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Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Each educator has their own personal values. And every class, school, or district has them too. Some of these values are deeply integrated into classroom curriculum while others are placeholders on the website. No matter where you are on this spectrum, we can all agree that there needs to be alignment between values—what we say we care about—and what we actually do. For this reason, educators can take some time to complete a values-action alignment activity to take stock of where they are and how they can improve. I covered this practice in-depth on episode 92 of the Time for Teachership podcast, so you can listen to it as well! Step 1: Decide your values The first step to align values with action is to actually know what your values are. Think through these questions:
Step 2: Values-action curriculum alignment Once you have identified the values that are important in your setting, it’s time to align them directly with curriculum content and activities. Take an inventory of everything that’s going on in your setting—activities, curriculum, projects, etc. You can do this by engaging various stakeholders including students, other teachers and colleagues, and the curriculum plan. Once you have a scope of the content and curriculum, assign one of the values to each item. You can do this by creating a document or log of each item and it’s assigned value. Step 3: What is success? After aligning your values and actions, zoom out and ask: what does success look like? What makes the curriculum successful can be divided into a few different parts:
Step 4: Design with values in mind After going through this exercise, you can continue the process by asking one simple question for every decision: what values are prioritized here? Make it an ongoing process by writing the question on the top of every agenda or curriculum plan so that your values are visible and obviously aligned with each task and item. And, in all of this, consider the process. It’s not just about the end product, but how we got there. So, who’s involved? Does everyone get a voice? Are we asking the right questions? Commit to the process and don’t try to rush through this practice. --- If you want to go even deeper into this practice, listen to episode 92 of the Time for Teachership podcast. This simple activity will take some time, but it will help you better align your values and actions, which positively impacts your class and your ability to support students. TRANSCRIPT 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 in this episode. We're going to dive into a key practice that I recommend a values action alignment activity you may have found in my diagnosing adaptive challenges many workbook. This practice is suggested by adaptive leadership scholars. This is one with a curricular focus. I've adapted it a little bit. I also want to say that this is a practice based episode. 00:01:02 I'm going to start to curie episodes of the solo variety where it's just me talking to you in various forms. So I'll talk a little bit more about that. But let's dive into this practice episode. Hello and welcome to another solo show of the time for teacher ship podcast. This is going to be a practice episode. And what I mean by that is I'm going to start organizing the solo shows by specific type. So sometimes it will be a recommended practice or resource I've developed for you. Other times it will be a case study, maybe a coaching call or something in which you know, something's happening out in the world and you see something put into action. So you can kind of take away from what they have done to learn from that. Another one will be a resource dive where I take an organization, uh text based library, uh something that exists out in the world that you can use to help you develop awesome curriculum, a current event that something is happening in the world and you're maybe grappling with, how do we address this as a district, as a school, as a teacher in a classroom? 00:02:16 What kind of resources do I need? What kind of things do I need to consider when I have a conversation about this with students or plan a lesson or unit around this for students and then the final one is a mindset shift, so a key idea that might be new or push thinking something that's going to really underlie transformative change in a curriculum development lens. So those are going to be the new kind of topics. And again, as I said, this one is a practice episode. So the practice here or recommended strategy I would suggest is a values action alignment activity. As I said in the opening, this is adapted from the diagnosing adaptive challenges, Many workbook that I've shared before on the podcast and on the blog, This is more focused around curriculum review. So if you are a curriculum leader all the way down to if you are a teacher um and anywhere in between your an instructional coach or a principal, anyone who has anything to do with curriculum. 00:03:18 If you are thinking through this lens of values, I think there's going to be something profound in your planning. That shifts honestly, I never planned this way. And so as a coach, I've developed kind of this language and these practices and I kind of want to go back to be able to say how would I plan differently. I think it would have been transformative. So let's dive into this and kind of think with that lens of how can you coach teachers or support teachers or department, right? Or how as yourself as a teacher, if you're a teacher, how do I do this in a way that is of course sustainable and doable. But also that really pushes me to center these values in all of my planning and collect the data to make sure that everything is aligned in the way that I think it is first step here, we need to decide what our values are. So you can decide on your personal individual values that's gonna figure out, help you figure out, you know, how you are interacting and planning and doing all of that. But also I think, you know, your class, your school, your district, all of these levels that we have in education, they have values as well and I believe that they should be co created right? 00:04:27 Everyone should know what the shared values are. They should come to consensus around them. They shouldn't just be handed to them, Right? So that's something that we want to think about. What are our values? What was the process of how we came to those values? Does everyone know our values? What is our website say about our values? And does that align, right? This is the values, action alignment activity. Does that align to what we're currently doing? There are a lot of values activities out there to be able to get to that place for you to find the values. So you could probably just google like values activities for for teams or something. I would suggest something like maybe starting with a list values and action is great and I'll include that as the free beach of this episode. There's some great values in action posters and they also have assessments that you can have your staff take. I've done this with students, I've done this with departments where you kind of figure out as an individual where your strengths are and then you look collectively at, oh, these values are the most commonly held in our staff or department team or our student Behati right, whatever that is, that's something that you can kind of start with and then you can open it up to discussion. 00:05:36 You can just start with an open discussion. I've also done activities with students before where there's kind of like the story and then throughout the story, students have to kind of use these kind of tickets that they made where they put down things that are really important to them and you can use these values, write down all the values that are important to them. And they have to kind of spend the tickets when you create the story and they come to an event in the story where they have to, you know, trade their tickets for survival or for something, right? And at the end they basically have, you know, three or four tickets left. And the idea is, it's a prioritization activity to be able to determine what is absolutely most important to you because we can say we hold all these values, but if you're only limited to a few, what are those that come out on top? Because often in curriculum development planning in life we have these clashes of values, right? We have competing commitments. That's another activity from the adaptive challenges workbook. But when we have these competing commitments, one wins. Right? So which ones are winning? 00:06:40 And if we can define that from the outset, right? And these are the values we really hold true. It's a little bit easier to determine in the moment. As for curriculum planning, as we're reviewing curriculum, as we're seeing it being implemented. Oh yes, I see that value come to the surface, I see that value being kind of the winner. When these two were in conflict, you can see this in class discussion, staff discussion, super interesting lens to view things on. So once you have the values established and everyone again has been a part of that conversation, we've come to consensus on it and everyone's really clear about what they are, not just at the moment we come to consensus, but they can recall and remember and constantly refer back to and name the values that we have agreed upon once the values are solid. Now, what I want you to do is the activity of values action alignment. So there's several questions you're gonna want to ask yourself. I would start as I often start with kind of an inventory or a data collection of what is currently going on. So you can look at a curriculum map, you can look at the different activities and you can use that as kind of one piece, but I like triangulating the data. 00:07:46 So what do the students say, what does the curriculum map or lesson plan or unit plan say? Why, what does the kind of instructional code or leader perspective? The observers may be pure observers, Other teachers, what do they say they're seeing? And then the instructional designer or implementer? Right. The teacher, what are they saying? So kind of figuring out that's more than a triangle, that's more than three points but figuring out all the different perspectives. What are the students being asked to do in a curriculum, What activities are they engaged in, what content are they learning about And then when you figure out what's going on, Each activity or each content piece, each element of the curriculum is going to be aligned to a value. So you have to not only identify what's going on, what are the activities of the content pieces that students are engaging with, but for each one of those. So once you list them out, type them up in a google doc, write them out on paper, you're going to identify a value behind the activity or the text used or the topic selection, whatever component of curriculum design that it is listing all the components aligning to all the values and then you can take a look at which values are people actually spending the most time on which values have the least time spent on them is their alignment to what we decided as a group that we valued. 00:09:15 Again, another perspective here would be the student's perspective to really make sense of this. You're not just coming in as kind of this leader or coach or even as the teacher in the class saying this is what's happening, You also want to get students perspectives, what values do you see being played out in the activities. So you can invite them to kind of track their activities or talk about the activities maybe that we're even most memorable to them throughout the week and then optionally you could even have a conversation about? What are the values of wanting to each or you know have them write that down as a journal prompt. So we've got the values that step one. We get clear on those come to consensus. Everybody's really understanding what they are. Then we figure out what activities or curricular components are there? What are students doing? What are they learning about? What texts are they using? Then we align the values to each activity. Next we want to have these big picture questions of what is success? Right. What is success for a curriculum for students? 00:10:19 Like why are we here? Right. What do we want to do for for students here? So one element of that is assessment. So think about that. What types of assessment are there a curricular component? Right. If we're listing all that stuff out, should include the assessments. So maybe zoom in a little bit on those components. So what assessments were there? Are the tests? Are they projects? Think about the grading aspect of those assessments. Are they able to retake or resubmit some of these assessments? Which ones are graded? Is everything grated? Are they graded equally? Do the assignments that are turned in as kind of the summit of projects at the end of each quarter or unit? Are those great and more are the most recent projects completed or assessments completed weighted more heavily than at the start of the year? Right. What's the grading scale? Is that growth based, is the proficiency based all these questions. Do students even know what their grade means? Are there rubrics? Are we clear about how things are being graded? Are they linked to really important priority standards? 00:11:21 So we emphasize again that growth. How much importance are we giving to standardized test scores? Right. And how we talk to students about grades or test data? How much time are we spending working on test prep stuff? Right. All of these large scale questions. I want you to kind of zoom into assessment. What are those assessment components? How does the values that we establish in the beginning? How did those values align to our assessment components of our curriculum? Also do a deep dive into our pedagogy? So specifically, I would say with the lens towards student voice and engagements how and how often our students asked to even share their perspective on class, How they're feeling? Do they see their identities and experiences represented in the class? And also do they see identities and experiences different from their own regularly in the content in the texts. Is the pedagogy or the protocols that are being students are being asked to engage in in classrooms, fostering their grappling, Fostering their voice, fostering kind of co creation between students and teachers and students and students. 00:12:34 Do they see the courses relevant for their lives now? Are their current events or societal issues they think we should be talking about but we aren't in classes in school as a whole. Right? So again, thinking about all the curricular components that are related to the pedagogy to what degree of student voice or in what manner are we inviting student voice? Our students engaged. Right. And how did those pieces align to our values? Everyone. Just a quick reminder that your free resource for this episode is a series of values posters you can grab them at lindsey Beth Lyons dot com slash blog slash 92. Now, back to the episode, the next kind of bucket I would look at is our policies, our discipline policies specifically or some people call it behavior management or class management. But thinking about our values again zoom into what happens when there is an outburst. Right? What behavior warrants a discipline referral? What are our class agreements? Are their behavioral expectations that really value things like quiet compliance or do we have more of that kind of co creation or That busy hum students talking to one another? 00:13:46 Students being able to disagree with the teacher offering some pushback. Okay, what are these things that are happening again? How do they align? How do those policies align and also the implementation of those policies? Because sometimes they're different than the policies themselves. How do those align to our values? Also zoom into the things that we publicly celebrate. So I'm thinking here of student creation, right? If we want curriculum that is inspiring students to create something new to apply their learning in a public way with an audience beyond the teacher for a purpose beyond the grade. Are we inviting family staff students and community members to see the publication or implementation of students projects of their work? Are we celebrating that or are we celebrating kind of quantitative metrics? Where we're just looking at kind of test scores, graduation rates, you know? Could we also, if we really want quantitative measures, are we are we talking about uh student voice survey results, right? Students feelings of matter, student opportunities for meaningful leadership in schools or even outside of schools, inclusion of students and families and school governance, even students sense of criticality or sociopolitical development. 00:15:04 Like what are we actually sharing about and celebrating publicly because students see what we celebrate publicly. Right. And does that align with our values? I think again I mentioned this before but looking at our website to figure out what are the things that our school or our district are really saying are of value for example. Do we have a D. E. I. Statement somewhere on our website that says yes, we proclaim to value the student experience and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging and justice and all this stuff. And then when we look at these things right at the metrics that were publicly celebrating, Do those align I think one more thing I want to kind of zoom into as you're kind of asking yourself all of these questions and doing this values action alignment is thinking about the process and not always the final product. I've talked about this before actually there's an upcoming episode where I get to interview dr steven weber who talks about this as well, the importance of process of a product and I would say what is the process of kind of how we come to consensus around success, How we, you know, figure out the data that we want to share publicly. 00:16:15 How we came to the conclusion of the values right? How we include a range of stakeholders in even this activity, right? And all of the things that we do in all the decisions that we make in the data that we collect. So just kind of thinking also about process versus product as you know, what do we value more and then linking that to a value itself. So once you have this, so again, just to recap we have created co created, I want to emphasize that our values with stakeholders were clear on those. We take all of the curricular pieces, we list them out all the activities, all the components and then we assign or link them to a value from the values list. Or maybe we see values that weren't even on the list that are coming up again and again, who knows? And again, I'm going to give you the values in action list so you can have a bunch of values to jump off from. I know sometimes it's hard to think of values language. 00:17:17 So once we have that we got the values, we align them to the components of the activities you're going to figure out and you're gonna see patterns emerging of these are the most common values, these are the least common values in terms of the activities we're doing. Do we have alignment? Yes or no or to what degree? And then you can ask okay, so maybe we've identified that we haven't really done much with this particular value that we state that we have haven't really seen it come up, seen other values a lot more. Why why have we not done more in alignment with X value and what has been getting in the way? So have that conversation with yourself introspectively, but also with stakeholders and community what's going on name that our activities are not in alignment with this value, what do we want to change? Do we want to change? Do we want to just get rid of that value? Maybe that's the value we actually don't hold or maybe we do hold it but we're just not seeing alignment between the value and our actions. What I suggest is after you've kind of done all of this the next step is naming this process and the importance of the values themselves, but also the values action alignment process in everything that you do. 00:18:36 So design always with the values in mind by doing something like putting at the top of all of your agendas, all of your lesson or unit plan templates. The question what what values are prioritized here? So one more time at the top of all agendas, lesson unit plan tablets. Right? The question what values are prioritized here? So every time that an individual teacher chooses a project topic or a particular text for a class, every time that we have a professional development session we lied for a school or the district, what protocols are we sharing? And do they emphasize the values that are important to us? For example student voice, Any time that are school or district sends out a public communication or invitation to you know celebrate something, What are we doing? Right? What values are prioritized in this communication and this messaging? 00:19:41 What values are prioritized in that P. D. In the protocols were teaching what values are prioritized in the text we chose or the project question or theme. I think just having this one simple question is a great kind of action step. Of course there's all the stuff that I think has to come before it. So determining what your values are co creating them getting clear and I do think it's helpful to do an inventory. It doesn't need to be as extensive as I just kind of listed here. But even just a thoughtful kind of like one hour P. D. Around values, action alignment or leadership team meeting where you're talking about the stuff I think it'd be really helpful to kind of go through and say do we have alignment and just do a little bit, look at, look at maybe one curriculum from there. I think sharing the messaging of what you have unearthed what you have determined to be true in your analysis of this and then posing this question, if we're clear on our values, we're not seeing them in alignment or we're not seeing particular with an alignment or even if we are let's continue that trend right let's continue doing this. 00:20:46 This should be a question we always keep in mind when we're planning we're doing anything as a school, as a district. What values are prioritized with this decision so with that go forth, determine your values, clarify your values. If you've already kind of had them do the inventory, do the alignment mapping and ask on everything that you do what values are prioritized here in this decision we're making. I can't wait to hear how this goes for you. Please please share, reach out, tell me how it goes. Tell me how you're using and implementing the strategy and again this is a practice episode. So get excited for more of this kind of themed solo shows coming up and I will talk to you next week 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. 00:21:50 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 Quotes:
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As educators, we wear a lot of hats. Every day is full of diverse, varied tasks and responsibilities that keep our days full. Dr. TJ Vari, guest on episode 91 of The Time for Teachership podcast, also wears many hats—he’s a superintendent in a fast-growing school district, professor, coach for principals, father, and social justice advocate. And the variety of this experience, that we all have, is what makes us better educators. Because with each new role, we learn something new that can be used to create positive change and impact in our schools. We touched on a lot of topics together, but most of it centered on this question: how do we evolve our current system so that it doesn’t just prepare students for the real world, but is the real world? For Dr. Vari, two big shifts are achieving guaranteed and viable curriculum, and understanding the art and science of education. Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum One of the biggest problems with our current education system in America today is the variance. Dr. Vari pointed out just how diverse students’ experiences are—education differs between teachers, schools, districts, and states. So even two students in the same school will have wildly different experiences learning, say, grade six math. And think about the differences across states, too! The first step for any change to the school system, then, is to achieve guaranteed and viable curriculum:
As you scale up, guaranteed and viable curriculum should be a priority across school districts and states, too. This is the way we can fight injustice and discrimination and ensure that all students have equal access. Art and Science of Education Talking about a guaranteed and viable curriculum might seem rigid to some educators—shouldn’t education be personalized? Isn’t there room for flexibility? Dr. Vari offered a few thoughts on this dichotomy of flexible vs. rigid curriculum. From his perspective, it comes down to understanding the art and science of education. There are some things that are a science—studied, proven, and should be standard. Other things are an art—open to flexibility and creativity. The four sciences of education are:
So instead of seeing a rigid curriculum in front of you, consider what’s an art and what’s a science. We can all study and grow in knowledge of the science of education while maintaining our unique and creative identities as educators. --- This is just the tip of the iceberg from our conversation with Dr. TJ Vari on episode 91 of The Time for Teachership podcast. You can listen to the full episode or connect directly with him and his work at www.theschoolhouse302.com. Quotes
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Not too long ago, most of us were glued to our phones and social media to hear the outcome of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision. This landmark Supreme case brought up so many cultural conversations around bodily autonomy, consent, sexual assault and more. And it’s a conversation that needs to be brought into the classroom. Our students need a place to unpack and understand important cultural events. Through careful and intentional curriculum planning, we can provide that space for them. Recently I’ve started doing mini curriculum bootcamps, where educators can learn how to design a unit around a specific topic. A recent one centered on the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which was also discussed on episode 90 of the Time for Teachership podcast. Here are the steps educators can take to design a unit that opens the conversation of this important current event. Principles for Justice-Centered Curriculum Before diving into the how-to, it’s important to clarify some principles for justice-centered curriculum. Here are the core principles to remember when designing a unit:
How to Design a Justice-Centered Unit With those core principles of justice-centered curriculum in mind, educators can structure a lesson plan. I go into this in more detail during Curriculum Boot Camps, but here are the main steps an educator can take when designing a unit: 1. Start with a mind map. Get out your computer, a pen and paper, or a whiteboard and start brainstorming everything that comes to mind in the context of the Dobbs v. Jackson case. This could be related to the content of what to teach, questions that come up, or texts and resources you want to use.
This is to get at your driving question for the unit. Some examples related to this topic are:
Start with your own ideas, but also invite students to come alongside you and co-create some ideas. Since one of the goals of justice-centered curriculum is for it to go beyond the classroom, consider ideas like a multimedia project (podcast or movie) or a presentation to the school board. 4. Determine protocols and how you’re going to teach the unit. Establishing regular protocols and rhythms is essential to teaching a successful unit. Consider having check-ins each week on Monday, as it’s a heavy topic and important to see how everyone is doing. Then set up the rest of the weekly teaching plans to align with your guiding question and project. 5. Determine a strategy for resource gathering Don’t leave this to the last minute! Make sure you’re constantly curating and collecting resources—podcasts, TV clips, books, news stories, art, etc. There are so many directions to go with content, so start collecting it early and store somewhere easily accessible. --- Creating a justice-centered curriculum and unit plan needs to be intentional and thoughtful. The ultimate goal is to help students interact with current events in an inclusive space that upholds everyone’s dignity. To dive in deeper to this topic, go listen to episode 90 of the Time for Teachership podcast. You can also check out my resource list for support in creating a unit around the Dobbs v. Jackson decision. Interested in Curriculum Boot Camp for your staff? Book a call with me. TRANSCRIPT just a heads up. This episode does contain a content warning for sexual assault, 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 recently, I started doing mini curriculum bootcamps. So an hour of free curriculum coaching around a particular topic and the first thing we did is around the Dobbs B Jackson decision by the Supreme Court and the general theme of reproductive justice, bodily autonomy, consent, abortion. 00:01:10 All these things that are intertwined if you didn't catch that very excited to talk to you about it today on the podcast. So here we go. Key principles in any conversation about justice or injustice. It's really important that we have a defined line. We talk a lot about this line as leaders as educators as curriculum designers. How do we quote unquote? Walk the line. I've talked before about how we need to be on the side of justice. It's not negotiable right and I think the best way to describe that is that we need to uphold the dignity for all leaders can get behind that. That is a defensible stance to family members who are enraged that we dare talk about issues of race or gender or sexual orientation or any of the things right. We need to uphold dignity for all people. And so within that, you can get into the details of what that looks like for your district, but that has to be aligned, if not, what are we doing in education, right? We're not really serving students. 00:02:19 So I think the key principle here is getting clear for your district or your school, your classroom even, right? What does it look like to uphold dignity for everyone? The other piece is that justice centered curriculum includes more than just content that addresses an issue, right? It's engaging and relevant content. It is relevant in the sense that it is relevant to our students in the room it represents and affirms intersectional identities. So it doesn't just have a couple authors that are racialized as black and brown, Right? It is affirming of all identities. So that includes the category of race and racial ization, but it also includes gender and sexual orientation, class, nationality, linguistic identity, right? There's all these pieces that intersect and I think the intersections are what makes the ability to have these conversations really truly rich. The other piece of this is current events are always going to be happening, right? 00:03:24 Just by nature of the term current events, how we take that and use the current events unpack them, dig into them. Use them as opportunities to analyze them and apply the frameworks or the content and understandings that are core to our content areas is critical. So a lot of people decided not to attend this mini curriculum coaching session around reproductive justice because they said, well I'm not, you know, a health teacher or I don't teach a feminist class. Right? This is not part of my curriculum. I would argue it should be right. We should have spaces to address large issues and key events that are happening currently that are monumentally impactful to our students and our students, families and our students future lives, right? It is necessary that we have space to unpack this now. It may not directly relate to the content that you've historically taught, but I can guarantee you this topic can be connected to any any content area. 00:04:40 Right? And that's what we'll go through today or that you can kind of brainstorm along with us today. Happy to answer questions on this too. If you want to send me an email message me on any of my social media platforms about this. So the next piece of justice senator curriculum is that its pedagogy is personalized. Sometimes we use the term differentiation, self paced like it's all the things right? It's basically accessible to every student regardless of their readiness of a particular skill. Reading level etcetera. It is accessible to everyone. Everyone can engage it also justice center curriculum also includes an impactful summited assessment. This means there is a purpose beyond the grade eyes and audience members beyond the teacher and the way that it is graded is equitable, right. We have to review the equitable grading policy if it is traditional grading and it is further disadvantaging, students have historically been disadvantaged by the system, we need to unpack that and change that. Finally, Justice centered curriculum includes student voice and ultimately not just student voice is kind of a quick input, a quick reflection on a unit. 00:05:49 Those are important, but a true co creation of what and how they learn, right? I have had previous episodes to talk more about that, but I just wanna remind us those of the key principles. Now, Overall process units signed curriculum boot camp in like 30 seconds, we start with priority standards important to keep them short. 4 to 8 relevant context comes next. What's the current event we're addressing in this case? The Dobbs decision Next, we have a driving question, this must uphold dignity. So a person's rights are not up for debate. The driving question has to enable students to answer in different ways and land on the side of justice, no matter how they answer a summit of project that's ultimately answering the driving question and students can help co create what this actually looks like. Is it a movie, is it a presentation to a school board, is it a policy change, right? Whatever it is from there we say. How do we get there? We backwards design. Here's our unit arc. This is our pattern of purposeful protocols or lesson level activities that we do. We repeat the same few 3 to 5 says E. 00:06:52 L. Education is recommended. They have different protocols or purposes. Excuse me. Maybe discussion text analysis, pure feedback, independent learning. And finally as we have those in place, we know the core thing we're teaching. What's most essential in terms of content? How are we doing it? What's the one protocol per lesson now? We resource gathering. We have a strategy for that. What are the texts, the movies, the um you know film clips, the songs, the primary sources, the secondary sources, the news article. The actual literal decision, the text of the Dobbs Decision all of these pieces um a transcript of an interview with a person affected by this podcast, all of the texts that we might want to share. So what I will ask you to do now as you're driving in your car and listening to this as you're running as you're baking as you're doing dishes, whatever it is. Take a moment and map out in your mind or even better if you have paper. I physically love doing this. I do this with students. 00:07:56 Mind map activity. There are also definitely great opportunities to do this in digital formats. If you're on your computer. So jam board, you can do this with some sticky notes in the pen. You can do this? Um, Kagle C O G L E. Is a great one as well to do a digital mind map. But think about all of the related events topics, content standards, texts. And I use texts loosely as I described earlier. Questions what comes to mind when we think about reproductive justice or the Dobbs decision specifically as a tournament take some time here. You can pause this if you need more time. Of course you will. Or you can return to it and think later. But for example, we might say the Dobbs decision conjures up for me ideas of reproductive justice that are, that are quite broad. So what does that mean? Well, that means we have bodily autonomy. Okay, well that means we talk about consent. That means we talk about consent as early as you know, preschool. 00:09:03 It's not okay. It's a hug that child or touch that child. I don't want to be touched. No, you do not have to go kiss Aunt Susie. You can wave goodbye instead. That's your choice. You have bodily autonomy. I can't tell you what to do with your body. Right? So as you think about these things, right? You go deeper and deeper and you have different questions that might arise. Different content standards that might connect reproductive justice also could go to science route. So if I teach science and might be thinking like, okay for sterilization, um experimentation on different bodies that have been racialized as black and brown by doctors by white doctors. Often white male doctors. How do those dynamics play out? Right. How do does our current understanding of biology um come from this manipulation? Um Un consensual, non consensual manipulation of bodies, right? Or coerced sterilization practices, right? Like what what does all of this have to do with the Dobbs decision? Really interesting um connections and opportunities to explore deeper and have a better understanding of all the things that have come to bear on this decision. 00:10:08 Right? So group brainstorm again, you can do this with students as well, but I think it's really powerful to do with colleagues and then get to dive in. Maybe even have an intersectional uh interdisciplinary unit come out of it. That was that is also intersectional. Alright, so Adams we're ready to create some units. I encourage you to first brainstorm some driving questions that uphold dignity, right? Remember any way that students answer, they should be able to answer in a variety of ways has to uphold dignity. So perhaps how can we provide great health care for everyone living in the United States? Right? Or what is pro human health care look like? So just having that discussion, you can land in a lot of ways um that still maintain dignity. What would it look like to effectively balance safety and freedom here, especially if you're a history teacher or you teach a government course and you're really focused on the Supreme Court 2022 Supreme Court decisions. There are a variety of options that you could kind of make connections to and carry these threads of safety and freedom throughout each of those decisions. 00:11:15 And you can kind of compare contrast around identity and who gets to determine safety, who gets to have that freedom. Super, fascinating actually, MS magazine's podcast on the issues with Michelle Goodwin has a Supreme Court in review for 2022 episode. It's about an hour along with an amazing panel um that is available if you want to listen and get some concrete ideas what or what is or has been the most effective social change strategy. I've used this in a lot of history literacy units. So you can kind of think about Supreme Court rulings as agents of change historically, how social movements, how art, how music, how all of these things um protest culture, all the things how they connect and work together to lead to social change. And then you can have students kind of debate or discuss, you know, which one is most effective? Most powerful? Why are how is intersectionality important and the impact of the dob cjackson decision. 00:12:20 So you can actually really focus in on intersectionality and different identities and how they intersect. You could also explore this in parallel. For example, like you T T. L. A. With another text or another situation that is explored in a novel, fictional or otherwise. There's some really cool things I think that you could do as well around the question similar to kind of that idea of looking at all the Supreme Court decisions, you can also determine, you know, who gets to have their rights, right, who gets the right? I think you can workshop that question a little bit better. I just kind of riffing here, but I think that is another key question that is Really interesting to unpack around specifically the Supreme Court's decisions in the year 2022. So after that, you would come up with a project or this is ideally best done with students. So you might want to throw out two or three ideas for students? For example, if you are saying, what would it look like to effectively balance safety and freedom? Perhaps you encourage students to draft their own constitutions, right? 00:13:28 What what does it look like? Show me, tell me, um perhaps it's a multimedia project presentation of sorts. Could be a movie. Could be a podcast or interview where especially if you're you're teaching the school with students who are from different countries or have family members from different countries, interviewing people who have lived in different countries under different government structures and said like, you know, did you have a lot of safety? Do you have a lot of freedom? How does that contrast to the United States model and doing some additional research as well and then just throw it to students. Are you interested in, you know, creating a multimedia project like a podcast or a movie? Are you interested in writing your traditional essay, creating your own constitution? Like what does that look like? As long as you hit all of the standards on the rubric that you're trying to ask your good, Right. Hey, everyone, just a quick reminder that you're free resource for this episode is a collection of all the different links and resources that I'm talking about today. You can grab it at lindsey Beth Lyons dot com slash blog slash 90. Now. Back to the episode. Right. And so again, those go back to our priority standards 4-8 throughout the course. 00:14:31 As long as we're practicing those at each project, we're good. Next. You want to figure out, you know, how do I teach this? So what are my protocols? What is my unit arc? Each monday? Perhaps we want to have a circle where we come back together. We check in just emotionally Right. This is some tough stuff. How are we doing? Perhaps there are uh, you know, ongoing pieces to the current event. There's like an evolution of what's been happening in the last week and we want to check in and get the facts straight. Right? And then we also want to check in again or under motion or energy levels. Create a new list of questions that they're going to explore that week. Right. Maybe we have Tuesdays or another particular protocol. Right? Maybe every friday we have a Socratic seminar or it's very academic discussion, whereas monday's was very personal. Right? Whatever it is, you can have something where monday's repeat the same protocol and each day of the week is a different protocol, but you can also have, you know, for this week we're going to focus on this protocol and every day this week we're going to do this text based text analysis protocol. And then next week we're going to do a bunch of discussions, group discussion, whole class discussion, independent writing. 00:15:35 You know, whatever it is to unpack all the things that we looked at. Finally you're going to want to make sure you have a strategy for resource gathering. My strategy is content resources are curated, you're going to go find them. My hint to myself is abc always be curating. It's very important to not just leave this to the last minute, but as you see something, as you hear about a current event, you listen to podcasts. You see a clip on john Oliver, you know, whatever it is, you're like, well I would like to someday integrate that into my class add that somewhere. Right? Maybe that is a google doc. Maybe that's your notes app on your phone. Maybe it's just your voice notes on your phone. Um find a place, right? It in a physical paper binder. Find a place, right it all in the same place and you can consult it later and kind of curate from there. Also identify I would say have 2 to 3 websites for example facing history and ourselves teaching tolerance. Formerly teaching tolerance. Currently it's learning for justice. Um, there are some wonderful resources there in terms of documents. 00:16:41 So you want to kind of check those out as well to say, hey, I know where to find primary sources. I know where to find an image or a video on this topic. News outlet is also a really great one that can respond to current events and you can also level the text. I also have some key podcasts that I routinely listen to as well. So those are some things that you might want to consider process resources in terms of the worksheets or the physical paper or you know, graphic organizers that students are using during a class. I create those and I create those because I want them to be just right because I'm gonna use them like 20 times a year or 50 times a year. Right? I want them to be perfect. I don't want to grab them from somewhere else. I can tweak them as I need to as we evolve throughout the year. Students can help me with that adjustment and then also I want to have like a google doc template bank or something where students can say, I want to select this graphic organizer for this thing I'm doing because I know all of our templates. We have few and they are mighty and I know how to use them. I don't need to learn something new. 00:17:43 I don't need the teacher to create it for me. And that builds student independence ultimately. So there are a bunch of resources on reproductive justice and consent. Um, I might create a free resource for this particular episode and share with you in the show notes. But just to give you a sense on the issues. As I mentioned, Michelle Goodwin, great podcast from MS magazine. They did a special episode in response to the job Cjackson decision with an amazing panel as well. Things I love about it and mentions a series of essays and abortion essential to democracy. Definitely text that I might use in this particular unit talks about Dr king's acceptance speech for a planned parenthood award in which he actually talks about the importance of abortion access. And he has been quoted as saying, I'm not going to segregate my moral concerns talking about the intersection of various oppressions. So I think that's a very powerful. It reminds me very much of Audrey Lord's quote, right? We don't live single issue lives, which I believe they also reference repeatedly in that episode as well. Um speaking to the importance of intersectionality as we design. 00:18:48 They also talk more about the cases that actually happened at the same time as row versus wade that were far more intersectional and addressed identity and this issue of abortion access and reproductive justice in a far more robust way. But they weren't picked up by the Supreme Court. So just super interesting things that even as a former teacher of history that I didn't even know about and would be fascinating to dive into with students, um there's also a podcast episode in here that I'm going to recommend good Inside with dr Becky is an episode of parenting and consent. And they talk about how teaching consent actually involves helping kids, particularly young Children, but really Children of any age figure out how to manage frustration when they hear no. And to me that was fascinating, right? When you hear no, you have to be able to accept no, you can be frustrated but you have to handle that frustration without acting out right without without harming another person, I should say. Right? So you have to have healthy ways of feeling managing your frustration. 00:19:50 And we have to model how we manage our frustration when we hear now. And that spans a lot of things right from as a parent saying no to your child and having them manage that frustration to things like can I touch you know, Oh, okay. Like I have to handle that, right? So this again starts young K 12, there's actually a consent stay standards K 12 framework, It's from national sex education standards, core content and skills document produced in 2020. And so you can see the standards for consent, bodily autonomy kind of these things as you move through the years. And so when people say, oh, we can't address that in kindergarten, like of course it's going to look different, but consult things like this that really build a foundation so that in high school teachers are not trying to completely undo all of the inappropriate things and unhealthy things that students have learned because we never talked about it before. And also a note on this and and um dr Goodwin talks about this on the issues podcast. But when people say in elementary school, we shouldn't be talking about the college decision. 00:20:55 There are nine year old Children, 10 year old Children that often as a result of rape have been in a situation where they need to have an abortion, right? Those kids are sitting in our class, they have to know that this is happening, that they have space to talk about it in a productive generative dignity upholding way, right? Like this is affecting our kids and it has the potential to affect our kids, even if it currently isn't or we don't know that it is right. I think that's truly, truly important social justice standards. Learning for justice has a bunch of standards K through 12 there in bands. I believe there's three bands as you can talk about social justice standards in terms of alignment as well. 00:22:00 Um and then I share a bunch of my favorite kind of resources for certain topics consent. There's one consent for kids. There's the tea and consent metaphor video super good. Um, I share a lot about specific Supreme Court references that I've used in high school and college. When I've been talking about this um intersectionality texts um, texts on reproductive justice and websites. There's like a maternal health map, a world abortion laws map. That's interactive and updated uh different statistics and graphs around maternal mortality. So a lot of really interesting things as well as a ton of podcast episodes that are touching on this issue. So with that I am going to leave you with kind of just thinking about all of the things right? All of the things that we've talked about I want you to remember. We center dignity in all that we do. Current events are relevant, engaging and students deserve a place to unpack them. We start I think with you know, once you have your priority standards, you've identified that relevant context of event. 00:23:08 You're driving question. So we start with the driving question. If you spend a bunch of time transforming a great driving question where students can answer in different ways and uphold dignity. You are off to the races. Excellent. Start let me know if you have questions and of course I have a bunch of curriculum bootcamp relevant resources for you. I'll be continuing to hold many curriculum coaching sessions, let me know if you are interested in talking about a particular topic and I will see you next week 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 burned 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. 00:24:16 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 Quotes:
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We hear the term “buy in” all the time, especially in the field of education. We want people to be on the same page about proposed changes or new ideas. But are people really buying in? Or are they just complying because they have to? We talk about how to initiate and sustain true change on episode 89 of the Time for Teachership podcast. Dr. Samuel D. Nix shares his wisdom with us for how to take steps towards significant, impactful change and progress. He highlights the importance of making a mindset shift and allowing that shift to impact your actions. Here are some of the takeaways from our conversation. Acknowledging Unconscious Biases When asked what his dream for the field of education is, Dr. Nix said it was that there would be no more equity gap or learning gap. That every student would enjoy their education, benefit from it, and have the same opportunities as their peers. But before this dream can be realized, we need to start recognizing and dismantling our unconscious biases. Dr. Nix does an exercise with educators where they look at photos of a diverse set of students. Then, based on their ethnicity, gender, clothing, etc., educators will give them a grade from A to F, based on what they think they’d have. Then comes the question: why? Why are certain grades assigned to certain students? Dr. Nix goes on to say that these are all A-level students. So why do we think otherwise? It comes down to those unconscious biases each and every one of us have. Recognizing we have those biases is the first step to any real change and is the over-arching mindset shift that most educators need. Steps to Initiate Change Besides this understanding of unconscious biases, Dr. Nix identified five steps to get true buy-in from others—five steps to initiate true change. They are as follows:
Change doesn’t come over night—we know this. It’s an ongoing process that requires openness, vulnerability, and persistence. It also requires the ability to look inward and reflect on where you are. Dr. Nix’s one next action step for all educators is to stop and think: are your actions having the impact they have the potential to have? Start with yourself and start with reflection. We covered so much more in this conversation with Dr. Samuel D. Nix! Have a listen to the whole thing on episode 89 of the Time for Teachership podcast. You can also connect with Dr. Nix at his website, www.snix3consulting.com, or over on twitter: @samuelnix. TRANSCRIPT I am honored that Dr Samuel knicks chose to be on this podcast to share his brilliance with you. Dr SAm began his career in education as a middle school teacher and coach. Dr Nix has served as an assistant principal and the principal at both middle and high schools. Dr Nix was named principal of the year 2015 to 2016 in the Arlington Independent School, currently serves as the chief of schools in the Duncanville Independent School district and since 2006 he has served as an education consultant for education career, alternative programmer. A cap has been awarded a Leadership in Education award from the texas House of Representatives. How Cool was nominated for the martin Luther King JR Service Award in education was presented the mary McLeod with the in Heritage Award for education by the CCP In 2010, The doctor june James C. P. Education Award in 2016 and the Leadership legacy award from the Future Schools Network in 2019. This guy is awesome. 00:01:01 DR Nix was featured in the new Horizon University of North texas magazine as a premier leader in education and was featured in the number one selling education book in America. The first days of school by Harry Wong. Dr Nix is the award winning author of ensure educational success, a book that offers innovative and common sense strategies for leading a school culture where teachers and students thrive. He has much wisdom to share, let's get right to 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. 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. 00:02:03 Here we go, Dr Samuel Nix, welcome to the time for Teacher ship podcast. Thank you so much for having me. It is an absolute pleasure to be on your show and I'm not just saying that lazy, I am truly excited to be here before you say anything and I know I'm breaking protocol. The most recent podcast that I listened to of yours, that was my absolute favorite, was your fourth episode in your leadership series where you started to talk about adaptive leadership and approaching that to data analysis and so I'm just sharing with you that I'm not just here. I'm also a fan. I'm excited to be here. So thank you so much for having me on your show. Oh my gosh, that means so much to me. And also I'm really excited that that was the episode that you picked up on because I see so much overlap in our work in that regard. So we could dive into that too. Oh yes, this is gonna be great. So, I read your professional bio at the top of the hour episode, and I'm just curious to know if there's anything else that you want to add to that or that listeners should know as they kind of keep in mind who you are and what you bring to the table as we start this conversation today. 00:03:11 Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Just just the only thing that's not in my bio that I'd like to share with other people, just because it matters to me is that I am a proud father of two amazing young people, a five year old and a two year old at this time, and I have an amazing wife that allows me the opportunity uh and support to be able to do the things that that we and I do in education. So I'm very thankful, just wanted everyone to know how thankful I am. I love that, that is so beautiful, and I really think that's so important to be able to start with, because sometimes we're just kind of our professional bios to people, it's like our whole human beings like this is an important part of our lives. Absolutely, this is great. Okay, cool. So we'll dive in here and I always start with this first question for my guests, which is, you know, thinking about this kind of big dream that we have for education, and I love the idea of freedom dreaming, and I particularly love dr Bettina loves quote about it, where she describes it as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. 00:04:14 I just think that's so powerful and I'm curious to know with that quote in mind what is that big dream that you hold for the field of education? Because in my opinion, there's a difference between how I think education should go in a dream for education when I think about a dream and I and I hope that it's not cliche, I think about dr martin Luther King who stood up and said, I have a dream and to me that is it's something that is almost seen as impossible. It's almost seen as something that is unattainable and unreasonable um for today, right? So for my dream for education, it is truly that there is no equity gap, there is no achievement gap. My dream for education is that students enjoy and want to learn and are motivated to learn, are inspired to learn that the adaptive approach that we take to education is the norm. Uh and it's not something that is, you know, unique to two individuals talking about the difference between technical approaches and adaptive approaches, right? 00:05:21 But that's my dream is that school is a place where kids enjoy, where they're benefiting from their learning in such a way that it creates so many opportunities for them in the future and where that gap of inequity is is not existent. So that's a dream that I have, I love so many pieces of that, I like the enjoyment part, I mean, I think that's like what we wish, you know, students had an experience of school, right? Joy is a huge piece that's often missing and it's not part of like our planning process, right? Like how do we bring in Joy should be a key question, but also I love that you were just saying like how they benefit from it right sometimes, but when we think about the benefits to students, it's like, oh the benefit is they learn stuff that we decided it was important for them to know and then have a dinner table conversation when they're 40 and they bring that into the mix, like what, that's not really what we want, right? So that immediate benefit I think is so powerful to think about, you know, I think a lot of teachers probably don't even think about that question as they are developing units and curriculum and lessons like what is that benefit and what do our students want that benefit to be? 00:06:28 So yeah, I love it. Okay, cool, so, I think what you started saying too about the context of the dream seeming almost as if it were impossible and that element of dreaming is so profound and I think it connects deeply to my next question about, you know, it takes some shifting to get to that place where we have joy for all students and we have an immediate benefit for all students. And so I'm wondering, you know, how do we need to shift our minds and our mindsets as educators, as leaders of schools and districts to get people to kind of buy and fight for that dream that you described? Do you ask a loaded question that, um, you know, I hope I can answer correctly, but here's the deal. I believe that the most difficult thing to do in any field, not the field of education, but any field is shifting a person's mindset. So, for example, because what you're, what you're in essence dealing with, in my opinion, when you're dealing with a mindset, you're dealing with a belief. 00:07:39 And so I believe that experiences shape beliefs, beliefs, influence actions and actions produce results. I'm gonna say that again. I believe that experiences shape beliefs, beliefs, influence actions and actions produce results. So in order for there to be a mind shift in order for there to be some some change in how people approach the work. First, we have to ask ourselves what has been their experience, what has led them to believe, what they believe about their profession, about these Children, about whatever that looks like, right. And then we're so quick to dismiss people's opinions or beliefs or whatever the case may be, instead of trying to understand them, trying to understand their perspective, trying to understand their background, trying to understand their rationale because it's only in truly understanding where they're coming from what they're dealing with what their perspective is, that we're even positioning ourselves to try to help them, quote unquote, help them shift their mindset to produce different actions to get different results. 00:08:57 So I'm sorry if I took the long way around for this, but I think how we do that is we have to honor what people's experiences are. We are so well versed in telling people what should happen. We are so well versed Lindsay and telling people what we want to see. We're so we're well versed in telling people what the dream is and what the vision is and where we're trying to go. And although people may take that direction may take those steps, they don't believe it. And so we have schools and we have universities and we have professional educators who are in systems where unfortunately they don't believe that the kids can do it. They don't believe that students should be in school, have fun. They don't believe that that making lessons relevant and and changing the way that they are approaching the work and doing the work is what's best for kids. Well, why what's been your experience? What have you seen if they haven't had an opportunity to really reflect on or engage in conversation about why they think that and why they believe that they were not going to change. 00:10:10 That's such a great point. And I think so, so thoughtful about many things to in your answer, your thoughtful about individual experience and so not necessarily doing this, saying this in like a blaming way, but like if your experience was like a miserable, you know, childhood education and no one in your teacher prep program exposed you to these different ways of doing it. Like of course, so we need system change here. And then also I love that you're, you're talking about, you know, the honoring experiences that made me think two of the experiences of our of our students and that oftentimes we assume what those experiences are too, without asking beyond that. I love that you're talking about kind of this notion of buying where I love your phrase of were well versed in telling were well versed in telling the vision and and I think so much of what leadership in leadership programs, what that purports to be is a telling. It is, let's get people behind this, lets you know the phrase of buy in usually irks me. 00:11:11 But I mean I think it's it's the closest thing sometimes that we have to like having a common understanding, but it's like, no, we don't need people to buy in, we need the co creation of the vision or whatever, right? So you just triggered a thought if you don't mind. Uh you mentioned that you mentioned that the phrase buy in. Um I don't know the word you use, but annoys you write or frustrate you, right. Um, and I would so much agree because what I see that we do is less buy in and more what I call selling. And so what I mean by that is we do a lot of selling to people and when people feel sold to, they will resist new ideas. And the reason why it's because people don't support what they don't understand. And so there's very little true buy in when it comes to uh, changing or shifting, whether that's mindsets, organizations or structures. There's very little buy in. 00:12:18 And the funny thing about it, Lindsay is that I have asked leaders and senior, did you get by? Oh yeah, I got buy in. But from their perspective, they didn't get by. They got, they got selling, they sold and they thought that people bought and people didn't buy because people didn't understand. And so there's compliance. But there's not comprehension, Hey, everyone, just a quick reminder that you have a bunch of free resources available for you in relation to this episode, Dr Nix is sharing a ton of great stuff. You can grab that link at lindsey Beth Lyons dot com slash blog slash 89. Now back to the episode, can you say that last line again? That was so good. Yeah, there's compliance. People do the work, but there's not comprehension, they don't understand why they're doing it. They don't, they don't have the belief system that will ensure sustainable success in that area, Right? Yes. Oh my gosh, So many things he asked about what you just said, and I appreciate that last Edition two with a sustainable success. 00:13:21 Because we have, I think an education like initiative fatigue where we're like, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this and we're gonna pull this in and then it's gonna die out in two months. And I think teachers are frustrated by that students and families are frustrated by that. It doesn't actually impact like, you know, the long term adaptive challenges that we see in education and that sustainability, I think goes hand in hand with exactly what you're talking about about being sold to versus being like a full co creator or participant of like, what are we doing here? And so that's so important. Oh, my gosh, I'm so glad that you took us there. Thank you for that. And so as people are listening and they're just like, yes, I'm, you know, head nodding along as I'm listening to all the things you're saying, what are the things that people can do, whether they're, you know, a district leader, a school leader, maybe even just a teacher. You know, what are those brave actions that people can take that can actually make this idea a reality for their community, Would you say this idea? 00:14:25 Um are you referring to the dream that I shared or you're talking about getting people to buy into whatever it is that a leader is trying to um to promote or or trying to bring to fruition. Yeah. Oh my gosh, thank you for clarifying. So I I think ultimately uh the dream, but I do think it's really, it would be great if we could give listeners an idea of what it looks like to lead in a way that is not selling to and is, you know, co creating that vision and thinking about that specifically within, I think as a means to get to the larger dream. Very good lindsey. I um I often do something when I'm presenting to smaller groups of leaders, teachers and I'm gonna share what I do on this podcast. And if anyone takes this, and does it make sure you give credit? Not just playing. 00:15:27 So what I do Lindsay is I usually will, I'll give people a sheet of paper and on this paper are images of different students, asian student, african american student, uh african american girl and uh hispanic young lady, just different shades, different cultures, different um ages of Children. And at the top of the page I say, here's your challenge. You have to assign these Children a grade a through f there's no trick to this. What grade do you think these Children average? That's it, no qualifying, anything. And I've done this Lindsay. I'm not exaggerating, I've done this to thousands of educators, not hundreds. So I give them a few minutes, I tell them there is a correct answer to this, give them the sheet and I allow them a few minutes to go through and, and they look at the clothes that the Children have on, they look at their smile, their hair. 00:16:42 One of the student has a necklace on. One of the students has, um, uh, what we call a wife beater on, another has a nice shirt or whatever, whatever makes up the child, right? And then see what ends up happening is at the end of the allotted time. I will inevitably look down at the paper and I'll see they, you know, this child, they think they have an A or this child, they think they have a B or this child. They think average is A D or for whatever that looks like. And then I'll ask this question, why did you give that student that great? You don't know, this child, You've never met this child. You know nothing about this child. This child probably remind you of someone or triggered an emotion or triggered a thought or triggered something in you that said to you because they're dressed this way or because they look this way or because they remind you of something. They're probably a B. Student or C. Student. But the answer is they're all a students, they're all a students. But what is it in us that assigned that child and A or B or C or D or F. 00:17:53 What is it in us And here's the point that I'm making Lindsay if we don't come to the conclusion that we all have some internal bias that we have to acknowledge and deal with, then we're operating under the assumption that, oh, everybody, I love all kids, everything's fine. Everybody's gonna get an equitable treatment in my classroom. And and the reality is no, they're not. And and for those who are listening and saying that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I'm telling you thousands and thousands of people take this and they do this. And then when I ask them, can you explain to me why the asian never gets it of the thousands of people I've done, nobody's ever failed given them. I mean, it's just right why? Because there's something intrinsically in the head that, well, this student is smart. And how do you treat students that you think are smart? How do you approach students that you think are capable? 00:18:59 How do you plan for students that you think are going to excel versus the opposite and in our education system until we can deal with acknowledge and start to work on those things? We're gonna have a gap because your belief system drives your actions and those actions are going to produce results. Now, you talked about, we talked briefly about buying it and how to get people to buy into um change or or shift in mindset or or any type of of shift or movement or improvement um initiative or anything of that nature and here's what I would say to that I would say that there are five components to ensure and buy it. The first component I would say is that you have to engage in what I'm gonna call honest and transparent dialogue, you have to be honest about where you are, you have to be very transparent about what the issue is and you have to allow people to talk and to communicate what their challenges are, what their issues are and you have to be in a position to listen and understand. 00:20:09 So number one, are you engaging in honest and transparent dialogue with whatever it is that you're trying to get someone to buy into number two. Usually when there's a change, usually when there's a shift in any type of situation, it's usually a lot to ask them how to change, right, Lindsay and so the way that I have found or I have seen works the best is to be very strategic with how you chunk change. What I mean by that is If we can improve, there's a book called 1% right or a book called the slight edge where you talk about Jeff Olson, where you talk about um improving incrementally. So breaking down change initiatives into distinct phases is always helpful. The third way I would think after engaging in honest transparent dialogue after chunking the change, I would say the third thing that we would need to consider in Mayan is it's just really listening. 00:21:19 It's when I get to this third one, there's an author by the name of Ricco Rick, uh what's his name, Rick Mahr, I think M O U M A U R E R Rick Meagher and he says relationships are just as important as ideas, relationships are just as important as ideas. So you may have a great idea. But do you have a great relationship and in that he talks about in that book, he talks about three broad categories of why people resist change. Now all of this is falling under the third aspect of listening, right? But when he talks about three bread broad categories for resistance to change, it is so interesting what he says. Number one people resist because they don't understand it, right? Number two people resist because they don't like it. And number three people resist because they don't like you the first, which is they don't understand, it invites an opportunity to clarify the 2nd and 3rd, our emotional reactions and their emotional reactions to um the change message or the change messenger. 00:22:42 And what that does is is provide you an opportunity when you understand that. No, that that's why listening is so important because then you can know where the resistance is. So once again like Rick said, I don't like it, I don't like you or I just don't get it, but they don't get it, that's easy. But they don't like if they don't like you and they don't like the change, then you have to listen to find out where their experiences where their belief is. Um So after engaging honest feedback, chunking, listening, I would say that the fourth way to ensure buying is you have to obtain feedback and you have to gain input from the people that the changes impacting. If you're not getting feedback that goes beyond listening, listening is simply listening understanding but getting feedback and getting input from the people that the change impacts on the incremental process is key. Then lastly I would say you have to communicate progress so often I see people organizations, leaders will engage in change. 00:23:54 They'll do, you know, they'll be honest and they'll chunk and they'll listen and they'll get feedback but they won't communicate where they are, where they're progressing, where are we headed in relation to where we're trying to be give people updates and and and is this actually working or is it not? And if it's not, are we willing to make the proper justice? So those are just some of the things that I have seen that really work well to garner by it and and and and and really impede the process of trying to be trying to sell or trying to make sure someone feels sold to wow, there was so much in there that is so powerful and I really appreciate you naming each of those five pieces. One of the things that came to my mind as you were talking about your initial activity two is um there's a chapter I think is part of a larger book from Zander and Zander that was called Giving the A or giving an A something like that. Just the idea that like day one, you could just give everybody an A in your class and like how does that change the day dynamic and how does everyone rise to that standard and gets the A ultimately in the end, right? 00:25:05 They've earned it because you've created that image and I think that's so powerful just thinking about that with that activity is like, all right, everybody gets the a and now you have a very different experience with each individual students so powerful that mindset and like you're saying like everyone has bias, it's really telling when um you know, we we engage with the schools or school leaders who are like, oh well, you know, we're not we don't have that kind of problem. We don't have this, this underlying bias, that's not the issue. It's like if we can't even admit that, we can't even get to the first step just acknowledging that to be true. We're not going to get much further. We're not going to be able to do the deeper work that's necessary. And so yeah, huge, huge point that you made the other piece, I think that that stuck out to me was that dialogue piece um dr Sherry Bridges Patrick is as a person I worked closely with and she has been on the podcast a few times and her work is in uh dialogue, specifically racial dialogue and racialized dialogue in various communities of the helping profession social work, education and things like this. 00:26:11 And it's just that perceived she's taught me a lot about perceived safety and this concept of, you know, we can't declare a space safe and now we all get along and talk right? But that everyone comes to this space and has this different, unique, important perception of safety and each person has to perceive that this is a space we can have honest dialogue. Um and that is such a fundamental piece. I love that you named it first and then you don't know if I interpreted this or if you if you were intentional about this, but it almost sounded like that's the thing that if that's missing, you can't have any of the other ones. Is that a correct assumption or are they not in order in that way? I'm going to take credit for being strategic. Although it was not that I'm gonna take all the credit for being strategic and listen at first, but the reality is you're so right, you're so right, Lindsay, because if so if that's not in place, if that is not the foundational aspect that has been established, man, everything that comes after that is just gonna it's gonna crumble. 00:27:13 Yeah. And I think one of the things that I am really fascinated by recently is this idea of strategic planning and I know this is something that you talk about and write about in your book. And I think this key of honest dialogue and importantly, a lot of the other things you're saying, right, I really resonated with the gaining input and feedback. It actually made me think of, so I'm from the like the student voice scholarship field and I'm like really in that world and there's this great pyramid of student voice that dana mitra came up with and then she like maps it into this idea of turbulence theory. And so she he talks about how at the very first level, like the initial level of student voices just being heard, but also that's the most turbulent because you have people kind of sharing these ideas. But if you don't do anything with it, if you don't take that next level up and partner with them and take action as a result of that feedback, then it's just gonna get all these ideas spewed out into the world and people are gonna be like angry almost that they were vulnerable and shared with you and you did nothing with it. 00:28:19 And I think that's really powerful, but why why is there such a gap between listening and understanding and taking action from your perspective Lindsay, you know, I know this is I'm on your podcast and I'm honored and privileged to be here, but really Lindsay you spend so much time talking to experts, you spend so much time talking to leaders, you spend so much time helping and providing information and resource as a resource for educators who are, I mean they're, they're just, they're hungry and want to do better and want to learn more. And your podcast is is such a great venue for that. But what are you seeing when you're talking to people? Why is there such a disconnect between taking that action and and and and following up on on what you know to do? Why why is there such a disconnect there? I so appreciate you asking me a question. Thank you. So actually it goes back to, okay, I loved how you were saying um you were talking about the three reasons that people resist and it made me think of, I think it was high fits, it's some adaptive leadership scholar who says, you know, the resistance is loss and resistance is this kind of like fear of losing something. 00:29:38 Um, and I think for me it actually is number one of what you said, right, they don't understand. So that might be one piece, but then it's also this kind of fear or so sense of loss. So maybe I don't understand the how like how do I partner with students, but then I also, I might understand the technical piece of the, how I, I, you know, have a morning meeting or a circle time with students and I get their input and then we co create the unit question for the, you know, I might know the how, but I fear the loss of control for example, right? Like I fear that I am giving up something here, I'm losing. Like it's this zero sum game, right? That we imagine is is real. And I think a lot of that is tied to deeply held beliefs about just like adulthood, about the specific students in our class, about the implicit bias we were talking about, it's also teacher prep programs and this is, I've been told not to smile until christmas kind of thing, you know, and what that all means to be a teacher I really like and I know it's, it's turn into a bit of a cliche, but I really like this idea of like the coach, the teacher in the coach role because as a former basketball coach, like I, I am definitely a person who is like, oh, I can now get into that mode and I'm not dribbling for them, I'm not taking the shot for that. 00:30:56 Like I'm not doing these things for them, I'm not spoon feeding, I'm calling a play and then they're gonna figure it out and I need to make sure that each person has what they need to figure it out in the moment and if we looked at education in that way, I think the partnership mindset I guess makes so much more sense. I'm no longer fearing that I'm losing the coaching authority because a coach authority is not the same as like, you know, someone who dictates this is what's going to happen, everyone follow or else. And so I think there's, there's that resistance as lost as well as like maybe I just don't know. And so like you said, I think people fall into these different groups and you respond accordingly and coach accordingly lindsey. I love that. Here's my follow up question. I know I'm not the host and please forgive me for asking questions, but you, you phrased it so beautifully, is the current system that we're in, designed for teachers to be successful with that approach. Such a good question. Okay, so I think, I think that that could be a whole other podcast facility in terms of the depth we could go with that conversation, I'll say quickly, I don't think it is on the whole, however, I have seen pockets of innovation and and what I would call bravery that make it possible. 00:32:14 So for example, there's a group of schools in new york, new york city, new york state actually, I think they extend beyond the city. Um I was fortunate enough for part of my teaching career to teach in one of them And they said, you know, the system as it exists around standardized testing was, is the example that I'll start with. But they were like, this is messed up. It's not helping our kids, we know we can do better. And so they developed a consortium of schools. They said, here's what we're gonna do. As, you know, a group of 30 schools, we're going to do performance-based assessments. We're gonna have this really rigorous uh, rubric that we're gonna go through and and agree. And there's all this protocol to make sure it's good. We're gonna have panelists of judges from different schools in the community who are going to, you know, have real authentic feedback conversations with students as they present their projects. And this will serve. This project will serve as their standardized test. It's going to replace the region's test or whatever the state test would be in different scenarios. And that took a lot of work for them to come together and do that. 00:33:17 But it's possible. And those schools and those students in those schools are thriving because they were willing to put in the work and willing to change what the system was telling them that they could do and find an innovative way to work within it. Um, I'm definitely a fan of changing the larger system, but in the meantime, you know, what actions can we take to to do what we can to make it possible for us to take those action steps? Um, perhaps on a smaller, localized scale in the meantime, I think it is possible. I would completely agree, and, you know, in my book, ensure educational success, those are some of the things that I write about in harp on um for teachers to process through, even though you may be in a system that is inhibiting your freedom to, like you said, um, just be all the way autonomous with um allowing you, you being the coach and allowing the students to, or you guiding the students, it is absolutely possible. And although challenging it's possible and it doesn't take a whole lot right, There are just some things that you have to shift in your mindset to understanding the difference between a dependent learning an independent learner, right? 00:34:24 And and what it means to guide the learning and what it means to provide relevancy for students and coach them in certain areas, um, to allow them the space to think and learn um differently than they have been. So, I love the way that you put that, and I think you're absolutely correct, and I think that's the challenge. It's how do we step outside of the traditional system to provide opportunities for students in such a way that they enjoy that they're motivated that they're encouraged, but ultimately, um that you're not spoon feeding them or as you say, dribbling for them and teaching them how to do that. That's that's that's the goal, awesome. I love it. And I know that you mentioned your book too. I just want to give you a minute to just share. You know, is there anything else that, that people should know about your book? I feel like people are going to listen to this and be like, I want to buy your book and like can you just tell people how, you know a little bit about the book and then also like you know how they get a copy we can add any links to to the show notes. 00:35:25 Thank you so much. My book is called ensure educational success. It's available on amazon Barnes and nobles or wherever books are sold via online and of course, uh, hopefully the link will be provided there. Um, to access the reason that I wrote this book, it's for educators, educational leaders is because I have been in the traditional education system for um, Almost 19 years now. I've been very fortunate Lindsay, I've been very fortunate in education as a classroom teacher. I taught middle school, eighth grade U. S. History. I had the highest scores in my district. I was in um, a very large district in north texas, one of the ninth largest school district in texas. Um, I had a student one time and his name was Trey. Talk to Trey. Um, but they couldn't read Lindsay. Trey was in eighth grade. Now I just want you to just picture that. I know people hear that and they dismiss it and here's another sob story about a student. 00:36:28 But I really want you to think about this. An eighth grade student that reads about on a second grade love, imagine the challenge that this kid had, imagine that the all that this young man had to go through and of course he was a discipline problem. Of course he was an issue for, of course he was. I mean he, he has pride and he doesn't want everybody to know he's struggling, right? But the reality is with this particular student, he would tap on his desk, he would beat on his desk with a pen. He would wrap and lindsey for all of those who are dismissive of, of this genre of rap. This young man was able to rap about anything and make his words every other words rhyme and single page and so forth and so on. It takes a lot of skill to do that. So I knew he was intelligent. I knew he had it in him. I just had to find a way to get it out. So I had a friend of mine who's a producer and I went over his house one night and we stayed up all night trying to find how to make a song for the bill of rights so that he could learn the bill of rights. 00:37:36 So I'm sitting here trying to find something that rhymes with Magna carta right? And a friend is over here trying to get the music together and we create this this song for him so that he could learn. Do you know what happened Lindsay? He got that he learned the Bill of Rights in such a way that he started to help others learn the Bill of Rights Asked me can you do the same thing for the next section? We'll I'm not, I don't write write, I don't do that right? But that's what we did. And we ended up coming up with a city that was ended up being used in 12 different states. But the the point of it is I found a way to motivate him to encourage him to inspire him to want to learn. So whether it's C. D. Or art or music or whatever it is, there's things that inspire our Children. So I wrote this book to inspire educators to inspire leaders to break away from the traditional mindset of how we approach education and give some tenants and some common sense innovative strategies for how to take schools students leaders to the next level because of that city. 00:38:55 I was featured in Harry Wong's book. The first days of school Harry Wong if you don't know was on Oprah at that time and I don't care if you go on Oprah selling eyebrow pencil, you will have the number one selling eyebrow pencils in America right? So of course this book went to number one. Um, so having that opportunity as a middle school principal, having extreme success as a high school principal being named as a demonstration school, one of 32 top urban schools in America at closing achievement gaps. I mean these are things that I look back now and I just, I'm, I'm so thankful to have had a team and teachers that bought into what we were trying to do and what we're trying to do is ensure educational success for students. So that's what I write about. So I'll write about how to duplicate that, how to do it. It is not difficult, it's not rocket science, but it is intentional. Um, and, and so that's what the book is about. Thank you so much for talking about that and for sharing an anecdote from the book that's, that's so powerful and I think we've talked about so much on this in this podcast episode that I'm thinking for the teacher or leader who is kind of ready to close down the episode, Ready to go take action on some of this stuff. 00:40:14 What is one, just one next step that someone could go do, you know, tomorrow next week something to get the ball rolling on some of these big ideas we've been talking about. Um, that would just be kind of a momentum starter. Well the first thing they could do is go by the book, But, but the second thing they can do after 14? The second thing that they can do is in all transparency, Everything that we've talked about. If they're listening to this podcast, if they've listened this far in the podcast, that means that they're, they have a true proclivity to improve. What I would say Lindsay is the first thing that people should do is ask this question are my actions having the impact that they have the potential to have. So let me pause for a second. We are all busy every day. We are all doing something every day whether that's teaching. 00:41:20 Well that's an assistant principal in their duties and job responsibilities, whether it's a principal or superintendent, whether it's a podcast host or whatever it is, we are all engaged in actions. But if we don't stop and reflect on our, my actions, having the impact that I desire them to have, then we will continue in mediocrity. We will continue doing the things that we're doing and getting the results that we're getting and we will be looking for and blaming everybody and everything else for why we're not transforming the thing that I would say is we need to reflect much like earlier in the episode when I talked about the teachers who took the um gave the kids the grades. The first thing that has to happen is they have to understand where they are in relation to where they're trying to be. So the question is, are my actions yielding the results, having the impact and if not, are you willing, are you brave enough to do something about it? 00:42:36 Such a powerful question. Yes, I highly encourage everyone to just take a minute to press pause even on the episode and do that now. Right to just answer that question. Um thank you for that and, and, and as a closing, closing question, this is kind of just fun. I've been adding this in lately, but I'm curious to know we all in that spirit like you're saying of constant learning and growth and if you listen this far, you know, you're a person who is dedicated to that, I know you're dedicated to that. So I'm curious to know what's something that you have been learning about lately and this could be professionally, it could be personally, you learn how to cook something new. Like anything you've been learning about lately, you know, this is actually a really great question. I just finished a book um by chris Voss and the name of this book is never split the difference and chris voss I believe, and I hope I'm not misquoting this at one point in time, I believe he was the the United States leading negotiator and this book is about how to become a better negotiator now, the reason that I'm reading this book is because everything in life is a negotiation. 00:44:01 I mean trying to get your kids to go to sleep? It's negotiation? I mean where you know everything in life, but what I've learned and what I'm learning in this book is the art of communication in such a way that you're able to negotiate um not manipulate but negotiate for win wins. And so I'm really enjoying that or I read the book and I've enjoyed what I'm learning and I'll go back and just continue to try to refine that. Oh that's awesome. Now I love adding to my to read list going right on it. And the last question they have for you is just where can listeners learn more about you or connect with you online? Thank you so much. I'd like to share with them my website which is um www dot S N I X three consulting dot com. That's s next three consulting dot com. And it's on that website that you would be able to um learn more about me, my book um opportunities and resources for you and your organization to continue to improve. 00:45:14 There are different things on there for you to analyze kind of where you are as an organization, as a person. Um so that would be a great place to start. And then of course I don't have a million social platforms but you can follow me on twitter at Samuel nix. Perfect. And we'll link to both of those links in our blog post for the episode as well. Dr nick, Thank you so much for just spending this time with us and sharing so many wonderful insights. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on. The pleasure has been all my Lindsay. Thank you so much and thank you to the listeners. I am so honored. Um, I wish you nothing but the best. 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. 00:46:22 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 Quotes:
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It’s hard to believe that what started as a simple blog a few years ago is now approaching the 100th podcast episode! Time for Teachership has come a long way, and we are excited and ready to launch right into season three. Episode 88 is the intro to season three, and you can have a listen here. We covered everything new and exciting that’s coming up. Season 3 of the Time for Teachership podcast will have two main focus areas:
Curriculum and Instruction The student voice and student leadership has always been at the center of my teaching practice. This season, I want to explore how curriculum and instruction can integrate and elevate student voice. And, taking it further, I want to better define what good curriculum and instruction looks like. When thinking about what makes great curriculum, I came up with the acronym CAI:
District-Level Curriculum Policy Season 3 will feature learning for and from district curriculum leaders. The reason for this is that when change comes from the district level—along with resources and motivation—then teachers are better supported to make change in their classroom. It’s possible to make a positive impact as an independent teacher, but it is both easier and more desirable to do it together in community. So, we’ll focus on what’s happening at the district level and how policy changes there can make impacts in each classroom. Practical Things Along with this new content direction, there are two more exciting developments for season 3 of the Time for Teachership podcast:
Season 3 will also feature more solo “how-to” episodes that walk you through aspects of curriculum or instruction. We’ll also have case studies from educators and teachers who’ve successfully implemented new changes or curriculum into their classroom. There will be some of the regular interviews with inspiring educators, too! So, are you ready? This is going to be a good one. Make sure you’re following along with the Time for Teachership podcast to listen to every new episode that comes out. Thanks for being here—we’re so excited to have you along for the ride. TRANSCRIPT 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. In this episode. We are kicking off season three of the time for Teacher Ship podcast. We're going to talk about all the things that are new and exciting this season. Welcome everyone to episode 88. It is nuts that we are nearing the 100 episode mark. That's going to be a really fun one for today. I want to talk to you about all of the new and exciting things that are happening in season three. 00:01:08 We're going to continue with so many great things we've been doing in the first two seasons and have a renewed focus and Some exciting new things that are happening in season three. So let me tell you about those first. We are now part of the teach better podcast network. I've been blogging with, teach better for a year or so now. Really excited to dive deeper into this family and there are benefits for you as listeners to being part of this network. For example, next weekend. By the time this airs, I will be going to the teach better conference. So I've avoided in person conferences since the pandemic started being pregnant and then having a small child. It makes me a little nervous to be around lots of p However I may equip myself with my mask and go to this one because the 2020 to teach better conference. This October 14-15, which is next weekend as of this recording, if you're listening when this airs is in akron Ohio and I am very excited for it. 00:02:13 So the benefit that you get by this time for teacher ship podcast becoming part of the teach better podcast network is if you want to attend, you get $50 off your ticket when you register. So head over to www that teach better conference dot com slash register. That's teach better conference dot com slash register. And you can use our special code just for this podcast listeners. That is teacher ship 22. Teacher ship starts with a T. All the rest are lowercase teacher ship 22 save $50 off your two day registration fingers crossed, you can snag a seat before they sell out. I know they sold out quickly the last time they had an in person conference and I hope to see you there. You can actually look for me on podcasters row and maybe you'll get a seat on the podcast cause I'll be interviewing people for the podcast as I am. They're super excited for that. The other new thing for season three is really a renewed and even more focused attention on curriculum and instruction. 00:03:24 There was this moment in my PhD studies where one of our professors said when you figure out what your dissertation study is, this is going to basically lead you down this course of research and work and all the things for the rest of your life and so you need to know you need to envision this was the exercise he took us through. I need to envision behind you as you are being called to speak. You're in this podium in the stadium or whatever and behind you on the slide is a phrase and that phrase is going to summarize kind of your focus area for the rest of your career. And I mean that's a lot to put on someone who's like just trying to get through this really challenging program, right? But for me it always came down to student voice or student leadership that is still true. Everything that we have been doing here has been about student voice and student leadership and teaching and leading for justice. That is all still very, very true. The thing I want to focus on this season is curriculum in a way that integrates and leverages that student voice that student leadership and also from an instructional lens and from a leader lens, how do we really come together in teacher ship? 00:04:44 Right. The so tangent here. But if you go back to the very, very beginning of not even the podcast of the blog of time for teacher ship which eventually turned into a podcast. So years back I thought of this term teacher ship out of the blue and then I was like I wonder if this already exists and wouldn't you know like a year before I thought of it. It did come to fruition in academic literature and these researchers kind of named it, defined it, they have a little graph about it that's kind of like showing basically the intersection between leadership and what happens in the classroom, the instructional level. So they're basically saying like teachers can be leaders and leaders have to still be intimately connected to the classroom in and out familiar with the pedagogy coaching on the pedagogy, right? And there is this connection and kind of um integration and an ongoing kind of almost like a blurring of the lines between leadership and what goes on in the classroom or instruction. 00:05:47 I also love um Sophia and Dugan's book street data. They talk about pedagogy of student voice and a lot of the leaders and researchers I work with are talking about um student leadership and student voice in this sense of kind of school stuff right? School wide policy making which is how I've always kind of codified it and I have my leading for justice program about this. But then even in that program as I facilitate these conversations, right? We're talking about often curriculum and what happens at the class level and what our students, you know, learning and how are they learning because you can't really separate that out right. The pedagogy of student voices, how we teach curriculum, how we amplify student voice and that's intimately connected to how we amplify student voice and value student voice at the policy level. Right? So there's all this integration and so I really want to narrow my focus for this season on curriculum instruction. I'll be talking a lot more about my curriculum, boot camp and my different free resources that help people develop curriculum. Um I want to really define what quality curriculum and instruction is. 00:06:49 There are probably pages and pages or for hours and hours of conversation that I could share about. You know what I think quality instruction is, there's a ton of literature, scholarly and practical books already out there but that can feel very overwhelming so super succinctly because the sink is good and memorable. I actually thought of the Assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction role and I thought of C. A. I often abbreviated A C A. I I don't think Ci okay, curriculum instruction, I like acronyms. So what else could see I stand for that truly is a reflection of what I believe curriculum and instruction and quality curriculum and instruction is and I came up with challenging affirming and inspiring. So really good curriculum, challenges students affirm students and inspire students. So what I mean is that each student is appropriately challenged in their zone of proximal development. 00:07:51 There's E. P. D. Right? It's not too hard for them. That is just give up worthy, right? It's not too easy that they're just coasting and they're never challenged. The challenge is gonna look different for each student and that is teacher ship in action, right? That's leaders and teachers coming together and teachers coming together and teacher teams to figure out how well can I get to know my students, how well can I work in partnership with students and families to figure out what is appropriately challenging and how to appropriately challenge students. Great that stuff work. It's not just a simple thing we can solve in a two minute strategy, right? But that is what amazing curriculum looks like next affirming. So what and how students learn, so not just the content of what they learn, although that is incredibly important. Including stories, histories or histories, right? Um pedagogy of how they learn voices from the community. All of the pieces, right? 00:08:51 That reflect, celebrate a firm student identities, all of their identities because we're not single identities, right? I believe it's Audrey Lorde who says we do not live single issue lives, right? And so all of our stuff, all of our identities, the issues that we care about, they're all wrapped up together intertwined with one another. Impacting one another. And so we can't just say, well we chose a couple of aipAC authors and we included them. And now we have a diverse and affirming curriculum, nope, nope. So we need to get to know our students, we need to get to know all of their identities. We need to think about the identities that are not present in the room. Right? So if we have a very monolithic group of students and again, we all hold different identities. So I would argue that no one is completely monolithic, but maybe in a particular way religiously, everyone in the class is of the same religion racially. Everyone in the class is identifying or identified and racialized as the same race. 00:09:55 Maybe you teach at all girls school or something. Right? And so everyone is identifying as female in that school. Hey, everyone, just a quick reminder that you're free resource for this episode is your quiz, which will help you figure out which stage of curriculum development you're in, grab it at lindsey Beth Lyons dot com slash blog slash 88. Now, back to the episode, as you think about kind of these monolithic group or monolithic appearing groups. When you look at just one identity, you need to also think about the windows right. Windows, mirror sliding glass doors Dr Ian Simms Bishop. Where can we have more Windows right, Africa emails, I'm hoping to have back on the podcast. She was on the podcast earlier uh season one, I think. Check out the episode for sure. But I hope to have her on to talk about her newest book Open windows. Open minds that is specifically talking about white students who need the windows into stories, experiences, voices, identities that are racialized as black and brown. 00:10:59 Right? So affirming of all identities, right? Students should feel affirmed they should have a perception of safety. Again, only students can determine that they are safe in their classes. We can't determine that for them or declare that a safe space is safe, but they should perceive we should do everything we can to perceive have them perceiving that they are safe and that their identities are affirmed. There's nothing wrong with them for who they are. In fact, they are celebrated and differences are valued and explored and examples of people with those identities and experiences that relate to those identities are held up and discussed and explored within the curriculum, not just a poster on the wall or a diversity statement on a website. Again, super challenging. Not something we can fix in two minutes, but that is what it means to be affirming and then it's so engaging. Students are inspired. This is the last piece inspiring to create something new and here's the kicker for a real audience beyond the teacher and beyond the purpose of a grade. 00:12:14 They are inspired. So yes, they're engaged. Yes, they're participating in class discussions. They're doing all the things completing assignments, but they are inspired. They are pumped to create something that is innovative. That is new that serves a purpose in the community. It solves or addresses an issue, right? Something really, really cool that only they could do write their creative juices are flowing. So again, curriculum and instruction that is absolutely just amazing. The ideal to me challenges affirms and inspire students and so on. A very basic level we can kind of ask ourselves, is that what my curriculum looks like? Is that what my district, where my school's curriculum look like and if not, what can I do about it? And I'm getting there, I'm gonna help you out with that the next season that's kind of new or kind of a new, newer focus for this season specifically is I want to learn for and from district curriculum. 00:13:17 Leaders of course, school level leaders is gonna be valuable for you. Individual teachers and department leads definitely valuable for you as well. But I want to really focus on the district systems and structures because when we have those in place, the individual schools and then the individual departments and teams and teachers are going to be better supported when we can learn and grow in community when we can make a change to the way we grade for example or we're transitioning to, um, you know, standards based assessments or project based learning. We haven't done that before. Way easier to do when everyone's doing it. There's a ton of support for it. Our leaders are acting as the buffers for the parents who are potentially upset about it or have questions about it, right. And teachers don't have to be inundated with all of that when we have a culture of learning together and visiting someone else's classroom who's really got it down right and excitedly talking about and and creating space for creating this new curriculum or developing this new thing and checking in and seeing how it's going within our PLC groups. 00:14:25 That is going to make life so much easier than one teacher trying to go it alone and change what they do possible. Yes, absolutely. I've been that teacher, but I've also been part of a community, a school where everything was in place or many of the things were in place to allow me to do that work better and it was so much less of a struggle. It was so much more fulfilling and still challenging. Yes. But it didn't feel like I was banging my head against the wall every guy. Right? And so that's really critical and why we want to really focus on district leaders. So I'll be interviewing a lot of district leaders. I'll also be doing more how to solo shows. I'm gonna bring more of those back. We've had a lot of guest episodes in the past season while I was out on parental leave and then also want to do some case study episode. So bringing in teachers or departments who have created challenging, affirming inspiring units, some of whom who have been in my curriculum boot camp and can speak to that process of design um what they did afterwards, the pre work that might have been nice to do before they did do before, all the pieces, all the things you might be wondering. 00:15:31 And finally I told you I'd come back to this, you know, how do you determine where you are in this curriculum development journey, as a school, as a district, even as an individual teacher. But what stage of this process am I in, what should I do right now? Because that's gonna look super different depending on what you're currently doing and ultimately we're going to the same place, but what you're currently doing and what you've currently been struggling with, your next step is going to look different. And I often ask for guests, you know, what is the next step you would recommend to people? And it's hard to ask that question when you're in different places. So I have a new, completely new freebie for you. I developed this for leaders. It can also be helpful for teachers as well, so you can just take it through the lens of individually, where do you fit? Because it asks, you know, where are the majority of your teachers for all the questions, seven questions. It will tell you which of the four stages, most of your teachers are in and then when you get the results you don't only get the stage, you will get the stage but it also gives you based on this stage that you're in right now are the majority of your teachers are in right now. 00:16:41 Here are several next steps that you can take that you can support teachers to take and here are several resources, the vast majority of them free for you as leaders to consume and some that are directly shareable with teachers that are going to help them immediately. You can grab this in the show notes. You can also go to bit dot lee, that's b I T dot l y slash curriculum quiz. All lowercase bit dot li slash curriculum quiz. I am so excited to hear how your experience of this quiz is to hear if the resources are valuable, I'm taking all the feedback on it. Brand new resource for you. Super pumped to hopefully help you out and really move the needle on your curriculum development this year. We are all in this together. So again, feedback, Welcome, share this with other folks who might find this valuable if you have a another Assistant Superintendent of curriculum Assessment and instruction right down the road. Feel feel free to share with them right share with your principles, share with an individual teacher who is pumped about curriculum design and wants to not feel like they're on this island alone, right there is a community here for them. 00:17:50 We're going to challenge each other and grow together this season and I cannot wait to see what you produce and if you take some of these ideas and put them into practice and you create this amazing stuff, let me know. Not only do I want to celebrate you, You can come on the podcast and talk about the amazing units be built. That's it for today. I am so excited for this journey tune in next week and I'll talk to you then 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. 00:18:57 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. Quotes:
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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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