248. Reflecting on My Conversation with Zaretta Hammond

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In this episode, host Lindsay reflects on a pivotal conversation she had with educational thought leader Zaretta Hammond on episode 247 (take a listen to the full episode!). Lindsay goes back to a part in the conversation where Zaretta challenges her thinking on the concept of student voice, a framework and theory Lindsay frequently draws on from Shane Safir’s work in Pedagogies of Voice. 

Lindsay discusses how Zaretta challenged her thinking and encouraged her to pursue a more nuanced approach to effectively teach both independent and dependent learners. 

Why? 
Research emphasizes the importance of adaptive change in educational spaces, particularly the need to incorporate both student voice and cognitive coaching. Zaretta Hammond suggests that while student voice is a powerful tool, it must be coupled with coaching strategies that help students understand and articulate their own learning processes, especially for dependent learners. 

What?

To strike this balance—the balance of student voice, yes, but also reaching all learners—Lindsay explores the Kubler-Ross change curve in relation to how she’s processing the challenges Zaretta brought to her thinking. 

The Kubler-Ross curve goes from denial to frustration, and then to depression, experimentation, decision, and integration (in order). Lindsay recognizes that her response in the moment to Zaretta’s challenges, follows this curve. She started with a sense of shame or embarrassment for not understanding something, but Zaretta responded with information that helped her reflect more deeply on this and adjust her thinking about student voice and transformative leadership. 

Here are  some key reflection points: 

1) Start with Communication and Information
Begin by addressing the initial denial stage of the change curve. It's crucial to communicate clearly with learners about the purpose and structure of educational approaches. Providing information helps demystify the learning process and encourages engagement.

2) Reflect and Support
During the stages of frustration and depression, support learners through reflective practices. Encourage them to watch, listen, and express their frustrations in a safe environment. Use coaching to help them process these emotions and integrate new strategies.

3) Experiment and Test Ideas 
Engage in playful experimentation with new ideas and practices. This stage involves testing out strategies and reflecting on their effectiveness. Zaretta Hammond's "chew and remix" approach allows learners to make sense of new information in a way that is meaningful to them.

4) Scan Your Hard-drive
Assist learners in scanning their own experiences and understanding past learning moments, just as Linday did after this conversation. Educators can encourage students to draw from previous successes in adapting new learning strategies, facilitating personal growth, and reflection.

5) Commit and Practice
Finally, encourage learners to commit to new approaches and integrate them into their regular practice. Focus on building emotional stamina and resilience, fostering an environment where new learning strategies become embedded and habitual.

Final Thoughts

The takeaway here is that it’s not student voice or cognitive coaching—it’s both. Both are important, just as literacy and critical thinking are important. But just as you can’t skip over literacy to reach criticality, Zaretta’s challenge was that we can’t skip over the “learn-to-learn” skills that help dependent learners and only focus on student voice. 

Finally, it’s always important to connect with learners on a human level by validating their experiences and emotions throughout the change process. This is the foundation for all our work, whether the emphasis is on student voice, cognitive coaching, helping dependent learners, or other areas that educators and coaches are focusing on.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Discourse Analysis Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 248 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.
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​​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT

Ep 248Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to the Time for teachership podcast. Last week we had the amazing Retta Hammond on the podcast. If you have not listened to that episode or engaged with that episode, please go back. Check that out. If you have not, and you insist on watching, listening to this first, uh. Feel free to engage knowing there was a conversation last week, and I'm gonna actually pull pieces of that conversation that we're gonna debrief or I'm gonna kind of unpack, uh, my own thinking around because Red Hammond makes you think and she has made me think, and I continue to think about our conversation in a particular part of our conversation.
So I'll be playing parts of that recording and that conversation. But for the larger one, you can go back and return to last week's at Lindsay beth lyons.com/blog/ 2 4 7. And then this is episode 2 48, so here we go. Reflections on my conversation with is Retta Hammond.
There was a moment in the conversation last week in which Zaretta Hammond stopped me and corrected my thinking. That student voice was this kind of end all, be all like supporting all students. And I'm gonna play part of this conversation and I'm gonna unpack my thinking of it. And I encourage you to think with me.
If you're a person who. Kind of would've thought the same way I thought. Um, which just for context prior to what I'm about to play you, which is her response I was saying, I read her book, um, rebuilding Students' Learning Power in Conversation, and at the same time as. Pedagogies is a voice, uh, by Shane and her colleagues.
And I of course love street data and talk about it all the time. Shane's previous book that she wrote with Jamela Dugan, um, on the podcast, and I was like, oh, this is the answer. Student voice is the answer to how we do kind of instructional observations, and we coach teachers and we, you know, assess what's happening in a classroom and in the learning environment, and students can just talk about their learning.
And so here is what she says.
Zaretta Hammond: I would, I wanna stop you right there because I think that is another core proxy, right? I love pedagogy of voice. I love Shane's work. Shane, I used to be coworkers, so I know her work and the kind of the foundation that it's on. And I think it is powerful. It is geared toward independent learners. So if you actually understand that who's talking, who actually has the understanding, because this is why I wrote the book.
So I think they're, they are compatible, but they are the continuum. We have a tendency to gear things around students who just may not be motivated, but they are not dependent learners. They are not so far behind. They're not three, four grade levels behind. They're not non-readers. These are the students.
Those dependent learners are the ones we have a tendency to forget about because it becomes a little more sexy to actually focus on, well, let's talk about students that are learning. The ones that actually can engage us in that conversation don't necessarily need our support. And I'm not saying young people don't need our support.
Every student needs to continue to grow until they are finished with their K 12 experience and they are, they have the tools and the confidence and the disposition to go forward, but there is a lot of students who are just being passed through and will never reach that graduation point with that full concert of disposition and skills.
That is what my book is focused on. That's what I hear from leaders. So talking to students about their learning is very different when you are trying to give them new tools for the learning because they can't tell you that. They can't tell you why they get stuck. They don't know what their own choke point is.
They have a belief that I'm just either broken as a student, as a learner, and I can't do that. They don't necessarily understand the role of effort, so they can't even speak to that. So what I'm saying is we need that full continuum. We need what pedagogy the voice brings, particularly as we wanna level up those students who have said, yes, I wanna step into my learning.
I got something to say about that. But the majority of folks. Students that leaders are worried about is the silent majority of dependent learners. And so I do think they're complimentary. I think the reality though is we shouldn't think. We can just interview students, give them more voice is going to teach them those five, learn how to learn skills.
Lindsay Lyons: Okay, so I sat with that for a second and I'll play you a little bit more of that conversation and my response in the moment. But I want to really break down, uh, kind of the Kula Ross change curve, the changing of mental models, kind of the whole conversation that Tta Hammond and I were having, which is that it is hard to make this shift.
And leading change involves some human elements, some strategic thinking, right? It is an adaptive change we're asking teachers to make here, to coach. Students cognitively and to help students recognize and learn their personal learning algorithm in in her words. Right? And so I'm just kind of breaking down my reflections immediately in the conversation.
Here's what was going through my brain and I'm being very transparent 'cause I want to recognize that a lot of us experience these moments of. Uh, discomfort and disorientation in the research from Mero who talks about this. Um, so I had this moment of like embarrassment and shame. Oh my gosh, I got this wrong.
I am not smart. I said this silly thing instead of in front of the red Hammond, and she had to correct me, right? Uh, that was like my initial number one, like red cheeks and very pale skin. Like my, my cheeks get really red, so I'm like, oh, and now she sees my embarrassment. Um, then my immediate next piece was a little bit of defensiveness, so.
I was like, oh my gosh, my identity as a teacher, as a scholar, as like this, this space I have pursued, um, as, as my title that I call myself as an educational justice coach, right? This, this pursuit of educational justice, like I am a failure. I was not actually serving the students that I wanted to serve.
Oh my goodness. Like, and as a result. Because there was all of this, like this shame spiral, right? A adaptive leadership scholars would call this like, hi fits. We call this resistance as loss, right? The loss of my identity in that moment, or the perceived loss of my identity, right, is like why? I'm like, oh, then that there must be some part of this that is actually wrong, that I am still right.
Right. So we have the embarrassment, the shame, the defensiveness. Then my brain just completely kinda shuts down. I had this like. Moment of pause where I'm like, I have no idea what I'm going to say in this moment. 'cause my brain is like shutting down. And actually, I, I will talk about this, uh, a little bit further in the episode, but like, I.
My brain shut down so much that as I was processing later on, like I was having drawing these conclusions and learning these things, and I went back to re-listen to the recording and I was like, oh, actually there, there was so much of this that Loretta Hammond was giving me, he was offering me, was sharing with me, with, with our audience.
And I like, didn't, I wasn't able to take it all in. It must must've been there somewhere in my consciousness 'cause it came out and as I was thinking more, um, but that, that. Wasn't something that I immediately was processing and sense making in the moment because it was so, like my brain was in this, doing this other thing, like my brain and body were in the shame spiral, the defensiveness, the like learning can't happen there, right?
And so I think there's so much of this that is instructive for us as adults, but also for students and like what is optimal learning? But that's a different episode. So the Cooper Ross change curve is something I wanted to bring up because it is featured in one of our episodes, I think episode one 90 on leading Change.
Um, and so I, I thought a lot about this and I actually wanted to like map my experience both onto leading change theories and stuff that is present in episode one 90. And we'll link that in the extended show notes for this as well. Um, but also. Retta Hammond's, like key point about learning to learn and the five learn to learn skills that she has brilliantly come up with.
And so I'm going to process this, uh, in, in kind of integrating both of those. So here we go. So the Kubler-Ross change curve. It goes from denial to frustration to depression, to experiment, to decision to integration. And so in the denial stage, my response, um, they say that the reaction is like shock and denial here.
And the state is kind of just like we stay at the status quo. And the approach to coaching through this is to communicate information. So here, here is what my response was, right? Embarrassment, shame, brain shut down. And Retta Hammond's solution in that moment. I mean, we're also on a podcast, but like brilliant, she just shared information, right?
So her frame is like, it, you know, it's helping students with, with um, low motivation, but who are actually still to a degree, independent learners, right? That's the fact. Like it is not that student voice is messed up and ineffective, it's actually just helping this group of students. And if students can't articulate what's happening in the learning process, then.
Like it's not super helpful to just ask them a bunch of questions about their learning. Right. Helpful information, right? Then the next phase of this Cooper Rush curve is kind of this frustration and depression space, and this is the state where they're like, you're in a state of kind of disruption.
Right? That's why I said like my brain was kind of shutting down. Maybe that's kind of this phase as well, and the approach here for leaders or coaches in this space is to watch, listen and support, and so. In my response rate, I have this kind of defensive mood. I have this loss of identity sense. My pursuits are failures, and so my, my approach was to deeply reflect, and I'm lucky enough to have a coach on my team as well, who really just helps me like, reflect and prompts reflection and give space for the emotions in the thinking.
And that was great because what I would do is I would have, I have my phone when I run. Um, and that's often a really good reflective time for me. And so I'm kind of sense making as I'm running the days after this conversation, leaving myself some written notes, some audio notes. I had just kind of this consistent journaling, um, activity.
And so I'm just doing a lot of thinking in this time. Um, so again, the watchlist and support resulted in just like thinking for me if I'm doing this on my own. Um, and then we have the experiment phase, and so this is really a place to kind of like play with and test ideas. I connected very much to t Hammond's kind of chew and remix phase of learning.
Um, I know there's like the five learn to learn skills and there's the process and, and to me that one is like the, the most interesting, um, because there's like, that's the sense making that was like lacking in the moment. For me in this conversation. And so here's kind of what I've been playing with and grappling within the days after and like testing out this, like understanding that it's truly a both and, right?
And, and I know like, we'll all play with the clip for you, the next clip for you in a minute. And I know she said this in the last clip I played, but it is, that's what she's saying, right? It's, it's like a both end. It's a continuum. I love her language around that. Um, but this idea of like the learn to learn skills, uh.
I think is, is applicable here. Perhaps it's just like the first three in this particular stage of the curve, but size it up and break it down as sort of step one, right? And so I'm thinking, okay, so the pieces are really student voice here. We have student voice as like an approach, um, and student voice. I also wanna like clarify for anyone who's listening and thinking like, oh, voice and choice is this kind of like tool or strategy in school spaces.
So my, uh, orientation to this work is very much like in the student voice, um, research field in the sense of like student voice in the un rights of the child. And so thinking about like, voice in all that I do and, and that this is something that, uh. Like students should be able to just make decisions about their lives.
So extended beyond the classroom, but also like the learning environment and other factors of the classroom that most of the world has ratified in the United States has not, which is interesting, but digression. Okay. Specific groups of students is another piece. So we have dependent learners and independent learners.
So she's talking about and clarifying that distinction here for me. And then skills, I'm, I'm thinking about the skills that are prerequisites to enable students to effectively participate in student voice opportunities when asked, right? What, what they, uh, what decisions they want to make or what they want their learning environments to be.
Um, like that's another kind of component of this conversation as well as kind of this arc of change theory in this mental model, um, shift that is happening f for me in this moment, and for educators probably. And so the next phase that she talks about is scan the hard drive. And so I scanned my own hard drive.
I've been scanning and think, Hey, I've had to unlearn before I've had, I've been in very uncomfortable moments where I have had similar feelings. I survived. I am better for it. And I actually look back on those moments and say, wow, I'm so full of gratitude for the people who have like, kind of beared with me.
I think that's the past tense of bear, uh, bored with me. Um, and, and. Just created like a space for me to learn. Like just, just we're willing to correct, to push back, to expand my thinking. Right. Again, I'm thinking, I'm thinking every day now, every conversation. I feel like I had mentioned the James Ingham comment of like, when we are in conversation with another, our goal is to expand our thinking so we're not just leaving thinking the same things that we came into the conversation with.
Right. And I'm just so grateful when that happens because when I end a conversation with someone who. We just were head nodding the whole time. It is not the same feeling. Might be comfortable, might be smiley, but it is not the same feeling as, wow, I really grew here. Like I really, my thinking has pushed.
It will result in some action. Um, and we're gonna get to that in a minute. But I, I just wanna like acknowledge that that like scanning a hard drive actually helped me realize I have been here before. I have been in the discomfort. The discomfort is actually good. I talk about this all the time. Like living it is a little bit different, right?
Having the, the real emotional, um, component is very different than just like, academically talking about information. But like, this is, this is the thing, okay, I'm affirmed moving to chew and remix, which is her step three. Um, or the third learn to learn scale. So here I, I talk about, um, or thought about, excuse me.
My experience with Student Voice, I had so many moments in the student created units that I would do, um. And then students would just tell me, I mean, really great students as well, like definitely independent learners did this as well. Um, but it's just really interesting to me to think about, uh, that moment of, okay, like what would you like to learn about or what is interesting to you about this?
Or how would you like to, like, demonstrate your learning? I mean, just like all sorts of of things. Conversations that I would have with students and a lot of students would tell me, just tell me what to do. Like you're the teacher, just. Choose for me, like just, I will do the thing. You can tell like, and I think there's so many aspects to that that when I now think of student voice, um, and over the past couple of years I've thought about like there should really be a leadership coaching for students in concert with coaching for teachers to invite student voice like that would make it effective and to.
When you are just expecting students to answer when it's like the first time they've ever been given choice in something like it's not gonna, it's not gonna potentially be fruitful. It might, the student might have, um, experience outside of school, external to school and be, uh, thinking about yo's cap, cultural capital, uh, cultural wealth model and cultural capitals that she discusses.
And there's a lot of, like, I've had to navigate institutions like I've had to. You know, push back on things. Like, I have had that experience and now I'm ready because I, I have been in those spaces, um, perhaps not in your class, but in others, and I'm gonna bring that skill set in. Other students have not.
Right. It's been, I, this is, I've been fairly successful in school. You tell me what to do, I do this. Okay. Again, digression, sorry. The cognitive routines. I love that. Za Red Hammond talks about cognitive routines and these have actually been really interesting to map a lot of my thinking and processing on, in, in the last couple of months since I've read her book.
Um, but distinctions is one of them. So one of the cognitive routines we do, and we're kind of sensemaking is, uh, these distinctions, and I apologize if I get any of this language wrong 'cause brain science is super interesting, but definitely not. Uh, I'm, I'm not an expert and so I am on the learning journey.
Um. Distinctions. What I was thinking about here is that there are kind of different skill sets that we wanna build. There is to her point about like you're not going to talk at a kid. No amount of discussion or talking to a kid is going to like teach them what a long O sounds like, or, I can't remember exactly what she said, but that the point being like the literacy skills, right, are a skillset and.
Um, you know, purpose purposefully building literacy is, I think, a different skillset than purposefully building, uh, communication and expression skills in a leadership context and, and building the researcher skills to that I often talk about and build a capacity for with students. Um, there, there are different skill here and I wanna like distinguish and just make that distinction.
And I've, I've heard a Hammond on another podcast say. You know, we often jump to criticality and so this idea of skipping literacy and the learning algorithm and just jumping to criticality is a thing that we often tend to do. I certainly tend to do, and I think it's really important. She said, similar to what she said here in, in a similar vein, is like.
Both are needed, but we can't just jump over literacy. We can't just jump over and say, well, you can't read, but you're gonna be a critical thinker. Right? Like, both are critically important. Right. And so I have realized that my space and area of learning and research and scholarship and practice in the teaching space have very much been like my skillset is coaching on criticality.
Um. And that is where I've kind of been, I've certainly been a literacy teacher, but I don't know that I could call myself a super effective literacy teacher. Uh, I, I, let me rephrase that. I cannot call myself a, an effective literacy teacher when I jump over literacy to, to prioritize criticality, right?
Both are, are needed. And so I think also about, um, the cognitive routine relationships as I'm processing here, and I've been thinking about how. Like various skills, including literacy skills and knowledge about students'. Personal learning algorithms enable students to make the most of student voice opportunities.
So I do think there's an element of like, it's helpful to have students understand their personal learning algorithm because it will lead to more effective advocacy with student voice opportunities. That's what I think Sotta Hammond is saying. And I also think, you know. That voice can be helpful first.
Like, I don't necessarily think voice exclusively comes after. I think that's the, that's the piece that I'm so grappling with is that yes, it's a continuum, but, but maybe it's more of like a circle. Um, and, and that voice can actually help come first to support the enabling conditions so that we then. Can get to work on the learning algorithm and then it's then we're gonna get to do this unit voice around the learning process, right?
And become, as she was talking about metacognitive and meta strategic thinkers, right? So I can now know, oh, this is what I need in this moment. I can utilize this tool because I know my learning algorithm and I know the learn to learn skills and I know the tools that are helpful for me in that moment of learning.
Um, and so. I, I think about right. That's super important. And the thing that can come first to support the enabling conditions might be, and this is, so this has been something I've hung onto a lot from my conversation with Loretta Hammond, is this idea of, like, I often talk about adaptive challenges and I cite or quote, uh, hefe scratch Linsky who talk about how, what we really need to get at, um, what underlies adaptive challenges, like the value, habit, and loyalty.
And then she was like, actually, uh. You know, she said, it's a story, right? And I, I'm like, whoa, I have like, never made that connection. 'cause I'm always talking about stories and personal connections and, and this, this entry point in it is the story. Of, for example, she was saying the story, the students were saying, I'm broken as a learner.
This sense of identity that comes from the story that we've been telling, students have been telling, teachers have been telling the student. Right. And I think part of what Student Voice can do is that it can first, um, surface, it can support the surfacing and, and kind of dispelling the story of I'm Broken as a learner.
So that we now have more enabling conditions so that we can now do the thinking about our thinking. So we can be metacognitive, meta strategic, do the learn to learn skills, and then we can advocate, um, even more intentionally around learning and utilizing those various tools. So I think that's, that's my current understanding.
I mean, ask me tomorrow and it might be really different, but, um, that is my current moment in time snapshot of what my brain is thinking. It's a both, and it's valuable for and after students become independent learners, but in different ways, like it's gonna, it's gonna look different. And so I think now the final phase of the change curve is decision and integration.
This is where we commit, right? So I, we commit and we make a plan. So I know that my research and practice is absolutely supported the low motivation kids. I've had so many success stories of like the low motivation kids who maybe actually are independent learners but have had not a lot of entry points.
Um, and yeah, that's great for them. And I can acknowledge that and commit to growing my ability to help dependent learners because I have not done a good job with that. And. I need to, and, and when I'm working with dependent learners and it's very much been like the Russian and like I will just hop from table to table and then you call me over, I'm not actually coaching, uh, coaching cognitively, um, you to understand your own personal learning algorithm.
I'm just kind of like over scaffolding, which is like a frustration as a coach now and like reflecting as a, as a teacher, I really wish someone just like pushed me hard in that area, um, because. If I get an opportunity to go back to the classroom, that is something I will grow. And as a parent, I certainly am growing more, my capacity to, um, support dependent learners in, in building, in rebuilding their learning power.
So here's what I think, uh, I making the commitment to help students who are dependent learners as a teacher, coach, parent, in all the areas I am now reviewing in terms of an action step. I'm reviewing all my coaching and workshop approaches to determine how to integrate kind of this both and like yes.
Student voice that is, I am. That is my, my training, my background, my experience, and I think it is valuable. Um, and I wanna be very clear about the purpose of the activities, the students' skills that are served with each. Each thing we're doing, cognitive coaching, student voice, like they work together. But they have to be, I think we have to be really intentional and I have to be really intentional about this is what we're building and this is what this activity leads to.
And, and actually I've been thinking a lot about outcomes-based contracting and really linking payment of people like myself, uh, educational consultants and contractors. To the actual student learning that's happening. Um, and I wanna use this to kind of support transparency in my work and commitment in my commitment.
Um, the last two parts of, uh, Retta Hammond's Learn to Learn Skills, those five skills would be skillful practice. And so this is where she says, you know, you adjust your emotional stamina, you self. And so I'm thinking about, you know, my coaching and, and spaces of integration. And as I've said, there's kind of this emotional kinda adjustment that's had to happen in my processing so I could truly sense, make and take action.
I hope that's been transparent here, uh, and that it's not been too much. And then the fifth piece is to make it sticky. So this is the actual. As I understand it, embedding and implementing. Um, for, for this particular piece for me is embedding and implementing this idea and this new mental model into my coaching and my workshops, um, and being really intentional around that.
Like, I am so fortunate, I think I said this at the beginning, that this was recorded. We don't always have the ability to go back and re-experience a conversation. And I did. So when I realized the recording, it's so funny that many of the ahas I had in thinking about it were actually present in the conversation.
Like what I said in the immediate, I totally forgot I even asked that question. I was just like so outta my head. And what's right. I Hammond said back to me like I was so focused on my discomfort and disorientation. I really couldn't process or sense make in the moment. But here is what happens, uh, next.
Absolutely. That makes total sense. I have a follow up. Yeah, do, do you think that there is value in talking to the students who might be dependent learners, not necessarily about their learning, like cognitive processes, if they haven't learned that piece yet? They don't know their choke points yet. But could um, could it be more about like learning environment things that are preconditions to that learning?
Zaretta Hammond: Well, a lot of times they can help you. They can be informed. So this is a key point I made in culturally responsive teaching in the brain that you should be in a learning partnership. This is what I say in this book around a cognitive apprenticeship. You're not trying to do anything to students. You're doing it with them.
The challenge is these students will resist. These students don't know what to ask. These students can't tell you what should be put into place. They can tell you how they feel, but again, remember the mental model conversation we just had. If they're explanatory story. Is actually, uh, I don't have the capacity or that compliance is the way through.
They are actually going to be undermining their own process. So this is why, as you read through the book, as it progresses, it's how do you get the student to be both metacognitive and then ultimately meta strategic? How do you get students to actually create the dispositions? Because they have now they can wield cognitive tools.
And part of that means you are listening to them. You are in conversation. But remember the apprenticeship model, novice journeyman mastery, you're moving students to that place where they have a greater voice. But that means I first have to unlock my understanding of what my own learning algorithm is.
And I think we have a tendency to wanna just jump to voice and choice, and we think more of that in this relational realm is going to actually shift. Instruction. It does not. We've tried that. There's nothing new about that approach, and I'm not suggesting it's not good. I'm just simply saying it's not unique in what we've tried in the past.
I think there are great tools for doing that with a equity lens and a, a much more culturally responsive way. But you're now talking about working with students who are on the other side of that inter independence that's not gonna get the, the, the students who are on the other side of cognitive redlining.
Lindsay Lyons: She's so brilliant. I am so grateful. Thank you. Ruta Hammond. For your brilliance and for your willingness to share and, and push on that. Um, I. Wanna just name that we talked in this whole conversation with Loretta Hammond. Um, and my whole conversation of like the mental model shift for me and the change experience for me reflectively in this episode.
You know, there's so many parallels to what I academically talked about in, uh, episode one 90, um, on leading change. So we'll link that in the extended show notes, but this is like, I guess the applied Human experience version. And it, it makes me think actually of Dr. Shari Bridges, Patrick's and I, uh, publication, which is adapted from Juan Eel's work.
On kind of the four quadrants of discourse and how when we're in generative mobilizing discourse, we're connecting and we're growing, and the distinction from that and kind of the share information or the intellectualizing, what we called it in the publication quadrant of conversation. Is that there is no emotion, like the human aspect is divorced from the information.
And I feel like I do a lot of that. And so one of my pushes to my own self is to kinda feel deeply, um, reach into like the human side of things, uh, both my own feelings and values, but also the values of others. And like connect on a human level. 'cause the connection and the emotional human part, I think, and the story part as, as an avenue into that space is where we grow is where we learn is where I would prefer to be than just, oh, I heard this, or here's this citation, or here's this evidence, or this book, or this scholar.
There's a lot of intellectualizing, I think, in, um, particularly white liberal spaces and discourses, and I participate that in that a lot. And I want to move more to the connecting growth space. So thinking about that and also thinking about this leading change and trying to integrate these, these ideas of kind of the head and the heart.
Um. One of the things that I, I just kinda wanna run through some of the key points that are present in there and that I'm hanging onto here and might be beneficial for our audience. Um, one thing that is discussed there is to kind of have a clear focus vision. My translation to that as I'm processing this conversation was, TTA Hammond is like, which students and skills are, is, is the PL supporting, is the PD supporting?
Right? I think that's like the vision in contracting, in conversation into the design of workshops and coaching. Cycles. It's like, what's the focus? Let's get real clear, right? What's the clear focus vision? Um, the next piece is like making time for the change. So less to focus on prioritization, right? So this is what we're doing.
We are supporting dependent learners. We are gonna have time to play with it to test things out. I love that in our, the conversation, not any of the excerpts I played for you today. But my conversation was redham and she said, you know, this is a book you can return to year after year and learn more after the next reread.
And I really appreciate that kind of permission, um, because I do think there's so much that we missed the first time around. I mean, even in just this, this one conversation, even in this like 10 minutes of conversation that I had with her that I just replayed. And then replay for you. And like the third listen is like, oh wow, I'm still getting more and more.
Um, so go back, reread, write time to test, time to integrate. Time to reflect in partnership with colleagues and professionals in the education space. The third point is to connect with the heart. So Kotter and Cohen talk about, uh, feelings that motivate useful action. I think that's really important because a lot of times what we do is we confront a discomfort.
We experience discomfort. And we kind of avoid, right? We focus on the feelings of discomfort and we don't focus on the feeling or the, what I would even argue is like a value, uh, a value alignment or the story I want to tell, right? The story I want to be true. Um, I want to be a justice focused teacher. I want to be a coach who supports dependent learners.
I want to support the kids who are not supported by other people, right? I, if that is the story I want to connect with. Then I need to connect with that story, that value, the feeling that, oh, that's not true yet. That feels uncomfortable, but that's where my heart is. So like I need to go there and now need to take action.
Right? Feelings that motivate, useful action. Thank you Ter and Cohen for that language. And then finally creating dissatisfaction and trying on other ways of thank you, uh, of thinking. So thank you Zoe Hammond for helping me to do this. I think about the work of Mero, my former. Uh, professor John Morgan.
And so, um, there's a change formula. We have, uh, glyco change formula that we put in the episode one 90, um, extended show notes, which is change equals dissatisfaction times, vision times first step is greater than resistance. So if we wanna outdo resistance. Then we need to have dissatisfaction, vision, and a first step.
'cause if any one of those are zero because they're being multiplied, the whole equation, like a zero, that side of the equation is zero and resistance wins. So the dissatisfaction is like Retta Hammond's comment sparked that disorienting dilemma for me. Right? Thank you Mero for that phrase. I have not been supporting kids to build their learning power.
Whoa. Right. That is dissatisfied. I am dissatisfied that that is the truth. Right? So that's my dis disorienting dilemma, my dissatisfaction. Now. I need a vision. Okay? I wanna help dependent learners. I want to be a person who helps the kids who are not being helped, right? Who need, who need support. Um, I wanna help dependent learners become independent learners so they can do this on their own so they don't need handholding so they can, um, feel affirmed and all the things, right?
And I still need one more thing. I need a first. And so in my estimation for this moment, I think the best first step is to apply Zaretta Hammond's learn to learn skills to ultimately integrate these ideas and be a more effective coach and educator and parent and human. Um, so that's where I am right now.
Please check out I was Ata Hammond's book. Rebuilding students' learning power. It is absolutely incredible. Read it like six or seven times. Listen to and engage with the episode, um, last week. And this one, share this with a friend if that feels helpful. If they're going through a, uh, mental model shift or change journey, um, you can find the extended show notes and any relevant links for this [email protected] slash blog slash 2 4 8.
And thank you everyone.

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