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Curiosity is something we’re born with—it’s innate to who we are as human beings. And when we look at children, we see that curiosity and wonder show up every day as they interact with and experience the world around them. But, as they move through the school system, that curiosity is often stamped out through rules, standardized testing, and prescribed learning outcomes. Gail Swift, guest on a Time for Teachership podcast episode, shared that her biggest motivator is to reclaim that sense of curiosity in education. Her primary way of doing this is by helping students and educators learn about their aptitudes—innate gifts and skills they have that helps motivate them and inspire action. Embracing Your Theme There are a lot of things that are out of the control of educators. But there’s also a lot that is within our control, primarily what goes on in the classroom. Gail recommends that teachers identify a theme for their class or department that helps focus and guide decision-making. For example, Gail’s main theme is to raise up contributors—students who are active participants in their learning, education, and society. To be an active contributor, they need to be curious, creative, and empowered to make decisions. Once you have a clear theme, you use it as a benchmark for all daily decisions. If you are raising active contributors, ask: does sitting for hours at a time support the theme? Does clothing choice support the theme? Do my curriculum choices fit the theme? Centering decision making on themes can help educators establish what is important and what’s not. This also helps them focus on what’s within their locus of control versus what’s not. Student Aptitudes and Decision-Making Gail’s primary tool for raising up active participators is by teaching students and teachers about their aptitudes. Aptitudes are innate skills, abilities, and gifts—it’s how each person uniquely views the world and takes action. With the Student Aptitude Quiz, participants learn about how they make decisions. There are four main needs people have to make decisions:
This is equally important for educators to know about. Gail pointed out that most teachers are similar in the way they teach. Typically, teachers have a high need for information and organization and a lower need for risk and hands-on experiences. So, if you have a student in your class who learns differently than you teach, there’s going to be frustration. But if both teachers and students learn more about their aptitudes, they can find the way that works best for them. Teachers can learn how to teach diverse students and students can learn their strengths and capitalize on them. Educators strive to empower their students. Two ways to do this is to get clear on your theme—what’s the driving goal of your work?—and to learn about each student’s unique aptitudes and skills to help them learn better. To learn more about Gail’s work, check out Plans to Prosper Coaching. And if you want to hear her full interview, check it out on the Time for Teachership podcast along with other interviews and content. TRANSCRIPT today, I'm talking to Gayle Swift, she's fiercely committed to guiding driven, successful people to take action in their natural abilities as a proven speaker and trainer who can guide you to address how you solve problems, the questions to motivate you and what will stress you out. You've come to the right place. Geils work has impacted lives such as Sonia, a business owner who has always felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Once she learned about her strengths and equally powerful strength of her employees, she slowly watch the stress levels go down and Andrew a financial consultant with barely enough time in the day, I learned how to leverage his strength to energy and clarity for what he needs to make his best decisions. Really excited skills left about our work is knowing that every single person is created with a pattern of taking action that does not change over time. That pattern predicts their path which leads to their purpose. Her expertise has been honored by being in the first group of Colby youth advocates in the world, appearances on podcast, television segments, mastermind workshops and business retreats, three unique things out there that might surprise you include. She's a minimalist, loves to drive fast and take hikes with her husband and dog Jax. Most saturday mornings This conversation was recorded November 22, 2021, Let's get into the episode Educational justice coach lindsey Lyons and here on the time for teacher Ship podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. 00:01:20 I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings if you're a principal assistant superintendent, curriculum director instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nursing out about co creating curriculum students, I made this show for you. Here we go gale swift. Welcome to the time for teacher ship podcast. Thank you so much lindsey. I'm so glad to be here. I'm so excited you're here and I just finished reading your kind of professional bio at the top of the episode and I think one of the things, this is actually a friend of mine asked this question on her podcast and I find it really interesting. She's like if you could strip down all of the, you know, the accolades and the achievements and like all of those things like who are you at your core and I'm totally stealing that question from her. So I would love to hear from you. Like who, who are you or what do you want listeners to know about you As we embark on this conversation, I'm thinking of so many ways to go with that, but I'm going to narrow it down and I would like listeners to know that the listeners are born with a way of taking action, then that's free. 00:02:38 Obviously that's their own way and I am here to implore you and highlight and underscore that trajectory and drown out the noise, so free to solve problems your way at my core. It's my dream to keep the curiosity alive in kids and adults and that's how I do it, wow, that's really good. Okay, I love that. I'm glad I asked that question. So the next question I like to ask is just kind of this big, I think many people who come into educational space have this big dream of like here's what education could be if we could like rework it. If we could have kind of our vision come to life, this is what it would be. And I love dr Bettina love talks about the idea of freedom dreaming in this way. She says their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice and I just love how that kind of takes us to a different place than just kind of wild dreaming. And I'm curious to know with that context in mind that quote in mind, what is the dream that you hold for the field of education? 00:03:43 Alright. That dream that quote by the way, is Meaty, can you explain to me what that means to you, first of all? Yeah. Oh my gosh, absolutely. No one has asked me this question before. So this is really fun to me. I think about all of the ways that our system has historically marginalized and underserved often intentionally, even though we say that it's unintentional and maybe for individuals they don't realize that it's happening, but there's so much serving, um, that is kind of been systematized and built into the fabric of how we've historically done education, um, you know, built in the tenets of like white supremacy and curriculum and policy and dress codes and all the stuff that I think if we don't center our dreams in the critique of injustice, then we're just kind of perpetuating a version of what of that injustice that's been happening for a really long time. And so I see that grounding in a lot of ways I see it in for just one example curriculum often now we're talking about, let's make our curriculum more equitable, more diverse, like what does that mean? 00:04:47 And for many people it's we're just gonna add a text by an author who is black or we're going to to share a story with these first graders about an indigenous character or you know, like, and it's just kind of sprinkling in this layer of new text, but it's not about justice at the core. And so I see this quote really is like how do we center justice in our, in our dreams and our pursuit of like a better education system. Okay, so that's your fuel. This is like a fuel question where you the motivation is huge for you right there, Like that's, that sounds like why you're doing what you're doing. Absolutely. Okay, so my fuel isn't from that space, but it's equally as powerful and we're going for the same result, We're going for the same results. So I had two thoughts when you were saying that and when you were telling me about that and I could hear your passion, which is obviously we both love it when people are passionate about what they obviously what they do. 00:05:50 The first thing is Honestly Lindsay I believe that. I mean the best way to learn is by being there and doing it. And when I was 15 I was, I was in Sao Paulo Brazil. Like seeing people live in boxes for the first time in my life and I was walking around garbage dumps in the smoky mountain garbage dumps in the Philippines and I was dealing with AIDS patients, 98% of AIDS patients that are going to die within a week on an island in Uganda. These experiences are huge. A couple of my friends work on an indian reservation in Minnesota and the stories and being there going there unless you're there. It's hard, it's hard in my opinion to imagine envision be empathic for there are certain experiences you've had in your life very clearly where you've seen this marginalization and you've seen the out casting that happens. 00:06:59 I've seen that too. I've seen that too. But for me, a huge crime for me is to see the curiosity exit Vacate a seven year old eyes because they're being told how to solve a problem, that they are able to solve that for me, that's hard to watch. Yeah, wow. So well said yes, I think that that is huge. And I think one of the things as we think about like, you know, so much of education is historically been taking away and shipping away that curiosity. And so by the time for me as a secondary school teacher, by the time I would get them in secondary school, my students would kind of push back on any sort of open endedness or any sort of curiosity prompt or any sort of student voice. Like what do you want to learn about? And it's often because I think they're just like, and they've even said, I guess in their own words, you know, this is how school goes. 00:08:11 You tell me what to learn. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, so true. Okay. So the programming starts young. You're so right. So right. So okay. So how long, I mean like seven third grade like locked and loaded. So when, what age were they like? You know what? No, I don't know what this freedom is all about. So what age is that like totally foreign to them? Yeah, that's, I think that's such a good question and I don't know that. I don't have a clear answer to that, but I do think like as we think about that. Um, you know, I think there's a mindset shift from like, even even from grade to grade, like I think kindergarten teachers kind of come in and they're like, yeah, we're teaching you how to do school, but we also know you're like five years old, so we're gonna, you know, really explore that creative pursuit with you. And then by the time, yeah, like you're saying, you know, third grade is like were standardized testing now, like we are in this and we are being as teachers also being evaluated as a result of these test results, there's so much to kind of take that curiosity out. 00:09:15 And so I'm wondering like, what are the shifts that you see that people need to make? Like teachers and educators need to make to kind of wrap their heads around, like how do I bring curiosity back? And like, of course, knowing all that other stuff exists, like the pressure of standardized testing and all that. But like what do I need to center in my planning or am I kind of thinking about how I do school with my kids to make that come alive? Does it depend on your hierarchy for your classroom? Does it depend on your overarching theme? And this is what I mean? Like when we before we had kids, my husband and I were like, what kind of kids do we want to raise? And the first thing on our list was a contributor and you cannot raise a passive contributor. That's an oxymoron. A contributor is an active participant in the world. So as a teacher or an educator, what's the theme? And obviously you can't control a lot of things coming at, you like the standardized testing and things like that, You can't control that. But when you have a theme, when you have an agreed upon, that's huge and agreed upon theme, even in math or english, the english department or the science department, and you can agree that you want to raise contributors as a department. 00:10:35 It doesn't matter what department benchmarking your decisions on a daily basis in accordance with the theme will save a lot of headache on the ground. In my opinion, that's just me. That's just does that make sense? Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And I'm thinking I'm imagining, you know, educators thinking like, okay, yeah, what's my theme? And I think so much of that comes with and I love that you said agreed upon too, because I think so much of that comes with day one, you're in front of your students and your typically, you know, in a traditional classroom, you're saying here are my rules and here are the things we will learn. And so how do we get that agreement? You know, um, thinking, I guess my more saying like I think we should find ways to get that agreement with students and with family members to get that kind of co constructed agreement of like this is our theme or are, you know, core value or whatever we call it, like this is what we're doing. Yeah, right. So if you okay, so, and it starts young, I mean, this starts young, I work with the third part of the mind. 00:11:38 Coronation Kathy kolbe developed an algorithm how to measure people's instincts. So this is what I'm talking about, but when I have a theme and an overarching theme, then do matching socks contribute to the theme? Does sitting in your chair for 45, minutes contribute to the theme. If the answer is yes or no, then that's where you put your energy so fast. Like let's do this. I believe it for myself that an active contributors are number one thing, how do I get an active active contributor? Well, I also believe that with freedom, freedom breeds passion, freedom keeps the curiosity alive. Therefore, if you know the pattern of the student and how they take action and you fuel the pattern instead of descending your pattern on another pattern, you naturally keep the curiosity alive. You naturally keep the curiosity alive and when the curiosity is alive, then the student will make a decision. 00:12:47 When the student makes a decision, they deal this is huge and you know this, they'll deal with the consequences. If they deal with the consequences, they're not going to blame because they've had the freedom to choose. So if you had a bunch of lanyards that the kids came into the classroom and took off and it's a talent, talent tag straight up gifts and you see four colored charts for colored things and then the kids start to view and look at the other, oh my goodness. Oh yeah, okay. You're the detailed kid, hey, can you look this up for me because I'm gonna build the project. Oh wait, when does that, do I'm going to ask the blue and so the kids start to look at the gifts of the other kids to solve the problem that the teacher said we're going to solve or to learn the thing That we're going to learn and it's not the teacher, the teacher can kick back, read a book, watch the party, watch the kids. 00:13:52 Is this gonna be instant Lindsay know if you have 15 year olds that are not used to freedom, you know, I mean, it's gonna take a little bit of time, but when they know they're going to go into a class and get to be themselves and learn their way how that's excited. I would, I'd be in that class. Like let me be me and brainstorm and do things last minute and grab a team of people, let's get together and do this be a leader, be a follower. You need everybody, I believe we're all born hole, there are no deficits, there is community were meant to be in this together. So we're not naturally made to solve every problem That's intentional because we're meant to be with people and solve problems in a group, with people not to be a silo. Getting a little carried away. I'm gonna tone it down a little bit because I'm getting a little passionate, Oh, I love this. 00:14:54 No, I think it's so great and I think you're leading kind of into my next question to which was about like, what does this actually look like in terms of a class? And then you're you're sharing a concrete example there, right? The lanyards with identifying and having students be able to self identify, you know, what is my strength and then seeing that everywhere. So whether that's on a lanyard, whether that's color coding, whether that's, you know, whatever, I think that's such a powerful example and I love the framing that you shared of, you know, thinking about um solving a problem. Like we are not meant to do that by ourselves and if we do, and we've kind of like solved enough problems on our own. I feel like we only get trapped in that one way of viewing problems and so then we're going to come to a problem that we we can't solve. And so I think that doesn't, you know, equip students for the world that, you know, is constantly changing and constantly evolving and we no longer can help students train for specific jobs because we don't even know what jobs will exist when they graduate, right? Like there's so much that is required in what you're saying just to be a full person, a contributor as you're saying that I just really love the framing you gave. 00:16:00 And and if you have any other like, examples of, you know what that looks like or what teachers can do as they're thinking about building up this kind of culture in their class. I'd love to hear any of your thoughts. Yes. And I will share that. But I wanted to ask you obviously as an educator and you know this about kids, you see this, that's why you're doing this in the first place. A lot of teachers I've noticed believe that this takes more time and effort and similar to parents, Like parents that I work with, they want to see the hard stuff happen out like when they're 18 so they don't want to deal with it. Do you believe that it's similar in the classroom that it is? What is, is the prevent, is it fear? Is it the prevention of chaos? But why would a teacher not naturally go with the grain like you have done that, you do that. Do you notice the rewards of the rewards worth the headache? Do you understand? Kind of what I'm asking? Oh, completely. 00:17:02 And I'm so glad you asked that because I want to give voice to Yeah, all the teachers that I've coached and have kind of said, I am resistant to this idea and not because I don't believe it's worthy. Most teachers will say, oh yeah, that would be great in theory. And then thinking about practice is where that comes in and the hesitation starts, right? So I think there's a lot of things underlying that one is definitely, I think you spoke with the fear of chaos just I was, you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself. So that's one if I give students permission or freedom to act in all these ways and to choose these paths for themselves, I we won't learn anything right. That's kind of like one fear, which, to your other question, I could say like to an extent early on it may feel that way, but very quickly you're going too far surpass whatever like former model of teaching enabled you to do and enable students to learn. So kind of that piece is one, I think the other thing is that teachers school like the teacher prep programs that we have tell you and administrators tell you an evaluation criteria tells you this is what a good teacher looks like. 00:18:09 And far too often, I think it is expanding a little bit, but far too often those rubrics that teachers are evaluated on or the metrics they're evaluated on are not about um, culturally responsive teaching or having students be engaged and connected to the material or giving that voice and and letting students lead the discussion and leave their learning and problem solve together again more so than it used to be. I think that is becoming the case, but I do think so much at the end of the day is like we're students paying attention to you. Um, you know, we're students listening to every word you said when as a teacher, I know that there are sometimes some moments that the most learning for a student happened when they ignored me for five seconds turned to their partner made this really cool connection in their brain and we're like, oh that's like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and then their partner was like, oh my gosh, I now understand that in such a different way. Like that was what needed to happen in that moment and those kids are gonna remember that lesson for way longer than if they were constantly listening to me without speaking ever the whole class. 00:19:10 So yes. To all the things you're saying yes, is that an evolution or a switch for you? Oh, in terms of my practice? Oh, that's such a good question. I think so little backstory on how I got into teaching that I think answers this to a degree. So I never wanted to be a teacher. My parents were teachers and I just only heard the things that were hard, like I'm bringing home a lot of grading and I don't do that. But then I realized that my undergrad degrees were actually in gender woman studies and sociology and I realized I wanted to do this justice work and I was working with adults a lot, but there was this lack of curiosity in adults, right? Because we we get that out through our systems. Um and I was like, you know what, it would be way more productive I think and also fun for me to work with Children. And so that got me into education and so I think I've had this kind of orientation to like I want to hear from students for a while. However, in terms of how I practiced that I was very much a product of a teacher prep program that was like, you know, 100% of attention on you and here's the rules are at the you know day one don't smile till christmas, like all the things that are just anti relationship and fun. 00:20:19 And so that was me for probably a couple of years and then I started experimenting and I do think it was probably like a three or four year process of like by the end of the four years we were doing make your own unit units which is like the students, 90 students did 90 different units and 90 different topics and it was chaos. But it was also amazing and beautiful and they learned so much more than me teaching them one thing. So it was a kind of evolution over time. Oh my goodness, that sounds awesome. Oh my gosh, I'm so proud, I'm so proud of you. Like isn't that great? I mean you fostered it, you field it. That's so cool. Way to go. Thank you. Yeah, way to go. And I kind of forgot the original, I kind of forgot the original question. Oh, I was thinking about moving to action, like what were some examples of, how do you do this in the class? Right, okay. So exactly. So there are, we're talking about Coronation, we're talking about the third part of the mind that deals with instincts, how people take action and instincts on their own. 00:21:19 Our subconscious force, they cannot, they just sit there until they're ignited. So until the student is trying or mentally like putting forth effort, you won't see their pattern if they don't care, you're not gonna see their pattern. So you have to, you need motivation. That's a key ingredient motivation and then you can see their pattern. So when I go in and I work with a group of kids, I'll go in and the teachers will administer the cognitive assessment so we can get the four digit number to see what their pattern is. The other thing that's interesting is if that student is in transition, which means they're listening to voices outside of their own that are louder than theirs. So the algorithm will incomplete, it won't finish because that student is not free to be themselves. That's that's a result that happens and entitled one schools. That happens more like 20 ish percent when normally it's about 10% of the students are in transition. So I need to address that. That's the elephant in the room that I talk about. So what happens is after they take the assessment, then they take a career assessment and they find out it's the only career assessment in the world that takes into consideration how someone's naturally wired. 00:22:32 So when they see and this is all available to them for the rest of their lives. So when they see their career Colby partnered with indeed, so they can click on the link and they don't need to pick up poop and walk dogs anymore or whatever. You can like do your thing in your lane and see what's available to you in your zip code. And so they get all excited about that. And then after that they retake what's called an efficacy test. So there's a built in efficacy test and what that tells me is if that student believes that their way of working is valuable or if they believe that their way of working sucks and that's huge. That's huge. That is huge. And I'll tell you why 70% of teachers work one way, Generally speaking 70% of teachers have an MO if you have a student, that is the opposite of the way a teacher takes action. It has nothing to do with cognition or smarts and it has nothing to do with your personality. 00:23:38 This simply is the way that that student takes action and solves the problem. The pattern is different for the teacher and the student. So the way that they're going to get there looks different, but the result when motivated will be the same, that's all measured. And then I go in and I take kids out based on their results and then I speak to them in small groups, they have like name tags and cards and they start asking questions because I'm speaking their language and then I bring them all back into the room and I bring them all back into the room and I have a synergy conversation and I explain the gifts and talents that each color is and has and that if you want to know the details, go to the red, if you want to know when something is due or the timeline go to the blue. Oh and if you want brainstorm on crazy ideas that no one's ever thought of, go to the green and if you want to see the thing built so where it's not going to fall apart, go to the yellow and then they start looking around, they're like, it doesn't matter about money, sex, race, gym shoes, jeans, nothing matters. 00:24:54 But they start to look at the gifts that they're born with that's not going to change over time and paying attention to the innate strengths of their fellow students after that. We redo the efficacy report and then I see some results. If there is a student that is very insecure on the front end and after I work with them, they're still very insecure. That's what I call a red light student. Then I give a list of questions to the guidance counselors and I'll say this student, you need to come in, you need to ask these questions to the student every three weeks for the next three months and they're like, okay, I said the students in trouble, the students in trouble and some of the teachers like, and then I'll tell the teachers and they love this part. I'm like, give me your two top two troubled kids. You're crazy kids that you can't handle because they're in every classroom and I'll give you tips and tricks on how to help that child be in their lane and they more often than not, they'll end up being your favorite student. 00:26:04 I don't believe that. No way. I'm like, bring it on. So that, that's a fun little thing that I do and I sometimes I even meet with the student and the teacher and they're all like, oh my gosh, yeah, it's just eye opening and so fun. So is that, that, that's a long, that was like a monologue lindsey. I told you I was gonna do that. No, that was perfect. And I love the example of what that looks like. And I think it also speaks to that mindset shift from a teacher lens of like right. I don't have to just do things my way and ask everyone to comply with it right? Like I have to understand my students to be able to effectively help them do the things that they do best and I love the level of detail that you were talking about is really helpful because you explain to me like the four digit number pattern thing a little bit more. Yeah, absolutely. So I'll just use colors. So the first one is red and that is your need for information or not. Some people need a lot of information to make the best decision and others need bullet points. Generally speaking teachers need and are highly valued and promoted right? 00:27:09 Like you said, the historical aspect when they can provide and need detail. The second, the blue is your need for systems or organization. It's your need to skip steps, it's your need to shortcut or it's your need to follow structure and a system. Again, none of it is right or wrong or good or bad. It just is so again, many teachers, our scene is, it's a positive when they can provide and need structure. So that's a good thing that's in the teacher world and the academic world. That's a valuable, that's a valuable trait to have innately the third need is green and this is your need for risk or your need to stabilize. And as you're already going there by the smile on your face, most teachers need to stabilize and minimize risk, which they minimize risk by developing a plan and having the details. This is simply a need. And then the 4th one is your need to get your hands on the world or your need to envision how the world works if you need to get your hands on the world to make it a better place Lindsay you might be a pilot or a race car driver or a chef or build houses. 00:28:29 Generally speaking, teachers don't need to get their hands on the world to make it a better place. They envision how something will look. So what if you have a student who doesn't need the details, Doesn't need the plan, who needs a lot of risk and needs to get their hands on the world the exact opposite of a teacher has nothing to do with brains, nothing to do with cognition and nothing to do with personality. The path is simply different. So what do you do with johnny whose cousin just got shot on friday, he's in eighth grade throwing up in the garbage can because he's drunk and he needs risk and he needs to get his hands on things that is a whole another podcast that we can do. But so you see that there are different ways of taking action and when the teacher at least is aware that this even exists, which is why I'm on this with you right now to even know, there's another way that people can be top math or it opens things up and when a student is born this way, just like a teacher is, it does not change. 00:29:51 You can't make it change. So making a child that doesn't need details, Making him explain the details is completely taking him out of the flow and no one is doing it intentionally. That's the killer Lindsay No one is trying to make life difficult on the student, not at all. Everyone wants to see the students succeed. They're simply doing what they know and what they've been taught. That's it. It's, it's an amazing transformation when this awareness is brought to light and it's all good. There's nothing bad about it, wow, that was incredibly helpful. And I think like you said, just knowing that those categorizations is going to be really profound for a lot of folks who are listening right now, I wanted to ask, what's the fourth colors? Red, blue, green, yellow, yellow, Gotcha. Okay, perfect. Yeah, so that is really helpful. Alright. And there's, there's a survey you were saying or an assessment that will tell people this right? 00:31:00 It's called the student aptitude quiz. Student aptitude quiz. There's a built in self efficacy report in that and there is a pattern of students who potentially has low efficacy in, in their belief of what they bring to the table. There's a pattern, bless you, thank you. So okay, great. That's really helpful to know and we'll link to, we'll be able to link to that into the show notes as well. Perfect. So as folks are kind of listening to all of this, I think this is just a lot of new information for people like you said, like people don't even know, I didn't, I was not aware of these four color codings and these pathways and just thinking about this, It's really, really cool to just kind of brain. So I'm like, all right now, what does this mean for steps? And so as we're kind of closing out the episode, I'm wondering what is one thing that people can do once the episode is over and they're like, okay, yeah, like I want to, you know, keep with this momentum, I want to do something that's going to move the needle forward for my kids to, to kind of live in alignment with all that we've been talking about today. 00:32:07 What's that? One thing you would suggest they do next? If they're curious, I have teachers, I have principles, you can talk to, you can talk to me, you can keep exploring and no one is rushing anything, explore all you want. Ask as many clarifying questions as you need to. There's no rush. There's no hurry. I have tons of documents that I can send you proof of high schools or middle schools that I've worked with. Um, it talks about a lot of things. So as much detail as you want or need, I can provide you. Amazing. Thank you for those details oriented folks. Yes, absolutely. Great. Absolutely. All right. And so, okay. So this is kind of just a fun question that I've been asking at the end of the podcast. I think constantly we're talking about learning and growing and, and talking about how educators can do that and how we help students do that. And we often do that ourselves right as folks who are kind of in this space. And so I'm just curious to know what is something that you have been learning about lately and this could be related to education or it could be like, I just learned how to play piano or something like anything that you're learning. 00:33:13 So I don't have a need to finish what I start. I don't have a need for a ton of consistent activity. And so I'm learning to know my timeframe for daily consistent activity and if I'm working out or making food or doing work, like it's all from the same pot. So I'm very aware of what I'm committing to and the less I commit to the better job I do. So I'm practicing and learning my lane every day Lindsay it's like when you know this about yourself, it's just, it's not like a switch. It's an evolution it takes a bit. So I'm, that is what I'm learning right now, How much consistent activity I can do. That is super interesting and I think probably relevant for everyone listening to, to be thinking about that for themselves. Amazing. Um, the last question I have for you is just if people want to learn more and and connect with you as you said, you're able to share things, which is amazing. Where can they do that? What's the best place to find you? Gail at? 00:34:15 Plans to prosper coaching dot com gale at plans to prosper coaching dot com com. G A I L. Perfect. Oh my gosh, thank you. This isn't a wonderful conversation. Thank you for teaching me so much. No, I agree. It's been mutual. Yes, awesome. I really appreciate you being on the podcast. Thank you so so much. Thank you lindsey. Thank you. If you're leaving this episode wanting more, you're going to love my live coaching intensive curriculum bootcamp. I help one department or grade team create feminist anti racist curricula that challenges affirms and inspires all students. We leave current events into course content and amplify student voices which skyrockets engagement and academic achievement. It energizes educators feeling burns out and it's just two days plus you can reuse the same process any time you create a new unit, which saves time and money. If you can't wait to bring this to your staff. I'm inviting you to sign up for a 20 minute call with me, grab a spot on my calendar at www dot lindsey beth Lyons dot com slash contact. Until next time leaders continue to think big act brave and be your best self. 00:35:24 This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better podcast network, Better Today, Better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach Better dot com slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
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Ask someone what the purpose of school and the educational system is, and they’ll say: to help students learn and prepare them for the future. But what kind of future are we preparing them for? Ideally to live as happy, healthy, whole members of a democratic society. Does the current education system really do that? Collin Jewett was a recent guest on the Time for Teachership podcast. From his perspective as an accelerated learning and memory coach, schools are authoritarian in structure and operate on top-down decision-making. Is that the best way to prepare them to live in a democratic society? From radical systemic overhaul to practical next steps, Collin shared his ideas on how we can get back to what learning is all about: helping students find their own personal journey of discovery. The Purpose of Education The education system as it currently exists is a product of the industrial system. As Collin described, our society needs people to fill certain roles and education helps shape them into that. The result of this is the commodification of students and learning, focused on outcomes and specific data points. But we know that the education system is broken and not serving all students. So, it’s time to think critically and ask some questions:
Learning as a Personal Journey of Discovery Collin defines learning as a personal journey of discovery. To make this a reality, we need to democratize education. Students need more say than they have on the student leadership committee, just making decisions about prom or other events. For them to learn they need to go on a personal journey, which requires a choice and autonomy. An example of this in practice is Sudbury Valley School, where Collin has visited and researched. They have a radical—though we can question if it should be deemed such!—model of learning that includes democratic decision making, no formalized classrooms, and complete freedom for students to do what they want. And here’s the thing--it works. Follow up studies on Sudbury Valley’s graduates show that they’ve gone on to ivy league schools, successful jobs, and entrepreneurship. Practical Steps for Educators Until there is a massive systemic overhaul, we need think about the practical next step. What can we do in our classrooms to encourage learning as a personal journey of discovery? Collin had a few ideas:
It’s time to re-think learning. The current top-down authoritarian model is not preparing students to live and thrive in a democratic society. Instead, we need to introduce choice and autonomy, letting our students create and explore their own personal journey of discovery. If you want to keep up with Collin, check out his course, Discover Your Inner SuperLearner. Also make sure to catch his full interview, along with other amazing guests, on the Time for Teachership podcast. TRANSCRIPT Today I'm talking to Collins former miserable student now. Engineer, author coach and adventurer Colin Loves helping others rediscover the joy of learning and partner with their brains to unlock limitless memory, boundless creativity and unshakeable focus for reference. This conversation was recorded November 9, 2021 Let's dive in and hear from Colin educational justice coach, lindsey Lyons and here on the time for Teacher ship podcast we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings if you're a principal assistant superintendent curriculum director instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nursing out about co creating curriculum with students. I made this show for you. Here we go, Call and do it. 00:01:01 Welcome to the time for Teacher ship podcast. What's up? I'm so happy to have you and I'm so excited to just dive right in. So I think the first big question that I usually ask us is of this idea that dr Bettina love talks about in terms of freedom dreaming. She describes it as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so I always love starting with guests are just gonna get a picture of knowing that and having that frame in mind. What is the big dream that you hold for the field of education. Yeah, so I'll provide like a little bit of background on why I hold the perspective that I do might be helpful to listeners. Um so I'm an accelerated learning and memory coach. It's kind of a weird thing that many to many of us out there. Um, but I every day I get to work with people on figuring out how they learn best and some of the universal principles of how people learn in general, and then also like how do you, you know, partner with your unique brain, because everyone is a little different. Um and so that's kind of the perspective I take when I when I think about education and what should be about and where it should go. 00:02:06 And so the critical view I take of education and looking at that and thinking about what's this big dream for what it could be, I'm just looking about, like, what is the purpose of education and is it playing that purpose? Is it playing a different purposes? It being counterproductive, and especially from the angle of, of learning, like, is this actually how people learn or not, because if it's not, then we need to re examine what school is actually doing instead of helping people learn. Um, so to answer your question more directly, like my my big dream for education is, it's one that's it's flexible because I think the education system as a system needs to be able to change and respond as people change and respond. And so what I see it as is I think it should be something that serves the students or the people inside of it. And I actually think that the students should be the education system, not just be what they are right now, which is more of a product of the education system. 00:03:11 I love so much of what you said. That makes so much sense to really make sure that we're not like Product Izing students, I don't know if that's a word, but yeah, like it's absolutely how we're, how we're treating students right? We look at these outcomes in these quantitative data points and and thinking about, um, you know, students in this way that's very commodified and, and it's really interesting that you, you name that so I think that's really powerful to, to think about. And, and also I think you're speaking to a larger my that shift here around like we've done education in this very traditional way for so long. And so how do we wrap our minds around doing it a different way? Right. And so what are those shifts mentally that we need to make that will, you know, get educators or family members or leaders, you know, whoever it is to actually buy into that dream of not product Izing. I'm just totally making up this word. But yeah, and we were talking about this before we started recording the episode, I referenced the book for you to learn by Peter Gray, who I highly recommend all of his work, especially that book to to anybody who hasn't read it, but I think it shines a little bit of light on something you just said, we have this perspective now that the way that we do education is something that we've been doing for a really long time. 00:04:28 That's actually not really true in the context of like human history, it's actually been a very, very short amount of time that we've, we've done education like kind of like a factory, that's how it is designed and there's a reason for that. Like it actually comes from more of that industrial era and prior to that, but kind of the same kind of thinking of, we need people to fill certain roles in society and so we craft a system that can essentially mold them to fit those roles. We we were looking society is looking for a specific product, and school is tasked with the job of producing that product and it's played that role pretty pretty well from if you if you consider that to be a good goal for the past couple 100 years, but I would argue that at least in this point and probably earlier, but definitely at this point like that might not be our actual goal. And I think a lot of people, if they thought more critically about like what are we actually trying to accomplish with the education system, would realize that what we're doing right now is is probably not really aligned with that anymore. 00:05:35 I love that push to think more broadly beyond, you know, the last century or so of education, that is not how learning has happened. And I love that you you sent her a lot of of your work on learning specifically um beyond like this, you know, structured educational system, right? Like how do we learn is such a positive and and really like, curiosity inducing question, I think for me around, you know, what could this look like if we thought about learning and prioritize learning as opposed to cramming things into this particular system that we've had for, you know, a while, but like you said, not in the span of human history when we contextualize it in that way. So I love that that point that you made and I I appreciate making it as we think about what that actually looks like in practice. So, you know, people who are listening and are like, alright, yes, like let's do that, let's make this happen. What are the steps that you would recommend people taking around, you know, strategies or or practices that they can do with students or curriculum design or you know, what does that even look like in an educational space? 00:06:38 Yeah, so I'll take it from the angle which I have the the most clout on, which is like how do people actually learn? So, learning is I like to describe it as a personal journey of discovery. Uh and there's there's other ways to describe it that I think are also valid, but that's that's what I like, because I think it reflects really well on, okay, what what are we doing in school that is allowing people to have a personal journey of discovery and what are we doing that's actually preventing that, Because if we take that angle, we can start to see, okay, what are some actual practical changes we might think about making. Um So, for example, in school, uh, I like to use the term outsource because I think the way that school designed right now is very much, like I said, it's kind of like business or factory oriented, so kind of using that language makes sense. Um but if you look at the student and what they're trying to do, if they're trying to go on a personal journey of discovery, like what's standing in their way? Well, the way that schools are structured is pretty authoritarian. I mean, that's, that's not really might sound like a controversial thing to say, but it's really like, just from a technical aspect, like that's really how it's structured. 00:07:47 You have a very top down, um like command structure, hierarchy, and students are at the bottom of that hierarchy and they don't really have a voice, you might give, you might give them a student council position, but what do those really mean most of the time? Nothing really except for maybe what soda is stocked in the vending machine. Um and so I, I like to think of it like that way, like if I'm trying to go on a personal journey of Discovery and I'm in an authoritarian system that is really, really, really hard to do because a personal journey of discovery requires a lot of freedom of choice and that's not something that we get in the education system. Now, especially in the lower grades, you are told exactly what classes you're gonna take when you're gonna take them, how long you can spend on a certain subject each day, when you can talk, when you can go to the bathroom, like everything is decided for you and you don't get to have a voice in deciding the rules or how the system is structured. And so from a practical standpoint you can just think, alright well especially like within the context of America, I think this is especially surprising because you know, America is built on at least the idea that all people are created equal and we have this democratic society. 00:08:58 Okay, well how do you prepare people to live in a democratic society? I would argue that an authoritarian like upbringing is not the best way to prepare to be thriving citizen in a democratic society. Right. Um so yeah, I would, I would argue that if you really want to prepare people for that life or you want to give them the opportunity to learn, which means a personal journey of discovery, then you have to give them freedom of choice. They need to have a voice over what's what's going on. And if you're thinking like political terms, that would be called consent of the governed um which is something that people on both sides of the political aisle, even in America where it's so divided, tend to agree on consent of the governed. I mean that's kind of how this whole nation started. Um, so yeah, that's a that's a start. Where do you want to go from there? Such a good start. Oh my gosh, there's so many things I want to, I want to just highlight and lift up of what you said. So I love this idea of you know, learning being that personal journey of discovery and I think about this with you know, really young kids who haven't been indoctrinated into like the authoritarian system of school yet, right? 00:10:06 Where you're told what to do and I just I love this this speaking that you're doing to student voice and just kind of anecdotally, I've shared this on the podcast before, but you know, anecdotally from my own teaching experience in high school when I decided to do more student voice projects and one time I came in and I was like, all right, the rest of the semester, it was like like multiple months to go. We are learning whatever you want. You are designing your own unit. I called it to make it your own Unit unit. And they like students, I had like 90 something students. There were 90 something units going on. And it was a bit chaotic, but like a really interesting experiment because what I found is that many students, not all students, but many students were like, no miss, I know how school goes. You tell me what to do when I do it. What do you mean? I'll tell you what I want to learn about. I don't know how to do that. I've never been asked to do that. And it's really telling that in childhood and early childhood that is not a problem, right? Kids ask questions all the time. They're curious. 00:11:06 They have that that personal journey of discovery, as you said, no problem, part of just who they are and then it's kind of erased and eroded over time as they're in the authoritarian system. And so I just I really appreciate that that you're kind of naming and speaking to that phenomenon that I just like witnessed as a teacher. And then also I love that you're talking about on the student governance level. This idea of I was in high school and even in college, I was a student government like person, like I was like president of the student body and I was like, yeah, this is great. And and when I look as a teacher back on this, I'm like, I had no power, right? I had no power. I like designed prom like really, what is that like? And so I think it's really important that leaders and educators and family members and students themselves come to the table and are like, all right, these are the things that impact my learning. This is the way we grade at the school, this is the way we get to determine or co create what we're learning on a day to day basis. This is the way that I get to interact with my peers or my my colleagues and teachers and partners and learning and, and that's what matters, right? 00:12:09 Not some social event, which social events are great socialization is important, but I think that's really important that you're naming that, that we really need to be thoughtful about, what does it mean to share power with students and to what degree are we actually willing to do that beyond just paying it lip service. Um, I think that's a really important piece. Uh, and also, finally, I just want to name again that democratic society. I love what you I said, I just scribbled down notes. So just this idea of an authoritarian upbringing is not the best way to prepare for a democratic society. When we think about a lot of educational, like writers and scholars and theories that they're talking about the purpose of education as you spoke to at the start being that preparation to engage in civic society in a democratic society and when we take a step back and just dream big beyond what education has been like, I'm sure we would come up with a list of skills that we are not actively developing in students that are necessary for the broader world. We can see that in like the failures of our society at large right now to make productive decisions and and work together. 00:13:13 So I think just so much of what you just described is so beautiful. I'm curious to know this, this is a lot of times often very aspirational in our in our talking about it and so does it feel like this is doable? Like, you know what I mean? Like does it, does it feel like this is a doable thing, what might that look like in terms of, you know, like what roles does each individual play in terms of their connection to the education system and like where does, where do we start? We start with the curriculum? Do we start with student governance? Like is it doable? Is it just kind of aspirational dreaming, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, that's a good question and I appreciate that you ask because it's easy to just to talk about like what IFs and fun stuff without actually doing anything. So I would say is it doable, Yes and no. Um I wish I could just say yes, but there's reasons, I would also say no, and I'd say it's, it's, I don't, I don't think it's practical to expect it in the current system. 00:14:17 So in other words, like this is one of the struggles I really have. Whenever I speak to teachers, I've been on some other podcasts and stuff. Whenever I'm speaking to teachers, it's painful because a lot of times the teachers are completely like, yes, like that's exactly what we want. The teachers are often like, some of the greatest advocates for the students, um, and they are teaching within a system that is not really supporting them in the way that they want to be supported. And so, you know, sometimes I feel like I'm preaching to the choir, but it's like, okay, what do we do about it? Like, where, where am I, where is, where is my voice in this whole system? Um and that's one of the reasons I'd say, like, since it is very authoritarian in the way it's structured and has been for the past couple 100 years and there's a lot of reasons why it's that way, I think it'd be really, really difficult um, to go within the system as it exists right now and to just transform it this way, because a lot of people have tried that before. It has, it's not like I'm presenting something that's totally new, It's been, it's been tried in different places, different times um, at a public school level, like, you can look back at new york, man, I'm going to get the history wrong on this, but um, they tried to implement like a lot more project based learning for a while and it was going really well until it wasn't, and like Gary indiana, there was, there was a push for that at one point and it was going really well until it wasn't. 00:15:35 Um, and so yeah, all that to say like, within the current system, I think it's very difficult. However, I can say yes. And the reason I can say yes is because it actually does exist already and it has existed for a while in a way that's really, really promising. Have you heard of the Sudbury Valley School? It's close to you, you're in massachusetts, right? Yeah, I know about Sudbury, but I don't know about the school. Tell me more. Okay. Um, yes, this is really exciting. I didn't know about this until I want to say a year, a year, year and a half ago and it totally blew my mind and You're in Boston, so you should go check this out. So Sudbury Sudbury Valley School has actually been around since I believe, 1968. It's been around for a while. So there have been people who have gone from, you know, that was their only school experience. And now there have been copycats all over the, all over the world, like there are there, they're small, but they exist. Um, and this school is democratic. So the Children from ages for, I guess not just Children, it goes all the way up to like age 20 or 22 or whatever. 00:16:39 All of them have a vote in everything. So who's teaching this year? Who are they, Who are the, who are the staff members? What do they get paid? Literally every decision that's made by the school, every student and every staff member has an equal vote. They can choose not to use it. I mean that's part of being in a democracy. You don't have to vote on issues. You don't care about. That's fine. But everybody has that opportunity. Um, the entire judicial system is decided by the students there. They run it. It's a completely democratic model. Um, and it works. That's the, that's the cool thing. That's why I can say yes. It's because it's been around for long enough. There's data on this. Um, so we have, there's a lot of students that have graduated and they've gone to the college of their choice ivy League schools become doctors. Um, there are a lot of students who become entrepreneurs artists and so these students are just going out in society and immediately failing. Like I think a lot of people expect that if you don't just do things the way we've done things for the past couple 100 years, people will fail. And that has just been shown by the data that it's just not true, there's, there is plenty of evidence now that you can run a school this way. 00:17:46 Oh, and by the way, I'll just throw this out there. There are no classes, There are no classes at the school. Um, the students show up and they can do whatever they want all day every day. Um, so that model, a lot of people like here that it just blows their mind. There's like no way that could work, there's no way people could function going to a school like that and become like functional members of society, but, and I would have sympathized with that perspective if this didn't exist, but it does and it has for a while and it's worked in many places in the world. So yeah, look it up. Sudbury Valley School. Super cool. That's my plug for it. That's amazing. Oh my gosh, I love a good, a good case study of a school that, that is, is really effective. But yeah, in my research on student ways, when I was in my PhD program, like I was just overwhelmed by the degree like degree of variance of types of schools and so yeah, the democrat, I had not heard about this one, but like the democratic schools as a type of school is for fascinating. The idea of no, no classes and the idea of like decision making being equitable and, and, and, and equal to an extent and then also equitable when we pull in an equity lens as well. 00:18:56 And I think it's so powerful to think about these case studies because if we don't have them, if we don't have this picture of what could potentially look like and oh wow, it was successful. So like, yeah, Really, what? Yeah, then we then we can't really get to this point of like, okay, what are the action steps? Like, let's get some momentum going because we do think it is just aspirational, oh, this is nice in theory, but, and so I really appreciate you naming that like this does work. It has, there are case studies we can look at. Um, and I also just really appreciate, I mean, my twin passions are really around student governance and like shared leadership and how do you make shared decisions at the school level? Perfect example that you just gave of having every student have a vote around the staffing and the pay and all these things and then also curriculum. So like, what are we literally learning and to have it really be student led to say that courses are not, you know, we don't do courses right? We have, I mean, I'm guessing here, but just from looking at other other schools who do something similar to know, courses. You know, we might have like these projects or these, um, you know, whatever they call them. 00:20:02 They call them different things in different schools, but like, it's actually not that way. Oh really? Okay. Can you tell me more about this then? Yeah, I can. So yeah, the students, they show up every day and they can do whatever they want. There aren't um there are no top down structured anything. So they don't say, hey, like we're going to offer this class, anyone who wants to sign up and sign up. Like that would be, I've heard of models like that. It's not that. So the staff members are not teachers per se. They keep the school running, they're there to just kind of make sure the lights stay on that kind of thing and keep it clean. Um No, but if a student wants to learn something, it's completely self directed. So they can ask one of the staff members, hey, I'd love to get like a more structured class on this and then they would form a contract between the staff member and the student. Anyone else who wants to be there, like, hey, all right, on this day, each week I'm going to share some stuff If you guys want to do homework, you figure out what the homework is or I can give you homework, there's no grades or anything. 00:21:03 Um But it's completely self directed at any point. If they're like, yeah, I don't really care about this anymore. I want to go and learn something else. Great, go do that. Um And so a lot of times what's happening, I visited one of these schools by the way, like I went in there and interviewed and like because I really wanted to dig into it and and yeah, I think the thing that the misconception that people have that makes this kind of model so difficult for people to wrap their heads around, like just this won't work. People are just gonna be sitting around doing nothing or playing video games all day, which they have the option to, they can do that if they want to. Um the misconception is that like, people don't want to learn that they actually want to just, you know, stay in their lane, don't learn anything new, just be comfortable and that's just not true. That's not how people operate. And in fact when you give like think about it this way, like when you let let kids play with a toy or or practice a specific sport or something, once they reach a certain skill level, they don't want to keep doing it the way they've always been doing it. 00:22:06 They instead they pursue the hardest path, not the easiest path. They pursue the hardest path. So like, well I can beat everyone around me at this game. Do they just want to stay there and keep beating people at the game forever. No, they want to go challenge themselves and play against who's the best person who's ever played this game. I want to go play them and see if I can win and that's how humans are wired, We're curious and we always, we want to grow, we desire growth and so we actually pursue the path of most resistance in things that we care about. Not the path the path of least resistance. And that's that misconception. That's why people think, I've heard the question multiple times like okay, what do you do in the case of unmotivated learners? Okay, there's a lot of assumptions under that. What do you mean by unmotivated learner? Well, somebody who doesn't want to learn what you're forcing them to learn, Well you're not forcing them to learn anything, so that's not the issue. They'll go pursue the things that they want to pursue and the evidence is in, I mean that's what people do, that there's so not just the school, but there's so much research to support this. Like people don't like just sitting and doing nothing all day. They will shock themselves if you put them in a room and give them nothing to do and there's like a device that will allow them to shock themselves even it's painful, they will shock themselves rather than sit there and do nothing. 00:23:19 So why do you expect them to do nothing if they have the opportunity to do whatever they want. Yeah, so well said and I think about, you know, this, this misconception really underlying a lot of things and we we have like these code words and education right? For for things like unmotivated or you know whatever it is, but really what we're talking about is like if we if we reframed that right? It's like an a motivational context, right? We are not creating a context with which it is easy to be excited about something right? When we're not giving those options. So I love that you framed it as like, right? Of course you're forcing them to learn something like, right? How do we question like you don't want to learn this exactly, like I'm telling you to learn it and exactly how you know, of course. Um so I think that's really important and I also, I love this idea. I would, I would love to um you know, teach into school where there were absolutely no grades. I think the compromise and just and for people listening who are like, I would love to teach at the Sudbury school and I just can't at this moment, I think there are a lot of things that in a perfect world like yeah, we we we go the Sudbury model right? 00:24:25 And we do that for the kids who are in front of you in this moment, given the context that you're, you're in. Um you know, I think there's so many things that are good stepping stones not come complete, not all the way there, but we could do tomorrow or you know in the next school year or something. Um personalized learning plans or P. L. P. S. Or something that I think like Vermont and maine and like a few different states have adopted statewide. Some schools are doing them. Um Thinking about like the ways that you can try to get rid of grades like by school when I was teaching we only graded the final assessments which were often co created with students and so it was still top down in the sense that we determined as to get credit for like new york state. Like giving us credit for the credit. You know we were like all right let's come up with these standards and let's come up with a rubric of like what does it look like to be proficient at? You know constructing an argument or something like this is a life skill like here's here's what the rubric is gonna be. 00:25:26 We're gonna have a panel of maybe teachers and maybe outside folks come in and actually like here the student present in whatever way they want. Um give them some feedback and like see how they do in A. Q. And A. Around this topic that they've chosen, pursued. So like there are some some ways that we can do that. I just don't want anyone to feel like exasperated by like I want to go work in the school and I can't so I'm going to stop listening now or I'm going to do nothing like there are so many ways that we can push the boundaries of like how do we do fewer grades? Like okay, like all of those like grades for class work and effort and attendance. Can we get rid of those? We can, we absolutely can. And I think that's often a larger whole school conversation and one that I encourage folks to have. Um but I love the kind of dreaming that you're encouraging us to to think about and do. Um and then as as people are kind of like wrapping up listening and thinking about the action they're gonna take. I'd love if you could give us like one next step, you know, like one thing that someone can go do tomorrow to really live in alignment with all these values that we're talking about right existing in a democratic society offering student voice and and really partnering with students in the learning process versus this authoritarian way of doing things, where would you say people should start? 00:26:40 It's such a hard question. It's a hard question to say. Like, how do you make a democracy breakout in an authoritarian structure like that. That's a really difficult question to ask. Um I would say. So this is something I actually learned from another podcast. I was on the the host told me this was like, oh, that's such a great fact, which is that when when polled students say that their favorite class was the class in which their favorite like with their favorite teacher. So it had nothing to do with the subject. It wasn't like math was consistent or anything. Like it was like that, it's the class with my favorite teacher. And so like think about that. It's if you're just trying to get kids to learn a specific, like chunk of information or specific skill, um you can try that doesn't work very well. Uh I could go on and on about why that doesn't work from like an actual um like learning and how the brain works, perspective. 00:27:40 But if you like form real bonds with your students and you ask them what they want and you listen to them and don't listen, trying to push them in a certain direction, but actually listen, that will go a long way because honestly, if, if they, if you're their favorite teacher, they will learn more in your class than any other class. Even if the subject originally wasn't interesting to them just because they like you and you have a relationship. So that's a start. And this is something I brought up on that show where actually learned that fact, which I loved. Um but a lot of times when we talk, when we talk to students and I remember this from when I was in school, it always felt like they were always telling me, hey, we're helping you to prepare for sometime in the future and the future was always super fuzzy. It was nebulous. I didn't even know what it was and they were telling me we're gonna help you prepare for it, we're gonna help you prepare for it. Just trust us, we're gonna help you prepare for it. It's like, okay, well you're helping me prepare for some future that may or may not exist that somebody else might have come up with, and I don't understand how what I'm doing right now helps me in the future that I want. 00:28:52 And so it's not just about asking a student like what do you want your future to look like way out there? Because that can be really hard, really hard question to answer, especially if you don't know yourself very well, which most people don't, especially when they're younger, but ask them what like, what do you want to do right now, what are you interested in right now today? Because today matters, it's not, you know, your whole life isn't just about tomorrow and if it is then you're never gonna get there like what matters today to you. Um and that's just a question we need to be asking more in general, and kids need the opportunity and the encouragement to think about because if man, it's just being a student and always thinking about this distant tomorrow and never knowing what it looks like. Makes it really hard to care about anything right now in the moment. Um so that's my encouragement. Hopefully that's not repeat advice from a bunch of other people. Um but at the same time, I kind of hope that's out there a lot too. Absolutely. It makes me think of a recent episode with students who they're like final answers to that question where like, you talk to your students, like ask your students, get to know your students and and and film form these relationships. 00:29:59 It's so important. And so I I appreciate, yeah, that it's all too rare, but also it is it is this growing trend, especially from students, but this is what they're looking for. Those deeper relationships. I think about like my first, I changed my major several times in college. My first major was totally a result of just a teacher that I liked, I went into business and marketing and I hated business and marketing. Like I just really like the high school teacher I had and so I think that speaks to, you know? Yeah, you can hate the subject to like as a teacher also encourage students like, hey, I know you really like this class. Um because we have fun in here, but also like think about what you're actually interested in from, like, what are you passionate about? What do you, what do you have fun doing? Not just who do you have fun talking to? Um Because yeah, like what you just said, you can just pursue something because it's like this was super fun, that one class I had with that one teacher who I really liked and maybe it's not actually a life calling. That's another reason to ask them like what is important to you today right now and get them to try it out. 00:31:05 And I know we're kind of running over time here, but 11 extra thing with that is like if you don't challenge students or you don't give them the opportunity to think about that, they will have, will have some idea of it that will never get tested. So they'll have this hypothesis that will never get tested. And that's, that's the situation you see all the time with people like yourself changing majors. They have this hypothesis hypothesis of like here's something I kind of think I'd like to do and they never get to test it until they get to college and then they pick that as their major and they realize I actually hate this. And because they never had the opportunity to ask that question and test the hypothesis, they didn't figure it out when it would have been a lot easier to make a bigger, you know, change and try some other things out first rather than switching majors seven times and spending a whole bunch of money on a, on a college career that doesn't really help them in the life that they want such powerful advice. I love the idea of testing and that could be like, I just think about what a lot of students actually chose to do for my make your own unit was like, oh I'm really interested in interior design and so I'm gonna interview some interior designers and learn and came away being like I hate interior design. 00:32:15 Like there are all these pieces that I didn't realize was like most of your job and I don't like those. I just like you know, matching colors together, something like okay well where else can you play with color and and do that and like there's so much learning to be had there. I also really appreciate that you're naming this future thing. So my biggest frustration with student leadership the way we talk about it historically and traditionally is definitely like we're preparing student leaders because they're going to be the leaders of the future and it's like well they could lead right now. They are leaders in their, in their spaces and they can be even more leaders more like leaders if we enable them to be and we create spaces where we're sharing decision making about really important things. Um I also think on a curriculum level, right, current events are happening all around us and there are moments where we can't be expected to carry on as you, this is the curriculum I wrote today when this major thing is happening and all my kids are you know crying or angry or whatever and it's like we gotta, we gotta ask what matters to kids in this moment like you said for a variety of reasons and one just being like, we're never going to get anywhere if we ignore like their passions and desires and all of these things. 00:33:26 So so many good things that you said as we wrap up, one of the final questions I just really love asking is something that you have been learning about lately. So everyone who's on the podcast, I feel like is like a self described lifelong learner, they're passionate about their personal growth and I'm curious to know what has been something you've been learning about. Uh, that's a lot of stuff. Um, I mean like on just a really granular level, I recently got licensed as a financial advisor, so I've been learning about that stuff. Uh, I'm constantly learning. So like I mentioned that book free to Learn. Um I also mentioned the Sudbury Valley School. The Sudbury Valley School has its own publishing, little branch and so they have a ton of books, which is where I got some of this information, like the studies that have been and they've done studies on their alumni because they know how controversial and crazy what they're doing is even though it shouldn't be. So I've been reading through those books like crazy. Um, one of the books I read recently, another one that I highly recommend, I think it outlines the problem and like actual solutions really, really well on the education system is it's called turning learning right side up one of the authors is the founder of that school, and the other one was another professor and somebody who speaks on education a lot. 00:34:41 Um that book was fantastic. There's a couple things in there I kind of disagreed with, that's totally okay. I mean there was a lot of really good stuff, so I would encourage people to check that out and uh I've also been teaching guitar lessons lately, which has been super fun, so I get to jump back into music theory, which I haven't like thought about in a while. But yeah, there's some random stuff I've been thinking about that is amazing. Oh my gosh, so many such diversity of learning right from music to education theory, like all these things, awesome. Um I want to make sure that you you have a space to to kind of close out with anything that that you want to say, and then I'll ask you to end with just, you know, where can people learn more about you and connect with you? But are there anything is there anything that you wanted to say that you didn't get a chance to say in the podcast already. So, I bring this up a lot when I, this is kind of a different venue than I usually audience, I usually speak to, which is great. I'm usually talking more about like how you learn faster and like learning techniques and that kind of thing. Um but something I can bring over from that side to think about is that uh learning starts with curiosity and people hear that and they're like, okay, great, it starts with curiosity whatever, but they don't realize the practical, tangible meaning of that, which is that if you're not asking questions, you are not learning and you won't learn or you're learning will be inhibited or it will be slow or you'll go the wrong direction. 00:36:05 Like people, especially adults and I know this because I work with people one on one all the time, they forget to ask questions, they just stop doing it and they don't realize it's happened until you like, bring it up. Like what questions have you asked or thought about today? Like what I haven't thought of any questions, like should I be asking questions like yes, yes, you should. That's how learning works. And I think that also goes to our conversation about students. Like a lot of times students have been taught not to ask questions and it's no wonder that they're learning suffers as a result. It's like if you don't have questions, this no reason to seek out any new information about the world, what for what's the purpose? So ask relentlessly. I love that advice. That is so good. I'm glad that you got that in there, because I think that's such an important thing for us as leaders and and adults as well to make sure that we're asking regularly is what questions that I have today. Such a good question. Um, and where can people learn more about you if they're interested in connecting or following you on social media or something? 00:37:08 Like where do they go? Okay, so I have stuff everywhere and I'm always like nervous about just spraying a bunch of links out there because I don't think like if people are listening, they're not going to click on something. Um, but if you just type in my name, calling, do it online, you'll find me on a bunch of podcasts, you'll see my books, you'll see the course I teach. There's a bunch of other stuff if you're interested specifically in leveling up your own learning, especially as a teacher, if you want to like get other ways you can help your students learn and understand how learning really works, which is something that's just not well understood by most people, even teachers I know, I know because I've worked with teachers a lot on this kind of thing. Um, I teach a course on maven dot com, It's called discover your inner super learner. You can go to that landing page, you can see what it's all about. And um yeah, it's just digging into, okay, like how do people's brains work and how are they different from each other and how can we take advantage of of those differences and how does learning work generally and how can we take advantage of that. So it's really deep dive on that stuff and honestly, I don't, I don't want to put my own horn too much. 00:38:14 But like I don't know that there's another course out there that I've been able to find that that digs into this on the level that we do. So it's pretty unique. It's cohort based, it's alive. So we like actually interact. It's not just like some videos that you watch. Um, it's super fun. You get to interact with super cool people and learn some really good stuff. That is fantastic. I'm so glad that you named that. And so we'll drop those links if you're driving or something or going for a rent and listening to this will drive those links in the show notes. You can always come back and then click on to them later, Colin Thank you so much for this conversation. Today has been really not only educational for me. Just inspiring as well. Thanks. It's been super fun Lindsay. Thanks for having me. If you're leaving this episode, wanting more, you're going to love my live coaching intensive curriculum bootcamp. I help one department or grade team create feminist anti racist curricula that challenges affirms and inspires all students. We leave current events into course content and amplify student voices, which skyrockets engagement and academic achievement. It energizes educators feeling burns out and it's just two days plus you can reuse the same process any time you create a new unit, which saves time and money. 00:39:23 If you can't wait to bring this to your staff, I'm inviting you to sign up for a 20 minute call with me, grab a spot on my calendar at www dot lindsey beth Lyons dot com slash contact. Until next time leaders continue to think big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better podcast network, better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better dot com slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
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Reading, Writing, and ‘Rithmetic—the three Rs of learning. They’re still fundamental in all classrooms because they’re the foundation for future learning. Reading is a particularly important skill that Danny Brassell, guest on the Time for Teachership podcast, has devoted his life to. Danny’s goal is to make people love reading. Not to read because they have to, but to read because they want to. But schools are often oriented at teaching students how to read, rather than on why they should and how to love it. Reading cultivates curiosity, which enables learning. The question for educators is this: how do we encourage and promote this in the classroom? Fairness, not Equality Danny’s big dream for the field of education is to make it a fair place. Fairness is different from equality—in fact, it’s actually unfair to treat everyone the exact same because we all come from somewhere different. One of the benefits of the pandemic is how many things moved to online platforms. Today, you just need an internet connection and a laptop to access the same training, education, and knowledge as anyone else in the world. This is a step closer to making education fairer and will open opportunities for people who have been underserved and underprivileged in the past. Curiosity and Learning To reach our goals in education, such as making it fairer and more equitable, there needs to be constant growth and learning. This happens through curiosity. Danny spoke about how children are born curious—there’s no fear asking questions and no shame not knowing the answers. And in this way, we can learn a lot from children. Danny shared a story of a child in his elementary classroom who asked, “Where does it say that Humpty Dumpty was an egg?” Newsflash—it doesn’t! We adults think we know best and try to force that on children, but they are often more observant and more curious than we can ever be. How to Help Students Read Unfortunately, the education system often knocks that curiosity right out of students. So, we need to have a mindset shift towards cultivating and encouraging curiosity. One of the best ways to do this is through reading. Research shows that it doesn’t matter what you read, just that you read! In fact, the top percentile of students was shown to read just 20 minutes on average outside of school—the type of book didn’t matter. And, having someone read to you or listening to an audiobook has the same positive impact. Danny works with families and educators to promote the love of reading in children and students. He has a few tips on how to do it:
Reading cultivates a curious mindset, which helps students learn and grow. If you are looking to boost reading in your classroom or home, check out Danny’s free reading resource. Make sure to also catch his full episode on the Time for Teachership podcast, along with other great guests! TRANSCRIPT today on the podcast, I'm talking to dr Danny Brazell, highly sought after speaker trainer and coach known as jim Carey with a PhD doctor. Danny brazil has spoken over 3500 audiences worldwide and authored 16 books, including his latest leadership begins with motivation. He is the co founder of the reading habit dot com, the world's Top reading engagement program. My conversation with Dr. Brussel was November 8, 2021 for reference. Now let's dive in and listen to Dr. Brussels conversation, educational justice coach lindsey Lyons and here on the time for teacher ship podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings. If you're a principal Assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nursing out about co creating curriculum students, I made this show for you. 00:01:08 Here we go so much, I'm really excited for our conversation today. And so I'll just start by asking, you know, I just read your professional bio and sometimes people feel like, you know, there's all the professional accolades and accomplishments and and things within that bio. But if you kind of distill down to who you are and what you want, people to know about you as a person. How would you introduce yourself to listeners in that way. Well, humility is key to me Lindsay. Uh I injured my trump finger a couple of weeks ago I was mowing the lawn and it got clogged and I went to unclog it, forgetting that the lawnmower was already operating. And so I chopped off my finger and uh, I've been going to doctors for the last month and a half. It's been driving me crazy and then it got infect, you know, I have a heart catheter and I realized the importance of good health and grinning and bearing it. So I think if there's something that people have to know about me is I ain't all that. It's actually, it's something I used to always tell my students like you ain't all that and neither am I. And I always tell people if you think you're all that teach kindergarten for one week, those little ones will set you straight. 00:02:13 Oh my gosh, what a story. I'm so glad you're like on the recovery end of that. And yeah. Oh my gosh, kindergartners and kids in general. I feel like they will tell it like it is absolutely, they have no tact filter. It's wonderful. I once had a little girl and she asked me if I was all right and I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. She's like, well somebody forgot to tell your face and I'm like, okay, I'll smile more. Oh my goodness. I love kids. Oh my gosh, well that'll that'll be a nice segue into thinking about education system and as educators, you know, Pitino dr Bettina love talks about freedom, dreaming as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so as she's talking about painting these big dreams and holding these big hopes for the field of education and you know what school is like for us all. I really like this idea of grounding them in the critique of injustice. And so I'm curious with that kind of framing what is the big dream that you hold for the field of education? That's a great, huge question Lindsay. I mean, I I I think that one of the things we strive for in America is the wrong thing. 00:03:20 We're always striving for equality and I don't believe in striving for equality. I believe in striving for fairness. You know, I think it's unfair to treat everybody equally. Some kids don't need much attention, some kids need a lot of extra attention and there's, I'm a person that there's some, some people look at the glass is half empty and then you get the people look at it as half full. I look at it as it's overflowing. If you look at it from the right point of view to me, the pandemic may have been the greatest signal thing to happen education in 100 and 50 years because now people like you and me are forced to learn how to use this thing called or whatever kind of technology and I get really excited Lindsay because right now there's some kid that may not have had breakfast, that's on a dirt floor right now and some impoverished place in the world even could even be in America and as long as that kid has a laptop and an internet connection, they have the exact same access as the head of google, the world's just got a whole lot smaller. 00:04:22 You don't have to be born in new york city anymore to have a huge impact on the world and I'm excited about this next generation because right now there are kids out there that normally would be disenfranchised that are going to have tremendous opportunities and doors open for them. So my view of education is fairness. I, I've been actually focusing a lot of my work, my company, we're working a lot with develop countries throughout africa, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. I was before the pandemic, I spoke to a school of about 5000 girls in Chennai India and these two beautiful young women come up to me afterwards, both with huge grins, One wants to be a doctor, other one wants to be a lawyer. I said that's great, are you going to go to university here in India or maybe you'll go to great Britain of the United States and they're like, oh We can't leave India were girls, I'm like get back in that auditorium, got them all back in and I'm like, now is your moment ladies, I mean within the next five years India is going to be the largest country on the planet in terms of population, I mean you're very young democracy, you're just over 70 years old yet you've already elected a woman prime minister. 00:05:29 America still hasn't elected a woman president. I'm like right now, there are twice as many women in India as there are people in the United States. There are actually more women in India with a graduate degree than there are people in the United States. And I looked at all those young women. I said, hey, you just made it my, my mission, like the next ceo, the next world leader, the next really good parent is coming out of this audience. Don't let anybody ever tell you what you can't do. It's something I've always told my students and sometimes you need somebody else to believe before you believe in yourself, I believe in all of you. They only give me the best and the brightest, let's have those high expectations and you know, the world is our oyster. I love that reframe. Yeah. Like let's, let's think about the fact that India has elected a female prime minister, huge over what has been happening here and I love that re frame and re conceptualization of often how we might think of people in the United States are very us centric and how we might think about other countries and I really appreciate that that you named that as kind of like this, this pivot of, let's reframe, let's think about this and so I think reframing and this, this idea of mindset shifts are huge and critical to fighting for that dream of fairness as you as you spoke about. 00:06:46 And so I'm curious to know like what are those mindset shifts that either students or educators or anyone who's in the field of education could really benefit from if we just shifted our mind around this, this, this key thing, you know, how do we get closer to fairness or what does that look like to be able to shift to get there? You ask questions, I appreciate that. Well, I believe to me my definition of happiness is progress, constant growth, I constantly have to grow. So me personally, I I'm a visiting distinguished professor at the american University in Cairo and so again before the pandemic, I was at the university but I love to speak to two schools in the area when I, when I'm there and uh I was booked to speak at a whole bunch of muslim schools and there was this one um Islamic school, I was at at two in the afternoon doing a parent training, 400 parents Lindsay showed up at two in the afternoon for my training and it was like the muslim brotherhood, all the guys had the long beards and all the women were wearing burkas and we were talking like you and I are talking right now and that was a great moment for me because I said shame on me! 00:07:56 I had all these preconceptions and I realized they actually turned out to be one of my greatest audiences ever because you know, and I know my my passion is getting people to love reading an and so I I I started off my presentation, I said I was reading this book, if any of you ever read the korean and they all laughed, I'm like oh well then you know the story in the korean where the Angel Gabriel appears to Muhammad in the cave, what's his first instruction of Mohammed? Because the first pillar of Islam is to read. And so I looked at the parents, I said so not only should we get your kids reading, it's actually written in your holiest of text, that it's your duty to get your kids reading and all of a sudden everybody's not and I'm like this is my dream audience, they're listening to everything I'm saying. And I think that's what I want with education is uh U. C. L. A basketball coach john wooden won 10 national championships in 12 years. One of my favorite quotes, he said he had lots of great wisdom, encourage all of your listeners to read his book, they call me coach, one of the best books I've ever read, but he he always said that it's the things you learn after, you know it all that make the biggest difference. 00:09:03 And I think we're in a society right now it cracks me up how smart everybody is, everybody knows everything. And I I think I take the opposite approach is I really don't know much. The older I get, the more I realize I don't know anything. Uh And working you know I've taught all age levels. I started off as a secondary teacher and then they got me from high school to middle school to upper elementary to lower elementary to pretty soon instead of preparing kids for college. I was coming home with snot marks all over my pants from the little ones hugging me all day and I learned that little kids are incredible the way they look at the world and we ignore them. We pay them very little attention and we should really pay a lot more attention because they look at the world in a totally different way. I'll give you two examples at little girl Maria five years old, she raises her hand one day and said mr Purcell, where does it say humpty dumpty is an egg. And I laughed and I start reading the nursery rhyme and I'm like it doesn't know where in that nursery rhyme. 00:10:06 Doesn't say humpty dumpty is an egg but there's always a picture of an egg. How did I miss that? You know a little six year old Tyrell Tyrell Tyrell raises a hand in one day. He's like tyrell. He's like Miss Miss Miss, Miss L is curious George a monkey or an ape and I laughed until I reread the book. I mean, have you read curious George lindsey? Alright, what does the man in the yellow hat call? Curious George? He always calls him my little monkey. Well where's his tail? Curious George doesn't have a tail because he's not a monkey. He's a chimpanzee. I've read that book 3000 times, missed it every time Tyrell got it the very first time. That's why if I'm ever murdered, I want a first grader on the scene, not my wife. You know, first grade would be like, he's approximately six ft tall, dark jacket, dark pants. My wife would be like, I don't know, I think he's this tall, I think he's white, you know, kids are much more observant than adults in many ways and I just, that's what I love about education. I I think we, we take the curiosity out of kids like at least in the United States, I swear we find out what kids like and we make sure we take it out of the curriculum and we find out what they hate and we make it mandatory and you and I are both readers Lindsay and what always disturbs me is when I read biographies of successful people, they usually have one thing in common, they dropped out of school and I'm like, what's that say about the way we're educating people and it kind of gets to, you know, I'm going on a tangent, but really what your questions asking, like how do we fix education? 00:11:40 I'm like, there's not one answer, there's 38 answers, you know, when people ask me, oh, should should we put them in a public school or private school or a charter school or a magnet school or home school? My answer is this yes, It depends on the kid, you know, different strokes for different folks. What works with this kid might not work with this kid, The job of education is to cater to the kid, not to cater to the institution. You know, it might be easier to have 30 kids listening to the teacher directly, but that might, that might not be the best way to, to reach that kid, wow, so many great points there. I just want to know this is so great. I just want to highlight, you know, I love the idea of recognizing that we don't, we don't know everything and like I love that you even said, like, I don't know anything like that humility that you, that you brought up at the top of the episode, but then also that commitment to a lifelong learning, I think came back when you were talking about the like autobiographies of successful people and thinking about, yes, they dropped out of, but they're also committed to their own personal growth and learning and so how do we cultivate that? 00:12:49 And kids? I also love the point of, you know, we totally take out the curiosity and the lens with which kids view the world and, and kids come in loving learning. Like most people love to learn and then we kind of like get it out of them by the time that they reach us. So as a former secondary teacher, I will say, you know, some things are actually easier, that you wouldn't think would be easier in primary grade because they still have that curiosity and ability to see things differently. So when I came into my class and I was like, all right, we're gonna have a unit where you just tell me what you want to learn about and we're gonna each have, you know, everyone doing a different unit. I actually got resistance from the students because they were like, no, you're the teacher Miss. I have been in school for years now and I know how this thing is done and if you tell me what to do when I do it and how heartbreaking right? Like if we could bring that curiosity back, you know, we should never get rid of it in the first place. You got me, I'm a baptist in your front row right now. Amen preach to the choir. 00:13:50 I mean, why was it my kindergarteners would go to bed with their backpacks on because they were so excited to get back to school the next day. Whereas my middle schoolers were thinking of ways to get sick what happened in those eight years to get that kid to hate school so much. I mean if I'm doing my job, my kids should be banging on my classroom door at five in the morning. They're so excited to get in there and they should be in tears when they hear that final bell because they don't want to leave. I mean that's a big deal to me is I want, I want school, not really school. I shouldn't say school, I want learning to be something that is a lifetime addiction. It's a habit. You don't need me to tell you to be curious. I want you constantly, we'd, I think we'd all be better served if people are asking why all the time, you know, in education, one of the frustrating things for me as, as both a teacher and an administrator is just a lot of, you know, mandatory policies. I've gotten fired so many times because I'm, I annoy my, my superiors because I always say if the answer to the question is not because that's what serves the child the best. 00:14:58 Why are we doing it? I'm not doing this because of the state or the federal government tells me to do it. I'm doing it because it helps this kid and if we're missing that we're really, we can't see the forest through the trees and I just think that there's a whole makeover that we have to, you know, but I think there's opportunities I have. I have a lot of faith and hope I'm not, I'm not one of these, you know, Debbie downers, I see all kinds of amazing things happening all the time. I, I love that as a transition point to to the next question of yes, like, so we have the hope, we have the vision, we know what mindset shifts are needed and then what does that look like for a person who's listening and thinking, okay, I'm ready to do this. I'm ready to bring back that curiosity. I'm ready to center fairness in, in my lesson plans or my school policy. What does that actually look like in terms of, what are the steps that educators or family members or anyone really can take to be able to make this kind of dream that we've been kind of cultivating throughout the episode so far come true. 00:15:58 I love where you're going with this Lindsay. I mean, I think we overcomplicate way too much in american education, you know, and this is going to be self serving. That's my, my company, my online reading engagement program. That's why I created it. So basically I always tell people, I think schools do an adequate job of teaching kids how to read. But the question I always ask people is what good is it teaching people how to read if they never want to read, you know I teach kids why to read because I've never had to tell a kid, you know go watch tv, I've never had to tell a kid, go play a video game and I never want to have to tell a kid, go read a book. I want them to choose to do it on their own because they enjoy doing it. And so my reading engagement program is basically designed for for teachers and for most importantly parents and every day they receive a quick little video for me about 5 to 7 minutes every day giving them a tip on how To get their kids excited about reading at home and what we're trying to do is to get the kid to read for at least 20 minutes a day at home, they don't have to be consecutive and if you read aloud to them, those minutes count as well, you know, and we find that after just about two months kids that go through our program have boosted their reading abilities by about 2-3 grade levels, which is great. 00:17:12 That's all fine and good. But that's not what gets me excited. What gets me excited is that no matter how bad a school can be, I've properly on that kid so that they're constantly going to be curious and read the rest of their lives out of school and the research is really, it's really very conclusive on this, it doesn't matter what you read, what matters is how much you read. People who read more read better. You know, it doesn't matter if you're reading James Joyce or James and the giant peach, I always tell parents, the little boy who only reads Captain Underpants is going to be a much better reader than the little boy who refuses to read anything. I mean to me, Captain Underpants is the gateway drug to Shakespeare, but you got to get them hooked and that's what I'm constantly doing as a teacher, as a parent, as a as a principal, I'm looking for what what turns this kid. I mean I when I was teaching second grade, I had a little boy kiara, I I spent most of my career in South Central Los Angeles. And um I had a little boy, Kiara and Kiara is first grade teacher told me, Chiara don't know nothing like thank you, thank you Kiara who don't know, nothing comes in my room one day he's like, hey Mr Purcell, you see Bakley last night he had 18 points, 16 rebounds. 00:18:27 And like thank you kiara because from that point forward, every day after lunch I'd sit Kr on my lap and he and I would read the L. A. Times sports section together and by the end of the year, Kr was one of my top readers and all that kid ever read about was football and basketball and he was interested in sports, but now that he's identified himself as a good reader, he's a confident reader. None of us do things where we feel uncomfortable. Always love that people, I'm like, no, no, no. Humans are very predictable. Humans avoid situations where they might look stupid and uh my policy build up that confidence make a person, you know, it's like one of my favorite movies of all time is dumbo. You know, I've got to give them the magic feather, but you always had it within you. But again, so many of us, we, we've been told bad things, you know, I've been blessed Lindsay my wife is from Singapore. She grew up in an environment where people were telling her her entire life what she could not do. 00:19:32 Whereas I have a photograph of me when I was four years old, I'm wearing space boots, a san Diego chargers, Jersey, a sheriff's badge and a fireman's helmet because I was gonna be the first ever astronaut, professional football player, police officer and firefighter. I mean that's the world I grew up in and I think every kid should be entitled to growing up in a world like that, wow! Yes. Oh my gosh, I love, I love the dream, I love the four year old picture that I'm now imagining in my head, this is lovely. And then, yeah, thinking about the program, specifically your program. And then also just a call for for everyone, no matter what program they're using to be talking about, why to read. And also like that, that variance of, there are so many things we could be reading, right? Like you can totally read the sports section. I think about all of the people who I know now as adults who are avid readers that hated english class or they hated school in general because it was a very prescribed way of reading and they never identified As a reader until you know, their 30s or 40s, you know, and so there's so many folks who just have this love and passion for reading that wasn't even cultivated until years after college and that's terrifying to me that we're, that we're doing that in our system to kids. 00:20:49 So true lindsey, I mean, if you really want to get a kid to hate reading, tell them exactly what they have to read and then make them do a book report on it. I mean, I remember in high school I was forced to read the Scarlet letter by nothing Daniel hawthorne and no offense to the people that love the scarlet letter. I mean that's fine that you love that basically it's the story of Hester Prynne has committed adultery, so she has to wear an A on her chest. And I raised my hand and asked my teacher if I could wear a b on my chest because I was so bored reading that book, you know, and why is that literature? Why, why is that literature and Sports illustrated is not literature maybe 200 years from now, people will be like, oh, you haven't read frank Deford's columns on the new England patriots. I mean that was very important back in the late 20th century. I mean, who's to say that? You know, who's not to say that Nathaniel hawthorne when he wrote the scarlet letter, People like, oh, that's just trash man. He's just that, I mean that's really, that's trashy stuff. 00:21:50 I mean, who's to say it's, it's like when I hear people talk about culture, you know, it's only culture to go to the philharmonic, but not to the monster truck pulling. Like they're both cultural, it's just however you wanted to find culture. I mean, it doesn't mean one's better than the other. I don't like that snooty point of view. I I think that, well, I mean, you've got it from me. The research again is very clear on this. It doesn't matter what you read, what matters is how much you read. I mean, I'm a lazy reader. And so one of my uh about 2003, I created one of the, it's one of the top reading programs online called lazy readers dot com. It's a free subscription if you subscribe once a month for the rest of your life, you get 10 book recommendations, three or four adult level three or four, young adult level and three or four Children's level books, all of 250 pages? So you have something you can read when you're stuck in a meeting or waiting in line because people always say I have no time to read them. I'm like yeah, who has time to read after you watch the game on tv have a couple of beers, go out shopping. 00:22:51 I mean, you know, I always tell parents my kids ain't stupid, they ain't gonna read, they don't see us reading. You know, if mom's smoking all the time or dad smoking all the time, I'm gonna tell you there's a very high likelihood the kid's gonna be a smoker. Um you know, with kids are paying attention. All this is why I always tell people, no matter what you do, you're always a teacher and a role model doesn't you don't have to have the definition of a teacher. Kids are paying attention constantly. That's what's driving me nuts about society right now. Like politics, people see the way politicians talk to one another and I'm like, let's get rid of the politics and really focus again on public service. Like why aren't you doing anything to help people? You know why to me, I don't understand why it's a political education, A political issue. Why not? Every kid that wants to get a college education in this country, can't get a college education. I mean to me, if you're poor, but you want to go to Harvard, we should make sure that that kid has the ability to go to Harvard. 00:23:53 Now. They can pay it back. We can create like a domestic peace corps where they pay it back in service or something like that were paid back. Whatever. Same thing with healthcare. I mean when I had this stupid finger, I was bleeding to death. I'm gonna remake every little house on the prairie. And what I'm gonna do is on my episode of Little House on the Prairie, Laura goes to visit the town doctor, but before the doctor watches her, she's bleeding to death in the waiting room, filling out disclaimers and waivers. Because that's what I'm like, what happened to just customer service. I mean, why can't anybody? And then when I was there, there was a guy and he, he was not, he was, I have health insurance. There was a guy of limited means and he had a stack of $100 bills to pay for and I'm like, this is disgusting. Anybody gets hurt should be able to go. I mean, why is this a political issue? Let's look at public service. How can we make our country better Get rid of the politics? Let's see how we can serve people talking about wasting money. My God, you know, I could say education. I could save you $5 billion dollars a year if we just got rid of standardized testing, I promise. 00:24:57 You know, standardized test has ever produced a better leader in this world. Matter of fact, most of the leaders that support these standardized tests couldn't pass the standardized tests. I'm sorry. I'll get off my soapbox. It's just driving me nuts. The negativity in the world where there's so many possibilities out there. Absolutely not. I'm just nodding along right? Like these are not political issues that you're naming right. They are human rights issues. And like let's, let's serve people right. Let's, let's do a good. So yes, I am. I am there with you. And I think there's so many exciting things that you talked about and you kind of just layered in there. So like lazy reader dot com sounds like an awesome like suggestion. Yeah. For books and, and I think about when I lived in new york city, I actually commuted probably like, you know, an average new york city commuters like an hour, one way to wherever, even if it's just like two miles down the road. So, so I think that was the time when I read so much. My first job, I had usually like a five hour round trip. Like I read the entire game of Thrones series in one school year, You know, so I think sometimes we don't realize that we have that time where we complain about the commute or whatever it is and it's like, oh, if we only popped in an audio book, like you said, the reading a lot or being read to is, is equally valuable. 00:26:12 And so reading a book or reading aloud, there are so many ways we can get information and learn. I mean I'm obviously a fan of podcasts. I think that's another way. Um, but I wanted to name two. I really resonated with when you were talking about the book that you didn't like being scarlet, the scarlet letter for me, it was catcher in the Rye. I have basically hated the idea of a cannon ever since I was told to read catcher in the Rye, I was like, this is the worst book. Like I just can't even and I think about that constantly today as a, as an educator and thinking about what we prescribed to kids or what we even present on the bookshelf for kids to kind of roam through and pick out. There's often not, you know, graphic novels, there's often not fantasy novels. There's often things that like my friends as adults are really interested in and would have read, you know, a lot of if they were presented those options as kids. And I just think, you know, for the educators listening or the families listening who could kind of curate bookshelves or take kids to libraries and go to your public library. 00:27:16 You don't even need to own the book right to be able to go to the different sections and present all of these options. Sounds like just such a meaningful way to encourage kids to be able to get, get the book that they are interested in in their hands and and start reading, right? I mean, you're exactly right. I mean, I love jane Austen but why is jane Austin more considered more literature than frank Herbert's Dune? I mean dunes an incredible book. I mean, I know science fiction is one of the best ways, best ways to get a lot of kids. You know, who's that, that that welfare mom, Joanne, Kathleen Rowling, who wrote a series of books about a little boy wizard by the name of harry potter, you know, which has been the most banned book in America for the last 25 years. And thank goodness because there's no way we should allow young Children to stand outside a bookstore at midnight waiting to buy a 900 page book that they want to read in two days. I mean, what's society coming to? I mean, I like to remind my friends that have the problem with harry potter without harry potter. You don't get the renewed interest in the Chronicles of Narnia. Kids have this amazing thing between their ears. 00:28:17 We should let them use it from time to time. We shouldn't censor any books from kids. I mean, I like, again now I'm a parent, you know, there's obviously, I don't believe, I believe kids have the rest of their lives to be miserable. I want them laughing when they're with me. So I like things that are positive and encouraging, you know, but that doesn't mean that eventually you're gonna want to get into some deeper thing. I mean you just mentioned game of throws. I mean George r r martin is not like a happy feeling kind of author. I mean anytime you, anytime I start to get interested in the book, he kills a different stark and I'm like, my goodness. So, uh, you know, but this is what I love. And I love that you provide this forum Lindsay, I mean that you and I can have this kind of discussion. I mean, I hear so many useless discussions out there. I'm like, I'm much more interested in what what turns people on to what the because it's funny catcher in the rye was the first book that actually got me to laugh out loud when I was a kid. So I liked it. But I love that you hated it. I mean that's a good discussion. That's what we need to do is say, well, this is why I liked it. This is why I didn't like it. That's, we need to have those discussions. This is when we're talking about politics to say it's one of the big lessons I'm trying to teach kid. 00:29:20 It's all right to disagree. What's not all right is to be disagreeable, Be respectful of one another. You don't have to agree with me and my wife and I disagree all the time. It doesn't mean we don't love and respect one another. You know, I think one of the biggest problems we have in America is we don't teach people to talk about sex and politics and religion. I'm like that's the wrong lesson. The right lesson is to teach people how to talk about those things in a respectful way, you know, so that we don't have these screaming matches that I see all the time. I mean what kind of modeling? I actually wrote a letter to the L. A. Times. They didn't publish it because they're dumb, but they had accused the president and congress of behaving like Children. And I wrote in my letter, I'm like that is such an insult to Children, you know, because kids get over it. You know, the thing I love about little kids is kids will get in a fight and 10 minutes later like this is my best friend, you know, and I love that it's adults that hold these grudges. We can learn a lot from kids if we pay attention to them, wow, that's a really powerful message. That is such a powerful message. 00:30:21 And I love that they that you wrote that letter, I'm really sad, they didn't publish it. But that's such a great point, right? Um, and actually I, I think that probably transitions nicely into the next thing I want to ask about. So as people are kind of listening to this episode and they're they're taking in all of the various ideas that that you shared and all the different resources that you shared as they think about, you know, how do I really live in alignment with this commitment to fairness and this this value of who I who I want to be when I show up and I want to model and I want to, you know, show kids that I read to and and all of these things. What is one thing that would be a good starting point for someone who as they're ending the episode and thinking about like what's my next step to really start this kind of way of being as an educator or a parent or family member um to kind of model this stuff, what would you suggest? So, I wanted to give all of your listeners a presence, so if they go to free reading training dot com, again, free reading training dot com, I'm gonna give you all a complimentary copy of my book, read lead and succeed. It's a book I wrote for a school principal who was trying to keep his faculty positively engaged. 00:31:27 So I said, okay, I'll write you a book. So every week I give you a concept, an inspirational, quote, an inspirational story, a book recommendation on a book you should read, but you're probably too lazy because you're an adult. So I also give you a Children's picture book recommendation that demonstrates the exact same concept, You can read that in five minutes. I mean, I've always thought that Mother Goose and Aesop's fables. They tell us a lot of the morals, A lot of the most important lessons we learned when we were we're when we were little kids. Um And I'm also gonna provide um some trainings that I do with parents to get their kids excited about reading. I mean there's basic things. The reason I I told you 20 minutes a day is researchers were trying to figure out what makes kids successful. They were looking for common habits and traits and they found one which startled them and it was the number of minutes spent reading outside school. They looked at the low kids, the average kids and the high kids, they saw that the low kids and about the 20th percentile average less than a minute a day of reading outside of school? Well that's not a surprise. 00:32:28 That's probably why the kids are at the bottom of their class. This is what actually startled the researchers though. They looked at the kids in the middle of the class, the 70th percentile. The c students, the average students, they averaged 9.6 minutes a day reading outside of school. So when I'm doing a live training, this is one of the first parent hand raises and they say, well, wait a sec, are you saying if I can get my kid to read 10 minutes a day at home, I can take them from an F to a C. That's exactly what I'm saying. The research is actually pretty conclusive on this but But totally floored. Researchers were the kids near the top of the class in the 90th%ile. Do they spend three hours a day reading outside of school? No. Do they spend one hour a day outside of school? No, the average was just over 20 minutes a day. That's what I'm showing parents to do 20 minutes a day. You know? So like if you're, you already gave a great example, like if you're commuting to and from school for it takes you 10 minutes each way. Just put in an audio book. You just covered your 20 minutes that way. And that's a great way to keep kids. I don't know about you Lindsay but like on my exercise bike, I love the TV show billions. 00:33:34 And so I only allow myself to watch the show billions while I'm on the bike. You know, you can do the same thing with like your podcast. Oh, this is my happy time. I listened to Lindsay's podcast when I do my daily walk. I listened to the catcher in the rye I or the scarlet letter when I do this. Something that that is good. Um, and then you know, I always tell parents that the research is also very clear that being read aloud to is just as well as doing it on your own. I mean people don't realize over over half of Fortune 500 ceos are dyslexic and dyslexics actually are better auditory learners. And so that's one of the things that they do is they listen much better than most of us. And so that's a great way if if you, I mean and people have to understand all reading disabilities are curable and dyslexia is probably the most undiagnosed reading disability out there. But uh you know, people from George Washington to tom cruise, I mean there's a lot of success to richard Branson. These are all people successful in their fields that were dyslexic. 00:34:37 Um and then you know, probably the best tip I give to parents is President and Bush sr over 30 years ago signed a very important law in this country. It says every television set in America has to have closed captioning. I always tell this appearance turn the closed caption on the tv. It's instant print in the home and people say what he said. If the shows in english and the subtitles are in english, what good does that do? I'm like, That's a good point. Let me make a point. Have you ever watched the show with subtitles and not looked at those words on screen, it's very difficult to do. Your brain is oriented towards the text and there's actually research that supports this. If you look at reading scores around the world, the more kids watch tv, the lower their reading scores are in every country of the world except for one, the country that watches the most Tv also has the highest reading scores in the world. It's Finland and how can this be? Well Finland makes really bad Tv shows and so what they do is they import all these old american sitcoms like Happy Days in Gilligan's Island and the brady bunch, they subtitle them all and finished, the kids are constantly reading. 00:35:42 So that's the easiest quick fix for everybody. So these are just some simple tips that anybody can do. But again, what we're trying to do is to get kids excited about reading when you're driving, when you're on that train, you know you've been pointing to signs. So what you know play I spy with a kid um get them reading that way. Get reading is all around us but you gotta make it fun. This is the secret to all education. I mean now more than ever because we're competing against a lot of things but you can make it fun. I see teachers every single day that take extraordinary extraordinarily boring content and they make it engaging, you know, and one of the easiest things I do with my kids is I have three kids of my own is when I read to them in bed, if I'm reading them a boring story, we'll play a game where they're like you know, read it like a pirate, like a pirate and so I read a page. So I read it like a pirate and they're laughing and read it like a robot, we just have fun with it that way. They're still getting the experience even with the lame text. So those are some quick, quick tips. I love those tips and it's funny, I actually, I've been trying to teach myself spanish and I've been turning on the spanish captions for the spanish show and I'm like, okay, so I'm hearing the audio, but I'm really also reading and practicing my reading in another language. 00:36:56 I'm glad the research backs up, That's a good idea. Excellent. So one of the things that I want to ask and I always ask at this at the end of the show because I just, I think it's so fun to to know and you kind of self described as a lifelong learner or someone who's constantly, you know, not knowing anything and continuing to brought that. So I'm curious to know what's something that you have been learning about lately. Gosh, what am I even learning about lately? Well, the so the book I'm writing right now. So the last book I wrote was called Leadership begins with motivation and this was interesting. I read it after I wrote it and completely unintentional. This is like an homage to paul harvey, I grew up listening to paul harvey on the radio. He he passed away a couple of years ago at the age of 325 years old. But when I was a kid, he'd come on the radio at 12 15 every day and be like I'm paul harvey with the rest of the story and he tells you these stories and you're constantly at the edge of your seat trying to figure out who or what he's talking about. And so when I was a middle school teacher, I was the first teacher at my school never to have any tardies because I always started my class with paul Harvey store and the kids always wanted to hear it. 00:38:04 But a lot of those are about, you know, like the founding of Sears Roebuck, well, a kid in 2021 doesn't know what Sears or Roebuck is that, you know, So I wanted to update it with, with people like Elon musk and Jeff Bezos and and companies that the kids are, you know, the founding of google and Youtube. Um but after I read the book, I'm like holy cow, completely unintentionally. Almost all of my examples in this book are white male americans. That and that was not intentional and I'm like, huh, that's interesting. And so the book I'm writing right now is all about, you know, females, international people and minorities and I'm having a ton of fun doing that. And so like I'm always looking for inspirational stories. So I was writing this one about these two women Martha and ag they were both successful choreographers and Agnes had just opened her third play on broadway and it was doing all right with audiences but the critics just destroyed her for it. And so she was going to close down the production and so she, she tells Martha, you know, I don't think I can do this anymore. 00:39:08 And Martha's like, no, you have to, you know, it's not for anybody else to decide what your work is, it's not even for you to decide, but if you close down this play the world to lose it forever, because there's only one you there's only going to ever be one of you and she gave Agnes the confidence that she needed. Now Martha was Martha Graham who is known as the Mother of modern dance, she won the Kennedy center honors in the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Agnes, her friend was Agnes de Mille who became the she won all those accolades as well. She became the first woman that had three successful musicals on broadway at the same time and she decided she wasn't gonna close down the musical, she had just choreographed, she just changed the name to Oklahoma, you know, it's it's stories like that, I mean I live for stories like that, that's why I stopped watching the news actually, the one thing I watch on tv is Cbs sunday Morning greatest show ever. They have all these great inspirational stories, it makes you happy to be a human uh you know, as opposed to that horrible show on tv. 00:40:11 I watch every now and then called the news, it just puts me in a depressed mood, you know, you don't see positive things. I want to, I want things that lift me and that's why I love sports. My wife's like why are you so into sports and like cause honey at any given moment, something extraordinary can happen. And that's what I'm living. That's why the olympics. The olympics. I don't I don't even usually root for America anymore at the olympics and I was like, why aren't you writing for american? Like who am I gonna root for? The american with the microchip in his Nikes? Or the barefoot sudanese refugee who just survived the civil war and you know, they do the back background story on him. He's like, oh I learned how to run when I was running away from the bullets, you know, and I'm like, of course I'm rooting for that guy, it's incredible. But that's all americans love the underdog. I always like root for the underdog. So again, long answer to your short question. So what I'm learning about right now is I've really been researching about people, extraordinary people from around the world, really focused on women, focused on minorities. Uh and it's really especially important because a lot of the audiences I'm speaking to, you know, if I'm in Egypt a little kid in Egypt needs to hear about somebody that was once a little kid in Egypt that became successful. 00:41:23 I mean, I was just watching an interview with Abba, the founders of Abba and I didn't realize how tough it was at the time for Swedish rock band to become a hit. They're like, oh, it's very easy if you're american or british, but it wasn't so very, so very easy if you were Swedish, like, oh, that's interesting, I didn't know that. Um so I think kids everywhere, people all ages, but definitely kids need to hear those positive stories, so that's what I'm learning, that's amazing, and I so appreciate your your again, back to that humility piece, like, that humility of, like I wrote this whole book and then I realized like this is the pattern that that happened in the book and I needed to correct them. So now I am, and so I just, I really appreciate your modeling, kind of what we're calling people to do as well. And so thank you for for naming that. Um my last question is just where can people learn more about you or or connect with you online as they kind of go off and and are really inspired by this episode and want to keep in touch. Yeah, probably the easiest, I don't want to throw out to many different websites to everybody, so probably if you just go to free reading training dot com free reading training dot com that way, you'll get your complimentary copy the book and you'll get, I think they're updating the site to, to make the, because I did that. 00:42:33 I recently did this five day challenge where every day for an hour I gave a whole bunch of strategies so you'll get access to that. So if you just go to free reading training dot com, that way you're not all confused and if you, if you forget me, it's my last name is really easy to remember. It's Danny Purcell. My last name's felt like bras sell. No, I never took any grief over that as a child. Oh, that's wonderful. Thank you so much Danny for being on the podcast and I'll drop the links to those websites in the show notes as well. So if you're driving, don't feel like you need to write that down, you can come back to them later. Thanks so much lindsey. Actually, I'll conclude this is the way whether I was teaching. My little ones are my older ones. They always had to hear me say the same refrain as they left class every day. I always told them remember kids education is valuable, but execution is priceless. Knowledge is not power only Applied knowledge is power knowing what the right thing to do and doing the right thing are two very different things to go out and do the right thing and make this world a much better place. That is a beautiful way to close. 00:43:37 Thanks so much Danny. Thank you God bless if you're leaving this episode, wanting more. You're going to love my live coaching intensive curriculum bootcamp. I help one department or grade team create feminist anti racist curricula that challenges affirms and inspires all students. We leave current events into course content and amplify student voices, which skyrockets engagement and academic achievement. It energizes educators feeling burns out and it's just two days plus you can reuse the same process any time you create a new unit, which saves time and money. If you can't wait to bring this to your staff, I'm inviting you to sign up for a 20 minute call with me, grab a spot on my calendar at www dot lindsey beth Lyons dot com slash contact Until next time leaders continue to think big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the teach Better podcast network, Better today, Better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better dot com slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode
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Statistics can help us understand a situation, but they can also be discouraging. Take this one, for example: one in four American students will grow up not being able to read. It’s a devastating reality that leaves many educators sad and frustrated. And for Lauren Jackson, recent guest on the Time for Teachership podcast, it’s led her to pursue literacy coaching and support educators in this area. With everything going on in the country and environment, teachers need to focus in on what’s in their locus of control, which is their classroom and their students. By recognizing that they’re not alone and can reach out for help, they can boost literacy and meet other education goals in their teaching practice. It Starts with Mindset Lauren’s passion for literacy was born out of her first teaching job. She worked in a low-income neighborhood where many of the students were not reading at their grade level. This prompted her to ask why and investigate the factors impacting literacy at her school. She realized that there was a one-size-fits-all solution that just wasn’t working for all students. So, she started to work on strategies to support students where they’re at and make sure she was addressing their unique challenges. To do this, Lauren shifted her mindset. Instead of getting frustrated and discouraged by student’s who weren’t improving, she put on the mindset that all students can be successful. She just needed to figure out how to do it. And this goes for every educator—if we keep the mindset that we’ll be able to find a solution to the problem, then it’ll be possible! Action Steps for Change To address problems and find solutions, educators need to first look at their data. It’s important to collect information about why something is happening before trying to solve it. From there, educators should can take a few action steps:
Sometimes teachers feel alone, like they’re the only one dealing with a specific issue or problem. But we’re not! There are so many people available to help you when you need it. We just need to be humble, admit that we need help, and then tap into available resources. One excellent resource for teachers are coaches. Lauren is a literacy coach, for example, and helps teachers and educators reach literacy and reading goals for their classroom. Here are some features of coaching relationships:
We all need help sometimes. And the quicker we can admit it, the quicker we can find those people who are able to help us out. Teachers and educators do their best work when they lean into their support system and work to find solutions together. One of the best ways to connect with Lauren and learn more about her work as a literacy coach is to listen to her podcast, the Lauren-Sophia Show. Also make sure to catch her full interview on the Time for Teachership podcast! TRANSCRIPT I'm so excited for you to hear my guest today, Lauren Jackson. Lauren is an educational consultant currently located in the beautiful state of South Carolina. Lauren has been in the field of education for close to 10 years. She graduated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelor's in early childhood education. Then she continued her educational journey by earning a master's in curriculum and instruction from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Lauren finished her educational experience with a postgraduate degree in educational leadership from Liberty University. She was an early childhood teacher in north Carolina, southern and colorado and she was an assistant principal for two years at a small christian private school in south Carolina. Currently, Lauren is the owner of her own small consulting business. Lauren Sophia consulting. She works with elementary teachers and leaders to help improve their literacy instruction to foster success All students. She also has a podcast, Lauren Sophia show where she discusses educational trends within learning series. I'm so excited to say I got to be a guest on the podcast as well. Please check out her podcast is awesome for references conversation with Lauren was recorded on November 3, 2021, let's get to it. 00:01:07 Educational justice coach lindsey Lyons and here on the time for teacher ship podcast we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings if you're a principal assistant superintendent, curriculum director instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nursing out about co creating curriculum students. I made this show for you. Here we go Lauren Jackson, welcome to the time for teacher ship podcast. Thank you lindsey. I am so excited to be here. You're so awesome. Thank you for having me. Of course. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited that you're here and I've just read your professional bio. But is there anything else that you would like to add to that bio to further into introduce yourself? I think one of the questions that I think is really helpful that one of my friends who also has a podcast, um, Annalisa Holcombe says is like if you strip down all the accolades, like if you strip down like the accomplishments and the degrees and who are you as a person and like what does that mean to you? 00:02:18 So I don't know if that's a helpful question to start with. But yeah, absolutely. So I am a wife. I am a mom. We are army who go army so I enjoy like traveling. I've lived all over the United States. I am a fun fact is I have three teaching licenses in three different states. Every time we had to move, I had to retake the test to teach the same grade. I was like, are you serious? So I'm a really good test taker. Either. I really know the information will, I'm not sure, but I have a three different teaching license. So that's a pretty cool fact, wow, that is so much work and still have to re license every time that you move. Oh my goodness. Every Single time when we get new orders, I'm like, but why? Like, why can't we just stay here? So my husband actually switched over to the Army reserves, which has been so much better. So we've been in South Carolina since 2015. So that's pretty fun. So my daughter, we got here, she was actually went into labor in Tennessee. 00:03:21 We were driving from colorado and Tennessee, I went into labor and they were like, oh you're not in labor. So I was like, okay, cool. So we drove down to south Carolina the next day and they're like, what's wrong with you have been in labor for a day. I'm like, oh my gosh! So we've been here since that day that we came in with a bang and we're still here. Oh my goodness. That is the wildest story that anyone has shared at the start of the pot has nothing to do with education like girl, what are you doing? But we came from like Colorado springs and when you think about it, the elevation is so high. So this is what I just chalked it up to. So once we came down from colorado and I was so used to living up there, that when I came down some and I'm like breathing air, like wow, this is great. I think that my daughter was like, what's going on? And then it was just time to start the process. And the funny thing is I was only 33 weeks pregnant, so my daughter was £4 she was itty bitty, wow, what a story. 00:04:22 Oh my gosh, that is so nuts. Started off with a bang start the podcast with bank. That's right. And I think a testament to your resilience to you retested and all of the moves that you need to certify, you gave birth like practically in a car almost amazing, wow, I'm so excited not to scare you for when your baby comes because everything is gonna go just right. I know it, thank you so much. Oh my gosh! And yeah, by the time this actually airs, I will have gone through that process, so I'll be able to speak to that better. But yes, fingers crossed. Hey, by then, maybe I would have made a trip to boston for the first time ever in my life just to meet your baby because I will come up there just to meet the baby, I'm so excited. So one of the first things that I want to ask about in terms of education as we think about, you know what our hopes and dreams are for, that is closely tied to Dr Bettina loves quote about freedom dreaming, which I just find to be really inspiring and profound. 00:05:25 So she says their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice and so with that in mind, what is the big dream that you hold for the field of education? Such an excellent question Lindsay. So I want to let you know that I actually love education. It's always just been in my heart and when I was younger, I am the oldest of six grandkids, so the oldest girl and then I have a cousin who's a year older than me. And when we were younger we would always play school like I would just force everyone to play school, come play school, come play school and I would be the teacher. And then as I, I went through high school, I really got into music, so fun fact, I played the flute and I sing and so I'm like oh I'm just gonna go be Beyonce because I love her, so I'm gonna go be Beyonce and my mom's like girl, no you are going to go into education. So I went into education, loved it. And then I started teaching back in january 2013, I got my first job and it was my first time on my own and I was in a very low income area and I was just like just blown away blown away shocks and one of the things that became near and dear to my heart to answer your question is literacy, I started to notice like wow some of my Children can't read or you know, wow we're in the january and we're still sounding out cat. 00:06:45 Like just things that I was like, oh my goodness! Right. And so I was wondering why like why are all of our kiddos like below grade level? And when I say all don't mean all, but definitely more than half out of a class of 20, so more than 10, definitely more than 12. And I started thinking about it. I'm like, well we're using this one size fits all approach but who's benefiting from this? Like who's benefiting from this one size fits all. So my dream is for every student regardless of their race, regardless of their gender, regardless of anything to know how to read and to have that background knowledge to have that fluency. Because reading is everything everywhere. It's everywhere. Like we needed to drive on the highway because we need to, you know what exit we need to get off on and we need to know the streets, it's when we go to the grocery store, we need to read the ingredients in our food. It's when we're even doing something simple, like going to the bathroom, like we need to be able to read well where is the bathroom, who goes into this bathroom? 00:07:47 Like so many things and it drives me crazy because I think well why are why are we using this one size fits all approach when this is a life skill that everyone needs to know. So my dream would be for all of our students to read fluently. I love that so much and it's so powerful. We think about all of the information that's accessible to us now with the internet, I mean not being able to read and access that information is just puts you at such a disadvantage compared to people who are able to access that information. So I think that's such a profound goal and one that's gonna have really lasting impacts for kids throughout their lives. And I yeah, and I wonder like as you were saying, you kind of had to like you were exposed to a population of students who maybe you came in thinking they're gonna be able to read at this level, they weren't. So like what are the, what's either the mindset shift that you had to undergo to be able to make that shift to say like, okay, it's not one size fits all, we're gonna customize this, we're gonna personalize this or what is the mindset shift that you would recommend to someone who is facing a similar challenge in education and really trying to support all students to read. 00:09:05 Absolutely. So when you think about Got it right, So when we're thinking about, okay, some of these kiddos can't read and I hate saying these kiddos because they're our kiddos and so I always have to, like, correct myself, like, no, like I don't want to push them away. Like they're these kids, like, these are our kids, they are in our classroom, they are in our school, they are in our community, so they're our kids. And when you think about it, like, so two thirds of the students who can't read proficiently by the time they're in fourth grade, you know, they'll end up in jail or on welfare. And so that's like an alarming statistic and over 70% of America's inmates can't read above 1/4 grade reading level. And so one and four american Children grow up without learning how to read. This is crazy. Like, these statistics are so alarming because again, we're talking about a life skill, something that you are going to use every day, and then we say, well let's just hold them back, let's, you know, let's just let's just let them repeat the same grade and I'm like, wait a sec. So something that didn't work, we're gonna just repeat that process and it may not work again. 00:10:09 But so we're gonna do the same thing the same way and expect different results. Like really? Like, do you really think that's going to work. So going into the mindset question, right, we have to do what works best for our students and we have to just think, oh, all of our kiddos can be successful and I'm guilty of this. So when I first started teaching, I would say, oh well these kids again, these kids, right? Because they're not my kids, these kids, these kids are belong to me. Like that's what I was thinking, so, oh well, like these kids, they just don't care, they just don't get it. Like, just you know, look where they are and I was like probably 20 to 21 like I was super duper young, so not as mature as I am now, but that was me. I was like totally on the struggle bus and what I had to do was realize that I was uncomfortable because I didn't know what to do and I didn't know how to do it. I knew I needed help, I knew like, okay, I need some help because what I'm doing obviously is not working and I don't want my kiddos to be left behind, but my pride was in the way I was too afraid to ask for help because I didn't want people to know that I didn't know and really we've got to switch our mindset because we can do anything that we put our mind to, we can do it, but I would just wasn't successful, I needed help and I needed guidance. 00:11:33 So what we really need to do is embrace our growth mindset, put our pride aside and if you need help, I want you to ask, well who can help me, who's the person that can go to and now you have me, so you can reach out to me and I can help you. Like, we've got to find someone who can help you and you have to be ready to come to that person, ready to co create. It is not fun for a mentor or for a coach when someone comes to them and just say, help me, give me all the answers, like pour the information in my brain. Well now you have no incentive to actually jump in and dive in because you didn't really do the work, someone just gave it to you. Like you've got to be ready to co create. Listen, these are my kiddos. I've got six boys. Six boys love dinosaurs. Six boys love to talk. Six boys are so active that can't sit still in their seats and I need some help because they're reading on A level four and they're supposed to be on A level 16. Okay, now you're coming ready to co create, you've got some background knowledge, you know, what's going on and now we can move forward. 00:12:38 So the biggest thing we have to do is really shift our mindset. I love so much about what you said, and I love the question of who can help me, right, how do I identify the people that are out there because there are so many people out there who do coaching, who do support, who just like you said, you are a person who coaches, other instructors and other teachers, like people can reach out to you. And so I think that's so important in terms of when we're thinking about action steps and that's the next thing I want to talk about. You know, what, what are the action steps we can actually take to to do this and what does that look like in a class? But I think maybe one of those action steps is also finding the people who can help you. I think there's a phrase that I'm sure I'm gonna get incorrect but something like who not how and so sometimes we're always deep in the how like how do I take this on and for many things that can work and for some things it just makes more sense to find who can support you in doing this to make the how that much more efficient and effective. And so I just really appreciate that framing that like we all need help. We're all growing and learning. 00:13:40 We're all on that journey, just like our students are and so being able to identify who's going to support us is a huge action step that would be really high lovers for people to take. But I'll return to that question. What would you suggest to to educators who are like, all right, I'm ready to take some action. What does that brave action look like? Absolutely lindsey and this reminds me of our sessions that we do like the pause and take five, you know, like first of all, let's recognize what's going on here. So my doctor Sherry bridges practice is coming out like what can we do, what's going on, where can I get help? So let's look at some great action steps. So the first thing you need to do is really look at your data like okay, well what's going on? One time I was teaching and I looked around my classroom and girl it was a hot mess. Like my small group looked good. But my kiddos who were just out in the classroom doing stations girl, I don't know what they were doing. Like one kid was doing a backflip when people like one group was throwing the dice in the air, they're supposed to be playing a board game. 00:14:42 And I stopped because at first I was gonna say what are we doing? Like we're not supposed to be doing that. So I told my small group, hey guys I need to go do some independent reading and I'm gonna go to each group and I'm gonna take notes and I'm gonna see what's going on. So I started collecting data and by this time I was like maybe 25. So I was a little bit older and I was like, okay, this group doesn't really know what to do, that's what they're throwing the dice in the air and it could be that there's six and I didn't explain the directions well enough for them. So the first thing you've got to do when you have a problem is actually analyze what the problem is. Like, okay, this is what I notice, this is what's going on. And then you have to realize that there is a community of people that will help you. Like as soon as I got my notes, I started finding my who. I was like okay there as a reading coach here, there's a veteran teacher down the hallway. I'm going to my principal like I need help because if he would have come into my classroom and saw that I know I would not have been rated as high as I would have wanted to be rated because we don't need to be thrown the next in the air. So first of all, we need to look at our data, then we need to identify our community of people who can help us. 00:15:47 Then after that, if you're a leader, I would totally go into weekly PLC s. Now when I was a teacher in colorado, we got out of school at one o'clock every single monday and I was like, who? And we would go to P. L. C. S. And at that time again, I was young, I was like, I want to do this, but I learned so much in those PLC's that I still used to this day and let me tell you when I talk there, we were 98% free and reduced lunch over 90% english language learners. And we had some of the highest test scores in the state. Look at the school, it's called centennial Elementary and I was in Harrison School district two and my principles were awesome. They were amazing. We did PLC? S every single monday. And to this day I'm using thinking maps to this day. I'm using how can I keep my kiddos involved to this day? I'm still using the Senate stems that we had to put on our wall to give our kiddos a good starting point. I agree because blank and this is why blah blah blah. 00:16:48 You know, so those P. L. C. S. Were so helpful. So data community P. L. C. S. And then teamwork. You don't have to do things on your own. And I don't know why as teachers, sometimes we feel like we're alone and we have to do things on our own because we don't and then we wonder why our students are not good at collaborating. Well, maybe we're not modeling the correct thing to do for them. So how can we actually work together? I had a teacher that I taught with here in south Carolina that was my girl, she would come in. We will tackle team, we will plan together, we will team teach. Sometimes I watch her sometimes she watched me and she was teacher of the year and then the next year I was teacher of the year runner up but I wasn't doing it on my own. I had help. I had a community, I have people who were willing to get in and do the teamwork with me. So always remember that your data, your community, your P. L. C. S in your teamwork, wow that is so good. And I love that you're really emphasizing the P. L. C. S. There too. Like the just the space that leadership had carved out to say you have this time to figure out the stuff to share ideas to test things out. 00:17:57 And I think so much of like really quality leadership in education is identifying when to I wouldn't necessarily say take something off of teachers plates but to make the space to have those conversations and if we're just constantly adding like you have to type up a five page lesson plan for every single period or something, you know like is that really moving the needle versus you get those two hours back this week and you're going to be able to chat and ask questions and co teach and you know, whatever it is that you need to be successful. I think that is so profound that you're naming that as a huge experience. That's still informing your pregnant today. Like years later today today I have teachers that I coached that says Helen, I used your circle map and I put the sentence stems above it. Oh my gosh, what do you know they got it? I'm like, girl, the old stuff still works like this? Technology is awesome. But let me tell you, when I was doing this in the early 2010, we was rocking and rolling. We didn't have 1 to 1. 00:18:58 Okay, We may have had two computers in the classroom to that's it in 2015, I I have five and I had to write a grant for three of them. Like it wasn't all of this 1 to 1, so the technology is great, but I don't want you to forget about having your kiddos hold a pencil and paper in their hands, having them actually communicate and collaborate with one another. We did it, I did it in the nineties, I did it in the early two thousand's, I graduated high school in 22,009. Oh my gosh, so, but like those are things we did and I came out just fine, Just fine. Yes, such a great point. And I would love to tap back into this coaching conversation too as well just to just to give people um kind of a picture of what coaching looks like. I just think about all of the times when I didn't have a coach or people who I talk to you now don't have a coach, whether it's a teacher or a leader or anyone because I think any of the stakeholders in, in education spaces could benefit from coaching. 00:20:00 And so do you, do you mind walking us through, like, what is a coaching relationship look like or what is it that you do as a coach to give us an example of like, what would it mean to get coaching for someone who's just completely unfamiliar with what that might look like? Absolutely. So coaching isn't an extra thing to your plate is to help you and it's to enhance your job as a teacher, as a leader and you're here to foster success for all of your students. So I find that coaching is very successful when we devise a plan and follow it because we can't just come in like, oh willy nilly as my mom would say, no, like we need to establish some norms, then we need to establish like maybe 3 to 5 goals and then we're gonna tackle them one at a time. So if you're saying, hey Lauren, I have 10 kids who are below grade level and they're just not going to get there. And I'm just thinking like, well unless this child isn't come in the school and you don't see them, we can get them there. So the first thing we've got to do is think, well why, why are they so far behind and then we've got to think, well how can we get there? 00:21:07 And these are things that we're talking about together because I really believe that no one's an expert, I don't know anyone that people say, oh, I'm an expert, I know you're not like new things come out all the time. You're not an expert. I'm not an expert. I know a lot about the science of reading. I have like three degrees, I've studied it for over 10 years that there are still things that I'm learning every day. So we've got to get out of our mind. Like I'm gonna get with an expert because anyone who's coaching is a lifelong learner and so we're getting together and we're going to co create some things. You're gonna tell me some of your ideas, I'm gonna tell you some of my ideas, we're gonna put it together and bam we've got ourselves a plan. But if you're coming to coaching and you just want to like lay out all of your problems and then someone give you all the solutions like that's just not reality. And Lindsay, you coach and so like have, do you have all the answers Lindsay, like Lindsay's phenomenal Lindsay is the bomb. I ask her questions all the time and I know that she doesn't have all the answers because sometimes she'll say, you know what, let me look, I just learned about this and I'm learning so much and that just signifies to me that she is a lifelong learner and that she's absolutely brilliant because anyone who has all of the answers probably doesn't have all the answers they maybe being a little prideful, Oh my gosh, I love that you named that like, and, and thank you for the shout out Lord is a phenomenal coach. 00:22:25 So anyone looking for coaching highly recommend Lauren. But yeah, this idea of, of thinking about, you know, like how do I continue to be a lifelong learner and co create with a coach is so important because I think the, the as a leader, I'm thinking about leaders who might want to push their teachers into coaching or even as a teacher who's like, I don't know about this coaching thing, maybe it's on offer for me, but I have to like sign up and opt into it and there's a lot of skepticism around, you know what that looks like and doesn't feel like an addition to my plate, like you said, it's, it's really making everything more effective and efficient and it's, it is a space where you can bring some problems, but you also need to bring that solution oriented, you know, hat as well to be able to say like if it's going to work, it has to be, you know, my idea just as much as the coach's idea, maybe the coach puts out some options for me, but I choose the one I'm doing right, choose how I'm going to implement it and I know my kids best because maybe my coach isn't with the kids as much as I am. And so I think all of that is, is so important to just name when there is hesitation around the idea of coaching and the potential for growth is just so huge. 00:23:31 I love it when you were describing, you know, the student who had a challenge and you're like, well I know if that kid is coming to class we can get them to where they need to be and that's so important that that confidence to show up as a coach in that way, but also to instill that in teachers, like there is hope, like there's definitely hope and we can get there and here's what it's gonna look like. We're just kind of putting the path together and like you said, co creating it, but I think that's so important as we think about, you know, our own individual journeys of growth as educators and as leaders who are fascinating that for their teachers, so important to keep in mind. And so I also want to just give you space to talk about like the, the programs and like specific types of coaching that you do because you are an educational consultant and coach and you have your own business. And so I just want to give space to, you know, be able for you to be able to challenge people to think about what that would look like for them and really describe what it is that you do if they're interested in following up with you. Absolutely. So I do a lot of the literacy coaching, I love literacy, I do do some social emotional learning things that I really collaborate with Lindsay and Cherie on that. 00:24:40 They are phenomenal. So I bring in a lit piece of the Puzzle, but with literacy, my focus is, well, why aren't our kids getting there? Like what's going on? I feel like anything that can have a solution, the solution is there, right? We just Gotta get to it. And so if we've had no child left behind for like over 20 years, apparently some Children are being left behind, right? So perhaps that's not working. So what can we do? Because it drives me crazy when people continue to do the same things over and over and over and over and expect different results. Guess what? It's just like this. If you're gonna keep eating a cheeseburger every day, you're not gonna get different results, you're just not, you have to do something different. And so I work with teachers and leaders to figure out what are we doing, What do our scores look like? Why do they look this way and how are we going to pivot to make sure that there is a change and sometimes it doesn't happen in a month. Sometimes it doesn't happen in two months, you have to think about it. It took us years to get where we are, so it's not gonna be fixed overnight, right? 00:25:43 But there's different things that we can do to ensure our students get there and sometimes we're thinking of it, like lindsey said like I've got these five page lesson plans and oh we've got this, you know, we've got that when really are the lesson plans for you or who are we turning these five page lesson plans and for and why? Like why is this a requirement? What are we doing to help our Children learn how to read? How are we making sure that we're setting them up for life and success. So I do coaching, I do professional development, do strategic planning, anything you need regarding literacy in the elementary school. I am here to help you and I am here to support you. Amazing, thank you so much learn. And so you've shared so many really good ideas throughout this episode that I am curious to know if there's just one thing that listeners are taking away from the episode or they're kind of ready to get started around like these action steps that you've named, what would that first thing be? 00:26:43 So they can really live in alignment with all the things you've described today. Absolutely. So the first thing we've got to do is look at our own student data and we talked about that earlier and then we've got to look at our own teaching practices, We've got to look at our curriculum and we've got to realize you know, where am I and why am I here and I don't want you to get caught up in the blame game. I don't want you to say, well, it's their fault or where is this this or is this? Because at the end of the day we're still where we are. So it doesn't really matter whose fault it is. It matters what we're gonna do to change those results. So don't get stuck on the blame game. If it's your fault, it's the parents fault the teacher's fault from last year. If it's a kindergarten teacher thought it doesn't matter because the most important thing is our students, so don't get stuck there. Don't get stuck on the problem, gets stuck on a solution. Because if you stay at the problem, you're not gonna have a solution. So what I want you to do is shift your mindset and you can do anything that you put your mind to look within yourself. 00:27:44 Look within your practice is because you can do it just like you have to know, you can believe in yourself. So if you believe in yourself, you can do it. I always think about the story of David and Goliath. You see Goliath, you're like, oh, he's huge. He's huge. I can't take him down and everyone's like, oh, put on this armor and David's like, I don't need all this armor and he goes, and he gets the stones and he goes, wow and shoot his head off. Like you had, he had to believe in himself that he can do it. He's like, I'm not gonna let you know whose fault it is, blame this and I'm not gonna let who did this. No, we got a goal here and the goal is to take down this giant. So I'm gonna take down this giant. So this problem with literacy in our men and our american Children and you know, really, it's a lot of black men who end up incarcerated and if we're looking away, what are we doing to help all men, but to really help all of us to help our black men to, you know, get out of this problem because it's a cycle and a set and it doesn't have to be that way, it doesn't have to be that way. 00:28:44 So if we can change our mindset, if we can look at our own practices and if we can realize, okay, this is where we are, you know, this is what's going on now, how am I gonna change this problem? There are some things right there that you can do awesome, Thank you so much Lauren and I really appreciate that you're like right naming and recognizing there there are so many, you know, structural issues right? When we think about like racism in our country and like the fact that like you said a lot of black men are incarcerated, like there's so many reasons for the, and like it is important to name those, but also at the end of the day, if you're in the class, you are the teacher, you have a locus of control and you can control their ability to learn to read. So if you're helping in that way you need to be able to take that on and say like this is what I'm contributing to the dissolution of all the suppression. Like you gotta do it. And so I think that's a really important thing to name. Thank you lindsey, I appreciate you acknowledging that because like I don't want to skip over it and act like it's not happening because it is and as a teacher, even in south Carolina, you know who's still reaching out to me, I don't even tutor anymore and every single person reaching out to me for tutoring help because their child can't read is a young african american boy and how can I not take it on. 00:30:01 And so I'm always like sure, yep, sure I'll help, I'll help, I'll help because I'm like, if I can just be that one person that can help this child know how to read. Last year, I helped the child who started with a level three and he was a young african american boy and I was like, he's on a level three Really and by the time he was done with me just maybe six months, we have made it all the way to a level 14 now I was in grade level because he needs to be at an 18 but look at the growth and all. I had to do our first session. I tell me all about you, what do you like? He's like, I like dinosaurs. I like this, but I'm not good. Like in his head he said, I'm not good. I'm not good at this. And when I say I'm not good at it, she still calls me to read out loud in front of everybody like the devastation. You know, my heart just broke, My heart broke for them. So we have to really realize, you know who is behind why are they behind and sometimes we have to realize just look inside of ourselves and look at our own biases and look at the other things that are going on in our environment. 00:31:05 Am I tailoring my instruction to meet the needs of all all students, some students because a lot of the times you'll see little girls, little girls sit there like this, my daughter will do it. She says they're like this all day. Listen to my son. Girl is turning backflips, turn back flips and if it weren't for me, I don't know if he'd be where he is in reading because I work with them all the time because I know the statistics and I'm going to make sure that he knows how to read. So just really keeping that in my, you know who's behind and why they are behind and what we're doing to make sure we're addressing all of our learners. Yes, thank you so much for saying that. And I think as we kind of move too close, I can't believe it's already been almost 30 minutes. But as you move to close, I know you self described as a lifelong learner. So I love that you're passionate about other people learning, you clearly are passionate about learning yourself. So just for fun, I love to just ask at the end of the episode, you know, what's something that you have been learning about lately? Yes. So I have really been spending a lot of time digging into reading and listening. 00:32:07 Hey, we have two ears, one mouth, which one's more important listening. So I've been spending more time listening to teachers, to students to what's going on. And I've really started to recognize the importance of integrating Children's literacy into all aspects of the curriculum, not just reading, not just social studies everywhere. And I am stuck on jury Jon Jory john if you're listening, I'm your number one fan. If you're, if you're listening, hit a girl up, he has written so many, um, so many Children's books that can totally be used in elementary school, but if you want to use it in like middle and high school just to get a good laugh and you know, get the conversation going, he's your guy. So he wrote like the good, he wrote the bad seed, he wrote, that's what dinosaurs do. But I really love the detail. So I started to dig into the detail and the writing, I started to dig into the literacy lessons that can be used. I started to really look into the comic relief that he's putting in there for our kiddos, the engagement and also if you are a fan of social emotional learning, his books are perfect for stu I love a good book recommendation and author recommendation is even better than one book. 00:33:20 Hey Lindsay you can read this to your baby and crack up because he's gonna be a baby like mommy, what are you laughing at? But they are so good. He has so much comic relief. I crack up when I read them. Oh, that's amazing. Oh, this is so good. Yeah, I feel like, I don't know where this quote came from, but there's a quote out there that's like no one doesn't like to read, but they just haven't found the right book yet or something like that and it's like, right, Like sometimes you just need a comedy, like let's get comedies and kids hands. Yes, yes. Everything that has to be so boring, right? Like, oh of course I don't want to read this sucks. I don't like it. So it's like this is something that we want to read our kiddos will engage. Absolutely. And so I'm sure as people are listening today to this episode and hearing you talk and share all this brilliant wisdom and knowing that you are a coach who offers coaching services. I'm sure people are gonna want to reach out and connect with you learn more about you. How can people do that? Absolutely. So I'm not a huge social media person guys, sorry, but I do have a podcast. It's the Lawrence Sophia show podcast, wherever you get your podcast, you can get the Lauren Sophia show. 00:34:20 I do series like learning series, I've done an SCL series right now. I'm doing a teacher mentorship series. By the time you listen to this, I'll be onto a new series but check that out. You can also email me at Lauren at Lauren Sophia consulting dot com and Lindsay will have a link in the show notes for you guys to actually click on to get to my podcast, get to the show notes and get to everything that I have to offer. Awesome Lauren, thank you so much for being on the show today. It was so fun to host you. Thank you lindy. You're awesome. Thank you so much if you're leaving this episode, wanting more. You're going to love my live coaching intensive curriculum bootcamp. I help one department or grade team create feminist anti racist curricula that challenges affirms and inspires all students, we leave current events into course content and amplify student voices, which skyrockets engagement and academic achievement. It energizes educators feeling burns out and it's just two days plus you can reuse the same process any time you create a new unit, which saves time and money. 00:35:23 If you can't wait to bring this to your staff, I'm inviting you to sign up for a 20 minute call with me, grab a spot on my calendar at www dot lindsey Beth Lyons dot com slash contact. Until next time leaders continue to think big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the teach, Better podcast network, better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better dot com slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
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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
March 2025
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