3/18/2024 155. The #1 Structure for Sustainable Family Partnerships with Ari Gerzon-KesslerRead Now
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In this episode, Ari shares tons of insights on building Family-Educator Together (FET) teams. These teams aim to deepen the connections between schools and families, creating a dynamic and inclusive space where voices from historically marginalized backgrounds can share insights and drive transformative change. Ari shares practical ideas, specific examples from actual FET teams, and gives us a link to several of the ready-to-use resources in his book.
Ari Gerzon-Kessler leads the Family Partnerships department for the Boulder Valley School District (Colorado) and is an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school-family partnerships. He has been an educator since 2000, having served as a principal and bilingual teacher. Ari is the author of the new book, On The Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together. The Big Dream To embrace an innovative spirit that honors the whole child, incorporates families more into the educational process, and reduces the overwhelm for educators. He envisions more connected school communities that are inclusive, equitable, and where trust is a key lever for change. Ari references Dr. Bettina Love’s words, "We have to actually trust the people we say we want to empower to make structural changes, not just tinker at the edges of injustice." Mindset Shift Required Move from a one-sided family involvement approach to one that truly values parent voices as experts on their children and partners in change. As Ari notes, "We shift the traditional paradigm of family engagement to a more collaborative and empowering model," where trust and psychological safety are paramount. Action Steps While many of the practices in Ari’s book are useful in many family partnership scenarios, he specifically shares ideas for creating and leveraging an FET team. Once you understand what FET teams are and the goals behind them (i.e., strengthen relationships, build trust, and co-create meaningful change) and you as the leader are ready to invest in one… Step 1: Build Your Team There are 5 educators (including the principal) and 5 family members. More are welcome, but the ratio should be even. Educators should not outnumber family members. Step 2: Prepare Ari suggests taking an hour to plan for each 90-minute FET meeting. Logistics to tackle include funding, organizing the meal, securing interpretation (typically meetings are held in the most common home language of families), determining dates/times/location of meetings, and securing child care. Step 3: Facilitate Your Meeting(s) Following a meal and team-building activity, invite families to share their experiences and ideas. There are many specific prompts in the book. It could be: What do you want us to know? After initial trust building, the team will decide on an action project and work towards that goal. Challenges? A significant challenge is the initial trust-building with families who have never experienced such a collaborative space in schools. Creating a comfortable atmosphere where families feel safe to share honest feedback is crucial. Additionally, educators must navigate how to bring family-driven changes back to the staff in a way that encourages co-creation and buy-in from all parties involved. One Step to Get Started For educators looking to make immediate improvements in family engagement, Ari suggests starting with simple yet impactful actions like making positive phone calls to parents to share good news about their children or asking families: How do you prefer we communicate with you? These examples are both energizing and practical, laying the groundwork for deeper connections and future collaborative efforts. Stay Connected You can connect or follow Ari easily on LinkedIn at or reach him at [email protected]. To help you implement FET teams in your school(s), Ari is sharing several reproducibles from his book with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 155 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:
Today on the podcast, we're talking about what I would call like the handbook for Family Partnership. We are talking with Ari Giron Kessler who leads the family Partnerships department for the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado and is an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school family partnerships. He has been an educator since 2000. Having served as a principal and bilingual teacher. Ari is the author of the new book on the same team, bringing educators and underrepresented families together. This is amazing. Let's get to it. 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. 00:01:08 I made this show for you. Here we go. Ari, thank you for coming on to the time for a teacher podcast. Welcome. Thanks. It's great to be here, Lindsay. Thanks for having me. I am thrilled to talk about your book today. Like I cannot wait. So I will just say you have a new book and I'm sure there are other things you want to share about what listeners should know as we enter the conversation today. Sometimes people like sharing about themselves. Sometimes it's like this is the thing I've been working on and thinking about lately, feel free to share any, any sort of launching point you would like for today's conversation. Great. Yeah, I'm just eager to talk about how schools and districts can deepen their partnerships with families, um and really create a true space to listen to families and have that kind of be a spark for innovation and deeper relationships. Um So that's on my mind. Um I, you know, I, my first job was at a bookstore. That's the point in my mind when I was 11. So I've always had this deep love of books and, and, um you know, I started teaching a little more than 20 years ago and wrote some articles, but this dream of a book has been, you know, full of ups and downs. 00:02:18 And I just am so thrilled to be at this point where I can share um an offering that I think can be truly meaningful both for teachers at an individual level, but also for a school community because I know there's many books I've loved in education and they inform my thinking, but I don't often get to then go and create something. And so I'm excited about the, the on the same team book because it really gives people a chance to create a new structure for transformative change. Um So, yeah, it's just, it's great to be able to, to share more about it. I'm so excited to dig in and I, and I think my first question is, is kind of big not necessarily directly tied to the book, but I think you, you may have even just answered it a little bit. I like to talk about freedom dreaming and Doctor Patino love talks about it as the dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, which I just love that quote. And so with that, what is your big dream for education in general? Yeah, I love the question. I mean, I my hope is that we can embrace them innovative spirit that really honors the whole child incorporates families more um and reduces the overwhelm for educators while finding ways to regularly kind of renew the fire and passion we have um for the work and that we can create more connected school communities that are both more inclusive and equitable and also where trust um is this key lever for change? 00:03:46 And I know you're, you're a big fan of Bettina, lot of the quote that I often share from her that really speaks to the heart of these families and educator together teams is she says for equity work to work, it must be handed to the community. We have to actually trust the people, we say we want to power to make structural changes, not just tinker at the edges of injustice. Um And that those words and, and, and just some of the kind of experts in the field of family partnerships really inspired me to think about how do we create an ongoing vehicle uh for, for change? Yeah. Some of the people, the research that you ground the work in are just like, yeah, just phenomenal leaders and in the field and it, it is just so the way you set it up like the intro chapter itself, I'm like, did I highlight and underline every word? Like it is just so good and like dense with all of that, like meaty stuff, like quotes like that research like that. That's like, yes, this is the work and it does such a great job of I think making an argument for the, the do you call it fet or fet teams. 00:04:56 OK. So the teams, I think that is just so beautiful that you're like eager to get into chapter one and like just give me the how right? Because you've set it up so beautifully. I especially when you're talking, I was thinking about how you named like this is valuable for many stakeholders. It's not just for families, it's not just for students, it's also valuable for educators. And I love the three column table that you have in there where it's like here's all the benefits for each of these stakeholder groups. It is not just one that benefits. So I love that. Thanks. Yeah, I feel like it's really important. I know time is this major barrier as well as some other ones. I mean, I know um teachers feel passionate often about connecting with families. But what was interesting when I dived into the research, Lindsay to discover that the area that teachers feel least confident is actually engaging with families. And that was really revealing. And so so um to me, one of the powers of this work is especially in that it's bringing together underrepresented, often, often immigrant families with mostly white teachers, school leaders, this space for learning across cultural and linguistic differences. 00:06:02 Um And this space where we shift the traditional paradigm of, you know, typically family engagement is one way and we say, oh, they came to conferences or they didn't or they came to back to school night. And, and I have a lot of regrets for my principal years because even PT A meetings and other things like that, I mostly gave updates and talked a lot and then said, do you have any questions at the end? Whereas what, you know, I've learned through the Fed teams over hundreds if not thousands of meetings is that when we truly center parent voices and treat them as the experts on their Children, as well as experts on. How can we as educators get better at collaborating with them? Um Some pretty powerful shifts happen. And as you were saying, um in some ways, the fed teams are just as meaningful for the educators uh because of what comes out of the relationships they build and just all the insights they get um from listening to family, share their perspectives, ideas. Um So it's, it's really been this unique structure that in the fifth year of doing it finally refined it enough to realize, OK, these are the ingredients, a great gathering. 00:07:05 Here's how we create psychological safety and trust across um all these differences we're bringing together in one room this one night a month. So yeah, it's been a really dynamic experience that I felt almost obligated to capture in writing so that it could be a benefit in other school communities. Yes. Oh my gosh. And there's like 400 directions I want to take it because there's so much good stuff here. I mean, just when you're talking about the research, my my mind went to some of the things I wrote down of just things that I literally wrote like, wow, in the margins because I just didn't know that like, for example, 73% of teachers believed families were not interested in supporting their students education or their child's education. It was just like, wow, that's a very uncomfortably high number. Um And that families actually have higher trust in teachers and educators than educators have in families. It was just like, whoa, like just really shifting that narrative. A lot of times where we and I think you use that word blame at at sometimes is that we have this narrative sometimes of like the blame, the Externalizing like, oh if only the families, you know, cared more, right? 00:08:08 And there's so much underneath that, that we dance around or we yeah, externalize the responsibility for we don't directly confront. And then it's like this is what you're talking about with the Fed teams is like this is how we confront it. Like we literally confront it. But we also do a lot of the foundation work to create the space where we can confront it versus just like naming things without doing all of that groundwork. So I just think there's so much right? And like in what you bring to the table of like here's what's happening and now and now here, here's where we go next. Yeah. Well, and I know some of your other podcasts, you talk about a culture of partnership and I think that's at the heart of this work is shifting from the old family involvement approach. Pretty one sided. The other day, I was reading another book in the field and it talked about you know, we're the host as educators and they're the guests. Uh And there's kind of this critique then of how are they, how are they showing up? And I'll say, I mean, I wanna acknowledge as educators were utterly overwhelmed by such an array of responsibilities um that I believe we should have like two of us in every classroom to make it sustainable. 00:09:17 And, and that said, like it does feel like it is about a mindset shift that when we actually, you know, move from guessing what families want to listen to them and then moving to act like co created action. It's really incredibly rewarding. And I remember one of the other pieces of research was when educators build stronger connections with families, they stay in the profession longer. Um But a lot of those pieces often aren't scared. So families, I know when I was a teacher principal at times, it was like, oh, it'd be nice to do that. Um But I don't have time for it. Whereas actually now knowing what I know my perspective is more like if you carve out efficiently but meaningfully some time to engage in some of these best practices that we learn from families. Um It's, it makes it, you know, a huge difference. And I think about you were talking about how we, we can be quick to judge. I think about one minor shift which for every teacher in August I would recommend is ask families how would you like to be communicated with? 00:10:20 Because one theme we're hearing consistently in set team gatherings is we're overwhelmed by emails, we're not reading them, they're not coming in the language we prefer, please text us. And, and that's been a pretty simple change at a handful of schools that's just been incredibly powerful um as well as just this shift in, let's forge a two way relationship. I mean, I'm thinking about this example of a, a, you know, a teacher who told me a couple of years ago, they were upset when they reached out to a family that they easily could have judged as not caring because they didn't return her call. And when she reached out twice because the, the, the young student was absent. Well, she came to find, after doing a little judgment, the family had traveled across from Colorado to Texas to go to a family member's funeral. And that was the reason she didn't get a call back. So just this piece of like, can we, can we come from a place of uh of trust and curiosity and, and a kind of a spirit of inquiry um and, and make the investment at that time because it just pays off. 00:11:24 Yeah. What a great example. I, I love all the examples in your book too and I love that they are often like, here's what we learned when this happened. Like we learned a huge takeaway from this and then you have like really great lists of like, pure is kind of like all the things we learned in a bullet point list duties. This will be great. Um And I, and I think one of the, one of the things that I wanna do first because there's so much in here and I'm just thinking about the person listening, who's like, talk more about these f teams, like first before we get there. I'd love to just have you give an overview. I know you talk in the book about like who's on the team? What are the goals of the team and that those are really important. Do you mind just like starting there for us? But like, what is this? What does it look like? Absolutely. Yeah. So that teams gather once a month um beginning with dinner. It's usually the aim is at least 500 represented family members and five educators including the school leader at some of our schools. It's more like 30 parents and nine staff members in the principal. Um In some of those gatherings, many of them are held in Spanish, which is of course, incredibly with 20% of our students um in, in our school district being Latino, it's been really valuable for families to have a meeting held in their language just that in itself has shifted a lot. 00:12:39 Um Some other teams and schools hold gatherings in English and we have like three or four or five different interpreters in the room. Um So we're still really letting everyone engage in the language they feel comfortable in. And over the years, we've really refined the structure for the ideal meeting. Um A lot of it's informed by what I learned around social, emotional learning in, in, in the classroom and as a principal. Um and there's time for families to engage in learning because I think one of the big things we've discovered is there's so many gaps we've unintentionally created as schools, especially for families more on the margins, not just the achievement and opportunity gaps, but communication gap, trust gap, access gap. I mean, there's seven or eight of them that, that we kind of explore on the teams. And so we create time for breaking bread together. Um some learning about what's happening at school um making it easier for families to navigate our school system so they can access more opportunities. But then the heart of the Fed meeting is listening to their perspectives and ideas and experiences. 00:13:43 So usually half an hour of the 90 minutes is in small groups or back in whole group really uh posing a couple questions that will give us tremendous insight on how do we create a more collaborative equitable school. Um And so it's really, really structured in a way that um we're fostering relationship building throughout the hour and a half together. Um So that's kind of the essence of it. It's usually led by a few teacher leaders, parent leaders, um who, you know, put a lot of planning. I think just like great teaching. We've learned that about an hour of mapping out an agenda and getting all the logistics ready has really led to success across many school communities um regardless of who's leading it. Just that, that, that fosters a gathering that's truly grounded in, in purpose and, and uh meaning for everybody. Hi everyone. It's Lindsay just popping in here quickly to tell you about today's episode. Freebie. This is from Ari. So we talk a ton about how his book has a ton of reproducible and lists of things, appendices, all the things that you can just grab and use immediately. 00:14:50 He is sharing several of those free reproducible from his book and you can grab those at the blog post for this episode at Lindsay, Beth lions.com/blog/one 55. Back to the episode. Yeah. It, it's fascinating to look at the 90 minute breakdown too of like how you structure the agenda and how intentional all the pieces are. I mean, even to the point of I looked at one of your sample agendas where it was literally like who's taking on the meals, who's taking on this, the note taking task, who's like it was. So it was so thought out like clearly from the result of like doing this so many times and figuring out what works with, doesn't it? I mean, one of the things and you started with like, there are meals that, which is beautiful. You also have child care for people to be able to, like, bring their kids if that's a barrier. Now it is no longer. And I'm just thinking now as a parent of a toddler, like how lovely it would be to like, just be like, ok, park the kid, get the dinner. All right. Like we're gonna talk now I'm here and it's funny, I'm also a parent of a, a toddler and um and I joked with a couple of f leaders just last week before our break. 00:15:56 I I said, oh, you know, fat could almost, we could almost like portray it as Date Night for, for some families because they're, they're getting a free delicious dinner. Child care is there and they're getting to be together. And also, of course, build community which I think in the wake of the pandemic and the isolation and loneliness. So many of us in this country feel that's yet another benefit of uh of creative space. But yeah, it uh we joked about it actually being date night on top of many other uh other benefits and outcomes. Well, I think that's a really interesting mindset chef, right? Like we often talk about like how to reduce barriers, but like it's also not even just reducing the barrier. It is like a draw, right? Like here is the free food, here is the setup where like not only do you get to go in and talk about, you know, your experiences and like your kids education and everything, but like, you're truly, you're finding friends, you're finding community, you are fed. You don't have to worry about your toddler for 90 minutes. Like that just sounds beautiful. 00:16:59 So cool that you create like this. And you're reminding me of like two, I think powerful examples. One is on the family front that one of the six main purpose of F is to build a network between families to kind of harness their collective agency and build connections. And I was at an elementary school a few weeks back and a mom had just arrived three weeks earlier from crossing the border with a couple of her youngest kids to reunite with her husband. And everything about the school was overwhelming her first time in a US school. And we were in a small group and a, a mom who'd been at that school for four years. Also a Spanish speaking parent um said, basically, hey, call me if you have any questions, well, that reduces the load on the educators and builds this, this wonderful, you know, sense of comadres networking uh and support. Um And then on the, on the, you know, parent educator front, I'm remembering and I think I, I share this father's story in the book where he says, you know, and it hit me hard. 00:18:02 He said as a Latino parent knowing the principal didn't speak Spanish, I often felt like I kind of needed to hide or be invisible when I came in. And now after, you know, a year and a half of seeing the principal every single time we gather once a month in the set meetings, having her listen to us, hearing her try to, you know, speak Spanish as best she can. Um She says, now she says, now I feel comfortable to just go up and have a conversation with her and that opens the door for all kinds of mutual learning support connections. Um So just creating that space and that's where I feel so passionate about the fe teams because many events in our schools today are once or twice a year. And there's rarely this ongoing structure that's focused on the more humanizing part of education, not, not on fundraising, not on other pieces, but really on fostering relationships and mutual learning. Oh, there's so many pieces I wanna, I don't wanna touch on here. So one I know you mentioned this, that Spanish is the language that typically that in your experience, that has been the, the language of the gathering. 00:19:09 And then there is English interpretation. And I love how you, you even get really granular to be like, and we've learned, you know, like to wear headsets so that it's synchronous so that we're, you know, being efficient in time and also being able to like watch and get accuracy for the interpreters to be able to like, just do this. This is how we do it just so many things where a leader might be like, hesitant to do something. And it's like, well, it's valuable and we've worked out like all of the potential challenges and here is like, what we've learned that's just kind of handed to you. I, I just think that's super cool all the way down to like where the budget comes from. So like, you know, it could be at the school level but your district has taken on all interpretation. So like that's there. And then like, from like, you know, here's, here's how much we factor in for like the cost of meals. And like, I think you said $2000 for the whole year has been what you found to be doable logistically. I mean, just some of the things that I think listening to this, you know, a leader might say great. These all are, these are all great like stories and like research based, like we should do it, but it feels so daunting, but you really break down in the book, like all sorts of tips, like ideas literally down to the dollar amounts of like what things cost. 00:20:16 You have a whole appendix of like, here you want to do team building, here's like 30 team building activities and like all sorts of things from like a planning checklist for people who are who are doing this work. So I just want to say like really cool stuff in the book. If, if this sounds overwhelming to any leader, just get the book and you'll be totally fine. And I also, I appreciate you bringing up leadership because I do think often as a former principal, I know there's this feeling or expectation of the principal has to hold a lot of that partnering with families role. Um And I think what principles at the, you know, 24 schools that currently have fet teams have said is not only do I now connect with all of my communities more fully, but I'm distributing the leadership and, and really, as many principals say, I love just getting to show up. And my only real job is just to sit back and listen. Um And yet they also are pivotal in helping us once the the team leaders learn in the meetings from families and from their colleagues, what changes are truly needed. 00:21:21 The principal jump in, you know, for 15 minutes a year, often of a quick check in. Oh, let's let's bring this back and launch this with the staff. Um So it really is, as you're saying, um an easy load on the principal yet it drives not only a lot of great learning for them and, and their colleagues um but they're distributing leadership and cultivating parent leadership that can make such a huge difference in that school community. Yes, yes to the cultivating parent leadership. Also, I love that point. And like, I think you, you may have said this, but I just wanna emphasize for listeners that the the principal, you, you paint a really clear picture that the principal needs to be present at each of the meetings. You, I think you shared a case study where like that wasn't the case and the team just kind of fell apart, right? Yeah, I'm, I'm grateful you mentioned that. And also I'm just thinking back what you said about like how granular and specific I've been in the book. I mean, part of what I should say is that we held hundreds of fe meetings over the first four years at more than 10 schools. And I learned not only from the successes but the the meetings that fell short or the couple teams early on that struggled. 00:22:26 And so it was really in year five, realizing a host of ingredients that were key for an effective team, which I really laid out in the book. Um And one of those pieces really was the school leaders consistent presence because that shows to the teachers who, you know, they're coming at night after a full day, usually in the classroom at school. So it shows, ok, my principal truly cares about this effort enough to be there themselves. Um Not to mention when we want to enact change if they haven't sat there in that space and been moved by the stories and insights of families, they're less likely to feel invested in helping us core that change. So, yeah, that was one of the, the biggest and most profound learnings in the first few years because a couple teams really didn't flourish because the school leader um wasn't deeply invested in it. And to your point about change, I think that's, that's one of the big learnings for me in terms of a fat team versus PT A or something like this. 00:23:28 Like, actually, I saw so many parallels to the arguments that I make around student leadership. Like often I'll be like, oh student council, it's just like planning prom and planning the senior class trip. It's so frustrating, like you're just doing these events, but you're not brought into academic conversations about like, how should be great, what should our policy of A P enrollment be like real things that matter? And that's kind of what it to me sounded like between like PT A is often very like event planning and this is truly you're building relationships and it's culminating in or, or kind of like paired with like action planning, like we are creating change and that's the goal, right? Yeah. Well, and I could share a couple of brief examples because 11 of the things that was really important path of these seven years with fet teams was in year four or five, I realized, wow, we're really building this dynamic community families are loving the space educators are appreciating it, but we're not consistently at every school creating systemic change. We're not able to say in May. 00:24:29 Wow, the staff is doing this differently as a result of fe so these last three years, I've been really intentional and persistent. And luckily, I've built solid relationships with our fe leaders where I actually now in January or February are prompting them with. OK, what questions are you gonna ask at this next meeting so that you can devise concrete action plans for January to March so that the changes are in place. And you know that at one school, for instance, parents told us, hey, conferences aren't very meaningful for us with the teacher. Um And by listening, then it was two really subtle easy changes. One was we added 10 more minutes. So it was half an hour because all the families were using an interpreter and it wasn't equitable for them to have essentially half the time other families had. And then I did a 20 minute PD for staff on how do we create a more relationship centered and culturally uh sustaining approach to um to conferences? And those two pieces alone led families to come back in March and share having a radically different experience. 00:25:33 They also said there's a huge language gap and we literally put in place this wonderful app talking points and that prompted thousands of texts to go back and forth the following year, um, in, in place of that void of communication, relationship building previously. So sometimes it's, it's pretty easy changes because we know teachers can't take on too many more big things. We've got to make them, you know, easy meaningful. But, um, but efficient efforts. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, there's, there's so much that I could, like, talk to you for days about this book. Uh, but one of the things I'm wondering is if a leader is listening and they're like, again, yes, I'm interested and, and I will get the book, but I have like these fears of like it not working or, or something like what's a challenge that you could speak to? That's like, you know what? Yeah, we've seen this as a common challenge to the work and here's like how we've helped people address it. Yeah. Yeah. Great question. And you mentioned the team builders in the appendix and that, that's one of the resources I'm most proud of because I've for a couple decades, been a trainer in SCL and, and those are some of my favorite team builders for students and also for adults. 00:26:43 And, and it's reminding me of one of the challenges. So one of our high schools launching a team and this was before we learned a powerful lesson which I, I should have known already from some of my training that we didn't gather in circles and, and so families came in and teachers had already arrived, they were sitting in a row basically facing the parents and the challenge was, wow, everything is kind of awkward and tense here. There's language barrier here as well. And we did a 2.5 minute team builder um that brought us into, you know, a, a whole group and led to immediate laughter and immediately broke the ice. And, and so that, that is a challenge that for families who've not had this space ever at a school, initially, they might not trust that we're truly there to do most of the listening. They might need to know. Ok, can I truly be honest? I mean, we've had to really be thoughtful about building the space month to month that first year. 00:27:46 Um So I do feel like the book lays out all of kind of the map to do that effectively because it is uh it is difficult to train a lot of us as educators haven't been trained in how to do this deeper work with families across so many differences. So, um that, that's a challenge as well as um I think bringing change ideas back to back to staff and really having a wonderful birth with them that they can go back to the team. Um because it's not just family saying, you know, you gotta make A B and C changes and it's just happening and they truly are co created. Hm Thank you so much for sharing that. I think I'm hopeful that, that like, kind of dispels any sort of like, I'm not sure what this is gonna go like. And I, and I think that that is so comforting to be like you've done this so many times, I think you had like 400 meetings or something. I mean, just like so many times and that you have seen the challenges you've worked through them and therefore, like, you know, consult the book and, and you'll, you'll even see some of those case study challenges like laid out and like, here's, here's what we did. 00:28:50 So I love that, that is a resource for listeners. I'm thinking for the, for the listener listening who maybe feel kind of overwhelmed with like this is a big project and I'm not quite sure where to start what is like step one like they end the podcast and they're like, I just want one tiny step to get started. What would you recommend that be? Yeah. Um I think creating spaces really listen more, take off that kind of teacher expert hat. Um And that could be, you know, a welcome phone call to start a new school year. It can be engaging in, you know, a relationship centered home, visit with a couple of your, your students families. And I think, you know, diving into the book where even if you don't spark the creation of a team right away at your school, I've really infused the book with a ton of everyday practices and ideas um that are really, really straightforward, easy to do. Um, you know, positive phone calls is, is an example. 00:29:53 One of my favorites were literally carving out 10 minutes once a week to call three families and share some sort of good news academically or about character of a student, something kind they did to for another student. Um So I would say there will be morsels in the book right away that um I think are both energizing and very practical. Excellent. Thank you so much. And I think to, to close, I have two questions that I like to ask people. The first one is just for fun. It does not have to relate to your job at all. Although it can, what is something that you personally have been learning about lately? Hm. Um Yeah, I love that question. Um One of the books I'm reading right now um is about Zen and I've been studying Zen now for eight years. My um my wife is uh a monk, uh you know, a, a secular monk. Um And um so I'm reading a wonderful book by this author Charlotte Joko Beck um about Zen. So that's, that's an area of learning. 00:30:57 And I've realized this, this month, having this time off, this last week when I have more time down the road, I wanna learn how to be a better cook, learn how to be a better dancer. Um Those are like 22 areas that I've, I felt recently inspired around deeper. Oh, my gosh, I love those. Thank you for sharing those. I love when people share things that are not related to their job, it just rounds them out as like a full human, which we all are beyond our job. But also, I mean, as, as a, as a father of a 15 month old, like I, you know, grew up volunteering as a middle schooler at a head start. I have a lot of background with like 3 to 5 year olds and then I, I taught and was a principal in elementary schools for 15 years. But I, I'm definitely not an expert on a 15 month old. So been reading a lot about parenting and been excited to see like some of the parallels of what we, you know, what we learn as educators. But also it's been consistently humbling too. Tell me about it. Oh my gosh. Mine is 22 months and it is like, I learn every day. 00:32:02 I know nothing. Exactly. Yeah. Awesome. I, I am so glad that we had this conversation. This has been so wonderful. I think a lot of people are going to be like, let me reach out in addition to grabbing the book. Can they reach out to you at a certain location or are you on social media? Like, where can they maybe follow what you're doing? Yeah. Um The best way would be to connect with me or follow me on linkedin. That's where I'm regularly posting new articles. I'm writing quick practical ideas. Um So that's the best space. And folks are also welcome to just email me directly at A E giron at gmail.com and can also find more about the book at solution tree.com/a. E Amazing Ari Thank you so much for joining the podcast. This is such a pleasure, Lindsay. Thanks for your energy, enthusiasm and just great conversation. Really appreciate it. 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. 00:33:09 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 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. Sign up for a nerdy no strings attached to brainstorm call at Lindsay, Beth lions.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 teach better.com/podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
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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
August 2024
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