Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In the episode, the amazing Angela Watson and I talk about how teachers can thrive alongside students, how we do best as a community of specialists, and what it looks like to be working in a flow state. If teacher retention and staff well-being is important to you, this is a must listen!
Angela Watson is a productivity and mindset specialist, author, and motivational speaker for educators. She has supported countless teachers in making teaching more effective, efficient, and enjoyable, including on her amazing podcast, Truth for Teachers, which I truly enjoy. In this episode, Angela talks to us about her vision for empowering teachers and students and creating classrooms centered on authenticity and flow. The Big Dream Angela envisions a place where educators and students can co-thrive together, with their needs not being pitted against each other. By focusing on the strengths of students and working collectively as a community, we can create an educational environment where everyone feels accepted and supported in being their authentic selves. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content In order to achieve this dream, teachers can shift their mindset, adopt new pedagogical approaches, embrace innovative assessments, and ensure that content is relevant and engaging for students. Angela emphasizes the importance of empowering teachers and students to create change in their classrooms and tap into student motivation and engagement. Mindset Shifts Required Teachers do not need to be all things to all students. Instead, let’s work collectively as a community. A strengths-based approach helps staff and students! Angela says: “It's not possible to be good at everything and teaching. You cannot be a subject area expert, a developmental appropriateness, pedagogical kind of expert, explain things well, good at curriculum planning, good at parent communication, good at data entry, good at explaining yourself in IEP meetings…there's so many different things. You're going to be better at some than others, and I would love to see schools be a place where we work as a community to have all the needs met. So, instead of every individual having to be good at every single thing or, let's be real, to be excelling…What if we thought about it as a community effort? So maybe I'm really good at preparing activities and you're really good at the relationship piece with students and they feel like they can trust you and come to you…Partner together instead of trying to be all things to all students, which is just a recipe for burnout.” How do we make this happen? Work with Others Angela says, “It's much harder to dehumanize or demonize…people who don't share your values if you have accomplished something with them. If you've worked to get an extra recess break with people who have different viewpoints than you, it's much harder then, when we're talking about book banning, to be like ‘You're a monster who hates kids.’ Clearly you're not, because you just worked with me to get more recess time. So are there ways that we can work towards things that we do have in common, to create a positive change? And then, can we just find this small cadre of like minded folks to to push the envelope a little bit towards the things that are maybe not what anyone agrees on?” Pedagogically… Amplify student voice and belonging Follow students' lead and interests, allowing them to be more engaged in the learning process. Create a space for students to feel vulnerable, fostering a sense of belonging and connection. Build a toolbox of strategies to support a flow state Instead of “on task”, aim for a flow state. The state of flow (Csikszenthmihalyi) is where you're so absorbed in a task that you lose track of all time. Angela says, “It's one of the peak human experiences, and the optimal way to experience a flow state is when you're being challenged.” We can support student flow by emphasizing that we're learning alongside our students and there's no judgment around not being able to concentrate. “It's not a bad thing. It is a morally neutral thing And we don't need to load it down with all this baggage and guilt and shame….We all experience things and we're just not motivated. Challenges? It can be hard to find the time for reflection and personal growth as educators and overcome feelings of inadequacy in teaching these skills if we haven’t mastered them ourselves yet. (But we can learn alongside students!) One Step to Get Started Start by noticing and affirming the strengths and interests of your students. This simple act can have a profound impact on their engagement and motivation, ultimately contributing to a more fulfilling educational experience for both students and teachers. Stay Connected You can find Angela on her website. Also, check out her 40 Hour Teacher Workweek program and Finding Flow Solutions curriculum. To help you find the time and energy to implement some of the ideas we discussed today, Angela is sharing her and her students’ wisdom with you during The 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Online Summit! (This was free for live attendees July 10-11, but you can still access the recording for $19.) And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 133 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I coach teachers on addressing unplanned issues in class:
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9/11/2023 132. A Framework for Teaching Structural Racism in US History with Ayo Magwood M.ScRead Now
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In this podcast episode, Ayo shares her innovative approach to teaching structural racism and fostering civic consciousness in the classroom. Discover how using data inquiries, historical context, and value tensions can empower students to think critically, engage in national conversations, and shape a better future.
Ayo Magwood, M.Sc., (Uprooting Inequity, LLC) specializes in evidence-based, apolitical, and solutionary training on understanding and remediating structural racism. She is passionate about fostering cross-difference cooperation towards realizing equal opportunity for all. Her superpower is her ability to synthesize a wide range of research, data, primary sources, and abstract concepts and weave them into engaging narratives and diagrams. Ayo was recently recognized as a leading expert on social justice education. She has a B.A. from Brown University and a M.Sc. in applied economics from Cornell University. The Big Dream To provide students with the historical context and understanding needed to engage in national conversations about structural racism and policy issues. Ayo’s Election Unit Ayo created an election unit that focused on historical context and understanding rather than candidates. Designed to equip students with the knowledge they need to engage in national conversations and shape a better future, Ayo focused on teaching historical through-lines that explain racial inequality, racial tension, racism, structural racism, income inequality, and political polarization. She encouraged students to think critically, ask questions, and discover the truth for themselves. Ayo’s Framework Ayo uses data inquiries for students to uncover the existence of structural racism on their own. By distinguishing between empirical issues and opinion/policy issues, she ensures that the classroom stays focused on the evidence while promoting civic consciousness that “benefits the common good.” This approach allows for respectful conversations in the classroom and helps students understand and take informed positions on policy issues, working together across ideological differences. Focus on structural racism over bias. Ayo says, “I feel that it's more important as a US history teacher to teach that historical context and about structural racism. They have 100 chances to learn about interpersonal race outside that classroom, but they will have very few chances to learn that history and about structural racism outside the classroom. And…that historical structural racism will set them up to learn about bias.” Framing structural racism as an empirical issue, she minimizes disruptions and parent concerns while creating a learning space where students can think critically and make evidence-based decisions. Challenges, Or Where Things Could Go Wrong Two ways classroom conversations about race are disrupted by students or parents include:
Action Steps Introduce Value Tensions Invite students to identify what’s going on underneath a political disagreement and encourage students to move away from extremes, instead asking students to position themselves on a continuum. Examples: individual rights vs. common good; civil liberties vs. national security. Data Inquiries Give students space to investigate and draw their own conclusions from empirical data. Implicit Practices Model that we all make mistakes and learn from them. Foster an “equity-conscious identity” or a “we” identity. Get Started! Read! You can start with Ayo’s Psychology Today article. Survey your students and ask for feedback on your lessons. Get Ayo’s free lesson on perspectives consciousness and start introducing values tensions in your class. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on her website, Uprooting Inequity. To help you introduce value tensions and perspectives consciousness in your classroom, Ayo is sharing a free lesson with you! And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 132 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where I show you how to create an intellectual ancestors tree:
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
Wow, we’re entering the 4th season of this podcast! Each year, it has evolved to better your listening experience. I’m so excited to tell you what’s coming in the new season!
More Unit Dreaming What started as a series has generated a lot of enthusiasm from listeners and unit dreaming guests alike. Additionally, the department teams I work with for my Curriculum Boot Camp events always crave more examples of unit outlines. So, unit dreaming episodes will be a regular feature of the show. I plan to start with one per month, and we can always expand from there. For more “What does this look like in action?” support around unit planning and building, my YouTube channel has a “Unit Planning in Action” playlist dedicated to designing sample units. If 5-minute walkthrough videos of examples is your thing, check it out! If you like a good challenge, follow or connect with me on LinkedIn, where I share a #UnitDreaming spark at the start of each week. Add a comment to tell me how you would build the spark into a unit or coach a teacher to build a unit around the spark. Or use it as a private journal prompt and develop what Dr. Gholnecsar Muhammad calls “curriculum fluency.” (Here’s our episode with Dr. Muhammad.) Don’t worry about missing previously posted #UnitDreaming sparks, you can check out all of the past sparks here. More Guests Now that I have a walkthrough/mini tutorial-style YouTube channel, I would love to make more space for the brilliance of guests on the show. Many guests record 4-6 months (or more) in advance of the episode air date because there’s so many awesome people to interview. Furthermore, I have declined to interview prospective guests because of my narrow focus on curriculum design during season 3. While I will continue to focus on things that will really move the needle for you within the topics I specialize in, I also want to bring back a focus on student voice and co-creation in the realms of unit design, yes, but also on “voice” in classroom discussions as an instructional practice as well as “voice” in co-creating school policies and participating in school governance alongside adults (which is my research background). More Flexibility I also want to be less rigid in my scheduling. I used to alternate solo shows and guest episodes in an every other week cadence. This season, I want to create solo shows as I have something important to share, and not feel like I need to record a solo show just to fit the schedule I made. This may mean some months have 3 solo shows and others have none. We’ll see how it goes! I want to hear from you! What do you think of this plan? Nothing is set in stone. (See “More Flexibility.”) And ultimately, I want this podcast to be as helpful as possible to you! I know there are podcasts I listen to that I think “I want more solo shows from the host!” and others where I want more guests. So, tell me what your ideal ratio of solo:guest shows are, share the topics or questions you want to be addressed. Feel free to reply in the comments or send me an email at hello@lindsaybethlyons.com. Just so you never miss an episode…make sure you click or tap “Follow” on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for continuing on this beautiful ride with me. Here’s to Season 4! If you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 131 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript here.
See how you can unit plan using math and justice connections in this video:
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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
September 2023
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