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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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3/18/2024 155. The #1 Structure for Sustainable Family Partnerships with Ari Gerzon-KesslerRead Now
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode, Ari shares tons of insights on building Family-Educator Together (FET) teams. These teams aim to deepen the connections between schools and families, creating a dynamic and inclusive space where voices from historically marginalized backgrounds can share insights and drive transformative change. Ari shares practical ideas, specific examples from actual FET teams, and gives us a link to several of the ready-to-use resources in his book.
Ari Gerzon-Kessler leads the Family Partnerships department for the Boulder Valley School District (Colorado) and is an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school-family partnerships. He has been an educator since 2000, having served as a principal and bilingual teacher. Ari is the author of the new book, On The Same Team: Bringing Educators and Underrepresented Families Together. The Big Dream To embrace an innovative spirit that honors the whole child, incorporates families more into the educational process, and reduces the overwhelm for educators. He envisions more connected school communities that are inclusive, equitable, and where trust is a key lever for change. Ari references Dr. Bettina Love’s words, "We have to actually trust the people we say we want to empower to make structural changes, not just tinker at the edges of injustice." Mindset Shift Required Move from a one-sided family involvement approach to one that truly values parent voices as experts on their children and partners in change. As Ari notes, "We shift the traditional paradigm of family engagement to a more collaborative and empowering model," where trust and psychological safety are paramount. Action Steps While many of the practices in Ari’s book are useful in many family partnership scenarios, he specifically shares ideas for creating and leveraging an FET team. Once you understand what FET teams are and the goals behind them (i.e., strengthen relationships, build trust, and co-create meaningful change) and you as the leader are ready to invest in one… Step 1: Build Your Team There are 5 educators (including the principal) and 5 family members. More are welcome, but the ratio should be even. Educators should not outnumber family members. Step 2: Prepare Ari suggests taking an hour to plan for each 90-minute FET meeting. Logistics to tackle include funding, organizing the meal, securing interpretation (typically meetings are held in the most common home language of families), determining dates/times/location of meetings, and securing child care. Step 3: Facilitate Your Meeting(s) Following a meal and team-building activity, invite families to share their experiences and ideas. There are many specific prompts in the book. It could be: What do you want us to know? After initial trust building, the team will decide on an action project and work towards that goal. Challenges? A significant challenge is the initial trust-building with families who have never experienced such a collaborative space in schools. Creating a comfortable atmosphere where families feel safe to share honest feedback is crucial. Additionally, educators must navigate how to bring family-driven changes back to the staff in a way that encourages co-creation and buy-in from all parties involved. One Step to Get Started For educators looking to make immediate improvements in family engagement, Ari suggests starting with simple yet impactful actions like making positive phone calls to parents to share good news about their children or asking families: How do you prefer we communicate with you? These examples are both energizing and practical, laying the groundwork for deeper connections and future collaborative efforts. Stay Connected You can connect or follow Ari easily on LinkedIn at or reach him at [email protected]. To help you implement FET teams in your school(s), Ari is sharing several reproducibles from his book with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 155 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:
Today on the podcast, we're talking about what I would call like the handbook for Family Partnership. We are talking with Ari Giron Kessler who leads the family Partnerships department for the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado and is an educational consultant working with schools and districts committed to forging stronger school family partnerships. He has been an educator since 2000. Having served as a principal and bilingual teacher. Ari is the author of the new book on the same team, bringing educators and underrepresented families together. This is amazing. Let's get to it. Educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons and here on the time for teacher podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling, and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings if you're a principal, assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nering out about co-creator curriculum of students. 00:01:08 I made this show for you. Here we go. Ari, thank you for coming on to the time for a teacher podcast. Welcome. Thanks. It's great to be here, Lindsay. Thanks for having me. I am thrilled to talk about your book today. Like I cannot wait. So I will just say you have a new book and I'm sure there are other things you want to share about what listeners should know as we enter the conversation today. Sometimes people like sharing about themselves. Sometimes it's like this is the thing I've been working on and thinking about lately, feel free to share any, any sort of launching point you would like for today's conversation. Great. Yeah, I'm just eager to talk about how schools and districts can deepen their partnerships with families, um and really create a true space to listen to families and have that kind of be a spark for innovation and deeper relationships. Um So that's on my mind. Um I, you know, I, my first job was at a bookstore. That's the point in my mind when I was 11. So I've always had this deep love of books and, and, um you know, I started teaching a little more than 20 years ago and wrote some articles, but this dream of a book has been, you know, full of ups and downs. 00:02:18 And I just am so thrilled to be at this point where I can share um an offering that I think can be truly meaningful both for teachers at an individual level, but also for a school community because I know there's many books I've loved in education and they inform my thinking, but I don't often get to then go and create something. And so I'm excited about the, the on the same team book because it really gives people a chance to create a new structure for transformative change. Um So, yeah, it's just, it's great to be able to, to share more about it. I'm so excited to dig in and I, and I think my first question is, is kind of big not necessarily directly tied to the book, but I think you, you may have even just answered it a little bit. I like to talk about freedom dreaming and Doctor Patino love talks about it as the dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, which I just love that quote. And so with that, what is your big dream for education in general? Yeah, I love the question. I mean, I my hope is that we can embrace them innovative spirit that really honors the whole child incorporates families more um and reduces the overwhelm for educators while finding ways to regularly kind of renew the fire and passion we have um for the work and that we can create more connected school communities that are both more inclusive and equitable and also where trust um is this key lever for change? 00:03:46 And I know you're, you're a big fan of Bettina, lot of the quote that I often share from her that really speaks to the heart of these families and educator together teams is she says for equity work to work, it must be handed to the community. We have to actually trust the people, we say we want to power to make structural changes, not just tinker at the edges of injustice. Um And that those words and, and, and just some of the kind of experts in the field of family partnerships really inspired me to think about how do we create an ongoing vehicle uh for, for change? Yeah. Some of the people, the research that you ground the work in are just like, yeah, just phenomenal leaders and in the field and it, it is just so the way you set it up like the intro chapter itself, I'm like, did I highlight and underline every word? Like it is just so good and like dense with all of that, like meaty stuff, like quotes like that research like that. That's like, yes, this is the work and it does such a great job of I think making an argument for the, the do you call it fet or fet teams. 00:04:56 OK. So the teams, I think that is just so beautiful that you're like eager to get into chapter one and like just give me the how right? Because you've set it up so beautifully. I especially when you're talking, I was thinking about how you named like this is valuable for many stakeholders. It's not just for families, it's not just for students, it's also valuable for educators. And I love the three column table that you have in there where it's like here's all the benefits for each of these stakeholder groups. It is not just one that benefits. So I love that. Thanks. Yeah, I feel like it's really important. I know time is this major barrier as well as some other ones. I mean, I know um teachers feel passionate often about connecting with families. But what was interesting when I dived into the research, Lindsay to discover that the area that teachers feel least confident is actually engaging with families. And that was really revealing. And so so um to me, one of the powers of this work is especially in that it's bringing together underrepresented, often, often immigrant families with mostly white teachers, school leaders, this space for learning across cultural and linguistic differences. 00:06:02 Um And this space where we shift the traditional paradigm of, you know, typically family engagement is one way and we say, oh, they came to conferences or they didn't or they came to back to school night. And, and I have a lot of regrets for my principal years because even PT A meetings and other things like that, I mostly gave updates and talked a lot and then said, do you have any questions at the end? Whereas what, you know, I've learned through the Fed teams over hundreds if not thousands of meetings is that when we truly center parent voices and treat them as the experts on their Children, as well as experts on. How can we as educators get better at collaborating with them? Um Some pretty powerful shifts happen. And as you were saying, um in some ways, the fed teams are just as meaningful for the educators uh because of what comes out of the relationships they build and just all the insights they get um from listening to family, share their perspectives, ideas. Um So it's, it's really been this unique structure that in the fifth year of doing it finally refined it enough to realize, OK, these are the ingredients, a great gathering. 00:07:05 Here's how we create psychological safety and trust across um all these differences we're bringing together in one room this one night a month. So yeah, it's been a really dynamic experience that I felt almost obligated to capture in writing so that it could be a benefit in other school communities. Yes. Oh my gosh. And there's like 400 directions I want to take it because there's so much good stuff here. I mean, just when you're talking about the research, my my mind went to some of the things I wrote down of just things that I literally wrote like, wow, in the margins because I just didn't know that like, for example, 73% of teachers believed families were not interested in supporting their students education or their child's education. It was just like, wow, that's a very uncomfortably high number. Um And that families actually have higher trust in teachers and educators than educators have in families. It was just like, whoa, like just really shifting that narrative. A lot of times where we and I think you use that word blame at at sometimes is that we have this narrative sometimes of like the blame, the Externalizing like, oh if only the families, you know, cared more, right? 00:08:08 And there's so much underneath that, that we dance around or we yeah, externalize the responsibility for we don't directly confront. And then it's like this is what you're talking about with the Fed teams is like this is how we confront it. Like we literally confront it. But we also do a lot of the foundation work to create the space where we can confront it versus just like naming things without doing all of that groundwork. So I just think there's so much right? And like in what you bring to the table of like here's what's happening and now and now here, here's where we go next. Yeah. Well, and I know some of your other podcasts, you talk about a culture of partnership and I think that's at the heart of this work is shifting from the old family involvement approach. Pretty one sided. The other day, I was reading another book in the field and it talked about you know, we're the host as educators and they're the guests. Uh And there's kind of this critique then of how are they, how are they showing up? And I'll say, I mean, I wanna acknowledge as educators were utterly overwhelmed by such an array of responsibilities um that I believe we should have like two of us in every classroom to make it sustainable. 00:09:17 And, and that said, like it does feel like it is about a mindset shift that when we actually, you know, move from guessing what families want to listen to them and then moving to act like co created action. It's really incredibly rewarding. And I remember one of the other pieces of research was when educators build stronger connections with families, they stay in the profession longer. Um But a lot of those pieces often aren't scared. So families, I know when I was a teacher principal at times, it was like, oh, it'd be nice to do that. Um But I don't have time for it. Whereas actually now knowing what I know my perspective is more like if you carve out efficiently but meaningfully some time to engage in some of these best practices that we learn from families. Um It's, it makes it, you know, a huge difference. And I think about you were talking about how we, we can be quick to judge. I think about one minor shift which for every teacher in August I would recommend is ask families how would you like to be communicated with? 00:10:20 Because one theme we're hearing consistently in set team gatherings is we're overwhelmed by emails, we're not reading them, they're not coming in the language we prefer, please text us. And, and that's been a pretty simple change at a handful of schools that's just been incredibly powerful um as well as just this shift in, let's forge a two way relationship. I mean, I'm thinking about this example of a, a, you know, a teacher who told me a couple of years ago, they were upset when they reached out to a family that they easily could have judged as not caring because they didn't return her call. And when she reached out twice because the, the, the young student was absent. Well, she came to find, after doing a little judgment, the family had traveled across from Colorado to Texas to go to a family member's funeral. And that was the reason she didn't get a call back. So just this piece of like, can we, can we come from a place of uh of trust and curiosity and, and a kind of a spirit of inquiry um and, and make the investment at that time because it just pays off. 00:11:24 Yeah. What a great example. I, I love all the examples in your book too and I love that they are often like, here's what we learned when this happened. Like we learned a huge takeaway from this and then you have like really great lists of like, pure is kind of like all the things we learned in a bullet point list duties. This will be great. Um And I, and I think one of the, one of the things that I wanna do first because there's so much in here and I'm just thinking about the person listening, who's like, talk more about these f teams, like first before we get there. I'd love to just have you give an overview. I know you talk in the book about like who's on the team? What are the goals of the team and that those are really important. Do you mind just like starting there for us? But like, what is this? What does it look like? Absolutely. Yeah. So that teams gather once a month um beginning with dinner. It's usually the aim is at least 500 represented family members and five educators including the school leader at some of our schools. It's more like 30 parents and nine staff members in the principal. Um In some of those gatherings, many of them are held in Spanish, which is of course, incredibly with 20% of our students um in, in our school district being Latino, it's been really valuable for families to have a meeting held in their language just that in itself has shifted a lot. 00:12:39 Um Some other teams and schools hold gatherings in English and we have like three or four or five different interpreters in the room. Um So we're still really letting everyone engage in the language they feel comfortable in. And over the years, we've really refined the structure for the ideal meeting. Um A lot of it's informed by what I learned around social, emotional learning in, in, in the classroom and as a principal. Um and there's time for families to engage in learning because I think one of the big things we've discovered is there's so many gaps we've unintentionally created as schools, especially for families more on the margins, not just the achievement and opportunity gaps, but communication gap, trust gap, access gap. I mean, there's seven or eight of them that, that we kind of explore on the teams. And so we create time for breaking bread together. Um some learning about what's happening at school um making it easier for families to navigate our school system so they can access more opportunities. But then the heart of the Fed meeting is listening to their perspectives and ideas and experiences. 00:13:43 So usually half an hour of the 90 minutes is in small groups or back in whole group really uh posing a couple questions that will give us tremendous insight on how do we create a more collaborative equitable school. Um And so it's really, really structured in a way that um we're fostering relationship building throughout the hour and a half together. Um So that's kind of the essence of it. It's usually led by a few teacher leaders, parent leaders, um who, you know, put a lot of planning. I think just like great teaching. We've learned that about an hour of mapping out an agenda and getting all the logistics ready has really led to success across many school communities um regardless of who's leading it. Just that, that, that fosters a gathering that's truly grounded in, in purpose and, and uh meaning for everybody. Hi everyone. It's Lindsay just popping in here quickly to tell you about today's episode. Freebie. This is from Ari. So we talk a ton about how his book has a ton of reproducible and lists of things, appendices, all the things that you can just grab and use immediately. 00:14:50 He is sharing several of those free reproducible from his book and you can grab those at the blog post for this episode at Lindsay, Beth lions.com/blog/one 55. Back to the episode. Yeah. It, it's fascinating to look at the 90 minute breakdown too of like how you structure the agenda and how intentional all the pieces are. I mean, even to the point of I looked at one of your sample agendas where it was literally like who's taking on the meals, who's taking on this, the note taking task, who's like it was. So it was so thought out like clearly from the result of like doing this so many times and figuring out what works with, doesn't it? I mean, one of the things and you started with like, there are meals that, which is beautiful. You also have child care for people to be able to, like, bring their kids if that's a barrier. Now it is no longer. And I'm just thinking now as a parent of a toddler, like how lovely it would be to like, just be like, ok, park the kid, get the dinner. All right. Like we're gonna talk now I'm here and it's funny, I'm also a parent of a, a toddler and um and I joked with a couple of f leaders just last week before our break. 00:15:56 I I said, oh, you know, fat could almost, we could almost like portray it as Date Night for, for some families because they're, they're getting a free delicious dinner. Child care is there and they're getting to be together. And also, of course, build community which I think in the wake of the pandemic and the isolation and loneliness. So many of us in this country feel that's yet another benefit of uh of creative space. But yeah, it uh we joked about it actually being date night on top of many other uh other benefits and outcomes. Well, I think that's a really interesting mindset chef, right? Like we often talk about like how to reduce barriers, but like it's also not even just reducing the barrier. It is like a draw, right? Like here is the free food, here is the setup where like not only do you get to go in and talk about, you know, your experiences and like your kids education and everything, but like, you're truly, you're finding friends, you're finding community, you are fed. You don't have to worry about your toddler for 90 minutes. Like that just sounds beautiful. 00:16:59 So cool that you create like this. And you're reminding me of like two, I think powerful examples. One is on the family front that one of the six main purpose of F is to build a network between families to kind of harness their collective agency and build connections. And I was at an elementary school a few weeks back and a mom had just arrived three weeks earlier from crossing the border with a couple of her youngest kids to reunite with her husband. And everything about the school was overwhelming her first time in a US school. And we were in a small group and a, a mom who'd been at that school for four years. Also a Spanish speaking parent um said, basically, hey, call me if you have any questions, well, that reduces the load on the educators and builds this, this wonderful, you know, sense of comadres networking uh and support. Um And then on the, on the, you know, parent educator front, I'm remembering and I think I, I share this father's story in the book where he says, you know, and it hit me hard. 00:18:02 He said as a Latino parent knowing the principal didn't speak Spanish, I often felt like I kind of needed to hide or be invisible when I came in. And now after, you know, a year and a half of seeing the principal every single time we gather once a month in the set meetings, having her listen to us, hearing her try to, you know, speak Spanish as best she can. Um She says, now she says, now I feel comfortable to just go up and have a conversation with her and that opens the door for all kinds of mutual learning support connections. Um So just creating that space and that's where I feel so passionate about the fe teams because many events in our schools today are once or twice a year. And there's rarely this ongoing structure that's focused on the more humanizing part of education, not, not on fundraising, not on other pieces, but really on fostering relationships and mutual learning. Oh, there's so many pieces I wanna, I don't wanna touch on here. So one I know you mentioned this, that Spanish is the language that typically that in your experience, that has been the, the language of the gathering. 00:19:09 And then there is English interpretation. And I love how you, you even get really granular to be like, and we've learned, you know, like to wear headsets so that it's synchronous so that we're, you know, being efficient in time and also being able to like watch and get accuracy for the interpreters to be able to like, just do this. This is how we do it just so many things where a leader might be like, hesitant to do something. And it's like, well, it's valuable and we've worked out like all of the potential challenges and here is like, what we've learned that's just kind of handed to you. I, I just think that's super cool all the way down to like where the budget comes from. So like, you know, it could be at the school level but your district has taken on all interpretation. So like that's there. And then like, from like, you know, here's, here's how much we factor in for like the cost of meals. And like, I think you said $2000 for the whole year has been what you found to be doable logistically. I mean, just some of the things that I think listening to this, you know, a leader might say great. These all are, these are all great like stories and like research based, like we should do it, but it feels so daunting, but you really break down in the book, like all sorts of tips, like ideas literally down to the dollar amounts of like what things cost. 00:20:16 You have a whole appendix of like, here you want to do team building, here's like 30 team building activities and like all sorts of things from like a planning checklist for people who are who are doing this work. So I just want to say like really cool stuff in the book. If, if this sounds overwhelming to any leader, just get the book and you'll be totally fine. And I also, I appreciate you bringing up leadership because I do think often as a former principal, I know there's this feeling or expectation of the principal has to hold a lot of that partnering with families role. Um And I think what principles at the, you know, 24 schools that currently have fet teams have said is not only do I now connect with all of my communities more fully, but I'm distributing the leadership and, and really, as many principals say, I love just getting to show up. And my only real job is just to sit back and listen. Um And yet they also are pivotal in helping us once the the team leaders learn in the meetings from families and from their colleagues, what changes are truly needed. 00:21:21 The principal jump in, you know, for 15 minutes a year, often of a quick check in. Oh, let's let's bring this back and launch this with the staff. Um So it really is, as you're saying, um an easy load on the principal yet it drives not only a lot of great learning for them and, and their colleagues um but they're distributing leadership and cultivating parent leadership that can make such a huge difference in that school community. Yes, yes to the cultivating parent leadership. Also, I love that point. And like, I think you, you may have said this, but I just wanna emphasize for listeners that the the principal, you, you paint a really clear picture that the principal needs to be present at each of the meetings. You, I think you shared a case study where like that wasn't the case and the team just kind of fell apart, right? Yeah, I'm, I'm grateful you mentioned that. And also I'm just thinking back what you said about like how granular and specific I've been in the book. I mean, part of what I should say is that we held hundreds of fe meetings over the first four years at more than 10 schools. And I learned not only from the successes but the the meetings that fell short or the couple teams early on that struggled. 00:22:26 And so it was really in year five, realizing a host of ingredients that were key for an effective team, which I really laid out in the book. Um And one of those pieces really was the school leaders consistent presence because that shows to the teachers who, you know, they're coming at night after a full day, usually in the classroom at school. So it shows, ok, my principal truly cares about this effort enough to be there themselves. Um Not to mention when we want to enact change if they haven't sat there in that space and been moved by the stories and insights of families, they're less likely to feel invested in helping us core that change. So, yeah, that was one of the, the biggest and most profound learnings in the first few years because a couple teams really didn't flourish because the school leader um wasn't deeply invested in it. And to your point about change, I think that's, that's one of the big learnings for me in terms of a fat team versus PT A or something like this. 00:23:28 Like, actually, I saw so many parallels to the arguments that I make around student leadership. Like often I'll be like, oh student council, it's just like planning prom and planning the senior class trip. It's so frustrating, like you're just doing these events, but you're not brought into academic conversations about like, how should be great, what should our policy of A P enrollment be like real things that matter? And that's kind of what it to me sounded like between like PT A is often very like event planning and this is truly you're building relationships and it's culminating in or, or kind of like paired with like action planning, like we are creating change and that's the goal, right? Yeah. Well, and I could share a couple of brief examples because 11 of the things that was really important path of these seven years with fet teams was in year four or five, I realized, wow, we're really building this dynamic community families are loving the space educators are appreciating it, but we're not consistently at every school creating systemic change. We're not able to say in May. 00:24:29 Wow, the staff is doing this differently as a result of fe so these last three years, I've been really intentional and persistent. And luckily, I've built solid relationships with our fe leaders where I actually now in January or February are prompting them with. OK, what questions are you gonna ask at this next meeting so that you can devise concrete action plans for January to March so that the changes are in place. And you know that at one school, for instance, parents told us, hey, conferences aren't very meaningful for us with the teacher. Um And by listening, then it was two really subtle easy changes. One was we added 10 more minutes. So it was half an hour because all the families were using an interpreter and it wasn't equitable for them to have essentially half the time other families had. And then I did a 20 minute PD for staff on how do we create a more relationship centered and culturally uh sustaining approach to um to conferences? And those two pieces alone led families to come back in March and share having a radically different experience. 00:25:33 They also said there's a huge language gap and we literally put in place this wonderful app talking points and that prompted thousands of texts to go back and forth the following year, um, in, in place of that void of communication, relationship building previously. So sometimes it's, it's pretty easy changes because we know teachers can't take on too many more big things. We've got to make them, you know, easy meaningful. But, um, but efficient efforts. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, there's, there's so much that I could, like, talk to you for days about this book. Uh, but one of the things I'm wondering is if a leader is listening and they're like, again, yes, I'm interested and, and I will get the book, but I have like these fears of like it not working or, or something like what's a challenge that you could speak to? That's like, you know what? Yeah, we've seen this as a common challenge to the work and here's like how we've helped people address it. Yeah. Yeah. Great question. And you mentioned the team builders in the appendix and that, that's one of the resources I'm most proud of because I've for a couple decades, been a trainer in SCL and, and those are some of my favorite team builders for students and also for adults. 00:26:43 And, and it's reminding me of one of the challenges. So one of our high schools launching a team and this was before we learned a powerful lesson which I, I should have known already from some of my training that we didn't gather in circles and, and so families came in and teachers had already arrived, they were sitting in a row basically facing the parents and the challenge was, wow, everything is kind of awkward and tense here. There's language barrier here as well. And we did a 2.5 minute team builder um that brought us into, you know, a, a whole group and led to immediate laughter and immediately broke the ice. And, and so that, that is a challenge that for families who've not had this space ever at a school, initially, they might not trust that we're truly there to do most of the listening. They might need to know. Ok, can I truly be honest? I mean, we've had to really be thoughtful about building the space month to month that first year. 00:27:46 Um So I do feel like the book lays out all of kind of the map to do that effectively because it is uh it is difficult to train a lot of us as educators haven't been trained in how to do this deeper work with families across so many differences. So, um that, that's a challenge as well as um I think bringing change ideas back to back to staff and really having a wonderful birth with them that they can go back to the team. Um because it's not just family saying, you know, you gotta make A B and C changes and it's just happening and they truly are co created. Hm Thank you so much for sharing that. I think I'm hopeful that, that like, kind of dispels any sort of like, I'm not sure what this is gonna go like. And I, and I think that that is so comforting to be like you've done this so many times, I think you had like 400 meetings or something. I mean, just like so many times and that you have seen the challenges you've worked through them and therefore, like, you know, consult the book and, and you'll, you'll even see some of those case study challenges like laid out and like, here's, here's what we did. 00:28:50 So I love that, that is a resource for listeners. I'm thinking for the, for the listener listening who maybe feel kind of overwhelmed with like this is a big project and I'm not quite sure where to start what is like step one like they end the podcast and they're like, I just want one tiny step to get started. What would you recommend that be? Yeah. Um I think creating spaces really listen more, take off that kind of teacher expert hat. Um And that could be, you know, a welcome phone call to start a new school year. It can be engaging in, you know, a relationship centered home, visit with a couple of your, your students families. And I think, you know, diving into the book where even if you don't spark the creation of a team right away at your school, I've really infused the book with a ton of everyday practices and ideas um that are really, really straightforward, easy to do. Um, you know, positive phone calls is, is an example. 00:29:53 One of my favorites were literally carving out 10 minutes once a week to call three families and share some sort of good news academically or about character of a student, something kind they did to for another student. Um So I would say there will be morsels in the book right away that um I think are both energizing and very practical. Excellent. Thank you so much. And I think to, to close, I have two questions that I like to ask people. The first one is just for fun. It does not have to relate to your job at all. Although it can, what is something that you personally have been learning about lately? Hm. Um Yeah, I love that question. Um One of the books I'm reading right now um is about Zen and I've been studying Zen now for eight years. My um my wife is uh a monk, uh you know, a, a secular monk. Um And um so I'm reading a wonderful book by this author Charlotte Joko Beck um about Zen. So that's, that's an area of learning. 00:30:57 And I've realized this, this month, having this time off, this last week when I have more time down the road, I wanna learn how to be a better cook, learn how to be a better dancer. Um Those are like 22 areas that I've, I felt recently inspired around deeper. Oh, my gosh, I love those. Thank you for sharing those. I love when people share things that are not related to their job, it just rounds them out as like a full human, which we all are beyond our job. But also, I mean, as, as a, as a father of a 15 month old, like I, you know, grew up volunteering as a middle schooler at a head start. I have a lot of background with like 3 to 5 year olds and then I, I taught and was a principal in elementary schools for 15 years. But I, I'm definitely not an expert on a 15 month old. So been reading a lot about parenting and been excited to see like some of the parallels of what we, you know, what we learn as educators. But also it's been consistently humbling too. Tell me about it. Oh my gosh. Mine is 22 months and it is like, I learn every day. 00:32:02 I know nothing. Exactly. Yeah. Awesome. I, I am so glad that we had this conversation. This has been so wonderful. I think a lot of people are going to be like, let me reach out in addition to grabbing the book. Can they reach out to you at a certain location or are you on social media? Like, where can they maybe follow what you're doing? Yeah. Um The best way would be to connect with me or follow me on linkedin. That's where I'm regularly posting new articles. I'm writing quick practical ideas. Um So that's the best space. And folks are also welcome to just email me directly at A E giron at gmail.com and can also find more about the book at solution tree.com/a. E Amazing Ari Thank you so much for joining the podcast. This is such a pleasure, Lindsay. Thanks for your energy, enthusiasm and just great conversation. Really appreciate it. If you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazz as I am about my coaching program for increasing student led discussions in your school, Shane, Sapir and Jamila Dugan, talk about a pedagogy of student voice in their book Street Data. 00:33:09 They say students should be talking for 75% of class time. Do students in your school talk for 75% of each class period? I would love for you to walk into any classroom in your community and see this in action. If you're smiling to yourself as you listen right now, grab 20 minutes on my calendar to brainstorm. How I can help you make this big dream a reality. I'll help you build a comprehensive plan from full day trainings and discussion protocols like circle and Socratic seminar to follow up classroom visits where I can plan witness and debrief discussion based lessons with your teachers. Sign up for a nerdy no strings attached to brainstorm call at Lindsay, Beth lions.com/contact. Until next time, leaders think big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. Better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better.com/podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
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In this podcast episode, Crystal Frommert shares the importance of partnering with families in students' education.Crystal emphasizes the power of a simple phone call to build bridges and promote understanding. She also explores the complexities of navigating effective communication in these partnerships and discusses restorative practices for relationship-building with families.
Crystal Frommert, M.Ed, has over 20 years’ experience as an teacher, instructional coach, school board member, adjunct college instructor, technology coordinator, and school administrator. She is the author of "When Calling Parents Isn't Your Calling, a teacher's guide to communicating with parents." She currently teaches middle school math in Houston, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and dog. The Big Dream Crystal dreams of an educational system where teachers partner with parents and families. Alignment to the 4 Stages: Mindset, Pedagogy, Assessment, and Content She focuses on maintaining a mindset of empathy and understanding towards the families she works with. In terms of pedagogy and content, she stresses the importance of communication and respect for the diversity of families. Phone calls are specifically helpful to communicate with families about any of this because you can both listen to each other’s tone. Mindset Shifts Required We can work to overcome any apprehensions about communicating with families. It’s incredibly beneficial to take a moment to challenge any assumptions we have about family backgrounds. Action Steps Make the first contact positive and personalized. Show respect for family titles. (Look at the title on file and/or ask the child if they’re old enough. If you can’t find it beforehand, ask the caretaker once you meet them.) Utilize phone calls more often for better connection and understanding. Alternatively, you may prefer or need to use voice recordings or video.) Use sentence starters. (Crystal has several in her book!) Challenges? Not asking for help when emotions are high. Loop in an administrator if this happens. Set boundaries so families aren’t texting you at 11:00 PM. One Step to Get Started Administrators, invite your teachers to reflect on something dumb you did when you were a teenager (or whatever age group of students you have.) Teachers, be more mindful about when the communication should be an email and when it should be a phone call. Also, send a happy note home when you can! Stay Connected You can find this week’s guest on her website, Twitter, and LinkedIn. To help you implement these practices in your school, Crystal is offering Time for Teachership listeners a complimentary author Q&A for schools who are doing a book study of her book! (Reach out at any of the above links.) And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 142 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:
TRANSCRIPT Today on the podcast, we have Crystal from art. She has a master's in education over 20 years experience as an educator and beyond teaching. She has served as an instructional coach, school board member, adjunct college instructor, technology coordinator, and school administrator. She writes for Edutopia independent school management, NAISS independent school magazine and is the author of When Calling Parents? Isn't your calling a teacher's guide to communicating with parents. We'll talk about that book a lot in the episode. Crystal has presented at local national and international conferences on topics ranging from social and emotional learning to technology integration. She currently teaches middle school math in Houston where she lives with her husband, daughter and dog. Let's get to the episode. I'm educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons. And here on the time for teacher podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings if you're a principal assistant superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nering out about co-creator curriculum of students. 00:01:15 I made this show for you. Here we go, Crystal. From, welcome to the Time for Teachers podcast. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here, Lindsay. I'm so glad that you're here. I, we were just talking before we hit record. I have heard you on other podcasts and I'm so excited that you're on this one and I just would love to know if there's anything on your mind or anything that you want listeners to know about you prior to kind of digging into the conversation today. Sure. Well, um I heard about you through podcasts as well. And when I heard you speaking, I was like, everything Lindsay says is already in my brain and we agree on so much already. And um your interview that you gave, it was the first time I've ever heard the word teacher. And I have heard, you know, I work in an independent school and I've heard of headship. Um but teacher, I love it. I love the whole idea around this is, this is a profession, this is what we do. Um We're passionate about this, but there's also learning involved in this and growing. And so I just love the entire term. 00:02:17 So thank you so much for putting it out there. Yes, absolutely. I totally created it for my brain and then I actually realized it was in the academic literature, like the year before I thought of it. And so I was like, oh, this is like an actual defined term. It was very cool. That's great. It's a good word. I'm gonna use it more. I love it because it's like the intersection of like teachers are leaders. Right. But then also that leaders can't be effective leaders if they're not in the classrooms and connected to what's happening. Instruction. I just love the back and forth. It's right. Right. And it gives me, it, it gives me a feeling of it's not just a job that you go to, right. It's something that you invest your, you're learning into your growth into. Um It's, it's a longevity. It's, it's, there's so much more to it than I work at the school as a teacher. Right? There's, it's a, it's a bigger piece than that. That is so well said, oh, I love it. So I am excited to hear more about kind of what, how that plays out in the work that you do. And specifically, I love this idea of freedom dreaming as a concept. Doctor Bettina love talks about it beautifully when she says their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. 00:03:25 And so I'm curious to know what is that big dream for you? How does that show up in your work? And what are you striving for? Thank you for asking that. Um I am a, I have a unique position and that I'm a teacher and I'm also an administrator. Um I'm the deputy head of secondary at my school. It is an international school here in Houston. And um, but I have always wanted 1 ft in the classroom always. Um because that's what brings me joy, is, is being an administrator brings me joy. Yes, but not as much as it does when I'm working with my middle schoolers on math and um over the years, um as a teacher, this is, I think I'm starting my 23rd year or something like that. Um I've noticed that I've grown so much in the area of partnering with families and parents and caregivers. Um I have a book out called when calling Parents isn't your calling? But I want to be clear that um that's the title, but I don't mean just parents, right. I know that our kids come from very diverse types of families and families come in all shapes and sizes. So not just parents but caregivers, guardians, aunts, uncles, grandparents. 00:04:31 So, um and you know, when I was a beginning teacher, I was so afraid, frankly, just terrified to talk to parents. Um I thought that they would think I was too young or I didn't know what I was doing or anything. They said I would just go. Yes. Yes. Yes, I'll do it. And it took a lot of time, a lot of years and a lot of great mentors in my life to shape how I am today as a teacher and how I, I see partnering with families. Um again, I'm not perfect at it. I don't think I ever will be and I don't think anyone really is perfect at it because there's so many conversations you can have with families. But um back to your question about injustice and inequity and, you know, I think about every single child in my class um deserves that. I'm going to partner with his or her home family life in some way. Um And, and in the book, I talk about how families come from all ranges of di of, of, of engagement. 00:05:32 Um There's a range of engagement from, I want to volunteer every day in your classroom to, you will never get a reply from me ever. Right. So there's, there's a whole range and no matter what the situation is, it's my job to communicate and be um like a, like the boxing analogy to be in their corner for their kid and I can't be in their corner without them and we need to have their back. Um And that takes me reaching out whether that's phone calls, conferences. Email is great. I know some teachers are texting. I'm, I'm too old for that. I don't, I haven't gotten into the texting, texting parents. Um But, you know, I need to listen to some of my younger colleagues who are more into that. So that, that I hope that answers the question that, that's the, the passion I have for building equity, um, around parent partnerships. I love that. And I love specifically the word of partnership because I think so much we think of communication and that often translates to like a one way communication and partnership to me truly feels like more of the goal. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, because we're, we're a team, we're working together. 00:06:35 Absolutely. And I love the boxing analogy as well. I think that's really good. So as you think about kind of where all of the pieces that make up that kind of process of getting to the goal fits, I often think about a lot of different things that make up education, right. So I think about like the mindset of, of teachers and, and educators more broadly, I think of like how we interact with, with students and then ultimately communicate that with families. I think of how we assess and how we communicate about that and partner around that, how we partner around the content. So a lot of times I think families are experts, right? In, in some of the content that we're teaching and we don't invite that in. And then other times, um you know, families are learning alongside of, of students and even alongside teachers sometimes. And so I think there's so much rich potential to have this conversation around. What is it looked like to partner with families and caretakers because often when I do my work. That's the biggest question. It's like I want to do all this justice centered curriculum. I want to have these discussions that are student led and talking about current events. 00:07:41 And I'm curious to know like, how these different pieces might play a role in what that partnership could look like. Yeah. So, like I said, I work at an international school so I work with students who come from many different countries. I think we have 65 different countries represented at our school. Um And I never ever assume anybody's situation. I, you know, I used to, I'm, I'm getting better at it. I don't assume anymore um about someone's background based off, you know, if their parents were born in a different country or, you know, any of that anymore, because I have worked with such a diverse group of kiddos. Um And I do say kiddos, I know it's a little old fashioned but I do say that um they are my kids. So um in working with families, I, when I, one of the things too is um I work with a lot of caregivers or parents who English is not their first language. And um I've noticed that when I would get emails sometimes from families, um especially when I'm, I, I speak a little bit of Spanish and when I type in Spanish, I'm sure it comes across very harsh and when or very, you know, rudimentary and because I'm not that great at it but when someone's writing me and I get a tone that does not seem friendly or, um, soft, um, I used to go, oh, gosh, like they're mad at me. 00:08:58 And, um, then I would all these assumptions just start pouring into my head, um, which is not going to lead you toward that partner partnership. You're not gonna be able to, to team up with that family if you already think, oh, they're mad at me for whatever reason. Um And so I think that, that it has been a gift for me because I now I just pick up the phone. If I sense any sense of tone in their email, I pick up the phone and sometimes I can hear that they have an accent that's different than mine. And maybe it's because they're typing in a language that's not their, their heritage language. That could be, I'm not gonna assume. But when you hear their voice, no matter what language is their first language or what heritage there, their accent comes from when you hear their voice and they hear my voice there is a connection, even if it's over the phone, there is a connection there. Um And so I truly believe in picking up the phone more often than you want to. I know that making phone calls is not all that fun, but it really can be five minutes and that listening to the tone and being able to answer questions back and forth rather than emailing back and forth. 00:10:04 Really is a, just a tiny step towards a huge, um, growth into, into partnering with for that child. Um, and then after you've established that you can start to, you know, email and, and things if you have a short question or things like that. But I truly believe that first conversation. Let's just, let's get rid of all assumptions. Um, Let's get, let's try to look past any of our implicit biases that we have and let's have that phone conversation. I love a lot of these because I, I also my last four years as a teacher was actually in an international school as well. So same kind of um dynamics and like that tone of like trying on either side to communicate in the language that is not, not our heritage language is really tricky to like, that's like one of the final things I think once you're like learning a language that you kind of are able to do, right? I love that like graciousness and kind of inquiry mindedness to say like, I want to know more and I'm gonna connect with the tone verbally. I, I just love that even if language is, you know, um is a barrier, you need a translator. 00:11:10 I think just being able to hear the tone of someone's voice, even if you don't understand the words is so incredible. And I never thought about that until you just said that. So, thank you. Yeah, it speaks volumes. It really does. Absolutely. Yeah. And so I'm wondering, are there other, you know, mindset shifts or challenges that people I know you were saying, like not wanting to pick up the phone in the first place, but are there other things that sometimes you um find yourself coaching around or helping teachers kind of overcome if there's like an initial kind of hesitation to, to picking up that phone or communicating or partnering? Um My, my best advice that I have for teachers, um whether you've been teaching for one year or 50 years is you're very, and I learned this from someone else. I can't take credit for this. I worked for a really great principal who was very strong in his opinion on this, that your very first communication with a family needs to be positive. Um And I think, and I try to do that every single year. Um uh The first week of school is crazy chaotic madness. But I take the time and sometimes I have to work, you know, a little bit extra hours, but that's ok. 00:12:16 I, I take the time to reach out to all of my middle schoolers, uh parents or families um to welcome them to my class and I don't do a general uh boilerplate email. Um I, I individually write it to each family now, of course, some of it's copy pasted because it's very short and very welcoming and, but I will say something unique about their child in every email. Um Also part of that task is I'm very careful about honorifics. We have a, a student information system si s where we can look up. Are you Mr and Mr, are you doctor and Mrs? You know, that's very important. Um And maybe I'm maybe I lean toward the formal side. Um but I think that's important in the beginning until a family tells me, please call me James. I'm going to call them Doctor Smith or whatever it is. Um because I just, I lean toward that professionality of, of the the formality of that. Um So there's a lot of tasks that I'm doing in that very first communication. One, I'm sending a positive message first thing um within the first few days of school. 00:13:21 Um Secondly, I'm learning about a little bit about their family. Um Do the parents have the same last name? Do they have one parent, things like that? Um And using this information system to get that information. And then I'm also telling that family, I see your child um in two days, I can see a lot about a child. I mean, I know they're only in my class for 45 minutes a day because I teach middle school. But I can say Lindsay is really artistic. She is such a creative mind. I'm, I'm looking forward to working with her in algebra. Um, and how would I know that about Lindsay? Well, I see her doodling or I see her, you know, making her notes. Very beautiful, something like that. Or, you know, Keith is hilarious. I love his jokes and his great sense of humor that he brings to the class. Really. It's one sentence and, um, it really does go so far with that first step of building that partnership with, with the families. Hey, it's Lindsay, just popping in here to tell you what today's episode. Freebie is. Crystal is generously offering a complimentary author, Q and A with a school who does a book study with her book. When calling parents, isn't your calling? 00:14:25 If you're interested, grab her contact information at our blog post, Lindsay, Beth lions.com/blog/one 42. Be sure to let her know that we sent you back to the episode. So much of what you're saying is resonating with me because I actually have a 17 month old at the time of this recording. And so I, when I was in the classroom, it was always as a teacher without being a parent as well. And now being a parent, I just see so much of the daycare interaction. Like we got a journal home the other day because it's his first month in the toddler class. And it was like a little thing, like, as you know, you know, he always points to things and asks this and like wants someone to name it for him. And it's like that one sentence, like everything else was pretty generic and not super generic. But, you know, like enough that I was like, I understand this is probably a copy paste from some sort of list. But I was like that one thing was like, you see him like you, you get it and it makes me think also of this first week of school. I think a lot of times we feel as teachers in, in, you know, trying to cover curriculum or something that we have to just cram in curriculum versus truly using that week to get to know students. 00:15:34 And I'm almost envisioning to like to be able to merge those things. Like I, I'm envisioning like even doing like a a video for so you can get the tone with a student when you're like one on one conferencing or something. And like the student and you were like talking to the family member together on your laptop or something. I mean, there's so many possibilities of how you do it even within the school day in a way that's like this authentic kind of we're building relationship and you can see me interact with your kid kind of thing. I mean, just the potential for what you're saying is astronomical. It's so cool and it doesn't have to be email. Um I've, I've worked with some teachers who will use voice recordings um literally a 32nd, you know, on their phone, they record, you know, hey, Miss Smith, I, I love working with Joey. I'm so glad he's in my class. Um, and that might even be better for some people to send something like that. Um, maybe, maybe I'll try that one year but I or a video or something like that. So it doesn't have to be just an email and email is very quick and very fast. Um, but that's another and I think we got a lot of experience with using multimedia during the pandemic. 00:16:39 Um I, one of the things that I would do is is grab a ipad and the students had to submit all of their work electronically, right? While we were remote learning and I would grade their quizzes or tests or whatever it was with my Apple pencil. Um But I would hit record so they could hear me talking as I'm grading, I would say, oh right here, make sure you watch for a negative. Oh, it looks like you forgot to divide by four here or whatever it was. I don't do that anymore, but I got so much more used to using multimedia during that whole time that now I feel less intimidated by voice recording or email or by video. Yeah. Such such a good point. I, I think that that ability to recognize what we did when we were in like adaptation mode, there's so much that we could still carry over or carry over maybe in like a slightly different way. That would be really cool. Um Also what you just have reminded me of the honorifics. I love that you're really careful about that because I think so many times we especially so my background is in gender women studies. And so like thinking about gender as well for, I mean, even like people with students, but especially with, I think family members as well, like we don't always want to assume gender. 00:17:50 And then so sometimes to not assume gender, we don't use the honorific. And so then we use first names and then it's impersonal or then it's like overly personal. So it's like this really complex thing. And so I love the idea of just using student information system one to kind of research ahead of time. But then also just to be able to ask, you know, if you, if someone's not in the system or, you know, another family member tags along to a conference or something like to just always be careful with those honorifics. I just love that you've named that and I wanna make sure listeners heard it because I think it's brilliant. Yeah. And there's some research that I heard from N pr um reported by N pr that um people of color are less likely to be called by their honorifics, um which we need to be careful about, you know, we need to be careful that we're, we're being equitable in our communication. Um And I use them because I, I lean towards the formal and they, that may not be your school culture. Every school culture is different. Um But just being careful with what matches the school culture. Um I know that uh one of my colleagues will say, you know, good afternoon Garcia family, something like that. 00:18:51 Um Or if there's a hyphenated name, you know, um the Garcia Iverson family, something like that. And that is another way that if you don't know the information and you don't want to make assumptions, then you're addressing just the family by using their last name or their two last names. So there are so many variations of that. That's just a personal preference of mine and it fits the culture of our school. But then again, you gotta really read, read the room and read what your school does. Yeah, I, I think that's such an important point too is like reading the room and the culture of the school. But as you said too, there is like a racial component, there's a, a national or immigration component, there's like a language component, there's all sorts of things that would affect uh individual person's preference to be called an honorific or not. And it's so important to, yeah, read all of that context and then when in doubt, ask, right, like just default to this and you can ask the child if they're old enough, you know, you ask an older child. Um Can you tell me how, how does your, how does your caregiver or your grown up? I like to use the word grown up. How does your grown up like to be addressed? 00:19:53 Um And some will say my mom is very insistent on Doctor Smith, you know, like, ok, got it. Um So if you're not sure you can always follow up with the kid and it, and you learn a little bit more about the kids family when you're asking those questions too. Oh, brilliant. Awesome. So you've shared so many specific actions already. I'm wondering if there are additional things that you have either coached teachers on, written about in your book, done yourself found effective in terms of like specific things that we can do as educators to partner with families. Um I can tell you one, I was an instructional coach and um I can tell you this if you are asking a colleague to read your email because you don't wanna hit send because you think it sounds too harsh. That's your clue right there. It's too harsh. If you automatically want to ask somebody for advice, you know, you already know. Um I had a, a great colleague of mine. He was piping mad um because the parent was sending him some not nice emails too, which first of all that should stop. Let's just get on the phone or let's meet face to face with an administrator if you feel more comfortable with that. 00:21:00 Um And he sent me an email and said before I hit send, could you tell me what you think? I'm like, well, first of all, if you're asking me, you already know, and two, he had like all caps somewhere, some places in his email. I'm like, whoa, ok. No. Um, you're letting your emotions get in the way of a professional email here. Um And so I recommended that he make a phone call or make an appointment with the family. He was not open to that um Because he was so angry, which I completely get his emotions were there and they're very real. Um But I said it's time to loop in an administrator. Um So I would say that if you are feeling threatened in any way, you are feeling like this is a toxic situation that um emailing back and forth is not gonna be productive which most of the time it's not. Um get an administrator. Um I really hope that you work at a school that you have that support um And explain to your administrator. Um I have done this and this and this. I've done XYZ. I really need you to be in the room with me when I'm talking with this family. 00:22:03 Um And I really hope that they, they would support you in that. Um And also, you know, teachers who I would say this is generally advice for teachers who are relatively new to the field that you have the right to leave a situation that is getting aggressive or threatening. Um If it's not being productive, you can say very professionally, you know, um, if you're going to continue to talk to me in that way or if you're going to continue to raise your voice, I'm going to leave the room and that's very professional, but you're also respecting your boundaries. Boundaries are extremely important. Um because partnering with parents doesn't mean that you take verbal abuse. It doesn't mean that you take texts at 11 pm. I've actually gotten texts at 1 a.m. before. Um And I don't respond because I have boundaries and um hopefully the families will respect the fact that I didn't reply as a a clue as to that's not OK. Um And you know, I know some, some teachers give out their cell phones but also have boundaries around that um as well. So that's my advice for, for all teachers actually. 00:23:07 Yeah, that's a really good advice. And I, I imagine like that, that just right, there is another challenge, right? That, that, that we need to overcome is like being able to set those boundaries adhere to those boundaries, right? Like even if you're up at 1 a.m. replying indicates that this is an OK thing to continue, right? So I, I know we've kind of discussed several challenges. Is there any other challenge or what would you say? Might be maybe the biggest challenge in getting to that place of partnership with families. Yeah. Um, you know, in, in the book I offer, um, Senate starters because sometimes when we're calling, um, and, and, you know, I'm, I'm one of those people too. I don't necessarily love phone calls. Right. I, I prefer to text because it's faster and it's simpler and, you know, the phone calls are important and I do sometimes still after this many years of teaching, get a little bit nervous when I have to call when something's not great news. And sometimes that's why we're calling and, and we're not gonna necessarily call. Um you know, you should though, you should call when it's good news, but we're most likely calling when it's not great news. 00:24:11 Um But I offer sent starters um and they are ways to start the conversation to get the conversation flowing to have that back and forth with the parents. Um One of one of them that I can offer right now is sometimes when I was an administrator, not everything was really clear as to what actually happened between two students. So, like, let's say there's a disagreement at lunch. Um No one really witnessed it. And um there's a lot of ambiguity and I think every administrator listening to this and even teacher listening to this has experienced ambiguity in student situations. So I will call and say uh you know, you know, hello, Doctor Smith I wanted to ask you if Amelia told you about what happened at lunch yesterday. Did she share with you what happened? And then you stop talking because I think it's really important as the teacher or administrator sometimes just shut up and listen. Um I know it sounds really direct but just be quiet and maybe, maybe the parent will say, yeah, Amelia came home and told me that her friend poured milk into her pinto beans or you know, yes, this has actually happened to me. 00:25:18 That's um I'm like, really, can you tell me more about that? And I get that, that phrase of, tell me more about that from uh Michael Bungay Stanier. He writes a book called the Coaching Habit. I highly recommend the coaching habit book. It's short, it's sweet. It's great for every profession, not just for teachers, everybody, but tell me more about that. Tell me more. And when you do that with a kid, when you do that with a colleague, you do that with structural coaching, you do that with a parent, then it opens up that communication. So I highly recommend the phrase. Tell me more about that. And then I can say, hm, you know, you've given me a lot of good information. I'm gonna make some other phone calls about what happened with the milk and the pinto beans. And um I will get back to you. I'll follow up with you because you're not committing yourself to anything, right? Um So I would say just keeping that, like you said earlier in the episode of that curiosity mindset of, you know, I really don't know what went on. And even if you do know what went on, you know, that this kid hit another kid, something like that, ask the kid, tell me what happened, tell me what's going on. 00:26:23 Um, ask the parent, you know, is something going on at home? Anything, anything you want to share to help us partner together? Um And it's just keeping that tone. Um and the center starters help if you're nervous with getting, getting going with those. I love the sentence starters. I think those will be really helpful because sometimes it's just the blank email template or the blank just mind as you pick up the phone and you're, I don't know where this is gonna go. Please let voicemail pick up, please let me pick up. Yes. And, and it's interesting, some of the things you're saying too, I think about restorative practices and restorative conferences. Like we would often think about using them with students. But I think there's also this idea when I was trained in restorative conversations. It was you also invite the student to bring an advocate whether that's a peer or an adult. And it, it almost just feels like not even like maybe pre previewing that conversation or preliminarily just reaching out, but it almost feels like the same kind of vibe of like we are engaging with families as an advocate of their child knowing they're going to be an advocate for their child, of course, and we have that sense of curiosity that's going to kind of have almost like an asynchronous restorative conversation with different groups of people. 00:27:34 I think it's really cool. I, I love that whole idea of bringing an advocate in and, and restorative consequences and all of that. Um And it's so important that we convey that message that we are on your child's side. Yes, your child has consequences because we are on their side, right? And that the the parents most likely 90% of the time will be on board with that. Um I can tell you an example. I was talking to a, a dad, his daughter cheated on a test and um she is not the 1st 7th grader I've ever known in my life to cheat, you know, news splash and the dad was, it was his oldest child and he was just worried beyond belief about. Is, is this a red flag? Should we be worried about her? Is she a bad kid? I mean, all these things that the a parent rightly so will go through the emotions. And part of my job as an administrator is to say through my experience, no, this is not a red flag. She did something that she knew it wasn't right. She's going to have consequences. We're going to help her learn from this. But please don't worry as a parent. Right. Um, and that is our job, like we're gonna work together and we're gonna get her through this and, you know, seventh graders do odd things sometimes and it's, it's normal, developmentally normal. 00:28:44 So I love the reassurance in that. I just think as, you know, as a parent, that's exactly how I would want someone to respond to something that my child did. Right. And so I think having previously taught without that parent hat on, I, I think sometimes that's hard to get to. But if you could just kind of train your mind to be like, if I were a parent, if I'm not, you know, like, what would you want or even just you personally doing something we've all messed up, right? And I mess up regularly in front of students. So it's like, you know, how do we want people to treat us and give us the benefit of the doubt? Um That's, oh, beautiful. So I think we've talked about a ton of different things that people can do. I'm wondering especially if there's either someone new to either teaching or maybe new to an administrator role, like helping to facilitate those conversations and partnerships with families. What is the starting point? Like, what would you encourage listeners to do once they end the episode as like kind of a first go at this and building that foundation? Well, I I have two answers to that. Uh One I worked with the administrator who he led a PD. 00:29:45 This was years ago, he led a PD session where he had us write down on a piece of paper, something that we did that was really dumb in seventh grade or eighth grade. And of course he was not going to collect these, these were all confidential. But man, I had a list of things that I had done and it really reset all of it, whether we're parents or not, it reset our mind shift of like, yeah, we are gonna do some really dumb stuff and their prefrontal cortex is not developed. So of course, they're gonna make odd choices. Um And so it gives us an empathy, not that we're excusing the behavior or not giving consequences, but we have an empathy toward, you know, why when we ask 1/7 grader, I, I pick on seventh graders but it's mostly middle schoolers. But why did you throw that across the room? And they say, I don't know if they truly don't know, they truly don't. So it it that exercise, I would say administrators do that don't collect the data, let them throw it away, but just have them just reflect on something dumb you did when you were a teenager or a Tween. Um And then the, the other part for, for taking away for, for teachers is, you know, be more mindful about when is this an email? 00:30:54 And when is this a phone call and try your best to make a little bit more phone calls this school year, not every single one has to be because that's, that's overwhelming. But try your best to just lean into that a little bit more this school year. Um, and then also, um, do your best to try to send a happy note, um, to every single child in your, to the family of every single child in your classroom. Um I have, you know, have a roster and I make a little tick mark. Every time I send a happy note, it will make your day better. It makes the family stay better and encourages the child. Um because we tend to call or email about problems or superstar Children. But remember the Children who are in the middle of all of that, um who their families may not hear from you very much. So, really make an effort towards that. Those are my two pieces of advice. Oh, that's so good. And it, it makes me think about one thing that I used to use, not quite sentence starters but just kind of a vocabulary bank. Almost. Um positive psychologist came up with the values in action website. 00:31:55 And so there's like, I don't know, 27 character traits or values or whatever. And so I would just put those up in posters and then I would literally look and be like, OK, I have to think of something for the student like, oh definitely that character strength they demonstrated this week and this is how it like helps you fill in the gaps again. If you have that mind is blanking moment as you're trying to write. Um So yeah, having that list. Yes, I will. I can link it in the show notes that I was, I would, that would be so helpful. Yes. Awesome. So this next question is something that I have been asking and it has been a joy to hear people's answer. So totally for fun can be related to what you do for work but also can be very not related. So what is something that you have been learning about lately? Something I've been learning about lately is probably what a lot of educators are learning about is chat GP T and um I always say it wrong. That's why I say it slow. I have a teenage daughter who corrects me every time I say it wrong. Um So I, I'm trying to learn about that because it's a tool that we have to accept us here. Um And I use the word tool because it is very helpful. 00:32:59 Um I think we all have used it to help just craft some kind of writing of some kind but helping students see how it's a tool and not a replacement for your actual intellectual work. Um So I've been trying to read a lot about A I and what we can do to assess students true intellectual work rather than what they're generating with a prompt. I maybe I'm scratching the surface on what I know about it. Um But I'm trying to wrap my head around it the best I can. That's really cool. And I have been thinking about this too from the standpoint of assessment. It's just like, how do we assess? Right? Like maybe we change how we assess. So instead of responding to a prompt with an answer, I want you to create something like I want you to create a model of something, some concept or whatever, right? And so I think the possibilities are endless. And I think interestingly, I've never thought about this until our conversation. But maybe families also play a role in helping one to understand the context of like, what do I look for when I'm home and my student is completing their homework or doing this essay or whatever? But also like, what creative ways could we assess your child? 00:34:05 Because I think that would be really neat for them to weigh in on the skill set that child has or how they make sense of things at home, right? And then bring that into class. So, oh, that just makes me think of a million ideas. That would be a great like parent survey question. Yeah. To, to ask like, what do you want me to know about your child? And do you have ideas for how, how they can shine and, and show me what they know? Yeah. Oh, that's good. I hope listeners write that one down. That was good. And then finally, because so where can listeners learn more about you connect with you online? Get your book. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Um So I have a website. It's uh Crystal frommer.com and my last name is Fromme RT. I'm also on Twitter at Mrs Frommer. Uh It's Mrs underscore Frommer and then you can also find me on linkedin. Um Those are the, the pages that I'm most frequently on. Um So yeah, reach out and look at the book, look at some of my portfolio I've written for Edutopia, things like that. So I'd love to have a conversation. Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today. This is a fun episode. Super fun. Thank you. If you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazz as I am about my coaching program for increasing student led discussions in your school, Shane, Sapir and Jamila Dugan talk about a pedagogy of student voice in their book Street Data. 00:35:20 They say students should be talking for 75% of class time. Do students in your school talk for 75% of each class period? I would love for you to walk into any classroom in your community and see this in action. If you're smiling to yourself as you listen right now, grab 20 minutes on my calendar. It's a brainstorm how I can help you make this big dream a reality. I'll help you build a comprehensive plan from full day trainings and discussion protocols like circle and Socratic seminar to follow classroom visits where I can plan witness and debrief discussion based lessons with your teachers. Sign up for a nerdy no strings attached to brainstorm. Call at Lindsay, Beth clients.com/contact. Until next time, leaders think big act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast network. Better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there, explore more podcasts at teach better.com/podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode.
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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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