 Listen to the episode using the above player or by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: For those of you who haven’t heard any previous episodes with Dr. Cherie Bridges Patrick, she is the founder of Paradox Cross-Cultural Consulting, Training and Empowerment, LLC. She is a racial justice consultant, leadership coach and psychotherapist. She works with social workers, counseling professionals, educators, and organizational leaders. And she uses a trauma focused lens in her work to build leadership capacity for racial justice. Cherie holds a PhD in leadership and change, and her research is in racism, denial, discourse, racial justice, social work and the helping professions like education. Healing Brings Us Closer to Justice Dr. Cherie Bridges Patrick is so inspiring for her continuous work in healing as a means of social justice. She knows that getting to justice comes from multiple avenues. She was particularly drawn to what healing could do for people dealing with intense feelings and trauma after experiencing racism, violence, discrimination, and more. She said healing is a necessary step in order to get to liberation because you can’t truly enjoy liberation for yourself if you aren’t healing from all the systems of oppression that seek to control you. Trauma & Polyvagal Theory One fascinating topic that Dr. Patrick has studied lately is polyvagal theory. Polyvagal theory, developed by Stephen Porges, is a theory that the vagus nerve serves an important role in emotional regulation, social behavior, and fear response. Trauma has a connection to this nerve, and our nervous system overall, because of the way that trauma shapes us and our communication with others. When someone has trauma, they feel a loss of safety which can prevent them from being able to open up to others. The challenge for teachers, parents, and community members is helping create the conditions for those individuals to feel safe not just in the environment, but in their presence. “When we can understand our own sense of safety, when I can feel safe in my body, in my skin, my nervous system is regulated...that is what I can do to contribute to safety. Stephen Porges talks about how safety is not just the absence of threat, it is the presence of cues of safety. Right, and so that means we have to understand the cues of safety—the cues that can contribute to people feeling safe and then be able to embody those.” How to Be Someone That Signals Safety It’s time to rethink that notion that we can create a “safe space” for others. It’s not for us to decide if an environment/group feels safe, right? What we can work on is our own discourse and body language. This requires us to get in touch with our own nervous systems. Paying attention to your breathing, intonation, and more is a great practice that will help you and your fellow school community. Bringing awareness into your body as you navigate through the day could help you figure out what things get you from one state to another. Drinking some more water, doing deep breathing, massaging your muscles, getting out of limiting beliefs—these are all potential ways you could enter into a different state with more calm and ease. Teachers and leaders have the opportunity to co-regulate with students and display cues of safety that students will need to perceive if they want to talk about trauma and injustices. If you want to start striving for this today, learn more about your autonomic nervous system. Get a good idea of how it functions. Then you can read about the body’s three main responses that are dependent upon the input that the brain receives from the situation/environment around a person. To dive deeper into learning how to engage students, I have great news! You can register for my free 1 hour masterclass HERE or below. For more, check out my Curriculum Boot Camp course or the “Just the Protocols” module now so you can create your own project-based units grounded in justice in no time at all! Continue the conversation below in the comment section and join our community of educational visionaries on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. TRANSCRIPT Dr Cherie Bridges Patrick is returning to the podcast to talk about how safety is at the heart of generative discourse. Doctor Sherry Bridges Patrick has been on previous episodes. I recommend you go check those out as well, but just a brief bio for her. Before we dive into the episode, she is a leadership educator and coach consultant, psychotherapist, scholar practitioner and the founder of paradox. Cross Cultural consulting. The broad work of paradox is to help organizations repair internal disconnects faster healing and develop capacity to normalize generative conversations around race and social justice using neuroscience and semantics. Her work seeks to heal invisible wounds of racial and social trauma and the impact they have on workplace relationships, practices and policies. Get excited for an amazing episode with dr Sherry Bridges Patrick, Hi, I'm lindsey Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. 00:01:11 I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a pro principal Superintendent instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader and if you enjoy nerd ng out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the time for Teacher Ship podcast. Let's dive in dr Sherry Bridges Patrick, welcome back to the time for Teacher Ship podcast. Thank you, I'm glad to be here. You've been on multiple times, so I won't ask you to do a full in show again, people can listen to your old episodes which are amazing, but is there anything that you'd like to either add to how you would previously introduce yourself or anything you want to say to frame the episode in the topic we're talking about today. Just a couple of things I am a racial social trauma growth coach and leadership educator. 00:02:14 And so this all ties in because I'm looking at healing as a form of justice and so I don't think I said that the last time this is sort of a shift into a mindset of this, you know, the the justice work that I want to do is really about healing and I see healing as a form of justice because without the without the healing then the, you know, the liberation, the freedom is not likely to come. I love that framing let's dive right into to how you've shifted and kind of how you've been thinking about healing as justice. You've gotten into poly vagal theory a lot, which is kind of a mouthful, but a really, really fascinating approach to healing as justice. Could you just say a little bit about how you got into this approach and what interests you about it, wow. So there's a couple of things that got me into it. Of course, my my my background is social work and I've been focused on trauma, trauma has been like a theme throughout my life, not only my life, but in my social work practice. 00:03:17 And so trauma just plays a big part in that. And then my research on racism denial and the ways that social workers talk to one another about race and racism, that brought a deeper level of understanding of the impact of, of how our silence is how our denial impacts us. And so that was like a step towards really understanding racism and racial trauma differently. Although that was not my initial intent. And so, you know, trauma and racial trauma, it shapes the ways that we end, it shapes the ways that we have challenges and it really shapes the ways we have conversations, which is talking about stuff right? Talking is the way that we communicate with one another. That's how we, that's how we get stuff done right and for social workers, that is the foundation of our work. So those are some things and you know, as I continue to look more deeply more closely into racial trauma and its impact. 00:04:21 Whereas momentum's work was very powerful and his notion of white body supremacy and in thinking that through and really looking at it, I think when when when he talks about right white body supremacy, it for me, it opens up a a pathway, a doorway to understanding how poly vagal theory can, can address that because, you know, because of the way that that this theory um utilizes or looks at the nervous system as the source of the general platform of our lived experience. And then finally, and like this was a big one and it was an experience that I had a couple of months ago where I was doing a presentation and the experience that I had and then the conversation just went left center and I can just remember being very impacted by that experience. And I continued to think about the harm to everybody and particularly the women of color that were in that presentation and that just stayed with me and I was like, okay, this notion of safety and and you know, thinking that I can, I or anybody else has the power to create a safe space. 00:05:33 Um it was like, no, I think that kind of goes against justice work, that's not anything I have control over for anybody else. Yes, I can create an environment that, you know, that allows for people to feel more safe. But the real issue is, can people feel safe in my presence in their environment, right? So those are the things that, that took me closer to pollen bagel theory and and how it can really address racial trauma and healing. Ivan recently was in a workshop where teachers brought this up and said, you know, I think safety and having this idea of a safe space is so important and also we can't necessarily create that for everyone because everyone's coming in differently and everyone's gonna experience that differently. And then the question is, you know, what what do we do about that? How how do we increase the likelihood that people will feel safe and do what we can do if that's even possible? And so that's such a complex conversation. And so I'd love to hear, I mean as you just kind of explain to us a little bit about political theory and how the notion of safety is wrapped up in that I'm so curious to hear your thoughts, I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I think the one thing that becomes possible is that when we can understand our own sense of safety, our own felt sense of safety, right? 00:06:59 So when I can feel safe in my body, in my skin, my nervous system is regulated, right? It is a calming presence, it is a safe presence, a peaceful presence, right? A welcoming, inviting presence. That is what I can do to contribute to safety, right? The other thing is um Stephen Porges talks about um you know, the the safety is not just the absence of threat, it is the presence of cues of safety, right? And so that means we have to understand the cues of unsafe t the cues that can um contribute to people feeling safe safety, right? And safe um and then be able to embody those and those get really nuanced and and and you know I don't know that we'll have time to go into it today. But it is so fascinating because because cues of safety are determined by the individual. Safety is an embodied subjective X experience. 00:08:02 And then when we when we overlay that with racial trauma right? And racial injustice, we have all these cues of unsafe T. And all the socialization that comes with it. And so another thing that comes from from polly bago theory is this understanding that intonation the way that I say, what I say comes before for information, right? And so before you can understand the words you are seeing my facial expression, you are hearing my voice. You are watching my you know my my positioning right and all those accused that only I can determine are safe or unsafe for me. And that is true for everybody else. And so there's a notion of being able to create safety can't do it right? Not for anybody else, right? We can just do what we can do for ourselves. And then when we can become that presence that people do feel safe in it's called co regulation. 00:09:03 So it's about this this back and forth between one another right? And then you can determine, oh I feel safe and from there we can you know continue and build and and understand how to to keep that that sense of safety going. That sounds too like there's a lot of work that in the education space, right? That that teachers and educators and leaders can be doing in addition to, you know, helping Children to do this, or, or even family members, right? There's so much work that we can each do and need to each do to enable Children to have that experience of, you know, feeling safe or maybe being more likely to feel safe around us as educators in the classroom and in the family context, even absolutely, it's it's across the board because everybody's nervous system, right? That's probably looks at that. I think it is it is not only things that we can do if we are talking about, you know, moving forward and and addressing racial injustice and racial trauma, we must we absolutely must do the work ourselves. 00:10:07 And so, and I've heard you talk about how, how this approach makes it very clear the work that we need to do as individuals. And so just understanding, for example, as a teacher, the way that I position myself a straight body, right? That can be a queue of unsafe t right? If I'm standing here as a teacher, a student may receive that as a cue of unsafe t right? And so, having the intention, right? And the awareness and the willingness to be consciously in touch with one's body with one's nervous system all the time so that they can project cues of safety and and they're not performative either. Right? So it's got to be this natural thing. Right? So the work is absolutely essential. If we are serious about moving forward in creating places where we can bring equity, we can address racial injustice or any other kind of injustice and bring justice forward. 00:11:12 I was initially thinking of like a, you know, a pedagogical practice of like I love circle because I'm sitting with my students, I'm not standing over them and there are various pedagogy pieces there, but there's also the individual practice of, like you were saying, becoming more aware of your own body and doing this in a way that's natural and not performative. So for people listening, I know it is probably way better to work one on one with a person who is certified in doing this work work and doing the deep work, you know, in that context. But is there anything that a listener could take away and do you know today, something that would help them be more in touch with this practice of being more aware of their body. You and I have done the autonomic profile, right? Your your map, right? Um, and just having a basic understanding of your autonomic system. So polly bagel theory defines the ways that the nervous system reacts and responds to experiences and how it regulates responses, right? 00:12:14 It also describes the ways that the autonomic nervous system receives information and then issues a response to help us navigate our days, the autonomic nervous system is the the system again the neural platform in which we live our days, right, in which we experience life. And so political theory also outlines a hierarchy of three biological pathways of response. And it offers a map of the ways that we can predictably move in and out of engagement and safety. And that is the the the top piece of the hierarchy. Um and that's called ventral vagal. And then in and out of mobilization or fight or flight that's called sympathetic. And then at the bottom of the hierarchy, the three tiered hierarchy is collapsed or disconnect, right? And so this the theory of uh posits that we are navigating this nervous system in this hierarchy every day all day. 00:13:15 And that there is a way to become more aware of of how we are navigating our days. And so just a basic understanding of that right understanding that you know, you can, your body sends a signal first before it even goes to your cognition, paying attention, noticing to what's happening internally, right inside your body in your environment and between other people. So it's yes, it's an increased awareness, but it's a real intentional awareness and a practice. And so like one of the first things to do is notice what's going on with you. It doesn't take you don't have to stop, you know, and and you know write stuff that you can that would be helpful being able to notice what's going on. Doesn't cost you anything, right? And it can create some balance in your own life. So if you notice that your stomach is you've got those butterflies in your stomach, right? 00:14:17 Your body is saying, hey, hey, hey, something's going on. And so they just take a moment and pause and go, oh something's going on here right before it gets to your to your brain to to send a signal that says this is, you know, somebody doing something to me. If you notice that first, um then you can over time um address that state, right? You can you can capture that state because usually what happens is um we have this feeling and we attach it to a story, right? And the story is what we go to um we attach it to an emotion and that that that emotion and carries a story. And so when we are able to understand that if we understand the state, we can recreate the story, we can label it with a new emotion. It doesn't have to be danger. Like it was from before. It can be something else, right? So we're reshaping our nervous system. That was pretty complicated. But at the end of the day, one thing that people can do is just become intentional about noticing what's happening in their bodies, taking moments of pause to just feel themselves and what's happening. 00:15:29 That's something that you've helped me practice a lot. I mean we do that at the beginning of every meeting, every friday we have a meeting and every friday we start with that. And so I'm wondering, are you comfortable kind of us modeling that now? Awesome. So today I am coming in in mostly dorsal not feeling 100% slept in, not feeling great. But I tried to tap into the things that brings me into ventral. So meeting with you. Cherie is always fun. And so I'm automatically a bit more ventral when I meet with you. But also like tactile related is like if I'm if I have a blanket or a sweatshirt and so now I'm sitting here in my sweatshirt trying to feel a little bit more ventral. Sometimes cold water helps me. I've noticed feel a little bit and ventral. So I've got cold water with me. And so just noticing that immediately brought me at least 10% more ventral I think than that I started the day, with wow! Right. And how much, how much did that cost you in money? 00:16:30 Right. Nothing. Right. Nothing. And so for me, I am coming in actually, I came in, I told you earlier, I was coming in with some sympathetic, some nervousness because because of the stories that I tell myself about um being visible to the public, right? So I was a little shaky and when I get nervous, I don't always think clearly. And then when I don't think clearly, I don't talk clearly. And so I came in and this and with this nervousness and a mobilization, the state of mobilization to protect myself. But in talking to you and naming that, just being able to say, you know what? I'm feeling sympathetic, I'm a little nervous. You know, it's it's a challenge for me too be seen, right? And to be okay with that was like that I could I could feel and I can feel it. Now, naming it brings a sense of okay, you just let you just released something from your body, right? And so now I there's still some sympathetic going on. But I also feel much more eventual, right? 00:17:32 I feel much more connected. I feel much more safe. I feel much more available and um, free to be me, right? And to make those mistakes and to say this silly thing or to go off on my little tangent and hope that I can bring folks back. Right? So, um, yeah, I started off in a real sympathetic state, but now I'm anchored in ventral, right? And still feeling that sympathetic energy. And I think that's one of the things that you've taught me through this that I had no idea at the very start was that you can be in multiple places at once. And so, you know, I can be a little dorsal, a little sympathetic and little ventral all at the same time and being able to identify like you were saying the mapping like what brings me to ventral. And I think about the applications of this for a teacher who's having a rough day or for a class of students who of course some of them are going to have rough days. And so how do we create those spaces for students or even family dinner conversations? You know how how about starting with just kind of a quick check in with our bodies. 00:18:36 There are so many really quick easy like you said, free applications of this work that would be transformative to that co regulation piece and just our relationships with each other that I think is great. Yes. And we've talked about this before, Lindsay. Just just imagine a group of people, a family, a team that has the basic understanding of what these these three states mean, right? And so for somebody to hear that they're a colleague is unsympathetic. Can go, oh, okay, so this person is um is not feeling it right? There's there's some fear, there is some tension, there's some anxiety that there's there's an inability to sense the other person and what they're going through, right? So then, you know, it allows that person to take that into consideration as they navigate the conversation, right? So it becomes this powerful tool which again, if you just have a basic understanding um of of what these three states mean, then you can work better, you can navigate conversations, you can you can sit in that discomfort when, when you see that facial expression and and allow yourself the time and the space to recognize that that's where that person is. 00:19:54 I don't have to get pulled into that, right? That's where they are. And to be able to hold your space and hopefully, you know, maintain a place in ventral where you can become that regulating person or just know just the the knowing of where someone else is and where you are opens up so much more possibility. Right? To me? It just it just is a gift that keeps on giving. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but as you were talking, I realized that even, I mean I came into our meeting today with my hood up. Like not only do I have a sweatshirt on, but I have a hood up and I thought about one of the things that really irks me about school policies as dress codes and the no hoodie policy and I I have not been able to put it into words before, but I'm I'm wondering if kids are feeling like they're endorsed cell and they're trying to tap into ventral, they're trying to get that safety feeling and they put up their hood because it makes it makes me feel more safe. Like I imagine it makes some kids feel more safe too and imagine the different response that a teacher or a principal or someone walking down the hall, seeing a kid with a hoodie on is gonna have when they just have that understanding of, oh, you're just looking for some ventral, you're just looking for some cues of safety. 00:21:07 That's all you're doing. You're not being disrespectful, you're not trying to, you know, all the things that we give name to that are not probably what's actually going on. And that would just radically transform relationships with students. Right. Right. And and not only could it be, I'm trying to feel more safe, but it could also be if your indoor. So right. That that that could mean a number of things I'm hiding, right? I'm hiding because I don't feel safe. Right? So there's all these, this information that we can get. But I love the notion of being able to see a student as, oh, they're just trying to create a sense of safety and and hiding is a sense of safety, right? If you connect dorsal to a turtle, for example, right? When that turtle is not feeling safe, what does it do? It goes into the shell into its shell, right? And so just being able to have that imaginative connection of, okay, I see some safety stuff going on here because at the end of the day, if we ain't safe, we ain't gonna make no progress. 00:22:08 Yes. I said, ain't we have to have that sense of safety and we have to be able to determine what is safe for me, right? And so for me as a teacher to come in and be offended that somebody has on a hoodie, Whoa! That! I mean, come on now and and then that takes us into, you know, a whole bunch of other stuff that we won't get into. But I love I love that you brought that in in into this conversation and just that moment of awareness and clarity around oh, just the basic hoodie and the messages that extends right now and the possibilities that it could bring if we were able to recreate the story, the narrative that goes with the hoodie, I love that connection back to story to that is so powerful. I know political theory, there's so, so much involved and I know we only have about 30 minutes today talking about it. But is there anything we haven't talked about that you wanted to address? I've already touched on it, But I want to really bring home the point that our state, our physiological state is the thing that creates our stories is the thing that names our emotions, right? 00:23:22 And so when we can first understand our states and understand the the narratives that we have given our current states, right? When we can understand that, then when we can recreate we can remake that story and that I think is one of the core, my core understanding of what Polly bagel theory can do, it can help us change the narrative or just create a whole new story because the autonomic nervous system, it's always looking for context, it's looking for choice and it's looking for connection or so. So let me back up. The autonomic nervous system is doing two things, right? It's looking for connection or it's it's mobilizing for protection. I just positioning for protection, that's what it does, right? And so then when there's connection, we can start to create those new stories when when were mobilized for safety when I'm hiding in the turtle shell endorse. 00:24:23 So I can't get to that place where I can do to make a new story where I can rename the emotion, those things are are not possible when I'm in a sympathetic or in endorsing, you know, I'm sort of a nerd and I kind of get kind of lose my control when I start thinking about this. The other thing that I think is really, really fascinating about the autonomic nervous system. Um Again, it is the foundation upon which all of our experiences sit, right? So it's the heart of our limit experience. Um it's the common human denominator between us, everybody's got one, we have to have one. And so knowing that I was like, oh okay, so if we all have one, we've all been shaped by our experiences since we've all we all have one and we've all been shaped by our experiences, then we can all do something about how we've been shaped the nervous system. 00:25:26 It helps us navigate our days by sending those cues of safety Or um danger. But it's all in service of our well being. So you can see the autonomic nervous system as a 24/7 personal surveillance system that monitors inside internally outside in the environment, you know, in in in the the local environment and then more broadly and then relations between in between. Um And so it's doing this all the time. 24 7 In service of us, right? Um We are wired to connect our basic survival, depends on our ability to connect. And so what we see in the larger social system now, we are so disconnected from ourselves, right? First of all ourselves, so not only ourselves but from one another and so hierarchies of race, hierarchies of gender um and and sexuality um and and preference. 00:26:29 Those all create disconnection. And so the autonomic nervous system is that place where we can we can make that change. And and for me that's delightful. That's like that gives me some real hope of of what we can do from a justice perspective. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing those pieces because I think they really they really help one give us grace to our own bodies. I can't tell you how many times I've been angry at my body for not responding the way I intellectually wanted to, but knowing that it's a personal surveillance system gives a little more grace to nobody. Like, oh, thank you. I know you're doing that for for protective reasons. That's cool. I don't have to be mad at you. I can just recreate the story. And so I think that's that's really powerful to give people the language and the framework to be able to have some more grace with themselves and ultimately seek to reconnect with people around them by knowing themselves better. It's really powerful stuff. And so as we wrap up the episode, I know we covered a lot of things there. What is maybe one thing that's like the most important thing if someone takes it away from this episode, whether it's a particular practice or a particular just idea to remember what would that be? 00:27:39 One get to get to know your nervous system right? Um, and I'm happy to help with that. Um, but to in, in getting to know your nervous system, you don't have to go through a whole bunch of formal stuff, although that is really important. Um getting to know your nervous system is taking a moment um multiple times a day and noticing what is happening inside of you, notice what happens when you get that butterfly in your stomach or that tension in your, your shoulders and then notice what happens with your reaction to that, right? And so that's just a basic, very basic thing. So it's just some awareness, some intention, bring that into your day to day, just try it out. You know, do an experiment for the next seven days, write it down, see what happens, see what you learn about yourself because when we can start to notice those things, um, you can, you pause and you take that moment. Um, there's a wealth of, of wisdom that, that our bodies are offering us if we would only be willing to accept it's a great suggestion and I know you mentioned that you are available to coach people through this. 00:28:51 You've developed a coaching practice around this that where can people learn more about you and your coaching. So Lindsay believe it or not, I'm developing, I've got a new site coming up with some stuff in it. Right. And so that site is Cherie Bridges Patrick PhD dot com. Um, C H E R E R I D G E S P A T R I C K PhD dot com. So that that's where in the next few days or weeks that people can, can reach out if they are interested. Excellent. Thank you so much for agreeing to come on and talk about this. I think this is transformational for education and for so many folks. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me at lindsey Beth alliance or labor review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it until next time leaders continue to think big, act brave and be your best self.
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Listen to the episode using the above player or by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Why We Constantly Forget Our Goal to Not Do Too Much This year there is one thing we can all do to improve our mental health and performance—take back more time and energy for ourselves. Who here can’t help but be an overachiever? Who finds themselves doing it all no matter how many times you’ve said “okay one thing at a time”? I bet almost all of us would be raising our hand right now. And it makes sense. Doing too much is almost...too easy. I admit, I have a history of overextending myself. As a motivated teacher, business owner, coach, partner, etc, there are a lot of opportunities to join new initiatives, committees, and projects. When a friend or school tells me about the work this one organization is doing, the excitement interrupts the voice of reason. Excitement is a big motivator for us. We get excited when we get the chance to learn something new because we are life-long learners. It’s the excitement to get loud and disrupt oppression that gets us on board. It’s the excitement of imagining our students coming to life when they enter our class that gets us to experiment with new strategies over and over until we get it right. While it’s great to see how passionate teachers and leaders are, it’s not so great to see how overcommitting is affecting our minds and bodies over time. Every time I have overextended myself, I’ve noticed a sharp decline in my energy and a limitation in the capacity I have for the people I serve. There’s a set of phrases a friend once shared with me: "I'm having a rope day” or "I'm having a string day”. On “rope days”, there is room for doing more and feeling like tasks are attainable. Other people can hang on the rope with me. But on “string days”, all of that is gone. There’s nothing more we can give because we’re exhausted and the string will break if anyone else grabs on. It’s my hope that all of us will be able to have many more rope days than string days from now on. We have to learn how to stop letting it get to that point of burnout. We have to take some preventative measures. This year, it’s a big year of transition coming back from the pandemic and figuring out how to stay innovative with your teaching. There is more pressure to support your students as they navigate these times. Colleagues may also turn to us for feedback or to step in when something comes up. So as you can see, the entire school stands to benefit from you showing up as your best self. My #1 Tip For Staying Your Best Self Here’s how I suggest planning: Rather than thinking about what needs to be taken off your plate, start with an empty plate and go from there. You have a limited capacity which you can visualize as a small plate with only enough room for a few options. What you decide to put on that plate is very important; It could be something that checks off multiple boxes (like a food that has carbs, fats, and protein) if it’s going to take up valuable room on your plate. The things that I found most important to check off in my day were: supplying my students with information through a resource, making space for them to process that information, and then giving them an opportunity to apply that knowledge to some sort of project/assessment. As leaders, we need to have flexibility and be responsive to students and colleagues. For you, this could look different. It doesn’t matter why you choose to put this one thing on your plate instead of that other one because you see the value in focusing on that and that’s what will drive good results. “Making sure we have the ability to be flexible when challenges arise and that we're able to take time to listen to students, to colleagues, to families, is critical not just for individuals, but also for community and collective well being. That's what the school year calls for; and to do this well, we need to have only the essentials on our tiny little buffet plates.” Don't Be Afraid to Communicate with Your Leaders Now you may be wondering how you can have this freedom to choose when leaders in the school are telling you to work on A, B, and C. I believe that there are ways to compromise if we’re all willing to be flexible. The things we usually expect teachers to do like grading, emailing, and planning could be automated in some ways. Leaders, make sure you are making time to get feedback from teachers about what they want to change or take off their plate. See how you can support them whether that’s hiring to fill in gaps, outsourcing to another role or eliminating unnecessary processes. My last tip is to have a counselor available for educators to go to during the work day. This is an amazing way to promote their wellbeing. Make sure you sound off below how you are planning to have more rope days this year! To dive deeper into learning how to engage students, I have great news! You can register for my free 1 hour masterclass HERE or below. For more, check out my Curriculum Boot Camp course or the “Just the Protocols” module now so you can create your own project-based units grounded in justice in no time at all! Continue the conversation below in the comment section and join our community of educational visionaries on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
Listen to the episode using the above player or by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Darcy Fernandes has been working in K-12 education for 25 years. She started her career as a social studies teacher. Ms. Fernandes then moved to become principal of Roosevelt Middle School in New Bedford where she stayed for 5 years. Her major accomplishment in this position was establishing the Amigo Center for parent support with particular emphasis in interpretation and care for ELL families. In addition, Ms. Fernandes began a program called Bridges with the President of Bridgewater State University, 150 students each year received college readiness training and academic support in math, science and ELA. Students recruited for the program were identified as at-risk students. The program is still in existence today. Ms. Fernandes is now the Superintendent of the Athol Royalston Regional School District where she is working to turnaround two schools within the district. Ms. Fernandes has spent her career working in districts with high numbers of low-income families and many of the districts she has worked in have had a high number of minority and ELL students. Ms. Fernandes has come from a background of family members who have advocated for civil rights. It is her honor and privilege to continue this legacy. She is not afraid to speak up for the rights of individuals even when it may not be popular. Treat the Root of the Problem One of the biggest misconceptions Darcy hears about helping low income students or students of color is to keep providing resources and funding without trying to fix the root of the problem. She sees this as inefficient because racism and inequity are continuing to harm multiple schools, teachers and students for every ONE that is supplied with resources. In her mind, it’s a matter of dismantling these structures of oppression if we want things to change for the future. Although Darcy attended an integrated elementary school, the systems were not set up to support the needs of all students. She remembers feeling ‘othered’ along with other students of color. There was a lack of care that went into teaching BIPOC students compared to white students. It wasn’t until college that she had a teacher who wasn’t white. There was no one that she could relate to in a sense. “So for me, I went into education with the understanding of ‘what were these structures about and how could I work to change them?’ so that more kids feel inclusive in school.” We Can Fix This Together Darcy has found through her work that time and time again, there’s a disparity in the funding that schools receive. The schools with white students that come from middle to high class backgrounds typically receive more money than the schools with lower income students. Not to mention, there are AP classes and college level classes being offered only to certain students without any opportunity to help other students master the skills needed to take those courses. Another issue that’s been identified is the lack of inclusivity in textbooks and the lack of diverse thinking. There is always more than one way to approach a subject or event, so why only teach one way of thinking? Being a teacher or school leader who wants to help their students of color shouldn’t stop at the school level. We need to embrace an activist role in order to really take down the structures that hold back many of our students. This means advocating for better policy on a district level or a community/city level. So if we want to bridge the gaps and create better schools for everyone, these are some of the issues we need to focus on. Sharing leadership and involving the community to become part of the solution was a no-brainer for Darcy. She started with having instructional leadership teams go to various schools to observe what was working and what wasn’t. These teams would then meet to talk about what needed to be changed. Recently, she has invited any teacher, student, family member, or community member to join the district's strategic planning process. She believes that giving everyone a seat at the table makes it much easier to figure out why things are happening the way they are. It is also good to have multiple perspectives on a matter so that the plans made in the future minimize the bias. Deciding how to teach during COVID building closures was one example of how the community has collectively decided how to move forward. “We found a really good solution that worked for everyone. And we kept the majority of our kids engaged the whole school year because of that.” What is the Data Telling You? When you pay attention to the data, it tells you a story. It shows you who’s benefiting, who isn’t and so on. Each person in a community will interpret it differently and that’s why we need multiple perspectives at the decision-making table. It’s possible to use those different ideas to form a plan that will work for everyone; a plan that incorporates multiple pieces and voices is just what a school needs to help it’s students thrive! To dive deeper into learning how to engage students, I have great news! You can register for my free 1 hour masterclass HERE or below. For more, check out my Curriculum Boot Camp course or the “Just the Protocols” module now so you can create your own project-based units grounded in justice in no time at all! Continue the conversation below in the comment section and join our community of educational visionaries on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. TRANSCRIPT Darcy Fernandez has been working in K 12 education for 25 years. She started her career as a social studies teacher. As she developed in the profession. She began taking on teacher leadership roles which included social studies department chair, apparently liaison, community service learning coordinator and after school program director. While community service learning coordinator. MS Fernandez school was recognized nationally as a model for service learning. After teaching for 13 years, she was hired for her first administrative role as an assistant principal in Broxton. Her second year, she was appointed in turn principle of the building where she converted the school from a traditional junior high model to a middle school model. The school was in turn around and by the end of her third year, the school was the highest scoring middle school in the city and was no longer in turnaround status and moved to become principal of Roosevelt Middle School in New Bedford, where she stayed for five years. Her major accomplishment in this position was establishing the Amigo Center for parent support with particular emphasis and interpretation and care for E. L. L. Families. MS Fernandez began a program called Bridges with the president of Bridgewater State University. 150 students each year received college readiness training and academic support in math science and L. 00:01:05 A. Students recruited for the program were identified as at risk students program still in existence today. As of july 2013 MS Fernandez became the Assistant Superintendent of Randolph Public schools. A designated level four school district Mr Hernandez along with principals teachers in the superintendent worked diligently to turn around the district implementing a data decision making process, incorporating teacher leader coaches in schools. The result of the work with the district was removed from level four status. MS Fernandez is now the superintendent of the Royal Stone Regional School District, where she is working to turn around to schools within the district. She continues to support the work of recruiting and developing teacher leaders across the district, as well as using data to improve student learning and instruction. MS Fernandez believes all Children can learn and all families want what is best for their Children. Fernandez has spent her career working in districts with high numbers of low income families and many of the districts she has worked in about, had a high number of minority and L. L. Students. MS Fernandez is a constant advocate for the disenfranchised while in New Bedford, she earned the honor of Woman of the Year from the Standard Times while teaching. 00:02:05 She was awarded semifinalist for teacher of the Year and received the Teacher of the Year award for community service learning from the state of massachusetts. MS Fernandez has come from a background of family members who have advocated for civil rights. It is her honor and privilege to continue this legacy. She is not afraid to speak up for the rights of individuals, even when it may not be popular. Hi, I'm lindsey Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities take brave action to make those dreams a reality and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a pro principal superintendent instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader and if you enjoy nerd ng out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the time for teacher ship podcast, let's dive in Superintendent Fernandez, welcome to the time for Teacher ship podcast. 00:03:23 I just read your professional bio, but could you just add anything else that you'd like people to know about you and your leadership? I guess the one thing that I would add and you could probably read into this through my bio is ultimately my goal as a superintendent has always been to serve low income and high minority students in the state of massachusetts. And so I, I take my job very seriously and I see myself more as a missionary spirit in promoting equity across the state. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that and I think that speaks kind of to the next question that I had this idea of reimagining or transforming education from the way that it's always been done. What dr Bettina love describes as the dreams grounded in the critique of injustice or broader known as freedom dreaming. And so I'm curious to know what the freedom dream you hold for the field of education is. I know you spoke to it a little bit there in your intro. Is there anything else you would add to that dream? Yes, I think for me we have spent a lot of time in schools working around the problem and not working at the problem. 00:04:27 And what I mean by that is we have a tendency to want to put resources towards low income students, students of color to support them. But the root of the problem is really in the sexism, racism so forth and so on. And we have to change and do a paradigm shift. I believe that to be true, where we really are doing a lot more work in schools on people understanding ISMs, understanding how school structures promote a lot of ISMs and that we have to be able to break those structures down in order to get more equitable schools for all students. My definition of equity is very simple. You have to support the needs of every individual child playing simple regardless of color creed, whatever that's our number one goal. And you can't do that when your structure is so rigid, it won't allow for flexibility. I know you're doing some really cool stuff with shared leadership if you want to just kind of dive into the call that you issued for students, families, teachers, staff, and community members to actually be a part of an inclusive and representative structure. 00:05:34 So you're just kind of going right to, here's what this could look like. Let's reimagine it, we're doing it. So I'm curious to know what was the mindset shift that enables you to take that approach or to be able to get people to buy into that. My mindset approach really is just based on my own historical uh timeline. Um, I was a student, I went to school um starting in kindergarten, I was the first class to be desegregated. So I went, I was supposed to go to a segregated elementary school, The principal of the school who was very creative told the town the boiler couldn't be fixed. You got these kids go into the regular elementary school and it worked. But when we arrived there, we were all in a small cluster from our neighborhood. So basically all the minority students were on Rome and all the other kids were in the other room and we didn't experience the best situation when we first got into school, people kind of saw us as the others and we would go by classrooms and we were very wrote and we were not uh getting tasks in class that really would help us to critically think, and often times we're told things that didn't make us feel good. 00:06:45 And so for me, I've always wondered how the schools do that when I went up in grades, I had a parent at home who had a bachelor's degree. My dad was a foreman of a construction company, but my parents were really bright. I got into middle school, we had already been doing calculus at home and they had me in remedial math. Why is that, why is that? So my mother went down to the school and said, I don't know what's going on here. I understand my daughter might be struggling as a reader, but she's not struggling as a mathematician. So they moved me into algebra. So that was a good first step. But then they moved me also into advanced english and I started a class where we had this book called in a nancy where basically had to make corrections on the grammar from each page in order to go on to the next page. I never got past the first page and ultimately had a star chart in the class and they would put stars up every time you went to a new page. I never got a star all year and then they asked me to stay after school and all they do is give me the page again to fix no instruction. And and that didn't, that didn't feel right either. 00:07:48 What what, what is this about? This? This is straight going through school. I never had a teacher of color until I got to college. And so I didn't even have role models that look like me. So for me, I went into education with the understanding of what were these structures about how could I work to change them? So that wall kids feel inclusive in school, Some of those structures that we're talking about seem simple to people, but they can't exclude example. Right now, college courses are offered in high schools, You have to pass a certain test, you have to do X, y and Z in order to get the course. Wasn't that exclusive? So how do we fix that? It isn't a matter that we get rid of the college courts. It's a matter that we provide wraparound services for all kids who want to take that course regardless of where they're at. Right. Um, and so that's a structural change because now you're not saying, okay, if you don't pass test, you can't get in. What we're saying is you didn't pass the test, we need to provide you some more support. Here's what we can do and move ahead. So that's one example, Other examples really look at things like funding, um, in the districts that I've worked and that's one of the things I've looked at all the time. 00:08:57 And I always noticed that certain schools have more money than others, Certain schools have more kids who are not free and reduced lunch than others? And it's like, well why is this and why is the school without a lot of free and reduced lunch kids getting more money than the school Asprey and reduced lunches kids. So those are some of the structural things that really need to be looked at and thought about, um, as well as simple things like curriculum, I mean we have curriculum and I have kids who will go through their whole school career, never see themselves in a textbook. It's not acceptable. And also to have kids only see one way of thinking and a lot of it is Eurocentric not fair because the majority of our kids may not have a Eurocentric view and even if they do, they deserve the right to be exposed to other cultures and communities as well. So those are some structural examples that I could give you that I think really need to be looked at and repaired for schools to become more equitable. 00:09:59 Those are excellent examples and I appreciate to that you're also framing what the solutions are to them, not just naming the problems and challenges some of the things you spoke to. Then we get into other things like housing segregation and redlining and property taxes, funding education and so there's some things that some school leaders listening may say that's out of my control, but I would advocate like, well that's why we have to be activists as well. That's why we have to advocate for policy solutions. And so I think the role of a leader is one of advocating for things that aren't directly in the school and district control and then also creating policy that's inclusive that you're speaking to at the school level or the district level as well. So I appreciate you naming both of those. Right? It's so true. I mean this year I spent time at the state House talking about free lunch for everyone and that was one of the things that for me is very important because mass laws state of being get to start with the basics, right, food shelter and safety. So I've been fighting to get free lunch for everyone so that we don't have this issue of, do I choose to use my bus money today to eat or take the bus? 00:11:03 Do I? You know, it just, it should, that barrier shouldn't be there. So I, I fully fully agree with you there. I'm curious to know about specifically the shared leadership structures that you're creating for your strategic plan. Having worked at DC for with turnaround schools, I know that many times schools will kind of create these plans in silos without including students without including families or community members and you're doing that you're calling anyone who's interested to come be engaged in the strategic, So I'm curious to know, you know, what went into the decision to have that call? Was this something that you decided to do? Did you need board approval for it? I'm just thinking of the listeners who are like, oh I want to do that, but that's different from how we've done it. So how do I start it? Right, right. Um what I would say to you is a couple of things first and foremost as a leader. I believe the more voices you have, the more likely you are to get to the right decisions. And that's been my role since I've been here. Um when I started the first priority for me was getting teacher leadership in place in the district. 00:12:06 And so what we created was instructional leadership teams at each school and then those teams come together as a district instructional leadership team to discuss matters happening within within the schools. So that was the 1st 1st step in this. And what I found was these teams really became very informative to me on what changes we need to make to have more students be successful. And and so I cherish that from that. What I began to understand was when we were looking at data and what were people saying they weren't necessarily matching. And I wondered why And I said we've got to get more voices at the table to be able to figure out why do we see things so differently. So we began the process uh developing avenues in which for parents to have a voice through surveys, through meetings so forth and so on. Strategic planning. The way in which it works is every five years you're supposed to revise your strategic plan. The process for strategic planning has changed over the years, it used to be you keep the strategic plan exactly what it is and over the five years you you know, you put those things in place. 00:13:14 The problem with that was something wasn't working and you knew it, you kept doing that right? So now it's a more secular situation where what we've done every year, every year, I review the data for the district with the community and talk about what's working. What's not, here's what we're gonna change in the plan, here's what we're going to keep. So that has really worked. We've seen great progress in our district from it. And so when it was time for the five year review, I said we've got to make sure all these voices are included. So I sat down with the school committee and said, can we do this, Can we go ahead and put a process together that allows any community member who wants to be part of this to be part of this? They said, absolutely. So the structure we're using is first of all, we put out a letter to everybody in the community, parents, community members, business owners and said, would you like to be part of our strategic planning process. And so is there a specific section you'd like to look at? So we have five segments to our strategic plan. So people could sign up for each one of those areas and what we've done is we've structured it. 00:14:18 So tonight, what I will do is I put together, I think it's a 14 page document called the Strategic Plan Progress Report. It's been email to all of those people who have signed up. They have a chance to read it. They also have a sheet that says, what are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? What are our threats and what are our opportunities and what we're asking them to do is to go through this and begin listing those up so we can hear what they're seeing. So tonight, at the board meeting, I'll actually present this publicly. So anyone in the public can watch it. People on the committee will be able to ask me any questions about the report that they have. And from there, the committee groups subcommittees will then meet, they will go through those, those sheets on the opportunities, threats strength and say what's highlighted here is concerns and what's higher here is something we're doing well at from there. They're gonna create a survey to put out to parents and community members asking them what what do we need to do here? Here's what we know, what are some things that you think we can do to try to uplift in the areas were struggling and what things do you think we could stop and move on to. 00:15:27 So a survey will go out to every community member um in the district and ask that question and they'll have an opportunity to hear in on that. And that will come back to the committees in june, they'll go through all of that. All of those surveys, the section that's about them and they will come to conclusions. We think this should stay, we think they should go in here and this is what we think should be new activities from there. I will then put all that information together in a strategic plan and present it to the school committee in july. And I want to note that on our committees, our students as well. So we've made sure their voices are included in this process so that they can talk with their pairs and bring back information to the committee to so so we're really excited about it. We believe it will really get to the heart of everybody thoughts about the school district and we'll be able to move forward. And the other nice thing about it is they'll have a whole host of data tonight to look at. So it's not just Miss Fernandez is saying this is what we should do. Here's the data, here's what I think now what do you think and that's the other fun part about it because I tell people all the time I can look at this data over and over and over again. 00:16:35 But we all have bias, right. Um so I need multiple views to make sure we get it right. And so having all these people have an opportunity to look at it and think about it is gonna have a huge impact on the outcome of the new new plan. Once we write it. Yes. Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Thank you for all of that detail. And the research supports that to my research is in shared leadership and student voice within shared leadership in schools and time and time again. We found that shared leadership structures produced better results. They produced better results for kids. When we talk about equity, a lot of school leaders in the past year or so. I've really started asking me that question as a coach and pd provider, you know, how do I create equitable policy. And I've always said, right, it's more about the process than whatever policy you come up with. So I love that you're just living that out. I'm curious to know to from my research or brain is asking all these questions. So in terms of the amount of interest, do you have a sense? Now, at this point in time, I know you're still kind of in the process of creating the committees. 00:17:39 How many people were interested or or what kind of interest did you get from the various groups? Does it look like everybody? Every committee will have multiple stakeholders on it. It's probably close to 35 people that have signed up to take part in the committees. And there are a lot of people who are interested, but they couldn't put the time committed in. That's why tonight is so important because the community in here, secondly, the committee is gonna send out surveys to everybody. So now, even if you couldn't make the committees, you can give me information via that. So the good news is that'll happen. And same thing with our teachers besides information tonight. I I've been meeting with our district instructional team and gone over all the stuff. I'm gonna go with the community tonight. They're going back to the teachers and saying, okay, let's go through this and they're doing the same process as the committee. So they will go through and look at the report, fill out the chart, send that back to me. Um we'll do, the survey, will send it back to all the teachers, bring it in. So the good news is whether you take part in the committee or not, each segment, you will have an opportunity to put your voice in. 00:18:46 Uh And what we have found is this has really worked and where we saw it really work, believe it or not, was when that started happening with Covid. We were in a situation where we were like, what are we gonna do? It? We're gonna be open and we're gonna be closed. What are we gonna do? So we decided to put out a survey to families, asking them the question. We got over 400 surveys back and we were a 50 50 split, half one of the school closed, half one of the school open knowing that we had to come up with a solution that really would help both both sets of parties. And what we ended up doing was we offered in person learning to all our students. So we've been open all year and we offered, uh, streaming from the classrooms for those families who didn't feel comfortable bringing their students in. So we found a really good solution that worked for everyone and we kept the majority of our kids engaged the whole school year because of that. And it was those voices that we had, that made a huge difference because there was a clash going on. Well, I want this now, I want that we were able to find a happy medium that everyone um felt good about and, and that was extremely important because we have a lot of kids, they can't learn online. 00:19:53 Um, what we're finding is some kids who thrived in the regular classroom are thriving online and some kids that aren't doing well online did much better in the classroom. And so it's given parents, even that understanding, like some of my parents, they started out, all my kid's gonna be online, they're like, oh, it's not working, we're gonna flip him back in. So it really gave parents that opportunity to choose and this goes back to need, it's not fair to families to say, hey, I know you have to, to people working in the household, we're not gonna have school, you figure it out right? That's not right either. So this really allowed everyone to figure out what was best for their family and so I'm hoping the strategic plan will do the same thing. Um it will allow us that opportunity to hear from, from our families uh more clearly what's going on. We also did this just about a month ago, we did another survey where we called families directly. We picked our families who normally we don't hear the voice from and ask them direct question via telephone because we realize some of those families they don't have access to into that, they don't have those things. 00:20:55 So we had to find another way to outreach to them. So we actually get on the phone and ask some questions directly and we have that information now to use to help with the strategic planning. So all of this is going to really make a difference, wow, that's incredible. And I love how thoughtful you were about right, if someone doesn't have internet access or they don't know how to fill out a google form or something for a serve, We have to find these other means of connectivity and I mean 35 people signing up, I think that's amazing and also in line with what I found in the research of typically the leadership teams, you know, if they're around 15 people, you kind of max out there above that. It gets a little unruly in terms of I now have 50 people in a room who are trying to have a conversation. So 35 across five committees actually sounds really wonderful. And I'm I'm wondering too, have you provided any guidance or do you are you planning to provide any guidance around having students in meetings with? I'm sure there probably will be mostly adults on the committee and then there will be a few students just to make sure that, you know, everyone's voice is heard. 00:21:58 I know that student adult dynamic can kind of be tricky to navigate. What's your suggestion for groups as they kind of get into those committees. Um The good news is we've set up a protocol that all committees will follow. So it's going to make it easy for the person doing it. And secondly, I picked a principle from each school to lead because they know kids, right? So if they're sitting in a room, they're gonna make sure those kids are drawn in. And so before the first committee meeting, they've already gotten the protocol that we will follow. But but prior to the first committee meeting will discuss and make sure what are the protocols we use to make sure everybody's voice is heard. And so we'll give them some strategies. So for example, charting is one of the ways in which I've always tried to hear everybody's voices and basically I give them these little yellow seats. I asked, I haven't put the information down and stick it up on the board. So everybody's voice is heard. And then what we do is have the group put commonalities together. What are the commonalities that we see rather than people talking at one another and feeling as though this isn't gonna work. 00:23:00 And obviously in the technology world we would use jam board. Right. And, and do the sticky note process that way. But that's some of the things I'll talk to the principles about um, that should really help to make sure all those voices are part of it and the good news is the high school principal and ask for volunteers from the students. So he, he's gonna pre work with the students as well. Go over the, go over the materials, talk to them about it before they go. So they'll be pre alerted and kind of already be thinking about what some of those solutions are before they go into a forum with the adults. So that should help to make a huge difference. I really like that suggestion of the sticky notes too because whether it's digital or paper, it also kind of anonymized is a little bit and so there is that value that if someone was skeptical about a student voice, there's that equity of value or equality of value. Maybe in terms of everyone has this posted here, all these ideas are valuable? And I love that you have the protocol already in place ahead of time. So committees. No, you're not just diving into these really challenging conversations with no community agreements and protocols because that could be very challenging. 00:24:10 You compiled 14 pages of information to present to the board this evening and we're recording this in May 19. So this will air later. But tonight you're going to present that at this point in the progression of bringing this all together for the strategic planning committees. Has there been anything that has either surprised you been really exciting as you're kind of putting all this stuff together? What's something that resonates with you? There are a couple of things interesting. The data tells such a story in the data. We have everything from m cast data, benchmark testing data, attendance data, graduation rate, our culture survey results from students And it's just been amazing to look at it and see how it all unfolds and there's some very positive things in our data um, that I think the community will be really happy about. Example as a district in every court area. M cast. We have gone up at least eight points, if not 8%ages or more, which has been incredible. In addition, the culture survey shows the kids really feel like the teachers care for them. 00:25:14 What's interesting is they don't necessarily care for each other. So I'm like okay we gotta really dig into this some more and say why is that why is it that they feel like like the teachers are really good, they care for them, but yet when they're with each other they're having problems. So that's one that really intrigued me. The other thing intrigued me is when we d aggregate the data, we're not seeing the progress, we'd like to see with our special ed students that we're seeing with everyone. And so that's something we're gonna have to really think about when we go through, go through this process. And the other interesting thing will be what other people see because like I said I could look at the data 1000 times only see in a certain way what's really going to be exciting for me is to see what other people are picking up and thinking um as they review and decide about the data. Uh So I'm really excited about that, but for me I'm kind of a data nut. I always find it exciting and helpful to me and really making my decisions. Um So I'll be really curious to see. We don't just have hard data here. 00:26:17 We also have anecdotal data that's always interesting to see how people interpret the anecdotal data as they look at it. So for example, I was gonna put in a strength with the amount of budget has gone up, but I said depends on who looks at it as to whether they think it's gonna be a strength or not right? I think it's a strength because we have more money but the townspeople might be saying wait a minute my tax going up. So you know, so some of those perspectives in people's individual context is going to come out in this as well. So it'll be really interesting to see how that rolls out with our community to things that I'm thinking about. Their one is your expansive view of data, right? Qualitative quantitative. We're looking at survey and perception data as well as numerical grade and testing data, which I think I think when we don't have all those data streams available, we don't think about all those things as relevant. Important data. We then just already bias our interpretation because we're only getting a small slice of what's available to interpret. And the second thing is just how amazing it is that your response was, how other people are going to interpret it is what's exciting for you. 00:27:24 I mean that is the sign of shared leadership right there. That is amazing. And so I guess as we kind of moved to wrap up, one thing I'm curious to know is for other leaders out there. What is one thing that you would recommend that a district or school leader could do as soon as they end the episode to really get the ball rolling in something like creating a shared leadership committee or even more broadly just being their best leader self. I think the first thing has to really be to look at your structures and say, do you have a place for everybody and if you don't have a place for everybody to have a voice, that's a problem. So example, I'll give you every year I go to schools and I interview focus groups of students, right, because I want to make sure they have a voice. So I put that in my structure. So the first thing I would say is, where is your straw pictures and your opportunities to hear from all your different stakeholders? And if you don't have that, that's one of the first things I always suggest is that you get them and you really take a minute to list out who are the stakeholders, because sometimes we can miss groups and we don't even realize it, right, um and and run that by some people in the community and ask them all these, all the stakeholders for this community, because sometimes we don't realize there are certain stakeholder groups that have a different context. 00:28:39 We could say parents, but within parents this in our particular community, special education parents are are pretty active here and so you want to make sure you have an avenue for them. So to really think that out and sit down and put together a chat for yourself about where are these voices coming from? And if you see places where there is not, there's no place for them, then it's your responsibility to create that space and remember, you don't always have to be there, which as long as you are providing the space and someone to facilitate and have an avenue to get the information back is what's most important because I can't be everywhere all the time. But I have a host of people who I know are responsible for each of these groups and I use them. So this strategic planning, I'm not on any committee, but I'm gonna pop into each committee and I'm gonna listen for a little bit but my principles will bring that information back to me because I can't run them all. And so it's also thinking about who can you get to lead to help bring these collective voices back so that you are constantly in touch with them and not allowing yourself to forget about one of them. 00:29:45 And so that would be my advice to any leader listening to this podcast. I actually have a worksheet that kind of speaks to what you're talking about. So I can link that in the show notes too, if people just as a starting point because like you said, each community is going to have different stakeholders and we got to see is everyone included in this list. So I love that starting point. I'll link that in there. One of the things that's really fun to ask at the end of the podcast I always ask because the people on here are always lifelong learners, they're committed to professional growth. What's something that you have been learning about lately? Equity has been the major focus, I mean, with all the current politics um in the United States, it's very much been a focus of mine, and in in a big part of that focus is exactly what I told you with this paradigm shift. How do we go about eliciting conversations from all aspects without putting blame on anyone, right? Because when you go into a conversation about racism, about, you know, anything that's controversial, if you don't find a way to help people come together, they'll just go further apart. 00:30:52 And so a lot of my work has been, how do I do that and how do I ensure that we stick with it? And it's not something that's a one time wonder, because that's not gonna be helping anyone right. All it's gonna do is we had this flash in the plan about equity for a year and we're right back to doing what we were doing before. So the other question for me is really in my reading is about how do you sustain this over time? And some of that goes back to what we were just talking about that, Oh, she's leadership piece is an embedding it over the long term is key to this process. Uh And so that's a lot of what I've, I've been doing. Um, And I've been working not only here at the school level, but I've been working with the Mass Association school superintendents and the state on this. So one of the things that I worked with the state on is, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called influence 100. And one of the things we're doing is we have over the next 10 years, were trying to recruit 100 superintendents who are equity minded. They have a two year internship. 00:31:53 People can sign up, they have a two year internship, they have an opportunity to learn what it means to be an equity leader. Uh, and then they have an opportunity, hopefully they have opportunities to get into positions. And in that recruitment we're looking for all types of people, but we have a focus on bringing in more minority candidates as well. Because when you look at Massachusetts, I believe the numbers, about 36% of our students right now are minority. So we're getting to that 5050 slot, but only 4% of the population of superintendents in Massachusetts are of color. And so this is some of the work we're doing to try to make a difference in our state and working through that process as well. That's amazing work. And I can, like if there's a link to that, I can add that to the show notes too. So people can investigate the state website you should be able to find influence 100. They're perfect. Go on to M. A. S. S. Uh, they should have a statement about anti racist work. They will be launching the actual plan for the plan, um, at the spring convene on May 27th, but they have a statement about anti racist work they'll be doing and you can pull that off the M. 00:33:03 A. S. S. Site. Oh, great. Thank you so much. And the last question is, I know people are going to be like, I want to follow what Superintendent Fernandez is doing. I want to be in contact. Is there anywhere people can connect with you or follow what you're doing in your district? Right? They can always go to our district website. My email is there, um, and they can feel free to go through that. The other thing I would say is that if they are part of the massachusetts Association of Superintendents School Superintendents, I will be at the May 27th convene and talking about some of this. Um, I will also be at the M. A. S. S. Leadership, some are convened, so I will be available there and we're in the process of building a website where people will also be able to tie in to some of this work through M. A. S. S. So it's, it's coming, it's definitely coming. But anytime people can feel free to email me or call me. My goal is always, if it's about kids and about making sure that they're getting what they need. 00:34:04 I'm more than willing to talk to people. Superintendent Hernandez, thank you so much for talking to me today. Oh, no problem. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening. Amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me at lindsey Beth Alliance or leave a review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it until next time leaders continue to think big, act brave and be your best self.
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This is the sixth and final installment of the Curriculum Series. We are talking with Laura Cruz who is an avid reader who has been immersed in stories her whole life. Laura’s motivation comes from setting the stage for authentic human connection and learning. She is the senior manager of Learning and Development at BetterLesson where she designs onboarding, training and feedback systems for over 100 coaches who deliver workshops to teachers on topics ranging from blended learning to anti-racist practices.
Why Students Need A Way to Tell Their Story Laura’s experience with helping students write their story comes from a required autobiography class she started teaching. The course's mastery-based projects asked each student to write their own three-chapter autobiography/memoir, a literary analysis paper of a memoir published by an author, and one art component. The completed projects were then presented to a panel of teachers that were outside of the class. Those teachers would then use mastery based grading to determine if the student had mastered the skills. Laura said “My dream for this course was really about allowing my students to figure out their identity or reflect on their identity and really dig into what does that mean and who am I?” It is a special thing to be able to hear or read another person’s story whether it comes from a well-known author or a student. Student’s need the opportunity to tell their story. Creating a memoir is one way to achieve that. When a student tells their story, they get the power to decide what they want to talk about. Keep in mind there are so many identities to young adults other than “student”. They have to grapple with all of their identities and which ones have the biggest impact on their life. They have to determine what belongs in the story as something that’s shaped their journey. Another benefit of dedicating class time to this is it fosters compassionate relationships between students. Classmates are usually very supportive of each other’s work and they can relate to the physical and mental work it takes to produce a piece like this. They can relate to the walls that they come up against at certain points in the project. Looking For Something Better Something that was very important to Laura in teaching was to give better opportunities to her students who were from low income families and marginalized. As a white woman, she felt a responsibility to acknowledge the privileges she had compared to her students and find a way to bring a high quality learning experience to the class. She said being a part of a consortium school is great because these types of leaders look for the best way to help a student learn not just the traditional way. For example, they’ve recognized how unfair standardized testing is to students and pivoted to a better method of assessment. Creating the autobiography course took some backwards planning in order to set it up for success. She had to start with visualizing what that final literary paper would look like and what students would need to demonstrate at the end. Then it was a matter of naming chapter requirements and adding in things students could read to get inspiration. The middle would be all about working on things to build sentence writing skills, topics, etc. Then there would need to be teaching on different writing styles with examples so that students could decide which kind they wanted. Laura used an activity throughout the course called memory moments. “We really dig into the writing style and then they would write in response with their own story so that they had all these drafts that we could then figure out okay what are the three stories you really want to tell in this final autobiography piece.” As students finished off this course, the feedback that they shared was a sign that overall, the course was serving them well. Students acknowledged how it was more of a challenge than expected. But getting through the challenges pushed them to grow. Other students shared how they enjoyed using their creativity in writing these stories. They enjoyed putting whatever spin they wanted on it whether it was funny, adventurous, touching, or something else. Human connection is an element that isn’t found in just any class, that’s what makes this one particularly special. To dive deeper into learning how to engage students, I have great news! You can register for my free 1 hour masterclass HERE or below. For more, check out my Curriculum Boot Camp course or the “Just the Protocols” module now so you can create your own project-based units grounded in justice in no time at all! Continue the conversation below in the comment section and join our community of educational visionaries on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. TRANSCRIPT in this episode, the final episode of the curriculum design series, we're talking with Laura Cruz and she is taking us on a deep dive into her semester long course on autobiography, Let me tell you a little bit about Laura as an avid reader, she has been immersed in stories her whole life from the Precocious Child at the table, listening to the adults talk to the high school english teacher reveling in her students passionate discourse about text, Laura's motivation and stems from setting the stage for authentic human connection and learning. She is the senior Manager of Learning and Development, a better lesson where she designs onboarding training and feedback systems for over 100 coaches who deliver workshops to teachers on topics ranging from blended learning to anti racist practices. After almost 20 years in education, she enjoys giving people the tools they need to create learning communities that become a meaningful part of their own stories, let's get to the episode, Hi, I'm lindsey Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive, I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. 00:01:22 If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a pro Principal Superintendent instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader and if you enjoy nerd ng out about the latest educational books and podcasts. If you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the time for teacher ship podcast, Let's dive in laura Cruz, welcome to the time for a Teacher Ship podcast. Thank you lindsey. I'm so excited that you're here. I just read your professional bio but if there is anything else you want to share with listeners about who you are or why you're here, feel free to go ahead and share that. Sure. Thanks for the opportunity Lindsay. I'm super excited to be here and to tell my story. I've been in education for 17 years, which when I say that makes me roll my eyes into the back of my head. But I am a lifelong learner um lover of education and reading and books and fiction have to make sure I get some nonfiction in there. 00:02:30 But definitely fiction lover reader, dog mom, wife, friend and just constantly learning, I support the learning of coaches that better lesson where I work as a senior manager of learning and development one too many services, which means like professional development virtually or in person. But I often feel like I'm learning from everyone to So even though I'm supporting that learning people are such great teachers and the people that work a better lesson are just our coaches are amazing. So I'm constantly learning new things. Yeah, I guess that's me great, thank you Laura and I can attest to Lord has given me so many great book recommendations and oh my gosh, the love of books is real between us. I feel like we could just go on for days, particularly about fiction, but also sometimes can be a book book podcast, but it could be, it totally could be as we kind of get into things. I am so curious to hear about your high school autobiography course, which was a semester long course. I'm interested to know before we kind of dive into the episode. 00:03:33 If you could just kind of give a high level preview, maybe a summary of that course before we get into the weeds. Sure, yeah, the autobiography course was a required course at Fannie lou Hamer Freedom High School, which was the last high school that I work that for six years and it was the mastery paper that students had to write one of seven that they had to write in order to graduate. So that mastery project, we worked on it over the course of the semester and it involves them writing their own three chapter autobiography or memoir, a literary analysis paper of a memoir, published by an author and an art component which was loosely loosely changed over the years. At the end of the course, students were required to sit on a panel with 1-2 other students and present to two teachers who were not me who would decide whether or not they passed this panel um whether or not they they could go on and um when we say blue tagged get a blue tag, which meant they were done with that mastery and on this panel they presented about their work, they answered an essential question and then they answered any questions thrown at them by the teachers of Fannie Lou. 00:04:39 Those questions could range anywhere from style form, literary elements to the content of their autobiographical work. It all built towards that Fannie Lou. Hamer was part of a network of organizations that I also taught at a school that was part of that network, which is so cool to just be able to think about how when we're talking about education that is grounded in the critique of injustice and I think that's such a cool way of students creating these meaningful projects, presenting, getting kind of this conversation going with panelists and it just feels so much more meaningful than like I took a test and I got an a and now I'm done with the course, so I'm really excited to dive into that with you. And actually let's transition to that question. The concept of freedom dreaming. So Doctor Pitino love talks about it as dreams crowded in the critique of injustice, with that in mind, with the course in mind with the way that you taught in mind, what is that big dream that you hold for the field of education? Yeah, I love this question. Um and it's so nice to be asked to dream. We often are not asked to dream, as teachers were kind of given what, what we need to do and go do it. 00:05:44 The opportunity to dream was the opportunity that the principle of Fannie lou hamer nancy man gave me with this course and oh my gosh, did I speak to my soul? Because I loved creative writing in high school, I loved creative writing afterwards and I love stories and so being able to dive into my students stories and have them express their stories was huge. My dream for this course was really about allowing my students to figure out their identity or reflect on their identity And really dig into what does that mean, and who am I right? I mean, that's a big question for all of us. I mean, I grapple with that question at 40 years old and to give them the opportunity to grapple with that question at 17 18 1920 years old felt really important to me and not for me to do that necessarily through someone else's story, but through their own story. I mean, we read other people's stories along the way. I think of the Hamiltons quote, Who lives, who dies, Who tells your story. 00:06:46 And I felt it was really important for me to give my students the opportunity to tell their own story and to own their own story and to pause and reflected that. So, this course was taught in junior and senior year when students were getting ready to leave high school and move on to this next big step and have a moment to pause and say, what have I accomplished and what have I been through and what have I done and dealt with? What have I laughed at in the past? You know, 18 years of my life and now, what does that mean for where I go next and who am I when I step into that next space and the other opportunity, other dream I had for the course was not only do I know who I am or do I have a sense of who I am right now, but also who are you? And not just the use of the, the authors they read, but each other. I was just always flabbergasted by how loving and kind they were to each other as they told their stories and how big a realization they had when they stepped back and said that happened to you too. 00:07:46 Oh, it's not just me. Like, oh, I get chills right now thinking about it because it was so powerful as teachers. We have classrooms of kids in front of us every day And we don't know what's happening with them and they don't know what's happening with each other all the time. And it feels even more important in an age of social media where we can tell whatever 32nd story in a Tiktok or post a picture and tell a story. But when you put pen to paper, there's something different that happens to me. I think so. I really wanted them to have a space to process their big experiences, process their big emotions and to let them express. Working in one of the poorest urban congressional districts in the United States, my students faced a lot parents died, homelessness, sexual assault, mental health issues, neighborhood violence, alcoholism, but they're also teenagers. Right? And so they also experience friendships ending and friendships beginning and love and emerging sexuality and just like silly stories and memories to be able to allow them to really expressed like the diamond of themselves, right? 00:08:56 That there's many facets of who they are was really important to me. And just to see their own writing. Like I think until you're asked to write something from scratch, especially about yourself. You don't, you don't know what your voice sounds like your writing voice, you don't know what beautiful writing you can, you can do. And so giving them that opportunity for voice I think was really important. My hope was that they had a connection that they had a process to tell their own story. Um, and a moment to stop and reflect and to share. I love those goals. Those dreams for the course and I love some of the language you used to write the Hambleton quote was excellent. But also thinking about themselves as diamonds, right? And those multifaceted people. I mean that's just so powerful. And it's powerful how the students responded as well. How you were saying there was that connection and that that happened to me. So it's more than just I checked the box. I perform. I read my book aloud or I shared my thing with someone else. But there's this act like in between interpersonal thing that is happening that's fostering that class community that is grounded in justice and connection and belonging. 00:10:03 And that's so important. I think sometimes when we think about assessment and like what's the product at the end of the unit, we missed that piece of like what happens when we share it and how do we create conditions to share it in a way that students are responding in the ways that they were in your class, which I think is a testament to a much larger set up of your class culture going into the course that was necessary as we were planning for this episode. You pointed out that you know that dream, that experience of telling the story and really owning your own story is important for all schools. All students could you speak a little bit more about what you meant? Like why is it important for all students to have this opportunity? Yeah. So, and just to be clear, I am a white woman. I was a white woman teaching in Um, a school of 400 students and all of them were students of colour and had intersectional identities and it was 100% free and reduced lunch. Right? And so there's a lot of students who were different from me and my own identity walking in the door working in a school like that. 00:11:03 There's a lot of thought about what do we do to support students who don't have all of the opportunity for money for some opportunities of like a rich suburban school. And what I loved about Fannie Lou Hamer and the consortium schools is they were trying something different and they were doing something different with curriculum in order to really engage students and to make community schools where families were a part of the process. And As I was teaching, I thought, Wow, you know, this is great for my students to be able to tell their stories, but it's also good for any student like any any 18 year old kid right, needs a moment to stop and pause and think about who they are and think about what they believe in two. And I grew up in an urban fringe area that was very diverse. Then I moved to a rich white suburban neighborhood that we were not rich and I had an asthma attack and almost died in my freshman year of high school. So there was a lot that I needed to process in high school. And so I know my husband always talks about like sometimes when you become a teacher, you you end up teaching the population or the grade levels where you had some major like sort of change or experience in your life and you're kind of in some ways you might be trying to do a do over, right? 00:12:16 So I think it's really interesting to that for me, like those things happened in high school and now here I was in high school and the thing I was the most excited about was teaching english and reading books with my students in service of exploring our stories and being able to tell our stories. So that was a total side note. But all that to say I needed some way to express the big things that were happening for me too. And there was one creative writing course that you were able to take in junior or senior year. It was, it was a half semester course. I took it three or four times, You were only supposed to take it once, but I told my guidance counselor no, that's it. Like I'm taking it and I'm just gonna keep taking it because I loved being able to write so much and being in that environment where it wasn't an autobiography course, but where I could sneak in autobiographical elements and find my voice as well. That's amazing, wow, there's so much packed into what you just said, including personal experiences, thank you for being vulnerable enough to share those and also just the idea of repeating. Of course, I never thought about doing that. 00:13:17 And now I'm like, oh yeah, how cool would that have been? Okay, So that is a great tension and I'm really excited about digging into what your husband's philosophy of teaching the certain grades are, that could be a whole other episode to set the context for when you taught this at the high school level. Right? We talked about, this is a public school that you were teaching in. It was part of that consortium. So a network of schools who are really, you know, trying to get away from standardized test, trying to do meaningful authentic assessment. And I'm wondering if you want to speak a little bit more about the consortium's approach or even Fannie lou hamer specifically and their approach to education. I know we touched on a few things, but I'm curious here because a lot of times that this point in the podcast episode, I'll ask about mindset shifts and so if there's a person listening who the leader of the school as a teacher at a school, thinking, okay, my school doesn't do that right now, but I'm really curious to know how I get there or what that looks like. If I were trying to get there to do something like this, to have a course like this, to create a school culture like this. If you could just kind of paint us a picture of what that looks like. 00:14:19 So that listener could kind of start thinking about what that could look like for them. What I love about consortium schools is that they looked at the standardized test, the new york regions exams and said, what experiences and, and assessments can we give students? That will be as rigorous, if not more rigorous than those exams, right? Having students sit for those exams. And to me, I love that because standardized testing to me is it's unfair, it's unjust and it's not the way that I think we can raise kids and have kids learn in the best way pivoting to meaningful of an authentic assessment means really, really investing in backwards planning. And so Fannie lou, you know, they thought a lot about what, what do we want a kid who leaves this high school to be able to know and do when they leave and and not always content. No. And do, I mean that's definitely part of it, but what are the skills that they have when they walk out the door and continue to learn? 00:15:20 How can they continue to help themselves in an educational experience or were in the working world? Right. How can they have those skills? And so they had to get these mastery which were in the main subjects of math, science, english, history and then like an art and autobiography was something else. I can't remember right now. I think some sort of choice that they had, What is education, if not like the dialectic conversation and questions and and so students had to sit on panels. Not only did they have to write really long papers in each subject area, whether that was sort of a scientific report or explanation of math, comparative literary paper and defend themselves with that content around questions in front of adults and man, if you had told me I had to do that to graduate high school, I think I would have never graduated high school. All four years of the this experience in the consortium school in Fannie Lou in particular were backwards maps that kid's got to that point, you know, really being able to dive deep into a topic over breath and then practice the writing skills in the lower grades, it was red tags and the upper grades, it was blue tags for graduation. 00:16:35 But we gave them small snippets of those types of writing experience, types of reading experiences, types of of being a scientist or being a mathematician and writing about that and then also defending their ideas. We gave them those opportunities along the way and had them practice so that by the time they got to their junior and senior year, they were able to tackle those longer and more complex mastery with a lot of support, right? They're still teenagers and they were still learning and really giving them choice along the way. Like for me in my english class that I was teaching, they had to do a comparative paper. So we would read one book that I had chosen on a particular theme together and then I would open it up and let them choose what the next book that they wanted to compare that book with was. And then I got to the point where I said you get to choose the question, whatever question you want to write to is what you're going to write to and you're gonna write best to, you gotta analyze quotes, you gotta find evidence, but you are are in charge and you are going to prove to me your ideas and I think that those are just such authentic skills that kids would leave with. 00:17:39 Whereas when I was in high school I memorized a lot. I took calculus. My goodness, I cannot tell you anything from calculus, but I got through it and did well because I memorized but I didn't understand what it meant and what I loved it. My math teacher in the next room was those kids understood or they were working towards understanding what an equation meant and what that represented in real life. That is amazing. Yeah, you're speaking really to the application piece, right? I can memorize formulas of math, but I don't know how to apply math in a context to get me a solution right? I have no idea. And so I think I really related to that piece as well. I'm guessing it was the same for Fannie lou Hamer. But at my school, which was Manhattan International High School, we had a lot of collaborative planning to get that backwards design in place. So there was a lot of like grade teams who regularly and like planning across the grade. But then there was also departments who, you know, ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th grade had the same in our school. Anyways, they had the same rubric and it was kind of scaffold it back a little bit, so it looks slightly different, but the main themes or standards were present. 00:18:43 And so that scaffolding, I think also requires a lot of collaboration. So for listeners who don't already have that close collaboration in their schools, that's something I think that's a great starting point to just get together with someone else in your department, your grade team and start planning and mapping that out. Is that accurate to say that was the same at your school? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We met in grade level teams, we met in content teams. I think the consortium has rubrics that you need to use and so how you use those similar, like we might scaffold them back a little bit for the earlier grades. The english team cross grade would meet and really look at that. The other piece that there's collaboration, I think amongst teachers and staff and administration. And then I also think there was a lot of collaboration between teachers and students and teachers and families. And so we had a really strong advisory program I know when I was teaching and when I came up, like Advisory was like really, you know, the jargon of the day and like very everybody's got advisory, it's really important. 00:19:44 But our advisory was for real. I was responsible for 18 to 19 students and making sure that from junior year to senior year, I shepherded them through the mastery process that, you know, they knew where they stood, that they knew what they needed to do, That they were emotionally supported, that their families were supported, that their families knew where they were in that process and and really making sure that they made it through the process. And there were some nights where I woke up many a night thinking, oh my goodness, are we gonna make it through for some of them. But I knew my students really well and I knew a core group of them and I would also support them when they had challenges with other students or other teachers. That was also an integral part for our consortium school around, supporting the students to to do something that looked different than what other high school students were doing, where they would sit for a test. And that was it. That's such an important point that those relationships are really fundamental. And and as you said at the start of the episode two, they kind of came through, I think in the course as well, in the, how people are responding to each other, telling their own stories. 00:20:50 So I'm curious as we dive into the details of the course you spoke about backwards play, so maybe we can start there. What was your planning process to get to? What eventually became your autobiography of course at first, thank goodness nancy handed me a binder was like, here's what's been taught before and I was so happy to have something to work off of. So those first few years were really kind of figuring out how did someone else backwards map this process. And then the next few years were spent making it mine and making it sing in terms of backwards planning. I really thought about what that final paper that literary analysis paper would look like. So how are we going to get to that, what are they going to read? What skills do they need that are different from writing creatively um that we're going to need and so where does that kind of happen? And a lot of that, I actually would plan towards the end of the semester, Once I had gotten their creative writing really flowing and they had a lot to work with. So I thought about that, and then the other piece was, they have to write three chapters. 00:21:53 And so how in the world am I going to get them to write these three chapters and their chapters, I think I required them to be 2-3 pages. Some students would write 10 pages for a chapter. We really ran the gambit there, but required a minimum of 2-3 to really tell a story. So I had to figure out what kinds of writing skills do they need? Around five senses and imagery and dialogue and topic. You know, what skills did they need and what models did they need to see to figure out what their own style was. So I worked back and had what we called memory moments. Actually I found a bunch of texts um that I could use as models for memoir, autobiographical writing. I used everything from Nikki Giovanni to martin Merino Vegas when the spirits dance mambo, she's a new you recon woman who grew up in new york, you know her story through her family and her love of music and then we read pieces of the other Westmore the color of water Amy Tan, fish cheeks and Sexton, Ishmael Beah Elizabeth Gilbert. 00:22:57 Like I just pulled a lot of different pieces where I would have them look at the topic of that piece. So like Amy Tan's fish cheeks pieces about the first time that her family invites this white, another student at her school named robert, her family invites his family over and she's asian, I don't know, she identified as asian american, but her parents were not born in America and so they eat dinner and she's just like, oh well the things that I love? Like fish cheeks. Now I see them through robert's eyes and how he sees me and oh no, am I weird, I must seem different. So grabbing something that was really reflective and deep and personal, but also had showcased some sort of really great writing skill and for that there was so much around the five senses because they're eating dinner and so their smell and taste and touch and um so we would delve into like an analysis and have them circle the five senses and but also we talked about the story and so then I would assign a memory moment where it was just, you know, a quick, dirty, rough draft of your parallel story, if you can think of one. 00:24:07 Um and so when is the time when you felt embarrassed by your family or your your identity or you know, and I really, I adjusted my expectations for what might come of that I also always said or something else, right? Like maybe that doesn't speak to you, maybe you don't want to go there. Maybe that's not it. Maybe you want to write about food, go ahead. So now I'm getting detailed, but if I zoom back a little bit, we did a bunch of those, I think 10 or 12 memory moments where we really dig into the writing style and into the topic they would write in response with their own story. So that they had all these little drafts that we could then figure out, okay, what are the three stories you really want to tell in this final autobiography piece? We also had writer's workshop, which was an interesting experience when I first started, I forced them all the whole class to sit in a circle. I think we had three kids that would read that each day, everybody had to give feedback, written and share a little bit out loud. That was hard, It went better in some classes and not so great in other classes, and I learned quickly about how to adjust that experience, but sharing was an expected part of their experience. 00:25:14 And so they got feedback and they got to give feedback on writing that writer's workshop, I was never willing to get rid of it entirely because that's where they saw each other's stories and that's where they connected and said, oh, you went through that too, just that feeling of not being alone and the things you've gone through, you know, like I said before is just really powerful for a lot of kids and in Writer's workshop is where some kids would cry, some kids would share some really personal things and at one particular experience was a young woman who I'm still in touch with and she shared about abuse she had suffered because of her father and due to his alcoholism and I mean, there was not a dry eye in the room and this other young man in the room like came over, I was like can I hug you like and just the outpouring of love for her was amazing and just the I. C. U. And humanity piece was amazing and it was really powerful for her. She after she graduated in college she actually, I don't think she read the story but she wrote more about it and shared that um with a college audience and a day about abuse. 00:26:22 She was really able to take that experience and to me I think take back some control around that experience and to say this happened to me but look at who I am and where I am And the kids were so great and we also had a Vegas roll. What's said in writer's workshop, stays in writer's workshop and I will tell you in the six years of teaching that I think maybe there was one time when somebody said something that somebody else said that wasn't a major deal but you know we handled it and I taught that every semester. So it's really I thought it 12 times and and student and kids got it. You know they they held each other's personal stories for themselves. I'm just thinking about so much of what you said in terms of a planning lens or kind of a pattern lens. I'm curious to know about the the unit arc like we're their separate units. I know that you said there were kind of multiple products that came out of the course, so we're those kind of seen a separate unit. It almost sounds like there was an arc of model memory moment writer's workshop. Was it more of like a pattern of just repeating activities or were they kind of segmented into different distinct units? 00:27:28 Yeah, that's a great question. Um the beginning, like the launch of the course for me was kind of one unit and then we would get into that habit of of repeated pattern like we're gonna read, we're gonna write, we're gonna share, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna share. And then the third unit was really okay, now we're going to transition into you into you choosing published memoir that you want to read and get into and use as you answer this question and the question change sometimes, but like does our past impact our future? Like are we controlled by our choices or faith? You know, any variant of that question um or like is it important for us to think back on past experiences? So we would then transition into that, you know, where they were doing a lot of independent reading on their own of whatever book they were choosing or they could read in pairs or they could read with me if they wanted to and then they were doing more non non fiction writing, you know, doing that literary analysis paper of that. And then the last few weeks were always just write whatever you need to get this done. But the opening unit, I always started with a movie and I started with the movie Big Fish. 00:28:33 Um and he does have a memoir, but the movie Big Fish to me was a really visual way of talking about who tells your story. How do you tell your story? I don't know if you've seen it's a wonderful movie, there's all this magical realism that happens in it. And it's this father and son, The father is dying and the and the Sun comes back and he's been mad at his dad his old life for not telling the story the real story and not telling the truth of the story. And so then you you you see all the stories that his dad told. Um and it's really beautiful, but I wanted to show them a range of like, look, truth is subjective, you know, and you can tell every single detail or you can add a little magic in there, you know, that's really a range and what your truth is your truth. You know? It was an autobiography of course, but to me it was really kind of a memoir of course, because I wanted creativity and I wanted them to add it and not to necessarily lie or overblow, but just to to feel like it didn't have to be this happened, then this happened and this happened um that they could really have a voice and creativity in there. 00:29:34 I love that you started with that hook too because I think that really frames, I mean, I haven't seen the film, but I think to start with something that might have a little bit of magic in it, like I think that's brilliant. And I also just love the unit arc. It sounds to me like there was kind of this unit one frame that might have been more like teacher directed, kind of like standardized, this is it. And then there's more of like more and more evolution. It sounds like as unit two and three went on for more student choice, more flexibility, we adapt in the, in the workshops and the sharing process and it all looks different class by class. I think that's so cool for someone who's kind of interested in doing some student voice stuff, but isn't quite sure where to start. It's like a lovely scaffolding up to what in the end is incredibly student driven and so I just think that's really hopefully very comforting for someone listening who's like, oh, I want to start this, but I've never done any sort of, you know, let students choose their own question or book or something. So I love that you painted that picture for us. I'm wondering how your students responded in terms of what kind of work they created, what they said to you as they completed the course, you know, what did it mean to them? 00:30:41 I know you said you're still in touch with some students, including I know you were excited to be able to, to kind of, grapple with this question to any students who struggled with the course as well. If there was anyone who just needed an extra scaffold or something like that. Yeah, I'll speak to that first. This course was hard, like, it couldn't, I think for me who loves writing, I'm like, oh, that would be an easy course. It's a hard course. I asked a lot of my students and I really asked them to be vulnerable with each other and with themselves and with me, and it was not everybody's cup of tea. So even though, yes, there were great connections and um, great stories that were told for some students, there was a real strong, like, I can't do this, I'm not I'm not gonna do this. And that was very rare where they said, I'm not gonna do this. But there were a few students who didn't take autobiography and may have started in the first week or two, and we just couldn't, they were not ready to go inside, um, in the way that I was asking them to, and I couldn't, I mean, what am I gonna do, force them, like, no, I didn't want to, but it did also make me very aware that there were students who not every student wrote, you know, a heart wrenching, you know, sob grabbing story. 00:31:59 I was very clear with them from the beginning. I'm not asking you to bare your soul. I'm not asking requiring you to make us cry or anything you share to the level at which you are comfortable with. So it could be a story about the best BMX bike ride you had when you were in fifth grade, that's fine. But I had to continually remind them of that because some students did go there and then if people had responses, they might feel like, oh my stories aren't powerful or might not be enough. And some students were just really funny. They told really funny stories where they would vary, you know, they'd have a humorous story and like a thoughtful story and another, you know, a favorite teacher from their, from their life if it wasn't for all students. And I had, I definitely had one student who he had to go the route of just writing the most ridiculous fantasy stories as his life and I had, I had to be okay with that because I don't think he wanted to do it. And and that had to be okay. And it was okay because I think a lot of the students really brought in and, and shared the teachers who sat on the panels often said to me this is my favorite panel to sit on and again, to be clear, I didn't create the, I didn't like design the course from scratch, I stood on the shoulders of the great people who designed it before me, Kids would cry, they would cry, they would talk about real stuff and real life and not to say that talking about math and science and history is not important cause that's real too. 00:33:23 There's rarely tears involved with the math and the science I think, but not human connection That, that a, a teacher could see that in a student, a student could see that in a teacher as they shared back with them on those panels was amazing. Students would say like, Wow, I didn't think that I could write or I didn't think I had stories, I didn't realize that other people go through what I go through, you know, that that continually came out. So to me, it said something about just like the loneliness of teenager Hood, right? When I think back to when I was 15 and 16, I thought I knew everything, but I also wasn't talking with everybody at school, I didn't know what they were going through. I talked with my close friends and so it would be surprising to find out who else was going through challenging things or silly things or had a similar relationship with their parents or struggled with health issues or whatever, but not all of them loved it and I definitely collected their feedback at the end of the course and made some adjustments. I think the biggest adjustments that I made was around offering more choice. I wish I could go back when I started at Fannie lou, I was in my sixth year of teaching I think and had learned so much, but still I wish I could go back and be like give up a little bit more control. 00:34:32 It's going to be fine because I had originally had them all read the same book to analyze for the literary analysis at the end. One year we read The Color of Water, another year we read the Other Westmore, many years we read the other West and then I thought, what am I doing their reading all these bits of memoirs and getting interested in other people's stories and I have this budget to get books and, and I have a big library. So let me just open the doors and let them choose what they want to read because they're going to be way more excited and surprise surprise. So many more of them finish the book that they had chosen to read rather than the book that I have had assigned where they might sort of struggle through the end of the book. Um, so giving that control over and giving them choice, they get invested in what they're doing. And some students were always absent on writers workshop day, surprise surprise or some students didn't want to share out loud. So that was another thing that I actually ended up adjusting was instead of requiring everyone to sit around the table and have people read out loud and write the feedback sheets. I think I still did that sometimes for students who wanted the whole audience. 00:35:33 But I also said, go find someone else to trade with, You're gonna trade your stories and you're gonna give feedback to each other and then I would grade their feedback. That was an adjustment I made along the way to to make sure that everyone could give feedback and everybody could practice feedback but they didn't have to do it so publicly, wow, I love how you're also speaking to kind of the evolution and adjustments of the course. As you said, your lifelong learner and it's just coming through in terms of just your reflection and your reflective practice in this conversation, which is absolutely amazing. As we wrap up, a person might be listening to this podcast kind of holding two different roles, one being a teacher who's ready to create a course like this, or even just a unit within a larger L A course or a different course, even an art course, perhaps what can they do to kind of it started? And then also from a leader lens, if I want to encourage my teachers to have a bit more flexibility in creativity in creating something like this. I know you said you had that flexibility from your admin with something that an admin could do to support a teacher. I'll start with teachers first having a full semester was amazing because I could do so much. 00:36:39 But if you don't have that freedom in your curriculum and you maybe have room for a unit of it, I would really recommend thinking about the process and repeating the process because writing creatively is really a process, it takes time. And Lamont wrote a book, Bird by Bird, which is about writing. And in that book, I don't know if I can swear, but she has a chapter called Shitty First Drafts. I would read that with the students and just say, look, you're writing is not going to be perfect the first time. And sure we say that to kids when they write essays and whatever, but it's different. Even like I didn't want that pressure to stop them from putting pen to paper and to normalize the experience that you're not gonna love, the first thing you write and it's not going to be perfect and it might just be random images together through a teacher starting out. I would recommend go to the grain size that feels comfortable for you. I think two things, what are parts of that process piece that I can repeat so that kids can do it and do it again and do it again and do it again and then what literary element skills because if you're worried about moving to something creative and feel like this isn't authentic assessment or this isn't gonna support them to do well on the tests later on then what are those skills that they need to know? 00:37:50 What do they need to analyze for? How can you weave that into how they look at memoirs and what they practice when they're writing and they're not going to get it perfect the first time. And and some of them will, some will have amazing writing talent. You'll be surprised. But what are things that you can repeat so that you can really engage with the students And also how do you create community? I mean I haven't talked a lot about that and we had a lot of community kind of already built into Fannie lou with advisory and then small classes. The kids were really great. But you do have to create a safe space. And so how can you set out expectations for what will be shared or not shared what they can write what they might not right. I set the Vegas roll with them which they didn't all know what that meant. But they knew by the time we talked about it, even if you carve it into a unit. Really making sure even if it's later in the year so that you do have some of that community already, making sure you still address that it's a safe space and also be real with them that you may need to report something. I remember sitting in a coffee shop and reading a student's experience of rape and just I lost it. 00:38:55 And and just being like, I have to talk to the social worker and we have to make sure that this child is safe. And so establishing that relationship with a social worker, establishing that you have support for yourself, I will say it can be emotional for you to reading students pieces. And so do you have a space where you can process with someone? Do you have support for yourself as you're hearing what kids might share? And then have an open mindset. Kids are going to write from all different stories in different different places, ability wise, style wise, topic wise. So, can you see what the growth is for that student not. Did they master creative writing, but did they get better adding an imagery? Did they get better at adding dialogue to a peace? Did they, did they create this character and you can really visualize that character then, I think for leaders, this course is not for the faint of heart, so really letting a teacher choose if they want to do it or not. We had choice in Fannie lou And I know 11 of my fellow teachers did teach the course and was like, wow Lord, your autobiography course looks different than mine, because she was like, I don't want you all to go this deep, like do not, we're not, we're not doing that. 00:40:04 So they focused much more on the published stories and they went, they wrote that way and and did a lot of reading. So if you're gonna do it, know that it's an experience for you too. I also did right along with my students and shared along with my students, so that I was also in the process too. And it was vulnerable in that way. But I think for admin, you know, not forcing a teacher to do it, giving those connections to social workers or therapists or whoever, whatever support you have in the school. So that if triggers come up or around a concern like that communication is already there and it's not a surprise. And then I think giving the latitude to believe in the fact that creative writing is learning and does support skills that we think of typically on english tests or english assessments etcetera. Wow, that was a ton of great next steps for people who are listening. And I'm like, all right, let's do this thing. And I love to how you're speaking to that self care piece. And also the piece of preempting the stories like I know from teaching an intersectional feminism class stories of sexual assault always come up for my students. And so I made the mistake one year of not pre and every other year it was like day one practically where it was we're going to be sharing some things I want you to feel like you can share with me if you would like to, but you need to know, here's what needs to happen from my end from a legal perspective. 00:41:20 Oftentimes that can feel like a revocation of agency. Like I'm taking even more control away from you because you didn't know that was what would happen, but if you know that's what's going to happen and then you still choose to share. Okay, now you're doing what you need to do and that's what's best for you. So I really appreciate that because I'm just thinking from that lens that is hugely emotional for the student and the teacher and it can disrupt student teacher relationships. That could be great up until that point as well. So I appreciate that advice for teachers as we kind of wrap up here. I know you started the show by saying you're a lifelong learner. I'm curious to know what is something that you have been learning about lately or something you've been working on. I know you support people learning all the time. So it could be that lens as well in my current role. I'm supporting coaches to coach teachers and leaders and educators. And so I've been learning a lot more about adult learning and I've been diving into a little bit around micro learning and then also trying to figure out how to navigate learning when it's when it's online. Um, and and navigate that experience of mix of videos and text and checks for understanding and all of those things when I'm not the person like in front of the room or even around the room, you know sort of facilitating the experience. 00:42:30 So that's what I've been really thinking a lot about lately. So new coaches are going through that experience right now, so I'm excited to hear their feedback and make adjustments based on that in terms of what I talked about today, project based learning and um alternative assessment to people and I'm sure you know them but jennifer Gonzalez, the cult of pedagogy, I haven't been in the classroom for five years now but I still listen to her, I still read what she writes, I think she's really powerful and then AJ Giuliani is does a lot around project based learning. So if you're really starting out, if you like the idea of building to some really authentic assessment but you're not quite sure how to do it, that he's a really great resource, He has a podcast and instagram and wrote a book about project based learning and then I am a big fan of africa of fainting mills. Um she gets interviewed and talked about and I have a personal relationship with her but I love talking to her and listening to her interviews as a white person in the world and as a white educator, it helps me to learn more about my identity and other people's identities and other people's experience and how to be anti racist. 00:43:38 And I love the way that she speaks to white people who are educating Children in both a loving and a loving push way she's someone else too. I would definitely love for other people to listen to. And then for fun I do listen to a podcast called The Read. I try to vary the voices of the people that I listen to when I listen to podcasts so that I'm listening to, I'm hearing different perspectives the host of the reed R. Two queer black people. And so I just really appreciate hearing their take on pop culture. And then at the end they always do a read. So they they have their commentary on current events and how they see it in interpret it and feel about it from that queer person of color lens. And so that's really important to me. Um I also started listening to pantsuit politics which are like two white women in the middle of the country, one was Republican and one's liberal and the republican has moved away from being Republican. But they they also processed the news and politics. 00:44:42 And so it's another interesting perspective for me to hear. My favorite podcast is what should I read next where guests say, three books that they've loved. One book that they didn't like and then they get recommended three books that they choose from to read next. And that's the you know, fiction book reader in me that just loves hearing and adding to my to be read pile which is growing every day. You helped me get into that podcast too. So now I also love that podcast. Oh my gosh, there's so much here. I'm gonna try to link to all those places in the show notes as well so that people can just click on them and then go learn some more. They're speaking of links that I can add to the show notes, where can people learn more about you, follow you online, connect with you that kind of thing. You might be disappointed when you follow me. I don't post that much. Um, the best place to be on instagram I am at laura dot loves dot lit. I aspire to maybe do more books diagramming on there. But I'm not committed yet to fully doing that. But that's the best place to find me. Awesome Lord thank you so much for being on the podcast. 00:45:44 Thank you for having me Lindsay. This has been an amazing experience and what you're doing is incredibly important and I just love that teachers and leaders get to listen to you and and learn. So that's great. I'm so excited that people got to just hear about this course and I can't wait to hear how people are actually putting it into action. So feel free to let us know once you go ahead and make this happen at your schools. Thanks for listening. Amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me at lindsey Beth Alliance or Labor Review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it until next time. Leaders continue to think Big Act brave and be your best self.
Listen to the episode using the above player or by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Make it simple with a unit arc During my third year of teaching, I remember first hearing about unit arcs while sitting with my curriculum coach at the time. I was amazed at the possibility of using a handful of protocols again and again to save me so much time and energy as a teacher. As you’ll see, making your own unit arc doesn’t have to be scary. But it is a critical part of creating your own curriculum plans for your class. If you’re wondering what a unit arc is, it’s the pattern of purposeful learning experiences in which students engage throughout a unit. Establishing a pattern makes it predictable and simple for you to do each year. For a successful learning experience, make sure it is student-centered. The teacher should minimize their involvement while giving students the reins in solving challenges. Purposeful Protocols So what are the protocols that make up a unit arc? Behind each protocol should be a purpose. The four protocol purposes that I thought of after reading El Education’s protocols are as follows:
You definitely don’t have to come up with a hundred protocols. I recommend that you choose between 3 to 5 protocols using these 4 purposes. “Once I developed my own unit arc for my courses, I no longer spent hours determining which activity to prepare for each lesson.” Unit arc examples Unit arcs will vary from subject to subject, grade to grade, and teacher to teacher. Here’s one example of a unit arc used for a social studies class: First lesson—hook, Second lesson—establishing prior knowledge of students, Third lesson—broad overview, Fourth lesson—primary sources, Fifth—discussion, case studies, and so on. The type of unit arcs I create and help others make, focus on creating interest and engagement from students. These types of unit arcs provide students the chance to create meaningful work that tackles current issues in the present. I also believe that part of connecting students with these projects comes from allowing students to talk about these projects with an authentic audience. A great way to finish off a unit arc is with time for reflection. Students have the opportunity to consider what went well and get some helpful feedback on their work. Rarely do I find a bored student when using these unit arcs. The reason is that engaging content combats boredom. When students are engaged, they are building relationships with other students, staff, and faculty. They also take more ownership and improve communication skills and confidence. Battling boredom with engaging content is particularly if your classes are still being taught virtually. Trying to keep a student engaged while they’re watching you through a screen is challenging, and these unit arcs will make a world of difference. My suggestion for you now is to take the protocols that your students have already been loving and start building out that arc. To dive deeper into learning how to engage students, I have great news! You can register for my free 1 hour masterclass HERE or below. For more, check out my Curriculum Boot Camp course or the “Just the Protocols” module now so you can create your own project-based units grounded in justice in no time at all! Continue the conversation below in the comment section and join our community of educational visionaries on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. TRANSCRIPT Welcome to the fifth episode in our curriculum design series. If you haven't listened to the previous episodes, go ahead on back and listen to teaching for justice, the research talk about rubrics. We had a guest episode on P. B. L. A. Driving question episode and now we are at the point where we're going to dive into a unit park. We're talking today about the protocols or activities that make up a unit, how we can repeat them in replicable patterns to not only decrease the amount of energy and time that goes into lesson planning and unit planning as a teacher but also to increase the predictability and consistency and skill development of our students. So let's dive in. Hi, I'm lindsey Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a pro principal superintendent instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader and if you enjoy nerd ng out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the time for teacher ship podcast, let's dive in. 00:01:39 I still remember sitting across from my curriculum coach who was amazing, her name was Janice during my 3rd year of teaching and when she shared the concept of a unit arc, I could barely believe it, I was awestruck, well at the same time thinking really I can do that, I can just repeat these protocols. Every single unit can be the same arc. This saves me so much time. And with the introduction of this one concept, my entire idea Of what was possible with regards to curriculum design drastically changed. And so all of a sudden I saw a path forward that involved creating really amazing topical units without spending 20 hours every weekend to finish them. Which is what I was doing in my 1st 2.5 years of teaching, my unit creation process skyrocketed after the introduction of this one simple tool of the unit arc and I'm so excited to dive into it today with you, here's how I define a unit arc, The pattern of purposeful learning experiences in which students engage throughout the unit. 00:02:48 As with any unit, we're going to pack it with learning experiences for our students, we will always want to be a student centered in our pedagogy. The key difference with the unit arc is the intentional pattern. It follows the pattern of purposeful learning experiences and so this pattern becomes predictable to you as the creator. It saves you a lot of time from reinventing the wheel, so to speak, each unit, but it also becomes predictable for your students because you're going to reuse it from unit to unit, they're going to become familiar with each protocol specifically, but also where we're going next in the broader context of the unit. So once I developed my own unit arc for my courses, I no longer spent hours determining which activity to prepare for each lesson, because the activity given the particular day within the unit was pretty much the same every time I created a unit. So the same arc, the same templates for specific activities, stayed with me from unit to unit. And so then my prep time was focused solely on just collecting and organizing the specific content material that would vary from unit to unit. 00:03:55 So what's an example of a unit arc? I want to kind of paint a picture for you around what this could look like and it's gonna vary by subject. It's going to potentially vary by grade, it's going to vary from teacher to teacher based on what your teaching qualities are your preferences, but also the strengths and preferences of your students as well. So here's just one example, this was for context. Originally intended for social studies content, I've used it for social studies for literacy for various subjects as I'm coaching. So here we go. First lesson, hook, so we're hooking students in second lesson and perhaps a second few lessons that might be more than one lesson, but we are establishing prior knowledge of we know from pedagogy from john Hattie's research on effect sizes that integrating new knowledge with existing knowledge that students already have coming into the class, not only reward students for the various knowledge that they bring in and recognizes that they are not empty vessels. 00:04:57 We are actually increasing student's ability to learn when we link existing knowledge to new knowledge. So prior knowledge having at least a day, I usually use like a circle activity or something to elicit what knowledge we have on a particular topic and then going into kind of an overview some broad content ideas, some enduring understandings or maybe themes that we're addressing in the particular unit. We might have a day on that and then we might have a day or two on primary sources as a social studies teacher. Primary sources were really important for your E. L. A. Folks, you might have a text, a core text that you're introducing and starting to dig into at this time. This could be content that provides a context for a science experiment or a math project but we're really digging into what are the text that we're going to use to frame our conversation throughout the unit. From there. I would often have a discussion case studies where students got to choose and go on different paths of sub topics within the larger topic we're all talking about in a unit. 00:06:00 Case studies really are opportunities to highlight different context specific examples of the larger themes for trying to teach in the unit. So this could look a lot of different ways for a lot of different subject areas but choosing a case diving into it and then I would actually rotate kind of case studies discussion when times and other protocols as kind of this inner repeating pattern within the larger unit arc project work time project presentations are going to be the second to last activity in a unit arc and then finally reflection, which is often an activity that's typically skipped on over when we are talking about a unit arc because we're done, the grades are in and we're moving on to the next unit. But this time for reflection is very critical for students to be able to think about what are the skills that I practice during the student. What do I want to do differently in the next unit. And this can be really powerful to just take the time to do as well as get feedback from your students about what worked or didn't work from a pedagogical lens because then you can actually change your next unit arc and adapt as you go in line with what your students need or what their interest levels are. 00:07:07 We're thinking about this arc of engagement as we're thinking about our unit arc where the interest is sparked early on with our hook lesson Again, this can look however you want it to look, but it might be a current event that's happening in the moment. It might be a documentary that connects two key concepts that we're going to cover from historical lens, but we're going to show a documentary about a modern issue or a case study that is relevant today. That we're going to add additional context to as we dig into the history later. That's a social cities example. This could look like a science experiment that is kind of peaking interest around what's going on. How did that happen? And we're going to dive into how later in the unit. Then again, we're building on students existing knowledge. We're laying the foundational knowledge with the overview of key concepts and important primary sources or other texts that are useful for your content area. And then students are given space, they're able to explore to discuss, to research down whatever rabbit hole they want to go down in relation to the larger topic. 00:08:08 And they're going to at the same time be really applying their learning in novel ways. They're going to leverage their creative souls to produce summary, meaningful work. And of course, as I said, there's a culmination of the unit in a project presentation of some kind, ideally with an authentic audience. So it's not just the teacher or even just the class that's seeing it, but there is an audience outside of the classroom experiences, whatever it is the students created and then of course that reflection moment, what went well, what did students find helpful in terms of strategies or the types of teachers support that they were offered? Did they want to repeat a specific protocol again and again. Did a certain specific protocol need just a little tweak or are we going to leave this one behind and never use it again. One of the most popular questions I get when asked about a unit arc that repeats over and over is do students get bored of the same activities if you use them repeatedly? And surprisingly, students were rarely bored. In fact, many of my students that they liked the predictability of knowing what was coming next and I found that the content more than the process was what determined whether an activity was engaging or not. 00:09:20 That said, you know, your students best, so feel free to do whatever feels best for your students. One of the protocols that did get a little tiresome for my students was circles because they engaged in it every single week. It was the most common protocol that I used and because they also had circle protocol in other classes, I think that kind of compounded if it was just me using it once a week, I think it would have been okay. But despite being tired of the protocol, if the topic of discussion within the circle was engaging enough, they would be really excited to engage in that conversation. If it was a question that was not super interesting or a topic that they didn't want to dive into or they already dove into in another class that week then we would get kind of another circle that kind of thing. So just be really mindful about your ability to use the content as a driver of engagement and the protocol. Just as the pedagogy that supports students engagement with the content. 00:10:23 Now within a specific unit arc we have what are called protocols and these are just the lesson level activities that students are completing to engage in the content. You can call them whatever you like, other people call them procedures or learning routines. But basically these are the structured ways in which students engage in the learning E. L. Education calls them protocols because I'm familiar with E. L. Education curriculum. I just have been using the term protocols. I also think it speaks very nicely to the structure and the structural elements that we need to think about as we set up for our particular lessons or activities. When I talk about protocols and specifically talking about student centered protocols which are gonna ask students to grapple with the work a lot more than to be a teacher centered protocol and they might actually not require too much direct teacher involvement. Of course teachers can always support students as needed during protocols but students really benefit from that grappling and that independent work time. Of course the activity needs to be within their Z. P. D. Or their zone of proximal development. 00:11:24 In other words they're able to accomplish the task with some peer support or maybe scaffolding questions that are built into a protocol. But they can mostly do it on their own and have some success and not get to that level of frustration where they just quit. So it's important to be aware of what our students strengths are. Give them that room to explore grapple and struggle but have that struggle be a productive one. One of the most important things I learned about protocols is that in E. L. Education experience and research they have found. If you have 3 to 5 go to protocols that span a few different purposes. That is the most effective range of protocols. We don't need to know 100 different protocols. Each teacher doesn't need to do that money. Probably gonna get overwhelming to students to constantly be learning a new one. And it's a lot of work for the teacher to learn new protocols. And to prep materials for new protocols. You re use protocols you can actually spend less time making new materials for teaching new directions for these class activities. In addition to the reduction of the cognitive load for students right? 00:12:28 There's more brain space to focus on the content and the learning as opposed to that wasted energy. Learning the steps of a new protocol. So there's a lot of benefits in the less is more approach to protocols. Of course you can always rotate in A new protocol to mix things up beyond the 3-5. But 3-5 I think is a really healthy goal and we can align each one of those 3-5 to a purpose, a larger goal for the activity. I just want to talk about what those different purposes might be. E. L. Education defines their purposes on their website as text based. So students are interacting with text discussion, peer feedback, decision making, and presenting in terms of how I used these in my class and how I've supported teachers to use protocols in their classes. I've adapted this list just a little bit to focus mostly on the first three. So that would be text based discussion and peer feedback. The biggest results I have seen have come from protocols that have those three purposes and I would actually add another piece to this. 00:13:33 I don't necessarily think of it as a similar protocol purpose on par with the other three. It's a little bit different but independent work time and how to structure independent work time is another piece that I've used as an interchangeable protocol within the larger unit. Arc. If you can identify one, go to protocol for each of these four total protocols. I think that's all you really need to map out a week or even better a full unit. So your content or your teaching style may make you gravitate to one of these purposes more frequently than the others. And that's totally okay. You can have multiple protocols for your most used purpose. In my high school class, I had to core discussion protocols but I use them in different ways and at different rates. I used circle protocol as I said earlier in the episode weekly. Mostly this was for current event discussions that we could process what was happening in the world and also to build community with one another. I used more content focused. Socratic seminar discussion protocol for students in an academic setting. 00:14:36 So this was maybe once or twice a unit and really what students were doing here is practicing collecting and analyzing evidence so that they could form and present academic arguments. So a little bit different purpose within the larger purpose of advancing student discussion. My challenge to you now is to go ahead and build out using the protocols that you use already things that your students have loved and been really highly engaged in going to list out those protocols and see if you have at least one or two protocols for each purpose. Text based discussion, peer feedback and any other purpose that you come up with depending on your grade level or your subject area, you might come up with different purposes and that's totally fine to adopt that list. Take a moment to list out all of your different protocols that you love and then try to move them into an arc. Thinking about student engagement in the arc of student engagement throughout a unit. What works best as a hook activity is a hook activity. Its own purpose within the protocol purposes. 00:15:40 How often do you want to have discussion? Is it going to be weekly? Is it going to be bi weekly? What kind of discussion do you want them to use? When are they going to get an opportunity to work collaboratively or get your feedback on their written writing or any other project they're creating. These are the kinds of questions to think about as you start to map out that unit arc from there. Once you have your unit arc mapped out, let's say typically your unit is 20 days or 30 days and you have day one is typically this protocol, day two is typically this protocol. What you can do is then determine what worksheets or templates or materials go with each protocol and if you have one template that you can just slightly adjust each time, maybe you don't even need to adjust it and students can just put in the new new content or use it in parallel with a new text without adjusting the worksheet template itself, then you don't have to re create activity, worksheets or new content in that sense for what is going to be in front of the students during an activity Every time that you do it, you just have, Oh I'm doing Socratic seminar, this is my Socratic seminar worksheet, I'm going to have the students right in the specific content based question. 00:16:56 Everything else is going to remain the same. There's a great opportunity there to just have your students help you out in the personalization in applying the content and mapping it into the worksheet and then you're saving yourself a lot of time with that kind of reusability of the protocols themselves. If you are really interested in taking a deeper dive into protocols. I have amazing news for you. So I have a curriculum bootcamp course which is a self paced online course for educators that they can use to develop start to finish units. A lot of teachers have told me you know I can't use P. D. Money for this. My administrator doesn't have many left. I want to buy it for myself but it's just too expensive. Can you give me one piece of the course that I could buy for a lower cost? And I've been hesitant because I really think the start to finish element of I'm going step by step by step. I'm not gonna miss anything. I understand why we're doing it. There's like the rationale that's included as well as each of the templates that's so valuable to creating a really great unit. 00:18:01 However I also recognize the teachers do not get paid enough and it might be helpful if you're just getting started with curriculum design to just start thinking about your unit art specifically. And so what I am doing is pulling my protocols module from my larger curriculum bootcamp course and selling that to individual teachers who just want a glimpse at the course. So that protocol module called purposeful protocols is going to be available to purchase. I will link to it in the show notes and I just want to tell you what you get when you dive into this module, you'll get some several lessons. One is going to be just on the protocols 101 purpose of protocols, rationale digging into the protocols you've used. The next one is going to be all about text based protocols and I'm going to give you three examples of protocols I've used as well as different templates to use like my digital jigsaw template, my virtual gallery walk template in my discussion protocols which is going to be less than three of the module. 00:19:02 I'm telling you, my top three discussion protocol, which I think we're the best lessons that I have done in my class as well as all of the templates for those including a circle facilitation guide, a circle slides template. A Socratic seminar, student worksheet is Socratic seminar note taker for teachers, a human barometer sides template. In my pure feedback protocols lesson, which is lesson number four of the module. I will tell you my top three peer feedback protocols as well as including a praise question suggestion template for you in the fifth and final lesson of the module, you'll be looking at my independent learner protocols, including a bunch of templates. So I'm going to give you three protocols and then I'm gonna give you templates and resources for several of them. So I'll include my Marzano self assessment side, my personalized pathway template worksheet my six before me, posters and smart goals worksheet template. If you are interested in grabbing that, go ahead and locate the show notes of this episode, dive on in. If you are interested in a deeper dive, feel free to check out the full curriculum bootcamp course or ask your leader to purchase it for you or even better your grade or department team. 00:20:10 I think this works so much better when we're collaborative and on the same page about designing courses for justice in a way that is equitable in a way that centers mastery based grading and project based learning and student leadership and voice. If you are a leader, feel free to purchase this course and my live coaching component of the course for your department or grade team. If you're just looking for something for free, I will always give you something for free at the end of each episode. My one hour free master class is now running on a loop so you can watch it at any time that you wish. It is called how to design units that engage students and advanced justice Three secrets to creating standards aligned student centered curricula in a sustainable way. You can get that at the link in the show notes or you can go to bit dot li slash create amazing units. All lowercase tune in next week for the final episode in our curriculum development series where we get to go on a curriculum deep dive with Laura Cruz looking at her autobiography course, which you could turn into a unit of your own. 00:21:14 She's going to take us all through the mindset shifts, going into creating a course like that. If you are used to teaching a standard course, she's going to talk to us about the course, specifically how our students responded the specific lessons and protocols. There are so many pieces that we've already been talking about that you'll see show up in her course creation and implementation. See you next week. Thanks for listening amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me at lindsey Beth alliance or labor review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it until next time. Leaders continue to think big act brave and be your best self
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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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