trying not to go too quickly back into it, 'cause I, I do wanna get back out there because I just graduated. I'm ready to, to connect more. But, um, right now I'm just on LinkedIn as Genevieve Ecker Caffrey. Um, can I share one more thing about the power framework that I can't believe I did not talk about- Absolutely. Yeah ... that I didn't say, because it's, like, kind of the, like, obvious, like, it's, like, the elephant in the room, but it's the fact that the po- the word power is purposeful. It's not just that these themes happen to spell P-O-W-E-R. It's that power- The circulation of power itself is, through each dimension of power, is important to explore, um, within each dimension. So, and I think that each dimension, um, interacts with power in a different way. So presence and personhood, doing work with students where you don't just jump into oppression and you really dig deep into the brilliance, agency, and humanity that conventional curriculum often suppresses, that is reclaiming power in and of itself. Like, you are reclaiming power by restoring that brilliance and agency of marginalized groups that are going to come in the curriculum and the students themselves. Um, oppression and opposition obviously surfaces the forces that have constrained communities while also illuminating the long histories of collective power that, um, has shown up as resistance and disrupt those constraints. Um, and then wisdom and wit shifts power by legitimizing the power of intellectual, creative, and cultural knowledge systems that have really sustained marginalized people across generations. Um, and it's also, like, putting satire into songs. I mean, what an act of power of... And what a way to harness power. And then entanglements and empowerment demonstrates that power is never singular, um, or self-made, but it emerges through relationships, obligations, tensions, all that make up solidarity work. And, um, I think that obviously the pow- the word power is in the word empowerment. Um, but I think we as a society would become more powerful if we, if everyone were to recognize the complexity in every issue, and that no one is all this or all that, and noth- no issue is all bad or all good. Um, I mean, my children, my own children know that they're not just, they're just not allowed to ask. "Is, is he good? Is she bad?" Like, "Is this good? Is this bad?" Like, 'cause nothing. They know I'll say, "Well, nothing is all good or all bad." And then relevance and responsibility obviously is redirecting power towards civic engagement, transforming our understanding and our learning into an accountable practice. So yes, I think it's just important that, you know, I recognize the word power, um, that yeah, that these are, it, the, the p- when you think of critical, critical theory- What makes something critical is power dynamics. It's the study of power. It's the study of power dynamics. But, um, you know, it's the p- study of power dynamics now, in my mind, through each of these dimensions. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, what a beautiful summary and extension of what we just talked about. Oh my goodness. Dr. Erica Caffrey, thank you so much for this conversation today. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Thank you, Lindsay. I... Gosh, I'm... It's such a privilege, and I'm sorry if it's a little scattered. I just, you know, finished a 350-page dissertation- Lindsay Lyons: Of Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: course you did about all of this, so I could talk about it in a lot of directions. But, um, thank you for keeping me focused and moving along. 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode, Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey joins Lindsay Lyons to discuss the P.O.W.E.R. framework, a guiding tool for implementing justice-centered curriculum in social studies education. The conversation dives deep into this framework's essential components: Presence and Personhood, Oppression and Opposition, Wisdom and Wit, Entanglements and Empowerment, and Relevance and Responsibility.
Dr. Erker Caffrey uses this framework to provide guidance around initiating justice-oriented curricula. Because it’s such a big and complex topic, it can feel overwhelming and many educators don’t know where to start. This framework helps bring some clarity and coherence to the conversation. The Big Dream Dr. Erker Caffrey envisions that every child experiences a dynamic and justice-centred education, especially across the social studies disciplines. This means that there needs to be a transformed educational landscape where every teacher feels equipped and confident to deliver this kind of curriculum in their contexts. Mindset Shifts Required There are some key mindset shifts required to embrace a justice-centered approach to curriculum design. Teachers are often overwhelmed and worry they don’t know enough in this area — this is a valid and common barrier to implementing justice-oriented curricula. One way to address this is to embrace a clear vision of their roles in achieving equity-oriented education. Teachers need a framework, a guiding tool, that is transferable across identities, topics, and disciplines. Action Steps The P.O.W.E.R. framework is something that helps educators decrease their overwhelm and move forward with confidence. It stands for:
The framework can be applied to a single lesson, longer curriculum, year-long strategy and other components of curricula. Here’s some tips to get started: Step 1: Analyze your current curriculum through a critical lens. Consider the presence of identity and humanity in your materials and the timing of introducing topics of oppression. Step 2: Ensure your curriculum balances stories of oppression with those of resistance. Incorporate narratives that highlight both adversity and counteractions. Step 3: Foster joy and creativity in learning by integrating diverse cultural expressions and forms of wisdom. Finally, encourage student-led inquiry that reflects on these complexities. Challenges? The biggest challenge educators face is not that they don’t want to implement justice-oriented curricula, but that they are overwhelmed or unsure on how to get started. This is where an impactful framework can really help. One Step to Get Started Dr. Caffrey suggests that educators begin by examining their own curriculum to identify whether it includes elements that affirm students' personhood before delving into oppressive narratives. Small shifts in the order of content and the inclusion of diverse perspectives can make a significant difference. Stay Connected You can learn more and stay connected with Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey in the following ways:
To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing The P.O.W.E.R. Framework and the LETS ACT Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 268 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
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Genevieve Erker-Caffrey, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Thank you so much for having me. I am very excited to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I also am super excited, and so I love that before we hit record you said that you are, like, a frameworks expert. I'm also, like, a nerd of frameworks, and so I'm really excited. You- historically, people should totally listen to, and I think we should link this in the, uh, show notes as well, um, your episode on Visions of Education around the Let's Act framework was brilliant, and I loved it. Um- Thank you ... and now today we're talking about the POWER framework, which is so, so cool, and so situated in my mind in the context of, like, student leadership and awesome curriculum design and doing school differently and transformatively. Like, this is really rich, and I'm excited to get into the conversation. I'd love to know if there are things that you want the audience to kind of be thinking about or have in their mind as we go through today. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Sure, yeah. Well, I think that if teachers, coach- you know, I know that your audience is, um, varied, but I think the thing that I would try to think about is when you, when, when you are planning curriculum and trying to make it, quote unquote, equity-oriented or justice-oriented, um, you know, what exactly are you thinking about, and what are those components? And where do you feel like you do a really good job of which components do you feel like you do a really good job, um, and where do you feel like you get a little lost? Like, when, what exact topics or identity groups are you feeling like, "You know, I don't know how to make this equity-oriented." And I'm hoping that my, this conversation and the POWER framework can provide a little bit of guidance for specifying what it is we're actually talking about when we say justice-oriented curriculum, especially justice-oriented social studies curriculum, which is my area of expertise. Um, and then once we identify those components, what do those really, truly look like in curriculum and instruction? Um, because oftentimes it can just feel kind of elusive. Like, what are we talking about here? Like, okay, we're talking about diversity, we're talking about making the world a better place, we're talking about, you know. So I, it's something that I craved as a teacher, um, to help with that guidance. But, um, I'm hoping that the POWER framework provides a little bit more guidance, um, not to simplify the ideas, because it is complex. This is a complex endeavor. But to, um, to help provide a little bit of clarity and, and coherence so that we can dig deeper into complexity. Lindsay Lyons: I love that framing. Well, very well said. I wanna start, as I start all episodes, kind of with this idea of freedom dreaming. So Dr. Bettina Love describes these as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so curious what your big dream is. Maybe this is a bit of kind of a, a why behind the framework. Maybe this is a bit of a, a lot of things, but curious what the dream is for you Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Well, my dream is that every single child experiences a phenomenal justice-centered dynamic, engaging social education, social studies education, or education in general, but specifically when talking about history and civics and geography and, and economics, and these concepts that are so, um, so consequential for the ways that we live our lives and the decisions that we make. Um, I hope, my, my dream is that every student receives that kind of, of education, because some have. You know, there are some phenomenal teachers and cur- some amazing curricula out there that we... that, that certain children are lucky enough to experience. Um, usually it's piecemeal. It depends on the teacher, it depends on the unit. They get, not a lot of kids get, get it K through 12. But my dream would be that every child gets it K through 12, which means every teacher would need to feel equipped, confident with, uh, with, with delivering that kind of, that kind of curriculum. And that is easier said than done. And something that I've found in my work is that I've, I've spent, a lot of my research has been with teachers who have a critical equity-oriented mindset or commitments, and they're... actually, even administrators are supportive. Even the districts that I've worked in are not restrictive. But still, there is this struggle to figure it out, and I've kind of realized that a lot of the problems are organizational. Um, they are, there's a big fragmentation of the infrastructure, the curricular infrastructure of specifically elementary social studies education. There's so much great stuff out there, but it's all over the place, and it's a mess, and it's fr- it's fragmented, and that is dizzying for teachers. Um, and then there are so many frameworks, justice-oriented frameworks that are fantastic, phenomenal, and needed, but teachers get overwhelmed by them. So my dream is now, like now on a more practical level for myself, is to provide, um, both services that can guide districts, schools, um, or publishing companies, teams of educators of any kind, to finding the, or to, I, I would like to train these teachers, these educators in understanding, um, the overarching arc of what it means to do social studies education in a justice-oriented way, and then equip them with the, not just the resources, but the, the theories and the thinking tools, um, and then eventually the students having those thinking tools that, so that they are able to think with theory. I think a lot of times, you know, we think, "Oh, teachers just want the stuff," and they do, and we should give them the stuff. And th- that is another dream of mine to- my dream is to have my own publishing company where I'm really creating this coherent curriculum f- that, or c- taking curriculum and making it more coherent in a justice-oriented way. But, um, also tra- uh, always training teachers on what it means to think with critical theory. And I think people think that that's should be saved for the curriculum writers, the researchers, the scholars, but I think not only teachers can think with critical theory, but so can students. But w- we just have to try. We have to do it. We have to um, it's, it is again, it's easier said than done. Lindsay Lyons: I love all of those dreams. Those are great. I also recognize that you and your research and experience have worked with so many educators, and I, I'm curious about kind of the mindset shift of, I, whether it's going from, like, overwhelmed to, like, clear on how exactly to design curriculum that is justice-centered in social studies, or if it's, "I'm not sure about this," or if it's the kind of leader mindset shift around, like, how do we structurally support- Yeah this work? Like, what's a key mindset shift you've noticed in, in actually bringing to life some justice-centered curriculum in social studies? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Fantastic question, because you are right. There are numerous barriers to, um, to doing this comprehensively, to doing justice-oriented social studies curriculum. To do it sustainably c- uh, there, the, the barriers are plenty. Teachers are worried about, "Do I know enough?" I- they don't feel like their social studies curriculum was good enough, so they feel like, they often say, "How do I teach what I don't know? I know I need to teach counter-narratives, but how do I do that?" Um, and the, uh, the barriers of, yes, then of course there are many restrictive con- restrictive contexts, especially in our sociopolitical current state, that, um, people are really scared to even say the word equity or justice in some spaces. Um, then there's the organizational fragmentation. You know, okay, so I could go on and on about all... It- I just wanna validate that those are real challenges, and it's, I don't want teachers to feel like, "I'm not doing this, so there's must be a problem with me," or, "I'm not committed enough," or, you know, I, I don't actually think that this is a, um, teacher commitment issue. It's a, um, I mean, it can be in some, but most teachers really do want their students to make, to, to, they want to provide a, a responsible, engaging, and comprehensive multiple perspectives type of, of social studies curriculum, but they just are, like, really scattered on how to do it. Um, so a mindset shift in term- in terms of, um, well, with the teachers that I worked with- They had this commitment to justice and equity and, um, and diversity and inclusion and everything. But what they were saying was they needed, they, they... When they expressed their scatteredness, their, their insecurities, their challenges, and then I said, "Okay, what would it take? What would it take to make you feel confident?" Um, and they, these were teachers, this was like a small team of teachers who were, um, writing, they were preparing to write, re- overhaul the elementary social studies curriculum in their, in their district, and they felt ill-equipped in the beginning. Um, they felt like, you know, emotionally ready and... Except, but they just felt ill-equipped on a more practical level. So, um, you know, I said, "What, what would, what would it take?" And they kind of identified four things. That's, they identified four things that it would take to, like, get them to actually put it into action. They needed a framework. They needed a guiding tool, some kind of guiding tool, uh, that, number one, was actually guided, which was actually grounded in critical theory, that was truly equity-oriented, and not really, 'cause there's a lot... Like, like, again, like what does that mean? Um, number two, it had to be transferable across identities, topics, and disciplines. So even though they, I was, had, I had previously been introducing a lot of identity-specific frameworks for, like, how to teach Black history, how to teach indigenous history, how to teach, um, like, uh, something specific within civics or geography. You know, they, they were like, "These are all great, but, like, our standards and our resources, they don't just teach everything in isolation with these topics or identities." I mean, some standards literally say, "What is the, you know, what was the interaction between this group, this group, and this group?" You know? So you can't just... So there were a lot of questions like, "Does this Black history framework transfer to the Asian American history?" You know, like, it's, like, it was, um... So they n- they, uh, desired some sort of, um, overarching framework that was iden- was transferable across identities. Um, number two, uh, number three was, um, they wanted it to be sequence sensitive. They felt as if a lot of, um, I don't know, uh, leaders and administrators would kind of, like, um, like, kind of put down their desire for s- scopes and sequences, um, for be- 'cause it sounded like when they were saying, "We want a scope and sequence," I think they thought the administrators were hearing, "We want scripts. We just wanna be told what to do." But they were like, "No, it's not that we just wanna be told what to do, but we also- What we are doing here with history education is filled with trauma and depressing topics and, um, very, the, the topics that could traumatize students in our classroom. If we don't do this right, if we don't think about the order in which we are discussing these topics, we could cause a lot of trauma. So, we don't need a step-by-step checklist, we don't need scripted curriculum, but we do want this framework, this guiding framework, to be sensitive to sequencing and help us understand what comes first generally, what comes second, what comes third, what is important, um, when discussing especially really hard histories, um, or, or really any histories. Um, and then fourth, the fourth thing that they said this, this guiding framework would need was it would need to be emotionally balanced. So often they felt as if their social studies curriculum was either really depressing, so if they were talking about something depressing, they felt like bad that they could be causing some trauma for kids in the room. It was just, you know, that's not a good feeling to, you know. But they also felt like as soon as they got out of the more, quote-unquote, again, depressing or the oppression stuff, they felt as if they were maybe like whitewashing things. Like, they c- they, they couldn't-- They felt like they know joy is important, so they would go into the joy stuff. But then as soon as they were in the joy stuff, they felt like, "Oh, no, we're like, uh, are we- am I becoming one of those teachers that doesn't like, you know, really confront and interrogate the oppression involved here? Like, is this too joyous?" So, they just felt back and forth like they couldn't find. So, they said, "We would really appreciate some emotional balance across this guiding framework." Um, so yeah. So, those are the four things that I set out to, um, to accompli- to, to, to, to implement into this guiding framework. And, you know, fast-forward a year later or say months and months later, we, uh, together with the teachers, but me going back and forth between scholarship and working im- implementing the POWER framework with the teachers, um, we came up with, with, with the POWER framework. It, um, stands for different words. Um, but each, in each letter, each word, each word started with a different word at the beginning of the year with me implementing it with the teachers, and then over the course of a year, it sort of evolved, and some of the words changed. Um, because sometimes when you plan s- when you plan a framework with just scholarship, it doesn't necessarily work exactly As, as you would think it would when you put it into implementation, or the way teachers interpret different critical concepts might be different when you actually... So the words matter. The words matter a lot, and they shifted over time, but I- we ended up coming up with the, um, five dimensions that we felt, um, pretty good about in terms of this sequence sensitive, transferable, emotionally balanced, critically grounded framework. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, okay. I'm really excited to dive into this. Quickly- Okay ... I just wanna say, I think for anyone who feels like they're not quite at the space where your educators were, the ones you were working with who were thinking all these great thoughts- Yeah ... that is such a beautiful cue to be like, "Here are the important considerations." Like, all of these things you listed, right? The fact that it should be grounded in critical theory. It should be, like, kind of content agnostic, and, like, a f- the vertical alignment possibilities there is really cool. Uh, like, it, it should sequence to decrease traumatic impact, right? And it should be em- emotionally balanced with oppression and joy, and, and considering the whole spectrum of, of human emotion. Like, I just- Yeah ... it's so good. Like, just, just that. Thank you. That's amazing. I- So I would love to, to actually get into the POWER framework, if you wanna just take us there- Yeah ... and tell us- I Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: would love to ... Lindsay Lyons: what it's part... Okay, great. Go for it. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Okay. So the POWER framework, um, stands for... The P stands for presence and personhood, the O stands for oppression and opposition, the W stands for wisdom and wit, the E stands for entanglements and empowerment, and the R stands for relevance and responsibility. And one of the most common questions I get is, like, "Okay, does this framework, does this guide, like, one unit, one lesson, one, like, the whole entire year?" And the answer is yes, yes, yes, it can do any of those things. Um, the way that I tend to use it is I take, you know, any piece of curriculum, whether it is year-long overview or a one children's book or one unit. I am just sort of searching for those pieces. These, so, you know, there are five dimensions, but then two components within each dimension kind of that are intricately cannot be separated sort of. Um, and so I am, yeah, looking for those pieces. And, and the way that I use it is not, like, to, um, necessarily, again, script something, but to search for what's missing. And then say, "Oh, well, okay, you know, you have r- r- you're really strong with these components, but then one component, you know, let's say wisdom and wit, we're missing, so let's what, what can we add in there?" Um, but not every single lesson or every single unit- Can cover all five. Some do. Some, um, you know, some children's books can cover all five. Some children's books are really heavy on the P or the O or the R. Okay, so let's get into what these all mean. Okay, so the, the, the P, um, presence and personhood. Presence and personhood dimension acknowledges the presence and explores the personhood of students and those in the curriculum with dignified asset-oriented origin stories. So one of the most common pitfalls, especially in elementary social studies education, is the first time that children see Black and brown people in the official curriculum is through slavery, is they are in slave- they are in chains. We know through research, we know through all of the experience, we know that this is a bad, this is a traumatic thing for students. It's also just providing a very inaccurate, uh, picture of history, of human history, that as if, like, this is where Black history began. So, um, one of the most important things to do is, um, to, uh, the P is... I almost made the P just the word positive, but that doesn't really work. But it's we have to affirm humanity, identity, culture, lived experience, joy, genius before harm and oppression. We need to center, um, the voices of marginalized people the way that they want to be introduced. Um, stories of, um- It, we, we want, we, you know, we want the curriculum to not begin with harm or deficiency, disruption, um, but we want to affirm that communities have always existed, created, and sustained life beyond domination, and that children enter classrooms as full people already possessing dignity, complexity, agency. Um, so it's about really grounding all of our curriculum in humanity before critique. And it's hard, especially for really justice-oriented teachers. They have actually a really hard time getting away from the oppression stuff. Yeah, I, I can't tell you how many times where I'm like, "This book is great. It's beautiful. But look, there are like three pages all about oppression, and this is the first week of school, like, or the third week of school." Like, it's too early. It's, it, it's, it's... You know, so let's, let's, let's read this book, or even just read part of the book. Read the parts that you want. But, um, we really need to make sure that it doesn't seep in. And I think that's really... So presence of person, what I'm really talking about is identity, you know? Identity exploration. And oftentimes we think, oh, identity exploration, we, espe- uh, justice centr- justice-centered educators want to get into intersectional identity. And by definition, intersectionality is really about intersection with oppression. And so we have to put on some brakes, and we have to really, um, think deeper about, um- What can, how can we s- how can we get into students' identities and the identities of people that we're going to see in the curriculum without bringing oppression in, in, um, in an explicit way? So examples of that are, like, you know, for little guys K through 2, um, like, um, identity poems, um, sharing, um, like, their name stories, um, maybe, um, mapping important places in students' lives. Um, and you know, like, if they go deep, they're gonna go deep, that's fine. But we don't need to push that. Like, "Tell me about your racial history," like, right away, you know, right in the beginning of the school year. Um, yeah, so but just, like, celebrate, you know, the showing, making su- bringing families into the classroom, talking about their language, their culture. Um, and yeah, there's a lot of ways to explore the students' his- identities without centering oppression. And then with spec- since I brought up the example of slavery, you know, really starting with ancient Afri- starting before enslavement happened. And there are some phenomenal story, books out there, um, that... There's one set, one author, um, her work can be found on, um, ourancestries.com and they're these beautiful children's books that tell stories about ancient, um, ancient African leaders, mostly, um, kings and queens, but also just, um, different leaders. But they, they're told, uh, the stories are told about when they're, when they're little children, and so, um, and they're just experiencing life. It's just a, it's a story about, that any kid could relate to. Um, like, "My dad wouldn't let me do this, and so I did that." And, and so- And then, so a lot of the cur- units that I wrote with teachers to start out, um, was with these kinds of books, and it was cool because the students could see their own identities in the stories, but and then all of a sudden they're like, "Oh my gosh, like my identity has something to do with ancient history?" Like, like this is... Yeah, so it, um, I really like those, those stories. But there's obviously a lot of ways to, um, explore official historical or social studies education without oppression first. But that's... Do you have any questions about the presence and personhood, um, Lindsay Lyons: dimension? No questions. Okay. Just like- Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Let's- Lindsay Lyons: like incredible awe and like gratitude- ... I guess for you- Aw ... taking all of this theory and, and, and recognizing what happens in practice often as like something that shouldn't happen in practice, and we know we wanna do differently, and here's how to do it, and here's concrete examples. It's just- Yeah amazing. Thank you. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: That is one of the things in critical theory, and that's how I came up with this framework, was I studied all of the critical theories and synthesized them, coded them, and like hundreds and hundreds of them, of components within all these critical theories and, um, and synthesized them into these, you know, five themes. Theme, um, but I do- didn't find a lot of like components of critical theories that said, "Don't start with oppression." You know, they, that, that's a, a pedagogical thing that I had to bring in. Um, they just, there isn't a lot of order that is attended to, so, um, thank you for, for recognizing that. We, it's, yeah, it's, um, again, like just n- sometimes it's assumed, I think, but also sometimes I think, um, it's just not where the scholars' brains are. That's just not... Yeah. Um, okay, so you ready for the O? Lindsay Lyons: Yes, let's do Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: it. Okay. So the O, uh, stands for oppression and opposition. Originally, I had O standing for just oppression, and then the W was like, um, willpower or something that meant like resistance. And then I realized over time that in practice- If you're, it- when teachers started thinking, "Okay, I have to read this book up and just center on oppression," that's when we got into that really icky place where we're trying to separate emotion, and it's really impossible. Like, because there has never been oppression without resistance, and so we need to really teach those together. Um, there are, like the Teaching Hard History standards say that, you know, very explicitly. Um, but the theories about teaching about oppr- about oppression itself and interrogating power don't talk about that importance of teaching oppression and resistance together. So it was really about, you know, bringing the theory and the curricular pedagogical work together. So that's why oppression and opposition, they... So we examine systems of oppression and resistance together. It means investigating how oppression operates through institutions, policies, ideologies, cultural norms, and at the same time, centering resistance, refusal, critique, counter-narratives alongside that harm, and reiterating over and over that oppression has never gone unchallenged. Um, I think that, uh, yeah, I think it's easy to just get stuck into one or the other, but w- the reality is, is that they're intertwined. Um, but, and then I have a lot of things that I could say that I talk about when doing workshops with teachers about, you know, age-appropriateness with the oppression pieces especially. Um, but I think, I think what I've found is teachers feel a little bit more comfortable doing the oppression part knowing that the opposition is right there with them, and, like, th- then it doesn't feel as, like when, when, if you're just expected to just teach this, like to really let's, let's, let's examine this, you know, white dominance, um, or the, you know, it's like very sticky. But if you're talking about it as resist- with resistance, it's okay. But also, we don't wanna just talk about resistance We need to also examine the oppressors. So it's a balance, um, definitely. Do you have any specific questions about that? I, I, I mean, there's a lot of examples of what you can do. You know, with the little guys starting out, you can talk about, like, you can ask them about rules and if they think that there are any unfair rules, and, um, notice whose voices are included or excluded in stories. And, um, you know, they do understand. They can understand bias and stereotypes and those kinds of things. Um, and then, like, um, you know, for older students, older elementary students, you can really get a little deeper into analyzing unfair laws or just policies over time and, um, and how schools have... Uh, I, I often talk about it within the context of schools because it's so, you know, uh, familiar to them. But, um, yeah, like how language, EDL, uh, lang- lang- certain languages were excluded and then how they have been welcomed. And, you know, there's a lot of different ways and a lot of, lot of different books. I have lots of book lists of, like- Books that, um, can teach about oppression within these different identity groups. Um, I have books for every dimension of the power framework at different grade levels, in other words. But, um, but yes, so, um, oppression, opposition is, I think most people know that if you're gonna talk, do justice-oriented curriculum, you can't, like it cannot exist without discussing oppression. And, um, that's, that, that is not discussing oppression, that would be turning a major blind eye to reality and history and yes. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Thank you for elaborating the age appropriateness. I feel like I get that question a lot from educators. Mm-hmm. And I have also seen, I think in some of your resources on your site, just the acknowledgement that like, yes, we can talk about oppression when kids are young, it just might look different. And so- Oh, yeah ... I love that you just named for us some clear examples. So I think that will alleviate some of the questions the audience might be having. So I really- Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Yes, yes, yes ... value that I have so many things I'd love to share. I love starting-- I have some preventive da- like some, the, the biggest fear a lot of teachers have is that, um, well, one of the biggest fears when they're concerned about the students in the room. I mean, yes, there's the fear of backlash and la-la. But the teachers who, you know, really most teachers have a big heart, and they just wanna take care of their students. And they might have, in, in least the, the context that I've worked in, there's usually like the, there's a majority of white students in the room, and then there are a handful, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven teacher, s- students who are Black or brown or come from some kind of marginalized, historically marginalized community. And teachers are so terrified that the first, that, that they will say something about the oppressive history, and all the students in the room will, their heads will turn and look at that one to four students. And they'll say things like, "So wait a minute, then, like so and so wouldn't be able to go to school with us?" You know, say these off- these things that are just really, um- Hard to respond to and could be traumatizing and stuff. So, um, I, I, I want to validate that concern and be thankful that people are concerned thinking about those, those students. That is who we should be thinking about. But, um, I do have a lot of ideas and ways, strategies on how to prevent that from happening. Um, specifically practicing it with dolls, but, but about... So, so bringing in a doll that maybe if, if you... that has an identity from a historically marginalized group, but that isn't in the room. So like maybe, um, a doll, if you don't have any children with hijabs or Mu- Muslim, then you bring in a doll with a hijab. Or you bring in a doll with, that, if you don't have any students who have Down syndrome, then you bring in a doll with Down syndrome. And then you say, like, and then you practice, like, "Okay, we're gonna about to read this book about this. How might we treat this doll, like this, if this was a student in the room?" And, um, that's just one little idea. I could talk about the age appropriateness thing for a very long time. So I don't wanna get too sidetracked. But I mean, it makes sense that it comes up in the oppression dimension of the power framework, 'cause that is, that's the hardest and Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. I also wanna recognize your time. Do you have time- Yeah ... to continue? We can make this- I do ... into a two-part episode if you want. Okay. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Absolutely, yes. No, I, I have plenty of time. Lindsay Lyons: Okay, perfect. Let's do that, and then let's aim for, like, uh, 1:45 at the latest. Does that work? Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: I... Yes, yes. At the very latest, yes. I do have to... I have a train to catch at 3:15, um- Ooh, yeah, okay I'm going to Kansas City, but I'm- it's fine. I just, uh... Yes, 1... Maybe 1:30? I don't know. Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Let's do it. Okay. Dr. Genevieve Erker Caffrey: Okay, yes. I'll write it down. No, but I'm thrilled that you want to hear all of this. That's very Lindsay Lyons: exciting. I do. I- it's amazing. Thank you. 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode, host Lindsay talks about discourse as change leadership. She dives into the research-backed best practices and theoretical frameworks that help drive meaningful change, especially when facing staff resistance.
Drawing on the work of Jon Wergin and adaptive leadership scholars like Heifetz, Lindsay emphasizes the importance of constructive disorientation and staff-led discourse to address resistance and foster sustainable change. Why? Adaptive challenges, as defined by Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky, are “ typically grounded in the complexity of beliefs, values, and loyalties rather than the technical complexity and stir up intense emotions rather than dispassionate analysis." To then address these multi-faceted challenges, educators and teams must bring empathy and strategic discourse to their problem-solving efforts, rather than technical methods alone. Ignoring the intense emotions that come up only does a disservice to your team in finding meaningful solutions. What? When faced with adaptive challenges — or “messy” challenges, as Lindsay calls them — comes down to having a plan that enables leaders to lead with confidence, honor staff humanity, and stay true to the pursuit of educational justice in the face of resistance. Here are some tips that will help you begin this process:
Lindsay dives into all of these tips, using scholarly research to back up best practices for leaders and teams. And, remember, investing in this work not only helps address the current adaptive challenge at hand, but also builds capacity to address new ones in the future. Final Tip Align assessments with the organizational values of growth and risk-taking so that teachers and educators are not penalized for prioritizing change and new ideas. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Reframing Discussion Prompts with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 267 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
Lindsay Lyons: To another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 267, and today we're talking about discourse as change leadership. So how do you respond when your staff resists change? We've done some blog posts and podcast episodes before on this topic, but really wanna bring it back to a blog post, um, and kinda synthesize some other things as well. But mainly, this episode is thinking more deeply about a blog post written in 2020, which is based on the work of John Morgan, who was one of my professors at Antioch University in the leadership and change program, who talks about constructive disorientation. And so constructive disorientation and staff-led discourse can help address resistance in a humanizing way and craft a better path towards sustainable change. Let's think together about how to do this. Here we go Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky say, quote, "Adaptive challenges are typically grounded in the complexity of beliefs, values, and loyalties rather than the technical complexity and stir up intense emotions rather than dispassionate analysis." End quote. I have said that quote so many times, but it's still so good. So whether you're leading a school turnaround effort, pursuing equity and belonging amidst harmful political discourse, or maybe implementing a new high-quality instructional material, change is hard. And if you're dealing with a long-standing challenge, it's likely adaptive, and adaptive challenges are gonna require an adaptive approach. We talked a few episodes ago how discourse is really critical to addressing a lot of, uh, change leadership and adaptive challenges. And having that clear approach, like, "What am I gonna do?" Having that plan when you are faced with a messy challenge is going to enable you as a leader to lead with confidence, honor staff humanity, and stay true to the pursuit of educational justice in the face of resistance. When faced with a disorienting dilemma, which is when our experience doesn't fit with our expectations or beliefs. So for example, we encounter evidence that our way of teaching has not improved student learning, right? We're like, "Oh, like I think I'm a good teacher. That is in my head. I think this is the way to teach." However, I'm noticing that none of my students, uh, improved, you know, whatever it is, their critical thinking or their reading scores or whatever that thing is. When we encounter that disorienting dilemma, research tells us that we actually learn best in the presence of others, when we can try on others' perspectives. So facilitating emotional conversations about change is gonna require intentional structure. So if it's like, "Oh, we gotta talk to people about this to be able to do this well. Okay, well, that's hard. How do we structure it?" When we have purpose-specific discourse protocols and a lot of the foundation and context built up around this, um, we can build capacity to both plan the structure to respond in the case of, uh, maybe a deficit-based comment or a conversational detour, um, we're gonna feel ready for leading change. So my goals for the episode, this is a little ambitious, but we are gonna try to, um, first, I guess, recognize that adaptive challenges require human-centric responses, and the diverse ideas of staff are actually what enable effective change. Also want you to hopefully have a spark of an idea for how to actually create that constructive disorientation for your staff, like how to facilitate it. Um, W-Worgan defines, just so you know his definition, he defines constructive disorientation as, quote, "An experience that unsettles us and sparks our curiosity both at once, and does so in a way that we perceive an opportunity to change how we see the world and for the better." I think there's a lot of, like, inviting stakeholder stories and values and imagination here. I also would invite you to consider how you might plan for a structured generative discourse opportunities, and maybe get an idea for how you wanna respond if a, like, a harmful comment or, like, a deficit thinking comment comes up in staff conversations. Okay, so let's think about what we do. Number one, I think we have to identify that we're working with an adaptive challenge, right? You likely already know this, but be open to what the problem is, really digging deeper than only looking at the technical issues. This is where we're gonna find our disorienting dilemma, as Mezuro puts it, which is, like, the starting point for our change. So Heifetz, who is an adaptive leadership scholar, encourages leaders to ask socially relevant questions that force members to clarify their values and deeply consider outcomes of oppressive actions. So we have to kind of juxtapose, like, the reality, which is often, like, this isn't working or this is marginalizing a group of students or a student, right? With, like, what are the values? We gotta surface both of those. The factual reality, here's what's happening, it's not good, and what are the values that you hold as an educator, right? And then s- then often just surfacing those, um, may create kind of that disorienting dilemma. Um, Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky, I just saw the name, they liken the adaptive leadership model to evolutionary biology's concept of thriving, where they're saying, you know, the essential components are preserved. The unnecessary ones are discarded. A new arrangement facilitate resi- resilience to future changes. So investing in this work, I think this is important to name. Investing in this work is a, a really sustainable approach to not just dealing with the one issue in front of you, but creating a culture that is adaptive. Like, building capacity for everyone to lead and enact positive adaptive change. That's gonna serve you in the next adaptive challenge that comes up. Okay, so you've identified there's an adaptive challenge. You're starting to think about, you know, the disorienting dilemma. Step two, we gotta build the foundation, and specifically thinking here the social capital. So John Morgan says there is a direct correlation between the amount of social capital in an organization and the degree to which meaningful conversations can be had. So we have to. If we wanna have that discourse, which is critical, we need to up the amount of social capital. So regular community building, story sharing opportunities, sharing appreciations of one another. Like, I like that you did this. Uh, I saw you doing this. Great work. These can be little notes. They can be verbal. They can be at the end of the story sharing discussion. Um, but utilizing staff time for this is not a waste of time. It enables you to have the adaptive conversations when necessary as you pursue change. Um, I can link to the discussion resource bank I have around some pr- particular ideas, um, prompts, formats, things like that. But a simple one I often say to start with is just like what's the story of your name, right? This can be a great get to know you activity if you have new staff members, but it also is something that maybe other people have not shared yet. Another one, who's a person you value? Could be a superhero, could be a fictional person, could be a family member, could be a student, right? Like th- there are some quick prompts that you could do a circle discussion format for and just start to build that community All right, step kind of 2A perhaps. This is like another part of building the foundation. We gotta build the discourse foundation. So to enable stakeholders to reflect on their disorientation and listen to others' points of view with empathy, there needs to be a discourse foundation. So one, that has to be like, you know, we have to have some sort of shared goal. Literally, it could just be John Morgan says, like reminding everyone we're all here for kids, right? Like, we have to have like some lofty shared goal, and it doesn't need to be super specific, um, but shared goals are, are really a prerequisite. Ideological diversity and an openness to hear contributions from all members is a second necessity. So really, we need to identify, like deep listening or seeking to understand is a core discourse agreement. So if we're coming up with how we interact with one another, like we have to seek to understand, right? And, uh, we need to focus on, um, identifying those shared goals and underlying values, of course, before we debate how we're gonna move forward, what the policy is gonna be, right? We need to make those happen if we haven't already in, in the earlier step that we mentioned it. And the third thing we need is a collective responsibility for success, says Morgan. So that literally could just mean posing a question like, "What can I personally do to help us move forward as a school?" Sometimes in strategic planning, we have those locus of control tools or activities. Like this is basically that. You could ask a question, you could use that tool with like the, the bullseye framework or whatever, but we have to have this collective responsibility where no one is opting out. Like, okay, if the problem feels too big, yeah, what can you do though? Like, what is the thing that I can take on and, and commit to? Okay, step three, spark constructive disorientation. So this is John Worgan's term. We defined it earlier. There's a blog post I will link to in this blog post, um, the one from 2020. His tip is, like, make it clear, clear disorientation, but manageable. We gotta manage it. It can't be so overwhelming that people just opt out and shut down, right? Uh, Worgan says, quote, "We don't necessarily have to wait for a disorienting dilemma to hit us over the head and force us to pay attention," end quote. He suggests the practice of mindfulness or critical reflection can surface smaller kinds of disorientation. You know, a third source he says is, like, an aesthetic experience, so, like, a piece of art. Um, it could be student created. It could be, uh, created somewhere else. It doesn't have to be in your local community. He talks about, um, how this is a way for someone to try on the perspective of an artist at low risk to oneself, in his words. And so this could be, like, a Banksy painting or something, right? Like, some sort of, like, social, um, justice-oriented image. Uh, the example he gives is Kehinde Wiley's Rumors of War statue, which was installed down the road from Richard- Virginia's Monument Ave. So something that, like, just kind of is like, "Oh, right, these two things are in juxtaposition," that is, like, making me have this little constructive disorientation moment. Um, a, a tip I would have is, yeah, bringing in student ideas, whether that's student art, videos about their experience, quotes. If you bring students onto, like, a Kiva panel and have a live panel with them sharing to staff about their experiences or family members, this could cause some constructive disorientation as well. Um, also some traditional data, like assessment data, bringing that into the space, um, as I said at the top of the episode, that can also kind of jar. Like, "Oh, I thought I was doing right by students. Hmm." Scores are not going up, right? Like, oh, that could also create the disorientation as well. Okay, step four. Now we're ready to have a group dialogue. We have had the constructive disorientation moment. Now we need to, like, process it. And this, this disorienting dilemma is uncomfortable, and it has to be, because that's what moves us to action. So having a multi-stakeholder group dialogue about the adaptive challenge lets each person be open to new ideas and perspectives to solve it. Remember, that's what the research says. We have to be able to hear other people's ideas and perspectives to try them on in a, quote, "low-risk environment." So what do we do? We set the stage. Worgan says it's necessary to have a setting conducive to deep work so that teachers can deeply concentrate and not be distracted by logistical tasks like checking email, right? So if at all possible, we take all tasks off teachers' plates, and they need to be able to be supported to be present fully in the conversation. This might mean that we are doing this, you know, in the summertime perhaps. I, I don't know. This could be, uh, like we say, "Okay, well, grading is due this week, so we're not gonna do it this week. We're gonna postpone it to next week once grades have been submitted." Right? Like, whatever way that you can take some things off the plates and make sure that we have as much focus as possible given all the things, like, that's the goal here Then as the leader or the facilitator, you need to choose a purpose-aligned prompt and protocol. I find that dialogue works best at first, because the goal there is just seeking to understand and getting a lot of initial ideas out there. We're not analyzing, we're not making decisions. So prompts could be as simple as, "What's coming up for you? How are you feeling? What does this make you think of?" So we just, like, have sparked the disorientation, and now we're just like, "All right. How are you feeling? What's coming up? What do, what are you thinking about?" Right? Very informal, like, initial thoughts. Now, if we're more ... If we're further down, if we've already maybe done that, w- we might go to discussion, where we're a little more topic specific at this point. And you could do more of, like, a dialogue. We're still just kind of, like, listening and seeking to understand, um, and we're just starting to process maybe, uh, a little bit more analytically. You might use some of the reframing discussion prompts, um, that are in the resource linked for this episode's, uh, blog post. Those encourage you to shift out of the binary, this or this, because that supports kind of this attack and defend position, into other spaces. So one might be critical analysis. So we ask about potential impacts or root causes of an issue, right? So e- let's use an example. If we are initially inclined to say, "Okay, we're gonna have a discussion. The question is, should we adopt this new policy?" Instead, if we're thinking about critical analysis, we might say, "What might the impacts of this policy be?" So we roll this policy out, like what could happen, right? Critical analysis. We also could ask about, like, the root cause, right? Like, why, why is this factual reality, this par- this issue coming up? Like, what is the root? Policy could be another framing. So narrow the scope about how to address the factual reality. Some questions are already about policy. Like our sample one, how should we... Like, should we adopt this new policy? Instead could be turned into, how would we like our community to respond to this factual reality? So for example, if you have students who are, like, very into, like, I don't know, all of, like, the misogynistic, like, stuff. Like, h- how would we like our community to respond to hate speech, for example? Like, if this is a given in our community, we are grappling with this issue, how do we want our community to respond when this happens? Because it has, right? Whatever the ha- whatever the thing is. Like, insert factual reality there. How would we like our community to respond? It gives you a sense of, like, we're talking about policy, but we are way more expansive at this point than deciding, like, decision-making, right? That's a later stage. Deciding yes or no on a particular policy. We're still generating and thinking about ideas. You could also identify values. So invite participants to name their values and the community values that you all hold that should inform a policy or could inform a policy. So for example, should we adopt this new policy could get translated into What values would you want to inform our policy? Right? So again, we're speaking more from the "I." We're, we're being able to listen deeply to other people's ideas. A final pivot could be civic imagination, which is always a favorite of mine. So this is where we're inviting a brainstorm of alternative policies affirming dignity. So maybe we had this initial policy, and your thought was, "Okay, should we adopt this or not?" But instead you say, "Okay, how could we move forward in a way that advances our key values?" Right? And you could name the key values. So for example, if you're coming up with, um, like let's say you have kids who are, I don't know, wearing-- Let's just... This is not a good example, but, like, wearing headphones, and some people are saying, "Well, it's a safety issue. They need to be able to hear, you know, whatever in the hallway." And other people are saying, "Well, it's a freedom issue. Like, let kids just be expressive, and, like, what's the big deal? Like, you need them to have a little bit of autonomy in school where they have none." Right? If you have safety and freedom as two identified values that are in tension with one another around a particular policy or issue, your question could be, "How could we move forward in a way that advances both safety and freedom?" Right? And then insert whatever the key values that are in tension are at the end of that question. All right. Once you have figured out the prompt y- and the protocol, like are we doing a circle or are we doing small groups, and then are we journaling and then we're coming, right? Like whatever it is, you need to make sure that you are facilitating intentionally. So make sure we're gonna tell us to be aware of anxiety levels. We wanna keep people at the edge, but not let people fall over it, so they're just like completely overwhelmed, then shut down or, like, completely overwhelmed and, like, yelling, right? We want to maximize autonomy of participants as well, and everyone has different entry points and comfort zones around style of participation, and so we might provide different ways that teachers can participate in conversation. Examples, writing. Maybe we do a journaling activity, so it's completely private at first just to get ideas, right? Some think time. We might do a write around or a collected display where actually it will eventually be public, but it might be anonymous, and they're writing quietly and the verbalizing is not the, the method of communication. Then or/and addition, um, in addition to the writing, we could do a mix of maybe it's small group at first and then it goes whole group, or maybe it's just small group for a little while, or maybe it just goes straight to whole group. But you know your group, and you wanna make sure that you have a... Over the course, I always like to think, like, discourse is not one day. I think a lot about Matt Kay, who wrote Not Light But Fire, and he talks about threading a conversation. We can't just like have one conversation, uh, about a thing for the rest of, of eternity, right? We have to thread the conversation. So we're gonna come back to this discussion. Maybe one day it is writing in a small group conversation. The next day it is a whole group conversation and a small group conversation to debrief it or something. Um, a, a tip that working chairs is to Um, or was this my tip? Now I can't even read my notes. Embrace a human first approach that values the stories and emotions of students and their families. And so we wanna move beyond the off-the-shelf solutions to craft responsive initiatives. I think that's a blend of a lot of people. So, uh, Heifetz, again back to adaptive leadership, urges leaders to connect to members' hearts, not their heads, in order to elicit adaptive change. We cannot ignore the heart work and the feeling of this. We cannot just, like, intellectualize our way to a better solution to a highly emotional adaptive challenge. All right, and finally, step five. We wanna affirm learning and change behavior. So we are asking people to take big risks, right? We are asking them to change longstanding beliefs and loyalties and habits. That's hard. So we acknowledge the hard, we attend to the whole human, we think about the emotions, we respect and honor those, we give space for those, and we want to prompt participants to note how their thinking is shifting, right? I'm thinking a lot about Maria Nichols, um, and her work on, like, building ideas. And so she talks about students need to value different perspectives, and then the facilitator or the teacher in that case can nudge to be like, "How has your thinking changed?" And then students can have their own little disorienting dilemma like, "Oh my gosh, my thinking has not changed at all. I must need to seek out a new perspective," because their thinking should change and evolve. That's the point of talking to other people, right? So that is something that you can do, just nudge, "How has your thinking changed?" Right? Subtly encourage that valuing of different perspectives and have people seek them out. Highlight and validate when a participant evolves their thinking publicly. So if they verbally shifted, right, and they're like, "Oh, you know what? That made me think, actually, I do believe in this initiative," or whatever. Gr- oh my God, like, validate that. Be like, "Wow, that's incredible that you just took in new information and, like, shifted how you thought, and you, like, held it up against how your past thinking was and then you evolved your thinking. That's really cool." They might not do that publicly, but they might do it in other subtler ways that are not, like, verbal or they're not in that meeting. We also wanna highlight and validate that, right? We also wanna narrate when that's happening for us. So modeling is huge for discourse. That is very present in the research on discourse. Okay, encourage teachers to share their successes. So again, this is that positive deviance idea. Um, where is it working? If it's not working, it feels like it's not working anywhere, but it actually is working in one class. So, ugh, all ELA scores are down, or ELA scores are down for all of our multilingual learners except this one class. Actually, they are doing awesome. Okay, great. Like, what can we learn from that, right? It's not like I- I'm gonna discount right away if they're, like, different kids. I do not ever like that argument. Like, something is working here. What is working, right? Let's learn from it and try it out in other spaces. It might not work perfectly in other spaces. There might need to be some adaptation. But let's seek out the positive deviance. Where is it working? Or it might be even bigger, so our district scores are down. However, this school or this grade within the school is doing something right. Let's go visit them and figure out what it might be, or let's have them come to us and share some of their strategies, right? We wanna encourage that positive deviance, and we also want to encourage the people who are learning from that positive deviance to try things. Say, "Hey, this didn't work for me. I'm gonna try that, and I'm gonna report back the learning." That is huge, and so we wanna celebrate teachers for doing that and being committed to growth. We also wanna ensure that any teacher evaluations are aligned to that goal. So our evaluation rubric should be celebrating and commending informed risk-taking, not promoting the opposite, right? Not promoting compliance and rigidity. So we wanna measure what we actually value. If we say, "Hey, we value informed risk-taking. We want you to try this thing. We're gonna pursue change," we have to make sure that we're not penalizing that during evaluations. Okay. This was a very dense episode. Would love to hear your thoughts on how this is relevant for you, what your takeaways are, any tips to add. Would love to hear them. Feel free to comment on the blog post. Again, that is lindseybethlyons.com/blog/267. And again, the free resource for this episode that you can find there is the reframing discussion prompts resource. I am a firm believer that how we language the question up for discussion is critically important for how effective that discussion and discourse opportunity is. So that is a new resource. Please give me all the feedback on whether that feels helpful for you as a leader. Your staff can use it with students. Would love to get some feedback on that, 'cause that is, um, my new passion project, all things discourse. All right, until next time. 
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In this episode, we chat with Dr. Annalies Corbin about the nature of “wicked problems,” which are complex and multifaceted challenges without singular solutions. She emphasizes the importance of fostering agency among students and educators to promote engaged learning environments.
Additionally, Dr. Corbin highlights the significance of understanding and incorporating students’ cultural backgrounds and passions into teaching practices to create a lasting impact. The Big Dream Dr. Corbin envisions an educational system where students and educators discover their passions and find freedom in learning. Honoring our passions and our collective humanity will bring solutions that we’re often looking for. She believes that embracing individual interests and encouraging deep engagement can transform both the learning experience and the education system as a whole. Dr. Corbin is passionate about bridging research and practice to solve pressing educational challenges collaboratively. Mindset Shifts Required Dr. Corbin defines “wicked problems” as big, bold, complex, global problems that have many small pieces that are so intertwined and, because of that, there are numerous solutions. There are no singular solutions. They’re great for learning and teaching because they serve a societal need as we solve them. With this in mind, Dr. Corbin recognizes the necessity of shifting the mindset from traditional siloed education to an integrated, transdisciplinary approach. This requires educators to focus on the intertwining of systems and human aspects, considering broader socio-political dimensions when tackling educational problems. Action Steps When embracing your “wicked problems” and finding solutions that work in your context, Dr. Corbin recommends educators take these steps: Step 1: Invite your students to start thinking about something bigger than themselves. You start with something about the student — what matters and is relevant to them — and then expand it beyond themselves to bring the learning deeper. Step 2: Foster agency by inviting students to co-design learning experiences and engage them in collaborative problem-solving. When addressing something so big and broad, start with what you and your students are passionate about, engaging in it together. Step 3: Scaffold the collective set of experiences in your classroom by understanding your learners and their cultural contexts and incorporating those insights into the curriculum to make learning relevant. Step 4: Prioritize what Dr. Corbin calls the “five threads” of effective education practices: agency, cultural responsiveness, mastery, transdisciplinary teaching and learning (to stop teaching in siloes), and problem-based. The things that stick have those five elements. Challenges? One key challenge Dr. Corbin discusses the difficulty in transitioning from a disciplined school structure to a cohesive, transdisciplinary model. Often, educators are hesitant to leave the safety of subject silos due to systemic constraints, but when done, it leads to a more authentic learning environment that reflects real-world complexities. One Step to Get Started Begin by integrating agency in your classroom by giving students the opportunity to voice their ideas and choose how they wish to demonstrate their understanding. This approach not only empowers students but also begins to shift the educational culture towards one that values both learner autonomy and diverse paths to mastery. Stay Connected You can learn more about Dr. Corbin and her work on The Past Foundation website, or grab a copy of her book, Hacking School: 5 Strategies to Link Learning to Life. Stay connected by email at [email protected] or follow her on Instagram, X and LinkedIn. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing their page on The Past Foundation website with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 266 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
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Corbin, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Dr. Annalies Corbin: I am so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, I am, I'm really excited to dive in. So I certainly have on my mind some of the things that we corresponded, uh, about prior to this show. So thinking about, you know, wicked problems is on my mind. Mm-hmm. And thinking about the airing of this episode being right at the start of, of school for many places- Yes ... across the United States, and thinking about, you know, all the things that we talk about on the show, like a kind of a collaborative approach to learning and, and leading, and just our capacity for resiliency, I think has been of great interest to the podcast recently. So those are the things on my mind as we enter this conversation. Is there anything that you have on your mind that you wanna share to frame the conversation today? Dr. Annalies Corbin: No, but I think that that's perfect timing. Actually, just before our conversation here, I've been editing three years' worth of research that we're getting ready to, to let go of, and we talk about these very things as so impactful and how we can actually see them be the things that move the needle. So I'm really excited to talk about it. I think the timing's perfect, so yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, that's perfect. And I am such a research nerd, so I'm very excited. Yeah. Like, the fusion of research and practice will be a great thing. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Exactly, exactly. Lindsay Lyons: So I guess big dream-wise- Mm-hmm ... so thinking of the idea of freedom dreaming, Dr. Bettina Love talks about it as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. Mm-hmm. And I'm curious to know what that big dream is that you hold for education. Dr. Annalies Corbin: So for me, it's all about, you know, students and educators finding their passion, finding the freedom in learning, right? Just the act of engaging very deeply and spending time, energy, and effort in the things that I'm curious about, that I'm interested in, and that I can then translate whatever that happens to be that I have the opportunity to dig deeply into, into who I am and why it's meaningful to me. And we have to do that both for our learners and for our teachers, right? We have to allow that freedom of expression, and it's not just one or the other. And oftentimes the conversations are about, "Oh, well this is broken," or, "It's so-and-so's fault," or, "This is about, you know, this issue." And the reality is it's, there's systems issues that we're working on collectively and collaboratively, but sometimes when we roll up our sleeves and we do that deep and meaningful work, I think that we forget, we forget about the humans in the middle of all of this. And that if we just honor those passions, that humanity upfront, it would actually solve many of the things that we're working on. Which is why I like wicked problems to come full circle to how we started this conversation, so. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, maybe now would be a good time to define wicked problems. Do you mind going into that for us? Dr. Annalies Corbin: Sure, sure. And I, and again, I love, love, love the idea of wicked problems, and I do feel like the, the global education system is a, is a, is a big old giant, hairy, audacious, wicked problem, right? Um, so wicked problems are problems that are big, they're complex, they're bold, they're incredibly meaningful, um, because they stretch literally across a collective set of ethos, or I like to say they're planet wide, they're global. And they have numerous solutions because they're so complex. They've got all these small pieces and parts that are all intertwined, and I can solve for one of those. If I'm super lucky, I can solve for one of those. And the other thing is, a wicked problem doesn't have a singular solution. That does not exist, and that's the beauty of them, right? Because solutions have to be tailored to the place in which the problem you're trying to solve is going to be applied. And if we don't do that, then it's not gonna work. It might work for me, but it's not gonna work for you clear on the other side of the world or in another neighborhood even. I mean, they can be close proximity and still not work because we haven't collectively, um, internalized the culture, the community, the environment, the constraints, the joys in which that solution is going to sit. So wicked problems are fabulous. They're great learning, they're great teaching, and honestly, they, they, they serve a societal need. We solve a thing that needs to be solved. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you for that definition. I often think of adaptive challenges, and I've heard these- Mm-hmm ... used interchangeably. Is there a distinction there, or can those be used interchangeably? Dr. Annalies Corbin: They can be used interchangeably, but I do think that you have to be mindful, because whatever somebody has in their head, you just need to understand that as the outset, right, of the way you're going to approach it. But, but the reality is, the wicked problem also, I think, and this is my opinion, has one sort of step back, right? And that step back for me is that it's really comprehensive of recognizing that there's often this massive sort of policy, geopolitical, sort of s- systems-driven thing. It's so, it's, it's not just about the human, right? It's about all of the interplay of the bigger, broader systems piece. So that's the other reason why I sometimes will, will think of the wicked problem as just being one step removed. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, I love that. Okay, now I'm gonna be all about wicked problems. 'Cause we can't disintegr- or dis- aggregate the system- Correct ... from the human, right? Yeah. Dr. Annalies Corbin: You... And, and every time we try, that's when we bump up against these really giant roadblocks. And those are real roadblocks, right? But if we would step back from them and re-sort or evaluate the way that we're thinking about or even seeing it as a roadblock, and again, we connect the system and the humans with the environment, with the geopolitical, with, you know... If we, if we design or try to problem solve with all of those elements in mind from the get-go, we will see a very different picture, and the narrative, the narrative and the journey that goes with that narrative will be very different Lindsay Lyons: Okay, this is really cool. So now I'm thinking about, I usually ask about mindset. So you kind of touched on, you know, you have to approach it in this particular way. Is there- Mm-hmm ... some advice you could offer us or, like, a, a question or prompt- Mm-hmm ... that kind of cues people to think about things in this way that would lead them to be successful with a wicked problem? Dr. Annalies Corbin: Yeah, so I would tell, I, and I tell teachers this all the time. So as you're getting ready to, to go down one of these roads, and let's just, um, use one that's simple that everybody talks about, either sustainability or the environment, right? Whatever, right? You know, that favorite salamander in the pond down the street is suddenly disappearing, right? So your conversation with those kiddos needs to start with somebody else, right? Because this is that big sort of global skill. We're always constantly trying to relate the content, what it is that we're doing to our kids, and at the end of the day, that is absolutely necessary, and it needs to be foundational. But if we really want our kids to work on something that's much, much, much deeper, we have to get them to think beyond themselves really quickly. The easiest way to do that is to say, "Hey, you know, we're about to lose the salamander in our pond on the edge of our elementary campus here. How do you think that that's gonna make the kid in the next state over feel? What do you think somebody else would think about that?" And that cues that sort of, I'm going to really think about something that's a little bit bigger than just me. And, you know, as a great educator, we're gonna bring it right back to the kids in our classroom as quickly as we can because that's gonna then give them the reason why they care about it, right? You start with the thing that's about the kid, but you immediately take it someplace else, and you bring it right back to do the work Lindsay Lyons: Oh, that's really cool. I like that it's, it's a both/and, right? That you Dr. Annalies Corbin: were- Exactly, yes. Yeah, yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Okay. This is super helpful, and super tangible- Mm-hmm ... 'cause anyone can apply that as- Dr. Annalies Corbin: Right ... Lindsay Lyons: to whatever lesson. Okay. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Great. So I love how tangible that was, and I'm wondering if there are other tangible kind of actions that teachers or even leaders- Mm-hmm um, can take as we encounter wicked problems in education systems or in, in lessons delivered to children. Like- Dr. Annalies Corbin: Sure ... Lindsay Lyons: yeah. Dr. Annalies Corbin: So one of the things that I will often talk with educators about, especially educators that are... Like, they're frustrated or they're tired. I mean, our incredible teachers are exhausted, absolutely exhausted right now. And so one of the things I hear from them frequently is, like, you know, "I really wanna change what's happening. Perhaps, you know, I don't really like this lesson," or, "My district has chosen this particular curriculum, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't... I'm not excited about it. My kids aren't excited about it." And I will often tell folks, and this is, this relates to the wicked problem because when we're gonna tackle something that's so big, so broad, so overly meaningful, it's really, really important that we, we, we tag it to something that matters to us. And so I will use the phrase teach your passion or help your kids find the things they love. What's their passion? So whatever that thing happens to be, tie it back to something that you care about because as soon as you care about it, your kids will care about it, right? And so I always want people to start there. Yes, I have to teach this unit about X, and I'm, you know, I'm interested in it. It's in my topic area. I trained for this. But do I love it? Maybe not. So how could I translate that into something that I love so that I can lead with the enthusiasm and the wonder that I wanna model for my students? They will pick up on that Lindsay Lyons: That makes so much sense. And I, I'm thinking about topics that if I were to teach them and be like, "Hmm, I don't..." I- if I could- Yeah ... connect it to my passion for like criticality and like- Yeah ... collective justice, right? Like, it would always make every single thing better and more interesting to me, and like- Dr. Annalies Corbin: Exactly. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, love Dr. Annalies Corbin: it. Exactly. And then the other thing that you're doing when we're doing that is you are fostering agency. And we know that classrooms that lead with agency, the, the level of engagement in those environments is, is exponential, right? There's so much incredible research that shows that, and yet we are often back to that wicked problem. The system that we're functioning in often does not let us either incorporate or honor or celebrate agency in ways that, as a practitioner on the ground, we know is just gonna make it all better. So by sort of s- shifting that narrative again, it's that journey we talked about earlier, let's shift the narrative a little bit so that you can in fact pull those things in even under the constraints that you have. What might it look like? It could be small. Doesn't have to be huge. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, that makes me think of, you know, the intertwined nature of all this stuff, too. Right. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Mm-hmm. Y- Lindsay Lyons: you started at the top of the episode really talking about how wicked problems have no like one clear solution, and we have to have- Mm-hmm. Right? I think about adaptive challenges all the time. We're talking about the community members in that community working to offer the solution. Correct. And so how are we not leveraging the brilliance of the students and the teachers in these educational systems to adjust the system? Dr. Annalies Corbin: Right. Lindsay Lyons: Mm-hmm. And how do we design that system to be more, you know, offer more agency, provide more opportunities for agency? Is there any insight you have around how we do o- offer opportunities to kind of co-construct or, or collaborate to find those solutions and ways forward? Dr. Annalies Corbin: Yeah. Well, I get to ask this question a lot as well, and what I could tell you is that every opportunity that you get as an educator to sit down and co-design with your students, take it, right? I mean, it can be as simple as, "Hey, you know, we need..." I'm just gonna choose a very generic, we study the solar system K through 20, right? Um, it comes up over and over again, right? So whatever, whatever area I have to touch, where- wherever we are in that progression of my students, high school students, middle school students, elementary students, we're looking at that. You know, sit down and start with a simple question to your students, right, that is related to that lesson or that unit that I have to teach, and ask them what they know. And if it's crickets that you get, which sometimes it is, and it's not really because they don't know. We all know that. It's because they don't want to say, right, oftentimes, especially as our kiddos get a little bit older. Um, and so, you know, as we think about some of those things, you know, if we just step back and ask what we know, and when we don't know, just grab one of the things we have to touch on and say, "Okay, we have to learn about this. How would you propose we get there?" That's agency, right? And it doesn't t- you know, have to stray you too far. Other educators who are really, really comfortable with that co-design, man, it's as simple as here's the standard I have to hit, here's the topic we're trying to explore, here's how, you know, it's going to play a role in our bigger universal sort of queries that we're engaged in with it, whatever the topic or subject area happens to be. How are we gonna get there? What do you wanna demonstrate? What are you gonna show me? What do you wanna learn? And then, you know, those, those students are y- they're really learner-centered, right? They're student-directed in their entirety, and that's really, really freeing. But we have to scaffold not just our students, but we have to scaffold ourselves, and we have to scaffold our community to be willing to take and embrace that type of instruction Lindsay Lyons: For sure, right? 'Cause it's, it's totally a different way of teaching than many educators themselves were taught, right? So there's a shift. Correct. Correct. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: Right. And I'm also thinking about all the work, uh, that I've been doing with history teachers in an inquiry pedagogy around- Yep ... like, how do you, when you launch a question or an inquiry cycle, and you say, "Okay, what questions do you have?" And then there's crickets, right? To your point- Right. Mm-hmm ... sometimes it is just, "I've never been asked, so I'm, I'm nervous to even say, 'cause that's not a typical question I get." Right. Right. But also, how are we scaffolding, to your point, right, of can we connect to background information? Can we leverage the experience that's already in the room, and can we expand- Dr. Annalies Corbin: Right. Right ... Lindsay Lyons: our connection, our connections. Yeah. So I think there's so much pedagogical, like, scaffolding that we can do as teachers to present that to students, but it's the possibility that you're painting is very exciting, that it happens. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Sure. Lindsay Lyons: People are doing it. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Yeah. And, you know, there's all kinds of strategies, right, which is a completely different conversation. But there's all kinds of strategies to get students to engage in conversation, right? So if you've got a room of crickets, right, there's lots of things that you can do to sort of change that dynamic. And if you use those tools on a regular basis, your students will just get used to this is how this is gonna work, and we're going to engage, right? Because the individual teacher is not gonna let up until suddenly there's, there's a room filled with, you know, amazing conversation. So again, those are those little scaffolded opportunities, but they grow agency. Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And I think another related thing, I think, is the kind of culture of appropriate levels of challenge, and what we do- Mm-hmm to coach resiliency in classes. Yeah. Right? Because if I'm a leader that says, "Okay, I want all of my teachers to make sure there's student-led conversations- Right ... and, you know, the students have all this agency," and then there's this challenge they're confronted with. The go-to for my classroom was always like, "Miss, Miss," you know? And I would have to run over and support. Right. And then I realized that's not helpful. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. We can coach resiliency. So can you tell us a little bit about, about that, about how that works or what we can do to, to grow resilience or how that's connected to what we've been talking about? Dr. Annalies Corbin: You know, again, I think the, the, the scaffolding is really important, right? And I also think that the other, the other thing is making sure that we know who our learners are. That's part of agency, but it's also part of that cultural responsiveness, um, that as an educator we also wanna roll in. Um, you know, and so- Some of that is we have to scaffold the collective set of experiences. It's not so-- You know, it's not scaffolding one thing or another. It's not, you know, transitioning my classroom to be entirely problem-based pedagogy, for example, right? That's big. That's a huge, huge lift, right? Especially if all I do all the time is nothing but wicked problems. That's, that's a lot. It can be overwhelming for everybody involved. So I think that the, the, the, the really key is to say, "We're gonna take this in bite size." Is we're gonna start by knowing who am I learned... Who's in this class? Who's, who's sitting in front of me? Who am I trying, um, to be that facilitator of learning for? Um, and if I understand who's, who's in here with me, right, then we can start to build the small building blocks that will lead to resilience. But if we just l- l- leap in, you know, o- one big thing, too many, it, it'll crash and burn really hard. I, I always tell people, you know, I-- Folks who, who hear me speak frequently, they, they know the different pieces and parts even that I'm connecting here because I, I feel so strongly about them. I call them the five Kevlar threads. Um, you know, and these, these pieces and parts. And I tell folks, "If you're not doing these things automatically in your classroom, it's just not innate for you, don't try to do them all at once. You'll drown. Your kids will drown." Um, and so, you know, if you wanna build resilience, start with the small pieces that you can just do right out of the gate. And practice. Just do it often Lindsay Lyons: Can you tell us more about those, those threads that you just referenced? Dr. Annalies Corbin: Yeah. So the five Kevlar threads. Uh, that's t- that's tied to, um, I have a book called, um, Hacking School: uh, Five Strategies to Link Learning to Life. And, and all that that really is is, like, about 25 years of going and working with really, really incredible schools or teachers or programs around the world, and just trying to understand the ones that are really, really phenomenal. Something happens. Either they sustain, they're around 10 years or so later, and they just keep going, and they get better and better. But most really amazing innovations tend to die pretty quickly, and that happens for a variety of real and tangible reasons, but I was really curious about the ones that, that really, really stick. Are there some commonalities? Are there some common threads? And what I found is that the ones that really last a long time, they have, they all have these five things. They have other things because they're all locally derived, right? They're, they're, they are about the community in which they're, they're functioning, but they have these five. So the first one is agency, right? That it is, uh, agency led. The second is that they are culturally relevant or responsive, whichever term you prefer to use. But basically, it's, I know, I know who my community is. I know who my kids are. My kids know who I am, right? We have this mutual respect about the humans in the middle, right? So I'm gonna give you autonomy, agency. I'm gonna help you build resilience and grit and all of those pieces and parts, but I'm also have a deep understanding of who you are, and you understand me, right? Um, and the things that we're gonna teach, we're gonna find a way collectively to make them relevant to you And then the third one is mastery. That idea of competency. We're gonna let go of that, that old school traditional seat time and say, "Hey, you know, if, if Annalise needs, you know, uh, extra time to understand this concept, then I'm gonna honor her need to dig a little bit deeper to understand." So mastery, which is defined lots of different ways too, most of these terms are. Um, the fourth one then for us is transdisciplinary. Uh, transdisciplinary teaching and learning, and that's just the idea of stop teaching in silos, right? That's not how the world works. It is one of the things that students today are pushing against the most, even if it's not articulated. We're not having it in traditional education conversation necessarily. But it is the thing when you actually sit down and do a lot of research with the students, with the learners, you hear them. They don't use that term, of course, but what they'll tell you is, "I don't understand what this has to do with me. The world doesn't look like this." And that's exactly what they mean, right? We don't go to math class and then to learn math, right? Solely for... I mean, that's not what the world looks like, and then somebody rings a bell, and I move on to something else. That's not authentic in any way, shape, or form. And then the fifth one for us is problem-based, and that gets to that wicked problem sort of structure. And it's that idea that if we could take all of that and we can roll it into a very applied, hands-on, deep opportunity to spend time with something, that it's gonna be meaningful because it will address all those other four things we just talked about, and it will. Um, and so there is a progression if folks don't have those elements in that we recommend, but that's just what I've seen over many years. And it was just really that realization that the things that stick, they have all five, and they're doing them. It's part of their DNA. It's not, "Oh, I forgot about mastery today." Lindsay Lyons: Wow, okay. Those are so good and comprehensive and connected to so many things that we talk about on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious, is there, like, a particular one that is most challenging for folks? Or is there a challenge in general that as people are trying to do this work that you're- Mm-hmm ... noticing, "Oh, this one's, this one's big"? And then what do you tell them when- Yeah ... you notice that? Dr. Annalies Corbin: It, that's an interesting question because what, what educators will tell you who are like, "I really wanna do this, but I don't know where to start," it's fascinating. They'll tell you, "Oh, I can't do mastery. W- uh, you know, we're not allowed to do that. It's not acceptable here. You know, we still issue grades in the traditional sense." And so the, the internal perception is that mastery is the hardest because it requires a policy change, but that's not actually true. Yes, comprehensive mastery will more than likely in most places require some type of policy shift. But in your individual classroom, you could do mastery, you can be mastery-based in your classroom and still give a grade, right? So, so that's one of those disconnects that I see a lot. The one that's truly probably the hardest at implementation is transdisciplinary, and that's a systems problem. Um, educators will often be more than happy to embrace that. I find that it gets more difficult as you move up in the curriculum, so the closer you get to high school, because we love our silos in high school. We love them. I cherish it. You know, I'm the science teacher. I'm the English teacher. Don't you dare touch my content. And that's a huge, um... it's a mistake, and it's a disconnect, right? But that's a structural thing, right? We've built that. We've created that haves have the nots, wills will not sort of ecosystem, and we're, we're, um, we're continuing it to our own detriment, honestly, because that's not saying that there's not value in all of those individual topics or content at all. That's not the case. What we're saying is do them together, right? You know, why don't you have an integrated, you know, science and social studies or science and ELA? Teach them together. The minute you do that, it changes everything, and it, it saves a ton of money at a systems level, right, when you do that. It's super, super more cost-effective too. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, there's so, there's so much possibility here. Yeah. And I know that schools are, some schools are doing this too- Yes, Dr. Annalies Corbin: yeah ... Lindsay Lyons: that it is viable, and it's just- Yes, Dr. Annalies Corbin: yes ... Lindsay Lyons: we are stuck so much in how we've always done things, it's hard to break out. Mm-hmm. And, and you mentioned that if, if people didn't have, uh, these five elements, that you said that you recommend things to, to do- Mm-hmm like a progression. I'm not sure if that's, uh, at, at the start, or that's to kind of counter not having any one of those. Is that, like, what they would do immediately to get started? Dr. Annalies Corbin: Yeah. I mean, basically, you know, I have educators ask me all the time, "Okay, I wanna make this shift, but I don't even know where to start." And I'll, I will tell them, "We're gonna start with agency." Mm-hmm. You know, I wrote them in a particular order in the book for a reason. You know, if you don't do these things, just start, start at the beginning, and just work your way through, because they truly do build on each other, right? Agency says, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you cho- you know, voice and choice. We often talk about it that way. It's, it's more than that, obviously, but that's, that's the phrasing that lots of folks are familiar with. Just start right there, because suddenly now I've empowered an individual. And then the next thing is I'm gonna understand who that individual is and why that's powerful to them, right? And so that gets you into that sort of cultural relevancy, if you will. And so there is a progression to it, so if you're not doing it, just start, start working your way down, right? Lindsay Lyons: I love that, and I love just the tangible nature of, you know, get to know the pe- your people, right? Mm-hmm. So if you're a teacher, get to know your students. I also love the, um, I used to work for a network that talked about one learning model for all, so the same things teachers do with students, leaders can do with teachers- Mm-hmm ... and teachers can do with one another. Right, Dr. Annalies Corbin: right. Lindsay Lyons: So this idea of, like, leaders get to know your teachers, right? And it's the whole- Dr. Annalies Corbin: Exactly, exactly. Well, you know, for years I, I used to, and I, I do it every once in a while, I still get asked to do it, but y- I don't, I don't see it on the same scale anymore. But I used to do this program, I called it Cultural Baggage. I'm an anthropologist and an educator, right? So it's my background. And so I used to do, do this program, and we would do it with kids, we would do it in the summer, or we would do it during the academic year. And several times over the years, I had, uh, either a building or a whole district say, "Hey, would you come and run Cultural Baggage program with us? We wanna do it at the beginning of the year. We wanna do it as just part of our onb- you know, our, our launching of the new year with, with our teachers." And I would go into these places, and the first thing that I quickly discovered is teachers didn't know each other's names. Right? So if I only know you, right, as Ms. Lyons or Ms. Corbin or Mr. Smith or whatever, and that's what the expectation is that the kids call their teacher, fine, whatever works, right? But I have no idea who you are, then how can I possibly know who my learners are? I just have never bothered, and you've been teaching across the hall from me. But it was remarkable how many teachers didn't know the first names of the other teachers in their own buildings, much less across a district. And I said, "This is a systemic problem It's things like that, right? It's things like that. Lindsay Lyons: Wow. That blows my mind a little bit, but that, I could see how that could happen with- Yeah the mind that you do. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: Wow. Okay. So we have talked about so many things. Thank you so much for all of the, the wisdom that you- Sure ... brought, like big picture as well as tangible, like, what can I do today? Love that. Yeah. Um, I am curious, especially because you're a researcher, I bet you are actively just learning lots of things. Mm-hmm. So what is something that you have been learning about lately? So I know you said you published your book. You're just starting to- Mm-hmm ... like bring all this- Yeah ... research together. It could be related to this. It could also be not related to work at all, it's just something you're learning about. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Yeah, so I mean, some of the things that... So I love technology, love technology, right? I- it's one of those things. I love the tools. I love the application. I love trying to understand, A, how does it work? How could I use it for something it wasn't designed for? Um, and so of course, you know, there's so many conversations right now around AI, especially in schools. And so one of the things, so I am trying them all, like everything, and not just like tangible, I'm gonna try it, but I'm gonna use it deeply and understand what I can do with it and what I can't do with it. Um, because I think that's really, really important, you know, in a space where, you know, educators and, a- and administrators are saying, "We don't even know what to do with this thing. We, we believe that it's about to cause this sort of rampant dysfunction somehow." And I think about it, you know, in, again, that researcher brain, I think back to when the internet showed up. Well, we had the exact same conversation then that we're having now. It was, "Oh my gosh, you know, students aren't gonna go to the library anymore. They can look anything up online. It's gonna be rampant cheating. It's gonna be," you know, so on and so forth. And we have to approach all of these things with great caution, absolutely, but we also have to approach these things with an understanding of what it actually is, right? And the world is changing, and our kids are deeply enmeshed, deeply enmeshed. So we need to understand that from their perspective. So for me, like, that's one of the things that I'm, that, uh, you know, I'm spending a lot of time just trying to understand and learn, and I love to learn, so. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Thank you so much for that. I think there are a lot of people grappling with that as of the time. Oh, Dr. Annalies Corbin: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Okay, so people are gonna want to maybe get your book, connect with you- Mm-hmm ... learn more about you. Where can people go to do that? Dr. Annalies Corbin: So the easiest way to get information is gonna be at pastfoundation.org, P-A-S-T foundation.org. Um, and you can go there, and you can get information about me. You can get information about the things that we do, um, uh, about, about the book Hacking School: 5 Strategies to Link Learning to Life. You can also get that at, you know, Barnes & Noble or Amazon, wherever you, you wanna buy books. Um, but we also have a whole, um, asynchronous, um, as well as, um, some, some non-online options around. Like, if you wanna do a deep dive into some of those, those pieces and parts as an individual educator, you can do that. You can we- you can join our research community, um, our community of practice that we- We have around all the Hacking School ecosystem. Um, you can, we can come, you know, to your school or your district. Um, we engage very deeply in lots of different ways, um, across the educational spectrum. So just reach out. Um, you can find me anywhere @AnaliseCorbin on pretty much all the different social channels if you're so inclined, so . Awesome. Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Corbin, thank you so much for today. Really appreciate your time in this conversation. Dr. Annalies Corbin: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this solo episode, host Lindsay explores change leadership theories and their implications for educational settings, including staff discourse around change initiatives. She focuses on how these strategies support transformative growth towards educational equity and justice.
Lindsay draws on her work experience with the Department of Education in Massachusetts to support turnaround schools that are designated for support, as well as her scholarship background through her PhD research in leadership and change. Why? Change leadership is critical in any strategic planning conversation, especially for schools with turnaround status. Understanding change leadership theories and practices can enable schools to navigate complex challenges while fostering equity and justice. What? Lindsay draws on her 2018 PhD dissertation to compile this curated list of education-related change theories that can support educators in your unique context. You can access her entire published thesis here, in which these four frameworks are expanded on in pages 36-41. Noting that adaptive leadership is an important framework embedded into the following — and expanded on in podcast episode 267 — these are four frameworks that help educators navigate change leadership.
Drawing on these theories — each of which are expanded on in the episode — Lindsay concludes that there are three critical components that any leader needs for effective change leadership:
Key Takeaway Discourse is the tool we use to move from dialogue and discussion to decision-making. To facilitate this type of discourse and live out leadership theories, we should build out the culture and grow relationships, dive into hard conversation, seek out different viewpoints, and stay focused on shared values. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Discourse Analysis Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 265 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
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to another episode of the Time for Teachership podcast. This is episode 265, and today we're talking about change leadership theories and the implications for staff discourse around change initiatives. For context, my work with the Department of Education in Massachusetts, called DESE, with Turnaround Schools, uh, which are designated for support, um, and just my background in strategic planning, my scholarship background in leadership and change. My doctorate comes out of Antioch University, which focuses on leadership and change across many disciplines. Obviously, mine was education. Um, really wanna kind of think about how a theory of change has been important for schools and strategic planning, particularly those in Turnaround status. And what I'm hoping to do is bring you a curated list of education-relevant change leadership theories to support that transformational growth that you're pursuing in your context, um, towards equ- educational equity and justice. So here we go. Let's take a look at some frameworks I'll name that what I'm doing is actually reading a lot of times, which sounds silly, but I, I think is hopefully better than reinventing the wheel here. From my published dissertation, so that's a 2018 publication that you can find online. I will link to it in the blog post for this episode, located at lindsaybethlyons.com/blog/265. And really, I'm reading from that literature review chapter, pages 36 through 41. If you're at all interested in finding those resources, there's of course, uh, citations at the end that you can go dig deeper into it. We are going to talk about the following frameworks today: social justice leadership, inclusive leadership, which is also connected to relational leadership, positive leadership, and shared leadership. I also talk a lot about adaptive leadership. There's actually another episode coming about adaptive leadership, kind of change leadership connected and discourse connected as well. That's gonna be Episode 267. So we won't touch on adaptive leadership quite as much here, but know that it is integral and, and kind of embedded in a lot of these, and very, um, complementary. There we go. Okay. So first, social justice leadership. The theory of social justice leadership posits leaders strive to deepen their awareness of societal injustice and act to eliminate it. So Preskill and Brookfield are two scholars here in this, uh, leadership theory. They have published a couple different books that are helpful, one, Learning as a Way of Leading, and I cannot remember the other one, but it's about discussion and teaching. And so they named supporting the growth of others as one of the tenets of social justice leadership. And so while leaders are expected to grow, so too are the members. This is relevant for, uh, students as well as staff. They point out social justice leaders are often, um, open to the contributions of others. They reflect critically on their own practice, as well as ideas of collective leadership, learning democracy, and creating community. The, quote, "Care and concern for vulnerable, marginalized, disenfranchised, and disadvantaged populations," end quote, is a priority for social justice leaders. This comes from Noble, published in 2015. And Noble insists that leaders in their communities have to examine the underlying issues of social problems. So think root cause analysis here, very popular in strategic planning initiatives. And she says to do this effectively, social justice leaders need to understand really important terms, so things like privilege, oppression, cultural salience, intersectionality, critical consciousness, and social equity. So there needs to be kind of a building of that knowledge. She also says, um, I'm sorry, Preskill and Brookfield say that social justice leadership involves analyzing institutions, so we're not just at the individual level. We have to understand those institutions and analyze those. But to do this, leaders have to examine the dynamics of power and privilege and ask what stories are not being told in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the situation. They posit social justice leadership is like Gramsci's notion of an organic intellectual, in that leaders are members of an oppressed group that work to empower their community. So thinking a lot about this dissertation was written for student leadership, but also thinking about teacher leadership, family leadership. So having that shared leadership connection where everyone has the potential work of a leader. And so Gramsci's work stems from Marx, so that work is in direct response to the unequal distribution of resources and power within a capitalist society. And so the most important component of social justice leadership really is the redistribution of power. Uh, George Theo Harris actually talks about how leadership is-- that's not focused on and successful at creating more just and equitable schools for marginalized students is indeed not good leadership. So this is really, um, the, the moral compass here. Uh, Brookfield and Preskill I wanted to also name. They say that the essence of dialogue, which we're gonna connect to at the end here, is entering a conversation in which ideas will be questioned and explored with a willingness to change one's mind. They claim, quote, "Discussion and democracy are inseparable because both have the same root purpose: to nurture and promote human growth." End quote. I absolutely love this. Um, this is, you know, I think at the heart of all that we do here on the podcast, but I think a lot of your central missions are social justice oriented. So I really wanted to name that those big higher level kind of like critiquing systems of power, that is part of a leadership theory. Embed that in your theory of change if that feels helpful to you. I imagine it does to anyone who's engaging with this podcast. All right, next piece. So we have, uh, inclusive leadership. There's several theorists around here. I draw a lot on Lisa Boysen, who is the, uh, one of my prof- was one of my professors at Antioch University, and so she defines inclusive leadership as an ongoing cycle of learning through collaborative and respectful relational practice that enables individuals and collectives to be fully part of the whole, such that they are directed, aligned, and committed towards shared outcomes for the common good of all, while retaining a sense of authenticity and uniqueness. And that's that direct quote and definition. Um, Pless and Mack are two other scholars in this space, and they say, you know, inclusive leadership is built on a foundation of recognizing difference and requires reciprocal understanding, standpoint plurality, which is really like we value diverse perspectives, knowledge, and experiences. These are actually critical for understanding society and what's going on, and the particularly folks at the margins are the ones to offer those unique insights that are going to help us understand collectively what is going on and what is the path forward. So again, hearkening to that shared leadership, like we can figure out this thing together, which is what adaptive leadership says, right? It says these big, sticky, complex problems, you can't solve those with one leader saying, "This is what we're doing." It has to be a group effort. Um, back to Pless and Mack's, uh, things that are required for inclusive leadership. They say also, uh, it has to be mutually enabling, the, the foundation. Um, there has to be trust, integrity, and an overarching inter- intercultural moral point of view that is centered on democracy, empathy, and moral awareness. So again, audience members, I believe that this is you, right? You center democracy, empathy, and kind of this moral compass that is really critical for this type of leadership. Um, Boysen notes that inclusive leadership involves collaboratively co-constructing an organizational value frame. Do we have shared values? Many of us do. And leveraging diversity so everyone can be comfortably him or her, or I would add them, theirselves. In schools, um, Ryan, another publication and author, um, asserts policies should promote inclusion, and the process to make school policies should be inclusive, again, hearkening to shared leadership. This concept of inclusive leadership is highly relational in nature, and so therefore, relational leadership theories come into play as well. Relational leadership posits that growth happens in connection with others. This is a concept from Jean Baker Miller. A lot of these names, just noting, I have only ever read them and I've not heard them spoken, so I'm hoping I'm pronouncing everyone's name correctly, um, which posits this idea of growth and connection, posits growth occurs through relationships with others. Like, that's actually how we grow. So she underscores growth is rooted in mutuality and empowerment, and if it's successful, actually, members are gonna reap these five benefits, which I love: zest, empowered action, increased self-esteem, new knowledge, and a desire for more connection. So it is, like, fulfilling itself, which is super, super cool. Fletcher, who writes about this a lot, um, talks about dialogue, uh, where... Excuse me. Cunliffe and Erickson talk about dialogue whereby participants recognize and work through difference. Fletcher talks about how we have to have kind of this willingness to learn, or in relational leadership, we demonstrate a rel- a willingness to learn from others, and that is actually gonna en- enhance, as a leader, our relational capital. So yeah, this is really similar to adaptive leadership, where it's, it's really about the process more than the final destination. Like, how do we engage with everyone? Um, relational leadership, again, adopts that concept of shared leadership, where we have power with rather than power over. We'll talk about that a little bit, um, later on in the episode. So basically, this idea of inclusive and relational leadership are kind of ways of being in the world with relational integrity, relational mindfulness, and relational agility, and that comes from Cunliffe and Erickson. Additionally, Beck, another author in the space, contends remaining in caring relationships is actually one of the three activities of care after hearing others' perspectives and responding to the new insights gained. So we wanna deeply listen, we wanna respond to what we learn, and we need to maintain those caring relationships. Really critical, particularly during change leadership. Okay, let's go to positive leadership. Cameron is one of the leaders in this field. So they describe positive leadership as having three orientations: positively deviant performance, so we look for what is good. Where is the positive deviant? Not working in most places, well where is it working and how is that happening, right? And let's learn from that. Affirmative bias, which is a focus on strengths rather than deficits, and facilitating the best of the human condition. So he wrote about four strategies to promote positive leadership. First, a positive climate is full of compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude. So we have to kind of build that up. Positive relationships, uh, according to Dutton and Regan, are a source of, quote, "enrichment, vitality, and learning." End quote. Cameron noted studies of successful organizations indicate high-performing organizations employ positive communication. And this harkens back to some marriage research , I believe, of making five positive statements for every one negative statement, and balancing the ratio of inquiry and advocacy statements. So think about how many times we say, "This is my point of view," right? We actually have to make sure that to be, um, in this positive organization or high-performing organization, we have to balance the number of times we ask a question and take an inquiry stance with the amount of times we say, "Hey, I think this is what we should do," or, "Here's my thought," right? I'm advocating for something. Um, also needs to be in balance other-focused and self-focused statements. So if we're always saying me, me, me or I, I, I, we need to balance that out with more other-focused language. Additionally, um, they found that members were more engaged and exchanged more information when communication was positive. So this is, just to clarify, this is not that Pollyanna, everything is good, we always have to be having fun. This is that true balance, um, of, of the, you know, inquiry and the advocacy. It is thinking about compassion, forgiveness, gratitude. That means sometimes things are hard, but we are holding onto this. We are holding onto what is working. We are strengths-based more than we are deficit-based. That does not mean that we don't confront challenges or name the challenges. We have to, right? But I just wanna clarify that this is not just like rah-rah all the time. That is not what this theory is about. Um, strategies for delivering feedback include, and I love this, this comes from Laura Morgan Roberts, who was also one of my professors, um, the reflected best self. So this is where a person asks 20 people to share stories of when they remember them at their best. So cool. I mean, just that activity of thinking about asking 20 people, w- h- when, "Remember me when I was at my best and tell me that story." So cool. Very strengths-based, right? And you could do that for your staff. You could do that with students. You could do that with a lot of people. Um, and supportive communication is another strategy for delivering feedback in which the critical feedback is given in a way that describes behavior and suggests solutions without judgment. That comes from Rogers. Finally, positive meaning is integral to organizational success. So Cameron insisted the purpose of the organization should actually be to build a supportive community and improve the wellbeing of as many people as possible. The related field of positive change contributes additional strategies for organizational and personal growth, like appreciative inquiry. So again, trying to find that positive deviance, wondering what's going well. Um, this is from, uh, Cooperrider and Sri- Srivastava, Srivastava, excuse me. And the awesome, like, reframe of SWOT analysis, so where we have strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, becomes SOAR, uh, strengths, opportunities, aspirations, results. Love that. Love that shift. So if you are doing a SWOT analysis in your strategic planning, try a SOAR analysis instead and see what happens. Appreciative inquiry. Um, so basically building on the strengths of the organizations to further develop. Okay, that brings us to our final leadership theory, which is shared leadership. So the concept of shared leadership first appeared in the writings of Mary Parker Follett. Follett? I'm not sure. Anyways, it's quite interesting to me that she is only cited one time in Jackson and Perry's seemingly comprehensive leadership book published in 2011. Aside from a quick mention of ancient Rome, Jackson and Perry referenced James MacGregor Burns as the oldest citation relating to a shared process of leadership. In 1978, Burns wrote, "The leadership approach tends often unconsciously to be elitist. It projects heroic figures against the shadowy background of drab, powerless masses." End quote. While his critique of the stark imbalance of power inherent in traditional leadership certainly contributed to the growth of collective leadership and shared leadership, Follett was writing about the value of sharing power with followers over half a century earlier. So this misattribution may be a sign of the perpetual mental model that men are leadership experts, or perhaps it's a disdain for, quote, "women's work", seeing as Follett's largest contributions were geared toward community organizations rather than the management of large corporations. It's probably a combination of the two. In Follett's book in 1924 called Creative Experience, she addressed conceptions of power and the process of leadership and decision-making. She started by asserting, quote, "Genuine power is not coercive control, but co-active control. Coercive power is the curse of the universe. Co-active power, the enrichment and advancement of every human soul." End quote. Falla insisted the best way to address conflict is through what she called creative integration she said, quote, "The object is not to do away with differences, but to do away with muddle." So let's get clear, right? She argued that conflict is necessary to identifying various stakeholders' desires. Throughout the book, she reiterated, quote, "The experience of all is necessary to democracy." End quote. She insisted on the benefits of integration rather than compromise, noting integration has the ability to reduce loss and increase gain for everybody, as no one is giving up what they desire. And this is huge when we're gonna note adaptive leadership's role here, too. They talk a lot about resistance as loss. If you're facing a lot of resistance from some sort of initiative or new policy, there may be loss there, and we have to name that and address it and confront that as full human beings, right? And she's saying that actually, if we wanna just reduce the feelings of loss, we want integration rather than compromise. I think this is why I've been so interested in discourse lately and ways to get away from the binary, like it has to be this or this, right? No, what can ... What is a new path forward? And that's kind of what she's talking about here. Creative integration requires imagination, right? She says that creative integration begins with the organization's vision, and the process is of the utmost importance, so again, process over product. In what she deems to be the most important sentence of the book, she insisted opportunities, quote, "Should be provided for integration to take place normally." End quote. So this should not just be for strategic planning. It should be in how we live out school and how we do leadership. Follett warned, quote, "The suggestion box is not a democratic device, although often so-called. Democracy does not register various opinions. It is an attempt to create unity." End quote. She insisted diverse stakeholders come together to cooperatively gather and analyze information, relate the information to each person's life, and create new ideas that meet all stakeholders' desires. Love it. All individuals must contribute to the process, so then, quote, "We cannot stand outside and judge the purpose of the state. We ourselves become part of that purpose." End quote. Right? If you embed stakeholders in the creation of the policy or the way forward, we are a team now. We can't stand outside and criticize it. I love that point she makes. She adds, "Stakeholders have a duty to constantly develop and grow." She believed a great leader is a true representative and emphasized, quote, "We should send our representatives not to win a victory but to come to some agreement on the basis of an enlarged understanding on both sides." End quote. If you've been listening to me talk about discourse lately, this is exactly what all the discourse scholars say. The purpose of discourse is that we come together to enlarge our understanding, to deepen our thinking, to think something new that we could not have thought about alone. So herein lies the power of her term power with, which she used to refer to the democratic power generated through freeing each other of static beliefs to work collaboratively to integrate individual desires and create benefiting all parties She stated the concept of power with, quote, "Takes time, and education, and training to develop. It involves a process, and a slow process. It is concerned with neither granting power nor grabbing power, but with evolving power. Opportunity must be given for this process." End quote. She once again refuted the notion of zero-sum power when she stated, quote, "First, by pooling power, we are not giving it up. And secondly, the power produced by relationship is a qualitative, not a quantitative thing." End quote. Gosh, she's brilliant. While she admitted integration is more difficult than simply choosing a side, she wrote in her conclusion that confronting and integrating desires, quote, "Means a freeing for both sides, an increased total power or increased capacity in the world." End quote. Shared leadership by nature promotes flat organizations as better than hierarchical ones. Jackson and Perry discussed shared leadership within their chapter on critical leadership perspectives, identifying the model as one whose purpose is to disrupt traditional power structures. Reister et al. and Theo Harris argue that principals need the skills to empower staff through setting up collaborative and shared decision-making structures that allow sta- staff time and space to craft their practice. A shared leadership model, quote, "Rejects the distinction between leaders and followers." That's from Jackson and Perry. Jackson and Perry noted there is a continuum of shared leadership that extends on the, quote, "Radical end" to Jeffrey Neilson's idealized model of, quote, "Peer-based communities", and Carson, Tesluk, and Morone determine three attributes of teams that facilitate the development of shared leadership. One, members share a commitment to a common goal. Two, they receive emotional support from one another. And three, they feel their individual voices are valued. So important in a class as well as a staff. Their review noted shared leadership can lead to positive results. They, quote, "Found that teams relying on multiple members for leadership performed better than those in which internal leadership was relatively scarce." End quote. And additionally, they wrote, quote, "When team members feel recognized and supported within their team," like social support, "they are more willing to share responsibility, cooperate, and commit to the team's collective goals." End quote. Right? So that recognition, that support from their team, that social support is so critical. If we have it, people are more willing to share the responsibility of pursuing the goal, cooperate with others, and commit to the goal itself. That is so huge So in synthesis, what I did in my dissertation was say, "Hey, these are three competencies that after reading through all of that stuff, I think student leaders should have." And I would also argue teachers and family leaders and administrative leaders, all leaders should have. And these are, three things are critical awareness, inclusivity, and positivity. So critical awareness I defined as reflecting on, understanding, and questioning positive and negative attributes of oneself and society in order to foster equity and growth. Inclusivity closely mirrors Boyton's definition, which is enabling all members to fully participate and learn from each other. And positivity, which is applying a strengths-based lens to facilitate growth and enable flourishing. Absolutely love that word, flourishing. Now, how is this all connected to discourse? Well, discourse really is the place where we grapple with all of this stuff and do the shared leadership. Like, shared leadership was my entry into this, and now discourse is kind of like the how. Okay, we're all together at the table, now how do we actually talk about this stuff and move from dialogue to discussion to decision-making together? 'Cause that is a process, right? You can't just put everybody in a room and then say go, which is what I probably thought like eight years ago when I started this journey. So connecting to discourse, again, Brookfield and Preskill from Social Justice Leadership say that discourse helps learners explore the diversity of perspectives, increases awareness of and tolerance for ambiguity or complexity, right? How intolerant are we as a society of ambiguity and complexity? I would say very intolerant right now. We wanna increase our tolerance for that. It also shows respect for learner voices and experiences, affirms learners as co-creators of knowledge, leads to transformation, and requires humility. You'll see a lot of or hear a lot of learning language in there, um, that learner language used to be students, and I tried to shift that language to think about, like, learners in general So that's staff, that could also be students. The goal of discourse, uh, makes me think of this Bella et al 1991 publication, where they say democracy means paying attention. I love that. Uh, they also talk about how really it's being aware of the whole conversation. So I just love this idea of democracy means paying attention. Whoa. Um, the context, uh, I think that I have in my head too, right, is one of equity and social justice, where Bell Hooks talks about, in her 1994 publication, she talks about how, you know, the privileged students in a class know that their opinions count, right? They might be the frequent talkers, right? They believe that they have a right to say whatever. Working class students are told not to speak, right? And she's saying you need to be aware of that dynamic because we need to disrupt it. And she says, you know, we really need to treat students as whole human beings. That's her quote, "whole human beings." Right? So I think the same goes for staff. We treat them as whole human beings, right? We treat people in general as whole human beings, and we recognize the power dynamics at play. Um, Cornel West has talked about, uh, the barrier of t- to dialogue, which is that he says, "Dialogue is lost due to obsession with power." Right? So if we are obsessed with power, and I mean even in a smaller sense, thinking about, not smaller sense, but different sense, thinking about the teacher who doesn't wanna let c- c- control go, right? I don't wanna let go of control 'cause then my class is gonna get out of whack and, like, n- I'll never be able to regain order or calm, right? I mean, one, that's like a very compliance-centered philosophy, but also, um, like that fear, right, is going to actually inhibit true dialogue, which is an interesting thing to think about. Similarly, at the leadership level. Okay. So now what do you do? Let's wrap this up. Let's think about what are the go-to steps. So action steps to facilitate this type of discourse and live out these leadership theories: One, we gotta build the culture. So build and continue to grow relationships. This connects to our relational leadership concept, specifically that idea, uh, from Jean Baker Miller, the growth in connection. We have to have those foundational relationships. We can't just dive into a hard conversation. Two, we need to prompt the seeking out and sharing of different viewpoints. I think of James Nottingham's work, and we had a podcast episode with him earlier. Um, but thinking about that idea of inclusive leadership as well, is that we need those different viewpoints, right? Folks at the margins are gonna have a unique experience that's valuable for everyone to understand the whole thing, the what's going on, what's the way forward, right? We need that thinking, and so we need to prompt people. I'm thinking also of Maria Nichols' idea around discourse, um, where she talks about how we need to value and cultivate the valuing of diverse perspectives. We need to think about how our thinking has shifted, and if it-- we've realized that it hasn't, then we need to make sure that we are going out and finding new perspectives to, to deepen it. A positive communication ratio of five to one, that comes from the positive leadership theories. Appreciative inquiry, also coming from positive leadership theory. So we need to make sure that our, uh, questioning stance, right, our seeking out of the positive deviance is present when we're doing all of these analyses of, of what's happening currently and where we go next. We need to make sure that we lay the discourse foundation. I've talked before about baseline understandings, um, which brilliant guests on the pod have shared, and shared team values. If you don't have them, we should have them, right? So baseline understandings being like, "Here's what we agree to, and here's what is not up for debate because we believe X," you know, whatever X is. Um, this aligns to inclusive leadership's moral grounding, I think. Remember, that was democracy, empathy, and moral awareness were key components of inclusive leadership. So if that's true for you, I think that's the move, is to make sure that you agree on your shared team values and come up with some baseline understandings, right? We need the shared goal. That was present in many of these leadership theories, and we can't just, like, have a goal that a couple people contribute to. We have to truly all believe in the goal and co-create the way that we get to the goal, right? The baseline understandings, the shared values, the team agreements for discussion. We need to build critical consciousness and knowledge of systems, power, oppression, to be able to analyze them, right? Thinking about that social justice leadership framework. We can either co-create or select together a framework that exists or maybe, like, a lenses chart of, you know, what are these different lenses or ways of thinking? What are these constructs that we need to learn and build awareness of, um, and use when making decisions and having discourse and dialogue We need purposeful prompts and protocols. So there's so much. If you, if you go back to last, I think last July, 2025, I think July, there were so many leaders on talking about how to facilitate staff meetings and different protocols for different purposes that align with, you know, the various types of discourse. So dialogue, discussion, decision-making. They are brilliant. I would check them out, return there. Um, but we have to know, are we in dialogue where we're seeking to understand? Are we in discussion mode where we're defining success criteria or analyzing potential impacts of, you know, action steps or plans moving forward? Or are we in decision-making where we just need to come to consensus and, and do the thing, right? We need to figure out where we're going. I think that typically it's an arc, but it doesn't always go linearly, dialogue, discussion, decision-making. Sometimes you kind of hop around, but in general it feels like an arc to me. Um, and I, I would say don't underestimate the power of dialogue, right? Relational positive leadership, both of these theories say that this is critical. We need to just truly, deeply listen to each other. I would also think about the prompt for discussion. A free resource is coming soon, uh, maybe in a couple episodes, for you to consider how you would reframe away from, like, a, "Do we like this policy, yes or no?" to more of, like, e- embracing different avenues for conversation that are gonna deepen our understanding and help us come to a better consensus, um, rather than pit one group against another, which is not usually helpful. I would also say that, I mean, regularly, in addition to at the end of any discourse opportunity, appreciate one another. What did you appreciate about your peers as you engaged in conversation? Like, name it. That's part of positive leadership, and it is also gonna contribute to your five-to-one positive to challenging ratio. Um, and, you know, if you have time, how cool, do a reflected best self activity. So again, stories. To ask 20 people, it doesn't even need to be 20, but ask people, different people in your life, it could be colleagues, it could be friends, family. Encourage people to put together their stories of when they were at their best and, like, share that with people. What a cool share that would be. Okay, I have talked a lot in this episode. Way more, uh, scholarly and read-y than usual, but would love to hear your thoughts. Let me know if this was interesting to you. Let me know if this was not helpful for you. Uh, I will link to the various things that I cited and referenced verbally in the blog post for this episode, which once again is located at... Where are we located? Lindseybethlyons.com/blog/265. And I also just wanna name that you can access the free resource for this episode at the blog post, which is gonna be our leadership playlist, which has a ton of leadership support. |
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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
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