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1/12/2026 240. Leading Change in Turnaround/Low-Performing Schools: My Takeaways from RSLP (Hammond)Read Now
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In this episode, Lindsay is continuing the series on school transformation, school redesign, school leadership, and leading change. This episode focuses on the key takeaways from a recently published book by Zaretta Hammond: "Rebuilding Students' Learning Power: Teaching for Instructional Equity and Cognitive Justice."
The book is grounded by three pillars of liberatory education: personhood, information processing power, and agency, which together form the foundation for revolutionizing education. This discussion focuses on the key takeaways from Hammond’s book, with some simple action steps educators can apply to their context today. Why? From the Research Hammond’s work is essential in today’s educational landscape because we’ve had, as she describes, a “pedagogy of compliance” for too long. This model relies on orderliness, low tolerance for mistakes, and minimizing opportunities for kids to talk. This approach limits possibilities in building classrooms full of engaged, thriving students. Instead, Hammond imagines the “pedagogy of possibility”—where we can go when we center student voices in education. Hammond focuses on the instructional core and how we are engaging students in learning through curriculum and classroom discussion. Amplifying student voice is not just about having feedback on cafeteria lunch, but is much deeper, sitting at the heart of our instructional practices. What? Action Steps for Educators To begin working in the pedagogy of possibility instead of a pedagogy of compliance, educators can draw from Hammond’s insights, including: Step 1: Embrace the pillars of liberatory education by focusing on personhood, information processing power, and agency. This shift allows for a more humanized learning environment where students are empowered to advocate for themselves. Step 2: Prioritize the instructional core—what and how you are teaching and engaging students in the classroom. Part of this is teaching learn-to-learn skills and encouraging “personal cognitive algorithms,” or how a student uniquely learns and engages with learning. Learn-to-learn skills Hammond discusses include:
Step 3: Embrace one-on-one conferences with students as must-dos, not something you do if there’s time. This allows educators to coach students independently and give them opportunities to develop meta-strategic thinking (i.e., how they think about their learning). Step 4: Avoid over-scaffolding by providing just-in-time supports instead of just-in-case measures. Empower students to recognize and utilize learning tools independently, enhancing their cognitive abilities for effective school transformation. Final Tip: There’s so much more to share! Grab the book for lots of practical hands-on ideas and protocols to implement in your classroom. One example is the implementation of talk and wordplay—we learn through talking, through dialogue. So circles, socratic seminars, small group discussions all help expand our thinking. To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Leader Bundle with you for free. Also make sure to grab your copy of "Rebuilding Students' Learning Power: Teaching for Instructional Equity and Cognitive Justice” by Zaretta Hammond. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 240 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
00:03 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Welcome to episode 240 of the Time for Teachership podcast. Continuing the series of kind of school transformation, school redesign, school leadership and leading change. I want to talk to you about such an exciting book I mean a truly transformative book that was just released a few months ago and, as of the time of this recording was released like a month ago or less Rebuilding Students' Learning Power, teaching for Instructional Equity and Cognitive Justice, by Zaretta Hammond. My goodness, this is incredible. So we're going to talk about kind of the key ideas from this book. I'm hoping to have Zaretta Hammond on the podcast. That would be so incredibly exciting and as we work out scheduling, you know, stay tuned for that. But here are kind of the big things that I got from the book and takeaways that I want you to have in preparation for listening and diving deeper with Zaretta Hammond herself. Here we go. So I really love that. 00:59 She grounds the work and the book itself in three pillars of liberatory education right from the get-go. One is personhood, which includes like humanized learning environments, like the whole self. Right, we're full people. Two and this is the kind of crux of the book information processing power. So this includes these learn-to-learn skills that she dives into in the book Just to get to, like you know, deeper learning, critical literacy, creative thinking like the foundation of all of that stuff are those learn to learn skills and being able to process information and finally, of course, agency. So connected, of course, to the student voice. We're always talking about self-directed learning and being able to advocate for meaningful experiences for themselves. So I think this idea of personhood, information processing power and agency as this three pillar stool that we're excited about and getting into is just a wonderful, I think, orientation to the work. 01:52 Now she talks also in the introduction of this idea of we've had a pedagogy of compliance for far too long. This is very common and it's a pervasive mental model that a lot of us have. So a couple of those hallmarks include favors, orderliness over productive struggle, low tolerance for mistakes and minimizing opportunities for kids to talk. I mean we constantly as teachers. I mean I myself have a podcast, I talk a lot, we are constantly trying to share information, teach by talking, and we've talked about a lot on the podcast and even pulled goal percentages from street data the book Street Data for how often kids should actually be talking. So I love that kind of student led discussion can actually be a disruptor of this pedagogy of compliance, in this or en route to this pedagogy of possibility that she calls it, or en route to this pedagogy of possibility that she calls it. And so, in order to get to this pedagogy of possibility she talks about a lot of different things and we'll dive into a few here, but I do just love that she focuses on the instructional core. 02:54 Like, we have to focus on the instructional core. We can't just have, you know, kids talking about, like, what they liked, about the cafeteria lunch, right? We can't just, you know, do all of these things that might satisfy a desire for belonging in the external school space but don't actually change anything about how we teach kids how to learn right. And so, in service of that, she talks about teaching students learn to learn skills and critically encourages teachers to reduce the excessive scaffolding. I'm going to say more on that in a moment, because I think this is really important and really make sure that there are many opportunities that we are actually coaching kids how to think, like we're giving them opportunities to develop their metastrategic thinking and metacognition and we're actually having one-on-one instructional conversations, which she says are required. Like these one-on-one conferences, they're not like a nice to have, they're a need to have. And we're coaching students. 03:50 I love that she calls it like kind of a personal cognitive algorithm. We're helping kids learn to figure out how they're learning and what cognitive tools they have that align with you, know what works for them, what's available to them, and get to learn on their own so that it's not just our class they're benefiting in right, it's all classes, it's all both in and outside of school learning experiences. And, of course, to do this well, we have to have the structural support from policy and administrators and be able to make sure we're all on the same page in terms of what the goals are regarding instructional coaching and instructional leadership. Ideally, what we have when we create this space for leaders is we have, excuse me, for students and learners is that we have independent learners, not dependent learners. And she talks about how really you want those independent learners to be able to perform their own kind of gap analysis where they're saying you know, like, how do I get from where I am to where I want to be right, what needs to change so that I can, you know, improve my skill, improve my conceptual understanding? I do love that she talks about conceptual understanding a lot. 04:57 Having just read James Nottingham and the importance of conceptual understandings and grasping a concept, this was really, really powerful for me and if you haven't listened to the James Donningham episode, please go back and listen. That was a few months ago. Really phenomenal conversation about his recent book, teach Brilliantly. The third question she says, you know, is like how well am I grasping this concept? So again, conceptual knowledge. And then where are my leverage points for adjusting my learning tactics? So again that metastrategic thinking what tools do I have that will support me? And I don't want to give the whole book away. I mean this is kind of like her introduction introductory chapters, but I just love this orientation. 05:38 As we think from a school transformation lens and a school design lens, are we focused on the instructional core? Are we thinking about cognitively coaching kids and making sure that they have a sense of how they process information and what cognitive tools they have to be able to get better at it? Are we taking time and making sure that, amidst all of the typical school redesign? Or maybe we're not, if we're lucky doing all the typical school redesign things, or maybe we're not, if we're lucky doing all the typical school redesign. Things like grabbing a high quality instructional curriculum, handing over a pacing guide and saying follow this to a T right. I love that Zora Haman gets into hazing guides and it says you know like we need to not just follow them rigidly right when we are actually responsive. Putting the responsive and culturally responsive teaching right when we are actually responsive. Putting the responsive and culturally responsive teaching right, which we often forget or sidestep or choose not to do because of these external pressures like pacing guides. We don't enable kids to figure it out at you know all at different paces, in different ways, because they have different personal algorithms. So we maintain the high expectations, but we take the time to responsibly coach students and have one-on-one conversations, even if they're just three minutes long. So I really love this idea. 06:56 I think the big thing I'm latching onto is this idea of cognitive coaching or this cognitive apprenticeship. She calls it, you know teachers as what she calls cognitive mediators and supporting students metastrategic thinking so that they can be better information processors. Like I love this thesis. This is what we are here for. This is what real school transformation is about and, as we are trying to grow structures and processes for great schools, I think this should be at the core. So ideally you are able to work with Zaretta Hammond for multiple years and in an ongoing way, because that's what this truly requires. If you are not, please buy her book and dig deep into this. But I think there are so many spaces for us to think about as individual educators, as instructional coaches and leaders, as teams, like departments, or in our team meetings and our PLCs. How do we center this work? And I've talked a lot about PLCs in the past year and had some great experts on and folks who have published wonderful books with concrete strategies around looking at student work and aligning expectations and standards. 08:03 I also highly encourage people to utilize the time, as Zaretta Hammond suggests, to practice that one-on-one coaching with students, because it is so unfamiliar. This is something that we have not experienced in our teacher prep programs most likely, and is going to require a big mental shift, a huge, you know, increase of skills in terms of being responsive and thinking about all of this, maybe new information that's new to us as well as students around information processing and how cognitively our brains work to, you know, take in new information and connect it to what we already know and make it stick right. So we'll just share a couple things from her book and I'll do a quick version because I think I want to give you a taste and I want you to actually dig into the whole book because it is. It was one of those books where I was folding down every other page and underlining like every other line. It was just like I've realized, like I've read it basically twice now, because you need to kind of go back in and use it as a living text and you learn something new each time. It's just that dense and it all the pieces are really necessary to go together to be able to actually move forward. 09:19 And she talks about that right For true change. You don't want to just like run right in with this stuff. You want to think about your approach. You want to reflect deeply yourself before you're implementing anything. So here we go. Here are some learn to learn skills that she talks about. And she prefaces this with like kind of what is information processing? I just want to dig into these learn to learn skills. 09:40 So she's like right, the first thing we do is we size it up and break it down. So does this seem hard? How do I need to organize myself In investigating history we talk about as part of the investigating sources routine. That first kind of step is like what kind of source is this right? What am I attuning to? Is there an author, right? What's the bias? So that kind of thing right. How do I organize myself, get ready, are there strategies that I'm already thinking I can use? Then we scan the hard drive. Have I seen something similar to this before? Have I seen this thing before? What's the opposite of the thing I'm looking at? So we're trying to access that prior knowledge. 10:21 If you will, my favorite part of this and I think the places where she offers the most support and I think could be the most transformative we could really lean into here, particularly based on some of the feedback we've gotten around investigating history is chew and remix. So this is the third step. So questions a learner might ask themselves here how is this connected to what I already know? Is anything confusing? How could I make sense of it? Which of the four cognitive routines can I use? She elaborates on this. But basically it's, like you know, distinguishing, like how are different things similar or different systems right? Whole to part, part to whole? What are the kind of interrelationships of this concept Relationships, action, reaction and perspectives right, these are kind of therelationships of this concept relationships, action, reaction and perspectives right, these are kind of the four cognitive routines distinctions, systems, relationships, perspectives. 11:15 But what I really want to lean into here is that one of the biggest pieces of feedback we've gotten from the grade three and four pilot in the state of Massachusetts for our investigating history curriculum that was just piloted in the school year 24-25 is our kids don't have enough background knowledge about this content to be able to engage the way they need to. And I think an expansive view and you've heard me say this a lot, so sorry, but an expansive view of background knowledge in the sense of, like, what experiences have we had? What metaphors and I love that she uses this as a tool what metaphors can we link to? How is this similar to something I have literally experienced in my life, or something that maybe is not a scholarly source quote unquote but is something that I am aware of? I know about this concept in this other space. 12:04 Like, how can I link to that so that I can engage in this step three of chew and remix? Like I am thinking about this thing, I'm connecting it, I'm remixing it in my brain, I'm making it my own. And then I can go on to step four and five, which are skillful practice, where I'm kind of like you know, practicing, applying. I'm kind of like you know, practicing applying, I'm making some small changes and stretching myself, monitoring my progress, you know that stuff. And then five, making it sticky. Making it sticky, so I am using the skill, I'm teaching someone else or telling someone else about it, maybe engaging in some retrieval practice. But that chew and remix, like how do I link it from, like the new thing coming in to what I already know? 12:41 I think is gold and such an opportunity, given all of the kind of frustration or kind of not knowing what to do with the fact that teachers are reporting that their students don't have quote the background knowledge for some of this historical content. So I mean, one of the things that I want to kind of name is that she talks about collectivist cultures and these five principles she lays out of collectivist cultures and then she links what she calls cultural learning tools or these cognitive tools in these four different categories to support kids in their information processing or in those kind of learn-to-learn skills. And so the four kind of categories of tools are around memory, so kind of building schema and connecting to those existing funds of knowledge that we just talked about Making a metaphor is an example that she shares. I love that, as well as talk and wordplay. I love the idea that she is connecting to collectivist cultures like gravitation, to oral histories and dialogue and connects to sociocultural learning theory. Like we talk and think as we talk. I am a verbal processor. I'm learning this more and more as I grow up, but I think a lot of kids I've seen it in circles, socratic seminars, small group discussions in my own classroom there is something that happens when we talk to one another we expand our thinking. 14:06 And talking to James Nottingham in that that earlier interview I referenced on the podcast, he kind of expanded my ideas of you know what is the purpose of a discussion? The goal should always be that we're expanding our one another's thinking right. So when we engage in a discussion we don't want to come out as being right. We want to come out as having kind of our minds blown right, like our, our an expanded sense or more nuanced sense of a concept than when we went in with our own original ideas. Right Patterns and puzzles is another kind of of thing. So this could be like an open source I've always loved open source or like drawing a concept map. So thinking about how different pieces are connected within a concept, as well as perspective taking, which we do all of the time in history. But something like a protocol, like World Cafe or, I've heard, like talking heads or something like this right is like ways that we could kind of bring perspective taking to the forefront. I also think about leading change for adults as well as students. 15:06 Thinking about facilitating and helping people come to the realization of a disorienting dilemma by just sharing a little bit of information that causes people to say, whoa, this isn't what I thought it was right. I am having a little bit of disorientation here because I thought things were this way and this new information is just kind of blowing my mind and making me think I need to rethink this. And research has shown that doing that in groups, having that disorienting dilemma and being able to verbally process it in a group setting, is actually most beneficial. Because you can quote try on other ways of thinking, which I absolutely love. Because you can quote try on other ways of thinking, which I absolutely love. 15:46 So thinking about, like how we coach students using some of Zaretta Hammond's ideas around learn to learn skills. Actually, I mean, she says you know, we literally teach this to kids. We teach them how the information processing kind of arc works and we teach them learn to learn skills and we help them become aware of this and we help them recognize and literally hand over to them Don't like control it as the teacher. We're all going to do this thing now, right, we're going to use this tool, but to say to students hey, these are some tools, recognize what works for you, recognize when you might use it and be able to use it on your own. And what I love is that she encourages people to just play. Just play with the tools, like low stakes. Just play with them at first right, figure them out. Don't try to control it as the teacher, but do prompt the reflection of the students. And I just think this whole thing is just so, so cool and so meaningful. 16:46 So I think the large piece here this is a little bit of a different episode because I'm kind of like just spewing ideas that I'm hearing, but I think the one big piece in terms of mindset is around cognitive coaching is key to school transformation, like doing this well as a teacher, as a team of teachers, as a school, is super important. And how do you do that? Well, one, you yourselves as educators, and we ourselves as educators, as coaches right, we need to know this information. We need to know how kids learn. We need to know the five learn to learn skills ourselves. We need to be aware of some cultural learning tools that students can use when they're thinking strategically and meta-strategically. We also have to be aware of the key concepts we want kids to grapple with, as James Donaghan says. 17:37 Zaretta Hammond also says this concept being able to conceptually grasp things is super important and she shares a conceptual grasp scale in the book that goes all the way from like a zero out of zero. It's a zero to six scale. So the zero is like I don't even know what I don't know, basically all the way to six, where it's called a symphonic grasp, which I love, which is like now I can use this concept in new ways. I can see the less obvious relationships. I can critique other concepts and ideas because I'm all the way here, right, and of course there's like different pieces along the way, but to just know one what concepts are important that I need my students to know, like what's most essential? Two like how do I know that they actually know? Like where are they in that zero to six scale and how do I know that? Right, and and then, when we are thinking about how they are learning and grasping those concepts, we are thinking about those learn to learn skills and those cultural learning tools we're exposing kids to and we're thinking about those one-on-one cognitive conversations that we have structurally made time for in the actual instructional, either period or school day for younger kids in elementary settings. And finally, I think again. I said I would return to this later, but this idea of over-scaffolding is something that every passing week, month, year, I am just more and more aware of. 19:07 And I love Zoraida Hammond's language around responsive right, we talk about culturally responsive teaching. We need to lean into the responsive part. What she says is we have too many just-in-case supports, right. So like sentence frames that don't ask kids to actually like make sense of these multiple, complex ideas, pre-written sentence sums that they're they might not even need overuse of note taker worksheets, excessive anchor charts. Like we have all of these things that we're like well, we'll give this and we'll give kid does need and turn over, ideally, the tools to a kid themselves to figure out oh, I need this, right, I need something, and this tool is available. This will work for me because I know how I learn Right. And so we want the just in time supports versus the all of the just in case supports. 20:01 So she has a ton of really helpful kind of quote, unquote look fors for over scaffolding. That's like, oh, are you doing this? You might be over scaffolding, right, and it's a beautifully laid out table with lots of details. So I highly again encourage you to get the book and check all of that out. Okay, this was basically a love letter to. This is a red I haven't in her book, but I hope that you got some concrete ideas out of it and, if nothing else, that you are thoughtful about how we center students cognitive processing power and rebuilding that up in your school transformation efforts.
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In this episode, we dive into different adaptive leadership strategies to drive change in a school redesign context. Though geared toward educators in “low-performing” or “turnaround” schools, this episode has practical insights for anyone who wants to make school a place where every student can thrive.
Drawing from the research, host Lindsay walks us through the intricacies of school redesign and change initiatives. She talks about how to incorporate youth and multi-stakeholder voices, capacity building, and community engagement. Mindset Shifts Required There are two common missteps when it comes to leading a change initiative at turnaround schools:
These can be addressed by mindset shifts and understanding what the research says about adaptive leadership and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Why? From the Research Drawing on the work of Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky (2009), adaptive challenges are defined as those “typically grounded in the complexity of values, beliefs, and loyalties rather than technical complexity, and stir up intense emotions rather than dispassionate analysis.” Understanding that these challenges bring up emotions and deeply-rooted value systems, it makes sense that we need to take a totally different approach than a technical implementation of a new curriculum or program. Lindsay also draws on Zaretta Hammond's insights into student learning power and cognitive justice, underscoring the importance of focusing on students' cognitive development and equitable learning experiences. By centering marginalized voices and employing strategies like capacity building and strategic planning, schools can effectively address adaptive challenges and foster educational equity. What? Action Steps for Change After recognizing first that most challenges are adaptive and, therefore, need a multi-faceted approach, here are some steps leaders can take to implement change initiatives: Step 1: Identify the adaptive challenge. Be open to what the problem really is, digging deeper than looking only at technical issues. This leads to a “disorienting dilemma,” as Mezirow puts it, which is the starting point for real change. Step 2: Have a group dialogue. This disorienting dilemma is uncomfortable—so uncomfortable it moves us to action. Having a mutli-stakeholder group dialogue about the adaptive challenge lets each person be open to new ideas and perspectives to solve it. Step 3: Develop cycles of feedback and co-creation with stakeholder groups so everyone—families, students, educators, administrators, community members—have meaningful say in the change plan. Step 4: Empower stakeholders by fostering ongoing professional development, centering marginalized voices, and building authentic student leadership and family partnerships. Step 5: Enhance school capacity through coaching, providing instructional leaders and coaches with their own coaches. Professional learning and coaching can help everyone develop the knowledge, skills, and mindset to foster connections with stakeholders and collaborate effectively. This is not done in one-off workshops, but ongoing learning. Step 6: Build stronger partnerships with families by authentically engaging them. Ari Gersen-Kessler talks about how this is the difference between “good” and “great” schools. His book, On the Same Team, dives deeper into how and why to partner with families. Step 7: Center the stories of families and students who have been marginalized by traditional schooling, ensuring their voices are at the table and their data sets are what we’re looking at. Step 8: Focus on student learning and learning power by putting instruction and curriculum at the heart of what we do. Learning is the core of education, not the co-curriculars and “extras,” so the focus needs to be there. This includes high-quality instruction materials and the flexibility to develop personalized approaches for each student. Final Tip: Embrace a human-first approach that values the stories and emotions of students and families, moving beyond off-the-shelf solutions to craft responsive initiatives. The resources mentioned in this episode include the following books:
And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 239 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below. Quotes:
If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:
TRANSCRIPT
00:02 - Linday Lyons (Host) Hello and welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. We are jump-starting episode 239 and this one is going to be about kind of quote-unquote school redesign. So if you are in a situation where your school has been designated as quote low performing or in turnaround status, which is what we call it in Massachusetts, this episode is for you. However, if you are not in one of those situations and just are aiming to make your school kind of a place for every single student to thrive and you just want to level up what's going on there, this is also for you. So here we go. When we are thinking about a school redesign approach, my vote is always for one that is grounded in adaptive leadership, in youth and multi-stakeholder voice and a capacity building approach. I will always vote for those three kind of organizing principles. Now, when we are thinking about what this actually looks like, this means being in multi-stakeholder community as a leadership team, having a representative kind of like leadership governance structure with feedback loops to different stakeholder groups, collaboratively making decisions, being just in a mode of co-creation and constant inquiry. That is what is going to lead to the real transformation. So it's going to take time. It is not an overnight. Here we go, but investing in the actual structures themselves and the process of doing things, which is likely going to be very different than you've done before. That's what's going to make the real difference and that's what's going to make actually any change that you would like to make work smoother, better, faster in the future. 01:59 So let's start with maybe some common missteps. So in my work in the past with turnaround schools and with schools who are just leading change initiatives in general, there are two common missteps that I have noticed and I just want to point them out, because you may be in the midst of leading a change initiative or a strategic planning team, an instructional leadership team at your school or district, like whatever the thing is, and you may be noticing yourself doing these things. One is that when we're identifying a challenge that is a major challenge, a longstanding challenge, we are, you know, disservicing many kids and we're trying to figure out how do we, you know, have educational equity, that kind of thing? Trying to figure out how do we have educational equity, that kind of thing. We are identifying too often challenges as technical and not adaptive. That's number one. The challenges we identify are not adaptive. We're saying that they are technical, so we are misdiagnosing them. The second misstep is that leadership structures are not shared across multiple stakeholder groups. They are held on to, maybe in what research often calls distributed leadership models, where we have admin and educators, but we don't have parents, we don't have students, we don't have, you know, broader kind of community members, families it's just people who are employed by the DOE. Okay, so as we get into these a little bit deeper, I'll reference a little bit of research and a little bit more detail and then we'll move on. 03:35 But just want to say Heifetz, graschau and Linsky they wrote a 2009 book on adaptive leadership that I cite all the time. One of the most common quotes that I use here is that they talk about adaptive challenges in this way. They say they are quote typically grounded in the complexity of values, beliefs and loyalties rather than technical complexity, and stir up intense emotions rather than dispassionate analysis. End quote you can imagine having a conversation changing things where we have intense emotions coming up right. That's probably very common in change leadership. You've probably experienced this many times and you can also imagine that when we get really deep down in our root cause analysis, for example, and we touch on someone's values, and that there's a value tension between what we're actually doing and what we purport to value, or we have a loyalty to a particular thing that is inequitable that's what the data tells us, right, or that's what the reality is, that's what the kids are telling us, the families are telling us. Or we get into a belief that needs to be unearthed, examined and reconceived because it is inequitable. Big emotions, big time emotions, and that is going to take a very different approach than than oh, we're going to adopt this new high quality curriculum. 04:46 Here we go, step by step, pd, we're all set now, beautiful school, right, that they're just, they're very different technical and adaptive challenges and almost always a long-standing problem is an adaptive challenge, or there's an adaptive component to it and we ignore that and therefore do not get results. Right, we do not enact transformation because we're ignoring this component. So when we are naming an adaptive challenge, we enable us to have what Mesereau calls a disorienting dilemma. Right, we can facilitate this as leaders, but basically that's a disorienting dilemma is when we have kind of this paradigm shift, or enables, I should say, a paradigm shift for transformative learning, where we have kind of this realization that disorients us, that kind of shakes up our way of thinking and we say, oh wait, a minute. 05:43 I was under the impression that we were doing this or that this was the experience of students in our school. I am now realizing from student stories that they are sharing with us, for example, this is not at all the case. Right Now I need to critically examine all the assumptions that I have, and I am so uncomfortable that I am willing to do that. Right, I am so uncomfortable with this disorientation. I am realizing the way I've been thinking about this isn't working anymore, and the best way to kind of try on other ways of thinking, according to change scholars, is that you actually can have a group dialogue, ideally multi-stakeholder, so you have multiple perspectives brought in already just from the stakeholder group and you can experience and witness other people's ways of thinking and enable yourself to try on something different. Right, I will link to a blog post where I talk more about this, but I just love this idea of we get to the adaptive challenge by having a disorienting dilemma and then we try on other ways of thinking because we're in a group, right, or we pull in, even if they're not live in the room, the experiences and stories of folks who have been, you know, proximate to the problem or the challenge. 06:53 The second step I just want to touch on is that only teachers and administrators are on the committee for school change. When you are absent from the conversation about creating change in your community, you then need to go down the path of quote-unquote buy-in, and we always talk about buy-in. Buy-in is not necessary when you are part of the creation, when you have an authentic, meaningful, active role in the co-creation right, then I don't need to buy into anything. It's my plan, right? I'm part of the construction and of course, we can't have, you know, 2,000 individuals in a room together writing the words of the plan specifically. But we can create a representative stakeholder structure that has multiple stakeholder groups represented in the leadership team and we build capacity, for which I'll get into momentarily feedback loops from those stakeholder groups, so everyone does feel like they have a role in co-creating. Where we're going and providing feedback on drafts of that plan. Then you eliminate the need for buy-in because you're not forcing a plan on anyone. You're saying we're in this together, we are here for all of you, we want feedback from all of you, we want input from all of you, we want to co-create and be in partnership with all of you. We're not doing this to you, we're doing this with you, right, and so I think that's the big kind of mental shift and the with, not for or to and how to do it. The structure is to create the multi-stakeholder group, to create the structure and support and professional learning for all of those stakeholders to be true representatives and be able to stay connected to their stakeholder groups that they represent and gather feedback regularly. So, knowing that these are the two missteps that challenges identified are not adaptive, they actually are and leadership structure is not shared across multiple stakeholder groups it should be what it could look like. I want to talk about that next, what it could be. There we go. 09:04 Capacity building is. I think, first and foremost, our approach to professional learning has to be one of capacity building. Even as a person who you know, my whole job is coming in and getting paid by school districts to support, I want school districts to work me out of a job. I don't. I would love to stay with people forever and and just go deeper and deeper and deeper. And, yes, that is possible to a degree. I love multi-year partnerships. I think we can go really deep there. But I don't want to be employed by a school or district for 20 years Like that is just not helpful to them and it is not the way that your school is going to thrive when you are constantly reliant on external people to say what's going on. 09:47 I think maybe being in an advisor capacity or a hey, let me run this by you capacity, after two or three years that makes more sense to me. But to constantly rely on we need all of the instructional strategies from you, we need the direction from you, we need the like. That doesn't. That doesn't seem ethical and it doesn't seem helpful to me. So here's what I mean we can support all stakeholders, but educators included, because we often talk about PL or professional learning. Through an education educator lens, we can help everyone develop the knowledge and skills to foster and I would also add mindset, to foster stronger connections with other stakeholders in the school community and collaborate effectively. If they can collaborate with one another, they have everything they need, as long as professional learning continues to build those skills and, of course, provide evidence-based information and research. But to be able to be in community with one another and be present for each other's experiences and to like, quote, listen deeply and to be responsive, like that is what's awesome, and Linda Darling-Hammond and colleagues work that 2017 research that came out on effective professional learning Like. 10:55 One of those hallmarks is that it should be ongoing. It cannot be a one-off workshop, right. It has to be that the way we do things of professional learning and otherwise is ongoing. We are in it for the long haul, right. We're not going to stop this initiative after our strategic plan is up. This commitment to shared leadership and to unearthing and addressing effectively adaptive challenges that are holding our school back from success are holding our students back from success. Like we're not going to stop after three years, four years, five years, like that's our core. And so I think another note on this is particularly for overworked teachers. Teachers are totally overworked. 11:34 I find it most compelling to actually embed professional learning in the contracted school day and not require teachers to work outside of it, though you need to, for sure, find money to pay them. I also think you know another just nod to the brilliance of educators is identifying those positive deviants the classrooms or places or individuals where students are thriving in these spaces or in connection with these educators and investigating it as a team right and expanding what works. I think that's a beautiful model that honors the wisdom already present in the schools. So, after we have this kind of capacity building approach, we have this mindset going into professional learning and we have it threaded throughout the year and multiple years. I also think the structures of both student leadership and family partnership should really be in place. 12:21 So Ari Gersen-Kessler taught me that research has actually shown stronger partnerships with families is actually one of the five keys to moving from a good to great school or district, and authentic family engagement is one of those keys for system-wide change, and so I would argue that you should go get his book. He has made basically a how-to guide to making this happen in book form. Go get his book. He has made basically a how-to guide to making this happen in book form, and it's called the Stronger Together, I believe, is the name of the book, and it's about his fat teams, families and educators together, and so we can link to that in the blog post. It is excellent. 12:56 But again, structurally we need to know how do we collect information and gather experiential data from families, figure out what's going on in families' brains, what are their wants, desires, needs and work in partnership to get that accomplished. Similarly, student leadership structures should go beyond and I've talked about this ad nauseum. On this I guess I'll make this brief, but they should go beyond the typical student council that plans prom or field trips or whatever the thing is right. It should be connected to the instructional core, connected to school policy, like let's actually co-create and be in partnership around real, meaningful policy and instructional change. Third, and I mentioned this already, lean on experiential, or what Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan call street data. We draw on scholarship that really pulls extensively from street data and also Safiya and colleagues newest book, pedagogies of Voice. I constantly am talking about this, the people I partner with are constantly talking about this. 14:02 But to learn about the experience of students and I would also add, families who have been marginalized by traditional schooling and the designs and policies of traditional systems, like we need to make sure that those stories of people who have not been successful are the ones that we center, are the ones at the table, are part of the kind of data set that we are reading through sorting, through analyzing in making these decisions. That can't just be like an add-on. I think it needs to be central too Because, again, adaptive challenges let's unearth as we explore those stories and experiences, the beliefs, habits and loyalties that we might hold as educators, right, or even as adults that students are kind of unearthing for us, create our disorienting dilemmas through the words and experiences of students right. Fourth, I would say, focus on student learning and quote learning power which comes from Zaretta Hammond and her new book Rebuilding Students' Learning Power, which just came out in 2025. Incredible book Pedagogies of Student Voice actually also emphasizes both of these books I've just been reading, kind of in concert with one another and they both emphasize the importance of focusing our work on the instructional core. 15:18 We cannot do equity if we leave out instruction, if it is not intimately tied to instruction and learning about students' experiences with instruction, not just how they feel at school, although that is incredibly important, but learning about instructional related or curricular related things from and with students and then co-creating with students better instruction, like being in partnership around the instruction. That, to me, is at the heart of what we need to do. Often we bring in students for extracurricular conversations or again like the student council, like what's the fun thing we're planning, but it is separate often from the core of why we're there, which is learning. So Renna Hammond's book has really emphasized and changed my brain around thinking about cognitive justice and making sure that students are kind of getting this coaching one-on-one from their teachers to make sure that students have their own cognitive tools and know their own personal algorithm. I love all the words she uses to help them be better independent learners and information processors. That's real equity. Right. That someone knows their brain and their learning process well enough that they do well, not just in my classroom but next year and the next year and out in the world forever. Right. That they can constantly take in information wherever they are, whether they're reading the New York Times physical paper right or they are seeing a new data set presented in a documentary or whatever it is. That is cognitive justice, and strategic plans should include these goals and measure progress toward them and invest resources in building educators' capacity to do these things well. Measure progress toward them and invest resources in building educators' capacity to do these things well and also not to disserate a Hammond. 16:59 She talks about, you know, letting go of the rigidity of the kind of high-quality instructional materials pacing guide that you might have. While it's important to have high-quality instruction materials right. The rigidity of the pacing guide is something I have always rallied against and that teachers find the most confining in some pretty awesome curriculum that I've seen out there in the world. Like the pacing guide often inhibits its success and when I have helped to kind of coach districts on implementation, I have often coached a prioritization approach where it's like, okay, what is the most important pieces of this, what do my personal students need? So, again, a personalization approach, prioritization, personalization. We have to do this. Well, because we need I often say like one day a week, but we need certainly an amount of time to meet one-on-one with students, to give them individual feedback, to coach them cognitively, to support their information processing, to have a responsive workshop model, for example, in terms of what the individual students need based on their formative assessment earlier this week. Right, we cannot just do things that are laid out by curriculum designers that have no personal connection to the kids in your classroom. They have no student data to base the next decision point on. I have yet to see a curriculum, although I will say that some get close. El education has like a skills block, all block, kind of responsiveness to analyzing the data and then kind of making choices around grouping and instruction based on the data. But, like holistically, there are things that we need to do, to make space for and build into our instructional plans and time and pacing guides to say we need time to just respond to the kids and to give them feedback and to have conversations. 18:52 Now, possible strategic plan components. This is not like a grab and go strategic plan, but just some things to think about as you're building your strategic plan, keeping in mind all the things we just talked about. One we want to build shared leadership structures. So again, this means creating a multi-stakeholder leadership team and also figure out some equitable kind of processes or agendas for meetings that focus on the things that matter. Starting off, you might want to collectively dream the possible. I love the idea of kind of freedom, dreaming as a group. 19:21 I would use a protocol for perhaps like the ones in the book Practicing Futures I think the subtitle is a civic imagination action handbook. So land on clear vision together, connect with stakeholders' hearts and make it easy to remember, and that is going to have that quote-unquote buy-in right. Research has shown that we're going to have people be more committed, have more pride in and clarity around that goal and the vision and what we need to do to make it happen. Next, I would design and facilitate capacity-building workshops for student leaders, families and educators. So build capacity for street data collection and feedback loops so stakeholders can truly act as connected representatives of those groups. Action research for learning what's right and wrong and like what people's experiences are and making changes as a result. So the process of the structure is stable, but the actions that we're taking should not be set in stone. 20:24 This also might include like helping people design multiple formats for stakeholders to engage and give feedback. So it might be that some people can meet and prefer to be in person. Others need something digital or like on Zoom. Other people might need something asynchronous right Zoom. Other people might need something asynchronous right. There might need to be different access points for people. 20:41 And also build facilitator or administrator capacity whoever's actually doing the facilitating of these groups to identify narratives that are popping up in these conversations that are highlighting adaptive challenges. I think, similarly, if you're doing a root cause analysis, clarify the parameters of what truly is a root cause. I would argue in an adaptive challenge it's something that identifies a deeply held belief or loyalty that's inhibiting transformation and also that's in your locus of control. No blaming of other groups or structures, right, like what's in our locus of control. And what is that deeply held belief that is inhibiting our progress? Let's name it and then let's tackle that held belief that is inhibiting our progress. Let's name it and then let's tackle that. 21:22 Okay, the second big kind of overall piece I would have is to build internal capacity for instructional coaching. Give instructional coaches and leaders their own coach. Even if you, as the principal, are the coach, you don't have a separate instructional coach, or maybe it is a department lead. Those folks should have their own coach. Right, coaching is amazing at all levels. And also conduct learning walks with students and ideally, families, if you can like multi-stakeholder learning walks where we're co-developing and using an observational criteria tool that centers on student learning what are the students doing? And saying, not, what is the teacher doing. Then identify trends from there and develop a professional action plan to support the needs of teachers. Right, so we're building capacity. All the time we are learning what's going right in instruction, finding the positive deviance uh, you know, investigating how that was created and expanding that, noting what needs to be supported, supporting it, but constantly collecting data and getting coaching and building our instructional coaching capacity. 22:18 Number three launch and maintain a practice of reviewing student work and cognitive apprenticeship practice PLCs or department meetings or team meetings, whatever you call them. Teacher teams should look at student work. For sure, I adapted DESE Massachusetts DOE looking at student work tool and I like to use that. But whatever the clean, simple process is, use a simple tool that you can reuse again and again to align on standards-based kind of grade level expectations plan for instructional adjustments based on that student data. You know, co-draft, a definition of instructional success, observable criteria, list all the things and, of course, get feedback from multiple stakeholders on this draft as well. And what I love about Zaretta Hammond's book is she talks about how PLCs are a great place to simulate and practice the one-on-one kind of coaching conversations or cognitive coaching conversations with students. So practice the language of information processing, practice being responsive in the moment to students. That takes practice and this is such a beautiful place to practice. So I would use PLCs for those two pieces. And then, of course, to offer instructional and pedagogical support workshops as needed, to those teams as they are defining what the instructional next steps for them are, based on that student data. 23:36 I would also make sure it is so hard right, I think about the adaptive leadership idea of resistance. Is loss right? Resistance to change is actually a loss of potentially like an identity, for example. I would frame a lot of these discussions with appreciative inquiry. So, for example, I think there's a SWOT analysis that people usually do for strategic planning or other business things. I prefer SOAR. So, instead of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, it's strengths, opportunities, aspirations and results. So it's all kind of in the positive. We don't need to just say here all the things are terrible, but here are the things, where do we want to be? And let's focus on that and let's get there right. And also, you know, determining processes for highlighting and studying examples of positive deviance, as we mentioned. 24:24 Okay, the fourth and final piece of this list, I would say both capacity to collect student experience data. So, again, identify students at the margins, generate key questions to ask, design and facilitate data collection workshops for all those stakeholder groups, so everyone has the capacity to collect data. And also noting that everyone should have their own coach. Give family and student leaders their own coach too. The fact that we think, you know, we know, I think we know in education that every teacher is better with a coach, every instructional coach is better with a coach, every admin is better with a coach. Like, how would we put family and student leaders in these roles and not coach them right? I think we also wanna give coaching to them and ideally, as much as possible, use our professional learning budgets to be expansive. In our thinking about who gets professional learning, it should include families and students. Okay, this has been a long episode so I'll just leave you with some final tips. 25:18 Community created should be a hallmark of this right. These strategic plans should be community created. And, again, co-creation decreases the need for quote buy-in. It should be human first, connect with educators, family members, leaders, students, hearts and invite stories. Members, leaders, students, hearts and invite stories. 25:41 Often change initiatives fail because we don't connect to emotion and be responsive. Yes, evidence-based is important, but off the shelf and straight into implementation mode just doesn't work. There are too many considerations that we often ignore that end up making the initiative fail, whether it's a curriculum or otherwise. So, yes, evidence-based and then personalize it. Be responsive to the needs of your community and truly, deeply like be present for it. 26:09 I want to say listen, but I'm trying not to use ableist language Like take in the stories and the experiences of students and families, particularly ones that we have underserved in the past, and be responsive to those. If you are currently in a state of turnaround or redesigning a school, I would love to know what is working for you, what challenges are coming up. This is an area of deep passion. I've kind of got away from it for a while, but, noting that my scholarship initially started in leadership and changed leadership, really want to go back there. So please let me know, reach out and let me know what else you would want to learn about on a future podcast episode related to this topic. 
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In this episode, we sit down to talk with Dr. Dana Mitra, a leadership coach and author of The Empowered Professor. She discusses the transformative power of student voice in education, emphasizing the framework of agency, belonging, and competence.
Using timely research, Dr. Mitra highlights practical strategies for educators to counteract tactics that suppress student voices so they can foster a collaborative environment that truly empowers students. The Big Dream Dr. Mitra envisions an educational landscape where student voices are central to decision-making processes. She wants educators to embody an equity mindset, making sure that the most disadvantaged folks facing the greatest struggles are at the center of change efforts. Mindset Shifts Required One important mindset shift for educators to embrace is that all social issues—and any kind of change we want—start with education. You can’t disengage from political issues or what’s going on in culture, and it’s important to be in touch with those things because they all start in the classroom. Dr. Mitra also highlights the mindset shift of viewing students as partners, not merely participants, in the educational process. Students and educators bring unique skills and assets to the partnership. Action Steps Here are some action steps educators can take to build capacity in their school environment to prioritize and support student voice: Step 1: Commit to establishing youth-adult partnerships. Both educators and students need training and education in this so they can collaboratively work together. Step 2: Get resources and support by partnering with others. Educators don’t have to do this alone, but can seek support from nonprofits or organizations that can help sustain student voice initiatives and provide necessary training for both students and educators. Step 3: Educate students on practical matters like how schools work, policy processes, and how they can use language that speaks to adult audiences. Step 4: Implement practical strategies to create inclusive spaces and challenge traditional authority dynamics. This includes things as simple as reconsidering seating arrangements (i.e., students sitting in prominent positions, showing their perspectives are valued at a meeting), or going deeper and holding intentional conversations with students about their challenges. Step 5: Focus on building trust. Students, especially those who have been traumatized and negatively impacted by educational systems, may initially “test” educators by acting out. But as educators respond with compassion, kindness, and care, trust is established. True educator-student partnerships can only operate on a basis of trust. Challenges? One challenge is the impact of external factors on the classroom or school space. So, even caring educational spaces may be impacted by things like immigration policies and other current events. This causes friction, so educators are challenged to create more layers that reinforce a supporting, caring space; they operate as buffers and protectors of the space. One Step to Get Started Educators seeking to prioritize and support student voices can start by asking big questions and involving students who are directly affected by the issues at hand. Dr. Mitra encourages us to engage students as fellow travelers in the problem-solving process, ensuring initiatives are meaningful and impactful for all involved. Another simple action step is to connect with other educators who naturally collaborate with students and dream together with them. Stay Connected You can connect with Dr. Mitra on her website or by email. To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing The Student Voice Toolkit with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 213 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
00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Dr Dena Meacham. Welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited for this conversation. Listeners know I've cited you many times in my written work and my verbal stuff on the podcast, but I think, aside from your kind of professional bio, is there anything you want people to know about or keep in mind as we jump into our conversation, whether it's like you as a whole human or something you've been working on recently. What should we know? 00:30 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) I think one of the things I've really tried to do in recent years is to think about ways that this work can apply in clinical and related settings. 00:39 So about 12, 15 years ago I became a certified coach and in some ways it feels like it's a very different thing, but for me, the philosophy coaching is helping people find their voice, find what their purpose is in the agency. 00:57 They have to be able to navigate their world better, so it's really thinking of a very similar framework their world better, so it's really thinking of a very similar framework. And I recently wrote a book called the Empowered Professor, which finds that agency and belonging and competence actually is a developmental framework that works for any age and anyone of really trying to think through how they want to feel more authentic, how they want to feel more connected, what skills they need to move forward, whatever stuck place that they're in. And you know working with a lot of mid-career people with it as well as grad students who are stuck on their dissertations, and so, as much as I've done most of this work in K-12 settings, it's been really fun to see the way that the framework can be used in broader ways, especially when thinking about career development things like that. 01:50 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That is a fascinating evolution. That's such a good point that those components are so necessary for all humans, regardless of age. So that's super cool, I think, with regard to either the K-12 space or, just like larger life spaces, coaching spaces, you know, I think about Dr Bettina Love's words around freedom dreaming, and so she talks about her dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so, considering that, considering, like just all of the pieces of the world that are unjust, what is kind of that dream you hold? Again, either for the education space, what's a freedom dream you have there? Or in your work now more broadly, oh, gosh. 02:30 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) I mean recording this just at the beginning of the Trump administration, when there's so much uncertainty about so many things that it I feel so ungrounded right now about what reality is and what's possible. So, you know, a few months ago it would have been really thinking about ways that voice and could really have strong ties to an equity mindset of making sure that the most disadvantaged and the folks who are facing the greatest struggles are at the center of change efforts, and that I still believe that. But while the context surrounding that of what is possible are really changing right now and I don't think any of us really know how to make sense of it. 03:20 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, it's such an important like contextualization for our conversation, given that that, like the world, often right, in K-12 education particularly, I think often there is this pull towards like this mythical neutrality or like staying out of politics, or at least in my experience in teaching high school was so central to just making those connections and inviting students to, you know, have that agency to share, to think about action steps, to think about collective action, at a school level even, or a classroom level, you know whatever feels possible and doable. 04:05 A classroom, you know whatever feels possible and doable. I also know that there's a lot of teachers who, whenever we talk about a pedagogy or an invitation for more student voice, have a hesitation, right, and there's just kind of this oh, that's not how I was taught, or that's like a you know a thing that feels wildly different and almost impossible to like hand over control to students. Like this is in my coaching a lot of times, what comes up as like a hesitancy and I'm curious, what's kind of the either advice you give to teachers who might be in that space, or kind of a mindset shift that you've seen be really effective for teachers to kind of unlock that student voice pedagogy. 04:41 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) Yeah, I teach teachers or pre-service teachers at Penn State. Yeah, I teach teachers or pre-service teachers at Penn State, and even before that, they're required to take a course in politics and policy with me, and less so than even 10 years ago and certainly since the pandemic. But you know, I would get questions of like why do I need to learn this? I want to be in my classroom, I don't want to work in politics and just trying to show them the ways that any political question or any social change that we want to have, we often start first at schools, including ice raids and removing students right now, so showing them that any social issue is going to show up in terms of things they're expected to do or engaged in. But things are so immediate in the past few years I have to make that argument less around, whether it be masking or and now with immigration. I think one of the most important things that I tried in the second level is to help understand that teacher voice and student voice build upon one another. It's very rare for there to be ability for students to have agency and belonging if teachers don't feel that first and 95% of the time, the concerns that students have if you get under the hood. Under the questions are shared concerns that can be worked on together because both groups have the same interests and well-being at heart of equity and resources and power. 06:25 It's not a zero-sum game of teachers ever handing over power. 06:28 It's finding the unique contributions and the perspectives that students can give to a situation to allow a more ready conversation and ways alliances can be formed. 06:43 It's in the world of human development and agriculture, actually studying like nonprofit organizations for age, things like that. They use the term youth adult partnership and I think that's really a helpful concept to think about that there is a partnership and both, and it does involve power sharing, but it's all about the unique skills and assets that each group can bring and thinking about those unique funds of knowledge resources that are there and how they can be a synergy to move towards excellence. Even at like, the state level of Oregon and Kentucky are some wonderful examples of ways that legislators have partnered with students, because students are just so much more articulate and the media appreciate them more that issues that students are really excited about if they can help students to be a part of hearings, a part of press conferences in a way that students are not co-opted but very much partners. It can be a really powerful way to move change in places where change is really not happening right now. 07:54 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you for those concrete examples and I am interested in that. The students are not co-opted, but they're true partners concept. I think that's a very common misstep sometimes when we're like, oh, student voice, and then it becomes this very different, like not actual partnership, not actually grounded in students ideas and leadership. So I'm curious, do you mind talking a little bit about that or giving us maybe an example of like what, what, how do we know where we are in that kind of continuum? How do we know where we are in that kind of continuum? 08:25 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) Indeed, and I think again, the leadership from Kentucky has done some really wonderful thinking about both what are ways that change can be impacted, but also in thinking about what are ways that adults and people in power try to suppress student voice. And so Andrew Brennan and Zachariah Sippy worked with Jerusha Connor recently in a publication that talks about five tactics to suppress student voice that they've experienced from the Kentucky legislature from trivialization, which is minimizing concerns. Dismissal, which is not recognizing. Tokenization, which is allowing students in but not really, and then there's derailment and exclusion. 09:24 So I really appreciate the work collectively that Kentucky Student Voice has done over the years and has been able to have the churn of students, which is natural because students grow up with but still very student-centered and wise perspective. They've been able to make real great gains. But because they're increasingly powerful or like known that they can do these things, they're also viewed as a threat by folks who would not want to see that happen. So at the same time that they're learning and becoming more sophisticated as to ways to build partnerships with legislature, there are legislators who are not wanting students' voices to be heard, who view them as a threat to traditional ways of thinking. So they've gotten more on both sides of that successes but also real blowback. 10:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you for sharing that. I didn't know of that recent research, so that's really exciting about naming the five tactics, not exciting in practice of what is happening. I do see that sometimes, even in the microcosm of the school, the just administrators fearing change or, you know, kind of suppressing student voice in that way, even when we're trying to make a change at how we we organize classes or you know something that's affecting student learning directly in the school community. And so I think this is valuable for policy level and class level, for teachers who are listening and leaders who are listening I'm curious about. So one of the places that my research went was like what are the mechanisms to help support student voice? 11:02 And thinking about your student voice pyramid, like really how to support kind of the top tiers your student voice pyramid, like really how to, how to support kind of the top tiers of of student voice, so we're not just like listening to students but we're truly partnering with and inviting students to lead. And so I know you talked about youth adult partnerships. You've written about like youth participatory action research. There's like a bunch of different, I think, things that might feel Similar, yeah, yeah, similar and big, and I'm curious to know for, maybe like a newer teacher or a teacher who's new to this work what would be your recommendation of like where do you kind of get started or what are some actions you can take to think about how you might kind of build that capacity in your school environment? 11:43 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) Yeah, I think I can also have you link to the podcast and infographic that I've created on ways to support student voice. That might be useful to teachers. I think first and foremost, what we've learned is the importance of not doing it trying to go alone, but finding a nonprofit, an organization that can help support them. I did some work on some student voice initiatives in different schools once and went back a few years later to see which ones sustained and they were all organizations. They had some partnership outside of the school, because so much happens in a school and there's so many different pressures that are not student forward that having a non-profit or or some sort of organization on rarely and sometimes it's a district or or an intermediary unit that really believes in this, but usually it's in the United States. It's a non, a nonprofit who has this as their mission so they can keep steadfast while teachers are struggling with that and there's a lot of wonderful organizations out there to work with. So I think having that partner and not having to figure it all out themselves and get resources and support, resources and support and relatedly it's teachers and all adults and all students need some sort of support and training. Teachers need to learn how to be more of that guide from the side, how to enable and really scaffold but have students go forward. A lot of it's around valuing process over product, because how it's happening is as important as any campaign that's occurring. On the student side, they need a lot of learning about how schools work, how policy processes work and getting training on how to use certain words when speaking in front of adults that adults prefer to hear code switching, those kind of things. So there's training needed on both sides. 13:56 There's also a lot of interesting attention that can be paid to, especially in the very beginning. Just the physical setup of like where are you as an adult sitting? Where are students sitting? Is the space in a circle? I even went to a hearing in India where the students were standing and the politicians were sitting on the ground, which is more common in India. I don't think that would happen in the United States, but I could see like a lecture platform with people in chairs, very intentional to try to disrupt some of the assumptions as to who has the authority in a space and just not just that students are being listened to, but who are you talking to? So if you're really concerned about failing ninth graders, then that's who you're working with. So if you're really concerned about failing ninth graders, then that's who you're working with. Oftentimes the leaders in the school, the student council, kids, whoever and I was one of them. But school worked for me. I thought more like an adult. I'm not then as helpful in understanding what students are thinking about, who are struggling. So that's the workspace and the faith that those students also and especially have a contribution to make in thinking through change efforts. 15:13 And you know, an example is a fishbowl done by a high school trying to figure out what was going on with the increased absenteeism in this ninth grade dropout situation. So they brought in the ninth graders on verge of dropping out and the student teacher sat outside in like a second circle and they asked the students to share their experiences. And what they were finding is the students would not be able to come to school for various reasons, including having to take care of younger children if they were sick, or having to work a night shift and not being able to wake up in the morning. But then, when they would come to school, feeling shame and a lot of anger expressed towards them for not coming and not really a curiosity as to what was going on, which reinforced their reluctance to come further. So it became a spiral. So instead of looking at like what are the broader structures that are making it difficult for this student to get there, and wow, like the research post-pandemic is that these issues of absenteeism have really increased and stayed at a higher level and not declined, that becomes even a bigger issue. So root causes getting underneath and assuming the best intentions of both sides and coming to some sort of understanding and that really gets to the point. 16:49 And some recent research that I've done, particularly looking at students who have been traumatized by school in some way before, or their parents have been or something. Really they had a teacher or an experience that was really awful, a teacher or an experience that was really awful. Once that happens and usually that has happened to students from students by the time they get to middle or high school then there's this trust has to happen first, like the rebuilding has to be at the first point of any effort. And research around trust rebuilding says that there's kind of this dance that people do, including students, including students, traumatized students of can I trust you? 17:37 And there's often been a testing of a small, acting out, or something to see like how are they going to behave if something happens? 17:49 Are they going to be curious? Are they going to be compassionate? Are they going to treat me like I'm not a human being? So that testing is is like part of like a ritual and a culture of trying to figure out what that's going to look like, and only once that is moved through is partnership actually possible. So that building of trust needs to be very forefront in minds of both a caring also a willingness of adults to be vulnerable, to share themselves as more than just a particular role, themselves as more than just a particular role, and see students as more than just the student role that they have, all these other responsibilities and roles that they play. So that holistic viewing is really at the center of how trust is built and without that, that student voice is very hard, either in classrooms or schools and it's going to take longer in places where students have experienced greater alienation and their families have experienced greater alienation from previous school experiences. 18:58 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Wow, I'm so glad that you took us there because I think that is what a lot of people I mean a lot of people have experienced. And also I think about your naming, like you know, marginalized populations and thinking about students with interrupted formal education or students with, like, bad school experiences, students who are multilingual, who have just immigrated, who are in the larger context of, you know, the United States right now. Even if your teacher is lovely, you know like there's so many factors that are like we need to make sure and, of course, individuals need to make sure that they're like testing the space and making sure it's like, psychologically safe. I think that makes total sense to be able to like focus there. I'm curious, you just kind of named a bunch of challenges that like people kind of have to overcome. Are there any other challenges that you have seen in the student voice space that you want to kind of name and like make sure people know about and maybe know how to like address that if it comes up? 19:55 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) Well, just that. Even when schools create beautiful containers of caring, when we have policies like immigration, that agents able to come in, that is impact. So it's like there's, you know, the layers of there's the classroom and the school, the district and then these outside community forces, and the more that these layers reinforce a supporting caring space, the better, and the more that there's friction between them. You need adults who are big buffers and protectors of space. So, and again, even in caring spaces, the ways in which administration can protect and allow for some grace to, for the messiness that may need to occur as things are being built or experiments are happening, and without that safety of knowing that an administrator has your back, it's a lot harder to take risks, and this work takes risks. So the administrative protection is also really important. 21:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Thank you for naming that. I was just recently at a professional development and leading with history curriculum in Massachusetts and it was so cool to see the Massachusetts representatives of the Department of Education get up in front of all these teachers and be like we have your back, we want you to teach this, we are committed to justice. It means talking about all these things X, y, z. You could just see the energy in the room. Just be like okay, like I know I'm protected. I just heard this from a state representative Like we're good, it is wildly unsettling everything that's happening, and so to be able, now more than ever maybe, to just have that person be that buffer, I think is huge. Thanks for naming that. 21:46 I think this is such a big like there's so many challenges and yet it's so important, right, I think about student leadership and student voice in these ways like super important. Most people can agree that it is super important and there's some kind of gap sometimes between the yes, we think it's important and like the implementation of getting started. So I love that you've kind of named all of the things to consider I'm wondering about like a first step for someone who's just like ending the episode, wants to try out something today, wants to kind of move in that direction. What is something that a listener could do today when they end the episode and kind of get moving in that direction? 22:23 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) Well, we've done a lot of work lately, thinking with Jerisha Connor and Sammy Holquist, thinking about classroom level student voice as well as school level student voice. And if we're thinking of teachers, usually they have more agency. Thinking about classroom and we're trying to distinguish between what voices and what choice are, as well as other really great pedagogical ideas like cultural awareness, building trust, but trying to show how voice is distinctly different. And so voice in a classroom setting is more about either students giving feedback after teachers are teaching or giving insight into the design of things going forward. But it, you know, it's not just like you can do a PowerPoint presentation or a book report. It's more of like how was that experience for you? How could we do it different? What are you wanting more of? What are you wanting less? Helping students develop metacognitively around how they work as a learner and how they can best articulate that to their teachers. So, from a classroom perspective, I would say you know thinking of, and we have a student voice toolkit that's available online through the Search Institute, that's available to all teachers and administrators, with a bunch of different data collection and tools that could be used to try to elicit feedback and collaboration processes. And at the school level. It's getting brave to ask some of the big questions and bring students in who are struggling with them as fellow travelers, and starting small is fine, I think, as long as you're picking the kids who are really engaged in the issue and that takes a strong leader who's willing to put that as part of it. I think it's very compatible with a lot of restorative justice, disciplinary policies that a lot of schools are really looking into around that, building that peace and that understanding. So thinking of ways that voice could help to amplify and improve even further efforts around shifts in discipline policies is something at the at the school level that might be really helpful. 24:47 Um, and, and that's kind of like really getting into the meat of things, I think a lot of times folks try to start by like asking students what they want and not having a guide to be able to ever have shown them they can do something meaningful. 25:02 They'll say like we want extra pizza at lunch, which fair, fine, but like, but really like, if. Even if you're going to start one thing, have it. Have it be something that's meaningful to everyone and useful of your time and and that way adults will be more willing to invest. It also may require a little bit more of whoever is running a space to scaffold some rules around, like you have a student at your table anding new assessment ideas or whatever, and training students, as you're going to go in here and you're going to see what this is what you're going to see and this is the role but that person running that is really then like creating guardrails and helping for that to occur. So try it out, but make it real. Start with a few students, but if you know, and really also as a leader, like there are, there are teachers who naturally do this. 26:08 I call them wizards, as did my former advisor Millbrae McLaughlin, but like, so you know, as if you're trying to initiate something like who the teachers are, who just kind of naturally behave this way, like start with them. Who the teachers are, who just kind of naturally behave this way, Like start with them. You know, don't start with the hard parts and ask them like what have they been dreaming and wanting to do? And I bet they have a few ideas in their mind that are pretty fantastic. So really building on the skill sets of natural born collaborators, with young people as a starting place. 26:42 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) I love all those ideas. Thank you for sharing those. I think you kind of went in the direction I was going to go, just to kind of start closing us out. You've shared a lot of things that you have been learning about lately and like new research that you're working on that has come out, anything you want to add to what you've already shared in terms of things you're learning about. It also could be totally separate from education. It could be like I'm learning how to play the piano or something. 27:07 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) In that toolkit. 27:08 We really worked hard to create a quantitative measure that is available to be used, but also, if schools wanted assistance, they can look at the search Institute to see if that's helpful to them. 27:24 But we really initially engaged in this project and learned a whole bunch of other things, but realizing that there isn't a good way to measure what is the range of what student voice looks like at the classroom and school level and how is it linked to outcomes, and so there's a bunch of things being published right now that again I can link to your show notes and things around ways that we've been able to find that at both the classroom and school level that increased voice is connected to improved academic outcomes, higher GPA, lower absenteeism, greater student engagement, and it's one of the first US studies that's really been able to show that, not just at the qualitative level, but to have enough data and have enough financial support thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to look at this at a scale in which we can measure and, have you know, look at this at a scale in which we can measure and, have you know, we were able to get down to the granular student level of access to their records as well as their surveys, to be able to pair performance with outcomes, and so we're really excited that our hypotheses were true that Student Voice does link to academic improved academic outcomes and behavioral outcomes. 28:45 It's been a lot easier to show the social and emotional side of things because that's easier to show qualitatively. So excited to have that data as evidence that practitioners can use to show the value of potential impact, and also happy to have some tools that other people can use and further develop and hone if they want to collect information in their school districts or for their researchers, who are looking for a validated survey instrument to use for their studies as well. 29:18 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Wow, okay, I am really excited and nerding out right now because that my dissertation was looking at like what is? I did kind of a mixed methods, developing a survey around student voice, cause I was like, yeah, there's such a like there's such a need for this here, and so that's so cool that you guys were doing such a massive scale study, cause you know it's hard to it's hard to do that work, so, so hard. 29:39 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) I was trying to do it for 20 years and I had given up, because foundations and and government have their own visions for what they're looking for when they're funding, and student voice is always kind of to them like this quirky, interesting thing, but never at the center of any call for submissions. 29:57 So it often get to like the final round and then lose out to someone who had more traditional types of ways of data collecting and going about their work. And then, luckily, during the pandemic just was one of those situations where I was just looking for people who I could talk to online to my classes when we were fully remote and was like, oh, I have a. I know somebody who I think she works in charter schools and turned out that she was working at the Gates Foundation, learned about what we were doing, and then there was a group of colleagues that were, you know, ramping up some funding on that. So it was very synergistic and all of a sudden we had the you know almost a million dollars to do this work, and that's how much it takes to do something like this, unfortunately, whereas you know we had kind of thought like it was never going to happen. So don't ever give up and just keep saying what you're wanting to do and you never know who you talk to. Might know somebody who really wants to support you. 31:04 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) That's incredible. Oh, what a story. I love that. 31:08 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) Yeah, it's a wild story. 31:10 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Yeah, oh, wow. I love when all the things connections are so important, because something always comes back together. That's right, that's right, and I think just people will probably want to continue learning. I certainly am going to continue following what you're doing. Where can people kind of connect with you and and kind of follow your work? 31:29 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) sure, um you can find my research as well as my coaching work at danamitranet and there's a link to uh under the research tab. There's a link to all of my research there as well, as well as the student voice toolkit. If you Google that with Search Institute, our resources are there as well, and there's a link to all of our current papers through the Search Institute from this study, so that's a way to find that as well. 31:56 - Lindsay Lyons (Host) Incredible Dr Mejia. Thank you so much for your time today. This was a real pleasure. 32:01 - Dr. Dana Mitra (Guest) Thank you Thanks for having me. 
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:
In this episode, we tackle adaptive challenges, which often impede systems transformation and change leadership. Specifically, I’ll explain how you can use a diagnostic tool to identify what exactly is going on and how to get unstuck and finally move towards transformation.
Why are we talking about this? Adaptive leadership scholars, Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky (2009) write, “Adaptive challenges are typically grounded in the complexity of values, beliefs, and loyalties rather than technical complexity and stir up intense emotions rather than dispassionate analysis.” In summary, a typical workshop or other means of sharing information is not going to work. There’s something deeper that’s resisting the change, and we have to unearth that before transformational change can happen. However, it is quite difficult to get everyone on your staff or in a classroom to share where the resistance is really coming from. It’s a struggle—even for the individuals that hold these values, beliefs, and loyalties—to diagnose the challenge. So, how do we do it? For today’s episode, our starting point is a school discussion. Whether it’s a challenge within the staff (start by paying attention to a discussion in a staff meeting) or a classroom (observe students’ talking), you can follow this list of suggested steps. Step 1: Determine which type of discourse is present.
Step 2: Invite imagination and possibilities. Invite teachers/stakeholders to tell you what they wish their classrooms/schools were like. (Often, the change we’re trying to lead is a way to get to that outcome. People just need space to share and be valued) What does it actually look like for you? Paint a clear picture of your dream. Co-create the dream. Make this the focal point. Root it in shared values. Step 3: Create disequilibrium. (Name the avoidance.) Avoidance is a hallmark of adaptive challenges. Often, we’re avoiding conversations about the things that matter. We like to be comfortable! This could look like diverting attention (e.g., making a joke or making it personal to deflect from the real issue) or displacing responsibility (e.g., “That’s the family’s responsibility, not ours.”) Mezirow (1990) says adults need a disorienting dilemma to jumpstart transformative learning—learning that requires a paradigm shift and asks us to critically examine our assumptions rather than just learn a new skill. Present information that makes participants just uncomfortable enough to realize, “the way I’ve been thinking about this isn’t working anymore.” This will help them try on other ways of thinking, which is most effective within group discussions! (The dialogue is both a tool for diagnosis and for change, as. Dr. Cherie Bridges Patrick has told us before.) Step 4: Practice discourse. Engage as a participant. Encourage all school stakeholders to do the same and notice aspects of the experience (what skills are you using, what is avoided, what feels good, what doesn’t feel good). Make space for reflection individually and as a group (e.g., staff, class). You can use these reflections to co-create community discussion agreements or adapt them if you’ve already created these. Step 5: Build your skills.
These come from Dr. Cherie Bridges Patrick’s research, which she talks about in depth in this previous episode of the podcast. Final Tip Pick one meeting or class to observe this week. Take notes using the Diagnosing Adaptive Challenges Workbook linked below. To help you identify adaptive challenges in your school, I’m sharing my Diagnosing Adaptive Challenges Workbook with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 161 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. TRANSCRIPT 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 nerding out about core curriculum of students. I made this show for you. Here we go. Welcome to episode 161 of the time for leadership podcast. Today, we're tackling adaptive challenges. So, in this mini series on systems transformation, we're really looking at what impedes that transformation and change leadership. And specifically in this episode, I'll explain how you can use a diagnostic tool to identify what exactly is going on and how to get unstuck and finally move towards that transformation you've been working towards. 00:01:07 All right. So let's dive in, let's talk about diagnosing adaptive challenges in school discussions where to look for those, what tool you can use. And before we get to the step by step process. I wouldn't just situate this conversation in adaptive leadership scholarship. So Heitz Grass and Linskey, who I referenced all the time, write a quote that I share all the time. And here it is quote, adaptive challenges are typically grounded in the complexity of values, beliefs and loyalties rather than technical complexity and stir up intense emotions rather than dispassionate analysis. So in summary, a typical workshop or other means of sharing information is just not going to work. You can't just talk your way out of RPD your way out of an adaptive challenge that's been lasting a very long time. There's something deeper that's resisting that change. We have to unearth that before the transformational change can happen, but it's really quite difficult to get everyone on your staff or in a classroom to just share honestly where that resistance is really coming from. I mean, it's a struggle even for those individuals to even know what that is, right? 00:02:13 What are the values that they hold the beliefs or loyalties that are holding them back from this change? Diagnosing that is something that individuals probably have a hard time doing within themselves, let alone you doing it as a leader for everyone in a space. So it can be challenging. There are multiple ways to go about this for today's episode. We're talking about really focusing on a school discussion. Now, this could be uh if you have a challenge with the staff or an adaptive challenge that you're working through and trying to lead change around with the staff. You might start by paying attention to a discussion in a staff meeting or maybe it's a team within your staff. So a grade team, a department team, you might want to just kind of pop into one of those meetings and observe what's going on there. And that can be your starting point if you are trying to support a teacher who was having a really tough time in with a particular class or a particular grade of students. Um as they come into that class, you might just want to observe those students talking either in a formal class discussion or just as the class is pro out of control. 00:03:16 And we were just kind of talking about nothing related to life and that talking right or talking about the challenge if you can do it, that is a really good opportunity to observe, reflect not what's going on. And then you can really have the diagnostic criteria to move forward and actually help make the change. So think about which option or which group you would want to pay attention to and go ahead and think about an opportunity where you can jump into that meeting, observe what you can and follow these steps. So here we go. Number one, as you listen or as you are engaging, I'm trying not to use a list language. Uh as you're engaging and observing what's happening in this conversation, I'd like you to think about which type of discourse is present. I'm gonna give you four options. Now, this comes originally from one Equis work, Doctor Chie Bs Patrick, and I have made this into a small adaptation for our work and our publication on adaptive leadership specifically talking about leading racial justice initiatives and, and work in communities. 00:04:29 So as we think about these discourse types, I want you to think about whatever team you have seen operate, whether that's a class based team full of students or again like a a whole staff, you can though also think about interpersonal conversations in your family in your friend groups just to kind of internalize these discourse types because I know just hearing this um or reading about it later on the blog post is going to not be quite the same as as fully experiencing it. Now, I will say there's a youtube video that I will link to the bottom of this blog post that you can actually see these four quadrants as a visual and I walk you through them there. So if that's something you're looking for, feel free to grab that link, that's gonna be again at the blog post for this episode, Lindsay, Beth lions.com/blog/one, 61. OK. Here are the four types of discourses. One polarizing. I think we see this a lot. We see this a lot in the political atmosphere of the United States, particularly during presidential election years. 00:05:35 But really all the time. So polarizing discourse, when we're talking about this type of discourse, we are talking about being rooted in our positions, being very defensive. We are probably a little uncomfortable, right? It's it's uncomfortable to like be in that space. We're in a bit of disequilibrium. But what we're doing is we're not looking for change, we're really just reinforcing those past patterns, right? So these ways of being in a group or at a staff culture level or a class culture level, right? Those really are just standing in the way of change. They're just reinforcing. This is the way we do things and we just kind of repeat that we reinforce this way of being. Now, the next piece is silencing and denying. So in this space, we really have a willful avoidance, right? We are not happy to be uncomfortable. We're going to preserve that comfort, we're going to avoid that risk at all costs. We don't want um really to build any capacity because we don't want change, right? 00:06:44 We're perfectly fine with the way things are again reinforcing past patterns and in contrast to polarizing discourse really sitting in that equilibrium. Now, the next piece is intellectualizing this course, I see this a lot in kind of white liberal conversations. So um we might have some insights, some thinking about imagination and possibility. But what we're really seeing here is that it's very didactic. We are in the head, not the heart, so to speak. So we are talking about things, academic resources or research or a podcast I listened to and here's this idea and we're ignoring the root cause we're ignoring the emotion that makes us human and we're not connecting the head to the heart. We're not really getting into the root cause the source of where all of this is coming from. Um Sometimes this particular type of discourse or discourses in this kind of quadrant reveal historic patterns of dominance, right? And, and they, they might um invite that imaginative possibility for change, right? 00:07:50 They might um offer a limited set of capacity building. But at the core, we are divorced from emotion and that whole list that invites us to experience enough of this equilibrium that we move into the fourth quadrant, which is what we really want. And that's generative mobilizing discourse. So this is where we see racial justice, intersectional justice. This is where we see engagement of the head and the heart. This is where we really mobilize folks to grapple with um any sort of discomfort and disequilibrium, we lean into that and it comes with that imagination and possibility. So, in contrast to the polarizing discourse, where we are feeling that disequilibrium, we're not doing what they're doing in the polarizing discourse, which is reinforcing the past patterns we're looking forward in inviting change. So we have these four types of discourse and I'm sure that as you're listening, you're like, oh, yep, I can think of a time where I was a part of or I was a witness to a discourse that resembled, you know, any one of these, right? 00:08:52 So, again, polarizing, silencing and denying, intellectualizing, generative mobilizing. These are the four, ideally, we want to have generative mobilizing, but polarizing, silencing and denying and intellectualizing are all too common. So what we want to do next, I'm going to go ahead and assume based on what I've heard from folks uh in schools, both thinking about students and thinking about staff um at all levels of, of this kind of school districts spectrum ecosystem, polarizing and silencing and denying quadrants are the most common. This is not to say that the other two are not but polarizing and silencing and denying are the ones that often come up when I present at conferences. When I present in P DS, when I'm just asking folks to individually think about this, these are the two. So I'm gonna kind of go in that direction but feel free to use any of these strategies um to support an intellectualizing discourse as well to try to get it degenerative mobilizing. So, polarizing again, when we're thinking about this, we're thinking about um the fact that we are not inviting imagination and possibilities, right? 00:09:59 When we're in polarizing, also silencing and denying is also on the left hand side of this quadrant So if you can imagine kind of a mathematical graph in your head, I believe that uh quadrant one is the top left. So that's you're polarizing. And then we go counterclockwise around where generative mobilizing is kind of our point in quadrant four in the top, right. So, polarizing and silencing and denying are on the left hand side of this, which means that they are on the opposite side from inviting imagination and possibility. So what's the first step we're gonna invite imagination and possibility. So how do we do this? We can invite teachers or stakeholders of any kind, right? If we're talking about students, whoever it is families to tell you what they wish, their classroom or school experience was like often the change that we might be trying to lead or the aha moment we're hoping folks have is a way that ultimately gets them, that outcome that they want that dream, that wish can come true if we can do these things. Um Here's what we're trying to kind of talk about and engage with, right? 00:11:01 And that resistance we're coming up against and we have to work through that to be able to get there, right. So oftentimes people just need that space to share and be valued, right? They just need to tell you their wish and their wish probably if they're working at the same school as either an educator like you, right? They probably have that deep down value set and that deep down wish and hope for the school or class experience is going to be the same right students I imagine are going to want much of the same things if we dig down deep into the core of what we truly want and what the real wish is. Right. It's probably I'm thinking of like Glasser's needs. So it's probably a sense of, you know, belonging or autonomy or enjoyment or survival, right? These, these core pieces of just what every human wants. So again, dig down deep, invite that wish and people can dream up the wish, right? However they want, if they're like, it looks like pizza every day for lunch. Ok. Great. Awesome. And like, what is that? That's joy for you. OK, cool. So you can kind of facilitate a little bit. 00:12:04 Um But what does it actually look like for you? I think if you're trying to lead a specific initiative or you have a thing that you're, you're trying to like get folks to quote unquote, buy into, I do think the best way to address a lack of buying is co creation, right? So it's not actually buying into something that you create, but it's co creating with everyone like core the dream. Um Ultimately, but first, if you have a particular vision, share it and paint a clear picture of what the dream is because a lot of times that resistance um that unwillingness to engage that avoidance, the silencing, denying anything is even happening, right? That can come from just confusion about what we're even talking about. So get real clear on, here's what we're talking about. Here's what I'd like to talk about. Here's the dream, we get to engage with this kind of content, right? And here's the why so co create the dream ultimately make that the focal point root it in our shared values, which I imagine are going to be very similar. Um If you don't have shared values already, you kind of kind of create them from the ground up uh as you have this conversation. 00:13:06 Now, step three is going to be to create that disequilibrium. Remember the silencing and denying the avoidance super common. And so in order to get to generative mobilizing discourse, we don't just create the imagination, a possibility, sense of things, we also have to create the disequilibrium. So avoidance, which is very popular. Hallmark of adaptive challenges is super common. Often we're avoiding conversations about the things that really matter because we like to be comfortable. And so what it could look like in practice is either diverting attention. So this might mean a topic is brought up that we're uncomfortable with, right? And we want to preserve that comfort. So we're just gonna make a joke or we're gonna make it personal so that it's now about, oh, you've attacked me versus deflecting or in order to deflect from the real issue, right? Versus like, actually we're gonna stick with this issue and I'm gonna deal with my discomfort. We also could have it look like displacing responsibility. So there's a lot of times in and I talked about this before on the podcast, there's a lot of times in strategic planning meetings or something where we're getting at the root cause of something. 00:14:16 And we're really trying to dig deep. Often a displacing responsibility phrase will be something like that's the family's responsibility. That's not mine, right? Or that's not ours as the school. So this idea of like we can't do anything about this. We're gonna just like put that responsibility on someone else is a popular category of things that is going to highlight for you as the observer of this discourse that avoidance is happening, that we're moving into that silencing and denying quadrant. So what do we do then when we see this happen? So if folks are like, I'm cool with the comfort, I'm good. I don't want to rock the boat. Uh who is a um leadership scholar says that actually, we need a disorienting dilemma and that's gonna jump start this transformative learning, which is a little bit different from like a technical learning learning, a new skill. For example, in that it requires a paradigm shift. It really asks us to critically examine our assumptions which is going to be a little more uncomfortable than learning. 00:15:23 You know, this this new formula for math or something, right? So presenting information that makes folks just uncomfortable enough to realize. Whoa the way I have been thinking about this, the current paradigm I'm operating under, it's just not working, it's clearly not working. The data does not support this. So consider what sort of data sets or information you might be able to share with a group that's like, hey, heads up, this is not working something new needs to happen. And what enables what this enables them to do is really just trying on other ways of thinking. And the research has shown that this is actually most effective within group discussions. So being in that group space is super cool because not only are we using dialogue as a tool to diagnose what's going on. But Doctor Cherie Bridges, Patrick has talked about this on the podcast before. It's also used as a tool for change and working through some of this stuff, right? So we diagnose it in a in a discourse in a dialogue, right? We diagnose what's going on and then we work on it through dialogue. We try on those different ways of thinking because folks around us will present different ways of thinking than what we have internally in our heads. 00:16:30 We need to get out of our own heads to practice all that stuff. So on an ongoing basis, I don't think there is really an end point to any of this. But I think the four and five are really, how do we continue this work? One is to practice engaging in discourse, engage as the participants facilitate when and where you can but encourage all school stakeholders to do the same and notice aspects of the experience. For example, what skills did you use in that discussion? Are there certain like verbal moves that you need? Um what is avoided? What is someone like really uncomfortable with? And you notice a displacement of responsibility or a joke was made? What feels really good to you when someone you know, acknowledges what you said and repeats it back, like it doesn't feel so good. Uh This person just kind of talked right over you or didn't let you have the space to share or just dismiss what you said without any sort of um explanation, right? Like what are those things? Just kind of notice the experiences that you're having and what all encouraged all the other folks to do the same and then make space for reflection individually, but also as a group. 00:17:35 So as a staff or a class of students, you can use these reflections to then core discussion agreements if you don't have them already or if you've already created these at the start of the year, for example, and you want to adapt them based on what's coming up in terms of our noticing as we engage in, in discussion. Awesome. And I will say I said this before, but I do think discussion of any kind discussion in any group. For example, discussion with friend groups in the cafeteria on the playground, discussion with families at dinner time. Totally relevant. Those are discussions that is discourse, you can practice there, you can encourage students and families to practice there. It doesn't need to be a formally you know, structured facilitated event. Now, step five is similar in that practice and in that noticing and reflecting you're going to be engaging with certain skills and noticing that you might want to grow certain skills some more than where they're currently at. 00:18:39 So the skills, the four skills or four kind of features of high quality generative mobilizing discourse that Doctor Cherie Bridges Patrick found in her research, she talked about them before on the podcast, I'll link in the blog post to a previous episode where she goes in depth here. But these are the things that you want to be practicing and just be aware of. So one is kind of a readiness and willingness to do the thing, right? So in those moments of I can opt out of this conversation, it's happening or I'm going to kind of lean in and and really do my best to be willing to engage even though it's uncomfortable, right? That is is key number one, right? I have to do the the active like stepping forward and um stepping forward might be able to English, sorry, uh being willing to uh engage, right? And and lean into that. Now, the next piece is vulnerability. This is similar, there's a element of vulnerability. I think that goes with your willingness to have a conversation. But I also think vulnerability in what you share in how you show up in how you respond with emotion to other folks who are sharing in a discussion or dialogue that's vulnerable, right? 00:19:56 That's being vulnerable, particularly in the realm of school where you are a leader interacting with staff, right? There is a power dynamic there. If you are an educator interacting with students or families, there are power dynamics there. When we think about teachers in a classroom with students, right? We often talk about not over sharing, right? I do think there's a degree of vulnerability that is appropriate as a human to foster those human connections without being unprofessional, right? The next piece after vulnerability is adaptability, we have to be able to be thrown a curveball and and still swing the bat, right? So we have to be able to adapt and just kind of be on our toes. That is life, right? That is a life skill that we want to constantly practice and get better at. So as we engage in these, there are going to be folks who say things in discussion that are kind of out of left field, so to speak, there are going to be moments where you are feeling an influx of emotion and you have to figure out what the next step is. 00:21:02 Do I take a breath? Do I respond? Do I leave the room because it's overwhelming, right? Like what is going to help me, what is going to be adaptive? Um And what is going to help me stay committed to this journey for the long haul? That is adaptive, right? So readiness, millions vulnerability adaptability. The fourth one is to really work on your skills of developing, contributing to as a participant, but also as a facilitator, a positive encouraging liberating environment for dialogue. So if we don't have those co created agreements, if we don't have the uh physical space set up, so everyone can be literally uh acknowledged, seen, heard, whatever, whatever it is. However, we're acknowledging folks in that space like we're not creating an environment where we can have liberated dialogue. We need to think about all of these things. We need to think about. What's the moment you step in as a facilitator. What's the moment you step back and let folks resolve things for themselves? 00:22:07 Um What are those agreements? How do we hold folks accountable once we've created the agreements, these all take practice and they all take a concerted effort and and real focus on the fact that you're approving these skills specifically. So as a final call to action, I suppose I want you to pick one meeting or one flash to observe the speed, take notes, you can use the diagnosing adaptive challenges workbook links below. Uh When I say links below, I mean in the blog post below. Uh So that's Lindsay, Beth lines.com/blog/one 161, I'll link it in there. There are a bunch of kind of things to observe or check out as you're engaging in these meetings. Eventually, you might be able to or depending on the stakeholders, you might be able to just hand a paper over to folks in the meeting and say, hey, what did we notice? Did we notice any of these things? And you can have them individually reflect? Um You can reflect on your own, but I'd love for you to identify one place where this happens. Do the observation, learn what you can and then move forward by naming what you see, inviting imagination and possibilities, creating this equilibrium, encouraging ongoing practice of discourse and building your own skills. 00:23:26 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. 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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We’re kicking off a mini series of episodes focused on transforming the systems that uphold inequity in our schools. In this episode, we are specifically exploring the structures that enable us to meaningfully partner with students and families on a regular basis. We’re grounding the conversation in a powerful theoretical model which directly addresses the common barriers to success in our student voice endeavors. Why are structures needed? In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker writes of how adaptive leadership professor Ron Heifetz starts his class without speaking for 5 minutes. She points out that when we step back and don’t facilitate at all, we are not democratizing the space, but instead handing control to someone else in the space—perhaps the loudest, confident, or extroverted person. (We can democratize the space with skilled facilitation.) When we step back from our intentional facilitator role, we also are likely to create confusion and anxiety for the participants of our gathering. Many students will respond to an open invitation to share their ideas and experiences with understandable skepticism, confusion, and perhaps anxiety. Consequently, you may get zero student responses after extending the invitation. Certainly, we need to develop trust in relationships with students (and families) before real sharing will happen. However, we also need effective structures for how and when we can listen to folx share their experiences. Student voice scholar, Laura Lundy (2007) developed the Lundy Model of Participation, which includes four features that are required to enable students to authentically share their ideas: SPACE: Children must be given safe, inclusive opportunities to form and express their view VOICE: Children must be facilitated to express their view AUDIENCE: The view must be listened to INFLUENCE: The view must be acted upon, as appropriate How do we provide students with each of these features at a school level? Create Spaces: In addition to creating the relationships necessary to make this happen, we want to design our school schedules to provide students with as many opportunities as possible to share their ideas. From co-constructing curricula to co-creating school policy and all the things in between. Possible ideas to explore include:
Facilitate Voices: Use discussion and listening protocols such as Circle in all levels of school/district life (e.g., classrooms, school committees, after school clubs, advisory, family nights, staff meetings). Co-create community discussion agreements. Use them regularly. Normalize this way of being in community and listening deeply. Gather an Attentive Audience: If anyone (particularly adults) struggle to do this, do some adaptive work. Invite them to share challenges and interrogate deeply held beliefs that may be holding them back from partnering with students. Sometimes, inviting the adults to share their experiences is enough to build trust that listening is a community experience that is not unidirectional. They feel valued and cared for, and this may give them the capacity to do the same for others. (This has certainly been true for me in relationships! Everyone wants to be valued and listened to.) Partner for Influence: Invite students to attend relevant meetings or discussions about their proposals so you can work collaboratively to make the idea happen. Commit to respond to each suggestion or concern by a specific date. If it’s not possible to implement the proposal, clearly explain why to the students and invite students to brainstorm additional ideas to address the underlying issue. Final Tip You don’t need to implement a ton of structures tomorrow. Keep Lundy’s 4 principles in mind as you engage with students and ask them to share their ideas and experiences with you. Commit to building up structures and practices as you continue this work. To help you implement one structure for amplifying authentic student voices in your community, I’m sharing my Setting Up Structures of Shared Leadership worksheet with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 157 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. TRANSCRIPT 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 core curriculum of students. I made this show for you. Here we go, everyone. Welcome to Time for Teacher podcast. This is episode 157 and I'm super excited because today we're kicking off a mini series of episodes that are focused on transforming the systems that uphold inequity in our schools. In this episode, specifically, we're going to explore the structures that enable us to meaningfully partner with students and families and educators, right, a multi stakeholder partnership on a regular basis. 00:01:06 We're grounding the conversation in a powerful theoretical model which directly addresses the common barriers to success specifically in our student voice endeavors. I love it. I'm excited for it. Let's get into it. All right. So how are we doing this thing where we're prioritizing student voice, family voice, we're prioritizing gathering experiential data or street data as Jamila Dugan and Shane Sappier call it, I specifically am focusing on students today, but I do want us to keep in mind, family voice, educator, voice, all the stakeholder voices that are important because I think a lot of this applies. But the model we're specifically using it focused on Children and youth voice. So what are the structures? Right? And before we actually even get into that, let's talk about why the structures are needed in the art of a gathering. Pria Parker's book, she writes of how adaptive leadership, Professor Ron Heet, who have quote a lot of the B and podcast start this class without speaking for five minutes. And her point here is that when we step back from leadership roles and we don't facilitate at all, we're actually not democratizing the space. 00:02:11 We may think that we're giving up leadership and the leadership disappears. Everything is democratic. But instead, what we're doing is we're handing control role without that facilitation, we're handing control to someone else in the space. Perhaps that's the loudest person, the most confident person or the most extroverted person. She gives a bunch of other examples in her book of like parties where the host is not facilitating and you get stuck with a drunk uncle or something that's like someone you're really not thrilled to be talking to for two hours. So there are things that we think like we're stepping back, we're democratizing. Awesome. And there are things that happen in that space of un facilitation or lack of structure, right? What she actually says is we can democratize the space with the skilled facilitation when we take ownership of that facilitator role. And we skillfully facilitate the conversation and the opportunities for voice and sharing, right? When we step back from our intentional facilitator role, we're actually also likely to create confusion and anxiety for in her words, the participants of our gathering, right? With our students, we often create confusion and anxiety. 00:03:16 When we say, OK, we want to hear from you. Go no boundaries. We I've done this so many times with projects, I'm like, let's co create the project. What kind of project do you wanna do? Nothing's off the table? Go tell me what you want. And there's just like crickets and confusion and stress of like not coming up with the right answer all the things right that we learn as students is like we do school this particular way. And now after years of that training, we ask students to open up and share with us and there's a lot necessary to create a foundation where students are actually able to do that well, right. So many students will respond to an open invitation to share their ideas and experiences with us, with understandable skepticism, a lack of trust, perhaps a lack of, are you even going to take me or an idea of, are you even going to take me seriously? They might be confused and anxious as I said, and consequently, you might just get zero student responses after you're like, hey, everyone, tell me what you think, just crickets, right? 00:04:19 And so we need to develop trust, of course, in relationships with students and families and all stakeholders before real authentic sharing, that is honest and vulnerable will actually happen. But then we also need the structures, right? The facilitation for how and when we can listen to folks to have students, for example, share their experiences. So the theoretical framework that this episode is situated in comes from Laura Lundy, who is a student voice scholar, she developed what is known as the Lundy model of participation. So there is uh the convention on the rights of the child which has been upheld by almost every country in the world. The United States has not ratified this which is bonkers. But this idea of youth voice and participation in things that affect them is widely recognized as a way for Children and schools are a wonderful place for us to be able to facilitate this and bring it to life. She recognizes that there are many barriers, two students authentically sharing and participating in the way that we dream up in the way that we think of when we think of authentic meaningful student voice, right? 00:05:32 And so she says this model of participation actually includes four features that are required to overcome these barriers and enable students to authentically share their ideas. And so here they are first, space, Children must be given safe, perceived safety, right? They have to perceive the space as safe. It's not something that we dictate, right? But they perceive the space as safe, inclusive opportunities to form and express their view. So we need many opportunities, right? Plural, it's not one opportunity, plural, many opportunities. They need to have the students experience safety in those spaces and they perceive that they are safe to share psychologically physically that they are inclusive of all voices, particularly students who have historically been marginalized or excluded from these types of conversations. And that it's not just space to express their view, but also a space to form it. When you ask students who haven't been asked before, what do you think? There's often a long lull, a long silence, there's a lot of questions they have to work through. 00:06:39 I know just as an adult, there's a lot of times where someone asks me what I think about something, even if it's what do you want for dinner. And I literally have to stop and think for multiple minutes because I'm I'm not sure I have to have the space to think about it to form my ideas. And if I'm being asked about something or a student is being asked about something that they haven't had real connections with or experiences with or haven't even thought about certain topics, right? We need to allow them to have more experiences with that topic, to grapple with it, right? To form their view and, and express their view. So that's one that's space. The second piece is voice. Children must be facilitated to express their views. Again, we have this facilitation idea. This is an active thing. We enable the the voice through thoughtful participation in the creation of these opportunities for students to express their view. Again, I would say multiple opportunities. She uses a plural here. The third component is very adult centered. I think maybe also youth centered in terms of like youth also need to provide an audience. 00:07:46 But it's it's audience is the third one. And the idea here is that the view the child is sharing must be listened to. So students must be listened to and perceive that they are being listened to authentically meaningfully like we care what you say. We are not on our phones, we are not rolling our eyes, we are not um not taking you seriously because you're a child and we're adults or whatever it is, right? But the view must actually be listened to. So we create the space, the opportunity, we facilitate the voice, the sharing, we have the audience, we're actually listening. And the fourth one is influence, the Children have to have real influence. So here is described as the view must be acted upon as appropriate, right? So if it makes sense to act on it, if there's no real reason, we shouldn't, we should act, we should act, they should have real influence. I love this model. So let's actually use this model to go into the structures that would provide these students with each of these features at a school level. 00:08:52 Because of course, I think you can do this in classrooms. It might even be easier sometimes in classrooms. Um diff different, I should say maybe not easier across the board but different. Um and perhaps easier in the sense of you have a smaller community. So you have more opportunities to build trust in one on one relationships, teacher to student and student to student um in a larger school with a lot more um stakeholders, stakeholder types, right? We have families, we have educators, we have students, we have just a higher number of everybody. It might be harder to build that kind of trusting relationship. But here we're thinking about a school level and of course, let your mind wander to how this applies to the school as well. I'm sorry, the classroom as well. All right. So first, let's dive into spaces. So the first thing we want to do is create spaces. So in addition to creating the relationships, of course, that are necessary to make sharing happen. We want to design our school schedules to provide students with as many opportunities as possible to share their ideas. So from cot constructing curricula, again, that's a classroom example to co creating school policy and everything in between. 00:10:01 Here are some examples of ideas that you can use to create these spaces. And of course, this is not exhaustive, this is just like what's in my brain, you could do regular learning walks to get a pulse of what's happening in the school. And of course, that leads to deciding on your next action steps. Now, the kicker here is that we do these with students, right? So we're scheduling them, we're scheduling them in alignment with when students can do them with us. We are inviting students to share their experiences as we're going into the different classrooms, student voices centered, we could level up our student government. So it frustrates me to no end particularly as a high school and college student who was um in student government myself, that student government is seen as an often limited to in terms of influence planning social events. It is so much more than prom and the class trip. And what kind of like fun things are we doing? Encourage the student government and and of course, I think train and support and help them build the skills for advocating for and co creating policy change in their schools and also in the larger community, right? 00:11:10 Truly level up their leadership and give them those opportunities change the narrative of what student government can be and is in your community. Another idea include students on all school and district committees that includes things like curriculum assessment discipline committees. These are not just limited to some kind of fluffy student experience committee that is, you know, just after school clubs or sports or whatever. Another idea create in class and after school opportunities for participatory action research and civic projects. So again, you'll see some of these do transcend into the classroom as well. But I think if you have this larger system where you as the leader are connecting classroom teachers and after school teachers providers, whatever with folks who can help facilitate this work with students versus a toy action research, they're training students and how to do this. They're creating the space for students to go do this research and kind of report to or present to an authentic audience at the end for meaningful change. Um Local college students, I think are a great source of partnership in this work. 00:12:15 They're often really into it, right? They're, they're learning about participatory action research in their courses and they're excited to help others learn as well. It's great for them and internalizing the material, but it's also great for students to see other youth, although slightly older youth of course, um doing this um right. Uh another option is to make advisory period if you have advisory period or something similar like a concrete space for students to share their experiences, which it often is, but also to from those experiences when appropriate, when you know, acknowledged by students as something that they want action taken on that these experiential share outs are being used to recommend policy and practice changes, right? We're turning them into advocacy. So we're not just, oh this was a really tough part of my day because of this school structure. But like what does that school structure have to exist? And what can we say to have this changed? Another option is to develop family and educator together teams or fet teams that meet regularly in alignment with Ari Giron Kessler's advice, which was actually shared in a few episodes, two episodes back episode 155. 00:13:22 So you can get that at Lindsay, Beth lions.com/blog/one 55. So these are just some ideas, but these are all kind of structured spaces that have a regular time and place and opportunity. There's a structure there that makes it sustainable. There are multiple opportunities on a regular basis in all of these different types of spaces and structures of spaces for students to share their experience and advocate for themselves, having meaningful influence in those spaces. Now, the next piece, when we think about that with space, her number one principle and then the number two is voice. So we need to facilitate voices. We can use discussion and listening protocols. My favorite, of course, as I always say is Circle protocol and use them in all levels of school and district life. So of course, you can use them in classrooms, but you can also use them in school committees in after school clubs. You can have students running after school clubs, you can train students how to do these circles and and facilitate themselves. Um do it in advisory. I think advisory is a great place for Circle Family nights. 00:14:27 You know, the the fet teams that you're creating potentially with families and educators together staff meetings, right? Model that one learning model for all model, how we do this as a staff, this is how we interact and now go do this with your students, right? This is just how we are in our community, of course, as part of Circle or any sort of discussion protocol core, your community discussion agreements, use them regularly, refer to them regularly, hold everyone accountable to them regularly and really normalize this as this is how we are in community and deeply listening to one another. The third piece is audience. So we need to gather an attentive audience. So if anyone particularly adults struggle to do this, this is where I think the adaptive work is critical. So as a leader, what I'm thinking is OK, I think a lot of folks, a lot of educators and and leaders in our space are gonna be like, yeah, I wanna listen to students. So I'm just gonna be attentive. You just need the reminder that like this is part of student voice and meaningful voice is there is an attentive audience. It's part of this framework. I'm gonna listen, I'm gonna put my phone away. 00:15:29 Cool. If there are some who are like, I am feeling the eye rolling, I am not taking this seriously. That's where the adaptive work has to be done. And as a leader, you want to step up and do it there, right? So we wanna invite those folks to share what are the challenges coming up for you? Let's deeply interrogate those beliefs that may be holding you back from partnering with students sometimes just literally inviting the adults to share their thoughts, experiences, fears, that's enough to build trust that listening is what we do in this community, right? You will be listened, it's not unidirectional. You don't just have to listen to students, right? Students are listening to you all the time. We may not feel like that. Um But the leaders and your peers are also listening like that's what we want to stand for. That's what we want to do here, right? And so in feeling valued and cared for by being listened to this may give those folks the opportunity and the capacity really, right? You're feeling like your cup is filled up. I now have the capacity to do the same for others. I was in a group once that uh uh participant names a beautiful metaphor of having like a rope or a string day, right? 00:16:37 Where a string day is like, I'm hanging out by a thread like you cannot put more on my plate. And a rope day is like, yes, lay it on me. I am here for you. I can deeply listen and empathize and do all the things, right? So we want to equip our teacher and any adults in the space that might be inattentive in the audience of student voice. We want to equip them with the capacity to do these things for students. So let's give it to them first and let's get them to have a bunch of rope days, right? I think this has certainly been true even for myself, I talk a lot about student voice but in in relationships for sure, like everyone wants to be valued and listened to and sometimes if the other person can be the person to value and listen and hear me, then I'm like, oh yeah, I got you like I can do this back, right? I just, I am feeling like my cup is not filled up yet. I need it filled up and then I can do it right. Ideally, we can just be ready all the time. In reality, we're real people. And I, I think this may just be something that helps us um to do this work. OK. Fourth thing influence. So we partner for influence here. 00:17:42 So we in in line with data Mitra student voice pyramid, which I've talked about before on the podcast and in the blog, we wanna make sure that we are partnering, right? And then ultimately, students are leading but through the support and structures of the school, right, we've done the the kind of middle of the pyramid work where we have come together and use adult partnership teams. And I genuinely think like this is where the transformation happens um and enable students to kind of take on their own projects because we've done the work, we've built the community, we have built the sense of partnership. So what does that look like? Invite students to attend relevant meetings or discussions about their proposal? So if they're like, hey, there's this cool idea. I have you invite them in and say, OK, that actually works well with this committee. So come on over, we're gonna talk more about it there. You can work collaboratively with us to make it actually happen. And if they can't or they decide, I don't want to do that, that's fine. Make sure that you are the person or someone is the person who's bringing it to the appropriate committees and you commit to that student to respond to their suggestion. 00:18:49 So each suggestion that you get from each student, right, I'm going to respond to you by a specific date and even if they don't even come up with a proposal, right? They're not saying this should be changed in this way, but they're just voicing a concern like we hear your concern, we're gonna talk about it at this meeting and therefore I can share out the next steps or things that questions that maybe came up for you so that you can kind of help us and and think through it and think about next steps, right? Whatever by this specific date. So just commit to that specific response date. So you can kind of circle back so they know where it's going. And you know, if it's not possible to implement the proposal, sometimes it's just not literally explain why to the students. So you'll remember maybe in Lundy's uh model that she says under influence rate, it's it's not that we always take action, we take action as appropriate. And so sometimes it's not appropriate, it's not possible, but we need to explain the why we need to circle back and say like, hey, we looked at this from these different lenses, like unless we're missing something, it's just not either relevant right now. It's not in alignment with our values. 00:19:50 Perhaps we don't have the financial resources and you can invite students to brainstorm additional ideas. So you're not just saying end of discussion, we're not doing this unless it violates your values in some way. And then we're, we're talking about that, of course, but invite students to brainstorm additional ideas of how we might address the underlying issue, right? Ok. So really surface level example, I, I don't think this is like a big thing. I think this is used usually as like, what is actually what is actually like a really fluffy example to your voice, but I'm using it now just because I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. If students are like, hey, the, we should have pizza every day at the, in the cafeteria, right? Ok. Well, pizza every day might not actually be nutritious and in alignment with our values we want what's best for the health of the whole child. Right. So we can't do pizza every day. However, if you're feeling like there are not a lot of good food options in the cafeteria, like I will walk you through. Um and the committee that, that designs that menu every week, we can walk you through. So some of like the budgetary constrictions or whatever we can brainstorm other options together. Um Perhaps you can find like a different supplier for us. 00:20:53 We can look at what schools have really great lunches and we can kind of do some of the digging in the research to try to think about how do we make lunch better because maybe it's not actually pizza that you want every day. Maybe it's just like you want delicious food. And so far like pizza is all that we've really done well. Right. And so I think bringing students in identifying the underlying cause and partnering with them to figure out, OK, what are the options to move forward? Um And, and showing them the work that goes on behind it, we have to research all this stuff like pitch in and help if you'd like, if that's really a passion for you, like we're welcoming the ideas. Um But we're just kind of stuck here and so maybe you can bring a new lens or bring a new idea, maybe you're connected to students at other schools who know how to do it differently and you can kind of bring that to us. OK. So those are our four kind of components of her framework. As a final tip, you don't need to implement a ton of structures tomorrow. And you know, this feels like this big thing. It's great to have all the things, all the structures. What I really am hoping that you take away from this episode is that Lundy's four principles are in your mind as you engage with students and families really and ask them to share their ideas and experiences with you. 00:22:07 So when you make that ask, keep the barriers in mind, keep the principles in mind and just commit to recognizing them, considering them, committing to building up the structures and practices that are gonna enable those four components and to help you implement at least one structure for ample amplifying authentic student voice in your community. You can grab by setting up structures of shared leadership resource for free at Lindsay, Beth lions.com/blog/one 57. Until next time. 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. 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. 00:23:18 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 episode, we’re exploring a mindset shift for when you feel like you can’t move forward because you don’t have all of the answers. If you’re feeling stuck, have a sense of imposter syndrome, or fearful of making a misstep because you (of course) don’t know everything there is to know, this episode will give you an action plan for addressing those challenges.
Why? There is a lot of research on the value and organization of learning communities pursuing a common goal, including the connections to shared leadership, ongoing data collection and analysis, and learning in partnership with one another, both from failures and successes (Harvard). John Hattie’s work has highlighted Collective Teacher Efficacy (CTE) as having the largest impact on student learning when compared with 251 other influential factors (visible-learning.org). I propose we treat not just school committees and teacher teams as learning communities (e.g., communities of practice, PLCs), but also majority-student spaces such as classrooms and student groups. How do we create a culture of learning (in pursuit of justice)? Step 1: Recognize you literally can’t do it alone. The answers to adaptive challenges lie in the community, not with you or any one person (Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky, 2009). Step 2: Form power-sharing structures and processes. At the school level: Bring students and teachers together to lead school committees. Clarify the decision-making processes for each type of decision. For decisions that will be made collaboratively, specify the process. For example: options are created by the leadership team, shared with grade team committees, shared with all students and staff in that grade, grade-level feedback is collected by grade team committees and shared with leadership team, leadership team shares final plan for approval via consensus voting. This episode contains several concrete ideas for shared leadership at the school level. At the class level: Teachers identify regular opportunities to gather feedback from students about what’s working, what’s not, and ideas for change. This data can be specific experiences students have in class. Consider a range of modalities for how students can share this information. At the peer group level: Co-create group working agreements. Determine how decisions will be made (e.g., consensus vs. majority vote). Specify at least one time point to check in with all members about how the group is functioning and how each member is feeling. Step 3: Regularly practice inquiry cycles Ground it in a search for positive deviance (where things are going well) and experiential data, centering people and perspectives that have not been/are not being served by the current way of doing things. Step 4: Systematize experiential data collection Identify who data is collected from, in which formats, how often, and by whom. Consult Dugan and Safir’s book Street Data for some excellent ideas for implementation. This month, I reviewed several of these ideas on my YouTube channel in 5 minute videos. Step 5: Practice building skills of critical discourse. Identify when and for which topics the group avoids talking about or deflects responsibility. Name the type of discourse being discussed (Bridges Patrick & Lyons, 2022)—namely, polarizing, silencing and denying, intellectualizing, or generative mobilizing discourse. The latter is the ideal form of discourse. Final Tip No one can know it all. The best you can do is to surround yourself with brilliant people with diverse experiences who can help you and the community learn and grow. And once you create this culture, it helps address a wide range of challenges! To help you implement a culture of learning in your community, I’m sharing my Leadership Bundle with you for free. It includes my Diagnosing Adaptive Challenges Mini Workbook, a series of culture building agendas you can use for staff meetings, and my Learning Walk protocol. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 152 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. TRANSCRIPT 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 core curriculum of students. I made this show for you. Here we go. Welcome to episode 152 of the time for teacher podcast. Today, we're talking about creating a culture of learning for justice. So in this episode, we're really exploring a mindset shift and this is for when you feel like you just can't move forward because maybe you don't have all the answers. If you are feeling stuck, have a sense of imposter syndrome or you're fearful of making a misstep because you of course, don't know everything there is to know. This episode will give you an action plan. 00:01:06 So not just the mindset shift, but an action plan as well for addressing those challenges. Here we go. All right. So let's talk about creating a culture of learning for justice. So, first of all, there's a lot of research on the value of and the organization of learning communities. So you may call a learning community A PLC or professional learning community. You might talk about communities of practice. You might have these already set up in your school in different ways. There's a lot of legitimacy to them. Uh Typically they pursue a common goal. They include kind of a either distributed quote unquote leadership approach or what I like to call a shared leadership approach, which typically is more inclusive, primarily were inclusive of students ongoing data collection and analysis and also really uh emphasis on learning in partnership with one another, both from your failures and your successes, right? So there's this just culture of learning in these communities kind of inherent in them. Now, John Hattie's work is another piece that I often reference. The number one largest impact on student learning from his research of over 250 influential factors is collective teacher efficacy or CTE for short, we know that this idea of CTE or collective teacher advocacy is highly impactful for a student learning more than anything else. 00:02:26 And so this idea of being able to figure it out as the team, as a collective, as a community, knowing that we will do right by our students, we will achieve our goal because we are a collective who learn from one another and we could do this together. That's what I would like to bring, not just to those staff level committees, but beyond teacher teams. Beyond those school leadership teams, beyond all the things that already have the PLC set up, we also bring them to spaces that are majority student spaces. This could be classrooms, this could be student groups that are working on a project within the classroom. This could be student groups that exist in extracurricular or after school activities, uh sports teams, you know, whatever space that it's primarily students numerically who make up the the group itself. Now, I also want to copy out here that I often talk about shared leadership and the structures of shared leadership, which of course we will touch on in today's episode. Typically those to do right by students to really shift the dynamics towards justice and bring in historically marginalized groups which are typically students, they're not usually at that level of leadership. 00:03:35 We actually do want to have an equal number, if not a slight majority number of students in student adults, mixed groups. Just because if we have a token student or we have fewer students because of that historical imbalance of power, the students are often feeling like they're silenced and they're not speaking up and they don't feel like they um are are truly on equal footing or in true partnership. With the adults. So with that caveat, I will say, let's try to think now about what this looks like, like how do we create this culture of learning in pursuit of justice in our spaces in our communities? So I think the first step is recognizing as the leader that you literally cannot do this alone. So the answers to adaptive challenges, which are the ones we usually struggle with. Right? I've talked a lot about adaptive challenges on the podcast before. Feel free to go listen to a prior episode if this is your first episode. But adaptive challenges, the ones we struggled with the longest we've been trying for years for decades to solve this problem to address this problem. 00:04:40 And we're not getting anywhere right. Then it's probably adaptive. It's connected to the hearts and minds, the beliefs, the long standing values that we hold and are clashing around. Technical challenges are OK. We're going to implement this new curriculum. I, you know, we, here we go, you're gonna study, you're gonna go to three PD days and study this math curriculum. And for the most part you're gonna be good. Now, there may be adaptive challenges in a curriculum implementation. But technical challenges are most likely fixed by like a quick fix. You know, the answer you just have to do it and move forward. Adaptive challenges are often cultural in nature, there is a cultural shift that needs to be made and what adaptive leadership scholars say is that you as one individual person cannot solve it by nature, these adaptive challenges must be solved in community, in partnership with other folks in your space. So you literally can't do it alone, right? If you're listening to something about leading through change or solving a long standing problem, it's the depth of a nature, you can't do it alone. Move on to step two. So what is step two, step two is form, power sharing structures and processes? 00:05:45 I've talked a lot about this at the school level. So I'll review that a little bit. But then I also want to talk about this at the class level. So teachers in partnership with students and then also at the peer group level. Now this could be teacher teams. I think we often have a lot of processes for these. So, so feel free if that's aligned to your role. So tune into that piece if it's not, and you're more thinking about supporting teachers and their instructional spaces at the classroom level, you might be thinking of peer groups like students or perhaps your role or you're in a supportive role for a person who's in a role that supports student groups holistically throughout the school. Then definitely kind of put on that hat. So let's first talk about the school level. We want to bring students and teachers together to lead uh in in the form of school committees. So this might be a literal school leadership team, but it could also be like our curriculum committee, it could be our grading committee. Um your your grade teams which are typically made up of teachers that teach in that grade. What about the students from that grade? Can they be on those committees? Then once you bring them into the literal structure, they are equal members of this committee, clarify the decision making processes for each type of decision that that group will make. 00:06:55 So for decisions that will be made collaboratively, there's not all of your decisions that are gonna be made by the whole group, getting feedback from every student who that group represents. So if grade 10 is going to make a decision that impacts all of grade 10, you know, you may decide, hey, we're gonna get feedback from all of our students before we make a concrete decision, uh we might do a couple feedback loops. So we get their first round of feedback, we put together two proposals, we have them vote on it and we clarify, you know, we're going with the majority vote rules or we're saying, you know, every student has to be able to live with this. This is a massive decision. You know, we're gonna uh do consensus voting. And so anyone who doesn't reach a three out of five, they have not reached consensus and we need to do another round of feedback, right? So you have to get really specific on which decisions go out to everyone for a vote or consensus or however you're making the decision and how that decision is decided. Now, there are some that are gonna be really minor. So for example, it might be, we are taking a field trip and we know that the students want to go. 00:07:56 We've already had the discussions about wanting to go. Now, we just have to like literally hit the date. And so we're gonna look at the school calendar as that grade team level community and we're gonna just choose the date and you know, hope it works for most kids because it can't work for every kid probably right or something like that. That might be actually something that you do throw back to the students. But you want to be specific, which types of decisions are things that are going to be made on the committee and which types of the decisions go to everyone. And what does that feedback loop look like? So that's something that you want to, to think about when you're talking about a school leadership, an example might be um that options for a major overhaul of a school policy are going to be first created by the leadership team, then shared with grade team committees. Then the grade team committees might share with all of the students and staff in that grade, gather a bunch of feedback, share that data back with the leadership team. And then the leadership team does maybe another round of that feedback loop. So they share, here's like a draft final plan. Let's get approval via consensus voting. 00:08:58 If we don't have consensus, then, you know, we're gonna move forward now, um move forward, sorry with the next loop. Now that probably that type of decision that does that level of detail and round the feedback is probably gonna be something that affects every student in a pretty monumental way. So it might be like we're shifting the grading policy or we're shifting some sort of thing that that every single student is going to be affected by. So again, you just wanna lay those out. There are other episodes where I've done a lot of deep dives on what this looks like. Uh The different things to consider the challenges of doing something like this, especially if right now you're very uh a top down organization and also different school and district level kind of examples of what this looks like or could look like at the various tiers like elementary, middle high school district level. So I'll link to that in the blog post for today. Now, at the class level, this could look like teachers just identifying regular opportunities to gather feedback from their students asking really simple things. It does not have to be a very long list of questions you ask and you can ask the questions in a variety of formats. 00:10:05 This could be a a Google form, this could be a whole class discussion that takes up a full class period or, or time. Um ask things like what is working for you as an individual, what is not working and what ideas do you have for me for change, right? It puts you as the teacher in a leadership position um that the students need to acknowledge, right? That, that you are in that leadership position and you ultimately have the final say, but you are willing to learn from them and that they have a role in really co creating what happens next. So if you have a teacher who's really excited to kind of do this work, this is probably going to be an easy lift. Um It's just a matter of like figuring out where this kind of fits in with like all the curriculum. If you have a teacher who's resistant to doing this, we might take some smaller steps uh like it might be at the end of each unit versus at the end of each week or the end of each day, right? Um where the the teacher really has an opportunity and they might want to make some more specific questions. Like I want feedback on this specific part because they maybe they're only open to change in that specific part, right? 00:11:08 Like the mechanism for like which protocol we use for discussion or whatever, but I don't want to change the class content or whatever, right? So So there can be this gradual process where you ask about a specific thing, get feedback and then because the students co created, it likely will go better next time. And then there's an opening kind of an of a willingness to do more co creation and more feedback from students. But a wider range of things I do recommend that this data and this kind of um invitation for feedback is grounded in specific experiences that students have had in class or with your class work. So I think that's something to just be mindful of that. We are grounding it and like you didn't like that. OK. Why? So maybe you felt really stressed out when I made that deadline and I said there's no uh late work accepted, right? And you had this family thing and you were stressed about it. And so you just felt like there was no flexibility and then you just didn't do the assignment because you're overwhelmed, right? Like that's a specific experience a student has, they can share that and then there's context, right? Because if that same student says, well, you should never have deadlines ever. 00:12:11 Like, then it's very um de contextualized and it's harder for the teacher, one to accept that feedback and two to fully for the teacher to fully understand it. And three for the teacher to understand it and then have the student see that understanding and be more likely to share in the future So I think there's all sorts of pieces there. I also just noted quickly the, you know, considering a range of modalities for how students share the information. I do think that's important, it can be written and it can be verbal in a, in a discussion, but it also could be like share with me um you know, photo voices, one of the things in the student voice world for research that's getting really popular or drawing, especially with young Children, right? Draw me a picture of your experience in this class and then then explain it to me maybe in a one on one conference or in a circle where you, you hold it up and you kind of share um ta take pictures if you're not really an artist or like I am not artistic at all. So I would be like, yes, I could take a picture but I don't want to make a drawing that feels like just totally not my jam. So do some photo voice, right? 00:13:13 Take some pictures that are maybe artsy or maybe just like literal that describe to me kind of your experience in this class and you can again walk me through them or add a caption to each picture and submit it via email, whatever. Now at the peer group level, this is uh again teacher, teacher, peer group or student studio, peer group. I'm I'm putting on like a heavy student hat here because I'm thinking you know, we talk a lot about these processes with adults. So what does it look like for students to kind of core this culture themselves with just a little bit of support from, from maybe the teacher, one of the first things I think is to core group working agreements. And so you can see again those parallels to adults, we want to know how to work together. So anytime there's group work on a project, for example, let's talk about how we do that, right? I think you can again do this in different spaces like sports teams or other sort of after school clubs. But like, how do we wanna work with one another? How do we want to disagree with one another? What are the phrases that we wanna use? We don't want to use all that stuff, then determine again how decisions will be made. So, in our group project, when we make a big decision about the project, are we gonna have consensus or is the majority going to win? 00:14:22 Right. And we think about all the interpersonal dynamics that happen in student groups and what often can like derail the project? My vote would often be consensus because we don't want kind of like a, a peer group who's like really good friends with one another, get paired up or grouped up with another student who's not part of that intimate peer group and then that person just gets out voted, right? We want everyone to feel like they have a good sense of voice. Um And then I would also specify at least one time point, particularly with longer projects, even honestly, if it's a group project that lasts like a class period or something, at least one time during that class period or during the course of the project, at least one, you're gonna check in with every member about how the group is functioning. Do you know how they often like assign roles to students and sometimes of arbitrary and like, you know, we have like the timekeeper and the secretary and the presenter and like often those are really helpful rules. Sometimes they are more or less helpful depending on the project or whatever. I really feel that if nothing else, we have a person who does this check in like they could be like the equity checker or something. 00:15:26 I don't know the experienced old person, you better names than I am probably. But I'm thinking about, you know, how do we check in and ask each individual member, how they are feeling and how the group is functioning and how it's best serving them or not serving them, right? And how it might change. Now, step three, once you've done step two and you really have those power sharing structures and processes in place where we have the decision processes, clarified we have equity of voice, then regularly practice inquiry cycles. So again, we wanna ground this in a search for the positive. Where are things going well, we want to ground it in experiential data centering people and perspectives that historically or currently have not been or are not being served by how we do things right now. Right. So at a school level, those students or the family members or even the staff who are not being heard, they're not being served, they're unhappy, they're not being successful. 00:16:31 Um, they don't have the academic achievement, they're not passing classes, whatever it is. Um Their attendance is low, like something is not working, let's hear from them first. And then if there's several groups, for example, uh let's say that in a high school with grades nine through 12 grades, um, you know, 9, 10 and 12 are struggling, but grade 11 is not struggling with a common challenge maybe attendance. So what's happening in grade 11 that is making students attend more than grades 9, 10 and 12, right? Or maybe out of all of the ninth grade classes, one teacher's class is excelling in attendance like really high attendance and others are not. So like what's happening in that class and having kind of an inquiry mindset, a question where we go collect that experiential data of that positive deviant of that teacher or that class or that community where things are going well, what do we learn from them? 00:17:32 And how do we really transfer that learning to the other spaces and communities now step four is kind of an offshoot of step three. When we gather that experiential data, we want to make sure we systematize the data collection and we wanna make sure we have ongoing processes that we can just repeat because we wanna consistently constantly collect that data. We don't want to do it just once in a while around a big project, we want a constant influx of what is happening for students in our educational community. We want that information. So identify who the data is collected from. Again, centering students and individuals in the community that are not being served in which format. So again, are we doing photo voice drawings, a Google form of opportunity for discussion like a focus group. How often we're collecting this and by whom? So who is responsible for gathering that information? If we want student data, can we train and ideally pay students to be trained, pay them in, you know, money or by class credit or something as like a research or independent research study or something course, you know, whatever it is. 00:18:42 But can we have students be the ones interviewing and collecting and gathering data from other students because they will be better received? Like try to figure all those pieces out. I highly recommend you consult Jamila Dugan and Shane Sapper Book Street Data. There are some excellent ideas for implementation. And actually this month, February 2024 I reviewed several of these ideas on my youtube channel in five minute video spurts. So if you want some concrete ideas for like, what might this look like in practice, feel free to check those out, check that book out. It is amazing. And then finally, step five, I really encourage for the sustainability of the project, for the justice centeredness of all of your leadership, all of your, you know, community endeavors. I highly recommend that you all individually and collectively practice building skills of critical discourse. So we have to be able to tackle the tough stuff. So this includes identifying probably first and foremost, identifying when and for which topics, the group and this could be any group, this could be like your leadership committee, this could be a classroom, um avoids talking about or deflects responsibility for, for particular topics. 00:19:54 So when this topic comes up, we say, oh, well, we can't do anything about that because that's so and so is like the families, the right issue or um you know, we, we make a joke when this topic is brought up because we're actually really uncomfortable talking about it or everyone's eyes kind of like look down at their lap when this topic comes up, right? Like we wanna first identify where are we kind of like crumbling and falling apart and not actually digging in. Also, um Juan Eicholtz has this fantastic kind of discourse quadrant which Doctor Sheri Bridges Patrick and I have adapted for uh adaptive leadership chapter, we, we co-authored and, and we talk about these four types of discourse, particularly around racial discourse where we have the polarizing dimension, right? We're on like separate teams and we're kind of entrenched in our positions. Um We have the silencing and denying which is kind of that avoidance, right? We're not going to talk about this. We have the intellectualizing type of discourse where we're just kind of in our heads but not our hearts. And then we have what we ideally want, which is generative mobilizing discourse. And so the this last one is really the ideal form of discourse. 00:21:00 It's very helpful to diagnose. You'll you'll notice there's a lot of diagnosis here, right? We diagnose what we're avoiding talking about. We diagnose the type of discourse being discussed a lot of critical discourse. It is difficult, it's difficult to build that culture of learning and being having that critical discourse as a venue for learning and censoring marginalized perspectives and experiences, right? In all the things that we need. So we first have to diagnose where we're going wrong and then we have to try to build our skills through practice and through redirection. Getting back on track when we try to avoid that or deflect responsibility, right? Recognizing when we're intellectualizing and not using our hearts, those kinds of things to get on the generative mobilizing discourse track. So that is an ongoing process and that's what makes it truly sustainable. Yes, we have these systems of kind of how we share decision making power and leadership. And yes, we regularly practice inquiry and we collect data, but we have to continue the practice every day of building skills of critical discourse because we can do all of those other things. 00:22:06 And when it comes to the actual discussion, if we can't say out loud, our thoughts around making the hard decisions around analyzing the challenging data, around digging into adaptive challenges, long standing problems, right? White supremacy, all of the things that are going to come up and be hard, then we can't actually move the needle forward. We can't actually make change and the change and be a a true culture of learning for justice. So to wrap this up, no one can know it all. And so if you're feeling that burden of like I can't do this thing because like I just don't have all the answers yet where I need to learn more before I act. Yes, I think we do need to learn more but not just as individuals. We need to create the community to learn together collectively, right? The best thing we can do is to surround ourselves with brilliant people with different diverse experiences who can help you as an individual leader and also the community as a collective learn and grow. And then once you've established this culture, you feel it, you foster it, you grow it and that's going to help address a wide range of challenges, like most hard things that you have to tackle are going to be served by this community that you've built. 00:23:19 So, in conclusion, I'm going to help you with uh establishing a little culture of learning in your community. I'm gonna share my leadership bundle with you where I've just kind of bundled my most popular resources around this idea of shared adaptive leadership. So this is going to include my diagnosing adaptive challenges mini workbook, a series of culture building agendas you can use for staff meetings and also my learning walk protocol that ideally involves a mix of stakeholders including students to do this work. You can grab that at today's blog post, Lindsay be lions.com/blog/one 52. 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. 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. 00:24:31 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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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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