Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this podcast episode, Miriam Plotinsky discusses the essence of leadership in education. including the importance of humility and openness to change, and how to create effective teacher coaching programs that focus on simplicity and collaborative communication. She also discusses shared leadership and overcoming resistance, highlighting the importance of teacher and student voices in decision-making processes and providing strategies to navigate any resistance that may arise.
Miriam Plotinsky is an author and instructional specialist who addresses challenges in both teaching and leading across schools with a wide range of differentiated needs. A strong advocate for student-centered learning, she provides coaching and professional development for teachers and administrators. In this episode, we talk about curriculum, professional development, teacher coaching programs, and the importance of humility in leadership. The Big Dream Having a clear vision of where we're going—what we are teaching and why—and to communicate it effectively to students. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content Mindset is like an umbrella, overarching all other aspects of teaching. Mariam stresses the importance of building a growth mindset, being open to different perspectives, and being willing to admit when we are wrong as leaders. Pedagogy, assessment, and content, she says, fall into place when teachers have a clear understanding of what and why they are teaching. Mindset Shifts Required Clarifying what and why you’re teaching prevents a lot of “classroom management” problems. Mariam says, “New teachers will say ‘I'm so worried about classroom management.’ But they don't mean that. They mean ‘I'm worried, I won't be able to control my class.’ And so one thing I've been trying to make a connection between is if your instruction is where it should be, you won't have as much to worry about.” Action Steps What can leaders do? Step 1: Start with identifying (and helping teachers to identify) what we are teaching and why. This clarity helps align all other aspects of the teaching process. Step 2: Implement effective teacher coaching programs. Harness the human resources within the building, let each teacher be a leader, and set up structures where they can help each other. Step 3: Adopt shared leadership. This involves including teacher and student voices in decision-making processes and avoiding the pitfall of surrounding ourselves with “Yes” people. Challenges? One of the hardest things is giving people the help they actually want. Mariam suggests getting “feedback on feedback.” One Step to Get Started Decide on your one thing, and stay focused on it. Stay Connected You can find Mariam on Twitter: @MirPloMCPS, Facebook: Miriam Plotinsky (author page), or her website. To help you get even deeper into the concepts Mariam discussed in this episode, she’s sharing this link to her articles published in Edutopia. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 140 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:
TRANSCRIPT Today in the podcast, we have Miriam Platins. She's an author and instructional specialist who addresses challenges in both teaching and leading across schools with a wide range of differentiated needs. A strong advocate for student centered learning. She provides coaching and professional development for teachers and administrators. She has written, teach more however less how to stop micromanaging your secondary classroom lead like a teacher, how to elevate expertise in your school and the forthcoming writing their future selves, instructional strategies to affirm student identity. Her writing is also widely represented across a broad range of education publications and she is a frequent guest on education podcast internationally. Ploys is a national board certified teacher with additional certification in administration and supervision. Let's get to the episode. I'm educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons. And here on the time for teacher 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. 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 nering out about co-creator curriculum of students. 00:01:13 I made this show for you. Here we go. Maryam Ploys. Welcome to the Time for Teachers Podcast. Hi. It's so nice to be here. I'm so glad you're here and I'm excited to talk today with you about many things including your book that is coming out. I'm very excited about it. So, what should people know as we kind of enter the conversation? Is there anything people should keep in mind? I always like to say that, you know, whenever we are coming at something as experts or we think we know something that doesn't mean that we have all the answers or that we, whatever we're saying is unqualified or absolute. Like every time I come at something, it's like, OK, I there are a bunch of exceptions. I am happy to be proven wrong, like always just coming at it from a place of humility because I feel like whenever we have these conversations about leadership, it's easy to say, do something, not as easy to actually do it because it gets really complex. You know, that is so good. I really appreciate that grounding and just like every topic that we talk about humility is important. 00:02:18 And so I was listening to, to other voices and not thinking that you have all the answers, right? I recently said in um to my partner in a conversation like I reserved the right to be wrong. Like I would, I would like to reserve the right to change my mind in the future. I love being wrong because, and, and especially in a classroom setting, what I say is that mistakes are what lead to learning. So we embrace mistakes. We make a safe space for mistakes and that way people think. Oh, I, I understand now why it's not right. And that's a much deeper level of understanding. Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's a great connection to the classroom. So as we think about usually one of the first questions they ask is about freedom dreaming. And so as we think about Doctor Batina loves words in regard to that dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, which is just love. What is your big dream for curriculum? Instruction, all the things. So this is, this is gonna be maybe a little bit probably just from a, from a personal perspective at this point. Like I, I have seen um what happens a lot when kids don't understand what they are supposed to do um in a class, there's just, and, and the way that I love how we put it is there's a target that they can't see. 00:03:26 And so, you know, the class is a puzzle uh to be figured out or a game to play. And, and so my dream for curriculum and instruction is that we just really know where we're going and we make that really clear from the beginning. And I think it's for, for teachers and leaders because for teachers, sure we need to backward map, we need to know our course outcomes. You know, think of the evidence that's gonna prove that and then, and then plan instruction. But then for leaders too, it's like, don't pick the next new thing every year that you think is gonna save your school. Pick one thing that you know, is gonna be happening over the trajectory of, of maybe 3 to 5 years, if not more and focus on that. So I guess it's just like have that, whether it's a core standard, whether it's a, it's, it's a different kind of goal but know where you're headed and make that clear to everybody and be super transparent because otherwise it's, it just, it devolves so quickly and I, I don't know if you have one particular goal that you guys are currently working on or that you're you're thinking about. But for me, I, what I've resonated when I read your book, particularly the chapter on instructional coaching is like, maybe coaching can be it, right? Like I, I love the idea of coaching as the centerpiece, right? 00:04:29 Which you talk about it. So I think that idea of coaching as a thing that we're always doing, not necessarily tied to a specific content piece or whatever, right? Like that feels to me like a a safe bet like you could bet on coaching and it will always be relevant. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but it's a great place to start. You know, one of the things that I really stand behind is that coaching, we have this mentality and I talk about this a lot in the book that would have to be coming from a leader. So, you know, you've got to where you are because you somehow have knowledge and expertise that the teachers who are working with you don't. And sometimes that's true. But from an instructional perspective, sometimes it's not. So one thing that I typically recommend is that with coaching, you use the resources that are in your building, the human resources and those are the teachers and set up a different kind of coaching structure where they're helping each other. And I'm not saying that leaders shouldn't coach or that they don't have expertise in instruction. But I think we look at it all wrong like we can't necessarily coach unless we achieve some sort of elevated position. And that's, that's not really accurate the way that teaching works because we know and again, not always a good thing, the most common form of professional development is the person next door or the person that you talk to like that teacher friend. 00:05:40 And so what if we could find a way to harness that and also make it a little bit more? Um I don't want to use the term quality control. But like, that's not always a good thing. So figuring out what people are, are teaching and like taking really well known best practices and knowing your building and knowing your teacher. So you can elevate what people are doing really well. I love that. I think about success shares, right? Is like what is going well, like let each teacher be a leader and successful and share that and to be able to, right, you have to know your building to be able to elevate that. So that is brilliant advice. Love it. And yeah, so one of the things that I I think about or I guess four things that I think about is when we we are leading particularly departments or teams of teachers or you know, whatever it is, there's often like four pieces that I usually find leaders to be juggling and that's kind of the mindset piece, the pedagogy piece, the the assessment piece and the what am I literally teaching content piece? And I think all four are important, but I have always been playing with like what is important to know about these or is there a particular order that they go in? 00:06:45 And I just love to get your thoughts on like, are there some that you gravitate to more or first or how do the how do these play into your coaching and, and leadership? So the thing about mindset, which is really kind of like an umbrella over which everything happens. And this is how I felt when I was in school leadership that unless I looked for the mindset, like when I was hiring, for example, you can, it's skill versus will, right? So like you can build skills, you can build capacity, you can build the things you're talking about, like pedagogy and, and and and methodology and all that. It's a lot harder to change someone's mindset about what students can and should do. So for me, like, that's always been like the core piece of, of any kind of um awareness that we have with the people that we work with. Which is what, what do you really believe? Where, where are you coming at this from? Uh what are your philosophies? And also are you open, are you open to seeing things a different way? Because sometimes we are and sometimes we're not. So that has a huge amount of impact on what kids ultimately wind up doing in a building and also how we move the needle um from a leadership perspective because also like, it's not just teacher uh mindset that it's leader mindset. 00:07:53 No, you sometimes walk into the spaces where leaders are like my teachers won't do this, my teachers won't do that. It's like, well, if you've already given up, then I don't know how I can help you here. You have to decide they might do something. The question is how, yeah, that makes so much sense and you just naming it that way and framing it that way. I can see the echoes of teachers talking about students in that same way, like, very much that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like that ultimate like growth versus fixed mindset. If you ultimately believe that somebody can't do something, you're, you're not really giving them the opportunity and you're not seeing it as a, as a growth process or as a yet, which is the language of growth mindset. You're really seeing it more as it's a, you know, foregone conclusion and, and you know what they say about self fulfilling prophecies. So, yes, absolutely. And so, so are there other pieces? I, I love that the mindset is kind of the priority and, and to hire for mindset too? I, I that's a really interesting point, right? Like I wanna hire for the whale and the movie piece of the scale and, and I'm wondering about like cato assessment content. Are there, are there things that you have found in like these other three kind of areas that supports or, or that teachers have found a lot of um needing support in a particular piece of that or finding that there is one of those areas that just like you can kind of coach on and, and teachers run with it a lot faster and make a lot more progress on or anything like that. 00:09:10 So I think that we do a lot of teachers, a disservice when we teach about the curriculum. If we do teach about the curriculum, you know, a lot of people start teaching and they see curriculum as like a product. So I'm gonna read this and it's gonna be a series of things that I do. It's a lot, followed by a lot like a task after task, after task. That's not what a curriculum should be. It's content. It's not how we do it. And it's not like a prefab thing. So if you want to have like even the boxed curriculum, there's room for creativity and innovation and providing student choice and, and the method behind it. So, you know, and the other thing about curriculum is that it's not just getting through something, it's about making sure that kids have the depth and, and understand the reason behind it and that you as a teacher are really hitting the, the right points in a very intentional way like you're teaching for specific things. So, uh there could be a lot more teacher training around that. I don't think there is a whole lot again. It's like you go into a school building. Like I remember this was 23 years ago, but I was given a binder like here go teach your class. And it's like, ok, so who am I gonna get help from? 00:10:11 I'm gonna get help from the person I talked to at lunch. I'm gonna get help from you know a person I share my classroom with and that's not always the best way that you can do it. So one thing you can really do is to change how teachers plan and, and the thing about also teaching, like where is the priority when teachers know what to teach and how to teach it? The other pieces start to fall into place because their assessments are going to be more aligned. Uh classroom management is gonna click because kids will know why they're there and what they're doing it for and the instruction will make a lot more sense. So it's not like necessarily one thing. So I always like to say, let's start with what we're teaching and why we're doing it and framing it and then work outward from there. Hm. I really like that framing and sometimes we'll, we'll see a lot of like starting with the, the pedagogy and kind of working its way up content. But if we know what we're teaching and why we're teaching, we're clear and that you're absolutely right. Then we are especially for selecting like high quality, like texts and histories that we're teaching, right, as students and, and so they can all see themselves in right where they have the windows and the mirrors, all that we reduce classroom management problems. Like it's just like what happens. 00:11:14 So that's what happens. Exactly. There's structure, there's intention. Um I'm writing up another book right now and, and I just wrote a chapter about classroom management. And at first I was like, oh, and I do this whole section on discipline versus management because discipline is a piece of management. But it's not really the thing because, you know, new teachers they think, oh, I'm so scared, they'll say I'm so worried about classroom management but they don't mean that, they mean, I'm worried I won't be able to control my class. And so one thing I've been trying to make a connection between is if your instruction is where it should be, you won't have as much to worry about. I'm not saying that kids are never gonna make your life hard, they will. Um but it'll be a little bit better. Yeah. So, so I am curious you have so much to offer in, in this book lead like a teacher, the, the one that we talk about today um and feel free to pull from any, any other. I know you've written so many. And so I'm thinking about um this idea of one instructional coaching as like kind of AAA thing that we can like house a lot of professional development in. And then also thinking about, well, actually, let's start one at a time. 00:12:17 I'm wondering if you would like to share a little bit about, you know, why coaching structures are necessary and urgent. And I love that you use the word urgent in your book. I think they are absolutely urgent and So I'm thinking like if we could talk through maybe the why of coaching um and then maybe some structures or some things that you think would be helpful for leaders to consider as they're kind of maybe they don't have a coaching program or maybe it's like, really not in place to, to the full degree, like what they could do to build that up. So the why really comes down to how do you wanna use your energy every year? We have a huge teacher attrition problem. Um, teachers are leaving in record numbers and a lot of the time. What? And, and I've, I've also been in this place as a leader where you think, oh, this person's not performing well, let's just if they leave, they leave whatever, we'll get a new teacher. But are you thinking about how much more training, how much more time hiring all that, that you're gonna have to do to replace this person? And does it take more time and energy to really work with the person that you have or to scrap it and start all over again? 00:13:19 I mean, we are hired to help people get better and most teachers, I, I say this all the time. They don't, they don't enter the profession to s to be bad. They don't enter to be mediocre. They're, they're there because they want to be and they want to help kids. So why, why can't we do our jobs in that case and help them because most of the time they do want to be helped. So in terms of what you can do, like it, it depends on your resources, but you can develop an in-house coaching program. There are so many teachers and again, this is like, I'm not saying we should take advantage of this fact, but so many people who are willing to give up their time, which they already don't have and give more of their bandwidth, which they already don't have to help support one another and they're doing it informally anyway. So is there a way that you can provide little things like you might have um like a new teacher, like a special group like that meets a week once a month and you have people who are assigned like teachers who have been there for a while to come in and help and you can set up coaching that way or you could, when you get new department members, you could like do buddy systems or you can even do across the building. 00:14:22 So someone, you know, someone needs help with something that's more not content based. There are all sorts of things you can do and you could really make sure that they are happening. I think what happens is over the summer, we have all these grand plans. We're like, oh, we're gonna do this and this and this and you have too many things. So you lose track. Of all of those things, like typically by October or November, they're gone. So instead have just doing one thing. And I think I talk about that. Um, maybe chapter five, I'm trying to remember which chapter it is where I'm like, just pick a thing because we all have a wish list of things that we want to do. But if we don't focus, we won't get any of them done. I love the idea of focus and, and I also really like how you, you have a lot of really helpful, I think figures in, in the book as well. And I'm thinking about the figures in that chapter, thinking about the kind of like a three column goals, things to try and then evidence of progress. Like I just love the simplicity of how you can coach with something like a three column table or something. I don't know if you want to like, talk us through that. If it's, if it's too complex, it won't work. 00:15:24 I mean, so this is kind of like a thing that I do. Most of my books are structured very much the same way where I have like scenarios that exemplify something and then you have the something that it's exemplifying or like a similar process. So I always thought, and you know, a lot of my life has been, my leadership life has been professional development. So if you don't give people something they can use, that's practical, right? Away, you've lost them. And so similarly, as a writer, I want you to be able to page through the book, whatever the book is, find something and use it right away. Um And so likewise, you know, with the instructional coaching, it's like, not just what are we gonna do but how are we gonna know that it worked or that it didn't work? And then what are we gonna do about it? Because that's the piece that gets dropped? You know, you meet with, I, I think I talk about this, the coach's log. It's such a horrible thing. You meet with somebody and, and they are telling you about their class and you're writing down what they're saying and it goes into some void of, of log, a log hole somewhere and no one ever sees it again. Doesn't do anything. But what if you as a coach are in that classroom? What if you are doing things that are a lot more hands on and that you see it and then the day a person tries something that you recommended you're there. 00:16:28 And what if you have a supportive leadership that says, well, if you're teaching this period, we're gonna get you covered so that you can go and see this for 10 minutes or 15 minutes or whatever it is. But people have to work together to make this happen. They have to work together to make it a priority. Yeah. Are there anything any like structures or ways of doing this, that you've seen be successful in terms of like, I'm just thinking about people who maybe don't have any of this in place right now. And they're like, I don't even know what that would look like to be able to find coverage for something or to have them be in this consistent coaching relationship with their fellow teachers in, in a more normalized, you know, title or something. So a few years ago, I did an article for Utopia and I think it's, it's cited a couple times in this book because what I was doing was talking to principals who had decided to become teachers again and not to leave principal ships, but they would teach while they were being principals. And in fact, the four words written by by Damon Monteleone who did that as a high school principal, which scheduling wise could be a real nightmare, but not only did his interview resonate with me, but um there was another uh elementary school teacher who said that she taught for two hours every morning in order to make this happen, she had to mobilize a whole backup team and it included, and I thought this was so brilliant teachers who were studying to be administrators. 00:17:42 So there were certain things they couldn't do, like they couldn't do a lot of the confidentiality stuff and they couldn't handle a lot of the legal stuff, but there were things and she had it all mapped out and again, the priority was I'm going to teach. And so she made everything work in a way that served everybody. And then when her teachers were ready to take that next step, they had a lot more hands on experience than most administrator interns do. So it's just about thinking, how are you gonna make this happen? And, and again, just picking the thing. So the thing is I'm gonna teach them, that's how she did it. If it's I'm gonna coach or I'm gonna set up coaching, you're gonna make that your priority, but you're not gonna keep piling on different things. And the thing that's, that's tempting is I think a lot of leaders do this too. Well, I can pile on five things because I've got five different leaders in this building who can do these five different things and they'll make a committee and they'll make a committee and they'll make a committee. Hi, it's Lindsay here to tell you about today's episode. Freebie Miriam has written extensively as you can tell, we've had a lot of conversations about her books, but she's also written shorter form articles on a utopia for a link to those. Go ahead to Lindsay, Beth lines dot com slash blog slash 140. 00:18:47 Now, back to the show again, the oversight falls apart so fast because you can't keep track of that many things and you can't do them well, I mean, I'm not saying no one ever has. I'm making generalizations here. But if you really want to pick that thing, all you need to do is, is have that have that really. I, I like to think of like the horse blinders like you're not seeing now again, don't ignore the fires. There are other fires like Children fighting and so that stuff has to be dealt with. Yeah, that makes, that makes sense. And so I, I love the idea of focusing and I, I love the just concept of instructional coaching as a, as a, I think, like an in house, like you don't need to go find someone else to do the thing, right? Like you have the resources. It's just about thinking about what those structures are for yourself or allocating, maybe reallocating time or funding or something like that, which feels like a little bit less of a, a jump, I think and, and honestly, like, in some ways, II I almost like threatened to make myself extinct when I say something like that because part of my job is to go in from the outside and to help people do things. 00:19:52 On the other hand, what I really think of it more as is trying to uncover what's already there as opposed to me coming in, storming the castle, changing a bunch of stuff and leaving. Nobody likes that. Yeah. And to that point, I think the idea of it's just the general coming in and serving a castle and leaving. I, I think sometimes uh maybe not the leaving part, but then sometimes like this is a switch in gears here. But the, the top down kind of leadership model of, I'm going to decide this summer. For example, like you're saying, we always have these plans. I'm going to decide what we're doing next year in my office in the summer when teachers are on break and by myself, I'm gonna determine this right. I I know you think a lot about like shared leadership and, and in these structures of shared leadership, I'm just wondering about, you know, what are the practices that a leader can have if they're thinking about increasing coaching or for example, like, how do we make those decisions in community or, you know, changing a policy? How do we make these decisions as like a shared leadership structure that enables us to get to the place where we're not just doing it in isolation in one leader in their office over the summer so that there's so many different ways to look at that. 00:21:01 But I think like the big thing is first of all, in the most functional school spaces I ever have have, have been privileged to, to observe or sit in there is a teacher at the table, you know, you don't have like the closed conference room where just like a few huddle leaders are figuring it out for, you know, a few 100 people or sometimes a few 1000 people, depending, you really are including teacher, voice and teacher perspective. That's so vital. And, and as a leader also, everyone can see when you've already decided what you're going to do and you're getting quote unquote feedback, but it's not real because the decision's been made. So if you are genuinely looking for the collaboration of others, then you need to not hire people who are just going to agree with you. So don't surround yourself with yes people you have to think about, you know, you have to be open to the idea that maybe what you think is the priority isn't, you have to get off your high horse a little bit. Um And, and really just open up the space to at least teachers and then perhaps also students when you get a little bit more further down the road, like a lot of, a lot of um educational institutions or school systems have student, you know, delegates or members of the board or there's a reason for that. 00:22:13 Um Not as often. Do you see a teacher delegate or a teacher member of the board? So that's interesting to note. Hm. That is fascinating. I never realized that that was the trends that there were more students than teachers and some of these. Well, and I think we think student voice is a good thing to have and I agree with that student voice is a great thing. To have, um, teacher voice is, is a little trickier because very often we hear from the people who are the most difficult, you know, it's like the people who are satisfied, say nothing or the people who are doing ok, say nothing. And then the people who are feeling a certain way will be very vocal. But then to me, even when people are being difficult, that's a level of engagement, they are trying to figure something out and be part of something. And if you work with it as opposed to against it, you stand to gain a lot more. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So I I'm wondering, there's a lot of kind of change in, in what we're talking about, right? If someone is listening and they, they don't do a lot of the things that we've been talking about but want to start or maybe they're not, not really excited to start because they're fearful of a challenge or a resistance to this change. 00:23:16 Is there a particular challenge that you've seen in doing the work that you do? And that maybe you've overcome and could kind of provide some wisdom to any listeners about like how to, how to address any resistance that comes up or challenge that comes up. I think the biggest challenge is always actually giving people the help they want. Um So that when we walk away, we know we did something good for them and the only way to really adjust for that is to get what I call feedback on feedback. Um which is you get feedback on, on what you did. First of all, you, you meet with them at a time, you never just go in blind, but provided that, you know, you give the training, you give the meeting, you give the support um what worked, what didn't and then when you go back because you do have to go back. You can't just, again, it's not like a one and done. It's like a consistent follow-through of helping someone you have to show, show, show. Like it's, it's, it's not just that I read your feedback, but this is what I changed or this is what I didn't, but here's why. So I couldn't do it because of, and here's, and so then you, you're coming to a, a mutual understanding of what's happening and you're really showing that you're listening and that feedback is going somewhere as opposed to just you continuing to stick to whatever your trajectory was because you've already planned it or you already had in mind. 00:24:32 So you have to have that flexibility and the mobility and also the openness to change and to listen to what people are telling you because if someone saying this has happened like awful, like mic drops in the worst way where someone's like, this didn't do anything for me. Nothing. OK? Well, then talk about what will like, what do you, what do you need because they'll figure it out. Yes. Wow, that's good. That is. I like that a lot feedback on feedback. Yeah. Excellent. And, you know, I do it with, um, adults. I teach both training but also teaching, like, I have a class that I teach a graduate class on how to be just more skillful in the classroom and every single class and I'm not saying that you should always do this but make it consistent. They fill out feedback at the end and then at the beginning of the next one, here's what you said. So you didn't enjoy being in groups so much. It was too many groups. You didn't move around enough. Um You felt this way. So here's what we're doing today to address that. Mhm. Yes, I love that. I, I'm always frustrated when we do surveys at the very end of a course, right? Or something. And then it's like, ok, well, now we don't use it. I love the idea of like, always having a slide in your slide deck or whatever you're using, right? 00:25:39 This is what you see. It's like that survey abyss that happens where you just took and, you know, you might have read it and it was kind of interesting and then you did nothing with it. Yep. Yeah. Like having I have for me having the placeholder in the slide deck for the next day or whatever it forces you to look at that again and then make decisions. Right. Yeah. So, as people are thinking about all these things that they could be doing, um, what is a good starting place for someone who has listened to this episode so far and is like, all right, I'm ready to do something. There seems like a lot of options. Where do I start? So, you know, you have to go through a process of figuring out what's most important to you and you have to be willing to really pair back. Um Less is more and, you know, it's more important to build really strong habits than it is to constantly pile enormous things on, on yourself and your teams that you can't achieve. So what I would say is, is figure out what that thing is. Um And there are tools in the book to help you do that. If you want to, again, you flip right to them, they're there or you can go through a self exploration, whatever works for you. But once you've figured out what that is, then you can start to make a plan. 00:26:43 Um But again, if you just are like, oh, there's too much, get out of that place is too much and, and really think about, ok, like of all the things that are in front of me, what's gonna move everything in a direction the most that I can get the most out of at this time and place, given the resources I have given the staff, I have given the, you know, facilities, everything. I love that. Figure it out. Figure out what's your thing, what's your thing? And as we kind of come to a close, this is just purely for fun. This is a question I enjoy asking everyone. Ok. What is something that you have been learning about lately? And this does not have to relate to her, although again. Oh, my goodness. What have I been learning about? Um, well, unfortunately I've been learning a lot about, well, I shouldn't say, unfortunately, in case you have fans in your audience, I have a 13 year old. I have three Children, but I, the middle one is 13. So I've been learning a lot about Taylor Swift. Um, and I, I Taylor Swift's been around for a long time. Like I remember my students being very into Taylor Swift and then I kind of felt like I was done with that. But, yeah, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. 00:27:45 Um, I'm learning a lot about all their, all their specialness and, you know, there's a documentary Miss Americana that I had to watch the other day. So I know all about what happened with Kanye and I knew that before but like, I know more. Um, that is hilarious. Thank you. I know. It's like, it's like a fluffy answer but it's the truth. Oh, I, the fluffy answers are the best answers. Thank you. It's being real. Yes. All right. Finally, where can people connect with, you, learn more about you get your books, all that stuff. Ok. So, um I am active on Twitter. So my um my at is um Mirror Pro MC PS. Um, and then I have a website which is my first and last name dot com. So Miriam PLO tinsy dot com. Um, I have, it's a total of four books. Two of them are out already. So teach moreover, less is out and lead like a teacher is out in November. I am writing their future selves coming out and those three are with Norton and then I'm in the middle of working on my fourth one with a S CD. That is incredible. The fact that you crank out that many books is just amazing. There's like this great four in the morning thing that goes on every, everybody and the dog are all still sleeping. 00:28:55 So productivity, you know, find what works for you. I love learning what works for people. Thank you for sharing that, Miriam. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It has been a pleasure the same Lindsay. Thank you so much. If you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazz as I am about my coaching program for increasing student led discussions in your school, Shane, Sapir and Jamila Dugan talk about a pedagogy of student voice in their book Street Data. They say students should be talking for 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. If you're smiling 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. Sign up for a nerdy no strings attached to brainstorm call at Lindsay beth lions dot com slash 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 teach better dot com slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I show you a sample unit arc on the topic of safety and freedom:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
For transcripts of episodes (and the option to search for terms in transcripts), click here!
Time for Teachership is now a proud member of the...AuthorLindsay Lyons (she/her) is an educational justice coach who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Archives
November 2024
Categories |