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In this episode, we chat with Tom Hierck and Dr. Chris Weber about building positive mindsets to address behavioral challenges in educational settings. Chris, an elementary school principal, and Tom, a seasoned educator, recognize how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the education system, creating new challenges for educators.
They recently co-authored the book Positive Behaviours Start With Positive Mindsets, which offers practical lessons for educators to understand what’s in their control and how they can positively impact classroom dynamics, student behaviors, and more. The Big Dream Tom and Chris believe that education is the great equalizer and a tool for creating opportunities and achieving a just society. Their big dream is seeing an education system that sets everyone up for success, regardless of their starting point. They want to harness the power of education to address social skills, perseverance, and equity, ultimately building a pathway to a fair and equitable society. Mindset Shifts Required Tom and Chris have identified four key mindset shifts that educators can instill in their students to help address behavior and help students thrive. They are:
Action Steps To start building these positive mindsets in your educational practice, Tom and Chris highlight two key action steps to take: Step 1: Use classroom meetings to empower students. Call them what you like (i.e., restorative circles or carpet time), but intentionally take time to connect with students each day. It fosters a sense of belonging, an important mindset to address behaviors. Step 2: Implement learning target trackers. This gives agency and ownership to the students to track their understanding and proficiency. Self-assessment helps students take responsibility for their learning, which increases self-efficacy. Challenges? One of the main challenges highlighted in the episode is time. Educators are always pressed for time in their day, so Chris and Tom advocate for a “less is more” approach. This means paring back academic content to allow students to go deeper into it, while also leaving time to nurture mindsets and teach important behavioral skills. One Step to Get Started A first step for educators to take is an internal mindset shift: give yourself the grace and permission to connect with students first. Focus on building relationships by engaging with students individually, even if it’s challenging. Educators get caught up in so many different things, so it’s important to re-center and prioritize building relationships with these students and meet them where they are. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest, Tom, on X, Facebook, and Instagram under @thierck and at www.tomhierck.com, and Dr. Chris Weber by email at [email protected]. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guests invite you to check out solutiontree.com. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 215 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Chris and Tom, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. So happy to have you here today. 00:08 - Tom Hierck (Guest) What a thrill for us to be here with you as well and to be able to share some thoughts with your audience. 00:12 - Chris Weber (Guest) Yeah, thanks for having us. 00:14 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Absolutely, I think. First, I just want to set the stage with. You know what it's important for our listeners to know about you. Sometimes we read these formal bios and people have you know personal things they want to add, or they have something on their mind in the day that we're recording or we want to you know front load that we're sharing about a book or you know whatever the things are that you think is important, before we dive into our kind of meatier questions, what would you, what would you like to share with folks today? 00:42 - Chris Weber (Guest) I'll start, Tom, Thanks. I'm an elementary school principal about 1,000 kids pretty typical California school. A third of our students are eligible for free lunch, A third are learning English and are multilingual and amazing. And I think, as is also the case across the country, across the continent, student behaviors are probably more of a concern than they even were before, and the kids are precious and amazing and I think many of us wish we had better tools to serve and support them. So this book and the work I try to do every day, all day, is around mindsets more specifically and more broadly, pro-social and academic behaviors that we all need to be successful in life. 01:40 - Tom Hierck (Guest) Yeah, and for me, you know, it's a career that doesn't seem to ever have an end in sight, right? This is year 41 that I've been involved in education, pretty much in any role. My major drivers now are I have six grandbabies that are in the school, right, and so I want them to have the same fabulous system that I got to be a part of. I have a daughter who's teaching in the system system, you know, and to Chris's point, we know things have changed, right? We know we're in a different time. Right now it's a bit unsettled as we continue to sort of move beyond the most challenging moment I think schools experienced at the time of the pandemic and continue to move forward. It has shaped behaviors, it has shaped approaches, and so when we crafted this book you know the positive behaviors start with positive mindsets it really was around. What do we have in our control? And you know, as we've come to realize, the only thing we really do have in our control is us several points you both made, and then we'll dive into our first question. 02:45 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I just want to lift up the one, just the idea of I was talking to Tom before we hit record that I am a parent of a three-year-old currently, and you know I have that parent hat on as well as that educator hat on as I'm reading the book right and I'm I'm definitely thinking about how are we able to foster mindsets in all of the young people around us and also the adults around us. 03:01 And so I was just on a coaching call yesterday where you know we're supposed to be talking about this particular thing, but actually it was all mindset. It was all about coaching mindset and the struggles of teaching and what we can control, and so I think all of this is very much on my heart and mind as well. So thank you for naming all of that. This will be very relevant in helping me in my coaching. So we'll dive in, I think. The first thing I usually like to ask I want to center Dr Bettina Love's words around freedom dreaming, and she says you know their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, and I think that your book has such potential to be kind of a freedom dream, and so I'm curious to know, like what is that big dream that each of you hold within that context for the field of education? 03:48 - Chris Weber (Guest) Please, Tom. 03:50 - Tom Hierck (Guest) Yeah. So you know, when we think about you, know this notion, that look, the research is clear and unequivocal. Our own sense is clear and unequivocal that, educators, education is the great equalizer, education is the great opportunity. Educators, education is the great equalizer, education is the great opportunity, Education is the way forward. You know that the current circumstances a student, a family's experiencing does not dictate the end point. It just dictates the starting point. And we know we have the capacity. 04:19 Every school is populated with the most skilled set of adults. A student will encounter in their entire lives the diversity, the practical approaches, the opportunities in this 13-year experience we call school should set everybody up to be successful. Now we've got to talk about the realities of what's going on. That's why, in the book, we talk about social skills, we talk about perseverance, we talk about learning strategies, we talk about academic behaviors, we talk about equity. You know we have to be willing to talk about the elephants in the room, right, it's not just one. There are a lot of things that we believe education, in essence, is the salvation, the solution towards this just and equitable and fair society. 05:10 - Chris Weber (Guest) Yeah, tommy, you say 13 years of education. I think we all need to here in California anyway, where now pre-K is the law and we're we'll have three year olds for at least three for a few months at the beginning of next school year will be with us. So it's really a 14-year journey, and what an opportunity, what a responsibility, what a privilege. I guess the only thing I would add, tom, that was as usual. That's why you're inspiring to me. I agree with all those things and I would add our work is relational first and foremost and always. And we're good at teaching stuff, quite skilled. We can always be better, but it's the relational pieces, the senses of belonging, senses of community identity that we were privileged enough and responsible for nourishing and nurturing. 06:07 And that starts with mindsets too, and and you know, this book is designed to be a set of resources that that helps us promote more positive student mindsets. But, as I think you said earlier, amen, it does start with our mindsets. And there's no more important job in the world, but there's probably no more exhausting job in the world, so it can be challenging. The things like perseverance apply to the students and they apply to us, so we're all in it together. But what we know and we may dive into this, the research is pretty clear that we can teach, reinforce behaviors. That's great news, and the research is clear is that it starts with these four mindset elements that we described in the book. 06:55 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) You can definitely. If you want to go there, let's go there. Do you want to talk through some of the four mindsets that you introduce in the book? 07:06 - Chris Weber (Guest) introduce in the book. Sure, maybe I'll start Tom with two and you can take two. Yeah, the first. Let me talk about the research. I guess a bit. It's not ours. We're practitioners, we love what we do, but we're not the social scientists and educational psychologists who came together. It's been inspiration for me. I'm sure I'm a dork, I'm proudly so, but I know I'm not the expert of experts. But I think it might help ground some of us. It certainly helped ground me by realizing where this came from and I analogize it to the National Reading Panel which you know, the year 2000 here in the States. 07:40 It was a big moment because, while there's still debates about reading, many of them were resolved when all of these different practitioners and experts and researchers in the area of reading came together and said hey, there are five domains of reading phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension and they, when put together, when taught systematically, explicitly, et cetera, all students will be able to learn to read Great. The same thing happened in behavior and we want to share that with the world. So a similar group of disparate but equally accomplished educational researchers and psychologists came together and said what are the behaviors that all students need to possess to be successful in school, life and career. And lo and behold, there are also five domains. It's mindsets and social skills and perseverance, and learning strategies and academic behaviors. Mindsets is first, and they created a bit of a schematic and a structure and a framework and they certainly intertwine with one another. But mindsets are the foundation, and so the way I think of it and describe it and talk to others about it is you can look at it both directions. When mindsets are solidly in place, these other subsequent skills, behavioral skills like social skills and perseverance, et cetera they're going to be much more likely to be in place. But we can look at it the other way as well. If a student isn't persevering, isn't displaying appropriate pro-social skills, I wonder what's happening with mindsets. 09:08 So, with that in mind, the first is not new to us. It's a sense of belonging, the way the researchers describe it is. I feel like I belong in this academic community, in this thing we call school, so gosh. Everything from identity to relationships with other students, to relationships with trusted adults, to seeing and feeling and hearing themselves, and the content in the curriculum, in the lessons themselves. So sense of belonging is that first one. And man, what would we do. What do we do in classrooms? Well, let's be even more intentional about that and let's recognize that when we're doing those things to help manage a classroom, we're also nurturing students' souls. You know, we're helping them feel like they belong. One of our goals this year, before I move to the second one, is to extend that to our families. We want them to feel like they belong too. Of course that's going to help their students, but it's going to help the entire community. I won't go into the details, but it's been exciting community. And I won't go into the details, but it's been exciting. 10:08 The second is another new concept, excuse me, another not new concept to us. It's self-efficacy. So here we have these first two. Tom will talk about the next two, but we knew about these. Perhaps we did in I'm not going to say isolation, but we were aware of them. Were we aware that they make up the four elements of mindsets that are foundational to all the other behaviors? This is exciting. So the second is self-efficacy that when students believe they can do it, they're much more likely to do it. So what do we do to that? Sure, we differentiate and scaffold and find their zones of proximal development so we can meet them where they are and all the things right Did we know? That's not just an academic strategy, that's a behavior strategy, it's a mindset strategy and there are other things that we can do to promote those senses of self-efficacy with kiddos. So those are the first two, tom. 11:00 - Tom Hierck (Guest) Yeah, and you know, just to backtrack a little bit, I think you know fair to say that when we talk about mindsets, everybody knows growth mindset right. You know Carol Dweck's done outstanding work, has really helped to popularize that and it's an essential. But it's the other three that build towards you having a growth mindset right. Self-efficacy builds towards you having you know this notion right. And so the third mindset is about the value the work has. You know it's the age-old question will I ever use this stuff right? And so how do we connect what's going on? Not as a series of esoteric, different facts, but that there is a connection between where you are today and where you will be at the end of this 14-year experience. We call school that it'll leverage that for you and be able to transition. You know I do an activity where I ask people what do you think? What attributes should every young woman and man have upon completion of this 14-year experience? And I'll hear things like, you know, empathy. I'll hear things like communication skills, you know I'll hear things like dedication, perseverance, a work ethic. Nobody ever says knows the quadratic formula, can conjugate verbs rapidly, has mastered the left-hand layup right. Now, I'm not down on our skills, but are they relative too? In other words, how do I build confidence in a kid in grade four who already comes to Mr Weber and says hey, mr Weber, I don't do math. You know, my parents don't do math, my grandparents don't do math. I come from a long line of defective math people, right, how do we use confidence, then, to eradicate that seemingly deficit in that kid's mind? So the work has value? I see a connection to where I am and where I want to be starts to be a challenge for all educators. How do you make this relative to right? 12:58 We've got to get away from, I believe and I think we're doing a better job in schools today the univision that says the only view of success is going off to college. Right, we got all kinds of other fascinating careers. You know, as I travel, there's more of a need for skilled trades people than there is for skilled lawyers. Right, I'm not down on being a lawyer, but you know why do we set up that? The only view of success is how do we make this work have value? Of course, that then leads to that fourth mindset, the growth mindset, that my ability, my competence will grow as I, but again, in order for me to increase my effort, the work has to have some connection. I have to feel like I belong in this place called school. I have to believe that you know self-efficacy, that there is a notion that I can succeed, that these are all possible. 13:56 And so we've tried to structure the four mindsets, building towards what we think every kid is capable of high school graduation, plus the plus defined by your interest. I want to go to my coffee shop and have somebody there who is jazzed up about being in a coffee shop, because they know they love interacting with people, they know they love remembering what Lindsay was telling about her three-year-old last time, and next time she comes in, the first thing you can say is so I'm going to go right, I don't want somebody working in a coffee shop saying man, I am such a loser. The only job I could get is slinging coffee. I go to work every day disappointed, right? No-transcript, right. So let's make this connection to where they are and where they can be. 14:43 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Wow, that was amazing. 14:44 Thank you both for summarizing all of that and I think the power behind that is is so massive. 14:49 One of the questions that I like asking about on the show and this is kind of meta because we're talking about mindset I'm going to ask about mindset in a slightly different way, but I wonder about you know, we know the importance, we know the research is there and in practice I think there's so many. You know external pressures and things to like cover content or the test scores, whatever the thing is, and I'm curious to know what is kind of the aha moment or mindset shift that you've seen with adults, with teachers, to be able to kind of set those other pieces aside temporarily to recognize the importance of, for example, building relationships during class time or getting curious and trying to spend some real time figuring out what is going on behind the behaviors, like what are the mindsets we need to build? I just know that teachers are constantly looking for more time, right, so that's like one barrier that I sometimes think about. That could happen in your work. I've certainly seen it in mine. Any kind of tips for either leaders coaching teachers or teachers themselves? 15:53 - Chris Weber (Guest) Wow, well, you had mentioned finding the time. I don't think that's one of the challenges. It is. It's the biggest challenge and we, just as a not irrelevant aside, we have 130 students at our school and they come every week. A new couple of them who are brand brand new to English, often from parts of the world that are experiencing tragedy, and we need to find time to provide them explicit and systematic language development. More time, better time. Oh, by the way, we're not getting a longer school day or longer school year. 16:34 It's a leap of faith to answer your question, and I don't mean to disappoint, but there isn't any magic formula. 16:41 What we've known, and this is what we're leveraging, what we've known for a few decades, I think now, Tom is that less is more. 16:49 In fact, singapore, which we borrowed some of their foundational thinking, their motto in their educational system was teach less, learn more, and that sounds weird, but the point is, and we prioritize standards, and for many reasons. One is because there's actually too many standards for every single student to master at a depth that is reasonable, and that's not the point. We say this interestingly and we're trying to break down these walls of I have to cover it all, I have to cover it all, but students don't learn more because I teach more content, do we agree? Okay, so they learn more because they get their hands into the content, they get their minds into in the content. Which content? So the knowledge that I think we've known for a while is that the need to, and the importance of prioritizing academic content serves many purposes. Here's another purpose that it serves is that it's going to allow us to dedicate time to teaching and practicing and nurturing mindsets and other critically important behavioral skills. What do you think, tom? 17:58 - Tom Hierck (Guest) Yeah, right, again. As usual, Chris is so succinct at getting right to the meat of it. As we look at what we are doing. It's all part because people think every time a book comes out it's an attempt to criticize what's going on. It isn't. It's meant to augment, it's meant to grow. 18:15 So what do you know about? And in this time we have, what are we doing now to change, to alter those experiences? I mean, you know the stories that Chris can share about the kids that come to school in an elementary school already, right, like, there are things happening in elementary schools that, my goodness, when I went to school you never would have contemplated, right, you know, as an aging human being, I love it when people say 60 is the new 50. I'm not sure I believe it yet, but as an educator, I'm worried that 10 is the new 20. Right, there are things happening, experiences that kids are wrestling with in elementary school that will buckle us to our knees as adults right now. How do we help them in this time? It seems like a long time 14 years but my goodness, it goes by in a heartbeat. 19:06 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That is such an important contextual piece, I think, to this conversation, right Is there's so much. There's inundation of social media of like events in the world, like they're so, it's so front and center in their lives. And I think this is like what jazzed me about teaching and coaching is like the real right, the real stuff in the world. And how do we to your earlier points about education being the space where it's like everyone goes through it. Everyone goes through this 14 year journey. We're here, we have skilled adults ready. Let's talk about these important things and let's do it in a way that's cultivating these mindsets right and is supporting kids to be successful now and in the future. I'm curious about like you guys list so many amazing strategies in the book. I'm curious to know if there's like one particular one that's a favorite or that you've used in those particular like connected to a story, like, oh, this happened and it was really effective. When we use this strategy, or teachers I coached use this strategy, anything come to mind. 20:09 - Tom Hierck (Guest) The beauty of this, you know, and it's all subtitled right 28 Actions to Motivate Students and Lead to Improvement. The beauty of this is and the beauty of Chris being the outstanding educator that he is and leading a school right now is we've got a living laboratory right. So all these things have been, in fact, tried and true in chris's school, in schools that his colleagues are running. So, chris, any any ones? That, uh, probably, maybe a recent memory, because I'm sure you could probably walk us through every one of your activities, in fact, about a practical application of them yeah, it's not easy and it's the number that we have has grown double. 20:48 - Chris Weber (Guest) Maybe I don't know, just because it is a laboratory. The two I would choose one is classroom meetings and and the other are learning target trackers, classroom meetings, and do what you want, call them what you want, the restorative circles you and do connect to the social justice and and restorative practices piece. Connect to all of it, because when it is overwhelming the number of things that we're trying to do and it doesn't make it easier for me to say it's all connected, but there are those connections. So feel good about the fact that. Oh, we have, we went to that training for restorative circles. Cool, that's going to foster a sense of belonging in your classroom, which is an important mindset. So if it's carpet and calendar time in the early grades, pre-kk1, there is no possibility that 35, and I do mean that sixth graders, 12-year-olds there's no space for a carpet, so you stand or sit in the perimeter of the room. But you're talking about mindsets, you're talking about behaviors. In my school we select themes and this morning Dr Hulley, my assistant principal, we do morning announcements. But every single day in morning announcements there's a brief paragraph that I write. It's three or four sentences about this month. It's compassion. So we're talking about different elements of compassion and, wow, are there a lot of them. But then that's a launch point for the classroom meetings, restorative meetings that are happening within the class. 22:11 The other I mentioned is learning target trackers. This is not a new concept. It's you know. It's even in kindergarten up through high school school. It's hey, let's empower and give agency and ownership to the students to track their emerging understandings and proficiencies with specific important skills, including behavioral and mindset skills and academic skills. What is this doing? 22:35 Well, as they're seeing their progress based on feedback that they're getting and self-assessment they're performing, they're increasingly believing hey, I can do this. Look what is happening here. I have more self-assessment they're performing. They're increasingly believing hey, I can do this. Look what is happening here. I have more self-efficacy. This thing is relevant to me. Why is it relevant? Because I have a stake in it. I'm doing something, I have a responsibility in my learning, because my teacher is making me, or allowing me to monitor and graph and chart my progress. 23:04 And then, lastly, growth mindset, of course. Hey, I'm putting in this effort and look what's happening. My ability, my competence is growing. It's true what Mr Herrick was saying. I'm seeing it right here on the paper. So there are lots. But I guess I would say too, when you try to present your passion to your colleagues, you organize it into chapters, let's say and I just mentioned something like learning target tracker, which we identify and place within a chapter. But as I say, tom, when I'm talking to folks about this, there's no right place or right mindset element that this singular strategy might fit in. That's okay, don't think of it like that. Some of them are more targeted or specifically aligned to one versus another, but something like a target tracker, which I just I think is a total necessity at this point, as a not again irrelevant aside. So many of us, thank goodness, are moving towards standards-based grading long, long, long overdue and a learning target tracker is front and center, central to the standards-based grading work. 24:16 - Tom Hierck (Guest) So imagine, you know, being a kid in that school and being able to formulate Now, you know Chris is using big guys language, but you know kids in their own way, to be able to feel like that this thing at school is really relevant, is really, and to be able to recognize hey, when I do this, this happens. And you know that I'm in this journey and that I've got all these adults who are supporting me and there isn't anything wrong with what I'm trying to do here right, that all of these pursuits are worth having. I mean just the power behind that right and when we can get the adults recognizing. You know, I'm fond of saying when kids come to school, they're coming to our house. It's the only house over which we have control. So now imagine we're building this environment, fostering these mindsets, fostering this potential for every kid, not just the easy to reach, easy to teach kids, but every kid absolutely. 25:16 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I mean, I'm just thinking about the coaching calls and yesterday, um, where some of the language, the mindset we wanted to coach on, was around like this is an a student, or this is a d student, and it's just like, oh, like right, when we can look at a tracker and we can say this is a student who excels in these skills and is you know, this skill is an area for growth. It's a very different way we talk about and think about kids. 25:39 - Tom Hierck (Guest) It's it's wild how effective it is and and imagine we can take that conversation to adults too. We're all really good at our strengths and then we sort of dismiss the opportunities we have to grow. We call them weaknesses and we say, ah, you know what it's my weakness, but Chris is really good at that. So therefore, no, no, I want you to identify your growth areas, things you can get better. It doesn't have to become a strength, but imagine you've recognized that your colleague chris has this strength. 26:09 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) How about you guys pair up and you start to grow and model that for our kids? Absolutely, I think there's there's so much richness in the book and I I really love the kind of succinctness where you're just like here's the research, here are the mindsets, and like let's get to some real concrete strategies. I also love that you have those action plans at the end of each chapter, which I just highly recommend people pick up the book and check those out too, because those are really cool and so centered in student voice and agency, which I really appreciated as well as a student voice researcher. That's very cool to read about. I am curious, like for the people who are wrapping up the episode they're about to head into school today as they're listening what is one step before they get the book that they could implement today? What's one thing that they could either shift their thinking around or a practice they could implement immediately? 27:02 - Chris Weber (Guest) that's a big question, the one thing. This may not be where you were going, lindsay, I apologize, but I think what a first step, and it's not something I can implement today. That's where I I feel I'm. I fear I'm failing you, but it's. It's going in and giving yourself the grace and giving yourself permission to connect with kids first, and and we're good at that we love kids. 27:29 There's no better human beings on the planet with connecting with people, particularly children, than teachers. But we get caught up and worried about the other stuff. I guess one thing that never fails man to strike me as powerful is how do you say it getting past the wall that human beings little human beings, in traumas, for example put up. So there's a little one from. He's most recently from Turkey, but that was a way station from Ukraine, and his family is here. He has an older brother, but this little one's in second grade Language, of course, is I'm not fluent in Turkish and some languages we have more supports around. 28:18 Turkish is one that we actually have discovered. 28:22 One of our parent engagement and sense of belonging goals is to get our bilingual parents and languages into the classroom to help us connect with the kids, and the parents love it, the kids light up because here's a trusted adult in the school may not be my teacher, but who's talking to me, and it doesn't matter what they're talking about, it's just they're talking to me. So recently with the second grader, you know, we had a connection moment, and now I'm. You know all leaders should be in their teachers classrooms every day as much as they possibly can. I am, and so when I'm in his classroom now, he smiles at me, I wave, he actually waves back, and that connection. That's the first step and it's a massive first step and we're good now. We're not done, but we're going to be successful. So that would be my one thing is give yourself that grace and give yourself that permission to connect with a student, even if it was one, a little bit more and have some courage. It's not easy. Pick, you know, that one, pick that one, and and, and and. 29:28 - Tom Hierck (Guest) Don't give up, but get started yeah, and you know it really is. You know we talked about mindset. It really is a mindset approach, right? Um, look, you know, chris knows this, every educator knows this. We have evidence on every kid in every school today. So the question really that we have to ask ourselves is what are we doing with that evidence, right? Are we using it to make plans? Or are we using it to make excuses, because it could be really easy for Chris to say, well, we got nobody who'll speak Turkish. Yeah, I get it, this kid's rough around the edges. Let's just hold on to our hats and hope we survive this kid, or this kid survives us, or maybe, in hushed whispers, maybe this kid will find a better place to go, because we really can't. No, no, start with something. Start with something right? 30:15 Recognize all the opportunities we have in a school every day, seeing the kids get off the bus, that's an opportunity. That's not a duty. That's an opportunity. That's not a duty, that's an opportunity, right? So how are we going to start to build? Because you do have evidence. Here we are in February. There is no unknown kid in a school today, unless somebody just gets off a plane today and shows up at Chris's building right. So what are we doing to make sure we start somewhere right? With all the talent that we have in schools today, we've got to find a way, and so we've got to start somewhere. 30:51 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love both of those. Give yourself the permission and find the opportunities to start somewhere, so good. So the last two kind of quick closing questions are first, what have you been learning about lately? So you guys talk a little bit about like learning being this kind of lifelong thing and cultivating the mindsets for this. So I'm curious to know it could be related to education in our conversation day it could also be something totally off the conversation trail. 31:18 - Chris Weber (Guest) Yeah, mine's education. It's first related in some respects to mindsets, but it's more structural. Tom and I, I think, started our collaborations together. We're talking about RTI and MTSS, in behavioral areas, but of course in academic areas too, and we're getting creative and successful in in using our time even more efficiently. This seems dorky, but if we you know, but when I talk to colleagues at other schools, I'd really like to provide this tier two win time, whatever. I need time support and it sounds really good. 31:57 We can't figure out our schedule, we can't get our grade levels or our content areas, our subject areas in the secondary schools aligned, and so we've had some breakthroughs. Talk about skill sets. My assistant principal is the best assistant principal in the world and we each have, let's say, our relative areas of strength, and boy is she good at that one. So we're excited. It's hard to change things mid-year, so we have made some modest shifts that are powerful. But even here in February, we're thinking about next school year. So it's, and it's again, it's, if you're a teacher leader or a site leader, a district leader. It's not quite as romantic as some of the other topics that we, that we discussed, but I know in my school district. It's we're popular right now because they want to know how, how we're doing it. 32:52 - Tom Hierck (Guest) Yeah, you know, and and and. For me it's, I think, trying to model the expectations that we share every time, and Chris and I have written a half a dozen books together now and and for me, I got to tell you, it's always an invigorating experience. Chris just knows so darn much about so many different things and, you know, is such an outstanding educator that what I want to do is say to folks look, this is year 41 for me, but I haven't got it all figured out yet. Right, I can go sit in my daughter's grade six, seven class and learn stuff. She's doing things I never would have. 33:22 So education isn't a, isn't a destination. Right, it's a journey and we ought to be open to. You know, yeah, there are times I long for the bubble that I went to school in, right, where where you didn't know anything and you didn't have social media. You didn't have. But you know, those are all realities today. So now, if I look at my grandkids, and you know they know stuff that I never would have even contemplated. And how do we model that? You know, this is a journey, this is about growth, this it's. It's okay for you to exercise grace for self as you continue on on this journey. You don't have to know all the stuff, but you have to be committed to wanting to learn more than where you currently are excellent. 34:05 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you both. Both for sharing that. And I think the final question is just you know we'll link to the book and I love that you guys have free resources affiliated with the book. We'll share that link in the blog post, but where can people find you individually out there in the social media world or the website world? 34:23 - Tom Hierck (Guest) So my website's just tomhirccom, any of the social media platforms just Tom Hirk, or at T Hirk on X. I try to get stuff out there. You know, chris, and I really do believe in supporting colleagues, so anytime anybody asks us for stuff, we try to make it available to them as quickly as possible. 34:43 - Chris Weber (Guest) Yeah, I'm not quite as prolific, particularly in the last couple of years, as my family has grown and I. I was not a principal for a few years and it's the best job in the world in my opinion, but it's also all consuming. But I'm easily reached by email, believe it or not, is the best way to probably reach me, and that's just Chris at ChrisWeberEducationcom. 35:11 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Beautiful. Thank you both. So much, Tom and Chris. It has been an absolute pleasure. 35:17 - Tom Hierck (Guest) Thank you, Lindsay.
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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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