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In this episode, we talk with Dr. Sarah Burnham, a postdoctoral scholar who works at CIRCLE (The Centre for Information & Research on Civic Learning) at Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. She primarily works on projects related to K-12 civics education. In our discussion, she emphasizes the transformative power of civics education and shares ways to create inclusive classrooms where both teachers and students are supported. Dr. Burnham discusses fostering critical consciousness and anti-oppressive attitudes within educational settings. Civic education, according to her, isn't about politicizing students but equipping them with tools to engage with their communities and society effectively. Sarah Burnham is a postdoctoral fellow at CIRCLE focusing on civic learning and development in K-12 education. She received her Ph.D. from Suffolk University in Applied Developmental Psychology. Her work aims to help teachers and schools embrace culturally sustaining pedagogies authentically so that all students feel affirmed in their lived experiences to effectively engage in civic action for themselves and their communities. She is also passionate about positive youth development and developing critical consciousness and anti-oppressive attitudes across the lifespan both online and offline. The Big Dream Dr. Burnham's vision for education is a landscape where classrooms nurture support and belonging for both teachers and students. She believes that this starts by paying teachers fairly and diversifying the teaching workforce to create a strong sense of community. Additionally, students should have access to resources reflecting their diverse experiences, creating genuine engagement with their learning environments. Mindset Shifts Required To begin creating classrooms that nurture support and belonging, Dr. Burnham emphasizes the need for educators and administrators to embrace participatory decision-making in classrooms, allowing students to have a say in their educational experiences. This involves teachers reflecting on their comfort with flexible classroom dynamics and administrators supporting these changes. Further, it means prioritizing social studies and civics education—and new ways of teaching—even when it feels noisy or messy. Action Steps A lot of Dr. Burnham’s work surrounds pedagogical practices that foster critical consciousness in anti-oppressive attitudes. For clarity, critical consciousness refers to the ability to recognize and analyze oppressive political, economic, and social forces that are shaping society, and to take action against those forces. Anti-oppressive attitudes require someone to actively acknowledge power disparities and work for equity and liberation. Ideally these two are working in tandem in education, and educators who want to embrace this in their classrooms can begin with these steps in their civics education practices: Step 1: Understand the purpose of civics education. It’s not to push a specific ideology or push students to become overly politicized outside the classroom. Rather, it’s helping students see the connection to their community, what’s happening, and their part in it. Step 2: Prioritize students' voices in decision-making processes within the classroom, ensuring their experiences help shape the learning environment. It’s important to also include more diverse voices in the curriculum, ones that are grounded in the students’ identities, histories, and communities. Step 3: Engage in self-reflection. Educators need to ask the question: Am I okay with being this flexible in the classroom? Because centering students’ voices means creating space for lived experiences and different ideas, which can be uncomfortable at times. Step 4: Implement participatory exercises that don’t just deliver content, but shape experiences of community. Shared decision-making is practicing democracy in the classroom. For example, a group budgeting exercise helps students learn about real-world issues that matter to them. Challenges? Educators may find it challenging to shift from traditional methods to more flexible, student-centered approaches. They need administrative support to explore these new pedagogies and incorporate them effectively, and there’s a need for quality professional development to guide educators in these transitions. One Step to Get Started One way to get started is for educators to identify local representatives and explore their positions on funding for schools and public goods. Engage students and families in discussions about these issues and encourage them to participate in community activities like voting or local meetings to demonstrate the practical application of civic involvement. Stay Connected You can stay connected with Dr. Sarah Burnham on LinkedIn or send her an email at [email protected]. Keep up with CIRCLE’s research on the Tufts website. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing the Curricululm Playlist with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 253 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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Transcript:
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Sarah Burnham, welcome to the time for teachership podcast. Sarah Burnham: Thank you for having me. Lindsay Lyons: I'm really excited. I know we've been kind of nerding out just a little bit right before we hit record, but would love for folks who are engaging with this episode just to know you know who you are beyond maybe the professional bio. Sarah Burnham: Yeah, of course. So, um, just to iterate, my name is Sarah Burnham. Um, I am a postdoctoral scholar, um, at Circle. Um, I primarily work on projects related to K through 12 civic education. Um, I've been super into this. Uh, the new social studies curriculum in Massachusetts called Investigating History. Been working on it for about three years, and I'm really excited for what I've seen and the growth for the teachers. Um, I even have a sticker on my water bottle for investigating history. Um, but beyond the, uh, professional stuff, I was born and raised in the suburbs of Boston. Um, I just finished reading, um, rabid by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy. Um, very interesting nonfiction book about the cultural history of rabies. Um, and I'm also really digging the new Sabrina Carpenter album. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. I love this. I love the whole humanness of your response. Thank you. So now for a more, uh, potentially academic or, or work related education related question, I love starting with this. So, Betina love describes freedom dreaming as dreams, uh, grounded in the critique of injustice. And I'm curious just what is your freedom dream for education? Sarah Burnham: Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is a great question and I spent a lot of time thinking about this. Um, so my freedom dream is that, uh, is making classrooms, places where both teachers and students feel cared for and supported. So I think that mostly starts with making sure that teachers are paid fairly for everything that they do. Um, and I think if that happened, we'd probably see way more teachers from all kinds of backgrounds sticking around instead of burning out or leaving. Um, and then when teachers are coming from different backgrounds. Students are feeling more connected and they actually feel like they're part of the classroom community. So that's the one part of it. The other part is also. Uh, getting more relevant resources that reflect the diversity of students and their experiences. So, um, circles research has shown that less than half of young people say that they actually feel like they belong at school. Um, and that's a huge red flag. So that feeling of belonging isn't the same for everyone and particularly for, um, minoritized groups. Um, they feel it less than others feeling like they don't belong. So let's tell us there's a, that there's a lot of work to do in caring for both students and teachers. Um, so what is really exciting me and something that I would love to work towards and help, uh, teachers and practitioners work towards is making the idea of classrooms where students are not just learning about democracy and theory, but are. Practicing it. So things like participatory budgeting or, uh, group decision making where students get to use their voice and feel like they matter and feeling like they're belonging in this community. Um, and having that kind of hands-on experience also builds confidence, um, not just in school but also outside of school. Um. Then also to go back to the teacher side of this, um, school leaders and administrators need to have teachers' backs. Um, I know that this is a crazy time for everyone, um, but they, uh, administrators at the very least, can protect time for social studies, um, and civics because often those are relegated towards, um, prepping for, um, standardized testing, um, or often for supplemental services. Supplemental services should also be prioritized, but often kids are being pulled out of social studies for those supplemental services. Um, and so prioritizing social studies and civics and encouraging teachers to try new ways of teaching, even if it feels noisy or messy, um, and making sure that like it's, they feel okay about it. Um, so that was a lot that I just said, but. Making sure both teachers and students are cared for. And that starts from caring for teachers, caring for um, uh, students, and then also making sure they're protected by their administrator and their institutions. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. I am like furiously scribbling notes. This is amazing. I love all of this. I love the concept of pr, practicing democracy in theory, like Sure. Budgeting. So cool. I love the idea of protecting that time for social studies because one of the things we've found out from the third and fourth grade pilot with investigating history of Massachusetts is like, no one has time. Like it's not, it's just not allotted. And so then it's like how do you create that time? Well, what is it being used for? Like you said, it's like standardized test prep and. It is so disheartening when it's like this is civics is like how you engage with the world, with your community. This is a lifelong thing that people need to develop capacity for, and yet we routinely kind of erase it from the structure of how school is done, particularly at lower levels. And it is so depressing. So thank you for naming that. I really appreciate that. And I also just love your idea of like risk taking, like the idea of like risk taking pedagogically and like supporting that as an admin. So often I think as a teacher there's kind of this fear of like an observation is happening and it's gonna be punitive. And it's like, how cool would it be if we had admin who are like, yeah, I support you trying that new thing, and I'll come in and I'll collect data for you and we can reflect together. And I know it's gonna be messy and it might be loud. And like all the things that traditional schooling tells us, it's like not good pedagogy, but like is great, you know? Mm-hmm. I just. Oh my gosh. All the things. Yes. Thank you. Sarah Burnham: Yeah, and like, so we would do like classroom observations for the evaluation and like teachers were so nervous and I was like, please do not be nervous. I don't, I don't care what you are doing. I wanna see how this, this, the classroom is functioning like as a whole, like it are the students engaging. Like this is not evaluative, I'm not sharing this with anybody. This is all confidential and I think that was hard for teachers to kind of get over the, because like so often it's a higher up that's in the classroom. I'm just like, I am just here to take notes. Just here to take notes. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, I would love that culture broadly to permeate like the school, like both for outsiders, but like internal, like peer-to-peer teacher, like observations and things would be so lovely. Um, and I know, so thank you so much for sharing so much of the research, that statistic about less than half of young people reporting belonging at school is like soul crushing makes me so sad. Also though, the hopeful part of me, the critical, hopeful part is like, how cool would it be if that is a metric that schools were tracking internally, right. To just be like. Okay. Like, we're gonna measure this every three months or something, and we're gonna just like make moves towards increasing that number. So I, I do think for people who are engaging with this episode, like, you can do this, this is something that you can track and value it just as much, if not more, right. Than those standardized test scores that we devote so much time and energy to. Um, but I know you have a lot of, a lot of research knowledge. Would love to, to learn from you in all of that. So curious what the research says about civic education in whatever way you wanna take that. I know that's. Super broad field of research, um, but also thinking about. Specifically, I know you research like anti-oppressive attitudes in youth critical consciousness. Like what pedagogies or pedagogical practices foster critical consciousness in anti-oppressive attitudes. 'cause I think that's what many of us are in the work to do and would love to know what the research has on that. Sarah Burnham: I. Yeah, that's a great question. And so before I get into like kind of the meat of this question, I just wanna make sure that, um, I'm clarifying what I mean by by critical consciousness and anti-oppression. So, critical consciousness, um, developed I think in the mid 19 hundreds. Um, so this refers to the ability to recognize and analyze oppressive political, economic and social forces that are shaping society and to take action against those forces. So critical consciousness, um, and a lot of, at least the developmental sec. Uh, psychological literature, which is my background, um, has like three distinct, uh, dimensions of like critical reflection. So understanding kind of like your own positionality, um, political self-efficacy. So understanding what you can and can't do kind of in your position. And then also sociopolitical action of like what are the actual actions that you're taking. Um, so that's my understanding of critical consciousness. Um. And then anti-oppressive attitudes. Um, so that's requiring someone to like actively acknowledging p power disparities and work for equity and liberation. So these two concepts should ideally be working in tandem in education and then create a school climate that cares for teachers and students. Um, so, but to get back to the question at hand, um, so I think, um. I think this is a lot something that educators are grappling with, right, right now. But research paints a pretty clear picture that when done well, civic education works, right? It's linked to better civic outcomes, like stronger community engagement. Um, understanding how, a better understanding of how government works and how you can affect government. And then also a deeper sense, deeper sense of a responsibility to participate in your community. Um. And so civic education is boosting knowledge, civic dispositions. Um, but I also wanna emphasize that based also on circles, research that, um, having robust civic education, um, is not leading students to become overly per politicized outside of the classroom, which is I think something that, um, uh, a lot of, uh, naysayers against civic education. Um. Might have a concern about, um, it's not linked to partisan outcomes. It's not links to ideological indoctrination. Um, what it's doing is giving students tools to make sense of the world and see themselves as people who can have a say in it. Um, and I think that's the core of civic education. And then, um, the critical, conscious and anti oppressiveness of like, understanding that you can affect your community and you have a responsibility as a citizen to kind of make things better for both yourself and for your community. Um. So, um, I think one of the key shifts is around how we teach civics, um, not just what we teach. Um, and I think investigating history is a great example of that, where inquiry-based learning is a huge part of, uh, transitioning how we're thinking about teaching civics. So when students are encouraged to ask real questions and investigate issues that matter to them, um, and engage in dialogue with their peers, they're starting to build those critical thinking skills in the classroom. And then those skills transfer far beyond the classroom, like in their afterschool activities, um, or maybe in, uh, even just in conversations with their families, which I will get to at a later point. Um, but also, uh, fostering critical consciousness. Um. It also re requires, um, making civic learning relevant to students' lives. And I think that's also connected to having a classroom community where students feel like they belong, right? If they don't feel like they belong, then they're thinking that civic, civic learning is not relevant and then they're not fostering critical consciousness, um, which is kind of not where we wanna be. Um, so it's. It about also about including more diverse voices in the curriculum and grounding the entire learning experience in students' identities, histories, and communities. Um, one of the things that we learned from the teachers during these, uh, evaluations was that, um. Social studies, classrooms, and lessons, um, often act as like windows, um, where we're looking out at other people, other places and other times. Um, but we need to have more mirrors or spaces for students to reflect on their experiences, their own positionality, and how they fit into the broader social and historical context. Um, and this was something that. People like appreciated about investigating history was that it does provide some of those, um, mirrors, um, rather than like kind of the windows. Um, and then. Yeah. So civic education is not just about kind of government structures or historical timelines. It's building the habits of democracy, um, feeling like you're connected to your community, your classroom. Um, and when students kind of see themselves in the story, then they kind of see that they have the power to shape kind of what comes next. Lindsay Lyons: Amazing. Oh my gosh, what a great synthesis. Thank you. And, and I'm thinking about the teacher who might be, um, listening or reading the blog posts and, and thinking about their specific actions. So maybe they do have investigating hist history as a curriculum. Maybe, you know, they're, they're in a different state. They don't have that. But they want to shift pedagogically, like how, you know, they're doing things. And I know you mentioned the inquiry being huge, like en engaging students and asking, I like that you said real questions. Real questions that mean something to them. And investigating those sources as well as having dialogue. I love also just the idea of building habits of democracy. So how do teachers, I mean, what have you found in the research or how have you, how have you learned about. What specific practices may be things that, that teachers can do to kind of implement or, or bring about some of this learning for students? Sarah Burnham: Yeah. Um, so, um, first I think it means centering student voice and like not just a buzz buzzword, but like in a way that's like real and consistent. Um, so creating classroom environments where students' opinions, questions, and lived experiences actually help shape, um, what happens in the room. Um, and that can be really uncomfortable. And I think that also requires some self-reflection on the part of the teachers of like, do I feel okay with being this flexible in the classroom? Um, and but they also kind of need, again, their, uh, administrators to support them in making some of these choices. Um. Uh, in some of circle's research, and Ill be, these are with kind of older grades, but having that shared decision making framework, like participatory budgeting has been really effective in students feeling like they have a voice in kind of what happens in the classroom and what happens at their school. Um, so that is really kind of centering student voice, um, and. Um, we've also heard that like having, um, adjusted materials can also, um, like adjusted materials to reflect kind of, um, student um, experiences in the classroom can also be really helpful. So, um. Like, uh, if it's, if they feel, if teachers feel uneasy discussing things, um, like they can ask for help to do so, um, and making sure that they feel okay to ask for help. Um, and having kind of robust professional development is also really important. Um, and, um. Yeah. So for teachers, like it's, it's kind of like they're not just delivering content, they're also kind of shaping students' experiences of community, um, and kind of of democracy when they're trying, when they're doing this shared decision making in the classroom, if that's, um, an avenue do they decide to, uh, pursue. Um, and yeah, so it means kinda doing a lot of self-reflection and then also feeling okay with. Exploring some of those more uncomfortable or uneasy kind of pieces that either about themselves or about kind of history, um, at large. Lindsay Lyons: Love the different components of, of what you shared. What I really latched onto my like scholarly student voice brain was like, ooh. Shared decision making structures. I love that. Are you, have you seen in the research the, like an example that you could share around either a class-based decision making structure, like something that you would invite students into to like. Help make a decision around, or even, I know you said upper grades, even if it's like a school based decision making structure, like an advisory council or anything. Um, anything that you've come across that, that feels either interesting to you or just like you've, you've seen it come up in the research and, and wanted to share it? Sarah Burnham: Yeah, so I can actually, so I wasn't, I'm not involved in the, um. Illinois kind of democracy school project as much as my colleagues. Um, but there was a big participatory budgeting, um, project in the Illinois Civic hub schools where, um, there were, they highlighted a couple of, um, high schools, um, where they were given like a small amount of money. Um. And they were thinking about kind of what students needed. So, um, there was one, um, school where, um, they, uh, used the money to create a resource closet, um, for students. So, um, things like, um, clothes, um, hygiene supplies or food. Um, so students like basic needs could be met. Um, so that was one way that that kind of showed up in one of the high schools that they worked with. Um, there was another, um, school that they did a similar project with participatory budgeting, um, where they looked at, um, students. Like students when they were like divided into, um, groups, um, especially with like different like abilities, they came up with like different ideas. Um, and then they had like, and this is also part and parcel with the participatory budgeting process of like generating ideas and then voting on some of the things. But it was really interesting some of the ideas that came up. Um, of like new speakers having a coffee bar, um, having a digital media room. Um, ultimately that particular school, um, chose to set up like a calming room, um, so students could feel like comfortable and safe in their school. Um, but yeah, it like having students, like having their ideas heard, even if they weren't voted on. I think it's still a very generative process for the students. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. Thank you for those concrete examples. I love those. And especially as a former high school teacher and, and thinking through the lens of like maybe a principal or someone who's listening to this from the high school lens, oh, I wanna measure student's sense of belonging. That's gonna be a metric for our success. How do I do that? Well, I open up the floor for conversations and ideas like this. And if we aren't gonna go for a particular idea, someone nominated, we at least get back to them and say, I think that's one of the components of like Laura Lundy's, four pieces of voices. Like, you gotta like get back to 'em and like let them know why, why we didn't choose something. Um, and I, I love that. So, such clear examples like of what can come out of inviting students into that process. I think I've even seen in as young as first grade in the student of voice literature that like even just co-designing the classroom space can be something, right? Like, well, how you know it, there's like a weird impediment to like how you come into the classroom and hang up your stuff in your cubby and like how do we redesign that or. I need a calming space. How could we make that happen? Um, just last night, my, my kid was like, I, we have a corner in our preschool where I don't feel mad because you could just squeeze a stuffy. And I was like, I love that. Would you like to make that at home? And he was like, we, we can do that. What? Yes, like just the tiniest things sometimes are just so valuable. So I appreciate your concrete examples and I think to transition to, to family life at home, I, I think. A lot of families or a lot of educators actually wear kind of two hats where they're like kind of parenting or supporting a young person in some capacity in their families and they're like, yeah, I do this at school, but maybe I don't think about bringing it home. Or How could I bring it home? Or someone could like, share this episode with a family member, the of their student. Um, how can families also support? So we kind of have this dual support from both school and home. We have this kind of partnership around civic engagement. Any recommendations you have for families? Sarah Burnham: Yeah, so I think that's a great point. And I think that like, you know, civic education is kind of also happening like all the time. Like I think a lot of times we think it like happens in schools like no, it's happened like all the time. Like when you're going to the grocery store and like even just like returning like. The carriage like that is still like making things like better and easier for the other, um, folks at the grocery store. Um, but like, yeah, families are a huge part of the picture. Um, so, um, more often than not, young people are usually getting information from their immediate family members. Um, so, uh, seeing their, uh. Parents or even their, or just caregivers talking about local issues, voting, attending different community events, or just having, um, like thoughtful conversations about what's happening in the world. Like young people are noticing that. Um, and they can see that like, Hey, this is something that matters to my community. So what can parents do, um, or any family member do, like an older sibling, an aunt or an uncle of like just. Helping them volunteer or even just like taking your kid with you to go vote and see what the process looks like. Right. It's like it's, uh, at least, uh, when I was voting in Somerville a couple months ago, like it was pretty easy. Everybody was so friendly and like the stickers are like so much fun to get. Um, I currently have a collection of I voted stickers, um, just like pasted on one of our cabinets. Um, and like. Young people are pick up on these things. They pick up on this. And, um, having family support is just really important. Um, and then it's also kind of, especially before they turn 18, is like reinforcing those ideas, like of participating in democracy. So doing like, like bake sales, um, or just like going to like some of the afterschool, um, programming things. Um, or, um, modeling even just, uh, modeling, respectful disagreement during dinner conversations that can also. But also be really effective in helping, uh, young people understand how to have those kinds of disagreements and to respectfully disagree. Um, because I think that's also something else that can come up in the classroom is how do we have those res, the respectful disagreements. And I think that's a great place to kind of see what's happening at home and then model that kind of in the classroom. Um, so. I think like families, like don't need to be experts obviously, in this work. Um, but they kind of need to be open and engaged and kind of willing to show like their kids or, um, other family members that their voice matters, um, kind of now and not just when they turn 18 and they can vote. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. I love that you said that because that is consistently one of the kind of points of frustration of schooling as we always say. Like, oh, we're preparing them for this future time. And it's like, no, they right now they can do that right now. Yeah. Sarah Burnham: Yeah. One of my colleagues like keep, like, keep saying in these conversations with civic education, we can't expect students to practice all these things at 18 when they haven't gotten any experience with it. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And, and we can't instill this idea in students that their voice matters and their ideas have impact. If, if we're not actually like doing that now, right. They're gonna be like, I guess only adults have that. 'cause you keep telling me to wait. I am so fascinated by all of that. You have shared, I'm sure there's so much more to that you have come across in the researcher. Is there anything that we, before we get to kind of our lightning round questions, is there anything that we did not talk about that you wanted to bring up? I. Sarah Burnham: Um, I don't think so. I talked a lot about things and I hope some of this was helpful Lindsay Lyons: For sure. Um, yeah, no, for sure. It is. And I, and I think one of the things that people like is usually at the end we ask, uh, our first lightning round question, well, I'll just get to it, I guess is like some sort of first step. So like an action I can take today or tomorrow. Upon ending the episode and being like, I wanna implement something. I know we talked about a range of things, both at home and in school. What do you think feels like an attainable, kind of like starter people could do soon? Sarah Burnham: Um, yeah, so I at least, 'cause I mentioned being in Somerville, I know like our. Municipal elections are coming up. So looking up who is running and what they stand for. So, um, there's been a lot of talk about funding the schools, um, in Somerville, um, and also libraries. So thinking about who your local representatives are, who's running, and find out what they stand for in terms of like fair compensation, um, and then public, like public goods funding, and then. Like that also feeds into some of the, what I said before is like when teachers are feeling supported, um, it can create the kind of classrooms where students are empowered to ask these big questions. Um, and I know it might be. Harder for like, not cities, but it seems like a lot, at least in my experience, people who are running for office like are fine with like talking to you, like just sending like an email. And if they're not fine with talking to you via email, then maybe you've focused your efforts to somebody else who's running. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, I love that. I have a, a, a colleague, I'm pretty sure this was Cara, who, you know, Cara Pranov, who, who was saying, you know, actually all of my, like my kids and my niece and my nephews, like, they know and have talked to all of the people in their, um, like local, like people that represent them because it is possible to do, it is attainable. You just have to like reach out. So I love that you brought that up. Um, and I, I really love this idea of like. Considering not just who's writing, but I I think you also mentioned like funding and I am so fascinated when you even hand over, like the hypothetical question of like, if you were to control the budget, where would you allocate money to? Anyone from high school all the way to like a preschooler, right? I mean, the preschooler probably say like toys, which is the usual answer I get. But like, other than toys, where would you spend money? Um, but making sure that people have. What they need as kind of that lens and through line is like, where do you think people have a need? Where do you, right. I think that's such a great conversation starter. 'cause every kid's gonna have a different answer. And so if you're at home, cool, you learn more about your kid and what they care about. And if you're in a school system, like, okay, in this class we had like 25 different answers. So how do we, how do people actually decide where to, like, that's such a lovely entry point into, um, conversations about civics and government and, and all of that. Um, so I love that that lens of like, who are the leaders? Right? How does the funding get allocated? And then there's such a beautiful, um, kind of inquiry map that you can start there to dive into all of the structures and ways decisions are made. Sarah Burnham: Exactly. Always inquiry all the time. Lindsay Lyons: That's right. Um, okay. This one is kind of just for fun, but it can be research based, but also just in your life in general. What are you learning about lately? Sarah Burnham: Um, so I've actually, this is research based, so it's not like as fun or exciting, um, but it's fun and exciting to me 'cause I'm learning. Um, I've been attending some weekly webinars about research practice partnerships, um, or RPPs. So they're like collaborations between, um, education agencies and researchers. Um. So there's like, they've been doing some short webinars, especially they've been kind of over lunch, so I don't really like talk. Um, but um, learning about like what makes a successful research practice partnership, I think like, uh, people may be more familiar with like the U Chicago, um, consortium where they primarily partner with, um, Chicago Public Schools, um, to, um, increase or improve, um, different aspects of, uh. Just schooling of like, I think there's like computer science, education, um, reading and literacy, but they're like really purposeful, um, partnerships that people like Foster. Um, so I'm learning more about that. Um, but it seems like a very powerful way to connect evidence to poli policy decisions like in real time. Lindsay Lyons: What that is fascinating. I have not heard of this, so I need to investigate. Thank you for that. Um, and then finally, how can our audience connect with you? Continue to follow your research. Check out what Circle is doing all the things. Sarah Burnham: Yeah. So, um, I am on Blue Sky, um, as Bernham Burglar, that is my last name with burglar added to the end of it. Um, I had been meeting about, I've been meeting to be better about using Blue Sky. Um. You can also follow me on LinkedIn as SL Burnham. Um, for more formal connections, you can email me at my Tufts email address. It's just, uh, sarah dot [email protected]. Um, and then for all circle research, which is not just on civic education, there's many aspects of young people civic life. Um, I think we just posted something about, uh, rural turnout, um, and also youths connect, uh, young people's connection to social movements. Um, you can check out circle.ts.edu and there's a ton there. And you can also find more about some of the things I was talking about, especially with the participatory budgeting, um, project and some of the other work, um, in Illinois. Lindsay Lyons: Amazing. Dr. Burnham, thank you so, so much for talking to us today. Sarah Burnham: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.
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4/6/2026 252. Processing ICE and Resistance using Think Feel Do with Kara Pranikoff and Dr. Eric Soto-ShedRead Now
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In this episode, host Lindsay talks with Kara Pranikoff and Dr. Eric Soto-Shed. They introduce a thoughtful framework designed to help educators navigate high emotion topics in the classroom. They specifically frame the conversation around current events involving ICE, and the intense emotional and political responses nationwide. Grounding the conversation in what’s currently impacting students today, this episode offers practical and hands-on knowledge for educators to apply to their classroom settings today. Kara Pranikoff spent more than two decades in NYC schools as a classroom teacher; reading interventionist; Instructional Coach; curriculum designer; and an adjunct instructor at Bank Street College of Education. As a consultant and coach she nurtures educators in developing inquiry based practices in social studies and writing that develop independent student thinking, voice and a sense of belonging for all members of the community. Dr. Soto-Shed is a lecturer in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research centers on curriculum development and teacher training, with his work aiming to promote inquiry and equity in education. He also consults on school district initiatives and conducts professional development workshops for educators of all levels. Why? At the time of recording (end of February 2026), over 30 people died in ICE detention facilities in 2025, six people have died interacting with ICE agents in 2026, and ICE arrested around 3,000 people over six weeks in Minnesota in early 2026. This has all led to widespread protests and fear among immigrant communities. Emotions are high, and anyone working with youth is wondering: how do we engage with this in a thoughtful way? This episode walks educators through the “Think, Feel, Do” framework to engage in this and other high-emotion topics with students and young people. What: Understanding the Framework The goal of the “Think, Feel, Do” framework is to both honor the range of natural responses that students would have, and then broaden their responses. The framework centers on the student experience, who will all respond differently:
Understanding these differences helps educators respond in a range of different ways. How: Implementing “Think, Feel, Do” To begin engaging students in high-emotion conversations, like what’s happening with ICE, educators can implement the following action steps: 1. Lead with content While it’s not always the first thing we think about when addressing high-emotion topics, it is very important to leverage high-quality, accurate content about the topic. This grounds the conversation in facts and what’s really happening and helps students sort through the volume of information they’re exposed to. Content is a starting point for the conversation and will really engage the “think” side of things. 2. Reflect on values In addition to the content, the facts, it’s also important for educators to start by lifting up fundamental values. What do we hold as true and important? How do these values influence our understanding of immigration policies and human dignity? This gets at the heart of the issue and connects with what we believe to be important. 3. Create space for all responses Knowing that students will engage in these conversations very differently is a key truth to start with. Some will know very little about the situation, whereas others may be actively engaged in protests or resistance. It’s important to create space for all responses—they’re all valid, and we can learn from each other. 4. Engage students compassionately When approaching high-emotion conversations, it’s also important to note that some students are directly (or materially) impacted by what’s happening. Educators can lead with compassion and understanding, checking in with students and tapping into that “feel” side to ensure they are safe and doing okay. 5. Find joy amidst challenges Bringing in experiences of joy and hope can offer a powerful compliment to the oppression and adversity people are going through. Educators can actively bring in these expressions of joy, like artistic forms of resistance and resilience, to emphasize our shared humanity. 6. Partner with families Similar to how educators need to understand the different ways students engage in high-emotion topics (e.g., “think, feel, do” orientation), parents can benefit from understanding this, too. Even in the same household, children can have a range of responses. Parents can lead with authenticity, showing their kids how they’re responding to the news, and then process it with their children. They can also model media literacy and good media habits to be mindful of what information is being consumed in your house. There also needs to be strong communication between educators and parents, offering guidance on how to continue these high-emotion conversations at home. One Step to Take Today To begin integrating this framework into educational practice, begin with a reflective practice. Educators can do this by considering personal responses to current events through the lens of the framework. Stay Connected You can stay connected with our guests via their websites: Eric Soto-Shed and Kara Pranikoff. To help you implement today’s takeaways, we’re sharing our Think Feel Do cards with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 252 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome to another episode of the Time for teachership podcast. Today I have my amazing adored colleagues, Dr. Eric Soche and Kara Proff here to talk to you about, uh, something that I think is coming up a lot for us all in all of the. Communities that we coach and work in and with, um, which is how to enter a conversation about ICE in this time. Um, we're airing this in April 7th. We're recording this on February 20th, 2026. I just wanna like, contextualize that piece for everyone, but really we're kind of thinking about. Where we are in time. I'll set the stage here with some factual context and then kind of what do we do to respond to this time in partnership with fellow educators and thinking about the youth in our spaces, whether that's families or teachers. So let's get into the context. So at least 32 people have died in ICE detention facilities in the year 2025. Six people have died interacting with ICE agents in 2026. And in early 2026 ICE arrested 3000 people over six weeks in Minnesota. I think that's an important context to set first because there's this been long history, right, and that's only looking at the last year, year or so. Then Amids protest. Renee Good was shot and killed by an ice agent. Later in January, Alex Preddy was shot and killed by federal immigration agents while filming those agents and the Trump administration has called both victims domestic terrorists. Widespread protests have ensued and widespread fear in immigrant communities has resulted in reduced school attendance in an education setting and close many businesses. So, so much is happening. Emotions are high, and I think anyone working with youth is wondering how do we help youth make sense of this? If they're seeing this on the news, how do we process and talk about this? What do I say if it comes up? Do I bring it up? So many questions. And one of the big questions that we've gotten from educators is, how do we do this without further traumatizing students? Like, this is already like a hard thing. Um, and how do we do this in a thoughtful way? So with that, we have developed kind of a, a framework for, um, social studies, instruction and pedagogy generally. Cara, can you talk us through kind of the why behind the framework and how it connects to this moment? Kara Pranikoff: Yeah, so thank you Lindsay. I'm so happy to be here with you and Eric talking today. Um, in many of our conversations, again, trying to figure out the best way to address what's happening in current times with students and with families. We were looking. For a way to both honor the range of natural responses that students were going to have, and then also broaden their responses. So we thought about a framework that really centered kind of the student experience. It's the think, feel, and do framework. So it's composed of kind of three different questions. So students, when they're. Brought to a current event or a, um, high emotion topic. Some students are gonna respond by thinking about what do I think? So they're going to be curious. They're gonna want some more information. They're going to really delve into the desire for more content and some criticality. Some students are naturally gonna respond by thinking about how they feel. These are the students who really connect with their identities, connect with the emotions, and, um, lead kind of with empathy sometimes, um, even with joy. And then some students are going to be thinking about, what can I do? They're going to be called to action. How can they respond? What are the skills that they can develop? To respond. So in the creation of this framework, the think, feel, and do framework, we were really looking for a way that teachers could respond or support their students in responding in a range of ways, and also kind of deepen their response, um, to the issues that come into the classroom. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you for that overview. And Eric, what advice would you give us as we're thinking about all that stuff? Like what's on your mind? Eric Soto-Shed: Well, you know, the first is, I'd love to know, ping back maybe a follow up, uh, to, to you Lindsay, and you talk about, you know, how do we sort of address this with our students without, you know, further potentially traumatizing or traumatizing students. I'm, I'm curious if you could like, maybe unpack for us in the audience, like what do you mean when you say traumatized? Um, students. Lindsay Lyons: I so appreciate that question and I, um, I'll definitely open it up to, I'd love to hear what all of your thoughts are. Not sure exactly what the each individual teacher who has asked a version of this question has meant, but what I interpret it to mean is really like, how do we engage and not avoid hard, like what I would call high emotion topics in the classroom. And, um, particularly I'm thinking for students who are, you know, deeply feeling for students who are, whose backgrounds and experiences might be connected to whatever we're talking about, right? Like recognizing the opportunity for them to either step away, um, giving some space for just like the human response, to not be so overwhelming that now I can't function, I'm feeling. Like, I'm, I'm debilitated for the day. Like I'm, I'm down and out. Um, and so what's the, what's the way we engage in kind of that optimal zone of emotional engagement where I can feel discomfort, but I am not so uncomfortable, um, that I am like unable to function. Eric Soto-Shed: Appreciate that, that's really helpful. And I just think it's really, um, you know, important to sort of define the terms that we use because when we look at history, we look at current events, there are things that are hard, that are tough, that evoke a strong emotional responses. And those are things that we want to engage in responsibly as a teacher. At the same time, there are real sort of trauma and impacts that we really wanna avoid in our classrooms. And so I think that distinction you made is really, um, helpful. Boy, there's so much we could say, but maybe lemme just jump in with a couple of points and, uh, you know, I'd love to just be in dialogue with y'all. And so when we think about like, how do we address this, you know, I'm gonna name two things that I think are particularly useful to think about, particularly when we think about our framework. So, from the think, uh, part of our framework, we, we, we highlight curiosity and. Criticality, which I think are really high leverage, but I would, I would lift up content here, which is often the least sort of sexy and maybe appealing, but I think it could be really, really important because what content knowledge does is it provides. Context and explanatory power. And as Cara mentioned, you know, kids are gonna be curious like what's going on, right? And some way we sort of help sort of meet that curiosity or engage with that. Curiosity is through content, is through explaining like, here are some facts, here are some backgrounds. So when we think about, you know. And the particular, and at our current sort of moment right now, I really think it's important to take sort of a broad, sort of 40 year view of the history of sort of asylum, of the history of immigration or the more recent history of immigration. And that can really allay some fundamental, uh, content that can demystify what's happening. That can provide some, some context and some explanatory power, and that could really help young people begin to make sense. Potentially take a stance or think through deeper or begin to engage with some other feelings. So I think content is really important. And then I'll just lift this up and then, you know, Carl, Lizzie, maybe you wanna riff on, I think values are really important because I think values are kind of a nice sort of, um, they sit in between, I think both feelings and thinking, right? It's like, what do I hold to be really important? Some fundamental values. And I think through, um, lifting up values, it's a way to begin to, um, understand and explain. Certain policies and the impact of those policies and how we want to judge those through something that is, I think, on one hand could be a bit cerebral in sort of these values with these specific definitions. But on the other hand, gets to the heart about what do I feel and what I believe to be true. So I think content and values are an important, uh, place to begin to start. Lindsay Lyons: I love that. Thank you so much. Cara. Do you have thoughts at the moment? Kara Pranikoff: You know, I was just gonna say that I'm so glad that you started with content, Eric, because I think one of the challenges of our current day is that students come in with really with a range of content. They come in, some come in with a lot of information, some come in with misinformation. There's a lot of conversation that happens with students that can be really activating outside of the classroom. So I think if we are really clear about developing the, like leading with content, here are some facts. So that everybody can be on the same playing field, I think it can really kind of deescalate, um, and, um, help students feel safe in order to be able to engage with the, um, the ideas that are coming up in the classroom. So I just wanna amplify that. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And I mean, I, I'm going to a couple, a couple thoughts. One, just as we're talking, I'm, I'm thinking about. How my almost 4-year-old is like engaging with this like, imagery that's happening on the front page of the paper. Right. That comes to our house. And so how I've had to, you know, explain that and then thinking about like the traumatizing, like how, how big do you get when you're talking with little ones versus high school students? Right. And so there's a range. Um, what I love about our framework though is that it's. It's agnostic to grade, right? It's agnostic to age. You can enter anywhere. So that content might look a little bit different for a 4-year-old, right? Than like a 14-year-old. Um, but that, that, that is just kind of like on my mind and what a cool, um, approach it is to kind of enter into any conversation with values regardless of how old they are. Um, and so I've been thinking about like, what's the values? We use in our home with young people. Right. And then how, what are the values that I've used in high school settings with older kids? And so like one of the things that we've talked about with a lot of current events is like, uh, are people more important than money? Right. And like, who's making, you know, like, we believe people are more important than money. Right? And so like what are kind of, in this case, it's not money, but it might be like a larger systemic like power, which is a little more. Maybe difficult to understand as a, as a 4-year-old, but more high school. Um, I think about the idea of safety being really present here. Right? And so my initial thought was like, what's the value, tension, safety, and what? But I think even before that, you unpack safety for whom, right? So it's like, oh, I wanna feel safe, so maybe I am like very, um, I, I want like strong borders. I'm air quoting here. For folks who are listening and this idea of safety, like, well, who gets to feel safe then? And who, who is safety for? Right. In that scenario. And so I think there's some like unpacking around values that could come up once we surface them. I'll stop there. I wanna know what you all are thinking. Eric Soto-Shed: It's great. I really appreciate how you unpack, uh, some values and if you wanna like look at, I think, um, you know, immigration policy from the broadest perspective, maybe the values start around as fairness, right? And it's like, what does it mean to be, treat people fairly who gets treated fair? Um, and I think there's just a lot that you can begin to do with just the, the concept of fairness and, uh, and get then get into some of the more minutia that was around like, you know, temporary protected status and how that was removed and. I think you can go both big picture around immigration, uh, policy and enforcement, as well as sort of more of the important policies that are having real implications under the lens of fairness. Kara Pranikoff: Um, I wanna. Just name two things first. Lindsay, you mentioned that one of the reasons that we really have enjoyed playing with this framework is that it is kind of grade agnostic. I also think the nice thing about this framework is that it is applicable not only in every grade, but in every, um, situation, right? So it, right now we're talking about ice, but something else will come up, and this framework just provides a steady way to engage with events that are happening. And I know that as. Parents and as educators we know we want to talk about hard things and sometimes we wonder, well, what's the best way? Right? So this framework really allows us to develop some muscles and our young people to develop some muscles, some ways into these conversations, um, and into listening to other folks responses. Um, in this situation when we're thinking about ice, I think it's interesting also to think about what can I do and what are people doing? And I think there's a interesting range there to look at. Um, you know, what are protests? Who is protesting? What do those protests look like? Are the protests peaceful? Are they not peaceful? Who is helping support the protestors? Who's bringing food, who's bringing warm coffee? Who is teaching students who are not feeling safe going to school. And so I think that this, um, moment in time, it can also allow us to show our young people kind of the range of ways that people can support moving forward towards good, towards safety for all, um, even in hard times. That it really takes all of us in a variety of ways. And I think young people can see that. Lindsay Lyons: I love that you, you brought it there. I, I was also thinking about, there's research somewhere that a colleague when I was teaching and I was teaching about all these hard things, right? And she was like, I just wanna let you know very kindly that the research says, you know, kids who learn about all this hard stuff and current events and all this oppression that's happening and have even just a very small. Recognition that there are people who are against this oppression and fighting back. They are just like so much better off than all the people who just learn the oppression and don't learn about the resistance. Kara Pranikoff: Hmm. Lindsay Lyons: And so that's such a great point and I think about. Uh, what that makes me think of is yes, the, the range and the focus on the civic action. And I also think about the kid who's not quite there yet and entering in a different space and they're kind of stuck in the field, or not stuck in the field, but they're entering in the field. And so I'm thinking now of a teacher who is designing a lesson or who's facilitating a class conversation, maybe that bubbled up. We have these various entry points, which I think the framework enables, but what considerations do, do you think a teacher should have when we have some kids who are like, yes, like I went to a protest immediately with my family, or I want to go do something right now. Then we have other kids who are in this other kind of state phase or parts of this three-pronged framework. Um, how do you design for that? Or like what considerations should you have or maybe language to provide to teachers too. Deal with that situation. Kara Pranikoff: So I think that's such an interesting question, Lindsay, and um, it makes me think about the courageous, uh, conversations Compass introduced by Glenn Singleton. And so Glenn Singleton introduced a compass that kind of introduced ways to. People respond when they're talking predominantly about race. And here I, one of the things that is strong about that is the recognition that all of the ways that we respond are okay. It can help us understand why somebody might. Um, have a really large feeling that kind of stops them, that they might get stuck in that feeling while somebody else might jump up and say, we've gotta make policy changes right now. Right. So I think to take it back to the think, feel, and do framework, I think in the classroom, the first thing the framework does is it typifies or normalizes the fact that all of us can hear the same information and have a variety, kind of a spectrum of responses, and they are all okay. I also think the next step is how can we learn from someone else's response? So if we were in a classroom and, um, Lindsay, you, you know, jumped up and you were like, I gotta go, go protest right now. Eric kind of took a step back and said, wait, I need some more information. I might, as an educator in that space say, okay, that's interesting. Eric, can you explain to Lindsay why you feel like you need some more information? Let's see. Lindsay, can you hear that? Lindsay? Can you explain to Eric what is making, you just wanna get up and go protest? Eric, can you hear that? So it's ultimately, we want our young folks to understand there's gonna be a range of response. All the responses are okay, and we can really learn. About other ways like expand our responses by hearing other people's natural reactions. Is that clear? Eric Soto-Shed: Yeah. If I could build off of that. I think like, please, I just wanna amplify and say like that would be, I think the most important takeaway, what card just said that sort of getting the students in different places to actually engage with each other about those different places as a way to connect learning. So I think that is like just such a powerful takeaway. That would be my like, headline. Um, one or two other things that I would note along with that is, um, also when we think about, um, you know, our, our framework, we talk about what can I do and we really kind of highlight skills and if you wanna kind of anchor kind of what's happening in the field, but what many teachers are doing, you can think about the C3 framework and this idea sort of wrapping up a learning or inquiry arc with like. Take making a claim and taking it informed action based on what you've learned. Right. And I think if I had students in different places, I might lean into those sort of two different sort of parts of that, uh, of, of, of that, uh, sort of end of the inquiry arc by the C3, which is to say either you can sort of make a claim or begin to wrestle with a claim about take a stand on this issue. Or you can actually act upon that and think about how do you want to get out there in the world and impact. I just think that offers two different options for students that are still sort of processing well, can we begin to take a stand and think about the other position, the other side, right? And, and make that claim, right? Mm-hmm. If you're like, I'm really convicted, I've thought this through, and then what? How do you want to act? So that'd be my one small sort of thing I think you could do in addition. And I think what, um, is deeply in on all of our minds, but hasn't been said. And so I don't wanna say it explicitly, right. To me, the biggest difference isn't, so it, it, it, the biggest difference that I would be thinking about all the possibilities of my students are who are my students that might be directly impacted by these policies. Right? And then that's a big game changer. And that's, I think first and foremost where my attention is going to, is like, how can we both learn about this event? But make students that have real material sort of threats to their existence, um, feel that this is a place where they can process, think and belong. And so I would lift that up. Um, I mean, it just, it it is not lost on us, right? That we have students that are not going to school right now. Um, and so for our students who are showing up, how can we really meet them where they're at? Um, I think just be the other thing that I'd be really considering. Lindsay Lyons: It makes me think too of just like the importance of that foundational culture of discourse about anything hard or high emotion, right? Is like this idea of a baseline understanding, for example, of like all humans are worthy of dignity and existence and safety and whatever that is for your class, but like that has to be in place because we can't have people coming in being like there are people or identities that people hold that have no space here. Right? That's like not, that's just like a no go. And I think that's important to note because I think. People are nervous sometimes in teacher positions or even leader positions that like we have to remain quote unquote neutral. And it's like, well, human dignity is not a thing to be neutral on. Right? Like we can take the stance of like, we're not going there. That's not up for to be. And I just wanna like name that for teachers who are nervous. Eric Soto-Shed: Thanks Lindsay. And just to like, you know, jump back to our framework too, when we think about like, those, you know, students that might be directly impacted by these policies, I think, you know, it might, you might wanna jump into the feel first, right? Really get a sense of like what's going on with their feelings. Um, recognizing that students, regardless of not their impact, could have all sorts of strong feelings, but really important with folks that have like sort of real material threats in their lives to just do the check in around the feeling piece first, some processing and metabolizing. Getting back to this idea of not further traumatizing students. So given a place for this to come to the service to work with this. And then move into the think right? And some of that more, or the skill piece. Whereas if um, you know, I feel students aren't gonna be as directly impacted, I might feel like, Hey, you know, a good entry point might be to build up, let's start with the content knowledge piece, right? And so that's just one of the many considerations for teachers. Kara Pranikoff: I also am thinking now, Eric, about where you started with this idea of content. 'cause I think when I think about this issue and our youngest students, our elementary school students, when they see a five-year-old, you know, detained, they do come in without understanding, but they know what a, a little child looks like, right? And so I think about the content of, um, explaining how and why that happened and explaining. Who are the helpers in your, in your community? Who can you look to right here? To your point, Lindsay, that we always wanna make sure that our students, um, feel, feel safe and feel, um, like protected, right? And so we've gotta understand where our students are, are entering, um, and that the fears are, are real, um, and present. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. I, and I'm thinking this is a, maybe a drastic shift now, but I'm thinking about earlier in the conversation, Cara, you mentioned Joy as you were explaining the framework and you were saying, you know, maybe, maybe joy comes in for some people that took me in a variety of directions mentally. And so I, I mean, I could, I could remember, um, like, uh, you know, a moment in the, the 2016 Trump election, for example, where I had won student. In the class who was excited that he won, and a lot of other students who were actively sobbing and fearful. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so there's like that dynamic when it comes to, to joy in our framework. I think about like also joy as, um, like artistic expression, which makes me think of like bad bunnies, super Bowl, halftime show and like how that was. So connected to all of this, right? And so political, but expressed through, through joy, through through dance and like critical joy. I, I would, I don't know if that's a phrase, but you know what I mean? Like there was both, like there was both the critique and then there's both the presence of joy so as not to be extinguished amidst the oppression. Like I think there's something there and I think sometimes. I mean the classic, like people who are so uncomfortable, they laugh at funerals, right? Or something like that. There's like these emotions that bubble up in these high emotion scenarios. So whether someone is laughing because they're nervous or joyful because they have a difference of opinion, or trying to find that joy so that oppression doesn't crush 'em, right? Like I think there's sometimes, um, questions around joy and expressions of joy. And, and seeking joy in moments like these that can be such a conundrum for teachers. Any advice here? Kara Pranikoff: I'm so glad you brought it back there because as I was explaining the framework, you know, I know that Joy is one of them and I was thinking it, it came out of my mouth almost before I could like think about it in this context. That said, I do think in this context there's something that is, maybe, I wouldn't use the joy word, but maybe I would use the word like affirming. I think there is something affirming to having a group of people stand together. Um, in resistance, right? So I, I think that you can look at some of the protests that are happening or some of the resilience that's happening and find some affirmation or some joy in the human spirit of coming together, right? Or, you know, you brought up Bad Bunny. We could also think about other artists who are having a response to these, um, policies and to what's been happening. Um, in our nation, and we could think about how they are channeling their creative expression, um, in a way that kind of affirms their humanity, which is joyful or affirming. Do you know what I mean? Like, I, I think that there is a. We can think about that word in a variety of, of ways. But I think that fundamentally when we come together, um, even as we're protesting something awful, there is something that feels we are supposed to be in community working together. Right. And so I think that that taps into that affirmation or joy, bit of humanity Eric Soto-Shed: again, car, I think, I think that's, that's a great point. So I want, I wanna headline that please. Um. And also offer up, you know, um, the idea of also finding joy during oppressive times or oppressive moments, right? Mm. We can't look at. Um, you know, enslavement and say that there was no joy for folks who were enslaved, right? That just is denying their humanity and denying their existence and de denying the record, right? Like the people do. So how do you hold both is really hard. But at the same time, I think, you know, when we are gonna talk about ice, we're gonna talk about immigration policy, you're gonna see a lot of the negative and a lot of the oppression, right? So are there al also moments say, let's take a total look at this and what are the examples? What are the stories, you know? And I can just say. A small aside that I was, um, at the gas station a couple nights ago in Massachusetts, Massachusetts, it was freezing cold and I saw a family kinda walk by the gas station. It was looked to be like a husband or wife and maybe a 10-year-old child. This is like 10 o'clock at night. And there's like, this is not like a place where you walk. It was driving right. And I immediately, like my heart goes out to this family. I'm trying to figure out, they have a big thing of luggage and I'm trying to think like, what can I do? And what I notice is that the boy seems to be playing this little 10-year-old seems to be playing with the cart, with the luggage and kind of jumping back and forth and like it's kind of like boisterous from from afar. And so on one hand I had this like heavy moment of this family and then the other. Talk about resilience, talk about humanity. Seeing this young boy in this moment feeling that way and um, and so I don't wanna make any light of the situation, but I just want to acknowledge the full, that people experience joy. That's part of being human. To humanize folks and really get into stories and see examples, I think is just a powerful compliment to the very necessary attention to both the oppression and the resistance. Lindsay Lyons: You're making me, that's, I love Eric. You always bring it back to like some really good, amazing example. I thank you for that. And you're making me think of, um, Goldie Mohammad's work, which we like intentionally thought of when we thought of like criticality and joy in our framework. And I was just pulling up some language from her. Around joy and she, she said, yes, studying what joy was for the ancestors. Happiness is more immediate, but joy is long term. It's sustainable. Joy is what you have when adversity continues to strike and you retain your happiness. Mm. Find as wellness, healing, abolition, working toward a better humanity. For all beauty aesthetics we recognize in ourselves and within humanity. Cara, to your point, it's centering love and music and art and our learning experiences and our children's voices. It's a collective, it is wide. Gold ham, man. Kara Pranikoff: Uh, I I'm stress. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. So I think, man, it's hard to come after gold ham. Sorry guys. Eric Soto-Shed: Take a pause. Kara Pranikoff: Yeah. Seriously. Eric Soto-Shed: Deep breath. Scene two. Lindsay Lyons: So I think I am wondering, now we talk a lot about teachers 'cause we're, we're with teachers, right? A lot. Families, Eric, to your point about just even seeing the family, right? Mm-hmm. And knowing that families are grappling with, with, with this, with, with lots of heavy stuff. Um, what can families do? Is it the same? Is there something different to consider for families who are supporting, you know, young kids or, or older kids, children at any age, I suppose, to grapple with the news and what, what's been going on? Eric Soto-Shed: That's great. I'm thinking of my little 2-year-old right now, so that's a bigger jump for me. But I'm also trying to think. That's a great question. Mm-hmm. I mean, I feel like definitely I, I don't see anything we haven't said that you really wouldn't wanna. Apply as a family thinking about like, do I really need to engage with some background and help my child understand a little bit more of the context? Do I really need to engage feelings and kind of surface for them, uh, what, what, what they might be feeling? So I do think much of what we said with the classroom applies, but Carl, I'm interested, said if you're also seeing some things around like family specific. Kara Pranikoff: It's so interesting. So when I think about the family work, um, I think it's important for families to also understand that kids are gonna respond in a range, and that if you've got more than one child inside your house, they might also respond differently and that's okay. So we know that there are some kids that aren't ready to talk about what's on their heart and mind, and you kind of need to. Wait for it. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that they're not feeling it. You've gotta cycle back and check in. I would say for families, um, you might want to bring up, here are some things that are happening in the community that we could do. Here's what I'm drawn to do. Do you wanna come do that thing with me? Whatever it is. Whether it's protests, whether it's, whatever it might be. But I think that we can act as, um, role models. And I also think, as with families, I think we can be clear with our young folk about how this is settling for us. I think you can say to your, um, child, whatever their age is, you know, I. I am really feeling concerned, or I really had a hard time sleeping last night because I saw this image or listened to this recording and I, um, it was hard for me to get out of my head. Right? And this is how I am processing, this is how I'm caretaking. Um, I'm wondering how you are feeling. Right? So I, I think that, I guess two things. There's gonna be a range of responses, even if you're in the same house, and I think you wanna be clear about. Having your own chance as a parent to respond, um, and then figure out how to talk to your, to your kid, but be honest about, um, where you might fall, right? Or do you need more information? How are you feeling? Is there something that you are looking to do? Eric Soto-Shed: Yeah, I think if I could maybe add to, you know, maybe slightly older, you know, children, you know Yeah. 10, 12 and into the teen years. You know, in schools we talk a lot about media literacy. Um, and I think a unique role that the household can play is media habits, right? Particularly now that the media has become so just, you know, bifurcated and kids have access and it does intersect with what we mean in terms of media literacy, in terms of like, how are you being criddle? Call your con of, of what you're consuming. But let's step, take a step back and ask what are you consuming? Right. And you know, I can think back in my household, there's two things that I could tell you that every morning my dad listened to. 10, 10 wiz, you know, you give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world. Anytime I got up early, he was in the kitchen with a little radio listening to that. And that, um, he always got the Sunday paper, the New York Times and the Daily News like, and so while my dad never sat me down and said, you know, son, it's very important that you become informed. Guess what I do? Every morning I listen to NPR. Guess what I do every weekend? I read the New York Digital Times, right? And so in this, you know, increasingly broadened, uh, land, and it doesn't have to be traditional media, but increasingly broadened landscape, is there one or two ways you can kind of share with the young people in your household? Here's the thing that I'm reading, maybe check it out. You know, or just even just sharing what you do as a, an example as a model to say that there's, you know, there's all the stuff I'm seeing on my little social media feed, but then there's also this resource that I sit down with and digest and it puts it in context. And so I think those examples and that modeling of sort of media consumption Lindsay Lyons: mm-hmm. Eric Soto-Shed: And I, and the habits that you have in terms of consuming, I think could be really also beneficial. Lindsay Lyons: I love both of those answers and it makes me think about school, family partnership and communication, right? That is, that is two way. And so my initial thought is like all those things you just said, like somebody type those up and put them in a little template letter to go home to families, right? It's like, I think. What we car you and I have tried for, for grading conversations is like, here's how you support at home. Like a shift in how to grade, right? Like I think you could do that here easily or with any current event. Here's how you support at home. Here's how you think, feel, do at home. And I think if you just had a few bullet points to give some guidance, and it's not instruction, but I think it's like an offering, right? An invitation for families. I think families, I, as a family member would feel personally like invited in and supported, um, rather than feeling like I was being given homework. And so I, I like that idea that, um. You know, there's so many ways that you can support, so thank you all for those. Any other advice you'd give for that school family partnership or communication around talking about these things in a classroom? From the teacher point of view, communicating to families? Kara Pranikoff: I would just say that I think that communication is essential, and I think the only thing that I would add is the teacher. I might say, here's the content that I was shared, and here are some of the ways that your students responded, because I think sometimes. Families can't imagine what those conversations look like in any grade. And we want them to understand that they're happening in a way that, um, is supportive to students and in content that is bite-sized for students to understand. And so I think that can help families and it can also serve. Kind of to your point, Eric, of, of a model of how we explain to our students, um, where we're gathering our information, what media we're showing or not showing, and that it's important to be talking about what's happening in the world, but I think parents like to see, or families like to see kind of what content was shared. Eric Soto-Shed: Yeah. And the only other thing I'll add, and I think it's um. It might be a little bit of nuance and just a reason to give pause, but I think it, it's worth mentioning, right, to say that you know, what happens when, you know, the families that we're working with, those educators might feel differently around the current events that we're talking about, right? Mm-hmm. And so, one thing I'd like to lift up is I believe this. Statistic is 54% of, uh, voters, uh, for in the 2024 presidential election were broadly in support of mass deportation, not quite understanding what the policy would look like once it took inact, but when you given that sort of, that policy question, 54%. So it's both, you know, both sides of the political, uh, spectrum. Um, and so with that being said, you know, I think what you can do when you're also thinking about that, that. Uh, community, the family and school partnership is really kind of leaning into the values and the content piece, right? And so even when there might be some different views on the policy, if we are talking about values around dignity and what we're trying to do in humanity, and we are talking about content in terms of understanding policies, I think that that could be a nice sort of, um. Sort of way to bridge if you're dealing with different views, right? Again, teachers know their communities, they know their families, and so you can obviously curate to to, to the audience that you have. But there are a lot of teachers out there that have audiences where, uh, there might be some differences in opinion there. And so I think really leaning into both content and values can be really powerful there. Kara Pranikoff: Hmm. Lindsay Lyons: Great idea. And it's also making me think of the importance and possibility of hosting family conversations too in evenings or something, right? Eric Soto-Shed: Yes. Love that. Love that. Lindsay Lyons: Alright, last question. In our final minute we'll do a speed lightning round. Uh, we talked about a lot of things. What is one thing that a listener or audience member could do to day? Like, where could they start? Eric Soto-Shed: I know this is a lightning round, but do we have more questions or is this it? This is the last question Lindsay Lyons: I was gonna invite you to share, kind of like where people can, can find you online, but if there's any other content you wanna share, go for it. Eric Soto-Shed: Okay, cool. Um, so what, uh, so can you ask the question again? That way I can hook you up with your edits. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. One, one thing that someone could do today. Eric Soto-Shed: All right, I'm gonna go with one and, um, it's kind of, uh, uh, I'm cheating here 'cause I wanted to get this in somehow, but I really think you could do it. Um, and I think it would be, if you're thinking about, you know, supporting young people thinking through ice, thinking, through immigration policy, um, how do you do this with this framework where we're think talking about, think, feel, and do. I would encourage you to purchase and read the book. Everyone Who Is Gone is here by Jonathan Blitzer. It is a powerful account. Of, um, the sort of US foreign policy, the history of immigration policy, and it's done through, uh, you know, powerful vignettes of about five or six people. And I mean, it will have you thinking and understanding content and broad notions of policy. It will have you really like, sort of identifying and feeling people that are in these experiences. You will see, uh, people reacting, taking action, everything raging from being in protest with gun fire and shootouts. Lindsay Lyons: Mm. Eric Soto-Shed: To offering mental health services to people in their community. Mm. It is just a powerful and profound sort of take on sort of how we got here. Um, and I highly recommend, uh, educators, parents reading that build out your own knowledge, but that is something you can definitely share with the young people that you work with and or live with. Kara Pranikoff: I love that, Eric. It's immediately added to my PBR pile, so thank you. Always good. Um, I'm gonna go a different, uh, different angle. I think as we are thinking about our framework of think, feel, do and the current situation around ICE and immigration policy. I think I would encourage educators and family members to take a pause and think for themselves about what they think, how they feel, and what they can do, and try to tap into where their natural space is and think about can they expand that right? And really, I'm like still back thinking about the resilience and the joy. And I'm wondering if we as adults are, um, in a space, can we access. That kind of humanity and that resilience and how might that shift things for us? So I would encourage, um, adults to think, feel, and do on their own and experience, um, experience a framework that way. Lindsay Lyons: I love it. I would add that people, we will link this, but people can download our framework along with some key questions that you can just have, like print it out or keep it on your computer and have to be able to consult while you are reflecting or while you're supporting your child to reflect or your student to reflect. Okay. The very last question. Where can people connect with you all online? Who wants to go first? Eric Soto-Shed: My day job is at the Graduate School of Education in Harvard, so you can find me there. Kara Pranikoff: The easiest way to find me is through my website, car proff.com. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Kara and Eric, thank you both so much. It is really inspiring to think that amidst hard times, there are people doing this good work and that resilience and joy and critical thinking and collective action are possible. Um, and I would argue probable because we have such great educators and family members in the world with our young people and our young people themselves are amazing. So for all the resources on this, you all can go to lindsaybethlyons.com/blog/252, where we'll have a detailed show note section as well as that free resource. 
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Iuri emphasizes the importance of moving away from reactive crisis interventions towards embedding positive psychology and growth mindset principles within school culture. He talks about providing skills to students from positive psychology best practices as well as offering support and early intervention.
The Big Dream Iuri Melo's big vision is to bless all families on the planet by revolutionizing the educational system to include mental health and wellness as a core component. Drawing inspiration from evidence-based wellbeing programs at higher education institutions like Harvard and Yale, he dreams of implementing similar proactive approaches at the middle and high school levels. Mindset Shifts Required A necessary mindset shift involves adopting a more inclusive approach to student wellness. Iuri and Lindsay discuss moving from a deficit-focused perspective to recognizing and leveraging assets within students and the broader school environment. This means focusing on mental excellence and fitness rather than solely addressing mental illness. The other mindset shift is recognizing how this applies to different contexts. Superintendents, principals, counselors, and educators all have unique challenges and needs to be met through mental health tools and resources. Mental fitness or excellence is important across the board, but there are different targeted solutions to different parties. Action Steps Educators and educational leaders looking to engage in more mental fitness and mental wellness learning and resourcing in the their contexts can start the journey with these action steps from Iuri: Step 1: Engage both families and students in the mental health conversation. Proactively sharing positive psychology content consistently through emails or texts, and offering follow-up resources, can help address issues before they arise. Step 2: Offer resources that are engaging, fun, and meaningful to students and what they’re struggling with. Instead of focusing on what not to do, positive psychology resources should also offer information on what to do instead. Step 3: Integrate ready-made, evidence-based activities and videos into school curriculum to reduce teacher preparation time while delivering impactful wellness education. Iuri’s platform, School Pulse, integrates these steps and makes mental health resources available to students, families, and educators. Students can access live texting with a real person (no AI), and research-backed content that’s fun and engaging. It’s a practical way to scale-up school-based mental health support that’s often stretched too thin. Challenges? Schools can be slow to make changes, competing against entrenched ideas and ways of doing things. So, implementing proactive wellness programs requires collaboration among superintendents, counselors, and teachers to overcome systemic barriers and develop sustainable cultural shifts within educational institutions. One Step to Get Started Start each day with positive momentum for both students and staff. Educators should strive to begin and end their day on a positive note, fostering an environment of optimism and wellbeing that can ripple through the school community. This doesn’t have to be a huge thing, but can be something simple like offering encouragement or greeting kids with a smile at the door. Stay Connected You can connect with Iuri Melo by email at [email protected] and learn more about his organization on its website, School Pulse. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing a page of mental health resources with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 251 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome to the time for teachership podcast. Iuri Melo: I am so happy to be here. And there's a good vibe, a good aura. Aura, that's the word, right? I mean, I'm, I'm in with teens all the time, so aura is like the word right now. There's a good aura about you. I'm loving it. So anyways, thank you so much for the invite. I'm happy to be here. Excited to see where we take it today. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. I'm excited to put off a positive aura. That's my goal. What do you think as we come into this conversation, is really important for our listeners to either know about you beyond the, you know, typical bio or, um, to kind of keep in mind as we jump into the conversation today. Iuri Melo: I'm a dad. I'm a husband. I've got five incredible kids. Uh, I've on a, I've been a therapist for 20 years, which I've absolutely loved. Uh, and over the past seven years, we've kind of started this school company called School Pulse. Um, but as we've engaged with schools, as we've engaged with districts, as we've engaged with thousands upon thousands of students in live text conversations. Um, one of the things that I really noticed specifically as we talk to schools a lot is that sometimes we almost become a little bit in my, this is my opinion, of course, that we become a little bit enamored with just providing crisis intervention. We're almost waiting for crisis to happen so that we can then intervene. Right. I, I had a, a great conversation with an individual the other day who said. I agree. I, I feel like sometimes we're just like a fire extinguisher on the wall, right? We're kind of waiting for that moment of crisis and then we break the glass and we Right. We spray all over the place. Um, and of course. I'm being a little judgmental. The reality is this is how I live my life too, right? I, I don't go to the doctor unless something is wrong is happening with me. Like I said, I need to take my own medicine for sure, but I think this, this happens in schools, right? And, and so sometimes we we're often so concerned with the crisis or the intervention part that we forget about the other things that come before or that even come after. And I think that that's one of the things that as school posts we've really tried to do is we try to not be reactive. Our goal is to proactively tap kids on the shoulder and put at their fingertips in their brains, right, the best positive psychology, the best growth mindset, and the best cognitive strategies that are like the golden standard of clinical practice and have been for a while. And to put it. Right where they are in a way that is fun, that is engaging, that's not boring. We're intervening in early ways, early intervention, and providing some skill building, and then yes. There's the crisis intervention part, and then there's the postvention, right? There's the, the fact that we continue to provide that support. And so that's one of the things that we've tried to bring, that's one of the paradigms that we're trying to shift, right, is, is we're not just gonna wait. We're gonna provide skills, we're gonna intervene early, and then we're gonna provide that support ongoing. And so I think we've really created this. What in schools, they kind of call us a multi-tier system of support. Right. Or a positive behavior intervention system. Right. And we really aim to be just a complete solution to schools, uh, in a way that provides a ton of value with very little lift. That's, that's like our goal. That's what we wanna do. I have a, an older daughter that's, uh. She's a special educator right now, and I mean, this is her first year. She loves it and, and, you know, and totally feels overwhelmed all the time. Um, and so our goal is to provide some tools that provide easy to find, easy to access stuff that is not gonna create problems for them. Find that schools at times, they're hard to move, but obviously we're in the change business, right? Lindsay Lyons: Schools are institutions, and so it is so hard, right? To be like, oh, we've done things this way for a long time, let's do them differently. Uh, but that's why we're here, right? You and I both. And so I, I love that, and I, I think you started to kind of paint the dream for us. One of the questions I like to early on ask in these conversations. Um, Dr. Betina love says their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. With that in mind, what is that big dream that you as an individual or school pulse as an organization kinda hold for the education space or for students at large? Iuri Melo: Yeah, I really, I'm gonna have to give some thought to that quote. It. Sometimes, right? We, we become resistant to the critique, right? Uh, because in a way we, we become, we can become a little defensive, like somehow we're failing or we're not doing well. And, and if we can, if, if we can be a little bit more humble and meek, I think, in our approach, then I, then I think we, we, we perhaps would be more willing to make some small adjustments. But let, let, let's go back to. Your question. I'll tell you what my, my vision is, like, my, my vision is, is to like bless all the families in this planet. Like is to bless the families on earth. Like that's my big vision. There are a couple of authors out there that I think I, that I follow pretty regularly. One of 'em is Arthur Brooks. He's kind of the, uh, he wrote, uh, maybe it's The Art of Happiness, uh, really good book. Uh, there's a couple of great podcasters out there. Basically what they do is kind of at the collegiate level. They have found like a, specifically at Harvard, at Yale, at Stanford, at some of these big institutions, some of the most attended classes. Our classes on wellbeing, right? The science of happiness. The science of wellbeing, grounded in evidence and science, right? Uh, but that also address Eastern philosophies or religious, uh, practices, et cetera, but that are based on like creating more joy, right? To create more optimism, to create more academic and student success, right? Better relationships, right? I'm like, why are we not doing this? At the middle and the high school level, like we absolutely should and it would not be difficult, Lindsay. It would not be difficult. I mean, we have hundreds of videos that that schools could easily use for that in a proactive educational early intervention way. Instead of, right. We're just waiting for the bullying incidents. We're just waiting for when a student is, you know, gonna, you know, perpetrate violence, or we're just gonna wait until somebody is self-harming, or this, or that, or the other. We're dealing with these institutions and they're highly politicized institutions. Right. This is very challenging. I mean, we have a state contract with the state of Idaho, which is absolutely fabulous. We're in every single one of their, uh, secondary schools. We have to make sure that our content is, the, the best word that I can describe is diplomatic and benign, right? We have to provide benign content that these administrators feel good about sharing with the public, right? And, and, and a variety of, you know, belief systems or not belief, whatever it is, right? But I would love at state levels. For them to just look at some of these pieces, right, that we are seeing at Harvard or MIT or Yale. We could be delivering this same content that, by the way, would increase academic performance. Student engagement in participation, improvement in behavior, increased wellness, better relationships, and better relationships are like the hallmark of short and long-term happiness. And so there's my dream Lindsay Lyons: proactive, positive relationship building. I have a question about that. First, I just wanna clarify like one piece, so you said benign around your content. Yes. Can you explain a little bit more about what do you mean by benign? Iuri Melo: Yes. Earlier today, I had a conversation with, uh, three administrators and two counselors when, when we say mental health education, his concern was, I think we're more focused on mental illness than we are on mental excellence than we are on mental fitness, right? Than we are on say, positive psychology on growth mindset strategies. Right. I feel like that that's where, that's why I love specifically, like, I mean within my own private practice as well, but why I love positive psychology, growth mindset and even cognitive strategies overall is because I feel like they're benign, right? They're not conte, they're not connected to a specific methodology. Or political affiliation or religious affiliation. These are topics that are so general, that are based and grounded on research and evidence, right, that we can present to an atheist, an agnostic, or someone who's religious or not, or somebody who's a monk or a Buddhist or whatever identity, and it is good content. It can be fit into whatever their perspective is. And provide positive outcomes. Lindsay Lyons: The translation to like teacher speak, I think Iuri Melo: give it to me. Lindsay Lyons: Well, we have definitely like an asset based approach, right? So you're, you're talking about like recognizing assets and taking a positive psychology lens of things, um, versus a deficit lens, which is like the traditional mindset of this is what's wrong. What I hear you saying is really that inclusion is important, that this is actually inclusive of everyone. Yes. And also what I'm hearing is the balancing act is really just in, in, in navigating, which so many educators have to do part, particularly educators who are like all about inclusion and justice, right? We have to navigate sometimes state legislatures ban in particular words like SEL, we know it's good work for everyone and so linguistically, whatever we name it like. It's still good for all people and it's going to help all people. So that's kind of how I'm hearing you explain that. Does that feel Yeah. Right. Iuri Melo: Ab Absolutely. There's a reason why we call what we do, right? More along the lines of student wellness or student success, uh, or even, you know, psychological excellence or mental excellence. It's because unfortunately, right, there have been these. Odd associations, right. With SEL and and other things, right? When we promote like these social and emotional learning components to students, like the evidence is pretty good that not only improves academic performance individually, but also culturally and climate wise within a school, like the improvement is pretty sustainable. Lindsay Lyons: No one wants someone to be socially unwell or emotionally unwell. Right? Like logical, but yeah. So I, I appreciate your honesty and just, y'all have to navigate the like climate and we can do the work that's important, so I appreciate that. When you're talking about building proactive positive relationships, here's what my teacher brain says. There's so much curriculum to cover, and this work is so important. Like, how do you coach leaders or teachers or kind of have that conversation to switch the mindset to like, oh no, this, this is actually a valuable use of our time, whether it's student time. Out of the classroom as like a homework. I'm not sure how exactly, um, school calls all fits. Iuri Melo: Sure. Lindsay Lyons: Or if it's like literal time in the classroom where you're building student to student relationships while you're live in person or teacher to student relationships. What is that aha moment that you've seen people be like, oh, right. Like this is why it's important to do. Iuri Melo: We do visit, obviously with a lot of individuals that are decision makers, right. All the way from say, a superintendent. To a school administrator, to a school counselor, uh, to student service directors at the district level and other, and sometimes some curriculum leaders, et cetera. And I feel like each one of those, right, has specific. Places of pain. Right? Where, where, so for example, say with a superintendent, school safety and liability protection is very important for them. Like, I'll give you an example. I had a, uh, a superintendent that I was working with, and he was involved in a civil lawsuit where he was being sued by a couple of parents because a couple of students had taken their life by suicide. But, but as I was talking to the superintendent, he said to me, man, Yuri, I. I wish that I had school posts in my pocket walking into that school room for a superintendent, right at the district level. Right. Creating some of this, you know, student safety, um, liability protection. Like that's for them. That's like, yes. For principals, right? We're talking more like you know, the school, like the school culture and climate. These things are gonna do two things for you. Number one, they're gonna impact student behavior, right? What does that mean? That means less problem, right? That means less disciplinary issues, right? This is gonna move the academic needle for you, and this is gonna impact the overall culture and climate of your school. We wanna make this environment better for you by insti, by instituting this systemic right kind of enrichment, evidence-based content that shows. These things will improve over time, you know, even if we're just talking percentages. Right. And then of course with counselors, I feel like that's our easiest population, right? Because in a way, they're viewed as kind of the mental health hub of the school, even though a lot of their work maybe has more to do with college readiness or, you know, dealing with scheduling and things like that. But they're, they're still viewed as, as the mental health hub. And man, we come in, we walk into a school and we just provide them with like just the. Like the most comprehensive mental health resource in the world, like truly. I know that's so cliche to say, but it really is. And, and I would say for teachers, I would say for teachers as well, uh, you know, whether it's a special educator, whether it's a teacher or maybe you're in charge of like, you know, you have to have this kind of SEL minute or, uh, you know, provide some sort of student wellness type thing. We can provide you with a tool that requires no prep time. That allows you to deliver the awesome evidence-based content if you want to engage with the students. We have it all done for you and it's, and it's digital, it's cool, it's fun, and you can finish that and you can go about teaching math or whatever it is that you're teaching and feel like you've been able to deliver that without like, oh my gosh, like now I've gotta be in charge of like providing the student wellness content. Lindsay Lyons: Live text conversations. You said there's like little videos. What can you tell us more about, like what are these different avenues that students actually get to engage with the content? Iuri Melo: Live text-based support, I would say is, is completely unique. Like nobody else is doing that out there specifically with the school. And so that was kind of where we were born. And then since then, as we've listened to other administrators and supers and um, and other counselors, we've, we've listened, we've heard their challenges, their gaps, right? I. We've tried to create these really targeted solutions, right? To just address those. Our email campaign, I'll just start with that really quick, is the school provides us the emails for, for parents and students, and we just begin this proactive email campaign. It's one email per week. It's not spammy where we deliver the student these student success activities, right? One per week. That's usually based on the time of the year. Um. Whether it's the holidays, whether it's the end of a quarter, whether it's the beginning of the school year, the end of the school year, we're aware of what students are struggling with during those times, and we provide these student success videos. We provide them to parents. Transparency is huge for us. We want them to have great tools and we deliver them to students as well. Email is good. It allows us to do this kind of tier one universal. Everybody gets it. Then we have kind of our, our text-based support. And I would say that this is probably the most powerful tool we have. It's powerful because we're actually engaging with actual parents and actual students, right, who may be doing really awesome and we want to keep that going. Right. Once again, we're a positive psychology service. And then of course, I mean, we have students who. Are texting us or parents by the way, who are themselves suicidal, struggling with substance abuse, going through a divorce, going through, uh, you know, custody battle or whatever it is, all the way to students, you know, who, who have reported, you know, physical or sexual abuse, who are self-harming, who are actively suicidal, who are actively homicidal, and we are providing a live touch point that's not ai. When you think about, you know, how do we increase capacity at a school, right? How do we, you know, take this ratio of, you know, one counselor for every 400 or 500 students? How do we increase capacity? Well, this is how we do it, right? We create these proactive campaigns. We have live support that goes on after school, through the weekend, over the holidays, through the summer, and that's how we build these positive outcomes. One student at a time. So when students engage in this service, right, whether the school ops them in, or you can see here in my little screen, I have this little QR code. Like we put these throughout the school and the kids just walk up. They scan that and, and it s them in, it's not an app. They don't have to create a username or password. It literally just shows up as a text on their phone. Like, Hey, welcome to school Pulse. From that moment on, right? Every Tuesday and Friday, we're gonna proactively text those students with cool content. That's fun. It's engaging our student, our videos as well. Uh, and then anytime that they engage with us, then we have a live, live. People like live support, like people who are just excited to talk to them, grateful that they're there, there to support them, cheer for them. Uh, and the, the cool part about the proactive piece, I just wanna say is it's really important, right? This is as a comparison to the kind of passive only crisis based type responses that you and I were talking about, right? This is 85 to 90% of our interactions with students happen on those two days, on Tuesday and Friday when we tap them on the shoulder and say, Hey, check this out, or What do you think about this? Or. Students just respond, right? Simply because we're not waiting, we're engaging. And then that allows them to communicate in a really simple, very easy, right? It's convenient, it's private, right? They don't have to walk down, you know, to the counselor's office, which we want them to. We want them to be connected there, but I know that many times they won't. Like, they're not going to. Then of course our goal is always we wanna connect those students to their primary network, right? With whether it's a parent or a guardian or whoever is with them. Number two, to the professionals at the school, and number three to other resources should we need to, but, and then of course we have right these other activities, right? Which. Can either be delivered as part of a kind of disciplinary process or what I would call like restorative justice or restorative practice or corrective discipline, uh, all the way to material, right? That's more specific to what a counselor would use when somebody comes into their office and they're overthinking or they're having problems with their friends, or you know, this, they're having problems with their parents at home, or they're experimenting with whatever, right? And we have all of those specific activities that are. Lindsay Lyons: That's incredible. That is so cool. Yeah. I mean, two things that are just like really highlighted for me. Iuri Melo: Yes. Lindsay Lyons: One is the family and student connections. So you have both at both levels. Both tiers, which is super cool. Yeah, and I just think about how many schools struggle with family partnerships. So that's so valuable because often the dynamic is we don't reach out until there's a problem. Right? So we're completely helping. Schools rethink, actually you can just reach out to share positive content. Yeah. And the, the second idea is just this, um, student success activities that you named. I love that there are just like these practical things that are like engaging. And I'm curious, do you mind sharing one of your most popular activities or ideas or Iuri Melo: one of the ones that we created over the summer because there was a huge need for, so we actually created some videos specifically for like inappropriate use of ai. Or really appropriate use of ai. So we actually created some really cool videos for that and one for misinformation as well. Our most watched video is our video on tardiness part of schools, you know, kind of corrective discipline, right? Is they want to provide, not just like, Hey, don't do this, but. Do this instead. Right. And that's what really our videos are about, right? Is can we just, can we show you what to do better or why to do this better? We did one on, uh, once again at the request of a principle, profanity and inappropriate language and inappropriate language. You know, it is, whether it's like highly sexualized language or sometimes, you know, the very common, you know, kids will just throw stuff out like, you know, I'm gonna kill myself, or, you know, I'm gonna shoot up the school adults. Like, we're gonna get triggered really quick and we've gotta respond. And so we have lots of videos there. Uh, one of my favorite videos that we, that we created was as my phone, a friend or a frenemy. We're not just saying the don't do this, we're, we're saying like, here's some reasons for why to not do this, or maybe to modify or adjust or tweak your current perception of that. So I think we've tried to, to not just to deliver content that's rich, that isn't just prescriptive, but like that captures the meaning and the purpose behind it. Another one is like bullying videos. Of course we like those are shown a lot. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. I definitely watched a few and one that's stuck Oh good. Was around like relationships, like how do you talk to someone? Like how do you continue the conversation over a time? Iuri Melo: Oh yes. Lindsay Lyons: You know, like I just feel like those are so practical for a kid who maybe struggling with anxiety or I don't, I can't name one friend, which is a common stat that we like hear on research is really cool that that's like proactive and socializing. Iuri Melo: I think on that one, we actually created a couple of acronyms on that one, an acronym, which is cash, like compliment, ask questions, smile, offer to help, and then I think one for kind of keeping conversations going. Which was swift. Right. I kind of used Taylor Swift, but uh, she's the queen of course. Just fun stuff like that that I hope is practical. Right. That's, that's the hope. Lindsay Lyons: Okay. One thing that listeners could do once they end the episode that would kind of bring to life some of this stuff in their. Iuri Melo: You parents start and end your day right with your kids. Like this, this concept of momentum is, is one that I really like. Um, and I think it matters, uh, you know, whether it's like at a, you know, at a soccer game or a football game, you know, and you, you can kind of tell when it's, when a team starts a game and they have this like, positive momentum and they're, and when they don't, right? They're out there, they're dragging, you know, heads are down, whatever. And so I would say, um, and I would say for your spouse, for your partner, for your child, whatever it is. Just start your day with positive momentum and when possible, end it that way. And it, and I'm not talking about, it doesn't have to be this big, remarkable thing, but just like we're just talking about like just, you know. Spend your kid to bed or saying, I love you or I care about you, or, today was hard and tomorrow will be better. Like, we got this. Like, whatever it is. But just manage those momentums is what I would say. And, and I think if you start it well, the chances that it will stay well or improve, it doesn't guarantee it, but it, it's improved. So I would say manage your momentum, start your day great. And end it great. And, and man, I, I think life will be a lot happier for you. Lindsay Lyons: I would even argue teachers can use that too. Start the class in class. Oh yes. Iuri Melo: Oh my gosh. That is a great idea. You should put that into your, I'm sure you've got some sort of cool training thing going on. Do that. Manage the momentum of your classroom. Right. Start, well, you know, by greeting kids at the door with a smile, with fist bumps, with cool. Whatever it is. Then, you know, even though the classroom may be a total disaster in the midst, but like, end it, well, you know, end it, well greet them again as they're exiting and just trust the process, right? Trust that process. It's gonna yield good outcomes. Lindsay Lyons: That's right. Okay. One. Iuri Melo: Yeah. Well done Lindsay. I like that. Sorry. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you. One thing you're learning about lately could be related to work, but doesn't have to be, Iuri Melo: oh my gosh. You're gonna absolutely go crazy with this one. So this the latest thing that I've done that I've just had so much fun with, I'm totally blown away. So I use, uh, like Chatt, PT, and Claude, which is like two ai. I'm, I'm sure most everybody or if not everybody is totally familiar with those. Um, but I started about three weeks ago. I, uh, opened up my little chatt PT on my app on my phone, and, uh, and I, and I said, I, I want to create a, like, little mini course. And I said, I want you to take, um, like, 'cause I'm, I'm. I'm, I just love like thinking, I don't know how else to say it, but I really enjoy philosophy. I enjoy obviously psychology. Like this is what, like my whole degree is in. I love spirituality and so I asked Chad PI said, Hey, can you create a daily? Like mini lesson program. And Lindsay, I challenge you. Go do this. I promise you'll love it. And create, and, and I just said I, I love philosophy, I love psychology. I love like eastern philosophy and, and like, uh, some of these other religious practices. And I want you to create a mini daily lesson that I'll like prompt you to start every day. That just includes right, and almost kind of synthesizes some of these things together. And every day I just go next and it launches it, you know, all the way from Aristotle to Mahatma Gandhi to Viktor Frankl and all the way to, you know, Albert Ellis and cognitive behavioral therapy. And it just creates these little mini lessons that lend from right all the way from like, you know, Taoism to like cognitive behavioral therapy. And it's just like packed with goodness and just these little tiny like lessons that I can read through. Um, talk about creating positive momentum at the beginning of your day, I promise you. Like, just start with that and it will inspire you. Like I, so anyways, that's been one of the little tools that I've started. That I would say just add a little bit about your life. Hey, my name is Lindsay. I'm 27 years old. I'm, I'm trying to create this and I'm looking for inspiration from, you know, Eastern philosophy approaches or philosophy or the master's in psychology, whatever. And can you create a daily course? And of course, Jackie PT will be, you know, that's such a wonderful idea, Lindsay. Let me set that right up for you. But I'm telling you like. There's some really cool things that, that you can do with that technology and it's been totally, so that would be my suggestion to you is try it out Lindsay and to all of you listeners, just give it a go and have fun with that. Lindsay Lyons: Super cool. Thank you for that suggestion. Yeah. Last question before we wrap up. Where can people learn more about you or connect with you? Iuri Melo: Yeah, well you can go to, uh, you can go to school pulse.org, uh, or you can just. Email me. Uh, my name is Yuri. It's a strange name. It's Portuguese, but it's, it's spelled IURI. It makes no phonetic sense, so [email protected] and you can just email me or go to our website and find out more about us. And man, let's, let's change the world. Let's do some good. Let's be proactive about it too. Not just reactive, but Lindsay Lyons: nice. Positive ending. Like, you're like, Iuri Melo: yes. Good momentum. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Thanks Yuri. I really appreciate this conversation. Iuri Melo: Absolutely. Best of luck to you, Lindsay. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you. 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode, host Lindsay Lyons delves into the transformative power of stories and civic imagination. She draws on insights from the book, "Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Handbook" by Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova, offering strategies to help educators, leaders, and community facilitators co-create shared values and community agreements.
She emphasizes the importance of imagination as a process to bridge differences and foster action-oriented discussions within classrooms and larger community settings. Lindsay also offers practical ways to guide a 60-minute session to co-create shared values as a group. Why? The concept of civic imagination is essential in fostering environments where community members can envision and enact change. Lindsay shares the distinction made by the authors that civic action is distinct from political power struggles, focusing on shared beliefs, values, and trust that facilitate collective action. Pop culture often influences civic imagination, allowing communities to express social concerns and envision new possibilities for democracy and social justice. Lindsay emphasizes the fact that imagination is both individual and collective and, as educators, we can draw on that collective imagination to address the real issues and open up possibilities for brand new solutions. What? Drawing on the insights from the “Practicing Futures” handbook, here’s Lindsay’s 60-minute session outline to help implement a civic imagination workshop, whether with educators as professional development or with your students. Step 1: Begin with an opening circle where participants share stories of fictional characters or real persons who inspire them to think about the future. This sets the stage for community building by sharing personally. (10 minutes.) Step 2: Share an opening frame for the session such as, for example, introducing a guiding quote. Lindsay shares one from Henry Jenkins: “ Before we can change the world, we have to be able to envision the possibility of change. We have to be able to imagine what kinds of change would be desirable. And we have to be able to think of ourselves as people capable of making change. This is what we are calling the civic imagination.” (5 minutes.) Step 3: Facilitate a collective brainstorming session where attendees imagine something new and transformational. A prompt might be: “Imagine it’s 2056. What would an amazing learning experience feel like, sound like, or look like?” Encourage fantastical thinking by suspending realistic constraints. As the facilitator, you could set the tone by coming up with your own response that is fantastical and creative. (15 minutes.) Step 4: Now, after imagining these future scenarios, get the participants in small groups to start creating stories of how you’re going to get there and create a path to the envisioned future. Groups should incorporate elements from each member's ideas and engage in multimodal storytelling techniques. (15 minutes.) Step 5: Have the groups share what they came up with, either by physically acting it out or creating “freeze frames” about what is happening. People could also draw and share through a gallery walk. Conclude by discussing the values and actions identified through the stories. Encourage reflection on how imagination guided the storytelling process and how these insights can integrate into real-life practices and policies. (15 minutes.) Final Tip Encourage participants to view imagination as a powerful tool to navigate civic life and foster dynamic community interactions. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Values via Civic Imagination slides with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 250 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to the Time for teachership podcast. This is episode 250. Wow. Today we are talking about stories and civic imagination as an avenue to elicit shared class values and ultimately co-construct community agreements for discourse for how to be together in classroom or a larger school community. The context for this episode is that I've read the book, practicing Futures, A Civic Imagination Handbook. Uh, that is absolutely amazing. Uh, Peters Lazaro and stress Dova are the authors. They are fantastic. They also have a website with a bunch of, I actually think you could get the book on the website for free. And they also have a lot of images and slides and agendas for the variety of workshops they share. So it is truly an amazing resource. I wanna share a little bit of my ahas from the book and then walk you through kinda an adapted version of one of their workshops that I've tried to fit into a smaller time span for use. In, in my setting, like conferences, right? Because we usually have 45 to 60 minutes. Similarly, I think leaders and teachers who are working directly with students as well as any other facilitators of communities. So this could be, um, family or PTA spaces as well. Uh, it could even just be like family units right at home. I think there's so much value in this, um, after school programs and the applications are really truly endless. But I wanted to share kind of a backdrop, some guiding ideas, and then walk you through what you could do in like a 60 minute. A spot of time, wherever and with whomever that is for you to have kind of a co-creation of shared values as a group and get to those via stories and civic imagination. So here we go. I love their distinction right up front at the start of the book. In the forward actually. Um, so it's, it's actually not the authors, but civics versus politics in the Forward is distinguished as. Follows The civic represents the shared beliefs and values, the underlying trust, which makes collective action possible. While the political encapsulates struggles over power within the decision making process and end quote. So you have a lot of structure, right, and, and kind of power dynamics and negotiating of influence in the political sphere, the civic. Is more in my mind, community, right? It's the community piece. It's the shared beliefs and values. It's the trust, it's the relationships. That's what enables us to take action. And the action might be, uh, in the political space. It often is in, in the political space, but it is. N not the same as like, um, fighting over power, divorced from the community piece, which I, I just think that's such an interesting distinction. Um, and I love it. Also, they talk about imagination, right? So the whole book is on, um, civic imagination that's in the subtitle, and they talk about imagination as process. And again, this actually comes from the forward, but here's the quote, something we actively produce together. It goes on to say it allows otherwise opposing groups to find a path forward together. End quote. I love this idea because opposing groups is what we're seeing. Play out what we're witnessing. Play out in many public spaces, in political discourse, in in general discourse. And our goal, and what we often talk about in the podcast is thinking about how we actually bring together in community people across differences of opinion so that we can live generatively together so we don't violate human dignity, right? And so if imagination is, is thought of as a process where we're actively. Coming together across differences, across differing ideologies to forge kind of a path forward. I love this as a possibility. Um, they also talk about how it's really notable the authors now we're talking about state, that groups frequently throughout history have tapped into pop culture to translate and express social concerns, which is so cool because you see that kind of come up in their workshops and in throughout their book, how tapping into pop culture. It actually feels like a nice avenue forward by considering what elements of pop culture figures, um, what elements of our superheroes or our kind of shared stories that Netflix show that everyone watched, you know, whatever it is. How can we tap into elements of that or values that underlie that character's actions in the world, even if it's fictional to kind of express social concerns about the reality we are living in. And think about how those values or actions of those fictional folks actually kind of come to, uh, can come to fruition in our lives, to advance justice and help us live better together. They also talk about the others, talk about the shared values. That, uh, the importance being of shared values, that it supports the functions and structures of democracy. And so they're talking about how effective democracy really requires its members to feel their ideas are valued and that the system values them. I think that's where a lot of people are very disillusioned or angry with. Um. Our current systems in the United States anyways, as we record this in early 2026, um, of, of perceived democracy because there is not that feeling of my ideas are valued, I am valued by the system. Um, and so this idea of shared values, particularly in systems like schools where we can co-construct with authority figures such as teachers or leaders in those spaces, really is going to support. The, the truth of democracy, the real functioning of democracy, because it's an opportunity to co-create, be fully valued in the process of that co-creation and notice the policy implications and kind of ways of being, uh, that are present in those systems in a way that maybe isn't when we don't co-create, or we don't even talk about values, right? Or we talk about values, but put them on the wall and don't do anything with them. Um, I love this point about Maxine Green saying imagination is individual and collective. So again, we have this imagination that we often celebrate as an individual thing in students, oh, that student is so creative, or that student's super artistic. We don't cultivate that collectively as part of a whole class activity or part of a prompt or, or even assessment that is. I want you to civically imagine and we're gonna actually, that's gonna be the focus of our conversation and we're gonna build off each other. 'cause we're always better together. Right? I'm again thinking about, but thinking a lot about his, uh, words. But James Nottingham is talking about when we talk, we want to help each other say something new or think about something in a new way. We want to expand our thinking. And recently having worked with a bunch of educators on a, uh, student led discourse workshop. In pursuing the goal of student led discourse, many, many teachers who are doing amazing things have said one of the hardest things is to get students to build on each other, to listen deeply to each other, and to build something new together as opposed to just reiterating what they thought going into the conversation. This is such a hard thing and such an important thing, and so again, Maxine Green saying imagination is individual and collective. I think this is such a great space and opportunity to build that skill. The last framing I will share before I dive into to this is, uh, the authors say, quote, when you start with creativity and imagination, you don't abandon the real problems. Ah, so important. Okay? They go on to say rather, you learn to approach and see them in brand new ways, opening up possibilities for brand new solutions. End quote. I love this because I think a common pushback is, oh well we can't just like dream up this space that is gonna be so hard to get to, that's gonna be quote unquote impossible to get to. Right? We have to live in the, now we have to be realistic. Right? This is such a interesting polarity or tension that is common and I actually think would be super fruitful to position as a prompt for discussion and discourse in, in the classroom space. Is this polarity, uh, of. Realism and optimism. I, I think that is so crucial and intergenerationally that conversation, that polarity, that kind of value tension can bring up so many interesting perspectives and stories that underlie those perspectives. This could be really, really fruitful, but I think even just posing this idea, right, or posing this quote for conversation amongst students, amongst faculty, amongst a mixed group of students and faculty, Ooh, this would be so good. Families and students, right? Intergenerational conversations would love that. Okay. So we're not abandoning the real problems. We're learning to approach them in new ways. We're opening up possibilities for brand new solutions. Okay, keep that in mind. Here we go. We're gonna transition to thinking about like, how, what does this look like? Okay. How is this gonna happen and how can we start doing something like this in a span of time that's maybe only 60 minutes at a staff meeting. Right. Or, or 60 minutes at, uh, if you have 60 minutes, uh, for something like an advisory period or a community block. Right. Okay. So here's what I would say, and I'm gonna link. In the description, um, in the, excuse me, show notes, uh, for this episode, I'm gonna link this slide deck that, again, is based on this practicing futures book, uh, resources from them, from how they've done things. But they've often done things in like a multi-hour, like half day session. And so I'm just kind of truncating this quite a bit to try to think about how this might be practical for you in 60 minutes or, or even less. So feel free to adapt this, um, download it. Adapt it to how you need it, um, that is going to be located for folks who are driving, we'll drop this link, of course, in the extended show notes, but that will be lindsay beth lyons.com/blog/ 2 5 0, and you'll be able to find that there. Okay, so here we go. First thing I would do is. Start with an opening circle where we're sharing a story. So ideally, this is not the first time that we're ever meeting someone. However I have, and we'll continue to try to do this in conferences where we're bringing people who've never met each other before into a space. Um, this requires a bit more vulnerability when folks don't know each other but is possible. Okay, here's the opening prompt. Share a story or character or real person, for sure. You could also do that, but I'm just leaning into that pop culture idea here. That inspires you to think of the future. I would also just have a line on the slide here or a cue verbally to let them know. This could be a book, a movie, a TV show, a song like Get Creative and Think about who inspires you. I recently did this a couple of days ago with a team. That was just like a person. I, I think I said it could be fictional, but we actually as a, as a group, um, leaned very heavily into the real people in our lives. So much so that I don't think one person brought in a fictional person. So feel free to lean as much in as much into either direction you want. Okay. So you're sharing someone that inspires you to think of the future. Okay. Once everyone has shared, we have brought the personal in. We have shared who inspires us. We've shared it succinctly. I'm thinking this is 10 minutes. So if you have a group of 20 people, you know, you're sharing 30 seconds each quick, maybe two sentences, one sentence to describe who they are and kind of what they embody, what they do. Maybe one sentence to explain why that's important to you or how you kind of came to be connected with that person. Um, or character. And then we move on. So we have kind of this community building. Okay. Then I would share an kind of an o, an opening frame, or if you're doing traditional circle format, this frame can go first and then you can have the, the circle. Um. As kind of like the main circle activity and then close out the circle formally, that's fine too. Um, I'm just kind of mixing it up a little bit 'cause I think it's a nice segue. This would be a quote from Henry Jensen Jenkins, uh, on civic imaginations, kind of how it guides action. So the quote would be, before we can change the world, we have to be able to envision the possibility of change. We have to be able to imagine what kinds of change would be desirable. And we have to be able to think of ourselves. As people capable of making change, this is what we are calling the civic imagination. So I think this is a nice segue, although we could also work first because we just had people talking about who inspires us towards change, and now we're making the transition to think about how we could embody that sense of like change agency. Right. We have, I love that we have to be able to think of ourselves as people capable of making change. Okay. So then what I would say is kind of learn our hats on, let's do a thing that you could do with students, um, if you're working with staff. Otherwise we're just kind of just proceeding with, with students. Um, if you're working as a teacher through the stack. Yeah. And the, the prompt would be we're gonna collectively brainstorm a future world and I, you know, they typically make it like 30 years out, so, okay. It's 2056. Right. What would an amazing experience, a learning experience, schooling experience, whatever it is for you, what would it feel like? Sound like look like? Like what would the experience be like? Describe the amazing learning experience and I'm changing it right now 'cause I had school experience. I think learning is more expansive. Invite people to share just one sentence and also I think this is really, really, really important. Tell them temporarily suspend realistic constraints like the fantastical is possible, is language that they use the book. I love that the fantastical is possible. We did this at a conference, uh, at NCSS in 2025 with Erica Carr and myself. And, uh, we had one person get really fantastical. They were like, time travel field trips. And I was like, yes. And everyone else was like, oh, I want students to feel loved. Okay, great. Love it. Love that. Students can feel loved. I also think that's very possible tomorrow. Like I don't think we need 30 years for that. Right? Like what? Might we, what is so transformational that it would take 30 years to enact, to come to life, right? I think that's the framing we want. And if you would like, I often do this when I'm doing circle shares, if you wanna set the stage that might affect how others answer and so you can be the one to share your idea first and get really creative. Think in advance if you're the facilitator. What's a super time travel field trip? There you go. Handing that one to you. Gift from a participant at NCSS, but. Share something that is going to set the stage for the fantastical thinking and get folks to, if they were gonna say something like, oh, I want students to feel happy, like. Get them to transform that into something a little bit grander, right? So I also love think time. I would give people like, you know, three minutes to think here, draw a picture, write a key word, like do your independent thinking. Get them to really push their thinking. You could even share yours and then pause and say, we're gonna give everyone time to think, because they may have thought and then they were like, oh no, that wasn't fantastical enough. Right. I think this whole circle share could be about 15 minutes. I mean, these, these first two activities are really like almost half the session. But then after everyone has shared their ideas, here's what we do. We say, okay, we're in 2056. These things have happened. How do we get there? And we are going to retroactively as a group, create the stories that got us there. So they're gonna form a group, three to five people. Choose one of the topics. So ideally, someone's kind of charting. Maybe you as the facilitator are charting some of these ideas as people are sharing in the circle. So we have some different topical themes come up, choose a subtopic, choose a theme. Each group gets a different one. Uh, you know, write your number, uh, the group number next to it on the chart, your initials on the chart so other people know what's taken. And then you're gonna get into a group. And there's a couple things you could do here. You could do kind of like a formal, uh, discourse protocol, like a discussion diamond. And work through kind of your own ideas for a story. Everyone writes their ideas down and they kind of share very formal, structured, kind of share their ideas. Um, and then they have some time to kind of, you're gonna have some time to remix. Like, how do we integrate everyone's individual ideas into one cohesive story that borrows at at least one element from each individual in this group? Right? Um, you would have a, a story that. Has a character or group at the center, a conflict that they face and a resolution that ultimately gets them to that future we described. Now, you could also do this in a variety of other ways. You could make it way more multimodal, you could make it way more artistic. Um, you could have like a storyboard. So I'm thinking about the elementary kind of storyboards, where it's like, okay, here's the character. We're gonna draw a picture of the character. Here's the conflict that they face. Like, that's the middle box. Here's the third box. This is the resolution. And you could draw a picture and or caption it to kind of set the scene. Okay, so then once you've had that small group time, and I'm thinking about 20 minutes here, um, so another kind of large chunk of time, um. I'm now wondering if I made this like a 75 minute activity, but you can adjust any of these pieces that you'd like or you could cut out whole activities if you'd like. Um, but basically what we now wanna do, uh, is give a few minutes for one or more groups de depending on how long a time slot you have here, each group could kind of share out for just like 60 seconds I think is all, all that's needed. Um, you can act out. Like physically act out, uh, key pieces of your story and have one person kind of do a voiceover, uh, kind of like a skit style. But I actually find that skits can be really, um, hard for particularly adults. Uh, but skits can be hard. But what you could do is you could have kind of like a, I don't remember what they're called, but where you physically kind of move. You have like a moving, um. Seen like almost like you're a statue and so you have kind of like these three freeze frames and so you as a group are kind of freeze frame one, and then you have one person kind of talk through what's happening here. Okay. Freeze frame two and, and it's easier for the group to kind of move but not verbally share. And then just one person kind of reads through the notes and verbalizes you also as a group, if you're. If you've got some visual artists, you could do a kind of mini mural or drawing and then have one person kind of explain that or even just hang up the mini murals, maybe capture them a little bit so we know what we're looking at, but kind of do a gallery walk where we're walking around there. Um, I think a nice audience move here as you are either kind of watching and or listening or engaging in gallery walk is just to notice what values are coming up. What do you infer the values of this group or this story Were. And then we're kind of charting them. Um, and now I think that what happens next, again, if you're working with staff, um, you're gonna have kind of this teacher hat moment of like, how could I bring this activity to students? If you're working directly with students or your purpose is really just to do this with staff, I don't think you need the, how do I teach this kind of side of things. Um, but I do think there is. This sense of, you know, what values came up for us. So we have, you know, 10 minutes of discussion here. Maybe what values came up in the stories, like let's name those. You might have jotted them on your own individual paper, but let's get them out in the space. What actions were present. Like what did people in these stories do? Were they young people? Were they adults? Were they working together in youth adult partnerships? So cool. Right. And what did you notice about your experience of the civic imagining process of the story creation and synthesizing with team? Like what did you notice about yourself and other participants, other peers in this process of doing this thing? Like how do we communicate with one another perhaps differently? Than we normally would when we're talking about social issues and how can imagination serve us in our civic lives. This is a question from the book that I really, really love, so I wanted to work that in. Um, but I love this idea of imagination serving us in civic lives. So how do we like kind of just put that out there? Maybe not as a question, maybe it's just a, oh, what a cool thought. Um, and maybe that's something you end on, I think another kind of. Angle to look at this with is like, we just painted this vision that we all care about, that we think there is a path forward, however fantastical, but we think there's a path forward to actually get there. We just made those stories and so how might we, or how can we, how will we, right? Whatever verb you wanna use, help this vision come to life in our school and so. We can invite conversation, like how do we do that? How do we get students and school stakeholders to talk about these shared values? How do we get ourselves to practice and lift up these shared values that we just identified are important through story? How do we make that a living part of the way we are in the school and the way school is, and the way we are as a community together? How do we nurture actions in our classrooms? How do we make sure our policies are reflective of this? What pedagogical moves, uh, can we borrow? We're if we're students that we can, or sorry if we're teachers and then we can use the students or, uh, what moves can we use? Um, if you're doing this with a group of family members and caregivers. Like, what can we share with our, our kind of family units, right? Our, our children and the home space. So that is a long list of things. Uh, don't feel like you need to remember that all or take notes because you do have access to these slides for absolutely free. Again, they are based on a fantastic book, kind of truncated as much as possible to like this 60 to 75 minute range. Feel free to edit and adjust more. I'm sure I will actually go in and as of this time of recording in January, 2026, they look one way and they're gonna probably exist in a very different way as I iterate and do this with different groups and, and learn as the authors of that book did, what works well and what can be adjusted so. I will continue updating live in this Google Slide deck. So if you're listening in 2027, this may look different than I'm describing now. And good for you. You've got the updated version. So again, that is going to be [email protected] slash blog slash 2 5 0. You can go ahead and grab that resource, uh, make it your own, make a copy, edit it to your heart's content, and let me know how it goes for you. 3/16/2026 249. Cultivating a Culture of Belonging, Challenge, & Agency with Dr. Jennifer BerryRead Now
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In this episode, we chat with Dr. Jennifer Berry, who discusses the importance of cultivating a culture of appropriate challenge in classrooms, particularly among STEM students. She emphasizes that a student's self-belief in their ability to belong, master rigorous challenges, and make impactful contributions is crucial across all fields, not just within STEM.
Dr. Berry highlights that achieving this involves creating a conducive learning environment, allowing for productive struggle, and integrating hands-on learning with real-world applications. The Big Dream Dr. Berry's vision is rooted in the right of all students to thrive as the best versions of themselves. Her dream is to break down the structures that hinder many youth from realizing their potential, empowering them to rise above their circumstances. She envisions an educational landscape where students are equipped not only to face challenges individually but also to collaborate and push against systemic barriers collectively. Mindset Shifts Required Dr. Berry argues for the critical mindset shift that recognizes the importance of allowing productive struggles, rather than stepping in to solve problems for students. This can be against educators' natural tendency to to step in and help solve everything. But by pausing before responding to students, you’re encouraging students to explore solutions themselves. Action Steps For educators wanting to enable their students to learn through “productive struggle,” Dr. Berry suggests the following action steps: Step 1: Create a learning environment that promotes collaboration, movement, and the integration of hands-on tools. This could be a dedicated space in the classroom or a specific area in a school that encourages project-based learning. Step 2: Design curriculum activities that connect STEM tools with real-world issues and industry pathways, helping students see the relevance and applications of what they are learning. Step 3: Actively engage the broader community by inviting mentors and professionals to share their experiences, thereby providing students with diverse role models and real-world insights. Step 4: In all this, resist the temptation to jump in and solve, fix, or help students immediately. Let them have space to figure things out and engage in productive struggle. With practice, educators will know when you need to step in and when you don’t. As Dr. Berry says, “Pause before responding, pause before answering.” Challenges? The most significant challenge in fostering STEM identity is ensuring that all elements of learning, from curriculum design to community engagement, work together seamlessly. Teachers may become overly focused on one aspect, such as the technology involved, rather than integrating it with practical, real-world applications and wider educational goals. One Step to Get Started Start by integrating a short pause before answering student questions in class. This simple action encourages students to think more deeply about their queries and explore potential solutions, reinforcing their problem-solving skills and growing their confidence. This approach sets the foundation for a broader shift in mindset, fostering a more inquisitive and resilient learning environment. Stay Connected You can find out more about and connect with Dr. Jennifer Berry on her website, SmartLab Learning, or on LinkedIn. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Culture Playlist with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 249 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Jennifer Barry, welcome to the time for teachership podcast. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Oh, thank you for having me, Lindsay. I'm so happy to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I am so excited that you're here because as we were saying right before we hit record, I'm really interested in this idea of like class culture and how we kind of build up, uh, a culture of appropriate challenge and all of that. And I think your work is so, um, like it. Helpful in how we can like, make that actionable. Mm-hmm. Particularly for, for STEM classrooms, but I think honestly for, for every classroom, yes. It's so valuable no matter what you teach. Yeah. And so that's what's on my heart and mind this morning. And so I'm curious to know what is important for listeners to know that maybe you're thinking about today or that you want people to kind of keep in mind throughout. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, I love, I loved how you mentioned what's so key for students, whether they're in a STEM classroom or whether in they're in any kind of learning environment. But I also would translate that and transfer that even into a career, um, focus, right? Because as we're educating youth and as we're educating, um, uh, students in the classroom, we should always be thinking about what is their future, right? Like obviously we want kids to be, um, you know, whole and best versions of themselves. And have, you know, the mental health capacity to survive in this kind of ever changing, in some case, some cases, scary world. However, we should also be as educators thinking about how are we setting up for them up for success, for future careers to be and, and, and be in and thriving in, uh, future industries, some that already exist and some that are yet to be, to be existing in existence because they're be. Being developed as we speak. Right? And so I always like to say to myself and to others, and to my, my team who's developing our curriculum at Smart Lab, um, what do we think about, uh, as, as to what skills do students need in order to thrive in a career and be. Not only the best versions of themselves, but the top of their game and lead in, in whatever they choose to, to focus on in life. So it isn't just okay when they're in the STEM classroom or when they're in the learning environment, but how does that connection connect to the broader, uh, life that they're gonna have, right? And, and their experiences that they're gonna bring to this world and how they're gonna contribute to this world in meaningful and positive ways. So, you know, we have coined this sort of. STEM identity, uh, definition, which, you know, STEM identity has been, uh, studied for years. Right? And I know that I, the word identity can be very controversial, but the reality is, um, when you put the word stem in front of it, um, it, it really kind of loses that sort of polarizing perspective because it's really about thinking. Uh, how, how do you think not can you use a STEM application, but how do you think, right? And so we've defined STEM identity as a learner's self-belief that I belong, I can master rigorous challenges and my ideas make an impact or have an impact, right? That cuts across any industry. Right. I'm not, I, I, man, you know, I am a CEO of a STEM company, but I don't consider myself a scientist, right? I don't consider myself, although I love math, I don't consider myself a mathematician or in that field, right? I consider myself a leader. I consider myself a visionary. I consider myself somebody that really galvanizes an idea or people and move us forward so that we can be, again, the best versions of ourselves and contribute to this world meaningfully. So. When I think about that, I think, oh, I actually have STEM identity because I do believe I belong in this seat. I do believe I can master rigorous challenges, and I do believe that my ideas make an impact. So somewhere along the way, through my early learning all the way through till now, I, I had that cultivated through mentors, through parents, through my community along the way. And so that's my. That was my learner's self-belief, and now it's my adult self-belief and it translates into the industry that I've chosen. So I really like to think about STEM identity as beyond the STEM. Uh, acronym and really think about it from the standpoint of a learner's self-belief, right? Because we all wanna belong. We all wanna believe that we can master a, a challenge. And like that challenge doesn't define us like we can. We can work through that challenge and get it to the other side, um, or decide, hey, that challenge is not even worth solving because it isn't really, uh, something that I can solve and bring in others and collaborate with others to help kind of get to that solvability. Um. Or that place of, of solve. So you know that that's really what I think we as humans, even for, and I was talking to somebody the other day, they're like, oh, oh, so STEM identity is acquired? And I'm like, Hmm. I don't know. I think babies come out with STEM identity, right? Like I think they come out believing, oh, I belong here. Right. I, I, I can master rigorous challenge because guess what? When I cry, somebody helps me in most cases, right? I know that's not in all cases, but in most cases I cry and somebody, right? So that was a challenge, and I overcame it by making sound, right? Uh, my ideas have impact, right? Because when I smile, a, a, an adult smiles back at me, right? So that was an idea. So, I don't know. It's sort of, I know that's a little heady and maybe too meta for a lot of people, but I actually believe that people, um, as individuals come out with this sort of identity that they belong and that they can master rigorous challenges and their ideas have. And so therefore, because we've defined that as STEM identity, I believe people come out of the womb with STEM identity. Now, what I do believe is that, that they need to be cultivated. They need to have environments that cultivate that identity. They need to have, um, people around them and systems around them that support the fact that they belong. Right? We know that there's systemically that's not always the case for all individuals, and so we need to work very carefully to make sure that all. All humans get that inalienable right of, um, care to thrive with their own belief that they belong here. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, I, I love this so much. There's so much that I wanna like tap into. I think that this idea of, um, you know, every, every person just for the greater good of humanity and for their, like, role as a community member in a larger world. I mean, we talk a lot about civic action and kind of like that social studies lens and this. Podcast. Yes. But like, that seems so relevant, right? Like, you want to be impactful, you want to be agentic, you want the sense of belonging and you wanna foster it for other people. You want to be able to tackle hard things instead of just shut down when the world is like nuts. Right? Yeah. And, and I think that totally, totally resonates for civics as well. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, I agree. Lindsay Lyons: I mean, that's what, that's just me kind of painting my dream. But I, I always try to ask at the start ish of episodes like. For guests. What, I'm curious what your freedom dream is. So Dr. Bettina love describes this as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Mm. And Lindsay Lyons: so you kind of alluded to like right, like some systems and structures are not just, and and like what you're painting a vision of is maybe counter two what some of the systems currently are. And so you maybe have already addressed this question, but I'm curious, is there anything you would add here around like the dream you hold for education? Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah. Um, I think it is rooted in, um, all students' rights to thrive and be best versions of themselves, um, and that sort of breaking down of the structures around them that prevent that for many youth. Um, so my dream is to sort of figure out how to bust the structures down and to, to protect the youth at the center of that so that they can thrive. Whatever environment they're handed. Right? And so, because not every envi, not every student is handed the same environment for various reasons, right? Based on socioeconomic background, based on race, based on gender, based on, um, religion. You know, you can name, you can name all of the reasons why maybe not all, all students have the structures around them that support their, their learning. So, you know, when I think about my sort of. Focus is to try to figure out in a small way, right? I, I don't, I, you know, I'm not able to solve all of the problems, um, across, across the u United States and world. Um, but I do believe that in a small way, if we can sort of. Bubble students to be able to thrive in whatever, uh, environment they're in so that they can feel like they matter, right? And their, and their ideas add value, as we talked about earlier. And so to create an environment around them where they're almost protected, um, from some of the, the, the, the structures that. Down so that they can stand up on their own two feet and look up and go, wait, I can break down that barrier. I can push through that barrier. I, collectively with my peers, can collaborate together to be the force that pushes against whatever is pushing against them. Right? So that I, I think, you know, to layer in. You know that, you know how I, how we as my an organization have defined that STEM identity term. You know, that's very narrow 'cause we run a STEM company, so that's very narrow. But when I think about my own sort of seat in that as a CEO, it's bigger than that for me. It's really to make sure that the students that are in an environment that, that any environment of learning, that they can really thrive to be best versions of themselves and. See that they're better than their circumstances and that if they themselves as individuals and they can grab, gather collectively around them and build community, they can bust through the circumstances that are sort of pushed and forced upon them. And then of course, my personal dream is that those that are outside of the student learning environment are also pushing from the, uh, outside in so that the students are pushing from the outside out, inside out. We're pushing from the. Outside in so that we can really crumble some of the stuff that really is, um, you know, disenfranchising a lot of, a lot of youth from being the best versions of themselves and being able to be productive individuals and be collective in their unity for society. So. Lindsay Lyons: I love that dream. Thank you for sharing that. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, of course. Lindsay Lyons: I, I think now about like some of the actions that educators can take or, I mean, honestly even like family members, right? Supporting kids, like you're saying, like learning environments kinda are everywhere. We're like doing this kind of whole human wise now and in the future. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: I think often as a teacher, I will raise my hand on today that I, for sure when someone was like, miss, miss, like I'm struggling. It would be me running over from person to person helping, and I realize now, in retrospect as a coach, that was not helpful in the moment. I wasn't letting 'em, you know, rise to the challenge and figuring out ways to tackle the problem themselves. Mm-hmm. And certainly my goal was to like alleviate their stress. Mm-hmm. Right. And to help, but it wasn't actually helpful, so. Mm-hmm. For me, this has been a mindset shift that I've gone through, but I'm curious, are there. Other mindset shifts that you think are really required for educators to make to be able to actually cultivate this STEM identity? Yeah. That is different from how maybe traditionally school is done. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah. I'd say there's two things to that. So the first thing actually is exactly what you were saying, and I can even speak as a parent. So I have an 11-year-old daughter and. The natural instinct is always to jump in and solve, or to alleviate the stress or to help, um, and, and that natural instinct is because we're trying to make sure that they are feeling safe and they're, you know, not struggling. Right. And we work a lot on this, even our curriculum set for, for Smart Lab, where we focus on teaching the facilitator how to allow productive struggle. Right. And that's key because you don't want a student to struggle past the point of, um, or where they give up or where they, um, sort of reach their pay grade, if you will. They reach their level of, you know, capacity to like push past their, their amygdala firing and that fear of fight or fight happening. So there is this sort of productive struggle, um, zone that we really try to get facilitators to in our. Professional development of our facilitators in a smart lab because that productive struggle is really, really important. Like, let the student struggle enough, kind of push through and fail enough times that they, um, can then see like, oh, I can go another place in my brain and try to get that to solve, you know, solve. Solve that, or I could walk away because I'm too frustrated right now. I'm allowed to walk away and come back to it later and then pick up right where I left off. But there is that zone of productive struggle that's really important because you don't want to go past that zone. Because if you go past that zone, then students actually can retreat and that and their amygdala, right? Their fire or flight, um, uh, uh, nerve fires and then, and then your. Then they're not productive, right? So there's that zone of letting 'em struggle enough without letting them get to that fight or flight zone. And even sometimes we actually do teach. Sometimes getting in that fight or flight zone is good because sometimes when you're fighting with the answer, there's ways that, I mean, we do this in life, right? There's ways in which you need to walk away. Do some breathing, get out in nature, you know, read a book. Really get out of your environment so that you can come back a, the better version of yourself. Right. And I, I, I had this issue with my daughter last night. You know, she was, she was tired and she didn't wanna do her, her 20 minutes of reading that she's supposed to do every night. And, um. She had just come from karate. And so I could tell she was just in this like zone of, of past the point of, I can, I can't even, I can't even figure out how to get into the bathroom and brush my own teeth, right? And she was just like, can you help me brush my teeth? And I'm thinking, you're 11. I don't need to help you brush your teeth, right? But my natural reaction was like, yes, because I need, and I need you to read and I need you to go to sleep. So I'm gonna grab your toothbrush and I'm gonna brush your teeth for you. Right. And as I'm doing this because I'm, you know, although I talk about this a lot, I fail at it often. I'm brushing her teeth and she's standing there with her arms down and her eyes closed, and I'm thinking. Oh, I have just enabled her to use me essentially because, and I could see in her eyes like, oh, I got you. Almost like, or I could see in her body language, I got you. And I know that's not, I don't think she was intentionally thinking that, but I think in her mind she was like. Oh, I was able to cry a little bit. I was able to like pretend I don't know how to brush my teeth or I can't function right, because I am tired, right? And so I calmly put the toothbrush down. I said, okay, Jayla, I started this for you. I need you to finish and I will meet. I'm gonna go do my own. Brushing of the teeth and washing my own face and I will meet you in your room with my own book and we will read together. Right? And but it took me, it took me that moment of doing to then also have my own moment of, wait a minute, I just got tricked here. Or I just fell into a pattern of trying to help and solve because I could see my poor child was tired and dah, dah, dah, and I had to really stop and I could see begrudgingly she was sort of like, Ugh. But she picked up that toothbrush. She finished brushing her teeth, she got herself in bed. She opened her book and she was waiting for me to come in and she was reading, but by the time I got in there with my book to sit on the floor next door to read. So it was really powerful moment for me. A small example, but a very powerful for moment for me that we, we can jump in. Like you said, you're walking around the classroom and you can jump in. But also when we're, we're mature enough to go, whoa, I've overstepped here and sort of. Kick it off for them and then walk away. So I don't, I think sometimes I see facilitators across the country like, oh, I'm supposed to just be hands off with everything and let them sort of, and it doesn't mean as an educator, you can't guide, you can't start, you can't maybe add value in the middle of, um. You have to know when to back away. You have to know when to let them push through that obstacle. Right? So anyway, that's a great, that was a great example of something that happened to me last night that I had a moment of realization and, and I know despite that she was sort of. Angry about it. I know that, you know, she's more than capable of what I, you know, the tasks that she was trying to do, and it had I continued to help her, I would've been enabling her to lean on me too hard when things got hard for her. Lindsay Lyons: I love that example of, thank you. Very relatable. I think that's great. Um, and I, yeah, I think that's also your idea, that it's okay if you find yourself in that moment and you can then step back. It's very forgiving. Yeah. For the people who are in transition from, like, I used to run to put out fires and help get too much and over scaffold. Yes. But I can notice in the moment and remove myself. I love that. Like reframing of like, I kicked you off. Like we, I got you started. Here we go. Now it's you. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, now it's you. Yeah. Oh, and I had said there was a second thing, the second thing, and be, you know, and because we're a STEM organization, although I just believe this, in, in general, putting in a, a hands-on approach or some sort of tool or some sort of STEM application, whether it's a hands-on, you know, I believe STEM applications can even be paperclips. Like sub application doesn't have to be, you know, an ai, VR, glass, you know, v ar VR glasses. Like it really could be just a paperclip, right? So I believe putting in some sort of hands-on tool into a student's learning process can help open up the brain in ways that, um, that. All humans need, right. That, that, that kind of going back to the root of play. Right. And, you know, you, you, you play when you're young, but when you're, when you're, you know, elementary, middle, high school, and then even, you know, higher ed and even as an adult with me there, there's moments where I have to like pick up something and play with it to, to open up parts of my brain that can then. Find a solution to something, right? When you're stuck in a problem, you have to that, that act of hands-on play. Now, in most cases, you want that act, that act of hands-on play to be connected to whatever you're trying to solve. But sometimes that act of play is, um. Is really just opening the, the brain up, right? I, I had this conversation, somebody was interviewing me last night for, for something they were doing for their, uh, their MBA program and they were asking me sort of what were my tips and tricks and I said, you know, I sort of have this weird act of rebellion thing that I do, and it's, and they were like, Ooh, tell me more active rebellion. That sounds really like gritty. And I'm like, actually, it's like sometimes I just drive home a different route. Sometimes I just listen to a different radio station. Sometimes I just, uh, brush my teeth with my left hand versus my right hand. Like this active rebellion doesn't have to be so. Rebellion esque. It could be some small things that you're doing slightly different that open your brain up to think about new ideas that think about ways to solve a problem in a way that maybe you hadn't thought of before. So I, I kind of like this active rebellion. Maybe I'll write a book about it someday, but this sort of active rebellion that's very simple, acts during the course of your day. To get you out of routine. And I believe in structure. I believe in routine. I believe in discipline, but you have to sometimes break those norms in order to have your brain open up for really amazing thoughts that are trapped, right? And so when you, I don't know how many times you've been in a car and driven and go, I don't even know how I got here. You know, I have no idea how I got here. And, you know, uh, although if you force yourself to go a different route, then you're like, oh, wait, do I have to turn right? Do I have to turn left? Wait, where am I going? I'm in a different way. So I do that every day. I try to do this active rebellion in very small ways that sparked the brain. So I can think about in a, in a classroom setting, a teacher, an educator, trying to think about maybe changing up their routine instead of walking the classroom and the, you know, they normally. Because teachers I know find themselves doing, I'm gonna always go to this side of the room first, and then go around to the left side, go the other direction and see what happens. Right. You're gonna make the kids go. 'cause they also know, oh, she's gonna get to me last, so by the time she gets to me, I'll show her that I'm working on something. Right. But I'll be maybe doodling before she gets around to me. Right. But now, if the teacher's changing their walk, now you're, you're changing that student to go, oh, I have to be actively engaged now because she's not doing her normal. Her normal left to right walk or right to left, walk right. So, I don't know, little things like that I think could be really helpful for a teacher. Um. Uh, you know, have the student have, you know, maybe the teacher sits on the floor one day outta nowhere, or sits on the desks, or has the kids sit on the floor, even if they're in high school, just like change it up and do these small acts of rebellion. That I think can really, um, open up those spaces for, um, being okay with failure, for being okay with change, for being resilient when things aren't always as, as you've imagined them or are used to them being. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, I love this idea that you're just like opening the brain up. You know, that like, I, I, that is so cool. I'm latching onto that piece. I also was thinking about you describing your guide for facilitators. Mm-hmm. And so thinking about instruction and instruction design, like both the pre-planning, like I'm gonna design in this particular way to help kids, like have this opportunity for, for grappling and productive struggle. But then I also. Like, I think we focus a lot on that and, and I know that that's super important and this idea of like the responsive piece, like I'm gonna see what kids can do and then I'm gonna respond accordingly so that they're in that zone you're describing. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Mm-hmm. Lindsay Lyons: I'm curious if you could share some of those tips that you have in your kind of coaching of facilitators and facilitation of how to. How to do this. Uh, if you know someone's listening and they're like, I'm gonna try this out today in class, you know, is there something that you could do differently to be more responsive? Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, I think two things that pop to mind. Um, you know, without going into the full facilitation training that we do, but two things that I think are really simple, like you said, what could they do today is, um. Pause before responding, pause before answering. Um, you know, even a student that raises their hand and says, Hey, I have a question, right? This is my question. Instead of going, well, let me answer that for you because I'm the teacher, I'm the person that knows I'm supposed to, supposed to answer this question. You know, pausing and saying, you know what? That's a really quick question. Tell me more about why you're asking that. Tell me more about what, what, what the point is of that question. Are you a, you know, do others have an idea to help that Stu, you know, to help that? Like, really putting the question back on the student. I do this at work a lot and it throws people off actually many times. You know, when you're the CEO of a company, I, I didn't know this until I became a CEO, but people ask you the things that are like. So low level that as if you're supposed to know every answer, you know, and um, or even high level as if you're supposed to have all the high level answers, right. And I find myself a lot going. I don't, I don't have any, I don't have any idea or that's a really interesting question or I haven't thought about that yet. Um, and, and I. I've now started to use this sort of, it's a, that's, that's a really good question. Tell me why you're asking. What is, what is, um, what do you think we would get from that? By, by solving that or by, um, you know, that, that solution or that, if I answered that question, if I even dare to know the answer to that question, what would you get from that? Is there a point behind your question? Do you, what do you think the answer should be? That actually makes people uncomfortable? They're like, oh. I asked you what I, of course, I don't know, but I'm like, no, I'm, I'm curious what, how do you think? And then all of a sudden they're like, well, I think we should do it this way, and I think you should do it that way. And I think maybe if we tried it this way and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Maybe we should try that. Maybe you could own that. Maybe that's a project you wanna take on. Right? And that opens up this sort of pause before you just jump in and answer. So that would be my one. One tip for people is just pause before you answer and sort of put. The question back on them, or maybe not the question back on them, but put the why they're asking back on them, because then it can force them to think about like, why am I asking that question? What will that serve this discussion? You know, is it just because that it popped in my head and I'm that kid that just likes to ask questions? Or is it, I'm really curious about this and I think. Help me. If I understood this, it would help me understand that, you know, and make that kid sort of think through why that question matters. And then of course, of course engage the rest of the class to maybe help them solve it rather than you, you know, standing up being the expert in the room. Right. Um, so that's one. The other, the other thing is this, um, this idea of when you see people struggling actively walk away. And you know, had I done that last night with my daughter in the toothbrush moment, I guarantee her standing in the bathroom with her arms down and the tears streaming, you know, you know, staring at the mirror. But like, I'm not, I don't know how to brush my teeth. Had I walked away from that circumstance, she would've had to. Regroup. She would've had to eventually pick up the toothbrush and brush her teeth because she does know how to brush her teeth, right? So, had I done that rather than like, oh, I'm just gonna jump in and help you grab the toothbrush and shove it in your mouth and start the process, um, she would've had to work through. Feelings in that moment and work through, like, I do know how to do this. I'm not gonna just stand here and cry all night. I need to pick up that toothbrush and brush my teeth and go into my room. Right? So that would be the second sort of like quick thing, the moment you see struggle or somebody frustrated in the corner. Maybe just actively walking away, keeping your eye on them to make sure they don't get past that point of like, now I'm a wreck and now I'm hiding under the table, or now I'm arguing with my peer or whatever. Right. Or throwing things at the teacher. You know, those things can happen too, but walk away and sort of allow them to have their moment because most humans need those moments that they can figure out how to work through. Right now there's some right that we, we know, that need other accommodations to help support them in their, in their time of need. But for the most part, you can identify like, Ooh, I'm gonna let that child struggle a little bit more. But I, as a teacher had to actively walk away because just like at the playground when a student fall or, or where a kid falls, they look for their parents' reaction. And it's the same thing as you get older, right? Your, your, your, your, your rebellion in the classroom is looking to see, is somebody noticing, is somebody seeing me? Right? And sometimes walking away from that is them going, wait, I can, I can solve this. Or a peer jumps in and goes, let me help you. Right? So those would be the two things that I would recommend, um, that people can do out of the gate and that we try to really make sure the facilitators are strong at in a stem learning environment. Lindsay Lyons: I love those. Thank you so much for those. Those are, yeah, immediately actionable. So super, super helpful and concrete. And thinking back to kind of at the start where you were talking about, and I wrote this down, how do you think like the idea of like STEM identity and like, you know, coaching students around this. It's important to coach like the thinking, right. And the thinking is what we want to do. Yeah. Especially in like humanities, I think a lot of times we prioritize the way that you get the thinking out, like on a paper in writing, for example, and then the kid struggles of writing. It's like, oh, I can't see the thinking because I'm not thinking about the various ways that the thinking can come out. But it really is about. The thinking mm-hmm. That we wanna cultivate. Um, and I'm also thinking about kind of your definition of STEM identity and thinking about that belonging, the rigorous challenge. Um, and then the third one, I can't read my own Dr. Jennifer Berry: hand. My ideas have an impact. Thank you. Lindsay Lyons: My Dr. Jennifer Berry: ideas have an impact. Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Ideas have an impact. What is, is there like an aspect of, of those pieces that you. Find that teachers have the most, um, kind of challenge with, or is there kind of a particular struggle that people face in, in cultivating that stem identity and, and kind of focusing on the thinking. Um, and, and then how do you like coach through a, a challenge like that? I imagine it's not super easy to make that transition for teachers. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, so we, you know, smart Lab really focuses on an integrated ecosystem. So, you know, our, our, our, our tagline is we're an integrated ecosystem. That's that, uh, sparks, aha moments, that, and build stem identity for learners. That's sort of our tagline, right? And we, we think of aha moments is that sort of sudden realization that learners have when they connect, um, ideas in new and meaningful ways. Right. So that's, that's how we define an aha moment. And if you have multiple aha moments, that's what's building your stem identity. If you have multi, multiple aha moments, you're starting to get that self-belief, that learner self-belief that you, you know, belong, can master rigorous challenges and your ideas add value. So this, this, um, idea of, um. What is the hardest part of getting students? Their STEM identity is really allowing for multiple aha moments to happen. And so when we talk about the integrated ecosystem, you know, the environment matters. Right? At Smart Lab, we help, uh, we help classrooms. School districts, you know, schools themselves, uh, customize their learning environment to make sure their learning environment is conducive for hands-on project-based learning. 'cause not all learning environments are, and you can customize a corner of a library to do that. Or you can customize a room that you can lock and call it your STEM lab, right? So no matter where, or even in the classroom, a corner of a classroom, you can create a customized environment that is conducive for hands-on project based learning. So at Smart Lab, we help. Schools do that. Um, but a teacher themselves in a classroom can create an environment in their classroom that is conducive for hands-on project based learning. And that's being really intentional about what that learning environment looks like. Is there collaborative spaces? Is there room for active play? Is there room for movement? Right? Is there mo room for bringing in a STEM application to sort of use to facilitate learning, right? So that, that sort of. Customized learning environment is, is really key in this ecosystem, right? But as we both know, ecosystems are only as good as everything that's in 'em, not just the environment. 'cause otherwise that environment could just be a storage unit, right? So you wanna customize learning environment that optimizes for learning, but then you also need the curriculum that is designed to optimize learning, right? And so in our case, we design our curriculum all based on state standards and align. But, and, but really we, what we do in our curriculum is take STEM applications. That students can use in a hands-on project based way and connect them to real world challenges as well as industry pathways. So that way there isn't just a, um, a, oh, I know how to use a 3D pen, but it's, oh, I, I've used a 3D pen, but let me tell you about the use case for that. Right. Again, I'm gonna do a great example. I had a, a group of five fifth graders in my car the other day and um, we have brought Smart Lab to my daughter's elementary school. It's a public elementary school in San Diego and we have brought Smart Lab there. And, um, the foundation actually was so invested in getting stem, it's an IB school, but they were so invested in getting STEM into this public school that the foundation. Uh, use their jogathon money and all of the donation money to put the Smart Lab in the school. So I had these five fifth graders in my car, right, where I'm taking them to their dance, their dance class, their dance team, um, class, and I asked 'em, Hey, how was Smart Lab this week? And they were like, oh my gosh. Did you know we did the shadows in motion, um, uh, uh, unit. Did you know that in a field, the opposing team makes sure that the, uh, or the, the, the, the field, the, um. Home team makes sure that the opposing team sits with the sun in their eyes. And so when the shadow comes over the stadium that the opposing team has the sun in their eyes, did you know this mommy? And I'm like, oh wow. Yeah, that's amazing. You know, this is cool. And all of them are rattling around like, yeah, and then this, this, use it for a shadow and this use for a shadow. And so, and I was like, well, what STEM application, what we're using? They're like, oh, we were using a 3D pen. And I'm like. Oh, so they weren't talking about the, the, the thing that's really cool and exciting, they were actually talking about the use case for it, right? They were designing something with their 3D pen for the shadows in motion type activity that applied to something in real world. So they were actually more excited about the real world application. So that curriculum and how you use the hands-on tools and equipment is so important and can be, um, where. Facilitators fail when they're just very, they're admiring the 3D pen and they're really excited about the, you know, the CNC machine, or they're really excited about teaching kids how to use a, a, you know, a 3D, you know, a 3D printer, you know, and so they're really excited about that opposed to how do you connect that thing? To a real world problem. How do you connect that thing to learning that really gets the student to think about a real world, uh, industry or some sort of problem that can be solved through this use of this STEM tool. So that could be, uh, an area that people really need to think about because we, many times I see random acts of STEM happening in school districts, right? Meaning the kids are getting to play with this stuff and they're very excited about this stuff, but there's no. Connection to anything. It's sort of like, okay, but what is the connection to that thing that you got to play with that now applies in real world, right? And now you and I know this AI powered world we live in, living in, eventually AI is gonna do all of those STEM applications. It already does most of them, but it's gonna use those already gonna be able to do those STEM applications. So we want students to be able to know how they work, maybe play with how they work so that they can actually have that hands-on tools. But also more importantly, how it applies in real world, so that when they get to the real world, they know when to bring in that AI tool to do that thing because they know what it's used for. Right? So they can lead in an AI powered world opposed to AI leading them. So that would be part of the, and then, so yeah, so the environment's important. The curriculum and the hands-on tools and equipment is important. We've already had talked about how important the facilitator is, right? And we certify our, our facilitators so that if it's a librarian that. Becoming the, the STEM teacher or if it's a, if it's a, the, you know, the lead math instructor at the school becoming the stead or the science person that's becoming it, or they put a paraprofessional in that becomes a stem. Um, a facilitator that we make sure that we set them up for success so that they can understand the curriculum, understand the kids and equipment, understand the STEM applications, but more importantly, understand how to allow students to have a productive struggle. While they're learning. Right? And then lastly, it's really the support and partnership, right? The this, this idea, when we think about our ecosystem, it's these five things and the support and partnership is really key. Now, support could be everything from, you know, at Smart Lab we have customer success people and we have tech support people. Like, that's all support. But really I like to overemphasize, whether you're in a smart lab or you're just in a classroom trying to do this, or you're, you already have a STEM lab in another, in another. Is that you figure out how to bring the community into your environment, right? Even if it's in the humanities class, even if it's in the social studies class, even if it's in, you know, a STEM learning environment, to have the community come in so that students can see themselves. Right. So they have representation. They see themselves in careers of the future. They can hear from potential mentors that maybe aren't their parents or aren't people that they get to see every day. Um, and that the, the facilitator or the adult that's coming into this environment to share their own experiences, gives reasons to believe that you don't have to be, you don't have to have the highest scores all the time. You don't have to always go to the best schools. I always have to look a certain way to be successful in this world. So bringing the community in so that students have a variety of people that they get to see themselves in, I think can be really, really supportive. Supportive to that, to that optimized learning for, for kids future growth. So I sort of roundabout answered your question about like, what is it that facil. Struggle with the most, and I think it's sort of making sure that all of the pieces are integrated together to optimize the learning, right? They focus on maybe one aspect of the learning environment or one aspect of the kits and equipment or, or to your point, focus too much on the designing of the curriculum, right? Instead of like, how do I make sure the ecosystem is optimized? Is the learning environment strong? Is the, the curriculum developed? You know, in a way that's gonna optimize learning is the way in which I facilitate that. At at peak capacity, it am I bringing the community in to give real world examples and to give mentorship to these students. So really making sure that you're thinking of the whole ecosystem, I think is where people struggle the most. Um, because they get overly fixated on one aspect or another. I Lindsay Lyons: love the ecosystem frame. Love the components. Those are so good. Thank you for sharing that. And I think as a final question that I'm gonna sneak in as we close here, um, where can folks learn more about you or connect with you or Smart Lab online or, or otherwise? Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah. Yeah. So I hope people go to our website, um, and that's smart lab learning.com. So Smart Lab Learning spelled as you would expect.com. They can go there. There's a ton of free resources. We actually, on November 7th, have a, uh, what we're calling STEM Identity Day. So there is national STEM identity or national. STEM Day. That is on November 8th, but it's a Saturday, so we wanted to make sure schools got to participate. So we're calling it, um, STEM Identity Day in support of National STEM Day. And we're inviting, um, the community into schools and we can help facilitate that so that it's all, you know, credentialed. Everybody's credentialed and has their visitor passes and knows what to do, but we're inviting, um. Community into schools, not just smart labs, but schools, any school doesn't have to be a smart lab, any school to come in and share their stem identity story. So to take our definition and say, oh, where, where, where do I think I, um, gauge my own STEM identity along my journey and be able to share that with students and then for them to think about like, what's. STEM applications do I use in my job and be able to share that with students as well. So that's on, uh, November 7th, so please have, you know, if you're interested, go to our website and learn about STEM Identity Day and come volunteer your time at a school districts across the country so you can share your own STEM identity journey with students so that we're really starting to make this movement a thing across. For all students, as we talked about earlier. Um, so that's one way. And then of course there's tons of other tools and resources, um, on the website for people to, um, look at. And, and if you're like, oh, I don't have students, but I wanna participate in this, you know, we can help you match you with the school. So you could donate money to the school or donate money to the, the foundation of that school so that they could put, you know, either a smart lab or some sort of stem learning environment into the hands of that. So we can match, we can match people that are interested in donating, uh, to schools and to to stem identity for students up with school districts in their community or across the country. So we can help people do that. Um, and also we just really hope that people engage in this conversation and know that, you know, we want, um, we want Smart Lab to know, but we really want all students to know that they belong here. They can do this. They add value, and really they're future ready. So that really is important to us. People can also look me up on LinkedIn, Dr. Jennifer Berry. I'm happy to talk to anybody, have to mentor. Happy to engage in conversation. I'm always here for people because I, uh, that's how I learn best. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Thank you Dr. Berry. And we'll link to all that stuff in the show notes in the blog post for this episode as well. And it's been an episode. Pleasure talking to you today. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Thank you. You're amazing. I'm so happy you're doing this. And you told me earlier you've been doing this for five years. What an impressive, I can't wait to like follow you and start listening to all your episodes. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, thank you. Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, thank you. 
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In this episode, host Lindsay reflects on a pivotal conversation she had with educational thought leader Zaretta Hammond on episode 247 (take a listen to the full episode!). Lindsay goes back to a part in the conversation where Zaretta challenges her thinking on the concept of student voice, a framework and theory Lindsay frequently draws on from Shane Safir’s work in Pedagogies of Voice.
Lindsay discusses how Zaretta challenged her thinking and encouraged her to pursue a more nuanced approach to effectively teach both independent and dependent learners. Why? Research emphasizes the importance of adaptive change in educational spaces, particularly the need to incorporate both student voice and cognitive coaching. Zaretta Hammond suggests that while student voice is a powerful tool, it must be coupled with coaching strategies that help students understand and articulate their own learning processes, especially for dependent learners. What? To strike this balance—the balance of student voice, yes, but also reaching all learners—Lindsay explores the Kubler-Ross change curve in relation to how she’s processing the challenges Zaretta brought to her thinking. The Kubler-Ross curve goes from denial to frustration, and then to depression, experimentation, decision, and integration (in order). Lindsay recognizes that her response in the moment to Zaretta’s challenges, follows this curve. She started with a sense of shame or embarrassment for not understanding something, but Zaretta responded with information that helped her reflect more deeply on this and adjust her thinking about student voice and transformative leadership. Here are some key reflection points: 1) Start with Communication and Information Begin by addressing the initial denial stage of the change curve. It's crucial to communicate clearly with learners about the purpose and structure of educational approaches. Providing information helps demystify the learning process and encourages engagement. 2) Reflect and Support During the stages of frustration and depression, support learners through reflective practices. Encourage them to watch, listen, and express their frustrations in a safe environment. Use coaching to help them process these emotions and integrate new strategies. 3) Experiment and Test Ideas Engage in playful experimentation with new ideas and practices. This stage involves testing out strategies and reflecting on their effectiveness. Zaretta Hammond's "chew and remix" approach allows learners to make sense of new information in a way that is meaningful to them. 4) Scan Your Hard-drive Assist learners in scanning their own experiences and understanding past learning moments, just as Linday did after this conversation. Educators can encourage students to draw from previous successes in adapting new learning strategies, facilitating personal growth, and reflection. 5) Commit and Practice Finally, encourage learners to commit to new approaches and integrate them into their regular practice. Focus on building emotional stamina and resilience, fostering an environment where new learning strategies become embedded and habitual. Final Thoughts The takeaway here is that it’s not student voice or cognitive coaching—it’s both. Both are important, just as literacy and critical thinking are important. But just as you can’t skip over literacy to reach criticality, Zaretta’s challenge was that we can’t skip over the “learn-to-learn” skills that help dependent learners and only focus on student voice. Finally, it’s always important to connect with learners on a human level by validating their experiences and emotions throughout the change process. This is the foundation for all our work, whether the emphasis is on student voice, cognitive coaching, helping dependent learners, or other areas that educators and coaches are focusing on. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Discourse Analysis Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 248 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.
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TRANSCRIPT
Ep 248Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to the Time for teachership podcast. Last week we had the amazing Retta Hammond on the podcast. If you have not listened to that episode or engaged with that episode, please go back. Check that out. If you have not, and you insist on watching, listening to this first, uh. Feel free to engage knowing there was a conversation last week, and I'm gonna actually pull pieces of that conversation that we're gonna debrief or I'm gonna kind of unpack, uh, my own thinking around because Red Hammond makes you think and she has made me think, and I continue to think about our conversation in a particular part of our conversation. So I'll be playing parts of that recording and that conversation. But for the larger one, you can go back and return to last week's at Lindsay beth lyons.com/blog/ 2 4 7. And then this is episode 2 48, so here we go. Reflections on my conversation with is Retta Hammond. There was a moment in the conversation last week in which Zaretta Hammond stopped me and corrected my thinking. That student voice was this kind of end all, be all like supporting all students. And I'm gonna play part of this conversation and I'm gonna unpack my thinking of it. And I encourage you to think with me. If you're a person who. Kind of would've thought the same way I thought. Um, which just for context prior to what I'm about to play you, which is her response I was saying, I read her book, um, rebuilding Students' Learning Power in Conversation, and at the same time as. Pedagogies is a voice, uh, by Shane and her colleagues. And I of course love street data and talk about it all the time. Shane's previous book that she wrote with Jamela Dugan, um, on the podcast, and I was like, oh, this is the answer. Student voice is the answer to how we do kind of instructional observations, and we coach teachers and we, you know, assess what's happening in a classroom and in the learning environment, and students can just talk about their learning. And so here is what she says. Zaretta Hammond: I would, I wanna stop you right there because I think that is another core proxy, right? I love pedagogy of voice. I love Shane's work. Shane, I used to be coworkers, so I know her work and the kind of the foundation that it's on. And I think it is powerful. It is geared toward independent learners. So if you actually understand that who's talking, who actually has the understanding, because this is why I wrote the book. So I think they're, they are compatible, but they are the continuum. We have a tendency to gear things around students who just may not be motivated, but they are not dependent learners. They are not so far behind. They're not three, four grade levels behind. They're not non-readers. These are the students. Those dependent learners are the ones we have a tendency to forget about because it becomes a little more sexy to actually focus on, well, let's talk about students that are learning. The ones that actually can engage us in that conversation don't necessarily need our support. And I'm not saying young people don't need our support. Every student needs to continue to grow until they are finished with their K 12 experience and they are, they have the tools and the confidence and the disposition to go forward, but there is a lot of students who are just being passed through and will never reach that graduation point with that full concert of disposition and skills. That is what my book is focused on. That's what I hear from leaders. So talking to students about their learning is very different when you are trying to give them new tools for the learning because they can't tell you that. They can't tell you why they get stuck. They don't know what their own choke point is. They have a belief that I'm just either broken as a student, as a learner, and I can't do that. They don't necessarily understand the role of effort, so they can't even speak to that. So what I'm saying is we need that full continuum. We need what pedagogy the voice brings, particularly as we wanna level up those students who have said, yes, I wanna step into my learning. I got something to say about that. But the majority of folks. Students that leaders are worried about is the silent majority of dependent learners. And so I do think they're complimentary. I think the reality though is we shouldn't think. We can just interview students, give them more voice is going to teach them those five, learn how to learn skills. Lindsay Lyons: Okay, so I sat with that for a second and I'll play you a little bit more of that conversation and my response in the moment. But I want to really break down, uh, kind of the Kula Ross change curve, the changing of mental models, kind of the whole conversation that Tta Hammond and I were having, which is that it is hard to make this shift. And leading change involves some human elements, some strategic thinking, right? It is an adaptive change we're asking teachers to make here, to coach. Students cognitively and to help students recognize and learn their personal learning algorithm in in her words. Right? And so I'm just kind of breaking down my reflections immediately in the conversation. Here's what was going through my brain and I'm being very transparent 'cause I want to recognize that a lot of us experience these moments of. Uh, discomfort and disorientation in the research from Mero who talks about this. Um, so I had this moment of like embarrassment and shame. Oh my gosh, I got this wrong. I am not smart. I said this silly thing instead of in front of the red Hammond, and she had to correct me, right? Uh, that was like my initial number one, like red cheeks and very pale skin. Like my, my cheeks get really red, so I'm like, oh, and now she sees my embarrassment. Um, then my immediate next piece was a little bit of defensiveness, so. I was like, oh my gosh, my identity as a teacher, as a scholar, as like this, this space I have pursued, um, as, as my title that I call myself as an educational justice coach, right? This, this pursuit of educational justice, like I am a failure. I was not actually serving the students that I wanted to serve. Oh my goodness. Like, and as a result. Because there was all of this, like this shame spiral, right? A adaptive leadership scholars would call this like, hi fits. We call this resistance as loss, right? The loss of my identity in that moment, or the perceived loss of my identity, right, is like why? I'm like, oh, then that there must be some part of this that is actually wrong, that I am still right. Right. So we have the embarrassment, the shame, the defensiveness. Then my brain just completely kinda shuts down. I had this like. Moment of pause where I'm like, I have no idea what I'm going to say in this moment. 'cause my brain is like shutting down. And actually, I, I will talk about this, uh, a little bit further in the episode, but like, I. My brain shut down so much that as I was processing later on, like I was having drawing these conclusions and learning these things, and I went back to re-listen to the recording and I was like, oh, actually there, there was so much of this that Loretta Hammond was giving me, he was offering me, was sharing with me, with, with our audience. And I like, didn't, I wasn't able to take it all in. It must must've been there somewhere in my consciousness 'cause it came out and as I was thinking more, um, but that, that. Wasn't something that I immediately was processing and sense making in the moment because it was so, like my brain was in this, doing this other thing, like my brain and body were in the shame spiral, the defensiveness, the like learning can't happen there, right? And so I think there's so much of this that is instructive for us as adults, but also for students and like what is optimal learning? But that's a different episode. So the Cooper Ross change curve is something I wanted to bring up because it is featured in one of our episodes, I think episode one 90 on leading Change. Um, and so I, I thought a lot about this and I actually wanted to like map my experience both onto leading change theories and stuff that is present in episode one 90. And we'll link that in the extended show notes for this as well. Um, but also. Retta Hammond's, like key point about learning to learn and the five learn to learn skills that she has brilliantly come up with. And so I'm going to process this, uh, in, in kind of integrating both of those. So here we go. So the Kubler-Ross change curve. It goes from denial to frustration to depression, to experiment, to decision to integration. And so in the denial stage, my response, um, they say that the reaction is like shock and denial here. And the state is kind of just like we stay at the status quo. And the approach to coaching through this is to communicate information. So here, here is what my response was, right? Embarrassment, shame, brain shut down. And Retta Hammond's solution in that moment. I mean, we're also on a podcast, but like brilliant, she just shared information, right? So her frame is like, it, you know, it's helping students with, with um, low motivation, but who are actually still to a degree, independent learners, right? That's the fact. Like it is not that student voice is messed up and ineffective, it's actually just helping this group of students. And if students can't articulate what's happening in the learning process, then. Like it's not super helpful to just ask them a bunch of questions about their learning. Right. Helpful information, right? Then the next phase of this Cooper Rush curve is kind of this frustration and depression space, and this is the state where they're like, you're in a state of kind of disruption. Right? That's why I said like my brain was kind of shutting down. Maybe that's kind of this phase as well, and the approach here for leaders or coaches in this space is to watch, listen and support, and so. In my response rate, I have this kind of defensive mood. I have this loss of identity sense. My pursuits are failures, and so my, my approach was to deeply reflect, and I'm lucky enough to have a coach on my team as well, who really just helps me like, reflect and prompts reflection and give space for the emotions in the thinking. And that was great because what I would do is I would have, I have my phone when I run. Um, and that's often a really good reflective time for me. And so I'm kind of sense making as I'm running the days after this conversation, leaving myself some written notes, some audio notes. I had just kind of this consistent journaling, um, activity. And so I'm just doing a lot of thinking in this time. Um, so again, the watchlist and support resulted in just like thinking for me if I'm doing this on my own. Um, and then we have the experiment phase, and so this is really a place to kind of like play with and test ideas. I connected very much to t Hammond's kind of chew and remix phase of learning. Um, I know there's like the five learn to learn skills and there's the process and, and to me that one is like the, the most interesting, um, because there's like, that's the sense making that was like lacking in the moment. For me in this conversation. And so here's kind of what I've been playing with and grappling within the days after and like testing out this, like understanding that it's truly a both and, right? And, and I know like, we'll all play with the clip for you, the next clip for you in a minute. And I know she said this in the last clip I played, but it is, that's what she's saying, right? It's, it's like a both end. It's a continuum. I love her language around that. Um, but this idea of like the learn to learn skills, uh. I think is, is applicable here. Perhaps it's just like the first three in this particular stage of the curve, but size it up and break it down as sort of step one, right? And so I'm thinking, okay, so the pieces are really student voice here. We have student voice as like an approach, um, and student voice. I also wanna like clarify for anyone who's listening and thinking like, oh, voice and choice is this kind of like tool or strategy in school spaces. So my, uh, orientation to this work is very much like in the student voice, um, research field in the sense of like student voice in the un rights of the child. And so thinking about like, voice in all that I do and, and that this is something that, uh. Like students should be able to just make decisions about their lives. So extended beyond the classroom, but also like the learning environment and other factors of the classroom that most of the world has ratified in the United States has not, which is interesting, but digression. Okay. Specific groups of students is another piece. So we have dependent learners and independent learners. So she's talking about and clarifying that distinction here for me. And then skills, I'm, I'm thinking about the skills that are prerequisites to enable students to effectively participate in student voice opportunities when asked, right? What, what they, uh, what decisions they want to make or what they want their learning environments to be. Um, like that's another kind of component of this conversation as well as kind of this arc of change theory in this mental model, um, shift that is happening f for me in this moment, and for educators probably. And so the next phase that she talks about is scan the hard drive. And so I scanned my own hard drive. I've been scanning and think, Hey, I've had to unlearn before I've had, I've been in very uncomfortable moments where I have had similar feelings. I survived. I am better for it. And I actually look back on those moments and say, wow, I'm so full of gratitude for the people who have like, kind of beared with me. I think that's the past tense of bear, uh, bored with me. Um, and, and. Just created like a space for me to learn. Like just, just we're willing to correct, to push back, to expand my thinking. Right. Again, I'm thinking, I'm thinking every day now, every conversation. I feel like I had mentioned the James Ingham comment of like, when we are in conversation with another, our goal is to expand our thinking so we're not just leaving thinking the same things that we came into the conversation with. Right. And I'm just so grateful when that happens because when I end a conversation with someone who. We just were head nodding the whole time. It is not the same feeling. Might be comfortable, might be smiley, but it is not the same feeling as, wow, I really grew here. Like I really, my thinking has pushed. It will result in some action. Um, and we're gonna get to that in a minute. But I, I just wanna like acknowledge that that like scanning a hard drive actually helped me realize I have been here before. I have been in the discomfort. The discomfort is actually good. I talk about this all the time. Like living it is a little bit different, right? Having the, the real emotional, um, component is very different than just like, academically talking about information. But like, this is, this is the thing, okay, I'm affirmed moving to chew and remix, which is her step three. Um, or the third learn to learn scale. So here I, I talk about, um, or thought about, excuse me. My experience with Student Voice, I had so many moments in the student created units that I would do, um. And then students would just tell me, I mean, really great students as well, like definitely independent learners did this as well. Um, but it's just really interesting to me to think about, uh, that moment of, okay, like what would you like to learn about or what is interesting to you about this? Or how would you like to, like, demonstrate your learning? I mean, just like all sorts of of things. Conversations that I would have with students and a lot of students would tell me, just tell me what to do. Like you're the teacher, just. Choose for me, like just, I will do the thing. You can tell like, and I think there's so many aspects to that that when I now think of student voice, um, and over the past couple of years I've thought about like there should really be a leadership coaching for students in concert with coaching for teachers to invite student voice like that would make it effective and to. When you are just expecting students to answer when it's like the first time they've ever been given choice in something like it's not gonna, it's not gonna potentially be fruitful. It might, the student might have, um, experience outside of school, external to school and be, uh, thinking about yo's cap, cultural capital, uh, cultural wealth model and cultural capitals that she discusses. And there's a lot of, like, I've had to navigate institutions like I've had to. You know, push back on things. Like, I have had that experience and now I'm ready because I, I have been in those spaces, um, perhaps not in your class, but in others, and I'm gonna bring that skill set in. Other students have not. Right. It's been, I, this is, I've been fairly successful in school. You tell me what to do, I do this. Okay. Again, digression, sorry. The cognitive routines. I love that. Za Red Hammond talks about cognitive routines and these have actually been really interesting to map a lot of my thinking and processing on, in, in the last couple of months since I've read her book. Um, but distinctions is one of them. So one of the cognitive routines we do, and we're kind of sensemaking is, uh, these distinctions, and I apologize if I get any of this language wrong 'cause brain science is super interesting, but definitely not. Uh, I'm, I'm not an expert and so I am on the learning journey. Um. Distinctions. What I was thinking about here is that there are kind of different skill sets that we wanna build. There is to her point about like you're not going to talk at a kid. No amount of discussion or talking to a kid is going to like teach them what a long O sounds like, or, I can't remember exactly what she said, but that the point being like the literacy skills, right, are a skillset and. Um, you know, purpose purposefully building literacy is, I think, a different skillset than purposefully building, uh, communication and expression skills in a leadership context and, and building the researcher skills to that I often talk about and build a capacity for with students. Um, there, there are different skill here and I wanna like distinguish and just make that distinction. And I've, I've heard a Hammond on another podcast say. You know, we often jump to criticality and so this idea of skipping literacy and the learning algorithm and just jumping to criticality is a thing that we often tend to do. I certainly tend to do, and I think it's really important. She said, similar to what she said here in, in a similar vein, is like. Both are needed, but we can't just jump over literacy. We can't just jump over and say, well, you can't read, but you're gonna be a critical thinker. Right? Like, both are critically important. Right. And so I have realized that my space and area of learning and research and scholarship and practice in the teaching space have very much been like my skillset is coaching on criticality. Um. And that is where I've kind of been, I've certainly been a literacy teacher, but I don't know that I could call myself a super effective literacy teacher. Uh, I, I, let me rephrase that. I cannot call myself a, an effective literacy teacher when I jump over literacy to, to prioritize criticality, right? Both are, are needed. And so I think also about, um, the cognitive routine relationships as I'm processing here, and I've been thinking about how. Like various skills, including literacy skills and knowledge about students'. Personal learning algorithms enable students to make the most of student voice opportunities. So I do think there's an element of like, it's helpful to have students understand their personal learning algorithm because it will lead to more effective advocacy with student voice opportunities. That's what I think Sotta Hammond is saying. And I also think, you know. That voice can be helpful first. Like, I don't necessarily think voice exclusively comes after. I think that's the, that's the piece that I'm so grappling with is that yes, it's a continuum, but, but maybe it's more of like a circle. Um, and, and that voice can actually help come first to support the enabling conditions so that we then. Can get to work on the learning algorithm and then it's then we're gonna get to do this unit voice around the learning process, right? And become, as she was talking about metacognitive and meta strategic thinkers, right? So I can now know, oh, this is what I need in this moment. I can utilize this tool because I know my learning algorithm and I know the learn to learn skills and I know the tools that are helpful for me in that moment of learning. Um, and so. I, I think about right. That's super important. And the thing that can come first to support the enabling conditions might be, and this is, so this has been something I've hung onto a lot from my conversation with Loretta Hammond, is this idea of, like, I often talk about adaptive challenges and I cite or quote, uh, hefe scratch Linsky who talk about how, what we really need to get at, um, what underlies adaptive challenges, like the value, habit, and loyalty. And then she was like, actually, uh. You know, she said, it's a story, right? And I, I'm like, whoa, I have like, never made that connection. 'cause I'm always talking about stories and personal connections and, and this, this entry point in it is the story. Of, for example, she was saying the story, the students were saying, I'm broken as a learner. This sense of identity that comes from the story that we've been telling, students have been telling, teachers have been telling the student. Right. And I think part of what Student Voice can do is that it can first, um, surface, it can support the surfacing and, and kind of dispelling the story of I'm Broken as a learner. So that we now have more enabling conditions so that we can now do the thinking about our thinking. So we can be metacognitive, meta strategic, do the learn to learn skills, and then we can advocate, um, even more intentionally around learning and utilizing those various tools. So I think that's, that's my current understanding. I mean, ask me tomorrow and it might be really different, but, um, that is my current moment in time snapshot of what my brain is thinking. It's a both, and it's valuable for and after students become independent learners, but in different ways, like it's gonna, it's gonna look different. And so I think now the final phase of the change curve is decision and integration. This is where we commit, right? So I, we commit and we make a plan. So I know that my research and practice is absolutely supported the low motivation kids. I've had so many success stories of like the low motivation kids who maybe actually are independent learners but have had not a lot of entry points. Um, and yeah, that's great for them. And I can acknowledge that and commit to growing my ability to help dependent learners because I have not done a good job with that. And. I need to, and, and when I'm working with dependent learners and it's very much been like the Russian and like I will just hop from table to table and then you call me over, I'm not actually coaching, uh, coaching cognitively, um, you to understand your own personal learning algorithm. I'm just kind of like over scaffolding, which is like a frustration as a coach now and like reflecting as a, as a teacher, I really wish someone just like pushed me hard in that area, um, because. If I get an opportunity to go back to the classroom, that is something I will grow. And as a parent, I certainly am growing more, my capacity to, um, support dependent learners in, in building, in rebuilding their learning power. So here's what I think, uh, I making the commitment to help students who are dependent learners as a teacher, coach, parent, in all the areas I am now reviewing in terms of an action step. I'm reviewing all my coaching and workshop approaches to determine how to integrate kind of this both and like yes. Student voice that is, I am. That is my, my training, my background, my experience, and I think it is valuable. Um, and I wanna be very clear about the purpose of the activities, the students' skills that are served with each. Each thing we're doing, cognitive coaching, student voice, like they work together. But they have to be, I think we have to be really intentional and I have to be really intentional about this is what we're building and this is what this activity leads to. And, and actually I've been thinking a lot about outcomes-based contracting and really linking payment of people like myself, uh, educational consultants and contractors. To the actual student learning that's happening. Um, and I wanna use this to kind of support transparency in my work and commitment in my commitment. Um, the last two parts of, uh, Retta Hammond's Learn to Learn Skills, those five skills would be skillful practice. And so this is where she says, you know, you adjust your emotional stamina, you self. And so I'm thinking about, you know, my coaching and, and spaces of integration. And as I've said, there's kind of this emotional kinda adjustment that's had to happen in my processing so I could truly sense, make and take action. I hope that's been transparent here, uh, and that it's not been too much. And then the fifth piece is to make it sticky. So this is the actual. As I understand it, embedding and implementing. Um, for, for this particular piece for me is embedding and implementing this idea and this new mental model into my coaching and my workshops, um, and being really intentional around that. Like, I am so fortunate, I think I said this at the beginning, that this was recorded. We don't always have the ability to go back and re-experience a conversation. And I did. So when I realized the recording, it's so funny that many of the ahas I had in thinking about it were actually present in the conversation. Like what I said in the immediate, I totally forgot I even asked that question. I was just like so outta my head. And what's right. I Hammond said back to me like I was so focused on my discomfort and disorientation. I really couldn't process or sense make in the moment. But here is what happens, uh, next. Absolutely. That makes total sense. I have a follow up. Yeah, do, do you think that there is value in talking to the students who might be dependent learners, not necessarily about their learning, like cognitive processes, if they haven't learned that piece yet? They don't know their choke points yet. But could um, could it be more about like learning environment things that are preconditions to that learning? Zaretta Hammond: Well, a lot of times they can help you. They can be informed. So this is a key point I made in culturally responsive teaching in the brain that you should be in a learning partnership. This is what I say in this book around a cognitive apprenticeship. You're not trying to do anything to students. You're doing it with them. The challenge is these students will resist. These students don't know what to ask. These students can't tell you what should be put into place. They can tell you how they feel, but again, remember the mental model conversation we just had. If they're explanatory story. Is actually, uh, I don't have the capacity or that compliance is the way through. They are actually going to be undermining their own process. So this is why, as you read through the book, as it progresses, it's how do you get the student to be both metacognitive and then ultimately meta strategic? How do you get students to actually create the dispositions? Because they have now they can wield cognitive tools. And part of that means you are listening to them. You are in conversation. But remember the apprenticeship model, novice journeyman mastery, you're moving students to that place where they have a greater voice. But that means I first have to unlock my understanding of what my own learning algorithm is. And I think we have a tendency to wanna just jump to voice and choice, and we think more of that in this relational realm is going to actually shift. Instruction. It does not. We've tried that. There's nothing new about that approach, and I'm not suggesting it's not good. I'm just simply saying it's not unique in what we've tried in the past. I think there are great tools for doing that with a equity lens and a, a much more culturally responsive way. But you're now talking about working with students who are on the other side of that inter independence that's not gonna get the, the, the students who are on the other side of cognitive redlining. Lindsay Lyons: She's so brilliant. I am so grateful. Thank you. Ruta Hammond. For your brilliance and for your willingness to share and, and push on that. Um, I. Wanna just name that we talked in this whole conversation with Loretta Hammond. Um, and my whole conversation of like the mental model shift for me and the change experience for me reflectively in this episode. You know, there's so many parallels to what I academically talked about in, uh, episode one 90, um, on leading change. So we'll link that in the extended show notes, but this is like, I guess the applied Human experience version. And it, it makes me think actually of Dr. Shari Bridges, Patrick's and I, uh, publication, which is adapted from Juan Eel's work. On kind of the four quadrants of discourse and how when we're in generative mobilizing discourse, we're connecting and we're growing, and the distinction from that and kind of the share information or the intellectualizing, what we called it in the publication quadrant of conversation. Is that there is no emotion, like the human aspect is divorced from the information. And I feel like I do a lot of that. And so one of my pushes to my own self is to kinda feel deeply, um, reach into like the human side of things, uh, both my own feelings and values, but also the values of others. And like connect on a human level. 'cause the connection and the emotional human part, I think, and the story part as, as an avenue into that space is where we grow is where we learn is where I would prefer to be than just, oh, I heard this, or here's this citation, or here's this evidence, or this book, or this scholar. There's a lot of intellectualizing, I think, in, um, particularly white liberal spaces and discourses, and I participate that in that a lot. And I want to move more to the connecting growth space. So thinking about that and also thinking about this leading change and trying to integrate these, these ideas of kind of the head and the heart. Um. One of the things that I, I just kinda wanna run through some of the key points that are present in there and that I'm hanging onto here and might be beneficial for our audience. Um, one thing that is discussed there is to kind of have a clear focus vision. My translation to that as I'm processing this conversation was, TTA Hammond is like, which students and skills are, is, is the PL supporting, is the PD supporting? Right? I think that's like the vision in contracting, in conversation into the design of workshops and coaching. Cycles. It's like, what's the focus? Let's get real clear, right? What's the clear focus vision? Um, the next piece is like making time for the change. So less to focus on prioritization, right? So this is what we're doing. We are supporting dependent learners. We are gonna have time to play with it to test things out. I love that in our, the conversation, not any of the excerpts I played for you today. But my conversation was redham and she said, you know, this is a book you can return to year after year and learn more after the next reread. And I really appreciate that kind of permission, um, because I do think there's so much that we missed the first time around. I mean, even in just this, this one conversation, even in this like 10 minutes of conversation that I had with her that I just replayed. And then replay for you. And like the third listen is like, oh wow, I'm still getting more and more. Um, so go back, reread, write time to test, time to integrate. Time to reflect in partnership with colleagues and professionals in the education space. The third point is to connect with the heart. So Kotter and Cohen talk about, uh, feelings that motivate useful action. I think that's really important because a lot of times what we do is we confront a discomfort. We experience discomfort. And we kind of avoid, right? We focus on the feelings of discomfort and we don't focus on the feeling or the, what I would even argue is like a value, uh, a value alignment or the story I want to tell, right? The story I want to be true. Um, I want to be a justice focused teacher. I want to be a coach who supports dependent learners. I want to support the kids who are not supported by other people, right? I, if that is the story I want to connect with. Then I need to connect with that story, that value, the feeling that, oh, that's not true yet. That feels uncomfortable, but that's where my heart is. So like I need to go there and now need to take action. Right? Feelings that motivate, useful action. Thank you Ter and Cohen for that language. And then finally creating dissatisfaction and trying on other ways of thank you, uh, of thinking. So thank you Zoe Hammond for helping me to do this. I think about the work of Mero, my former. Uh, professor John Morgan. And so, um, there's a change formula. We have, uh, glyco change formula that we put in the episode one 90, um, extended show notes, which is change equals dissatisfaction times, vision times first step is greater than resistance. So if we wanna outdo resistance. Then we need to have dissatisfaction, vision, and a first step. 'cause if any one of those are zero because they're being multiplied, the whole equation, like a zero, that side of the equation is zero and resistance wins. So the dissatisfaction is like Retta Hammond's comment sparked that disorienting dilemma for me. Right? Thank you Mero for that phrase. I have not been supporting kids to build their learning power. Whoa. Right. That is dissatisfied. I am dissatisfied that that is the truth. Right? So that's my dis disorienting dilemma, my dissatisfaction. Now. I need a vision. Okay? I wanna help dependent learners. I want to be a person who helps the kids who are not being helped, right? Who need, who need support. Um, I wanna help dependent learners become independent learners so they can do this on their own so they don't need handholding so they can, um, feel affirmed and all the things, right? And I still need one more thing. I need a first. And so in my estimation for this moment, I think the best first step is to apply Zaretta Hammond's learn to learn skills to ultimately integrate these ideas and be a more effective coach and educator and parent and human. Um, so that's where I am right now. Please check out I was Ata Hammond's book. Rebuilding students' learning power. It is absolutely incredible. Read it like six or seven times. Listen to and engage with the episode, um, last week. And this one, share this with a friend if that feels helpful. If they're going through a, uh, mental model shift or change journey, um, you can find the extended show notes and any relevant links for this [email protected] slash blog slash 2 4 8. And thank you everyone. 
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In this episode, we have a compelling discussion with Zaretta Hammond about transformational change in leadership. Zaretta recently authored "Rebuilding Students' Learning Power,” which emphasizes the core idea of cognitive justice and offers practical steps for educators to follow.
Our conversation highlights how educators can transition from a pedagogy of compliance to a pedagogy of possibility by understanding and applying the principles of equitable teaching and cognitive justice. We delve into the importance of disrupting existing mental models and exploring instructional strategies that genuinely meet students' needs. The Big Dream Zaretta’s big dream for education is cognitive justice, the idea that every student becomes a powerful learner. She emphasizes rethinking the systems entrenched in educational inequities—rooted in colonization across the globe—that underdevelop the cognitive capacity of marginalized populations. To achieve this cognitive justice, Zaretta encourages educators to recognize and counterbalance these systems to foster a more equitable learning environment. Mindset Shifts Required Zaretta recognizes a tendency amongst educators to “treat the symptoms” or look for the newest teaching and learning strategies without digging a little deeper. But to achieve cognitive justice, a big mindset shift is required. Educators can address the mental models that underlie educational practices by first listening to and collecting the stories that are being told in their context. From there, educators can examine and interrogate those narratives, rewriting them in a way that allows for increased cognitive justice. Action Steps For educators who want to prioritize cognitive justice—helping every student become a powerful learner—and are willing to dig deeper into their own mental models of leadership and change, Zaretta suggests the following key action steps: Step 1: Collect and interrogate the stories and narratives present in educational settings. This involves listening to the assumptions and complaints within school communities to identify the underlying stories influencing learning. Step 2: Decolonize the classroom and repatriate the classroom. This is about giving students space for talking and giving space for productive struggle. It’s a cognitive apprenticeship, bringing students up as a novice through to higher levels of mastery. Step 3: Reimagine pacing guides and professional learning calendars to include productive struggle and learning targets, integrating them into curriculum pacing and addressing both content and skill development. Step 4: Develop a culture of continuous improvement and collaborative inquiry to promote meaningful discussions about instruction and instructional decision-making. Note that Zaretta also outlines five specific action steps in her book, which is a great starting point for educators who want to join the movement toward greater cognitive justice. They are broken down into more detail, exploring themes, for example, of how to spot poor proxies for learning and what to focus on instead. Challenges? One of the significant challenges highlighted is moving beyond poor proxies for learning—observable behaviors that are mistaken for learning without assessing genuine understanding and progress. Leaders must also resist the allure of compliance and quick fixes, instead committing to instructional transformations that empower students. It involves continually disrupting ourselves—challenging but necessary. One Step to Get Started For educators looking to begin this transformative journey, Zaretta suggests starting with a commitment to understanding students' learning processes deeply. This involves working as a cognitive apprentice and focusing on how students learn to learn, supporting them in becoming independent, confident learners. Stay Connected You can find out more about Zaretta and stay in touch via her website and LinkedIn. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is inviting you to join their free newsletter on their website linked above. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 247 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Soreta Hammond, welcome to the time for teachership podcast. Zaretta Hammond: Thank you for having me. Lindsay Lyons: I am really excited about this conversation. Really excited about your latest book. Um, I was just saying I've been telling everyone about it. Definitely people should read it. And today I'm really excited to talk to you specifically about change leadership In connection with the book. There are so many rich ideas. There are so many great ideas for teachers, and I think there are so many important implications for leaders that I'm really, really jazzed about the conversation today. And I also wanted to just invite you to share. Like, what do you want us to, to keep in our minds for myself, for the audience as we jump in today? Zaretta Hammond: No, just what we're gonna talk about. Just those things that you talked about. You know, just the idea that change is hard and the more that we can come together to better understand, um, how we make change. I think people will have a tendency to be listening for strategy and, you know, actionable things and Oh, interesting ideas for teachers to do. Versus how do I actually change? How do I make a change? How do I stop doing what's not helpful and start doing the thing that is going to be the most high leverage? And so I think that's what I want people to really keep at the forefront. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Thank you for naming that. And that comes through really clearly in your book too. I'm glad we got that, that at the top. And so I, I really like to start conversations with, um, Dr. Bettina loves quote on freedom dreaming, so she describes them as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. So I think your, your book and your, your larger collection of work speaks to that. But I'd love to just hear your thoughts today. What's, what's the big dream you hold for education? Zaretta Hammond: I, I think I, the big dream I hold is the thread that runs both through my first book, culturally Responsive Teaching the Brain and this new book Re Rebuilding Students' Learning Power, teaching for Instructional Equity and Cognitive Justice. So that big dream is cognitive justice. The idea that, um, part of what we want for every student is for them to be a powerful learner. And the way that we do that is by looking at the systems that have been constructed, particularly in America. But it's true wherever colonization has its footprint all over the world. Right? Australia has the same issue with Aboriginal and Tores Strait. Um. Uh, people. And, uh, you have the same thing in New Zealand with Maori people. You have, uh, there are folks reading my book in India. Why? Because the caste system does the same type of marginalization, even more so when Britain came in and start to colonize. So everywhere we turn. The, the aftermath of colonization means we have to really put cognitive justice at the forefront because the mechanism it used was to, first and foremost, to under develop the cognitive capacity. Uh, marginalized populations. A lot of people, you know, wanna protest in the streets and think it's about other things, but there are mechanisms that are quite invisible once they're put in place that do this kind of invisible sorting. And, you know, people can say, well, I'm not actively doing anything. Well, the system is set up and designed to do that. So I really think that the way we get to that. Dream is to recognize the mechanisms that are in place and what's the counterbalance, what's the medicine, if you will. Lindsay Lyons: I, I love that. And I, I think that for a lot of folks, there's a big mindset shifting that has to occur here, um, because we have like done education this particular way, right? In teacher school, it's like. Compliance. Compliance. Right. And it's not, um, the pedagogy of possibility that you describe in your book. Um, it's don't smile until December or whatever weird stuff, you know, that we got in teacher school. And so, uh, one of the things I think about from a change leadership perspective is that you talk about how it's important to reset our mental models to disrupt cognitive redlining. And I love that you had mentioned, um, kind of two pieces I'd love for you to elaborate on if you want. One is kind of like identifying the narratives and how we discuss problems. Like how are we attributing the root causes? Where, where did the belief come from, is a question from your book that I really appreciated. Um, and you also talk about, you know, this idea of trying on alternate perspectives, um, which makes me think of like merose disorienting dilemma or like, um, John Morgan talks about like. Uh, leaders can kind of create a constructive disorientation, whether through mindfulness, through art, or, you know, otherwise. Um, and so I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit about the, that process of resetting the mental models and, and what that entails for leaders to consider. Zaretta Hammond: Yeah, I think it is an important piece that's often overlooked. We have a tendency to treat the symptoms and like, what's the newest strategy to get, or, you know, oh, there's the newest thing from visible learning, or, oh, it's about teacher clarity. But we don't go deep enough to actually examine the mental model, that explanatory story that drives our actions. And it's more than beliefs. It's the explanatory story, right? It's just like we understand how physics work. There are certain things we're not gonna do. Why? Because we understand how physics work. Nobody's jumping off the the roof of their house. Why? We understand how physics works and you are gonna end up at the bottom. There's no floating that's going to happen. We don't even examine these things 'cause we just know that's what's gonna happen. Same thing in education. We have been doing certain things for so long that even most progressive educators. Are complicit in maintaining cognitive redlining and sometimes are at the forefront. That would be something they would tell you, oh no, I'm not sure you are that poor baby syndrome, that sentimentalist that, oh, you know, they, they don't need to read because that's not in their culture. Like all the, these little things that I have heard, particularly from progressive educators and progressive leaders actually work against. The kind of change they wanna see, that instructional equity, that cognitive justice. So I think that the examining the story one tells oneself even before you get to your beliefs, 'cause your beliefs are predicated on these stories. Um, that's a really critical piece for us to do. Uh, and again, I think for instructional leaders, they have to first. Collect the stories. What story are people telling at your school? Right, and you have to just listen. You can go into the teacher's lounge and sometimes that's not being in front of people that's just listening. What? What are they complaining about? What are they just assuming that's the way it is, or that's how those parents are. That's how those kids are. We hear it all the time, and so I think being able to collect the stories and then to do the work around is this interrogating. Those narratives, like, why would we be holding this narrative? Where did this come from? Right? And then looking for the roots of that, that mental models don't shift, but just because you are exposed to something, they shift because you rewrite an internal narrative and explanatory story as to why that happens. Lindsay Lyons: Yes. Thank you for that. And, and I, I think about, um, uh. That quote that you shared, the, that, um, that information is now transformation that you share often. And I, I think about kinda a leader who is, uh, doing PD or pl right? Professional learning and how there's a lot of like, here's here is the strategy or here is the thing. Um. But that what takes so much more work and what is so much more powerful is that examining of the story. And, and, and what it makes me think is of leaders who have their professional learning calendar, similar to how a, a teacher has a PD calendar or, or a, excuse me, a pacing guide. Mm-hmm. Right. And it's, I've heard you talk about pacing guides and, and, uh, I would love just kind of your thoughts and how that might translate to kind of leaders expectations of pacing through professional learning or otherwise. Right. That. Yeah. Zaretta Hammond: Well, yeah, I can dig into both of those first. You know, I do, I have strong feelings about pacing guides, right? That they are part of the pedagogy of compliance, but you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Right? And a lot of schools, that was actually one of our first equity moves because teachers were just all over the map. Right. Even with No Child Left Behind, right, young progressive teachers like, oh, that was, you know, from the Devil. And I'm like, first you need to understand, no one was disaggregating data before. No Child left behind. We didn't even know. What schools were hiding that their black and brown indigenous students, neurodivergent students weren't achieving. They just were okay with it and just kept covering it up. Had we not had no child left behind, we would've never started disaggregating data. So this data diving that folks take for granted came about because some people said, no, no business as usual. No child will be left behind. Were there some missteps? Yes. We overcorrected to maintain cognitive redlining through assessment. Right. And this wasn't the, the bill did that. It's those people that were, you know, wanting to maintain things the way they are in terms of schooling. So. And, and Joel Meta from Harvard, uh, school of Education talks about this as the grammar of schooling, right? It's not just me ri, you know, getting riled up about it. It is, you know what? People have already recognized. Schooling hasn't shifted in much in 150 years. It looks pretty much the same. So. While we know there is always a challenge, a pacing guide can be reimagined. It's one of the things that I talk with the instructional leaders about. Imagine adding productive struggle, um, uh, learning targets around learning how to learn so that now you are integrating those into what you need to be pacing. And the problem is we think it's a all or nothing either. It's I gotta cover all this content. Well, if you actually design the pacing guide where you are trying to do both. Why? Because the only way the students are going to take in the content better is by improving their learning to learn skills, their information processing skills. And as long as we don't acknowledge that we are going to continue down the road. So from the perspective of leaders in their PD calendars or their PL calendars, the biggest challenge we have is. Coming to a session, no matter how well it is designed for teacher voice and you know, engagement, there's usually crickets. Once the teacher leaves that session and goes back to the classroom, there's no guidance. So now, uh, what did I remember about that? So now I might be doing it kind of half-assed and like, oh, okay, I like that part, but this part seems so hard, so I'm gonna just leave that out. 'cause I don't really like that. Right? So now we're just all free styling out there because there's no focus on inquiry. And when we do, all we're doing is, you know, go try it and come back and report. We're gonna do A-P-D-S-A cycle, right? Let's go try it and study it, and then you just come and report all that is about the teacher. And we have lost sight of the student as a primary actor, right? The thing I say is information that transformation. The other thing I say ad nauseum is only the learner learns. So both the guide, uh, a pacing guide and the for the classroom content coverage and the curriculum moving through the curriculum as well as what professional learning should look like, have to center on how do we get the student to level up their learning. And I think that is often what we miss. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And I think, you know, I said we'll focus on the, the change leadership. I also would love to just give some space here for, if you wanna just talk about some of the key aspects of your book. There are so many things, like I took probably like 20 pages of notes. It was ridiculous. There's so much in there. Um, but I, I wonder what you wanna highlight as kind of the most important, um, pieces as we then kind of transition to thinking about like what that instructional leadership can be to bring that to life in teachers' classrooms. Zaretta Hammond: I think the biggest challenge is, um, let me start this way. Someone on LinkedIn, I think it was, um, was sharing a reflection about the book and she said, this is a not a book you read. This is a book you use and I think that is why it's so rich in. Stuff to do, not as one off things, because what I say at the end of chapter three, which is about the pedagogy of compliance, but how do we shift from that pedagogy of compliance to a pedagogy of possibility? Well, I outline the five steps that if instructional leaders. Instructional coaches and teachers get aligned. They can support the student to level up their learning and that I outline the five steps. The challenge I find is people like to strategy strip. So there are things to do that, you know, s Morgan's board, so I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that. Well, there are steps. Nobody does a recipe like that. The recipe says, here's what you prep. You've gotta mix it. Do I fold the ingredients in, which is a technique in and of itself. Do I separate the dry and the wet ingredients? And then I mix. Them there are steps because when you don't follow those steps, you get something that is not appetizing to look at or actually to ingest, and then you, you know, shrug your shoulders. I don't know how that happened. Well, hell, you weren't following the recipe. So I want people to think about this book. 'cause a recipe, this should be a book that they're gonna use for a year. It doesn't mean that, ugh, I won't see any results for a year. It's just gonna mean. The, the, the learning is so deep, you are gonna start to build this momentum in terms of starting to like step one. You know, step one is, um, uh, decolonize the classroom and repatriate the classroom. Well, what does that mean? So now how do we take out the compliance? Repatriating means how are we giving students space for talking? How are we giving space for productive struggle? How are we setting up a cognitive apprenticeship? Because that is kind of a cultural way of learning for a lot of students in their community. You learn by doing. You learn by having a. A person who's a little further down the road show you the ropes and give you feedback. It is a very active way of learning. This is what a carpenter does. This is what any craftsperson does. When they joined a guild, they have joined an apprenticeship to move from novice to journeymen to master. We don't have that process when we talk about how do we get students to a level of mastery, how do we get teachers. To that level of mastery. So I think I really want people to think about it as a recipe, right? This is something that I can use and I can do it in the chunks that I have the time and the bandwidth for. I don't have to look at all those steps and say, well, I'm gonna have to do all that in the next six weeks. No, there's no way. You can't, because you're gonna hit upon something that is like, oh. I really need to go deep. This is where I might have resistance, or this might be something that I hadn't even understood before, that, you know, how do I actually coach this student? I'm used to presenting my content, not coaching students. Around their learning behavior. So there's so much you keep coming back around to it. You can go through it, all those steps first, you know, uh, pass at it and then you could take another pass at it. Because as educators, we're never done. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. I, I, there are so many things that you said we could dig into. Um, I am. Thinking about the leader who is trying to observe, not observe in like a gotcha sense, but like observe mm-hmm. As like a, I'm gonna do some quote unquote look for, although I hate that phrase I'm trying to look for I know, Zaretta Hammond: I know. I'm, I'm with you on that one. Lindsay Lyons: And so I, I mean, you've talked about the poor, poor proxies of learning, right? And that you just, that really deeply resonated with me that you just can't. You can't see the five learn to learn skills in action by dipping into a class for five minutes. And so I'm curious to know how you would, um, reimagine that a little bit. Like what can leaders shift in their approach to kind of checking in on a class or, or communicating with students or knowing what's going on in terms of the learning? Zaretta Hammond: Well, I think two things. This is why taking an inquiry stance and having a culture of continuous improvement using collaborative inquiry con, collaborative analysis of student work, there are a variety of. Approaches that are beyond simple, you know, PDSA, uh, approaches, right? There's nothing wrong with that or action research, but they don't create the culture of talking about instruction. So one of the things that I think leaders need to be able to do first is develop their capacity, uh, and to to talk about. Instruction from a science of learning perspective, not brain-based, you know, as opposed to what the kidney based at learning. I thought, what are you talking about here? Um, but from the perspective of we understand how learning happens, we understand how that's facilitated. So now when I look at what's going on in a classroom, I actually have a lens that informs me. Because without an informed lens, just having this list of look fors will land us back on that list of poor proxies. Poor proxies are, uh, the idea that certain observable behaviors equal learning students are busy and engaged, so that must mean they're learning. Well, that's a poor proxy. We know that's not true. You can be very engaged, you know, digging into it, you can repeat. The learning target to any stranger walking to the room. But the reality is that student is still not progressing. We don't see their achievement going up, or their reading is not, um, grade level. Uh, and so we then just double down on more engagement. So we know these are poor proxies, and that comes from Robert Cole's work where he really lists those. Another good piece of work around that called in, uh, uh, the, um, instructional illusions. A new book that's out, spin out probably, you know, four or five months. Another great one. He just says, here are 11 illusions now. Instructional leaders need to know those because I think what we have a tendency to do is, oh, I should be looking for this, but you should also understand what you shouldn't be seeing and not to be fooled by the look for, because it actually might be a poor proxy, it might be an illusion of learning. But without that, the leader then can't calibrate with the teacher. When it's time for people to be talking about instruction, I can tell you one of the biggest challenges I have is that we are not talking about instruction in our schools as part of our professional learning. And I don't mean that we have to all be doing a, you know, in depth book study or reading in depth articles, but we have taken the professionalism out of education. And to the point that no doctor, you know, my brother-in-law is a doctor. He's always reading, he's always going to a conference to, to talk about the newest technique. So they're all, that's just part of it. My. Husband, late husband was a, um, a lawyer. They always had to do continuing education and they were always talking about newest precedents and how that was going to impact. There was just a professional conversation that informed their lens, even as the law changes, even as medicine changed. We don't do that in education. We're looking for the strategy or the look for. To make it quick, we're gonna insert it. Nobody knows what they're doing. So now what we do is get hyped up on a jargon. So now if I can, so the poor proxy for professional learn learning is the use of jargon. So the teacher has used productive struggle, but when you look in their classroom, or they actually able to coach students to engage in productive struggle. Lindsay Lyons: Wow, this is so good. I, uh, I, I'm taking that in and I'm like, where do I even go next? Because I'm so deeply listening. Um, oh, that's, I wanted to just connect that I was reading your book at the same time that I was reading Pedagogies of Voice. And they were 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this solo episode, Lindsay shares a Google Doc template—the Group Implementation Coaching Call Template—designed to support teacher teams in continuing their professional development work after initial workshops. Lindsay talks about how this resource was created—key contributing people, research, and ideas—and how to practically use it in your setting.
Drawing on research that shows teachers need about 20 practice instances and ongoing coaching to master new teaching skills, Lindsay walks through a structured approach that combines asset-based thinking, equity-focused inquiry, and practical coaching moves to help educators implement pedagogical strategies effectively over time. Why? One-off workshops simply don't create meaningful change. But continuous learning and iterating with feedback from students, peers, and coaches does. This is backed up in the literature. Research from Joyce and Showers (2022) demonstrates that teachers rarely transfer newly learned skills to the classroom unless training is accompanied by coaching; the percentage of teachers who accurately use new skills jumps dramatically from 5% to between 75-90% when coaching is included. Further, teachers need approximately 20 practice instances to master a new teaching skill. This resource supports teacher teams to meet that threshold and successfully master new skills. What? Here’s a walk-through of the Group Implementation Coaching Call Template, which you can access as a free resource (link below). Step 1: Set the Foundation (meeting one) Start by identifying team and individual strengths, clarifying core values, and establishing an equity focus by naming which students are at the margins. Define what success looks, sounds, and feels like in observable terms, then co-design an inquiry question that positions teachers as learners pursuing answers alongside their students. Step 2: Build Your Coaching Bank Develop a set of coaching moves to use throughout sessions, including clarifying questions ("Can you say more about that?"), mindset shifts ("How might we think differently about this?"), prioritization prompts to address scarcity thinking ("What is most important here?"), and values alignment questions to surface competing commitments. Step 3: Start Each Session with Connection and Implementation Check Open with human connection activities like listening dyads or celebrations, then conduct an implementation check and hold each other accountable to what you said you’d do since the last meeting. It’s important to honor initial teacher reactions by exploring questions like, “What went well?” and “What surprised you?” Finally, reflect on data using "I notice, I wonder, I want to learn more about," and ask deeper questions about how instruction led to observed trends in student work. Step 4: Apply the GLEE Framework Work through each step:
Step 5: Choose Your Instructional Move Select from various instructional options and decide what you want to implement in your classes. This could be things like clarifying expectations, introducing learning tools or protocols, adapting lessons using UDL principles, creating micro-groups for differentiated support, or improving feedback systems. Always ensure the approach maintains student agency and coaches learners to use tools themselves rather than simply making tasks easier. Final Tip Prioritize getting into spaces with other educators to work together and pursue professional coaching. We need to go beyond just showing up for a PD day, but share feedback and data with other educators in a way that sparks meaningful change in our classrooms. This takes intentionality and effort… It’s worth it! Grab your copy of the Group Implementation Coaching Call Template for free, and start using it with your teaching team to bring transformation to your school. If you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 246 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of the Time for teachership podcast. This is episode 2 46 and we just revamped the website. So I'm gonna read directly off of our newly designed website, which you can [email protected]. One-off workshops do not create meaningful change, continuous learning and iterating with feedback from students, peers, and coaches does. So I'm gonna go in this episode through a Google Doc template I've been working on to support teacher teams to continue work after initial. Workshops on a pedagogical approach or strategy, calling these group implementation coaching sessions, and join us for this conversation. Here we go. I first wanna acknowledge all of the folks who have informed this work. So this Google Doc template has been a work in progress for a couple of years, and there are so many folks. We never do this work alone. There's so many folks who have influenced it. So one, wanna shout out the [00:01:00] PLC at work folks. So July, 2024 on our podcast, we did a mini series. On PLCs, so folks like Dr. Anthony Mohammed, Dr. Chad Dumas, super practical work of Bob Sanju, Marin Powers and Shalene Miller were super effective in helping me think about what really needs to happen. So certainly these are PLCs a little bit different from like an implementation coaching model or a more kind of informal process. They certainly, want to clarify like what exactly. PLCs are and how they are distinct from other conversations, but that was hugely impactful. Also, the Grow Model better lesson as a company introduced me to this Raman Behan, who is in episode one. The very first episode of the Time for teachership podcast has taught me a lot about. Coaching, one-on-one coaching, group coaching, coaching coaches, all sorts of things related to coaching and how to use this model and others. So that has been really helpful and I wanna shout him out specifically. The field of positive [00:02:00] psychology has been very influential in my approach as I learn even more from education scholars who talk about asset-based education as well as the values and action website, which I find a very valuable resource to think about values and values. Really how they come into play in our teacher lives and are feeling aligned to our values as we make pedagogical decisions. So you'll see that definitely in this, or you'll get that vibe. Also wanna name a few recent books that have been helpful. Street Data, as I love from doctors Shane SFI and Jamila Dugan, as well as the more recent pedagogies voice book from Dr. Shane Safier, Marla bse, Dr. Swan Jabber and Crystal Watson. Super helpful to think about things. Like just orienting to the margins to think about how we're focusing on equity. And we're centering like human connection. Also as Reta Hammond's latest book, rebuilding Students' Learning Power, teaching [00:03:00] for Instructional Equity and Cognitive Justice. I'm really giving you a reading lesson here. Has really helped me to think about things like in the looking at student work protocol I've talked about before from Desi. Questions you'll see in this are we over scaffolding? Do we wanna just try to make the task easier and thus not great appropriate? Or are we really coaching students to own the tools, use them theirselves, and really expand their own learning power? Ideally, that one. Also inquiry pedagogy, which I've really been informed by and through the investigating history curriculum out of dsi and colleagues I've worked with on that. As well as you'll see a visual of a framework, which is currently still in development, hopefully to be published in, in coming years with Car Panko and Dr. Eric Soto Shad. So with all of that, let's get right to what exactly is this template? What does it consist of? What are the different parts and the why. So here it is. The first meeting, really thinking about a couple things from the asset based [00:04:00] lens. We are thinking about identifying team strengths. We also, before any of this, I do wanna say, we also wanna get really clear on how to pronounce everyone's name and what their roles are. So there's certainly a space for that. But we wanna leverage our strengths as a team and or as individuals, right? So we wanna make sure there's space for that. We also wanna identify our values, both again, as a team or as individuals, but those things are really important and they're going to be a place we return to when we're stuck in like a challenge mode, right? We're stuck on this thing. We're in kind of scarcity mindset. How do we leverage our strengths? How do we feel aligned to our values? If we're between two decisions, how do we make sure we're aligning with the one that is values based? We also wanna hold onto equity and what I'm calling critical hope, really making sure that our focus is on the margins. So again, borrowing from street data and pedagogies of voice texts. Which students are there in the margins right now, and how do you know what information is telling you this? Getting very clear on if we are talking to anybody, we're talking to this [00:05:00] group and we're trying to seek equity and justice for this group. That is always our centerpiece. I always find it to be helpful when coaching or when thinking through decisions. To center a particular student or group of students and say, okay, what would work for them? Or Let's get really specific, yes, maybe this is the skill the class needs to grow, but what about this group? How do they need to grow it? In what ways do they have strengths? Or what way does this specific student have strengths that can be leveraged in growing that skill? It's super helpful to get very clear, and so to name the margins is really important. Also, in the line of critical hope, thinking about the dream, so drawing on freedom, dreaming, and other things. We talk about all the time on the podcast. Getting really clear on the observable criteria and using that then as a metric for success as we move forward. So what does success, I would argue look slash sound, but also feel like what does it feel like to be in your classroom? What does success look, sound, feel like? Get really clear on that and think about the ways to measure that, and that'll be an ongoing conversation. And [00:06:00] finally really thinking about inquiry and evidence. My social studies, teacher and coach mindset hat is on here where we think about, let's co-design an inquiry question. This also comes out of pedagogies of voice, right? What is the thing we want to pursue and learn more about? Just even that language really centers the learning process here as opposed to. The traditional way of thinking about teachers as having all of the answers right, or that there is one right way or that the right way comes from a particular place such as peer-reviewed journals versus co-constructed informed by peer-reviewed journals, certainly, but also co-constructed with the kids in your class, right? And so again, that kind of points to the evidence. So what information will we gather to learn more? Certainly. Things like research, also things like, let's ask the kids in the class, right? So thinking about inquiry and evidence is a final piece. This is really meeting one. And so meeting one is setting the stage, right? We're defining all of those assets. We're thinking about. Who we are as a team, what we [00:07:00] believe in, what we're out to do. And then there is a coaching bank, both for that meeting and future meetings that I put in just for my own self. I like to have a little coaching bank. You can certainly remove this from the template and have it as a one-pager or something and a physical copy, move it into a separate doc, whatever you'd like. If you wanna, make your coaching doc public to the group. But I like to think about some coaching moves that are maybe hard for me to remember in the moment. Or the languaging around the coaching move is hard. Certainly build your own here, add to this list, adjust as needed. But I think one thing that's been helpful for me as a coach is to clarify. So an example is like someone says, oh, students aren't really good at this thing. Or, I've tried this and students responded this way. It didn't work right? And so my follow up there is to get clear on what's going on. I might say something like, can you say more about that? Or share an example. Like basically, how do you know? Let's get to the evidence, and what I find is that anytime we share an example, we get really concrete, [00:08:00] then I'm able to coach better. Often we have peer coaching because this is a group coaching situation. We have peer coaching, tapping in. I recently did this in a workshop with about 10 educators in person. And it just like the example grew into a 10 minute conversation with minute, like detailed feedback from way more people than just myself, right? Three or four, five people jumped in to offer clarifying questions and we just got really into it and it was so much more fruitful than leaving it at oh, this is a hard thing. How do I respond to this, right? Because that's so vague that it's really hard to coach on and it doesn't illuminate the problem in the same way for that person to ask the question or made the comment about the challenge or anyone else in the group, right? We wanna get clarity as often as possible. So can you say more about that? We share an example is a good, for me, a good go-to the next thing is sometimes we're in a mindset that just is looking at a problem, maybe in a deficit way, maybe in just [00:09:00] like a. A way that doesn't feel productive or like we've gone around a bunch of times with ideas that haven't worked. Maybe we've tried a bunch of pedagogical moves and we're getting the same result and we're just feeling stuck. We might need to shift mindsets. So it might be, how might we think differently about this? So one thing that I've seen particularly in inquiry pedagogy, is. A frustration with students not having specific information about the time period of study in a history class, for example, or the people being studied, right? And so the concern is if students don't have any quote, background knowledge on this topic, they're not able to engage in inquiry. They're not able to have questions that are thoughtful or anything like this. And so one fellow coach who also coaches on an inquiry curriculum that I coach on. Just said this and I wrote it down because I was like, this is so good. Curiosity and inquiry pedagogy is more [00:10:00] valuable than background knowledge. And so just being able to offer that as a reframe. So it might be a coaching question, like, how might we think about this differently? But it also might be like, let's pause to think about the values or the priorities of inquiry pedagogy. Like what skill is more important? Is it more important that they have memorized a bunch of information that they can recall? Is it more important that they are curious and they nurture that skill? Ideally we have both, right? But to say curiosity is more valuable than background knowledge. I think it's a really helpful reframe where we might have gotten stuck, but if we have this shift, then it's okay, then knowing that, how do we amplify curiosity? Now we're going in a different direction. We're not even trying necessarily to increase background knowledge, quote unquote. We are actually trying to do something different. Which is to value affirm and encourage more curiosity, which is actually a completely different thing, right? So it just really shifts mindsets [00:11:00] and directions. Relatedly, I think one of the most common mindsets that we can get stuck in is this scarcity. One. We just never have enough time as teachers. That is so true. The response to this, or the best response that I coach myself on all the time is a prioritization game, right? Like it's not about not having enough time, no one has enough time. It's about how are we using the time that we have. So the question that's in response to the scarcity based comment is what is most important here, right? If you only have 30 minutes to teach this lesson, if you only have, however long to do X thing, what is most important? And that could be what is the most important skill? What is the most important content? What is the most important way that you're making a kid feel? What is the most important based on like your vision of success that we defined at the outset? It could be a lot of things, right? But. Shifting from scarcity to prioritization as a mindset here can be really powerful. And the final coaching move I added and again, by the time you check this [00:12:00] out, it may be different. I may be adapting or adding as we go. 'cause nothing is ever set in stone, right? We're constantly learning and evolving. But the last one currently, as I record this, is aligning to values. So you could also use this to address scarcity and prioritization, but with which value or values is this pedagogy or this use of time most aligned. So often in adaptive challenges when we're finding ourselves stuck in a long period of time, we try different things. It's not working. What we can do is actually take a step back and say, okay, it seems like we might have some competing commitments here. I believe and want to, encourage students to have more agency. I know they can. I believe in them and I want this, like this is a core value for me is like teacher as coach or student agency, whatever the thing is. That is one of my core values. Or maybe it's, transparency. I wanna be really honest and clear with students. I wanna give them really clear feedback. However to use time, again, time is [00:13:00] a constraint or we have a curriculum that is set by the district and we need to teach that. So I don't have as much freedom to give students agency, right? Whatever the thing is, we are I imposed upon whether it is a time restriction, a curriculum restriction, and we are finding perhaps that it's not really what we want. We want this thing. And we're being told to do this other thing, and sometimes those feel conflicting. And so just naming the competing commitment or kind of the value that you think is displayed by your current use of time or the current pedagogical move and like what you actually value, sometimes it takes that deeper conversation to unearth oh, I've been saying I'm all about student agency and yet. This is how I've been doing my lessons. I have been saying, talking at the kids and then asking them to do a multiple choice quiz, and then that's how I assess them and then we move on, right? Versus, oh, I actually, when I became a teacher, I really wanted student, an agency, and I wanna be able to invite them to, share in these multitude of ways using [00:14:00] multiple means of expression based on UDL. But all I'm asking them to do is this one thing that the curriculum says can I, for example, in that scenario. Adapt or give multiple means of expression that answer the same question, but adapt the format to be student selected. Still assessing the same skills and content knowledge, but enabling a wider range of options, right? Are there ways that we can align more closely to our values? 'cause we're not gonna feel good if we're not values aligned in our teaching and in our pedagogy. Okay, so that's the first meeting, the coaching moves that can be used in any meeting. And then I wanna say after meeting one here is how I would structure this or have been trying to structure these things. One is to start with human connection. Pedagogies of voice really reminded me of this. You might have a listening dyad, you might have a group check-in. You might have celebrations. I know the PLC at work. Folks are really good about naming celebrations as an opening. Again, asset based positive psychology. Let's bring it all in. And then we go to an implementation [00:15:00] check. So you may name this thing different, but basically a reminder that last time. We said we were gonna try this thing, we were gonna gather this piece of data. Was it assessment data? Was it experiential student report data? Was it both from, X assessment or these particular students or from this survey, right? Whatever modality we're using. And then it structured it into three groups. I think there's three containers for this. One is let's honor the initial teacher reactions and your teachers best. So there may be. Some moments where this doesn't quite work as well. Maybe if you open it up it you'll, it'll be really hard to get back to data. So maybe you start with data, but I think for a lot of groups I work with, it's nice to be able to honor like, what are your initial responses? And so I'm pulling from Dr. Frederick Buskey actually and has brilliant daughter Mara, who do a five minute coaching around three questions. I've reduced those to two here. Because I think we get to the third and then other parts, but what went well, again, asset based and what surprised you. This [00:16:00] question itself is surprising and I think jogs us out of the typical glows and grows yeah, what was surprising and then what I read into that is like basically what did I learn, right? 'cause when you are surprised, you then have to, you have this like disorienting dilemma. I thought this, but actually this happened. And then you have to make sense of that. So you are learning in that process. So it invites you to think about what you've learned. Then I think reflect on the data. I like using something I've adapted from Panorama education. I notice, I wonder and I want to learn more about, so notice exactly what the data says. If a student said this particular quote in response to the lesson and they thought you should do this differently. I notice quote, blah, blah, blah. I notice X amount of students that you know how to do this. Okay. And then I wonder, I like here to encourage yourself to think about, or the teachers to think about three possible reasons why I wonder if this comes from X or this student said this because of y or this, [00:17:00] trend in student data this. Area for growth that I've noticed comes from my pedagogical move here, right? Try to think about maybe the, why some of the noticings are happening and then I want to learn more about situates you firmly in the curiosity and learner stance. What information or perspectives are missing from the data you have as a nice kind of corollary question here. So basically, yeah, I wanna learn more about this thing and thinking about where I'm gonna go seek it out. Where am I gonna go from more information to learn that thing? As in deeper reflection questions here that are pulled from Desi's looking at student work protocol that I really enjoy. So one, if you didn't get to it in the kind of the possible reasons why I wonder section above it would be how did our instruction lead to the trends we saw in student work? So again, putting the locus of control back on the teacher. We are thinking about what we can do as professionals, as educators, right? To help students. So think about how did my instruction impact the thing I noticed [00:18:00] in the data? And relatedly, how did the use of scaffolds that I put into that lesson, or maybe that already existed in that lesson, impact students' thinking and learning. So we're interrogating some of that. And I labeled this next question a gut check, but to what extent do you feel like you're wanting to make the task. Easier, like less hard below grade standards versus identifying tools and changes in pedagogy that would support all students in demonstrating mastery of a grade level task. I think that is the gut check. If we are defaulting to. Oh, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna make it easier. I'm gonna add more sentence strips. I'm gonna, whatever. Versus coaching students to use particular learner moves, right? I'm thinking of Zaretta Hammond here and the five Learn to Learn skills or changing my way of interacting with students, or my way of structuring the lesson. Like then we're not really gonna get very far right, and we wanna do that gut check to make sure that what we land on here before moving to the next piece [00:19:00] where we're gonna land on an action step is rooted in like good stuff. Wanting students to be better learners and engaging with appropriately challenging grade level text. And me as an instructor being really the coach. So for the remainder of the meeting, this could be 30 minutes. It depends on how much time you have with teachers. I'm assuming around 60, some have 45, some have 75 around 60, so 30 minutes left or 25 minutes left. I should say. If you did a five minute check-in, if you have an adaptation of what I would say is the grow model, that's how I initially started with this. I'm calling this glee at the moment. So goal learn, explore expectations. So what's the goal? What learning experiences do you hope to foster before our next session is a question that comes out of pedagogies of voice I believe, and then thinking about I might have a lens toward the content. I might have a lens toward the skill. I might have a lens toward how I want students to feel. Ideally, I'm thinking a little bit of all of this, right? But like we just looked at the [00:20:00] data. We just noticed some things and we're curious about, right? We have an inquiry pursuit here. We have our larger inquiry question for the year, but we also said, ah, I looked at this data and I wanna know about this thing. So now what are we trying to learn about? What are we hoping to foster? I think you can change up the question. I'll probably play with that question for a bit, but considering content skills into feelings. What's the thing we wanna pursue before our next session? So again, returning to that learn like what did we learn from the data? So let's get clear on like the assessment data. What are the student strengths and areas for growth? What's like the biggest leverage points here for growth? And how can we leverage strengths in pursuit of that area of growth? And then what are our students actually saying? So what is the feedback that we got from them? Did we even ask them? And which students are we asking and hearing from. And then we move to explore. So this is usually gonna be the bulk of this second chunk or this, 25 minute chunk. What instructional move could we use to grow the identified skill and at the same time [00:21:00] enable student agency, right? We don't wanna lose that student centered learning agency. We want to grow the skill because we're coaching students to learn better, right? And so some options, there's like a bullet point kind of choice list here on the template. It could be that you're just saying, Hey, you know what? Actually my expectations were just not clear. If we're talking about a behavioral issue, for example, we might say I was just not at all clear that I wanted this to be done in this way, or that our class discussion norms were never established at the beginning of the year. So of course that student was like talking over that other student, and that was rude, right? Because we didn't have the conversation. So we need to actually as a class, co-create discussion agreements, or we need to clarify expectations in some way. It could be that you wanna introduce or use a learning tool. This could be a protocol. Okay, I had an open class discussion, didn't have a discussion protocol. Kids were talking all over the place, or I only heard from four students that were the loudest. Next time I'm gonna introduce a discussion protocol. Or maybe I had a bunch of students who were quiet 'cause I'm not sure that [00:22:00] they. Fully went through the information processing cycles. I'm gonna use some of Zuta Hammond stuff to coach on these. Learn to learn skills and introduce tools to them that can help their information processing so they're ready to go next time. Another option could be to adapt or design for engagement, representation or expression a link in the template to UDL here. And so there are so many examples. It is overwhelming, but if you zoom into one of those engagement, representation or expression. You can do what we named earlier in the episode where we're trying to, for example, open it up to multiple formats for ways to demonstrate your understanding of the content or your proficiency with a skill. That's an adaptation of a lesson if you have a set curriculum or maybe you're designing, if you're creating your own curriculum it could be that you want to micro groups. So you notice some trends in the data. Certain groups have have some strengths, right? You can break the student groups or the class, excuse me, into these little groups where this group needs. This intervention with this particular [00:23:00] skill, this group actually got all of it and they need an extension, right? Whatever the thing is, it's like a micro MTSS system here. Or it could be that you want to think about how you're providing feedback to students. And so maybe what it is like you came up with all this great data and you're like, wow, actually I don't know how I'm gonna get that to students. I don't have a process in place to let them know what I just learned through this deep data dive in our group implementation coaching session. I need a better system for providing specific, timely asset-based feedback to my students, and I'm gonna figure that out in order to make that my next move. So that students, again, have the agency to get the feedback quickly, specifically, and then they choose what their next step is, which is reminiscent of my conversation with Dr. Al Annoy, who says, the students are the ones that take the next steps. We don't, as the teacher give them the next steps. We give them feedback, and we facilitate kind of their information gathering so that they can choose as writers. In his case, you know what to do next. Finally we have the last [00:24:00] piece, which is setting the expectation for next time. So what will we try as a group? Are we all doing the same thing? Are there some teachers wanting to try one thing, some trying another? This may vary. I don't have a set opinion on this. I think there are great ways, great ideas doing both. But then we wanna know how we're gonna learn from it, right? You're gonna try the thing before next session when we meet in two weeks or four weeks, whenever the time is. So what are we doing? Getting really clear who is doing it and what data are we gathering so that we can learn and we're committing to bringing that back in the next session. So that was a lot. You can certainly if you were driving, running, or otherwise occupied while listening no need to have taken notes. You can certainly grab this free resource at lindsay bethle.com/blog/ 2 4 6. And as a final thought, I'm gonna return to what we said at the opening of the episode. Research from Joyce and Showers 2022 shows that on average, teachers need about 20 practice instances to master a new [00:25:00] teaching skill. And so their research actually shows teachers rarely transfer newly learned skills to the classroom unless training is accompanied by coaching. The percentage of teachers who accurately use new skills jumps from 5%. To anywhere between 75 and 90% when coaching is included. That is wild. Such a important component of professional learning that often doesn't get as much I don't know, financial commitment perhaps, or just like thought time than the typical show up in person PD for a PD day. I urge us to find small ways. Peer coaching or otherwise, that we get teachers in spaces with other educators and get some feedback and get some shared data assessment practices or protocols in place so that we can then make decisions about what action we're gonna take. That is informed by the brilliance of the group and the great [00:26:00] resources available to us in this wonderful age of education, research, and the internet. Until next time, everybody have a wonderful day. Think big, act brave, and be your best self. 
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In this episode, we chat with Dr. Jacobē Bell, an instructional coach, researcher, and author. She shares powerful insights on humanizing instructional coaching through authentic relationships and practical strategies.
Dr. Bell emphasizes the importance of shifting from teacher-centered to systems-level thinking, maintaining genuine care for educator wellbeing, and surfacing and addressing teacher beliefs through curiosity-driven conversations. This episode is full of practical advice and insights for instructional coaches. The Big Dream Dr. Bell envisions a world where coaches and educators experience genuine wellness and contentment in their daily work, free from initiative fatigue. She dreams of all coaches embodying a humanizing approach that centers educators as co-producers of knowledge in coaching conversations—empowering teachers to draw on their own experiences and expertise in ways that support both their continual growth and their wellbeing. Mindset Shifts Required The shift from teaching to coaching requires seeing the system differently: understanding how individual teachers fit into larger grade teams and the school ecosystem. Coaches must accept that they cannot make everyone happy with every decision, releasing the need to be universally loved while keeping student outcomes central. This involves applying the improvement processes teachers naturally use in classrooms to facilitate meaningful professional learning with teams of adults. Coaches must also learn to navigate the intersection of their own values with other adults' beliefs about students, instruction, and equity. Action Steps As Dr. Bell has coached teachers—and coached coaches to coach teachers—here are action steps she’s found useful that can be applied in your own context: Step 1: Have explicit conversations about preferences for live coaching, feedback delivery, and even logistics like whether to greet them when entering mid-lesson. Step 2: Structure coaching visits in three parts when possible: pre-planning (identifying issues and establishing look-fors), micro-modeling (demonstrating a 15-20 minute lesson segment while narrating your moves), and immediate teacher practice (breaking teachers into small groups to try the strategy with students while you provide real-time feedback) Step 3: Approach conversations with genuine curiosity about what shifted and when, assuming the best intentions while creating space for honest dialogue about the whole person—not just the practitioner. Challenges? Coaches are navigating both instructional improvement and the emotional well-being of teachers… Diverse teachers who all communicate and want to be coached in different ways! This can be tough to navigate, as can the “initiative fatigue” teachers often feel, which may create resistance to yet another change. Further, a difficult challenge is addressing deeply held beliefs about student ability and instructional practices, particularly when those beliefs conflict with equity-focused coaching goals. One Step to Get Started Find your authentic coaching voice by reflecting on your unique personality and strengths rather than trying to follow a one-size-fits-all coaching formula. Start by genuinely asking teachers their opinions about their practice and truly listening to their responses—not as a checkbox in a coaching protocol, but as a foundation for building the rapport, relationships, and authenticity that undergird all effective coaching work. This human-centered approach creates the conditions for everything else to follow. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on LinkedIn to stay connected. www.equityconsulting.org and Instagram @centeringmyjoy. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing a reproducible “Recognizing The Hidden Curriculum” with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 245 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Jacobi Bell, welcome back to the time for teachership podcast. Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for having me again. I'm super excited to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I'm excited because there are so many elements of the book that we talked about, and we can link to that in the, um, show notes as well for this episode. But there's so many elements of your coaching strategy and approach, and even like snippets of the conversations that you've had with teachers as a coach that are. Lindsay Lyons: Just so good. And as myself, as a coach, I'm constantly trying to learn and grow, and this is something that I think a lot of teachers kind of get slotted into this position of instructional coach 'cause they're great teachers and it's like. Well, where's the professional learning for coaching? Dr. Jacobe Bell: Yeah. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Sometimes it's like baptism by fire. Lindsay Lyons: That's right. And so it's like, you know, where, what I think we're trying to do and where this episode will air is kind of part of a mini series on instructional coaching and some ideas for instructional coaches to really be supported and grow in that [00:01:00] position. And so I guess the first question is. Lindsay Lyons: What should people kind of keep in mind or what are you bringing in mind to the table, um, to, to this conversation? I mean, uh, as we kind of think about this topic, I know you've shared more about yourself in a previous podcast episode, so feel free to bring that in, but also like as an instructional coaches or anything else we should know, Dr. Jacobe Bell: uh, sure. Dr. Jacobe Bell: The last seven years I've been. Coaching instructional coaches, um, which is something that I take a lot of joy in. Um, and I also have been instructional coaches in both public schools, um, private charter prior to that. Um, and from each setting I gained kind of like different techniques or approaches. Dr. Jacobe Bell: 'cause each setting was like uniquely. Different, you know, so, but all those things [00:02:00] kind of shape me and what I'm bringing to this conversation today. Um, Lindsay Lyons: thank you for sharing that. And you're right, the context totally does matter. So that's an important thing to note. Um, I, before I asked you about your Freedom Dream, so feel free to bring any part of that in here as well, but I am, I'm also curious, I know you had a beautiful chapter, um, on a Afrofuturism in your book that we talked about, and I think. Lindsay Lyons: I, I wonder, I guess if, does, is there any sort of like a afrofuturist dreaming that is part of your definition of like instructional coaching specifically? Dr. Jacobe Bell: Ooh, that's a great question. I don't think I've been asked that. So I think right now is a hard time for educators more generally, um, with. Ever increasing demands, accountability, you know, all the things. Dr. Jacobe Bell: And as coaches we often navigate, yes, the instructional piece, but then we also [00:03:00] have to navigate everything. That's not the instructional piece as well. Like the emotional, like, are you okay today? Like how are you? Um, genuinely. 'cause depending on where you're at, our coaching conversation can need or need to look. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, slightly different. Um, but also what I see is because there's so many like initiatives on top of initiatives, a lot of educators experience like initiative fatigue sometimes. And so when I think about Afrofuturism and freedom dreaming, I think about a world in which. Coaches, um, and educators, um, have a sense of wellness, um, and a sense of contentment in their day-to-day work. Dr. Jacobe Bell: And I think about as coaches specifically, [00:04:00] um, like this dream that all coaches that we would embody, like a humanizing approach to coaching. It was like a big spectrum of, you know, what coaching can look like, student outcome driven, relational driven, uh, you know, professional learning, PD driven, like, et cetera, et cetera. Dr. Jacobe Bell: And they all, some are more effective than others, you know, um, but also dreaming about centering educators in this process because they also come with knowledge and experiences and how do we empower. Them to be like co-producers of knowledge in the coaching conversations, um, in ways that work for both them, um, and their continual growth, um, and in ways that like maintain their wellbeing. Dr. Jacobe Bell: 'cause right now, I, I, I do think it's hard out there. [00:05:00] Lindsay Lyons: Oh, that's so, that's so great because it really encompasses, again, the context of like, where, where are people, what are we asking of people? What do we not ask? Like how are you, I mean, all of it. Um, I, I love that you got at the different approaches, right? Lindsay Lyons: And that some are more effective than others. And I, I also am thinking about. You know, just even when you said co-producers of knowledge in a coaching conversation, I'm like, oh, right. Because I think about that in terms of the co-producers of knowledge being students in a classroom from the student lens or from the teacher lens. Lindsay Lyons: And now I'm a coach thinking, okay, right. That totally is relevant for the coaching teacher dynamic. And so now I'm thinking about are there. Mindset shifts that are necessary to transition kind of from that teacher mentality to a coaching mentality? Or is it really similar and that we should treat students very similarly to, to teachers? Dr. Jacobe Bell: I see it similar and different [00:06:00] at the same time. Um, I think the switch to coaching from teaching. I had to see the system a little bit differently, and I had to see how like individual teachers play into a larger grade team or play into a larger like school ecosystem. I had to put on my hat, like, especially when I first started coaching, I was coaching former peers, you know, like former teachers that I taught with, et cetera. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, and I had to like. Do this dance. And I had to actually learn as a leader as well, that with every decision you make, you can't a hundred percent make everybody happy. And you can't a hundred percent make everybody love you, right? Like yeah, it's human nature to wanna be loved and like people think you're the greatest, right? Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, and I had to kind of look [00:07:00] in the mirror and realize that. You know, when I look at the whole ecosystem and what's working and not working for kids, kind of what needs to shift. Um, and so that's something I had to kind of change. I also had to. Think about how do I systematically lean into improvement? Dr. Jacobe Bell: I think as teachers we do it kind of unconsciously. Like, oh, I'm gonna try this thing, see how it works. Then based upon how it goes, I'm gonna adjust it. Or you know, we kind of just unconsciously do that improvement process. And it's similar as a coach. Um, but I think. If you're professional dev, um, doing PD in a, like a team setting now it's like applying that same process that you might not even be self-aware that you were doing as a teacher, but then how do you kind of facilitate that process with a team of adults in a way that feels meaningful to every single person there? Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, and that every single person feels heard. Um. And has [00:08:00] like clear things they're excited to take away. So it's like there is overlap in some of it. I think also thinking about how values and belief systems is different when you're like in your classroom. Um, but then also like when coaching you come up against other people's values and beliefs of other adults, you know, what they think about kids, um, how they see a situation and how you may see a situation slightly differently. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Right? Um, and so I think, I know when I a coach, that's one thing I had to kind of. Shift a little bit is like if we're saying that every kid every day deserves strong instruction, strong instructional materials in front of them. Um, and as we know, students come in at a lot of different entry points. Um.[00:09:00] Dr. Jacobe Bell: What does it look like to like, meet their needs in ways, um, while also balancing like teachers' beliefs? Um, yeah. I could go on, but I'll stop there. Lindsay Lyons: No, I, I love that because I, I'm thinking about the beliefs and, and some of the kind of coaching conversations that I was reading that you have had with teachers just from the book. Lindsay Lyons: And I'm curious, what is like, as we think about the kind of a toolkit of instructional coaches or like kind of an approach that you would take as an instructional coach, what are kind of the action steps that you have found to be helpful for coaching teachers or like coaching coaches to coach teachers, both from the sense of like. Lindsay Lyons: Broad kind of you, you mentioned like looking in the mirror and just having this kind of moment of, you know, I need, I realize I need to do this, or I realize that this is important and, and also I'm thinking about what stood out to me. Were some, even at the very specific level, some of the questions stems or the types of [00:10:00] questions that you asked that get at those beliefs and allow you to surface them and raise them in conversations. Lindsay Lyons: Even though it's probably uncomfortable for everyone, like they have to come up and we have to get after that conversation and so. I'm curious from just like a professional learning for coaches approach, I guess, like what are those things, both big or small, whatever feels best to start with, that you would recommend for coaches to, to consider in those teacher coach relationships? Dr. Jacobe Bell: Yeah. I think a lot of times, like how one can perceive a kid, a situation, a practice, um, can be shifted when people can see it like tangibly. Um, and so one of my favorite ways to coach, I used to like put a name to it or something, or write about it or something because I don't have like a juicy way to explain it kind of. Dr. Jacobe Bell: But, um. Is essentially [00:11:00] like a micro model, right? Like so often sometimes as coaches will like model a whole lesson and yeah, that has its place, but sometimes I find it even more effective to do a micro model for like a shorter period of time. And then after that micro model, have coach, um, have teachers like repeat it with smaller groups of students within that same period as you give them feedback. Dr. Jacobe Bell: So, for example, yesterday I was in a school, um, and one of the coaches I coach was like implementing this, I don't know, protocol strategy. Um, and she did it so beautifully. I was like, yay, I love when these things work out. Um, but she was like, there were some beliefs about like certain kids being low, um, or more difficult. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, and like. Not participating in the phonics lesson, et cetera. And so the coach [00:12:00] modeled, um, like the 20 minute lesson, and then there were four teachers. Actually five that were like observing and they had, um, look fors to kind of pay attention to her teacher moves and then student reactions or actions. Dr. Jacobe Bell: And then, um, teachers were broken up into five groups and they knew this prior to going into the classroom, right? Like we had a pre-planning conversations with them that morning. So when we came back later that day, they kind of knew what to expect. Um, but then afterwards they were broken up into five groups and each. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Teacher was at a table with like five, six kids and then they repeated the lesson, but with different letters. So they were able to implement like the methodology that they saw her do. They were, um, able to implement like the rhyming cadence of like the letters that make it catchy and help with engagement strategies. Dr. Jacobe Bell: They were able to start with like. Starting with whole class drilling in when you [00:13:00] hear the misconception and saying, you know, so and so, let me hear you, you know, and then going back out, um, for sitting on here over on the side, let me hear you. Like, uh, and so it was, she implemented it beautifully. Um, so then teachers were able to implement it in their groups, and then we popped around from group to group to give teachers. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Feedback in the moment on how well, but it was great 'cause you saw them, like they just saw it, they're implementing it. Um, and that's one of my favorite strategies. And then as you're doing that, narrating what you're doing. So if I'm the coach being like, you know, teachers notice how IX, Y, and Z and then do it. Dr. Jacobe Bell: So you're like kind of narrating the things that you wanna point their eyes to as you're doing the micro model. Um, the beautiful thing about this strategy is that Dr. Jacobe Bell: it, well, one, if I think [00:14:00] about yesterday, like the teacher who'd been like, oh wow, this is hard. This student, you know, um, it's hard to collect data. And then these students are like ones that are a little harder. Every single one of like the four or five names that were given about harder students. Were able to get it, and they were able, when called on to say it, you know, and it might not have been perfectly the first time, but then the second or third time they had it, and it was like a beautiful like moment of like shifting the, the mindset of like, oh, they can do it, you know, um, but how do I give them better access points to do? Dr. Jacobe Bell: So, um, so that was one in terms of by seeing it, it like shifted mindsets and then two, by actually applying it right then and there. You don't have to wait a week later or two weeks later when the coach comes again to kind of try it out. It's like you're gonna get immediate feedback as you try it then. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, so that's one of my favorite, my favorite strategies. Um, and then at then afterwards of course [00:15:00] you debrief with the teacher team on what went well. What were your takeaways? Feedback from me and my micro model, you know, like, um, so that's one of my favorites. Lindsay Lyons: I love that so much. I'm so curious. So logistically, when does this happen? Lindsay Lyons: Is this like a PD time where you get the teachers and then you invite the students in? Or is this like class time where there's already students there? And you just have teachers come into one teacher's room? Dr. Jacobe Bell: I've done it both. Um, ideally my favorite way is to do it with actual students in the class structure. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, and usually we rotate. So let's say there's maybe three teachers on the team. One teacher will start being in the classroom with the micro model, et cetera. Then the next visit, maybe it's somebody else. Um, but you're still building on knowledge and skill even though the classroom of students may be changing 'cause you're gonna try it and. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Multiple teachers' classrooms if you're able to. Sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes we do it in one teacher's, we get it and we kind of go on to the next part of the coaching cycle. Um, [00:16:00] and usually, ideally it would take three periods in the day. I know schools don't always have those three periods to free up teachers. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, and so usually it would look like a pre-planning of like, oh, you know, this is what we noticed. Here are our look fors. Anything missing from our look fors. Um, you know, who do we wanna. And then talking about like the issues that are happening and then how you're gonna try to address those issues. So teachers talk about like pacing. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Okay. So, and all the issues they're naming, trying to like tuck those in your micro model. Um, so that when they go in, you kind of, they, their eye is kind of honed to it. And then the period of the micro model and then them trying it, and then the debrief on the. End. Um, and the debrief isn't, it depends. Dr. Jacobe Bell: I've seen it done in 20 minutes, you know, 'cause that's all you had. Um, I've seen it done in a period I, in terms of the pre-planning, I've seen that like happen in like a quick [00:17:00] 15 minutes. Like, let's huddle you, or honestly, I've seen it happen in like three minutes where it's like there's no. There was no pre-planning, but things and templates were sent out via email or the prior visit. Dr. Jacobe Bell: And with the understanding, like on my next visit, this is what we're gonna do. And then you like go in, give kids a big juicy question about like, oh, tell me the most exciting thing about your weekend. You got two minutes to turn and talk. And they're like, okay, teachers, let's huddle really quick. And then you go through the plan and then you bring it back and then you actually like start the micro model. Dr. Jacobe Bell: So it's. You know, we live in the land of flexibility. 'cause schools are all different. Different, you know. Lindsay Lyons: I love that. Thank you for laying that out. Both like the whole, the whole cycle of, of the day, but also, um, just logistically how to make that possible and, and also recognizing the, the constraints that I think some instructional coaches may be listening and being like, Hmm, I don't know if I can make that happen, but here's what you can do. Lindsay Lyons: Love it. Super practical. And I, I'm also wondering, so the values. Piece, like surfacing values is like really, [00:18:00] really interesting to me. And also I think a really hard thing to be able to do. And I'm also recognizing, so in this situation, in this approach, you were talking about, um, having a team of coaches. Lindsay Lyons: So you're coaching a team together. Then I'm also thinking about like a one-on-one dynamic. So you have one teacher and one coach who's maybe like debriefing a lesson or, um, confronted with maybe like. Something that the coach or the teacher says in that conversation, and now we wanna like unearth or dig into it a little bit. Lindsay Lyons: Like, oh, you mentioned like you're struggling with, with some students, or, or they're not getting it. Like, let's dig into like what language you use or anything like that and like kind of uncover the values there. Um, I'm curious in general of kind of what your approach is to situations like that. Both. Lindsay Lyons: And I guess does it depend on the one-on-one? Does it depend if you're in a small team, like how you approach it? Um, yeah. Any tips for all of us on that? Dr. Jacobe Bell: Yes. This is. Also living in the land of flexibility because it, it depends so much on the context, the teacher, [00:19:00] the, um, whatever. But I'll share a couple of the strategies that come to me offhand. Dr. Jacobe Bell: One is sometimes just saying it back to them, um, and seeing how they respond. You know, like, oh, so I'm hearing you say that X, Y, Z. And then giving them a chance to respond. You know, and sometimes they clarify in ways that you're like, oh, I get it. And sometimes it's um, you know, a different value relief, um, belief, um, especially about like kid ability sometimes. Dr. Jacobe Bell: It's like, oh, well can you tell me more about that? Um, sometimes I blame my coaching, um, as a way to lower the effective filter of like, you know, I know we've been working together a couple months. Um, we've modeled and some planning, yada, yada. Um, and I'm still seeing like our. Our co-constructed look fors, um, for [00:20:00] instruction and student engagement aren't quite where we want them to be. Dr. Jacobe Bell: I'm wondering if there's something I'm doing or not doing as a coach, um, that's, you know, impeding you meeting these goals. Um, so I've done that quite a few times because it like opens the conversation in a way that. It is making it about you, the coach, like, am I, what am I doing or not doing? You know, because this is not working. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, and I find that has been, um, pretty effective, um, in some of my tough, tough coaching conversations. Sometimes I feel like honesty, I'm one of those people that I am a pretty direct person. Um, but I try to find ways to say it. Um, and ways that people can receive it. So, um, I was working with this teacher, I think for two years, one-on-one coaching, and, um,[00:21:00] Dr. Jacobe Bell: um, it wasn't, it wasn't working, um, and it didn't seem like the teacher was really in it anymore. Um, so one of the coaching conversations like, you know, I, I kind of told her like, you know, I hope you can hear my heart on this. Like, I notice that, you know, oftentimes you seem checked out or, um, you know, not all in on teaching or, you know, planning for your lessons, et cetera. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Like, I know you've been at this a really long time. Um. I know, you know, you haven't moved this way for your last 18 years of teaching. Um, so I'm curious of like, what shifted and when did that shift or how did that happen? Um, [00:22:00] and that honestly opened up a really beautiful conversation, um, for us to talk about practice support. Dr. Jacobe Bell: And just like vulnerability and seeing, like she had a lot of things on her plate personally and just like, you know, like to see the whole person, you know? And then it comes from a place of like assuming the best versus the like, you know, the opposite. Lindsay Lyons: I love that because there's this validation that I think a lot of people in teaching in general just need. Lindsay Lyons: It's just like I need to, especially veteran teachers who have been in it for so long, like, I need this wisdom to be worth something like this time investment to be worth something. As you're validating that, and then also just love the approach of like, I hope you can hear my heart. That's just, that's so. Lindsay Lyons: I just love that that's such a human thing to say and feel and, and be present as well as like the curiosity. I think that's constantly, the thing I wanna get better at is like, how do we just stay curious and. [00:23:00] Approach it with like, I'm, I really wanna know, like I wanna know so I can help you. And I wanna, like you said, kind of as assume that your intentions are good, you wanna be a great teacher, and like, let's figure this out. Lindsay Lyons: I love that that worked and I just love all of those hallmarks of good teaching in, in the good coaching conversation as well. That's so good. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Yeah. And you know, I'm glad you named Curiosity because that also works within the moment coaching as well. So like sometimes when doing live coaching, there's been times where like. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, maybe a, um, something that was said is like quite not quite right, right? Like, I was in a classroom where, um, they were reading a Jacqueline Woodson book, I forget which one it is. Um, but, and then they were reading nonfiction to give context, et cetera. Um, and the teacher as teaching, um, oh, in the book, um, a black Boy is killed for having a, um. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Uh, fake gun, right? And, um, [00:24:00] the teacher said something about like, black boys, um, are bigger than white boys. And that's why like police thought that he was whatever, whatever. Um, so I just raised my hand and I was like, oh, you know, Mr. So and so are black boys, really bigger than white boys, you know, and then just kind of. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Let that conversation happen. Um, I will say with live coaching though, I, I didn't do that the first time I met the teacher. Right? Like, I developed a rapport. We talked about how do you like to be coached? What does side by side or live coaching look like? Um, and what are the norms you wanna have, right? Dr. Jacobe Bell: Like there's some teachers might walk in their room, they're like, don't talk to me if I'm in the middle of a lesson. Just kind of come in and like, whatever. And then there's other teachers I've had like. Be like, that was so rude. You walked in and didn't say hello. And I'm like, I'm sorry. You know? So now I've learned to kind of ask like, how would you [00:25:00] like to engage? Dr. Jacobe Bell: You know, if I'm walking in mid period or, you know, um, but yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Wow. Good on you to, to raise your hand and say that. That is brilliant. I wouldn't have thought of that. That's so good. Oh my gosh. Um, I feel like we can talk all day long of realizing that we're getting to the 30 minute mark. I don't know how that happens. Lindsay Lyons: Uh. I'm curious, is there like a particular thing that you find as a nice, like I can implement it right away tomorrow kind of strategy? I mean the, I think the questioning is, I also think it may be like, as you were saying, I was like, oh, right. That would, that would not come to me automatically. So is there, um, something that people can start to try to do, like maybe it's fine to spot for the question as, as opposed to like craft a brilliant question, but like, what's the starter step? Dr. Jacobe Bell: In like terms of live coaching, Lindsay Lyons: in terms of any, any part of being an instructional coach. So I mean, we could even [00:26:00] broaden it out to like what's the self-work? I mean like any part of instructional coaching. Yeah. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Yeah. For me, and I mean this kind of goes back to the reclaiming authenticity book, but like for me, like we're all unique people. Dr. Jacobe Bell: And how do we be authentic to ourselves, our roles, um, in ways that, that our personality are like, you know, like some of the coaches I coach. Some of the things they do in schools, I'm like, oh wow. Like I could not do that, but it works really well for you. You know, like just the personality wise, like it works really well. Dr. Jacobe Bell: And I know that sometimes, like my directness works really well for me and something about my affect surrounding it like works well. Um, but then for some people it may need to look a little different. So I have a [00:27:00] hard time saying like, Ooh, the one leg, um. The one thing because I feel like people kind of have to find their authentic, um, way. Dr. Jacobe Bell: But I do think generally as an entry point, um, asking teachers their opinions, um, and like really hearing them, not just going through the motions. Like, what do you think went well with your lesson today? Okay, well what I saw was yada yada, you know, it's like. Finding authentic ways to en engage. And there's so many like coaching formulas and things out there, and a lot of 'em are great. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, but I think what undergirds that is like rapport, relationships, and like authenticity. Lindsay Lyons: I love that. I love that. That was like not a, here's a one size fits all answer that is, that's very real, very authentic. And so I, I think as we're we're closing out, I just wanna, I'm curious [00:28:00] about the things like professionally or not professionally that people are learning about when they come on the podcast. Lindsay Lyons: And so I'm curious to know what you have been learning about lately. So it could be related to instructional coaching, but it doesn't have to be. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Yeah, I've been reading a lot about change management and sustainability. Um, the last couple years I've helped implement some pretty large scale initiatives, but then even thinking about at the school level and the changes we wanna sustain in schools. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Um, there's a certain amount of like, change management that occurs that I think as educators we don't really talk about. Um, like that, or same with like sustainability. Like there's some schools like, oh, with it, I'm like, wow. Like I can see the fingerprints of all the things we focused on. Right. Um, and then there's others where it's like, oh, because of teacher turnover or for whatever reason, um. Dr. Jacobe Bell: It's a little harder. So it's [00:29:00] like how do you plan for sustainability from day one versus like, we did these things, great, we feel good. Are they gonna still occur after our coaching? We don't know. You know, like, so I've been reading a lot and thinking a lot about sustainability. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. I feel like we could do a whole other podcast. Lindsay Lyons: That is my jam. I'm so excited. Um, okay, cool. Well, where can people connect with you and, and learn more about your work and, and continue to follow your stuff? Dr. Jacobe Bell: Yes, LinkedIn. Right now I am active on LinkedIn, Dr. Jacoby Bell. Um, and that's the best place to connect with me. Awesome, Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Bell, thank you so much. Lindsay Lyons: This was such a treat. Dr. Jacobe Bell: Thank you, Lindsay. 
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In this episode, our guest, Dr. Jana Lee, shares her expertise on measuring coaching effectiveness and creating inclusive classrooms through skill-based instruction. Formerly a special education teacher and now a K-12 education consultant, Dr. Lee brings insights from both years of hands-on experience and researched best practices.
Throughout the conversation, she emphasizes the importance of shifting from level-based grouping to flexible, skill-based grouping and the need for systematic data collection. Dr. Lee underscores the power of cross-curricular consistency where students practice the same skills across all subject areas to create a cohesive learning environment. The Big Dream Dr. Lee's big dream for education is that all students—of all learning capabilities—leave their K-12 experience feeling more confident for their post-secondary lives. This means addressing not just academic capabilities, but rebuilding students socially, emotionally, and mentally so they're prepared to pursue what best fits their wants, needs, and interests. Dr. Lee believes this is achieved by approaching education through as inclusive a lens as possible. Mindset Shifts Required To create an inclusive learning environment for all students, teachers can embrace the mindset shift that moves away from making instructional decisions based on preconceived beliefs about what students can do (including assumptions based on IEPs, benchmark results, or perceived gaps). Instead, educators can make flexible decisions based on what students demonstrate in the moment. This requires shifting from level-based grouping to skill-based grouping, where students aren't stigmatized by being in the "struggling" group but are instead grouped dynamically based on specific skills they're working on. Action Steps Effectively supporting diverse student needs requires moving away from preconceived ideas or level-based grouping and embracing students’ independent capabilities. Dr. Lee suggests the following action steps to help make the necessary mindset shift today: Step 1: In your day-to-day teaching, identify 60-90 seconds in your lesson where students will work completely independently on a skill-based task. During this time, resist the urge to intervene—even if students ask to use the bathroom, weren't present yesterday, or are off-task. This independent work reveals who truly needs support and what specific help they need. Step 2: Collect student artifacts that show thought processes (e.g., written work in secondary classes, and oral language or behavioral observations in elementary). Analyze these artifacts not just for right or wrong answers, but to identify where the error in thinking occurred, which informs how you'll remediate differently rather than simply repeating the same instruction. Step 3: Co-create clear "look fors" or success criteria with leadership that align directly to building or district goals. Ensure these criteria focus on specific instructional moves and pedagogy, then use them consistently in professional learning communities to analyze patterns, celebrate gains, and identify areas for targeted support. Challenges? The biggest challenge teachers face is allowing students to struggle independently for a short time without jumping in to help. Teachers naturally want to support students immediately, but this prevents them from collecting the crucial data needed to understand who needs what type of support. Without seeing what students can do completely on their own, teachers can't accurately identify where errors in thinking occur or create targeted interventions that address the root cause rather than just repeating previous instruction. One Step to Get Started Mark a specific point in your next lesson where you'll give students 60-90 seconds to work completely independently on a skill-based task. Let them struggle, let them sit, let them make mistakes—anyone who doesn't produce something tells you they need to be in your small group for targeted support. This single practice will transform your ability to collect meaningful data and make responsive instructional decisions. Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on her website, Jana Lee Consulting, or on Instagram. www.janaleeconsulting.com or Instagram @jana.c.lee. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing her Data Insight Survey with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 244 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: [00:00:00] Dr. Generally, welcome to the time for teachership podcast. Dr. Jana Lee: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and be able to chat with you. Lindsay Lyons: I am so excited to, and so I've been starting episodes recently with like what's on our mind as we jump into the conversation, so I'll share that on my mind. Are two things. So one, you had an amazing episode on Chrissy Beltran's, uh, podcast, which I loved about how to measure coaching effectiveness. And then I also have been thinking myself about outcomes-based, uh, contracting, which for schools and districts listening or engaging with episode, it's like paying coaching, uh, coaches, contractors for like, how the actual impacts on student learning, um, as part of the, the deal with the contract. That lends itself to a lot of measurement questions, like how do we actually measure student learning effectively? And so I'm really excited to dig into this concept of measuring today. Dr. Jana Lee: What on your mind? Absolutely. And, and what's on my mind? The [00:01:00] excitement and being able to share how we can actually collect some concrete data that speaks to the. Impact that our work is having, not just on teachers, but also on on students, just like you shared. I think that it's a very nuanced concept, um, but one that is really important to dig further into because it just showcases the, the work that we are doing and its effectiveness. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you for that. I, I, one of the things I wanna like just ask big picture before we get into like the specifics is I love Dr. Patina love's, uh, quote about freedom dreaming. And so she says, there are dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so with that in mind, like what is that big dream that you hold for education? Dr. Jana Lee: Wow. What a, what a very big question. I think my, my big dream is that. Teachers, 'cause I'm always thinking about what's happening.[00:02:00] Boots on the ground alongside students and teachers are the ones that are the most, you know, just have the most interaction naturally being that they're in the classroom, but that all students of all learning capabilities leave their K to 12 experience feeling more confident. And ready for their post-secondary lives. Uh, and that that can look a number of different ways, uh, and that it's not just a student's academic, um, capabilities that we're looking at, but also how we're rebuilding them socially and emotionally and mentally, where they're leaving, being ready to do what's next. For them that best fits, you know, their, their wants, their needs, their interests, and I think that that is something that can be achieved when we approach education [00:03:00] through as inclusive a lens as possible. And we make decisions on a regular daily basis that are inclusive for all students. Lindsay Lyons: Great. I, I think as we think about that, one of the things that. May come up for people as they're thinking about, for example, um, pedagogies, but also the measurement aspect of like, how do I know I'm doing well? How do I assess students, right? Like from all the lenses I think about maybe how we learn things in teacher school versus what is. Real and good and equitable and inclusive for students. And so are there any mindset shifts that you've noticed you've had to coach on or, uh, have seen kind of the aha moment come to a teacher or even yourself as you're kind of switching to like, this is, this is actually different from what I thought I would be doing or should be doing, but this is the way. Dr. Jana Lee: Sure. I mean, a lot of my work recently and my, my background is in special education. I was a, [00:04:00] uh, worked as a special education teacher in the South Bronx of New York for, um, almost 10 years. And so I had students of all, you know, shapes and sizes and, and all, um, sort of different circumstances and home backgrounds and, you know, I had to learn how to put my own beliefs of what I thought they were capable of. Uh, you know, including students with IEPs, students who had, you know, challenges in their behavior or just, you know, had great foundational gaps. I had to put that to the side to a degree and move more toward groupings and, and, um, shifts in my instruction that were reflective of what they were doing in the moment and, and learning how to collect that information to make. Flexible decisions and not allowing my preconceived beliefs about them drive the decisions that I was making. And so a lot of my work today, [00:05:00] and this might be, you know, a bit controversial, um, and I'm not saying that we should get rid of leveled groupings of any sort, but I am saying that a lot of my work recently. Has been around, how do we shift from, from grouping students and providing them with, um, scaffolds or instruction based on their levels or what, you know, grade level we think they're at functionally speaking and more so make decisions in the moment and use data in the moment that allows us to make grouping decisions. And I think, you know, a lot of the pushback at times that I get from that is. Well, I would have the same students in the group anyways. You know, that's not always, that's not necessarily true. Uh, I think when we build a culture of, I'm not. When we build a culture that moves away from, well, you typically struggle, so let me work with you and move more toward, I'm gonna look for X, Y, and Z, and then work for [00:06:00] you if that. If you're producing something that doesn't align with that, then we build a culture of safety and risk taking where students are actually destigmatized because it's not based on whether they have an IEP or whether you know their benchmark results. You know? Shows a certain, uh, certain gaps. Um, and I'm not saying that we don't use those benchmark results, but I'm, I am saying that oftentimes the, I find that decisions are made, you know, school-wide and in the classroom more so based on the overarching benchmark results as opposed to what we see students are really creating and doing, um, in the classroom. And so. You know, that's been a really big shift in thought, uh, because traditionally speaking, when we're working with students, um, I think we, we work with them based on, and this might be difficult to admit, but based [00:07:00] on what we believe and, and think that they are able to do. Um, and so that's, that comes to teachers and leaders being, uh, very, very explicitly thinking about. You know, how do I move away from that and move more toward a, a skill-based grouping, flexible approach. Lindsay Lyons: I love so much of what you're saying. I'm just, I'm taking notes here on like, the levels idea, right? The skill levels versus, and even within that I've been playing with. Um, so I've worked with a, I coach with a lot of teachers and have taught, um. A lot of multilingual learners. And so sometimes we'll say like, oh, these are level ones, or these are level twos specifically speaking about a test that actually assesses a variety of things linguistically. And so it's like, this might be like, instead, can we move to more language? Like this is a student who excels with verbal explanation and their verbal expression's actually better in a small group versus a large group or like, like how nuanced can we be? I think there's like one piece, [00:08:00] right? Yeah. And then there's also this idea of like. In the moment, that's really hard for a teacher. So there's a lot of practice that's required, I think, and, and maybe some modeling of like, how do you do that kind of responsiveness that you're talking about, right? Like, I noticed these things. So first I have to know what I need to notice, and then I need to notice it, and then I need to actually be able to kind of move all the pieces and do all the groups and and respond. Um, which is so cool. And I'm sure involves a lot of work, right? Dr. Jana Lee: It does. And you know, to go back to. To, to swing it back to what you mentioned earlier about looking at how our outcomes are impacting student achievement, we need a very systematic way of collecting that quantitative evidence, that evidence that speaks to numbers. And so if you as a teacher are on the ground looking at that. You know, as I call it, the check for understanding and using that as the moment to measure independent proficiency of a skill [00:09:00] that's a lot easier for you to collect, um, and track than perhaps, you know, constantly grouping students based on those levels where, you know, there's a range of things that you need to address in the level grouping. And it's quite difficult for teachers to know where do I begin? Right? Um, and I think. Along with that, you then, when you combine that benchmark work with, what am I seeing students are struggling or proficient in with skills in the classroom, those two pieces of, of, of data, those data points should speak to each other. So ideally we should know where our benchmarks are going to land. Prior to the benchmark, even existing because teachers are engaging with that information on a regular basis. And you know, I I, I think another big component of that is how are we layering in the work that teachers are or the, the, those data points that teachers are collecting in the [00:10:00] classroom, how are we layering that into what they're doing in. The other pieces of the school community, how are, you know, leadership providing feedback as it relates to, uh, teachers making those flexible decisions? How are we, how are teachers engaging with student work in their, you know, professional learning communities or grade team meetings? So it really. It, it, it's, it moves beyond. Ideally, it moves beyond just, uh, teachers making those decisions in the classroom and leadership being very strategic and allowing teachers to then engage with that. Information outside of the classroom and with each other to create streamlined instructional decisions. You know, before I forget, I think a really big component of this is that we see the greatest change when students are receiving consistency across classrooms. Uh, which is why the shift from, you know, why, why part of my work. And my belief is that we have to teach [00:11:00] skills and, and, you know, use content to drive the teaching of those skills and then use instructional activities to create engaging interaction with the content. And so when students are receiving skill-based instruction across the BO board. We're far more likely to see increase in student achievement because it's not just happening in isolation. It's not just content driven. It's not like, oh, I'm gonna go to social studies and learn just about social studies. And then when I go to math, I only, you know, I'm just learning math. It's about what does justify look like in social studies and what does it mean to justify in math? And so when we can allow teachers to on the ground, collect information on students as it relates to those skills, and then bring that information to their meetings, they can create. Consistent instructional, you know, strategies and they can collaborate around what's working and not working for specific students, um, that allows students just greater opportunity throughout their day to practice these skills and [00:12:00] continue to thrive. And that's really, you know, goes back to the idea of, uh, creating inclusive culture and allowing us to have greater opportunity to measure the impact that we're having on, on student, on student achievement. Lindsay Lyons: Whoa, there's so much. I wanna just like a stamp and ask more about, so Dr. Jana Lee: listen, I can go on and on. So at some point you can just say, Jonna, we've had enough. Like, can you mo moving on? Lindsay Lyons: I, I love this. So the idea of like. That it's actually easier to teach to skill-based groups because you're actually teaching less as opposed to more because it's such a big umbrella is I just wanna like stamp that for people who did, who missed that the first time. That's brilliant. And what a good mindset shift. Also, I'm thinking about kind of both the structures and then the data specifically to gather when we're thinking about instructional leaders. So instructional coaches or maybe, you know, in a small school setting, it might be like a building leader, like an assistant principal or someone. Dr. Jana Lee: Yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Um, so [00:13:00] like you were talking about professional learning communities, I imagine there's probably instructional coaching cycles that could happen. There's like all of these, Dr. Jana Lee: all of it Lindsay Lyons: places. And so are there like either structures that you recommend or like moves leaders can make to. Enhance or set up these structures as well as what data would you actually encourage folks to gather or even gather yourself as an instructional leader to then like look at, analyze, respond to in that professional learning space? Dr. Jana Lee: Yeah, so it all starts with your goals. Whether they're district goals, building goals, uh, whatever the goals are, everybody needs to know about them. And everybody needs to know what is my role in bringing this goal to life? And I would make the assumption that. Somewhere in those goals include, you know, how collectively, uh, we are increasing student achievement, right? Um, and so. From a leadership coaching perspective, it is really important that your role as a coach is [00:14:00] defined in terms of when I am supporting teachers or when I am looking at the building of these meetings that I might have, or my faculty meetings, or the way in which I'm communicating weekly to my staff. How am I bringing in? Uh, these goals, number one. And then number two, how am I making it clear about, as a leader, my role in supporting boots on the ground for teachers? So teachers, there's no secrets here. There's a lot of transparency, right? So there, that's the first thing. There's gotta be real clarity around, as a coach, what am I doing to support these goals? Right. And then how does that come to life instructionally so that I can support teachers very clearly. So what goes along with that in terms of a system, I'm a huge fan of taking the guesswork out of support, create, co-create a list of look fors or success criteria that speaks to. [00:15:00] The pedagogy that you are looking for in the classroom. So often support comes through, you know, oh, let me give you, just for a lack of a better word, like rose or a thorn or a grower, you know, grow or glow. That feedback is, is kind of, can go all over the place. Um, whereas we see the greatest gains when the feedback is very centered on an instructional move or, or something specific. As it relates to the look fors that you've created, and those look fors should align directly to the goals of the district. That or the school community. That is a very, um, that's a structural component that will make. That will take a lot of the guesswork also out of, are we meeting our goals? Because everybody has a role to play. And a lot of times if I were to ask a teacher, what are your building goals or what are your district goals to, you know, know no fault of their own, lot of them [00:16:00] struggle and being able to communicate that. Um, and so everybody needs to be working toward. Toward what the, you know, overarching student achievement goals are for the community and everybody has a role to play. And then as teachers, it's important that teachers are very clear on, you know, what are the moves that they need to be making in order to bring those goals to life. And in order to fulfill the look fors and the success criteria that they have co-develop. As it relates to, you know, the, the bigger picture. Um, and teachers are then very clear on what they are working toward, and they know that the support that comes from leadership or coaching is going to align directly toward that. So, you know, you, you start small. And, uh, in your PLCs or in your leadership meetings, you're looking at the, the data that you are collecting with those look fors and success criteria to say one of two things. Yeah. We're moving in the right direction in terms of where we wanna go with achievement. [00:17:00] Right. Uh, or to say, Hey, we're really moving, we're really growing in these areas. But it looks like when it comes to, you know. Student engagement in these in small groups. I'm just, you know, or, um, the, uh, number of minutes that teachers are, are en engaged in direct instruction. These are little pockets that we really wanna hone in on. So it allows you to see themes and patterns to modify the support and to leverage and highlight the great gains that you are seeing. Um, and you know, it also allows. It takes the guesswork out. It kind of, well, two things, takes the guesswork for leadership. Out of what support am I providing? The language is there, there's consistency in messaging. Everybody knows what they're doing and what they're working toward. And for teachers, it kind of allows them to lessen their, um, their bring their walls down a little bit because it's less of a guessing game. Like, oh, what are they in here to see? Like, am I doing the right thing? Right? Am I doing what they [00:18:00] want? Uh, there are also teachers are clear on, on the moves that they should be making, and all of it collectively allows us to collect information that is number driven. Um, it allows for, uh, teachers to feel like their voices are being heard in terms of. You know what they want this to look like when look, fors and success criteria are co-created, and it allows support to be very driven and focused. And then your student achievement should back that great workup. So you're not just relying on student achievement numbers to tell you the success of, you know, the, the, the, the pedagogy. You're allowing, you know, both of those pieces of information to speak to the impact that you're having. Holistically. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, that ma, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm thinking about the, uh, student achievement specifically that student achievement data. So you, you could go in right, as a, a le instructional leader, even as a teacher [00:19:00] who's kind of observing different pieces and observe certain things. Um, and then there's also, like, I know I've heard you talk about the student artifacts themselves, right? Being really powerful. So beyond. A lot of times traditionally we think a lot of times of like a test or something, but like, you know, how did that student do on that exit ticket? Right? Or like, what was the quote shared in the, the verbal discussion and we're assessing discourse. Are there particular, um, either like lesser collected types of data or like data that actually is really illuminating that one might not initially think, uh, to collect that you would highlight? Dr. Jana Lee: Absolutely. You know, I think in secondary, um. Anything that I, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to secondary first, and then I'm gonna go to elementary because I think elementary can be a little bit more difficult, particularly when it comes to reading and writing. I'll talk about that in a moment. In secondary, anything that shows a student's thought process in written form is going to allow teachers to. Assess, not whether they got it right or [00:20:00] wrong, but where the error in thought process occurred. Right. That then I'm having a lot of conversations. My team and I are having a lot of conversations with teachers around. When you're then remediating or targeting, or intervening, it's not just about repeating what the student already heard in the previous lesson. You have to change the approach and identify where the gap was. So that you better understand what that remediation needs to look like. We actually have, um, a small, uh, a small group playbook that maybe I can, I can send to you the link, Lindsay, and, and you can throw it up somewhere or you know, people can access it. Um, but that, that small group playbook allowing teachers to say, this is where I saw the error, and then this is how I would respond. So you might have students that didn't get it correct. 'cause they just didn't follow the directions. Right. That's gonna look how you, how [00:21:00] you target your feedback for that student is gonna look a little different than the student who, you know, made a gap or, or, um, has processing challenges and got it wrong because the way in which they're, they're sequencing, their thoughts are, are just mi mixed up, right? So we've gotta be able to hone in on that a little bit. Uh, with more certainty. And so looking at actual artifacts, anything that shows that thought process is going to allow us to, to do that. Now, I moved to elementary, which is more difficult because, you know, you're getting into the nuances of students who are learning how to read or reading how, you know, reading to learn. You get into students who might not have that, um, that writing maturation quite, quite yet, especially in your. I would even say pre-K, kindergarten, first grade, where students are just learning how to craft or draw or label, right? This is where, um, teachers have to be able to collect [00:22:00] something that's, that is, um, either behavioral, right? Um, something that is oral, uh, that oral language, something that. Uh, demonstrates production, but it might not necessarily be in written form. So they might be bringing anecdotes that speak to what it is that they saw from students or heard, whether it's, you know, something tactile or, um, you know, so students are engaging in a turn and talk. Right? So that information might be more anecdotal, but it should still be thick enough, I guess I would say, heavy enough where. Teachers can dig in to see where did the thought process or where is the, the, where are we not, uh, hitting the mark? Why is the student not me meeting that skill? Especially in reading, you know, with, with phonics and whatnot being something that obviously a lot of, you know, school communities are moving [00:23:00] more toward how are we, you know, digging or annotating our curriculum to also show where students are maybe going left or not, you know, not. Not where they're missing the mark. So you might see more of the annotation of curriculum or anecdotes be brought to the table, but nonetheless, the same rules apply in terms of being able to, to speak to student thought and, and where the, you know, where the, the error occurred Lindsay Lyons: so much there. One of the things I'm thinking about is like the. When we have to do responsive coaching or remediation, right? We have to have that diagnosis of where the error occurs. I think sometimes we just jump right over that we don't think about, like we just need to know that there's not an understanding and then, but then how do you possibly correct the understanding, right, if we're not sure where the error occurs. So I just love that you illuminated that for us, like. We need to just understand students' thinking. And again, that to your point, it could look very different how we assess [00:24:00] that. I even had, yesterday I was in a discourse session at Boston Public Schools and the instructional coach there, um, or program lead there for social studies was like, oh, what I used to do in my fourth grade class. And it was like mind blowing. She's like, we use these little manipulatives. And like every time they spoke, it would be like you build on the same tower if you build on each other's ideas, you make a separate tower if you're new ideas. And like each person has a different color, so you can see where the pattern of conversation goes. I'm like. I never would've thought of that. Elementary teachers are brilliant, but like, yeah, think about the creative ways that we can do that, that might not be in writing, but is still highly valuable. Like, that's such a good idea. Dr. Jana Lee: And that's where the collaboration of like bringing that work to a, a professional learning community or meeting is so important because it allows. For teachers to engage in those conversations and learn from one another and see what's working versus not with particular students or even just with instruction in general. Um, and so if you know that you have students that are constantly, you know, making a, a, a mistake when it [00:25:00] requires thinking that's more than like one or two minutes long, um, that's something that teachers can say we're gonna focus on. How to support the student or the group of these, group of students with that in our classes, right? In our, along our lessons, and this is the strategy that we're gonna use. That's why I'm such a. I, I, I, I will scream this from the rooftops. We have to be able to provide teachers with strategies that are program content and grade agnostic and let the content drive the rigor. So whether I'm in a math class, or social studies, or reading or writing, we want these strategies to be able to be something that can be seen across the board. And so that's the consistency that is so important for students to receive. Throughout their day as opposed to just in isolation, as I mentioned earlier, um, in isolation with, you know, one or two teachers. Lindsay Lyons: Such a powerful point. Such a powerful point. I, [00:26:00] I am recognizing that we are close to the end of our time together. I'd love to ask just a few more questions. Maybe we can, of course, some lightning round of some sort. Dr. Jana Lee: Yes. I gotcha. Lindsay Lyons: Okay. So biggest challenge that teachers face in like the either looking at data or like measuring data or like any of the things we've talked about, is there something that comes up as like, this is a huge challenge and here's how you. Could go about it. Dr. Jana Lee: Letting students, giving students 60 to 90 seconds to do something completely independent without their support is really difficult for teachers to do. The number one thing that I would say to, to. To support that with teachers. Um, mark, somewhere in your lesson, the 60 to 90 seconds that you're just gonna let students go. And for the student that asks to go to the bathroom, let them, for the student that wasn't here yesterday and doesn't know what to do, let them sit there for the student that's bugging their neighbor. Let [00:27:00] them, anybody who doesn't produce. Lets you know that they're a group of, they're the group that you need to pull at some point to address whatever it is that they didn't get right or that they didn't do. Um, that's the most difficult letting students sit there and work on their own for 60 to 90 seconds, even if they're struggling. Lindsay Lyons: I'm gonna use that as a parent, just like shoes on. Okay. We're taking five minutes. Got it. Like, I'm gonna at least let you struggle for 90 seconds. Yes. Dr. Jana Lee: Yes. Yes. We have to see, we have to see what they can do on their own before we start to dig in and, and, and support because it's the only way that we can collect who needs what. Lindsay Lyons: Love it. Okay. Biggest thing you would encourage listeners to do when they end the episode? Something that's like easily start able or implementable right away. Yeah. Dr. Jana Lee: Um, where in your lesson are you gonna give them 60, 90 to seconds, 60 to 90 seconds to work on their own as it relates to the skill that you are teaching. Lindsay Lyons: Great. This is for fun. So it could be related to work [00:28:00] or not at all. Okay. What is something that you have been learning about lately? Dr. Jana Lee: Um, so bringing. So my dissertation was on, um, uh, adolescent reading comprehension. So we have students who are in secondary schools that are, or secondary grade levels that do not know how to read. And so a lot of what I've been thinking about has been how do I translate my findings with that and share with as many secondary teachers as possible strategies that they can use in their classrooms to support those learners who might be reading at a, you know. Elementary or, or, you know, uh, reading grade levels behind Lindsay Lyons: that resonates deeply as a high school special education teacher who had students reading at the first grade level. So thank you for doing that important work. Um, and then people who want to like myself now follow all of that work that you're doing. Where can folks connect with you In the online space? Or, or, Dr. Jana Lee: [00:29:00] yes. So you can find me at jonna dot c Lee on Instagram. Uh, you can head to my website, www.jonnaleeconsulting.com. Uh, I've got resources there that'll lead you to all of my other platforms. Um, yeah, we've got some really exciting things that are, uh, I'm excited to be able to share that with the world, and that's where you can find me. Absolutely. I'm so excited to have, uh, been able to be here with you today and engage in this really important and fun conversation, so thank you. |
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AuthorLindsay Lyons is an educational justice coach who helps schools and districts co-create feminist, antiracist civics-based curricula, discussion opportunities, and equitable policies that challenge, affirm, and inspire all students. A former NYC public school teacher, she holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Lindsay believes all students deserve literacy, criticality, and leadership skills. Archives
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