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In this episode, we talk with Leah Ellis, the founder of The Society of Child Entrepreneurs. Her non-profit fosters an entrepreneurial spirit, leadership, and financial literacy in young people through hands-on experience.  

Leah’s “controversial opinion” is that children are not the future — they are leaders in their own right today. In the episode, she highlights successful youth-led initiatives, such as a child's campaign to introduce a crosswalk to her community and another kid's efforts to inspire middle school classmates to enjoy reading again. Through real stories, Leah illustrates the impact of seeing children as capable contributors and leaders.


The Big Dream 

Leah's big dream is a future where children grow into adults as confident adults who are capable and confident of who they are, their ability to lead, and their ability to solve societal problems. By fostering leadership skills in youth now, she believes we can overcome apathy and frustration that currently plague many adults.

Mindset Shifts Required

The key mindset shift for adults is to transition from seeing kids as future leaders to recognizing their potential as current leaders. Rather than dictating to children, adults should engage in dialogues, ask probing questions, and genuinely listen to young voices. This unlearning process involves understanding that enabling kids to take charge now equips them to handle responsibility and be proactive.

Action Steps  

For adults and educators who want to start partnering with children as leaders can take the following action steps. 

Step 1: Start with your mindset — how do you think about young people and what they’re capable of? What beliefs do you need to challenge in yourself? One way to start seeing how brilliant kids are is to simply ask one to express issues they're annoyed with and what their solution is. They’ve likely already thought of it, but haven’t had the opportunity to share. 

Step 2: Embrace school-home partnerships. The best way to make anything stick is to reinforce it in schools and in the home. Leah recommends the SoCE Circle, an online platform that has weekly challenges and stories that help enforce leadership and problem solving at home.

Step 3: On the school side, educators can implement programs like the Society of Child Entrepreneurs' curriculum to embed entrepreneurial thinking within school systems.

Step 4: Listen to and share stories of what children are doing. This is important because it shifts our mindsets as adults to see what children are really capable of. In the episode, Leah shares stories of children working with the city to get a crosswalk put in, creating a company that recommends book choices, and many other creative business ideas and initiatives. 

Challenges?

The biggest challenge here is for adults to shift their mindsets around what children are capable of right now, not just in the future. For adults, it’s challenging to be a guide and a sounding board only, not a teacher or manager when students are creating their own solutions. 

On the other side, children have challenges accessing resources can be a significant challenge, especially in underserved communities. Additionally, they often face the challenge of growing in environments where they may develop skills surpassing those of their parents.

One Step to Get Started 

The first actionable step is for adults to reconnect with their inner child-like curiosity by continuously asking questions. Engage children in conversations where they are recognized as experts in their own lives, fostering a supportive environment for their ideas to flourish.

Stay Connected

You can find out more about Leah’s work on her website, The Society for Child Entrepreneurs, and their Instagram.  

Free and paid resources are also available through the SoCE Circle. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 257 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: 

• 1:01 “[Children] are not the future because they are students of leadership right now. They’re amazing human beings right now. And the more we say ‘children are the future,’ the more we defer into not allowing them to lead now.”
• 2:44 “I think my big audacious, hairy dream is that we have a generation of children who become adults who are secure in themselves, their ability to lead their communities, and their ability to solve problems throughout society.” 
• 16:39 “ Ask a question and then when they answer, ask another question and get really curious. Like, get 4-year-old level curious.  Ask them questions until they're annoyed, because they will start realizing that you might be the first adult waiting for their opinion instead of telling them what to think.”
• 19:44 “ And sometimes you have to step back and you have to let them fail. You have to let them build the resilience, build the confidence of recovering from that failure … The best way to build confidence is to recover from failure.”

​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:​

TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Leah Ellis, welcome to the time for Teachership podcast.
Leah Ellis: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.
Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for being here. I am just really excited. We are airing this episode as part of a series on youth voice and leadership, and so this fits perfectly in there. Um, one of the questions I've been playing with to start is just kind of like what people want, uh, what you want people to keep in mind as we jump into our conversation.
And so I'll just share like what's on my mind is that you reached out and were like, Hey, we do this cool thing where. Like kids actually start real businesses and take real action in the community. And I was hooked. So te tell us more. What else should we keep in mind?
Leah Ellis: Okay. So I'll tell you my biggest, most scandalous controversial topic, subject, one sentence ever.
Uh, children are not the future. So the thing I wa I, yeah, I know it, it gets every teacher right in the heart. 'cause we're like, wait a second, they're our babies. Yes, yes they are. They're our babies. But they're not the future because they are students of leadership right now and they're amazing human beings right now.
And the more we say children are the future, the more we defer into not allowing them to leave now. And the more we program them. To believe that they can't yet, but then we never tell them when yet is.
Lindsay Lyons: Love that. I love that so much. As a secondary school teacher, I always was frustrated when we were like, what do you want to be?
It's like, what are you, what can you do today? Like.
Leah Ellis: Yeah, exactly. That's, um, I have this challenge and I tell people all the time, 'cause you know, I do the podcasts and people are like, what is the one thing you wanna leave us with? And I'm like, okay, well the one thing I wanna leave you with is go find a child and ask them what thing happens in their daily life that they're annoyed with and how they would fix it.
Because they probably have already thought about it and they just didn't feel comfortable telling you. So when you open the door, they will tell you what's wrong and how to fix it.
Lindsay Lyons: I love it. We got it right at the start of the episode, so great ideas
Leah Ellis: jump in.
Lindsay Lyons: So one of the things that I like to ask everyone on the show is kind of stepping way back in kind of the big dream that you hold for education, learning, youth voice.
Feel free to answer in whatever way. Um, but really inspired by Dr. Patina love talking about freedom dreaming, and she says their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. So what is with that in mind, what is that big dream you hold?
Leah Ellis: Okay. So again, I don't believe children are the future because I think they're leaders now, but they are also the leaders of the future.
And so for me, I think my big audacious, hairy dream is that we have a generation of children who become adults, secure in themselves, their ability to lead their communities and their ability to solve problems throughout society. So we have now. A generation of mostly apathetic, frustrated, angry people who feel like we have no power, and if we can teach all these kids what their power is when they're young, then when they reach adulthood, they are advocates for other people.
They're advocates for their communities. They're advocates for solving problems, and they don't feel like they need to stay quiet.
Lindsay Lyons: Love that. And I think one of the mindset shifts you've been consistently talking about since we we started recording is that idea that it's like not the future, it's now. So I think that's a big one that people should take away from this episode.
Are there any other mindset shifts around like, you know, I think about youth adult partnership a lot and youth voice a lot. And there is something that has to happen in the brain of an adult, I think, to unlearn some things before we can truly get into this. So what would you, what advice would you give us?
Leah Ellis: So I'm actually, instead of just giving you blatant advice, um, I'm a teacher, which means I teach through story. So I'm going to tell you the story and then let you kind of pick through some of the things that I had to unlearn, and then we can discuss what that felt like and what it was like. So I had an in-home daycare and I taught engineering curriculum to 3-year-old girls.
It was fabulous. But then we discovered. A in a house that I had owned for 18 months, we discovered 10 years of black mold in the walls. So we had to move into a hotel, we had to tear apart. Most of the ground floor of our house was awful and that meant I had to shut down my daycare. 'cause you can't run an in daycare, um, in a hotel.
That's just not feasible. And when we went back, we were set to reopen our daycare on March 17th, 2020. Which unfortunately was the exact day that our county issued the stay at home order for COVID, and we did not get to reopen, and my husband and I decided to pivot and launch a financial coaching company, but he was deployed.
So I was home alone with an 18 month old and a 4-year-old, and that meant I had to figure out how to do my training while also watching my kids. So I put a lot of business training videos on our living room tv. I watched them while the kids played and I'd watched them while I was washing dishes and whatever I was doing, they were just the background noise of our house at that time.
So my 4-year-old looked at me and said, I wanna start a business too. And of course, being a mother, I said, no way. You're four. You can't start a business. And being a 4-year-old child, the number one word in her vocabulary at the time was why. I didn't like have a good answer. Like I tried to come up with a logical, justifiable reason for why she couldn't start a business, but there wasn't one outside of year four, and nobody's done it before, but especially at that time, we were all doing things that nobody had ever done before.
So what was one more new thing? So I made her tell me what she was gonna sell. We used a Facebook group to vote on her name. She did her launch and she created her business in May of 2020 at four and a half years old. And that then became her doing an art show as a featured artist, her doing her first children's business fair as a child entrepreneur at six years old, and me realizing.
Like the only thing that was holding our children back is the adults. And then when we started the Society of Child Entrepreneurs and seeing that, it wasn't just in my household, but it is a societal thing where we expect 18 year olds to act like adults, but we expect 17 year olds to behave like children.
And if we really want our 18 year olds to act like adults, we have to start letting our seven and eight year olds know what an adult does.
Lindsay Lyons: Wow. Love that. So sorry, continue if
Leah Ellis: you want. No, no. So it was, it's a long story, but that's kind of where we came from was what do we want the future to look like and how early do we need to start to get it there?
And the answer is, elementary school, we need to start an elementary school teaching them these problem solving these life skills so that they're second nature when they reach 25 years old.
Lindsay Lyons: For sure. And I love, I mean, as the parent of an almost 4-year-old, I'm like loving this story of like, yeah, why, why not?
Like why? Tell me why. Love it. Um, also just love your. Adaptability in that moment. Right. I think a lot of adults, sometimes it's like we are kind of hit with this like moment of wait. Yeah, why not? Or wait, wow, this is possible. And you went there. And I think that's such an inspiration to people who also are going to confront those moments where it's like, oh, I can shift and, and then we all shift together.
Leah Ellis: Right? Well, and it's so easy to just be like, because I said so, but then we're like, well, but. I mean, nothing in that, nothing at life was normal at that point. So it was, well, what's one more abnormal thing to throw into the ring? And now she's the junior executive director of our organization at 10 years old.
Lindsay Lyons: That's incredible. That is so awesome. I am thoughtful of a couple things here. Two groups of audiences and, and sometimes over overlapping. So we have mostly our audience of people who are in education, right? They have a formal role in education, their teachers, um, maybe leaders. Instructional coaches, but we also have people who, and maybe are also in education, but are family members and thinking about like youth voice at home.
And so I'm, I'm seeing and, and, and noticing in your story that really, this can be both, right? This can be what we do at home and it's also likely in partnership with what we're doing at school. So any advice you have for either or both. Kind of hats the family hat or the teacher educator hat.
Leah Ellis: So both one.
Um, for teachers and educators, I've made this super easy for you. At the Society of Child Entrepreneurs, we've actually developed a 36 weeks school curriculum that's two hours a week, so you can literally buy our curriculum and stick it in an afterschool program and teach this in your building. Plug and play.
The worksheets are already there and everything, so you just make your copies and read from the lesson plans, so it makes life super easy for you. But for families, because we all know the best way for anything to stick is to do it at home and in school we created an organization called the Sochi Circle, and it's an online platform.
And every week I post a family challenge and it's like, here's a short story. Here's why it matters. Here's the challenge for your family to stabilize financial literacy, leadership, or problem solving for your kiddo at home. And when you can take that program at school and these challenges at home, then it becomes a part of the culture and not just like this one hobby.
Lindsay Lyons: That's super cool. I think that's exactly right because I, I don't think that anything that is true student voice or youth voice can just be this one siloed activity. It has to be part of the culture and the way we do things and the way we treat kids and interact with them. Right. So I love that. Um, are there moments or kind of wins or projects or businesses started that you want to highlight?
And I mean, specifically I just looked on your website. Today and I was like, oh, there's this update since I've been on there and it's talking about like a 10-year-old trying to get a crosswalk in their community, like standing in front, right? Like so there's just. So many wins, I'm sure. Do you wanna share some with us?
Leah Ellis: So the 10-year-old on the blog post, that's my oldest daughter. Uh, so she's the one who started all of this and yeah, she walked into my office and she was like, we need a crosswalk. I'm going to city council. And she stood on a chair, told the mayor, paint a si, a crosswalk right here. Then sent an email to the city administrators that was like, okay, now that we've discussed it, what are your next steps and what do I need to do to make sure it continues on?
So she has a meeting on Monday with the Main Street Planning Committee to work on getting her crosswalk put in. She is amazing, and I could tell like 500 stories just about melody because she inspires me daily, but she's not the only kid in the Society of Child entrepreneurs and she's not the only one doing amazing things.
So we have another kiddo. You mentioned that you're in secondary education, so you know very well that reading for pleasure drops off statistically at a massive level after fourth grade. So by the time they get to middle and high school, nobody's reading for fun anymore, and the ones who are labeled nerds and all that stuff.
I have a, one of our members, he's a 14-year-old super avid reader. He loves books. He loves talking about books, but none of his friends were talking to him about books anymore. Once they got to middle school, they had all stopped reading and he hated it. So he created a company called Troy's Top 10. And you tell him one book you enjoyed, just tell me one book that you liked and he will find he has created bookmarks and on the back of each bookmark is the genre and 10 recommendations for that genre.
So if you tell him I loved Divergent, then he's like, oh, cool. Here's my top 10 dystopian future novels. These are what you should read next. And then he's encouraging kids his age to read again because he's telling them exactly what to read and exactly what they'll like. But then he takes it a step further because he puts that list on a bookmark so you don't lose it.
And then he goes to one of our local book Bulk Sales Places and he buys dozens of books at a time for a dollar a piece. And then he bundles them the books with his bookmark. So it's also super sustainable 'cause he is taking all of these books that would've ended up in the trash. And he's reselling them with recommendations on what else to read.
At 14. This is the business he's running.
Lindsay Lyons: That's incredible.
Leah Ellis: Oh, he's fabulous.
Lindsay Lyons: I am like, I, I am a book nerd. Like, let's talk Troy, gimme your top 10,
Leah Ellis: right? I, I have some of his bookmarks. They're so cute. Um, and then we have another kiddo. Um, she's one of my, it's, this is one of my favorite stories to tell right now.
So we're piloting our full 36 week curriculum and week one she sits down and she's like, I am a child. I cannot be an entrepreneur. My mom forced me into this class and it's done. And I was like, you are gonna be my star student. And she was like, no. And she was like, I wanna be a paramedic. There's nothing that a paramedic can do, starting at 12.
And I'm like, well, you know, I teach first Aid to Girl Scout daisies and we teach them check call care, and like, they can't do much with care, but they could do like a, an ice pack or a bandaid while they were waiting for an adult. So. Couldn't you make like a a child or teenager friendly first aid kit that doesn't have all the extra stuff that kids don't need?
And she was like, yes, but first aid kits are always clear. And I'm an adolescent girl and I really hate clear bags because I need privacy for my stuff. And I was like, that's completely valid. And so I thought that her business was going to be creating these really cool first aid kits. And then she comes to me in week three and she's like, I have a different idea.
And I'm like, okay, what is it? And she was like, I've been thinking about phone cases and how sometimes I wish I could do more with my phone case, but I can't. So I was thinking about like if we made something that would slip on and off of your phone case to change what its function is. And so I showed her pair glasses and how pair glasses work where you have a frame and then you can pop different designs on top of that, like a cap to personalize your glasses for your day or your outfit.
And I was like, so do you mean like pair glasses for a phone? And she was like, I've never heard of pair glasses, but yes. This is exactly what I was thinking because I could have it where like it's a wallet for when I wanna go out and I don't wanna carry a whole purse. Or I could have it where it's a dry erase board for me to doodle with my friends when we're bored.
I could dress it in a tutu, so it's just cute when I'm stuffing it in my bag. And I was like, yeah, you can do all of those things. And so now she's going to the dollar store and buying super cheap phone cases just to practice cutting them apart and building prototypes. When she started literally a month ago with child entrepreneurship is stupid.
Lindsay Lyons: That is incredible. And I'm, so, I'm thinking, okay, there's two trains of thought I have I'm having right now. One is like, what is that in the moment response to like as an adult, you notice this kid who you are like, I'm eager to cultivate the leadership of this child. I see a spark of an idea here, right?
Like. What is that move that you make with that kid to kind of foster that trajectory? And then I also am interested, so you can take either one at a time, uh, is thinking about like the curriculum that you built, so like in a class setting or an after school setting with multiple kids. Like what is, what are the things that, what are the activities that you're doing in terms of maybe skill building?
Maybe it's like ideation, like what's the kind of framework there? So any or both.
Leah Ellis: So I'll do both first. How do, when you see the kid who, like, I, I know this is gonna get to you, but you've gotta get over your own preconceived notions first. Um, ask a question and then when they answer, ask another question and get really curious.
Like, get 4-year-old level curious. Ask them questions until they're annoyed, because they will start realizing that you might be the first adult. Waiting for their opinion instead of telling them what to think. Um, because even when I was like, well, here's an idea, how would that work? And then she was like, well, I have a better idea.
And then it's, okay. Well, but the how is that work? How do you make it, how do you create it? I know that. So I'm one of her elective classes. I know that her following elective is a sewing class. I'm like, okay, well with these two projects, how would you make it work? And watching them. Build on their own ideas while you are simply questioning and encouraging and keeping your mind open and not like, like it's like improv.
Always say Yes. Yes. And what else? Yes. And how, um, so that they can keep going. And then for the curriculum, we have it set up into five units. So the very first unit we start with what is an entrepreneur? And the kids start out by discussing like, what are the traits that an entrepreneur has to have and.
Then they write a mantra for themselves. Um, and they have to write not who they are, but who they are becoming.
Lindsay Lyons: So we make the, oh, I don't have one right here. I thought I might,
Leah Ellis: we make them write like, I am becoming the kind of person who looks for solutions when I'm frustrated because nobody's gonna write down.
I am a problem solver 100% of the time. And I want them to understand that. Like, it, it doesn't have to be black or white, like we're allowed to live in that gray area. And then after they've established what an entrepreneur is, we discuss how entrepreneurship works. Then we start market research, product development.
We do mission and vision statements. We do brand voice and personality and core values, and then we talk about social entrepreneurship, and then we talk elevator pitches. Then at the end of the curriculum, at the end of 36 weeks, they actually do a children's business fair where they have their product in their booth and they sell to their community.
Lindsay Lyons: That's incredible. That's so, so cool. So I am now thinking about challenges that may arise either for the students or for the adults who are involved in something like this. Anything that you can think of that's like a big challenge in this work and how you have. Yourself or seeing others kind of get through that challenge.
Leah Ellis: So for the adults, the biggest challenge is that your job with this is to be a guide and a sounding board. You are not in this moment, the teacher or the manager. You can't tell them how it works. You have to just guide them for finding their own solutions. And that can be really hard as a parent because you want to do, you want your kid to just get it right.
And it can be really hard as a teacher because you're like, let me spell it out for you. And sometimes you have to step back and you have to let them fail. You have to let them build the resilience, build the confidence of recovering from that failure, because I will tell you, I'll shout it from the rooftops, the best way to build confidence is to recover from failure.
And that means letting them fail. Even though as a teacher and as a parent, that's the last thing we want to do is let them fail. And then for kids, it's kind of twofold. Um, the biggest like. Just hang up that gets kids stuck is lack of resources. I mean, when we work with underserved communities, we have to have grants that will give 'em startups costs so that the kids have materials to start their businesses.
Because simply having the resources is something that a lot of us take for granted. And so making sure that we have systems in place so that every child has access to the resources, whether that means a 3D printer in a library or a cricket for school-wide use. Um, creating, you know, this is our community craft space and anybody can take anything out of the space and making sure that they have those resources.
And then the second one is the mind shift change for the kids of the fact that they might be in a place where they are developing skills their parents haven't developed yet. Having to live with that middle of knowing that their parents could do it, but their parents don't know how, and trying not to let it pull them back down and trying to maintain that open-mindedness while they're developing themselves and teaching upward mobility and societal pressure and all of that stuff, and telling them like, it's okay for you to have a better future for your parents and it's okay to drag them along.
Lindsay Lyons: I think about so much of that, like our kids do things better than us, as as adults. Right,
Leah Ellis: right.
Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. I love that. Right. You can bring them along with you. Um, okay, great. Wow. There's just so much here. I love that we've kind of gone from like. Well, a kind of back and forth between both big picture, what is possible, like painting a picture for us, like what is possible.
Because I think that's sometimes a big hurdle to overcome for adults is like what even is possible, right? But then you also gave us the concrete, like, what do you do one-on-one with a kid? How can you coach Traject trajectory? That's not a word. Uh, like what's the trajectory? Of kind of that curriculum.
And so I'd love to kind of move to close here with a few closing questions. One being, if there's one thing that folks can leave the episode and do immediately, what do you suggest that is?
Leah Ellis: Always, always, every single time ask questions. Like I want every adult to get in touch with their inner 4-year-old and ask questions and allow the child in your life to be the subject matter expert in their life.
Pretend that they know more about themselves than you do, because it's actually the truth and it's just hard for us as adults to come to terms with
Lindsay Lyons: Love that. Great advice. And then this is for fun, could be related to our topic of conversation today. Could be something totally random, but what is something that you personally have been learning about lately?
Leah Ellis: Oh gosh. So I am in an all women's networking group for, um, it's mostly neurodivergent business owner women. So it's a really unique kind of place to hang out. And our conversation this week was on. Um, but becoming like, who are you becoming and the stories that you tell yourself in every situation, and how those stories can shape who you are.
And one piece of advice that they gave that I had never heard before, which was brilliant, is whenever you have a situation in which your initial gut reaction is some kind of like constricting response, like, oh. They didn't answer my email because they hate me. Um, then every time you come into that like gut wrenching response, then force yourself in the moments that matter to come up with two alternative stories, one that's positive and one that's neutral.
So then you might also say like, they didn't answer my email because their computer. Broke, and that's very neutral. Like that's just nothing against, or for me, their computer broke. And then the third one might be like they didn't answer my email because they're waiting to reply until after they secure a $500,000 grant for me.
And so then you're like, okay, so any of these stories are equally likely to be true, so why should I not believe. The positive one, instead of believing all the time, the self-deprecating versions of all of those stories. Also, if you have a $500,000 grant for me, email me. I will take it.
Lindsay Lyons: That is incredible.
I love that. And so immediately actionable. So I'm gonna start using that. Thank you. Uh,
Leah Ellis: yeah. I loved it when she taught it, and it's one of those things that we can teach the kids.
Lindsay Lyons: Uh, oh my God. Great points. And the last question is just people are gonna wanna connect with you and figure out like what you're all about and and your program.
So how do people do that?
Leah Ellis: So, um, you can go to SO cce i ct.org. That'll take you to our website. It has all the things you can see the blog that Lizzie was talking about with my daughter standing on a chair, um, on Facebook and on Instagram. We're just. Society of child entrepreneurs. And then if you really want to get involved in getting those weekly challenges in the lesson plans that I post online, it's school.com/s O-C-E-C-I-R-C-L-E, so it's, it's S-K-O-O-L school.com/sochi circle, and that'll give you the information and that one, one of the levels to join is free, so you don't have to pay to be a member of that.
Lindsay Lyons: Awesome, and we can link, if anyone's driving or running or anything, we'll link those in the the show notes so that you don't have to capture that on audio. So thank you so much, Lee. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on. Thanks for sharing all your wisdom.
Leah Ellis: Thank you so much for having me.

​

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In this episode, we dive into a discussion about youth-adult partnerships with guests Lindsey Halman, Jacoby Soter, and Ana Lindert-Boyes from UP for Learning, an organization committed to reimagining and transforming education through youth-adult partnerships. 

Our conversation highlights the immense potential of redefining educational spaces through shared leadership between youth and adults. The guests discuss the importance of valuing youth voice, fostering systemic changes in education, and embracing non-traditional learning methods to create environments where all participants can contribute and thrive.

The Big Dream 

The vision shared by the UP for Learning team is an education system where equity is not a mere privilege but a fundamental human right. At its core, the dream is to create environments within schools where both students and educators are seen as partners in learning. This involves breaking down existing structural barriers that have been deeply embedded over centuries and fostering practices where every participant's unique background is leveraged as a source of strength.

Mindset Shifts Required

A significant theme in the conversation is the necessity for adults to cultivate a mindset that views youth as capable partners rather than passive recipients of instruction. This includes recognizing students as valuable contributors and reframing their roles to empower them in decision-making processes. 

Ana, Jacoby, and Lindsey each emphasize the need to embrace discomfort and openness to new ideas, dismantling entrenched educational structures, and adopting project-based and personalized learning approaches.

Action Steps  

For educators, leaders, and other adults seeking to strengthen youth-adult partnerships in a meaningful way, our guests suggest the following action steps: 

Step 1: Initiate personal reflection on how educators perceive students. Start by considering students as holistic individuals with valuable insights to offer beyond traditional academic metrics. The mindset shifts that see youth voices as necessary in this partnership is the key piece to any future work. For educators and adults, this is the key place to start. 

Step 2: Make use of practical tools like "64 Ways to Strengthen Youth Voice" to find small yet impactful actions educators and community members can adopt to infuse youth-adult partnership principles into everyday practice.

Step 3: Implement tangible activities, such as classroom circle discussions, to foster reflection and empower students. By redesigning classroom settings to include collaborative discussions, educators can practice and facilitate the integration of youth voices.

Challenges?

The resistance to building youth-adult partnership often stems from long-standing educational models. Many educators and leaders may find it difficult to relinquish conventional roles and embrace new ways of interacting that center equity and shared leadership. This shift demands patience, persistence, and a willingness to be uncomfortable but are crucial for systemic transformation.

Stay Connected

You can learn more about the organization on the UP for Learning website or Instagram. Keep in touch with Jacoby via email at [email protected] or on LinkedIn; and Ana at [email protected] or on LinkedIn

To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing The P.O.W.E.R. Framework and LETS ACT Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 256 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: 

• 4:55 “One of our core values is that we view educational equity as not just a privilege, but as a human right.” (Jacoby)
• 8:40 “ These dreams that we have about centering equity and justice in our educational systems can be a reality if we have that high level of leadership and vision to do that, and if we have educators who feel empowered to be able to change a system that has operated in a particular way for 150 years plus. And, when there's that support from the community.” (Lindsey)
• 15:03 “The most basic level of youth-adult partnerships … is that adults need to view youth voices as valuable and necessary.” (Ana)

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TRANSCRIPT

Ep 256 Ana, Jacoby, & LindseyLindsay Lyons: Welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast, everyone. So I am here with Lindsay, Anna, and Jacoby. Thank you so much for being here today. I would love to just open it up to whoever wants to share first. Um. Just sharing kind of what is on your mind today or what people should kind of know about you. Um, the Up for Learning program, I have always been a fan of this program, kind of watching from afar on your email list and knowing you guys are doing really cool things in the student voice space.
Um, and so would love to get your take on what folks should know and what you're passionate about.
Lindsey: Would you all like me to start? Great. Well, thanks for having a flimsy. Um, my name is Lindsay Hallman and I'm the executive Director at Up For Learning, which actually stands for unleashing the Power of Partnership for Learning. But we like to say up for learning because it's much easier to remember and easier to say.
And, um, uh, our work really is, uh, guided by our mission to reimagine and transform education. Partnerships. So our why is that youth and adults need to be together, working together to create systemic change, um, in authentic partnership sharing power, voice, and responsibility in order for us to create.
Changes in a system, educational system, or any kind of in structural system that, um, has, uh, been really deeply rooted in, um, adult ways of being and mindset. So our work is about changing our. Mindsets our mental models and then working together as youth and adults through, uh, youth participatory action research to ensure that we're bringing in the voices of the community, um, to create changes that are gonna benefit all.
I'll pass it on to my colleagues.
Jacoby: Yeah. Um, thank you Lindsey. Um, and thank you Lindsay for having us. Um, my name is Jacobi. I am a youth program specialist with UP for Learning, and I'm currently a senior in high school. I think what's really important to understand and think about our work is that, you know, although our mission is to kind of go into schools and kind of help create youth adult teams in schools, we live that mission in our work every day.
We have youth on our staff, we have adults on our staff. We kind of have like. People in between the youth and adults. We really kind of have everybody, um, of all ages really working together so that we're able to go into schools confidently and understand some of the challenges that they may be facing.
'cause we have probably figured out ways to overcome those challenges ourselves in our organization, which is something that a lot of organizations, um. Maybe cannot necessarily say as confidently as we can, that we really do live and breathe our mission every day, which is super exciting.
Ana: Um, thanks Kuby. Um, thank you for having us, Lindsay. I'm really excited to be here. Uh, my name is Anna. I usually her pronouns. Um, I'm a program associate at for Learning. Um, and I'm also a senior at Boston University. Um, uh. Yeah, I think I'm gonna echo a lot of what Jacoby said. I think that's like one of like the biggest standouts, um, and aspects of OP is the fact that we live our mission.
Um, so I actually started working with Up for Learning when I was, um, a freshman in high school. So it's been about seven years now. Um, and I remember, you know, in high school I would go to like conferences and like be able to like be involved in like the education world and sphere. Um, and you get like a lot of organizations and people talking about youth adult partnership.
But then like you'd go to like a breakout and it was just like adults talking about youth partnership. Um, so I think like what's really, really impactful about up is that there are youth involved in like every aspect of the work. Um. I think just like knowing that and like, like literally like growing up with the organization in that way.
Like so much of like the way that I think and, um, I'm majoring in education right now. Um, so much of that is just influenced by like up and ups values and, um, the way that I've been able to be involved.
Lindsay Lyons: Wow. Thank you guys so much. It is such a cool, unique organization. I love that you've highlighted different aspects of it.
I also think you've started to answer my next question, but I would love to see if you have anything else to add here. So Dr. Patina loves, she talks about this idea of freedom dreaming, using this phrase, dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so with that kind of in mind. Um, what do you as individuals kind of wish that school or maybe even learning in general?
Um, could be or would be?
Jacoby: I think we, one of our core values is that we view educational equity as not just a privilege, but as a human. Right. And so we see that when schools aren't working in partnership with young people operating in the width category of restorative practice and really engaging in equitable pro processes to engage young people who come from all sorts of backgrounds to really take charge in their learning.
We see that as an injustice, um, in our dream, um, which we're able to actually really see tangible impacts happen in all of our teams, but we're able to. Create spaces where traditionally like young people who come from certain backgrounds may not be in your typical student council student. But what we're able to do is when we go into schools, like we require that our teams have people from all backgrounds.
And so we're really empowering both, um, people who would be typically involved in a student leadership or a school transformation group. Um, but we also bring in people who you, we try and build a breakfast club, um, of folks to join our team. We, because we understand that in order to change a system, we have to look for the people who experience the system in both the ways that are really positive and some of the people who are, you know, targeted by the system.
And so how can we make that system work with everybody and actually support them instead of bringing them back and preventing them. From learning and taking a really, um, and really taking charge of their own education.
Speaker 4: Um, yeah, I think for me at just like a foundational level, um, just hoping to create like a future where. All people in a school system and community. So thinking about like youth and adults, students and teachers, um, community members and families really feel represented, um, and engaged and excited in their roles in their schools and communities.
Um, so like a lot of what we do, like that Jacobi just mentioned really gets at that. Um, I think a large part of it is like, I'm like a really big advocate for like personalization, um, in education and like curriculum because I've had like really. Probably like life changing experiences with like opportunities to be able to like personalize my own learning, um, in a way that's really special to me.
Um, making sure, you know, that there are like connections to real life, you know, like getting at students' actual interests, um, real life applications, um, and then like structured support from adults. Um, so yeah, I think like personalization and really like getting to know the student and then like making sure that everyone feels really valued in their spaces.
Ana: I would add. So for me, um, my dream, um, I really had the opportunity to realize in many ways what that dream could be. I was a middle school educator, a public middle school educator for 15 years prior to coming to UP for learning. And during that time, um, I had. Uh, leadership that really had a strong vision for, um, how we could ensure that we were addressing every young person's, uh, unique learning styles and needs and, um, and really transform the system.
So I was able to create, um, a school within a school, uh, called the Edge Academy for about a decade of my teaching career. And what I know from that is that you. You can, these dreams that we have about, um, centering equity and justice in our educational systems can be a reality. If we have, you know, both the leadership, so at that high level of like leadership and vision to do that.
And then we have educators who ha feel empowered to be able to change a system that has operated in a particular way for 150 years plus. And um, and there's that support from the community. There's, um, buy-in from the community and that they feel they are a part of it. Um, and that. That communication is really, um, very strong between both the community and the school.
Um, and so when I was teaching with the Edge Academy, um, I was deeply, uh, partnering with the youth that I worked with. It was a multi-age group of young people. We, um, centered, uh, education for sustainability. Um, in our work. So really centering like economic, environmental and, um, social justice and everything we did.
So, um, that involved both young people as really authentic partners. They helped to co-create the curriculum. It was project-based learning. We had many community partners where young people are getting out into the community and engaging in, um. Projects that supported, uh, positive change in their community.
And, um, we also, I have a big, you know, one of my dreams is like the big kind of, uh, slowdown of schools. Like everything is so fast and there's so many transitions and we're always functioning at this, this like, frenetic pace. Um, and so we were able to like really take larger. Blocks of time, personalize it.
As Anna said, um, every young person, um, before really personalized learning plans and flexible pathways were really kind of buzzwords. We were, we were doing that work, um, and really. Looking at each of the different structures that are in place and asking why are these in place and who are they serving?
And then working to dismantle those structures in order to ensure that young people were really centered in, um, in their unique abilities and needs.
Lindsay Lyons: Wow. Thank you, all of you for your thoughtful responses there. I what you were just saying, Lindsay, you just made me think about, you know, the, the. Enduring kind of like 150 year long cycle of this type of traditional structure of teaching.
Um. We, we to transform it, I imagine, takes a different kind of mindset or approach, right? And so I'm curious from each of you what your, your thoughts are around, like what are those really powerful like moments of, oh, someone has shifted their mindset, or this collection of adults has shifted their mindset and they are approaching youth at all partnerships in this particular way, or they're engaging with youth in this particular way, like.
What are those mindsets you could advise the audience members of this episode on? Um, like, if we can think this way, we're gonna have a lot of opportunity open up to us in different ways of being.
Jacoby: Yeah, I think, um, a time for me would be for the amount of time that I've been in high school, um, we've had kind of like our personal learning plan coordinator, um, had assumed that role and. Just in talking with her, she's my club advisor and we do a lot of work together. She is, um, an independent learning for English advisor for me as well, and.
She has told me on multiple occasions before, like getting all, um, her certifications and project-based learning, um, and like the personal learning plan and career pathways. She was an English teacher and she had just taught novels, just really taught like these ideas and would've never allowed like Grammarly or AI or these other things that really.
Kind of suppress a student's ability to take pride in their work because they may not have had a strong foundational level in English. We were taught how to read wrong. Many of us were because of a lot of things, and a lot of times, just because those are some of the harder parts of the language. Um, and she has said on multiple occasions, if she were to go back to being like a regular classroom, a teacher, that she would not do another novel.
She would not teach another novel. She would do an entirely project-based, like backwards design approach to looking at what's the end goal and moving backwards and setting steps for individual students. Uh, she's actually designed a course for next year as an introduction to work-based learning. And in Vermont, every school is required to have flexible pathways and work-based learning is a way for that.
And a lot of people only get access to junior or seniors on a disciplinary route. However, at our school, I'm on it and I'm not on a disciplinary route. Um, and this is gonna be offered for ninth and 10th graders as a way to get their feet wet and a way to really engage in a project-based learning English class, um, with a teacher who has actually like, had a total mind shift in like.
There's no, like, there's no resources that you're allowed to use to help you on this. And instead is now encouraging the use of, um, AI in smart ways and teaching students how to like actually expand their work, um, and grow their knowledge using both AI and, um, research that they come up with. Really doing that in a way where she's a facilitator and a agent of learning, and not necessarily a sho of knowledge into people's brains, but as somebody who's able to really pull it out and help people, um, who traditionally don't succeed, really find belonging and joy in their classes.
Speaker 4: Um, I think for me, uh. Like the most basic level of like youth adult partnership and the mind, the mindset shift that people kind of need to make to feel comfortable in that. Um, what comes to mind first is like adults need to view youth voice as valuable and necessary. Um, they also need to view youth as, um, capable and like agents of their own learning.
Um, and then I think. A large part of it too is just keeping, like, keeping a really open mind. So like being open to valuing different types of learning, um, apart from like the conventional types that we often lean into. Um, and then being open to like Lindsay or was talking earlier about like dismantling structures.
Really being open to like being uncomfortable. Um, because we know is not gonna be like a simple, easy process to change, like structures and things that have been in place for hundreds of years. Um, but yeah, I think the biggest thing is just like. If you don't believe that youth are going to be able to step up into their roles as leaders, then it will not happen.
Um, so I think this, like, this, this sense of like belief and confidence in them.
Ana: Yeah. I really appreciate this question, Lindsay, because um, our work it up for learning, it starts with shifting our people's mental models because you need to change your mindset. You need to have that paradigm shift and really have a different mental model for.
Um, what schools could be in order to do this work, and it's. That's really hard work to change our mental models. We know schools as we know them, right? They've operated in this way. And so to, to start helping people really shift their, um, their mindset around, uh, what it would mean to partner with young people and, um, takes time.
So that's the work that we do, is like we start by. You know, establishing really strong youth, adult teams that are getting, you know, really building their sense of like, what does it mean to work in partnership, exploring their own mental models. And then, um, once they've really developed their own partnership on their team.
It already creates that buy-in, right. So, and often on our teams, we have superintendents, we have principals, we have educators, we have community members, school board members. Of course we have young lots of youth, but it's really important that young people and adults are. Have the opportunity to sit together and have these conversations around, around what school is and what it could be, um, in order to change that mindset.
And I think the, the thing that is really niche about up for learning and important is that there's a lot of, you know, student voice and amplifying student voice and elevating student voice and et cetera is fundamental to what we do. But what is really, really niche about what we do is. The work around partnership that, you know, we really believe fundamentally that youth and adults should be sharing power, voice, and responsibility in their educational journey.
And in decision making. And so that takes a lot of time and tending to relationships and tending to the climate and the culture of the school or the organization. Like I said before, it also requires that the leadership buys in, um, or at least has a willingness because again, when you're shifting mental MI models or mindsets, it might be really uncomfortable, like Anna was saying.
It's, you know, there's this level of discomfort and so we just need a willingness. To begin the work. And then once people start doing the work, they, they recognize that this is, oh, this is the way I wanna be operating. So then we are working with, you know, teams for, for, you know, multiple years as they continue to think about what is the next structure in our school that we wanna change and dismantle so that we really are centering young people in decisions.
Lindsay Lyons: I am just so blown away by all of your thoughtful responses, but also like all of the stuff that I know just prior to hitting record that you all are doing. And so I'm curious now if we can transition to like, what is an example of youth adult partnership or like a, you know, a learning experience or however you wanna interpret that.
Um. It's had like a big influence on either you, the community, both. I think, you know, there's just so much research that youth developed. Partnerships are good for individuals and communities. But I would love to hear like kind of the story behind something that you've worked on and felt is important. I.
Speaker 4: I can talk to kind of my own experience. Um, I mentioned earlier that I've been working with up for a really long time now. Um, and I think like. Originally, like when I was in middle school or even like early high school, I was never like, just didn't talk very much. I was like very shy, like erred on like the, the quiet side.
Um, and didn't really like view myself as any sort of like leader in my community or like any sort of particular advocate for, for a particular cause. Um. But I think that being involved with that and like, yeah, that was 2018 was when I met Lindsay for the first time. Um, and that was like my first experience being like, oh wow, like this is like a completely different way of interacting with adults.
Like we're partnering versus like they're my teacher. Um, that's their sole role. Um, and it just feel, it's like, yeah, I think a lot of it is, uh. Like the mindset. Um, so like, I feel like working with like Lindsay, I really did feel like, oh, like she believes that like, I can do this. Um, and that bolstered me a lot.
Uh. So, yeah, I just feel like that like continued relationship and like growth and support really changed, uh, kinda like the course of my life, honestly. I think like it would be like very different if I had never gotten involved with up. Um, and so now I do view myself as like a, a type of leader. Um, and I would not have said that before, before getting involved and getting, being able to experience like True Youth Digital Partnership.
Jacoby: Yeah, I think. For me, like, um, a big shift has been, I feel like, kind of on the other side of what Ana said, like I, well maybe in a same, a similar way, but I always thought that being a leader meant that you were the one who talked the most and really took charge in a meeting. Um, that's what I strived to do.
And then through my work with up and then just kind of learning from my superintendent and then kind of teachers and principals like. That it's harmful to do that, and you suppress other people's voices. And then the person who's doing that, in this case myself, ended up being the person who had the burden of doing all the work because there wasn't the shared trust, um, and the shared power and buy-in.
Uh, and a big thing that was really changed in starting working with up, at least I hope has changed, um, has been that I have, I feel like. Stepped back, but allowed other people to step up and kind of take more on and be okay with not doing everything, be okay with filling the silence, allowing other people to speak my truth.
And a lot of those are, are meeting norms that we say once a week and we highlight and revisit as a youth, adult, um, team, and. And the school team that I work with, it's really been a good impact and I can feel confident in the sustainability of people wanting to carry on the mission of our school board, our student school board group, and our mission to voice our students' perspectives and our school district.
I can feel confident leaving, knowing that that mission is going to be carried on. Not because I did everything, but because I stepped back and allowed other people to take charge and do their own projects and really feel empowered to do that work. And I think had up for learning outcome to my school.
And had I not gotten to learn from the people at up for learning and then the schools that we work with, I think that, um, I would be in a different place. Um, and the people around me would also be in a different place.
Ana: And I guess to add on, so I've had the privilege of like really witnessing, um, the growth of both, you know, Ana and Jacoby and myself, you know, through my time at Up for Learning. And so I think, you know, they were really speaking to the, um, the power of. The work that we do both internally and externally.
I'm sorry if my wifis going in and out a little bit. It's okay. Um, and, um, so this, you know, everything that we. Is that our, you know, our core values and principles is the way in which we operate internally. You know, shared decision making, shared responsibility, um, shared power. And, and that's, and because we are so, like, that's what guides our work every day, the way in which we approach our youth, adult teams and the communities that we serve.
Um, you know, it's, it's really authentic and it's meaningful and we've developed really deep relationships with our partners in the community. I think what Jacob spoke to define leadership. The student council representative, or the representative to the school board, or the person who talks the loudest or has a lot of social capital.
But we know it up for learning that everyone has leadership within them and that there's lots of different types of leaders. So our work is really to, um. Elevate all those voices, right? To bring the every voice to, to their community to be able to share their experiences. And it's really, really important that young people, especially those that have felt that they have not been as engaged in their educational experience or seen or valued, are really, their voices are really lifted up in our process because that's, those are the changes we need to make.
We keep listening to the same voices over and over again. As much as those voices are great and valued, we're really only listening to, you know, the same narrative over and over again. And we're not creating the changes that we need for all of our students. And, um, and what I, we, some examples of that, we talked to the internal piece.
Um, we've had some really unique, um, like. Like the, the local level, but then state level examples, both in Vermont and in Delaware and in Massachusetts. We've partnered with, um, our state agencies of education, our departments of education on, um. Systemic projects to infuse youth, adult partnership and youth engagement into, um, both state level decision making.
So in Vermont, I would say we did a, a statewide project on school safety. I can tell you as an educator, and I imagine Ana and Jacobi can speak to it as students, school safety, both like. The school safety, like protocols and procedures like, um, and also school climate and culture is not something that young people are often asked to provide feedback on.
So we really shifted that model to make it, to ensure that young people, um, were provided space to, um, share their experiences with school safety, develop recommendations for state teams, and then hopefully put those. Recommendations into practice. Um, and so that's one example. We also have some, um, major, uh, educational transformational transformation work happening in our state.
And our agency of education has been very clear that they want youth engaged at, um, all levels to provide feedback on, um. On both the policy, but also like the, the new structures too statewide. Graduation requirements. We don't have statewide graduation requirements in Vermont. Um, in Delaware through our, um, partnership with the Delaware Department of Education.
We've now been, um, expanding our work throughout the state at, um, districtwide to ensure that every school, um, right now we're in two districts and we're continuing to expand. Every school in these large districts have student voice advisories. And so both from elementary school for, for example, one school district, the Brandywine School District, um, in Wilmington.
Um. There are nine elementary schools, three middle schools, and three high schools. All have student Voice Advisor, where there's youth and adults working together through the YAR process using participatory action research. Looking at the data. Um, of, of their data and their peers data to really create change.
Um, that's been like, so that's what gets to the systemic change, you know, part of it and the sustainability part of it. So, um, and that is continuing to grow. We're now in another school district. Um, so what I'm really, um, encouraged by is the state level partnerships. I'm also really encouraged by our local level partnerships.
All of our partnerships, but I the fact that, you know, Vermont. Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire are really seeking to have youth and adults partnering in, in big systems change work. And they're, they're valuing, valuing this work. Um, and so, um, I guess those are some examples I would speak to. And then I think also, you know, just knowing that many of our teams that we've worked with continue to.
Engage either with us or ultimately our hope is that you don't up for learning, doesn't need to be there to facilitate the process or they've gone to a place where they are, they have created changes in their system where youth and adults are partnering on a variety of different, um, whether policy or practice level.
So we see that, you know, across the board, particularly in Vermont, where we started and have been for a very long time.
Lindsay Lyons: I love those concrete examples and I just wanna make Space Jacoby and Ana, if you wanted to jump in on at any of those, either local or state level kind of policy projects, like any, anything to add in there?
Lindsay kind of opened it up and I wanted to like make sure you actually had space to answer.
Jacoby: Yeah. Um, I would just say that artwork would the Vermont Agency of Education and Department of Public Service School safety work. Has was the first time, um, in the United States where young people were actually asked to provide input, and that was presented in front of state, um, safety officials, including our governor.
And it was a really impactful experience being one of the young people who presented that data of over 1500 young people from around Vermont, which is a really big number for Vermont. Um, and to be able to present that and kind of be a representative of that work and carry that weight was a really humbling experience.
And to just kind of look out over all these adults in this room and be one of the few youth in the room who's actually presenting that work. Was a really interesting process and the process that we did it, you know, talking about school safety is a really hard topic. Um, and through our work in youth adult partnership, restorative practice and then trauma informed, um, practices as well, we were able to take students who didn't know each other and they, um, came in this room and shared really vulnerable stories by the end of an hour and a half meeting, which really shows that this does work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I would just echo how powerful it was to be involved in that project. Um, it happened over the summer and so we held a number of focus groups that, and I got to facilitate a lot, a number of them. Um, so I think, and I think also like, like Jacobi and Lindsay both already mentioned, it's such. A new topic to include students on?
You know, I, I think like typically when we think about like, focus groups and the work that we do, you know, we talk a lot about like belonging, engagement, youth, adult partnership, but like school safety is like, kind of like an unprecedented, um, thing to talk about with, with students. So to be able to like facilitate and hear like firsthand, like these stories that I've never really gotten to like hear before, um, and experiences that, you know, maybe they haven't really gotten an opportunity to share before was really, really powerful.
Lindsay Lyons: Incredible. Thank you all for sharing about that. That's so inspirational to a lot of people who might not even realize that we're talking about that level of student voice and youth adult partnerships. So thank you for that. We'll do kind of an abbreviated closeout here. Um, we'll do maybe a lightning round where I'll, I'll maybe have two questions and we could each.
Answer quickly. So one thing that you would encourage adults, educators to do like today or tomorrow, once they end the episode, like what's one thing they could do to kind of put this way of being in partnership with youth into practice?
Ana: I can start. Um, I would say just to like, have kind of their own reflection on how do you see your, how do you see if you're an educator, how do you see your students? Do you see 'em just as a student or do you see 'em as a full human? And how can you, um. Work to understand that like there is much more to the teacher student relationship than just, you know, um, content or, you know, structures that, so really starting to explore like, what is it that I think about my, the young people in which I work with.
Speaker 4: Um, I think for me, we actually have a resource set up called, um, 64 Ways to Strengthen Youth Voice, and it's just a list of, um, 64, like very seemingly small, but like tangible actions that you can take, um, in school or in your daily life. So just start thinking about like. Um, now that you have a greater understanding of Del Partnership, um, how can you start to implement it and, um, infuse it into like the way that you live and the way that you engage with students?
Jacoby: I would say whatever the plan is for Wednesday, May 6th, whatever that plan is, I would. Say to rearrange your classroom and do a circle and just invite everybody and just kind of have a pulse check. It's gonna be the end of the school year. Um, and ask us for some reflection about how this went. Maybe pass out some paper so that people can jot down thoughts beforehand and come to the circle with some things to share.
But I would just really encourage that moment of reflection and empowerment of young people, because although that may seem small, it is gonna be really impactful.
Ana: Wow. And Jacoby's referencing our, maybe he already told you, but our power squared summit on May 5th.
Lindsay Lyons: Love it. Alright, last question. Where can people learn more about you as individuals and or the, maybe Lindsay, you can take the, the, the actual upper learning kind of handles or, or say.
Ana: Well, you can learn about all of us at Up for learning. Um, dot org. Dot org. Um, you can find our bios there and then, um, uh, you're welcome to reach out to us at any point. You know, they, people can sign up for our, um, biweekly newsletter. We have an Instagram that we post to regularly to showcase the work that we're doing in lots of different communities throughout the country.
And, um, yeah. And that pass over to Anna and Jacoby to add their, and so.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Um, I think, yeah, my up email, all the up emails are pretty straightforward. It's just first [email protected], so on it up for learning.org. Um, I also have a LinkedIn, just Anna Linder boys. Um, but yeah, however, whatever works best.
Jacoby: Yeah, definitely. I'd say up website. Um, jacoby up for learning.org is my email.
I have a LinkedIn, which is Jacoby Soder. I think that's my LinkedIn. I'm not really sure. It's a little complicated. Um, or just kind of like tune in to like up for learnings Instagram and a lot of times you'll see us on there and we'll be talking or you'll get to see, um, the hundreds of youth that we work with too and just how they're really making impact.
Lindsay Lyons: Amazing. Thank you all so, so much for the work you do and for your time to be here today.
Jacoby: Thank you.
Ana: Thank you.

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In this episode, we sit down with Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver, a full-time teacher and coach who is engaged in many community outreach and support initiatives. In our conversation, she shares valuable insights that emphasize the importance of belonging in the classroom, the necessity of equipping students with strong literacy skills, and the power of recognizing students' innate genius. 

Our discussion revolves around the practical strategies and mindset shifts required to achieve these educational goals in light of real-world challenges facing educators and students today.


The Big Dream 

One thing that Caitlin holds onto is the reality that the world is hard and full of injustice, yes, but she wants all students to know that they can make it better — their voices matter. Her vision is to empower students through education, equipping them with the critical literacy skills necessary to challenge injustice and create a better world. 

Mindset Shifts Required

A few mindset shifts can help educators in today’s complex educational environment, including the importance of making space for what’s going on in the world and bringing that into the classroom. Acknowledging external circumstances is a starting point for all educators, and, from there, we can work to ensure all students feel safe and like they belong in your classroom. 

Other important shifts include: recognizing the inherent genius in all students, valuing students' existing knowledge, and resisting the urge to simplify complex texts or issues. Rather than performing tasks for students, teachers should guide them as they navigate difficult readings and discussions, stressing the importance of honoring students' lived experiences and perspectives.

Action Steps  

For educators seeking to bring these shifts to their classrooms, Caitlin outlines her “literacy is liberation” approach, which is based on a recent talk she gave at the NCSS Conference (outline available here). 

Here are some action steps educators can implement: 

Step 1: Focus on creating a sense of belonging in the classroom by valuing students’ voices, experiences, and backgrounds. This foundational step is crucial for any learning to occur and a big part of it is simply acknowledging what’s happening politically in the world and talking about it in the class; even when it's hard to do, it’s better than staying silent on the issues that matter.

Step 2: Listen to students. Ask questions about how they are and their well-being, and then learn and listen from them. This is how you can start seeing kids as geniuses that we can learn from, too.

Step 3: Encourage students to engage with rigorous texts — a lot of them. Even when students have lower levels of literacy, it’s still possible to engage in rigorous texts when we support them through scaffolding that helps them tackle difficult material. Educators can also focus on building up background knowledge and vocabulary that support learners in their literacy and understanding of content. 

Step 4: As you work to build literacy skills, honor the hard work of learning by acknowledging its challenges and celebrating student progress and achievements. Facilitate an environment where overcoming obstacles is part of the learning process.

Challenges?

Caitlin reflects on how teachers — and maybe Social Studies teachers in particular — love the content and love teaching everything. So, teachers may also struggle with how to cover the right amount of content with limited time to both plan and teach. It can also be challenging to adequately provide background knowledge and motivation necessary for students to engage with complex texts.

One Step to Get Started 

Teachers can start small by simply highlighting and teaching key “tier two” vocabulary words found within texts. These are the words you have to know to make sense of the text. This practical step can be implemented in daily lessons and has the potential to significantly impact students' reading skills. 

Additionally, school leaders can prioritize conversations with their educators, focusing on what they are already doing well, and exploring ways to support their literacy teaching strategies.

Stay Connected

You can find this week’s guest on Instagram at @2025vtteacheroftheyear. 

To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing her presentation outline from the NCSS Conference: Literacy is Liberation: Strategies for Supporting Struggling Readers and Work Towards Justice. It is full of resources that will support educators in the themes discussed in this episode. 

And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 255 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: 

• 2:34 “One of my north stars is that the world is hard and it’s full of injustice. And I want kids to know that they can make it better, that their voices matter and that they can change the world.”
• 3:30 “ Even though things are hard … I can't get away from the classroom because there's so much hope for me in my four walls when I'm working with kids. I get to be the one that helps them make sense of what's happening and do something about it.”
• 15:20 “ Learning, reading — it's velcro. It has to stick to something. So figuring out what it's sticking to first … We have to connect it to something that they already know of to begin with.”

​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:​

TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Caitlin, welcome to the time for teachership podcast.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.
Lindsay Lyons: I am really intrigued by, uh, a lot of different things that I, that you bring to the table as an educator and coach, and. One of the reasons we reconnected is around your NCSS presentation on literacy as liberation and thinking about like the social studies context and literacy.
And I just, I was really intrigued by that, but I also know that you have a wealth of knowledge and information and like passions and all the things. So what's kind of on your mind today, or what do you want audience members to be thinking of today?
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Um, well, I am, uh, still in the classroom full-time in addition to many other things, and classroom spaces are hard right now.
We're talking at the end of December. Um, last night we did another huge food distribution to our students who are really hungry. So I was just right before this call, cleaning up from that. Um, we're supporting, I'm heavily supporting a second grader of ours who was detained by ice, um, at the be over the Thanksgiving break.
So I was. Emailing back and forth with that. Um, and then we have a huge Somali population at our school in Winooski. It's a refugee resettlement city. Um, and after, uh, Trump's remarks calling the Somali people quote garbage, we've done a lot of support for our Somali population, um, which has, uh, been hard in some ways.
Like we've been very atta uh, targeted and attacked. So even just now, like I was in the hallway and just continuing talking to kids about how they're processing everything and December is dark and it's. You know, going into break. It's a hard time for kids anyways, so there's a lot on my mind right now.
Lindsay Lyons: Thank you for naming all of the things, because I feel like things are constantly evolving and changing. So yes, we were talking December, 2025, and whenever folks are engaging with this episode, at whatever point, like. Hopefully things will be different from the better, but it's a good reminder that this is where we are right now and these are all the things that are affecting not just educators, but students as well, and families.
So thank you for just like situating us in that, and I think connected to, connected to that, but maybe like a, a positive spin off of like what is possible. I always try. To lead with the question around Dr. Betina loves quote on freedom dreaming. So dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. Like, we know all of this stuff is happening and we know there is a better possible future.
So what does that future look like for you?
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Yeah, I love, uh, Dr. Patina loves work and I think what I hold onto in one of my north stars is that the world is hard and it's full of injustice. And I want kids to know that they can make it better, that their voices matter and that they can change the world.
Um, and I want them angry by what they see, but I want them knowing that they will play a role in dreaming us. A better world. Um, and then specifically like as an English and as a social studies teacher, we play a big role in then helping them get the skills they need to do that. So making sure that they're really strong readers, um, making sure they have a strong awareness of our, their past, our nation's past so that they can understand why we are where we are today, making them.
Become brave writers that can cite evidence and use good sources and make sense of misinformation, and then to communicate their ideas strongly. Um, so even though things are hard at the end of December, that's why I like can't get away from the classroom. 'cause there's so much hope for me in my four walls when I'm working with kids that like I get to be the one that helps them make sense of what's happening and do something about it.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. I love it. And I love that you're already getting into like all of the specific skills and things that we have the power to like amplify in our kids who, like many of them have these skills, right? And our job is just like coach 'em and, and improve them, um, and find ways that they can use those skills in real world like settings.
I love that. And I'm also thinking about. You know, the, the teachers, I think most people who are listening to this podcast or engaging with this podcast are people who know justice is important and they know that this is what they wanna do. And I think for some it might be like. I'm not quite sure how to bring this about, or I'm not quite sure how I do this and I, you know, do X, y, and Z that my administrator requires.
Or for an administrator, listen, li listening, you know, and engaging, it's like what, uh, whatever they have right on their shoulders that is being, coming from a above. Like, here are we, were talking about like languaging, right? Here are the terms you can't use, or here's like the state law on this. And so I'm imagining there's a lot of like mindset stuff going on for people.
Are there any powerful like. Shifts in mindset or kind of like big ideas that have helped you or helped propel others that you know towards doing some of this work. Amidst all the things going on.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Yeah. I think what comes to my mind first is I don't know how we do the work of social, being a social studies teacher, being a classroom teacher, if we don't address everything that our kids are bringing with them into the classroom, if we don't make space for what's going on in the world.
I had a student say to me recently when we were kind of talking about how do teachers respond to what's going on, what feels good for you? And, um, I'm a teacher that's like always talking about it with, with the world and being relevant. And she said something powerful, which was that when her teachers don't talk about it, she assumes that they agree with everything that's going on.
And I know that that's not the intent of the teachers. But it was a moment for me of recognizing the silence carries so much meaning for our kids, and this was just one kid. I'm like, oh, do other people think that about this teacher and this teacher? Um. So for me, kind of like two mindset shifts is like, number one, yes, this work is hard and I don't know any other way.
Like kids have to feel like they belong in your classroom for, to do any learning. And it seems like often, um, a talking point from the right wing of like, oh, just teach reading or just teach math and it. We can't just do that if kids don't feel safe, if they don't feel seen, affirmed, valued, et cetera. Um, and then I also think that there's a big shift in terms of like really valuing what our kids are bringing into the classroom.
Um, and not just like lip service of like, oh yeah, languages are, are strength, but really like showing that in your classroom. Um, and I think a lot about. Honoring our kids as geniuses and like really this mindset shift of like, they are a genius. And it's my job to bring that genius out of them. And how do I do that?
Um, how do I facilitate a learning space, a classroom space? How do my instructional decisions align with this underlying principle that like, I am so lucky to be with 20 geniuses today. How do I get that out of them? Um. We read this book, uh, in one of my English classes, the Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, and a character says to another character, um, the world's been waiting for your genius a long time.
And I printed it out on my classroom. And like when we read it, I look at kids, I'm like, have, have teachers said that to you? Like, do you feel that? And sadly the answer is no often, but like that is something that I try to hold onto as much as possible.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, there is so much there. I mean, I just fiercely writing notes about like, you know, the valuing of, of, of things beyond just like naming them, but like truly valuing the, the idea of genius.
I mean, you're like bringing in Goldie Mohammed here. Like, I just, I love all of this and I, I totally, I mean, I can literally think of colleagues as well as my own teachers as a student who. Did not talk about what is happening in the, the politic political landscape, the politics, the current events, whatever.
And totally, that's what happens is everyone thinks like, oh, well then you must be just fine with it. Which in populations where we're our students are, uh, marginalized in various ways and identities and groups that they belong to, it's like, oh, you, so you don't value me. Right. And, and how to your earlier point, like how can we engage with students, partner with students and families.
If we are not specifically addressing it and, and saying we're against all of the oppression that's happening. So I just really love that all of this is like threading together what you're saying. And I I also love your segue into how, right, so you start, you left off kind of saying like, how do I do this?
I'm curious like, what does the, how look like, that's a huge question, but I know there's like different components that, that you think about. I mean, you talked about literacy as liberation. You talked about like elevating the genius. Setting up classrooms in specific ways, elevating student agency. Like there's, there's so many components.
I don't know if you wanna like pick one or just kind of share a smattering of ideas, whatever works for you.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Yeah. Um, my presentation around literacy is liberation. I was like trying to distill a little bit of like, what am I doing in my history classrooms, in my civics classrooms that is working. Um, and I think a lot around, um.
Well, even backing up, I think a lot around the need for kids to be strong readers and strong writers when they graduate high school. I think so much of my students who have graduated high school and sadly have not graduated college within four years or six years and life gets busy and you know, they're often coming from families that are in poverty and.
It's complicated. Um, but I think about how can we better prepare them with these real concrete skills to then live, you know, our freedom dreams. Um, I think a lot about how do you first create belonging in your classroom? And it's not like. Switch that you can flip and you have it one day and you don't have it the other day.
Is this ongoing reflective process of all the stuff that I'm sure your listeners, uh, are aware of, you know, like diverse texts and really leaning into checking in with kids. This is one thing I've been talking about a lot recently is during COVID I feel like we did a great job of like really slowing down and just like.
Asking kids, how are you? Do you have enough food? What's going on? But we're past COVID now, and it's back to normal. And it's like we lost something there. And I intentionally, especially since the new administration have been really slowing down and trying to check in with kids, like, are we okay? And it's really through that listening that we learn about our kids.
And there's that mindset shift again of like. I am not the expert like you are bringing so much into my classroom. How can I learn from you? And I think kids see me as that type of teacher. I think hopefully that really listens and then like. My doors like never close. They just keep coming in and keep talking and like you keep learning more stuff about them.
And then it's like the books we're using and the, this is why I love teaching also. It's like every decision carries so much weight. Are all of our curriculum decisions, the text we're using, what we're teaching, what we're not teaching, what we're emphasizing, um. All of that. It's like it's messy and we show up in really small ways for kids, but then also showing up in bigger ways.
Like we, our school raised the Somali flag after Trump's comment, so we show up in these big ways, or we have this big food distribution things. But I think kids see belonging over the course of, you know, the year or many months. Um, so that's the first thing. Kids gotta feel like they belong. And then I have a whole lot, like been thinking a lot around what does this mean from a literacy perspective?
Um, and I think a lot of the science of reading research, um, is fantastic. Of course. And like most states now have adopted science of reading legislation. Most of the legislation is focused around K to three. And that makes sense of like addressing the root of the problem. Um. And I think about our high school kids that are kind of left behind from some of that research and what that means.
And I started as a, uh, US history teacher in Boston. Um, and I was trained as a history teacher and I did not know what to do with struggling readers. Like that was not where our pedagogy was. Um, and you know, through many years in different jobs and stuff, I went back to school to become a reading specialist, just 'cause I felt like I needed more skills of like.
What do we actually do as content teachers when we have kids that don't know how to read? Um, and I'm really enthused and, you know, hopeful 'cause their research is like pretty obvious and we know what to do. Kids will only understand attacks if they have strong background knowledge about it and if they have vocabulary about it.
It's kind of like one thing. And then second, they need to read a lot and they need to read rigorous texts and they need to read a lot of them. So kind of those like four things of like belonging first, a lot around vocabulary, a lot around building background knowledge and what that means. And then like the actual reading strategies and what that looks like.
But I'm left hopeful of like the research supports that as social studies teachers, there's so much we can do to support kids being successful readers and writers, and then into their future.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, yes. I, I love that belonging is central and because you can't really do anything without that. Right.
And then I, I do love bringing in like the science of reading stuff. I know that so many, I mean, you just named three incredibly important things from the research and equally three challenging things. I think that teachers ask as a coach, they ask me or. Say like, this is my biggest struggle. Like these are the, the most particularly background and, and reading a lot, like how do I get kids to consistently read and how do I get kids if they have no knowledge of a particular group of people we're studying?
And I'm like, okay, we're gonna start this inquiry lesson where you're gonna ask questions. And they're like, well, I don't even know who we're talking about. Right? Like. There. These are two challenging pieces and I'll just say what I've been thinking about and then I would love some of your thoughts because I've been reading TTA Hammond's latest work around like building students' capacity to learn and thinking about how information is processed and how we support students to use tools to like do it beyond like the teacher always being there and so.
One thing I'm thinking about is the engagement of students with any sort of text and how if we could make it more meaningful to them, like they're gonna be motivated to read more. And so that's something I've been like just interested about. Like that motivational aspect as well as like the literacy skills themselves.
I feel like there's something there, but then also like the background knowledge piece to me, my move and tell me if there's like other ways. 'cause I would love other ways. My move lately has been to think about. Like frameworks, like funds of knowledge or, um, cultural capital from Yos o like thinking about.
What are the background knowledge, things that you might already know that might not be like this period in time or this particular geographic area we're studying in history or this person, but there's some sort of like, oh, we're talking about migration. Okay, well, I have a personal experience with migration, right?
There's like things that we can pull on that we don't always think about in the classroom. That could be leveraged, but tell me what you think about these. Like what do you do with these pieces?
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: So I love that. 'cause so many times it's like, oh, kids don't have background knowledge, so I have to give it to them.
And I do see some role in that, but it's like, no, how are we honoring what they do know already? And. Learning, reading, it's Velcro, it has to stick to something. So figuring out what it's sticking to first. So it won't work if we're only front loading. Like, here's a video and here's some pictures. Like now you have background knowledge.
We have to connect it to something that they already know of to begin with. Um, and then I do think there is a role in like. We're gonna like use a video as a text before we actually read the text so that you have like, we're having a shared common experience before we dive into it. And like a starting place at least.
Or, you know, showing pictures or reading a small short text before we read the bigger text. And thinking about how we're leveraging like text, text. And what our core text is, like, what we're trying, how we're using reading in itself to build that knowledge. But kids have knowledge, they're bringing knowledge into our classrooms, and they'll be more motivated to do the work if you're honoring what they already know, rather than treating them like they're stupid and they don't know anything in the first place.
Um, and I haven't read the Reddi Hammond's new stuff yet, but I want to, and I've been doing, uh, we had a really nice. Uh, professional learning session recently with, uh, Trevor Reagan from the Learning Lab. Really thinking about growth mindset plus and really honoring that learning is hard for kids. And I have a five-year-old who's also l doing a lot of learning right now, and learning's really hard and I hear him sometimes saying this like, I give up.
I can't do this language. And the research is really clear. It's like you need to honor. That it is hard and not just say like, no, it's okay, like you can do it. Like, no, this is really hard. Like I get it. And it's a skill and you can get better at something or worse. And then especially in high school, um, kids don't wanna do hard things like their life is hard enough already.
And, um, at N-C-S-S-I was like, how many teachers. I have kids that like immediately go to the bathroom when you pass out a reading and it's like, it's everyone. They don't wanna look stupid in front of their peers. Um, so how we can build our culture in our classrooms, in our schools, we're like, no, we're, it is hard and we're gonna do something hard together.
And I got you. And like, not dumbing down the text, not making it easier. I started teaching in 2011, I think, and there was a lot of like scaffolding texts, making it easy, the news ELA stuff of like, oh, I'm just gonna change sentences. Like now my kids can read it. Um, and the, it's, the pendulum has really shifted.
It's like, no kids need to be reading rigorous texts, so how are we then scaffolding the challenge so that they can read the text, but they're the ones doing it? 'cause we know they're not gonna get better at reading some reading if we don't ever give them a chance to read in the first place.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, yes.
For naming the, the pendulum swing for sure. I mean, 2011 is when, I think that was my first year of teaching, and it was exactly, it was like, here's like all, here are all these apps that will make it easier, so just use these. Right. And now it's like, okay, that didn't help. Um, yeah. Oh my gosh. I, I love the idea of honoring the hard.
I also have a almost 4-year-old. And so it is like, right, we are, we need to, like, we can do hard things right now like this. We're in it together. Um, and I, I just really appreciate that this analogy of Velcro and like it's going to stick to something. What does it stick to? Like that really resonates because I think sometimes we think that there is literally nothing.
There's, right. It's like the very much like the banking model, it's very much kids don't have anything coming in like. The No, it's sticking to something and if it's not sticking to something, it's 'cause we're maybe not like facilitating the, like, recognition that it's sticking to something. And it's just a kind of a, a lack of like us being like, it's sticking.
And so I, I am curious in all of this, I mean in literacy challenges, in like talking about all the hard history that we have to teach. Like what is maybe a large challenge that you faced as a history teacher and what like. What's a way that you've kind of gotten through it, thought about like a different avenue into it.
Like what advice could we give to social studies educators who might be like facing this big challenge that, that you've noticed yourself as a teacher or that you've noticed in other teachers?
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: I think one challenge is like we love our content. As social studies teacher, we wanna teach all of it. And like the more, the older I get, the more I learn.
I'm like, oh my God, I never learned this. Like one random thing that happened. I was like, we have to do this. This is amazing. Um. And so for me it's like taking things out because we know if reading is hard, we gotta give them the space to process it on their own. And I know that sometimes when I'm short on time and I'm like, oh my God, I really wanna finish this unit before winter break.
I'm like, I'll just read it for them. Like I'll just do this for them. And we start like doing more of the work for kids. Because we love our content. We, we think it's important for them to know. And I'm not saying there's never a place for that, which is what I love about teaching. It's like just being reflective and intentional about all your decisions.
And I might make that choice tomorrow, Lindsay, but like I'm doing it with a reason. And I know in January we're not doing that, you know, certain things. But, um, I think really honoring, uh, and giving space to do this work of reading, of making sense of, um, you know. Figuring out what their genius is. If I'm giving them a text and I'm telling them what it means, like I am, that's still banking model, I'm still owning the meaning of that text and really creating space of like, I've read this text 5,000 times, but I'm reading it again with you, and you're bringing a whole new perspective into it.
Um, but it's. It does take time and like even I, I know how important vocabulary instruction is and how important recognizing morphology like, you know, prefixes, suffixes, and roots and words is, and when you have diverse classes of learners, when you have so much at play in any given class period, sometimes it's easy to.
Do some of the things that you know are good because you wanna get to your end goal. So I keep telling myself a little bit to like really just slow down and like honoring kids for, and giving them the time and space to do things.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. Again, with the, this is like exactly what all the challenges are.
It's like pacing is number one. I literally have a post-it note that says slow, like right by my, because it's always right, like we can do less is more slow it down, like yes.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: And it's hard too. I had a student teacher a couple years ago that decided she didn't wanna be a teacher, and I'm like so happy she made that decision.
But one thing she said to me was like, I just had no idea like how hard this work actually is. And I think just honoring that it. It really is so hard to do this well, takes so much planning time and across the nation teachers planning time is being cut left and right, and like to teach one lesson with one strong primary source, let alone like a whole DBQ or background text.
Like it takes a lot of intentional planning to do it, and when that's cut short, uh, it's easy to fall into bad habits or just like trying to push through to get to certain content, et cetera.
Lindsay Lyons: That's such a good point too for leaders who are like. Engaging with the episode. I think how much time we can give teachers is so critical.
If there is anything we can do to increase planning or preparation time for lessons. Your, your comments today have just been such a good illustration that teachers know what is good practice and they usually are like, yeah, I have all these things in my head as I'm planning and I have the realities of the situation to like work within.
And so as if we can just like support that structurally in any way, like.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Meetings. More planning time, please.
Lindsay Lyons: Yes. Oh my gosh, that that's exactly it. And so I am just, I'm going to move us to kind of our clothes soon, but I am feeling like I wish I was a student in your classroom, and so I am just curious if there is a favorite lesson you've had recently or a favorite moment where like a student had this aha or like made you think differently.
Like is there any, any sort of kind of like moment that in, in the moments of hard that you attach to and are like, oh, but this was great.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: You know why I love teaching is there's a million moments like that, but this is the one that just happened a half hour ago. But I was kind complaining to a colleague, I'm like, I'm trying to have this rigor, like I want the essay due, like, and kids just aren't doing it.
And we're like, oh, it's a hard time of year. It's December, like, and I was like, I know, I'm just kind of setting myself up like I wanted to do revision circles, but. They don't have a solid draft yet, so I think I just have to give them more work time. Um, and then this kid came to me in her study hall and she's like, miss Caitlyn, will you look at my essay?
And Lindsay, it was so good. I mean, it was amazing. And we're a small school, so I've been working with her in various classes for three years. And to see the growth in her writing was. So powerful. And she's writing, it's for the Bernie Sanders State of the Union, um, essay contest that our Senator Bernie Sanders does.
Um, so they choose an issue that they think is the most pressing issue in the country and describe the challenge and come up with their solution. And like she's talking about ice, uh, detaining American citizens and she has a strong solution. So it was like all of this is coming together and like, you know, there'll be plenty of kids that.
Don't have their first drafts done this afternoon and we'll deal with that also. But meeting with her for a half hour and looking at her essay with her was really powerful and uh, it was a nice moment.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. I love that for so many reasons. I mean, the student agency, the, like excitement that she's seeking out feedback like outside
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: I know.
Lindsay Lyons: Incredible. And also just this idea of a growth trajectory. I mean, a lot of people can't, um, for structural reasons, like they don't see the same students o over and over, but many do. I mean, when I worked in a small school like you, absolutely do. You some teachers even have looping like there even in a one school year or one course, however long it is for you.
Like the growth is, is part of the joy, I think, and sometimes in the pacing. Stresses and all of that. We, we kind of forget about like the growth and the, the student joy, and I just love that that story encapsulated that. So it's just like a nugget of a reminder for everyone too. Engage with that joy, engage with that growth and, and seek it out if it's not already seeking you out.
Um, uh, beautiful. Thank you. And I think as we're closing, just kind of a few quick questions. One being like, we talked about a lot of big ideas and I'm curious if there's one thing that's like a implementable today or tomorrow kind of thing where. When they end the episode, they can go ahead and just do something to get started in one of these.
So it might be like, I'm gonna do this in the lesson tomorrow. It might be something a leader could do. It might be something, um, where you've like, kind of painted this big picture and like, what's one, one step forward? I.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Um, yeah, for teachers, I was just reminded of this in my block one, uh, English class today of just, uh, highlighting tier two words, these words that show up in texts all the time that you have to know in order to.
Make sense of the text. Um, so we were reading an article about how technology lowers students' emotional, um, intelligence, and there was a lot of words that were synonyms for the word lowers, so it diminishes, undermines, weakens. And just like I was doing so much with my hands just to help kids, like verbalize like it's going down, it's going down.
Um. And just pay attention to those types of words in your text and how, if you didn't know what that word meant, how you wouldn't understand the text to begin with. Um, and then any administrators, listen, listening. I just think having conversations with your teachers and like the same way we try to, um, honor the genius in our students, honoring the genius in us as teachers.
Um, so not coming in like, oh. Like I heard about this new way to teach vocabulary, but like, what are you already doing to teach vocabulary? What does teaching tier two words already look like in your classroom? Tell me about a moment of reading, you know, whatever it is, but just like honoring all the good work that's already happening in classrooms around literacy instruction, I think is important.
Lindsay Lyons: I love that. I'm envisioning leaders putting up a little post-it that's like, what are you already doing? Dot, dot.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: That would be a win.
Lindsay Lyons: That would be great. Um, okay. This one is just for fun. What is something that you have been learning about lately? It could be education related, but it could also be anything.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Okay. I thought of two things. Um, one, one of my students for this essay she's writing in civic class around the biggest problems in our world is writing about, um, moratoriums on building data centers for AI use. So I've done like a deep dive around. The climate and global warming impacts and environmental impacts of AI data centers.
And we have some state legislation, um, in Vermont for next session. It looks like our senator is proposing some national stuff too. And just like what this means and like I'm kind of just like on the sidelines of this, but this student's top topic, I was like, I gotta learn more about this with you, what's going on?
Um, and then I'm also in my English classes. I'm reading a ton of science fiction right now, and I, it's just been really fun. It's not what I would ever read for on my own, but what a way, like if we want kids talking about their world and like having classes where we're using literature and using history to understand our current context, just a huge plug for, uh, science fiction reading in classes.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my God, I am such a science fiction nerd that yes, like I totally love that you named that because I, every time I read I'm like, this is a blend of the things I teach. Like this is a blend of like the ELA and the freedom dreaming of like, often it's dystopian, but like also it's what is possible and how do we tinker with that as well as like grounded in the past.
Oh my gosh. Yes. Love it.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: It's so fun. And then because I have this joint role where I'm English teacher and history teacher, like we read this story just now in my English class where I was like, oh my God, we actually gotta read this in my history class too, because the connections that we can make are so strong.
Lindsay Lyons: I feel like we should do a sci-fi episode down the road. We'll do
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: down.
Lindsay Lyons: And then finally, I mean, you do so much. I mean, you just presented at NCSS, like where can people connect with you or learn more about you?
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: I don't have a huge online presence, but I have my Instagram at 2025 VT Teacher of the Year.
Lindsay Lyons: That's right. And huge celebration for being Vermont's teacher.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Thank you. I know the year's almost done, so it's coming to a close.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. Caitlyn, this was so fun. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver: Thank you, Lindsay.

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In this solo episode, host Lindsay dives into a crucial challenge many educators face: engaging students who lack critical background knowledge about a time period, historical event, or people you are discussing in class. She troubleshoots this issue by providing simple frameworks to bridge the gap and engage students in what they already know.. 

Highlighting her passion for teaching social studies, Lindsay offers actionable strategies that expand the concept of “background knowledge” and empower students to make connections between their lived experiences and new learning content. 

​Why? 
Addressing the background knowledge gap is important because it impacts a lot of different pieces of learning, particularly in the social studies context. Effective inquiry-based pedagogy, synthesizing information, and student-led discourse can all be limited without “background knowledge” around the topic area. 

This can make it challenging for educators to teach—yes. And, it also presents an opportunity to expand the idea of “background knowledge” to help students pull from personal experience and media exposure; this validates diverse forms of knowledge and cues students to link new content with their personal lives.

What?
Educators who want to address a background knowledge gap in their social studies or other classroom settings can implement these action steps:  

Step 1: Expand Your Idea of Background Knowledge
This is an important mindset shift to start with. Instead of narrowly looking at background knowledge as only key dates, events, or people, you can broaden the understanding to include personal experiences, media consumption, and cultural narratives.

Step 2: Implement Cognitive Routines
Lindsay walks us through some of Loretta Hammond’s “learn-to-learn” skills as a key starting point. First is to figure out what we already know—to “scan the hard drive” and look for existing knowledge (ask: "have we seen this before?"). Then, it’s “chew and remix” — think about how it connects to what we already know. Teachers can help students make sense of new information by connecting it to what they already know. 

Step 3: Use Frameworks
Apply educational frameworks to your context. For example, Funds of Knowledge is a foundational exercise that helps students connect information with what they know. You would ask students if what they’re learning connects to things like their family traditions, experiences of people you know, or things familiar in the home environment. 
Lindsay dives deeper into this framework and the Cultural Wealth Model, which is an asset-based understanding that all children bring something valuable to the table. 

Step 4: Level-up Analytical Skills
After laying the foundation of connecting to what students already know and drawing on frameworks that explore their background knowledge, then educators can level up their thinking and analytical skills. This can be done by generating questions, student-led discourse, writing an evidence-based paragraph, or other options.

Step 5: Create Connection Cues
Co-create a slide or something on physical paper that has all the connection clues and ideas you discussed in the class. The visual aid will help students remember things and independently make connections to curriculum content.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing these resources with you: 

• Funds of Knowledge
• Cultural Wealth Mode
• Generating Questions Resource Bank

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​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:​

​And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 254 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.
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TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome to another episode of the Time for teachership podcast. This is episode 2 54, and today we're talking about student background knowledge, particularly troubleshooting the concept of students having no or limited background knowledge. So I'm really passionate about this. I've talked about this before, um, but just want to.
Kind of get into some examples of what you can offer students when the knowledge about a particular time period or group of people or individual historical event or person appear to be lacking. So let's get into it. For context, the struggle for a quote, lack of background knowledge is ever present in particularly my social studies, um, coaching.
And I first wanna validate it is it is a very challenging thing when we go in to teach something and we expect or anticipate students have prior knowledge of particular events, vocabulary. People in a historical time period that we're teaching, and then we realize they don't have that and then we need to adjust.
So validating the hard there and also a gentle push. We can expand our concept of what background knowledge is and cue students to connect to concepts or themes or personal lived experiences, other forms of media in which they have. Seen similar things, experienced, uh, different events that maybe people in history have experienced in different ways, of course.
And I think that Loretta Hammond's work in the learn to learn skills that she has put out in her 2025 book. As well as the cognitive routines she talks about in that book can help inform perhaps like a reusable slide or anchor chart, some sort of cue that students can use as tools in their own learning.
They can use both inside the classroom and outside of the classroom so that teachers aren't always doing the scripted kind of heavy lifting for students, making those connections for them, filling the background knowledge gaps, but that students can access. Background knowledge that might be relevant and identify where the sticking points or areas for further inquiry are this struggle.
I wanna name impacts a lot of different. Pieces of social studies, pedagogy, particularly inquiry based pedagogy, question generation. Anytime we're analyzing or synthesizing all the learning that's happening, we're in student led discourse and conversations about how to answer an essential question for a unit by putting all of these various learnings together, like that lack of background knowledge, and I'm using air quotes there.
Is important. So let me front load one more kind of thing that's on my brain and then let's get to some frameworks that can support connections to existing background knowledge. And that's Loretta Hammond's Learn to Learn Skills, specifically Her Skills two and three. She lists five of them. So two and three.
Kinda after you figure out what you know, the prompt or the question or the thing is that. That we need to engage with. We scan the hard drive. She says, right, this is step two of learn to learn progression. Have we seen it before? Have we seen something similar? What's the opposite from what we're seeing?
Right? So we're, we're scanning our hard drive. We're noticing if there's anything that looks familiar. Then in the next stage, number three, chew and remix. How is this connected to what I already know? Right? This is happening in a child's brain or in an adult's brain, really a learner's brain. Is there anything confusing?
How can I make sense of this, right? That's the key piece that sticks out to me is the sense making. How do I make sense of this and how to make sense of it in terms of connecting to what I already know. And so specifically here, we could think about the four cognitive routines. Which one could I use here?
And she lists those out. D. S RRP are the kind of four initials of that. So distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives. And we'll get into these a little further in the episode. But these are in my brain as I am thinking about this challenge of a quote, lack of background knowledge. So here's what we might be able to offer some students.
Frameworks such as Funds of Knowledge, which comes from Mall, Amman, Neff, and Gonzalez, uh, 1992. It's used a lot in Headstart programs, so a link to some, some things here in the show notes, but Funds of Knowledge is one that we could definitely use. And so kind of an adapted version of this, I would say, is inviting students.
Whenever we are introducing a topic or a prompt for discussion or, or consideration prompting students, does this make you think of your kind of, do imagine a, a slide with like a dot, dot dot, right? And then a list of things, ideally with a visual and then a short kind of name. So one could be home language, right?
Does it make you think of something, um, that maybe there's a, a word or a term or. Some experience that has kind of peppered with your home language, that connects to this term you're now seeing and whatever the language of instruction is, is there a family value or tradition that this could connect to?
So in whatever you're engaging with content-wise, does this connect to something that you, as a family believe in, or discuss or have experience with in terms of a, a tradition that you, you live out right? Does it connect to any experience, activity, um, identity set of your friends or your family members?
Are there any jobs that your family members or family friends do that connect to what we're learning about? Right? So just thinking about the things that kids know, even young kids, right? This is being used in Head Start. We're talking preschool, pre-K. Young kids are familiar with language used at home with what they do with their families and friends and who those family and friends are, the, the jobs they have, the identities they hold.
Right. And finally, for funds of knowledge, anything related to chores or caretaking. So again, students have rich lives outside of school. What are those things that they're engaged? In at home might be chores, might be, uh, just interaction with siblings or other young children or older siblings. Um, any kind of like meal prep that they do, right?
There's so many things that they're bringing to the table. So if we are learning about ancient civilizations, hunter and hunting and gathering right? Oh, well, I prep, you know, I prepare lunch for myself. I can make a sandwich with access to, you know, my, my cupboard and my fridge at home, right? And that's pretty easy to go to the fridge versus like going and getting a meal from like, nature, right?
So like there's something in there that we can connect to. And so again, we don't necessarily need to name the connections for kids. We wanna think about what's the thing we can give them that acts as a tool for them to make that connection and that the tool can then go with them to another classroom or content area, or beyond the school environment to support learning and sensemaking more broadly.
Now that is the funds of knowledge framework. I do wanna offer one other framework, which is the cultural wealth model from Yo O published in 2005. And again, we'll link to like a summary of this, but. I have changed a little bit the language in slides that I've used with students, particularly young students, although I certainly think secondary schoolers could engage with the, the language of, uh, yoo's original like language in her forms of cultural capital.
So here's, here's what basically the, the premise is, right, is like all forms of cultural capital, like are, are present. In children, and we need an asset based understanding of kind of bridging school to home connections and thinking about the things that. Children bring to the table, right? There's so many assets that we overlook or devalue because of the culture that we live in that is steeped in white supremacy or white dominance.
And we think about how do we value what students are bringing to the table? That sometimes you'll, you'll see in the language here, I actually confront or directly resist, um, that oppressive society and what society purports to value. With this own, like this strength, right? So here, let me just read her things.
The six forms of cultural capital, according to yoo, are aspirational, linguistic, familial. Social navigational and resistance. And so here's what this might translate to for like a prompt to cue students to connect to some social studies content in perhaps like third grade appropriate language. So you might say, does this make you think of your, again, think of like a dot, dot dot, and then a list with like an image and a short title for each cultural capital aspect.
Does snake you think of your hopes and dreams? Your language, which could be interpreted in anything, right? Like, uh, language, it could be English, but just the way that I kind of code switch between different audiences. It could be home language as a distinctly different language. Um, you know, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, whatever is home language.
Just spoke at home. Um. Could it be related to your family and community, your friends? So again, some, some strong overlap here with funds of knowledge. Um, and then I think the two, uh, aside from hopes and dreams at the top, but the two last pieces of her cultural wealth model I think are, are the, um, distinguishing factors here as well.
And I think it lends itself more to like social studies content, um, that is, has a more critical lens, which is always what I gravitate to. But one that yo so-called navigational, I would name kind of like, or term figuring out rules and organizations and have a little picture of like an institution, like a school or something.
Um, and I would explain this to students. 'cause when you're introducing this, you might need to explain a little bit some things don't need cues at all. Right? Like friends and family. We got it. We understand. Um, but figuring out rules and organizations or navigational capital, right? Thinking about how you have to.
Figure out how to go into, you know, whatever it is. Maybe it's a religious organization in the community, maybe it's school, maybe it's, um, somewhere that for older kids that you work or where your parents work, right? You have to figure out how to navigate and what like the unspoken and unspoken rules are in those systems to be able to get by.
Right. And to maybe succeed and thrive, maybe to just not get in trouble, right? Like there's, there's so much navigating that kids do. Um, and so you have figured out the rules, both things that were told to you Yes. But even harder and perhaps more importantly, things that weren't told to you explicitly.
That is an asset. And so how do you see this happening? When we look at historical societies and communities and people having to navigate the both unspoken, unspoken rules, the fair and unfair rules, right? There's a lot there that students can draw on their own experience to connect to social studies content.
And then the, uh, term that you also uses is resistance. You can totally use resistance. I think, I don't know exactly what grade that, that might be unfamiliar language for, but for young, young kids, you might just say like, you know, naming and fighting against unfair things. I think that's, you would be able to use that with a, right.
So like when you recognize something is unfair. And you say that's not fair, right? Or you fight against it or whatever language you wanna use. But that's a concept that certainly like two and three year olds are grappling with. So it is a concept that many, many students are going to, um, latch onto and be able to draw connections to social studies or historical content or current event content with.
So again, I think these all prompt things that students have access to, they have this cultural capital, um, as part of their lived experience. They can connect, but they need the prompting to be like, that's a valid, right? Like that is a valuable connection. You are figuring out rules in your local church, you navigating where your dad works and being present in that space where you're never even told what the rules are, but you kind of.
Figure it out on your own, like that is what other people are doing in history, and you could see the implications as we read about historical content or current event content. Where is that happening now in other settings? Right. I, I think that's something that, again, our role is queuing and validating as opposed to filling.
Like an empty vessel, right? Like the banking model from Ferry is like we're, we're not necessarily needing to fill the background knowledge. Yes, we're gonna teach them, you know, terms that are relevant. Yes, we're gonna teach 'em about things that have happened, but I would argue that one of the most important things about social studies and really analysis in any capacity is like.
Can you understand the big enduring conceptual themes that extend from setting to setting from time, point to time, point across history? And those require some practice like to do that well. Those require students to access and connect with their own lived experiences and background knowledge connected across time periods, compare and contrast, right?
All these big skills. And so I encourage us to, um, use whatever framework works for you. I'll also just quickly share that not knowing any of these frameworks. When I was a teacher, I just use a simplified slide just thinking about what connections I make. So I like to like unearth or like uncover my own processes sometimes to figure out like, how did I get there?
And then maybe this will help kids, right? And then, and then go from there, but use that as a starting point. And so I just would put up a slide. Does this make you think of a story from your life? Current events? Um, some kind of media, like TV show, movie, song, video game. Like I would list a bunch of media places or another form of media, like book or another subject in school.
Kind of like school media, right? Like does this connect to, if I'm teaching social studies, ELA, science, art, pe like, you know, what other place could you connect to math? Um, so think about what works for you. You can take or, or leave pieces that take pieces that work, leave pieces that don't make it your own and, and change the language or imagery, certainly.
But I will link in the show notes and blog posts for this episode. A resource that has some of these that I'm describing, these slides you can just take and use or you could adapt 'em. Now I wanna talk through, before we close, just an example of what this looks like or could be like in action. So recently was working with a bunch of teachers in Boston public schools, some elementary and middle and high school social cities, teachers.
And thinking about Loretta Hammond's Learn to Learn skills and those cognitive routines, as well as this challenge of kind of quote unquote lack of background knowledge. And what did we come up with? We came up with a framework. We came up with a lot of stuff, but, but what I wanna talk about now is a framework that invites students to generate questions with a little bit of queuing and structure to support students who may be struggling to ask a question about.
Like a new topic or were you learning this new unit? What questions do you have? Right. And that's kind of all we've got is like a quick question or prompts or image, like a very short amount of information. Small amount of information I should say, and then go time ask questions. So here's what they decided, they said, okay, so there's kind of two things happening.
We want students to ask about some important social studies themes. So the content is important, but we also want students to do some like skill-based stuff, like some cognitive routines as Loretta Hammond would describe them, right? So again, that. Uh, DSRP is what we're thinking about at this point, so. We want students to think about distinctions, like comparing and contrasting.
We want them to think about the systems like part to whole hold apart, right? Uh, relationships, like how does thing, how do things happen over time? Like what is the cause and effect relationship, for example, or perspective, right? How is perspective important? Certainly very important in social studies. So that's DSRP or the cognitive routines.
So we want both social studies, content themes, and we want the skills or the cognitive routines. And how do we invite students to do all of that? Well, they came up with a slide that's kind of like two halves. And so they're like, okay, so ask a question about, and then they gave a few examples that, and then they gave a few examples of cognitive routines.
So in the content themes, I'd be like, ask a question about, and here's on the imagine like the left side. People or land connections. This connects to, um, NCSS or the National Consult for Social Studies, themes, people, places, and environments, uh, is a very common theme. Um, seen in many social cities, uh, content areas in ch in chapters in history, as well as it also connects to like First Nation concepts of wellbeing.
Um, so I'll, I can link to some of that, but people and connections is a content theme. Or you could ask a question about another content theme, people's hopes and dreams. Again, that's directly from cultural wealth, um, but it also is present in the national social studies, civic ideals and practices theme.
Uh, ask a question about community care practices. So this was kind of adapted from, uh, yo's cultural wealth, also funds of knowledge, right? We're thinking a lot about family and community, um, friend groups, but also this is present in First Nations concepts of wellbeing. And then the fourth one, um, that they decided to include in this framework is what people did or can do to better the world.
So thinking about like a justice orientation, uh, collective action, civic action thing, right? This is certainly present in the national theme for civic ideals and practices. This also present in yoo's cultural wealth framework, um, with resistance particularly. So again, the content themes, people land connections.
People's hopes and dreams, community care practices, and what people did or can do to better the world. These are the big things that we're often talking about in a social studies environment, right? This particularly one that is, uh, angled towards like advancing justice and, uh, power with, right? I'm thinking about the Berkeley frameworks here.
Um, a criticality lens, thinking about Goldie Muhammad, right? This is all really important. Now the cognitive routines side of this, right? So ask a question about one of those content areas. Is there a pitch that does one of these things connects to today? So you got like some systems there, like part to whole hold apart.
Like how does this all fit together in the arc of history? But it also connects to relationships, right? I would say like cause and effect, like what happens in the past affects what happens today. And also NCSS, uh, their theme of time, continuity and change. So definitely still connecting the content themes there.
You could say, um, asking a question that compares or contrasts that we have. Distinctions that considers cause and effects. You have relationships there or the uplifts identities, so. Inviting students to push back on or ask the question of whose stories or voices are missing. So again, we have that perspectives.
Or also I would say systems like understanding systemic oppression, right? And how systems work to marginalize, I think is also present in there, depending on where students take the question or the analysis that follows. So again, we have a framework that BPS used to pull on social studies, content themes from various frameworks.
And national standards, as well as inviting students to use a cognitive routine stemming from the work of, um, that Zaretta Hammond highlights and the work of independent learners and kind of how they make sense of things when they chew and remix in her learn to learn skill series. So example, questions stems that come out of this.
Um, could be, and I mean this is a little high level, but we, we wanted to come up with something that was really meaty for an example. Um, but like. If we take, ask a question about the, uh, people land connections and we do something about, um, connecting to today for the cognitive routine, that might be how my indigenous people's connection to the land inform how we interact with the land today.
And that's the question. And that might be a question that students come up with. In third grade when we're learning about indigenous peoples in Massachusetts, that's the particular curriculum they were talking about in the unit they were talking about. And so they were like, that is something that would be really high level for a student to ask, but also is like very possible even if they just asked part of that question.
Um, because this cues them to think about those things. So obviously we took this in a direction in, in the BPS work and thinking about this framework in a direction that is. Um, far from the background knowledge, like we end up in a really analytical, kind of heady space, but we get there by first thinking about that content knowledge.
So again, we're thinking about that Zaretta Hammond progression. We're scanning a hard drive. Have I seen this before? Have I seen something similar? We are chewing and remixing. How is this new content connected to what I already know? How do I make sense of it? And which cognitive routines can I use?
Right? So as students are making sense of the new information, they're accessing background knowledge, what is familiar, they're using maybe one of those frameworks to do that. Then that's where they can start to make sense of things because they do have that affirmed background experience or connection to other media.
They have experienced this before. They have valuable, um, kind of knowledge and insight. So now we're gonna apply a cognitive routine and we're gonna elevate that into a critical question or a level of analysis that's going to truly. Level up the historical thinking skills and the analytical thinking skills in the class.
Whether we're generating questions, we are participating in student led discourse, we are writing a claim, evidence reasoning paragraph, whatever it is. So here is what I would advise if you're just getting started with this or background knowledge feels really hard. Um, what I would do is I would pick a framework.
So one of the ones that we did either, uh, funds of Knowledge or cultural Wealth Framework. Or pick a piece of that framework and just invite students to make connections using that one queue. Does this make you think of, you know, how you've learned to figure out roles and organizations, right? Whatever the, the queue is, right.
Often these connections can lead to very insightful analysis, and you can do this at any point in the unit. It could be just when you're starting, if you're inviting students to kind of access that background knowledge, like a typical KWL chart, like when you would do that, use that queue there. You could also use it at the very end of a unit or anywhere in the middle, but at the end of the unit it might be like when we are trying to, we got really granular, we learned a bunch of facts in the social studies unit, and now we're trying to analyze and draw bigger kind of key ideas.
Maybe answering the essential question and we're trying to connect possibly likely to the present. That is where that lived experience of someone in the present could do that, right? You're gonna tie it all together. You're gonna expand through connections. You started by like entering the conversation and entering the social studies content with a connection through your background knowledge linkage, and now you're expanding it outwards in your analysis at the end, right?
So you kind of start big, start broad, get narrow and get granular, and then you broaden out again for analysis. I think that's a very common kind of arc. Okay. And the number two option to get started, if that feels like, you know what, that's a lot to introduce a new framework to my students. Fine know instead where the connections are already being made by students.
So your students are probably doing this to some degree, or maybe they're just about to make them like they get really close. Maybe they make some offhanded comment about how it's similar to something in their lives, but they're making it. As a joke or something, right? Like whatever it is, share what you're noticing with students and then what you can do, and this is so cool, co-create your own slide or physical on paper anchor chart with those connection cues, because then they'll be rooted in the student ideas, which lends even more validity to this concept and this tool, and something that they could actually use.
They'll remember it better. Okay, that's what I have for you today. I will drop a link to the various frameworks in the show notes and blog posts for the episode. We'll also drop that, uh, free resource on generating questions, resource bank, which will have that slides for queuing background knowledge, connections from those, uh, kind of three categories we shared today.
All of this information is gonna be at lindsaybethlyons.com/blog/254.

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In this episode, we talk with Dr. Sarah Burnham, a postdoctoral scholar who works at CIRCLE (The Centre for Information & Research on Civic Learning) at Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. She primarily works on projects related to K-12 civics education. In our discussion, she emphasizes the transformative power of civics education and shares ways to create inclusive classrooms where both teachers and students are supported. 

Dr. Burnham discusses fostering critical consciousness and anti-oppressive attitudes within educational settings. Civic education, according to her, isn't about politicizing students but equipping them with tools to engage with their communities and society effectively.

​Sarah Burnham is a postdoctoral fellow at CIRCLE focusing on civic learning and development in K-12 education. She received her Ph.D. from Suffolk University in Applied Developmental Psychology. Her work aims to help teachers and schools embrace culturally sustaining pedagogies authentically so that all students feel affirmed in their lived experiences to effectively engage in civic action for themselves and their communities. She is also passionate about positive youth development and developing critical consciousness and anti-oppressive attitudes across the lifespan both online and offline.

The Big Dream 

Dr. Burnham's vision for education is a landscape where classrooms nurture support and belonging for both teachers and students. She believes that this starts by paying teachers fairly and diversifying the teaching workforce to create a strong sense of community. Additionally, students should have access to resources reflecting their diverse experiences, creating genuine engagement with their learning environments.

Mindset Shifts Required

To begin creating classrooms that nurture support and belonging, Dr. Burnham emphasizes the need for educators and administrators to embrace participatory decision-making in classrooms, allowing students to have a say in their educational experiences. 

This involves teachers reflecting on their comfort with flexible classroom dynamics and administrators supporting these changes. Further, it means prioritizing social studies and civics education—and new ways of teaching—even when it feels noisy or messy. 

Action Steps  

A lot of Dr. Burnham’s work surrounds pedagogical practices that foster critical consciousness in anti-oppressive attitudes. For clarity, critical consciousness refers to the ability to recognize and analyze oppressive political, economic, and social forces that are shaping society, and to take action against those forces. Anti-oppressive attitudes require someone to actively acknowledge power disparities and work for equity and liberation. 

Ideally these two are working in tandem in education, and educators who want to embrace this in their classrooms can begin with these steps in their civics education practices: 

Step 1: Understand the purpose of civics education. It’s not to push a specific ideology or push students to become overly politicized outside the classroom. Rather, it’s helping students see the connection to their community, what’s happening, and their part in it. 

Step 2: Prioritize students' voices in decision-making processes within the classroom, ensuring their experiences help shape the learning environment. It’s important to also include more diverse voices in the curriculum, ones that are grounded in the students’ identities, histories, and communities. 

Step 3: Engage in self-reflection. Educators need to ask the question: Am I okay with being this flexible in the classroom? Because centering students’ voices means creating space for lived experiences and different ideas, which can be uncomfortable at times. 

Step 4: Implement participatory exercises that don’t just deliver content, but shape experiences of community. Shared decision-making is practicing democracy in the classroom. For example, a group budgeting exercise helps students learn about real-world issues that matter to them.

Challenges?

Educators may find it challenging to shift from traditional methods to more flexible, student-centered approaches. They need administrative support to explore these new pedagogies and incorporate them effectively, and there’s a need for quality professional development to guide educators in these transitions.

One Step to Get Started 

One way to get started is for educators to identify local representatives and explore their positions on funding for schools and public goods. Engage students and families in discussions about these issues and encourage them to participate in community activities like voting or local meetings to demonstrate the practical application of civic involvement.

Stay Connected

You can stay connected with Dr. Sarah Burnham on LinkedIn or send her an email at [email protected]. Keep up with CIRCLE’s research on the Tufts website. 

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing the Curricululm Playlist  with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 253 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.
​
Quotes: 

• 1:39 “ My freedom dream is making classrooms places where both teachers and students feel cared for and supported. So I think that mostly starts with making sure that teachers are paid fairly for everything that they do.”
• 8:58 “Research paints a pretty clear picture that when done well, civic education works. It's linked to better civic outcomes, stronger community engagement, a better understanding of how government works and how you can affect government, a deeper sense of a responsibility to participate in your community.”
• 23:20 “In these conversations with civic education, we can’t expect students to practice all these things at 18 when they haven’t gotten any experience with it.”

​​​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:​

Transcript: 
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Sarah Burnham, welcome to the time for teachership podcast.
Sarah Burnham: Thank you for having me.
Lindsay Lyons: I'm really excited. I know we've been kind of nerding out just a little bit right before we hit record, but would love for folks who are engaging with this episode just to know you know who you are beyond maybe the professional bio.
Sarah Burnham: Yeah, of course. So, um, just to iterate, my name is Sarah Burnham. Um, I am a postdoctoral scholar, um, at Circle. Um, I primarily work on projects related to K through 12 civic education. Um, I've been super into this. Uh, the new social studies curriculum in Massachusetts called Investigating History. Been working on it for about three years, and I'm really excited for what I've seen and the growth for the teachers.
Um, I even have a sticker on my water bottle for investigating history. Um, but beyond the, uh, professional stuff, I was born and raised in the suburbs of Boston. Um, I just finished reading, um, rabid by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy. Um, very interesting nonfiction book about the cultural history of rabies.
Um, and I'm also really digging the new Sabrina Carpenter album.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. I love this. I love the whole humanness of your response. Thank you. So now for a more, uh, potentially academic or, or work related education related question, I love starting with this. So, Betina love describes freedom dreaming as dreams, uh, grounded in the critique of injustice.
And I'm curious just what is your freedom dream for education?
Sarah Burnham: Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is a great question and I spent a lot of time thinking about this. Um, so my freedom dream is that, uh, is making classrooms, places where both teachers and students feel cared for and supported. So I think that mostly starts with making sure that teachers are paid fairly for everything that they do.
Um, and I think if that happened, we'd probably see way more teachers from all kinds of backgrounds sticking around instead of burning out or leaving. Um, and then when teachers are coming from different backgrounds. Students are feeling more connected and they actually feel like they're part of the classroom community.
So that's the one part of it. The other part is also. Uh, getting more relevant resources that reflect the diversity of students and their experiences. So, um, circles research has shown that less than half of young people say that they actually feel like they belong at school. Um, and that's a huge red flag.
So that feeling of belonging isn't the same for everyone and particularly for, um, minoritized groups. Um, they feel it less than others feeling like they don't belong. So let's tell us there's a, that there's a lot of work to do in caring for both students and teachers. Um, so what is really exciting me and something that I would love to work towards and help, uh, teachers and practitioners work towards is making the idea of classrooms where students are not just learning about democracy and theory, but are.
Practicing it. So things like participatory budgeting or, uh, group decision making where students get to use their voice and feel like they matter and feeling like they're belonging in this community. Um, and having that kind of hands-on experience also builds confidence, um, not just in school but also outside of school.
Um. Then also to go back to the teacher side of this, um, school leaders and administrators need to have teachers' backs. Um, I know that this is a crazy time for everyone, um, but they, uh, administrators at the very least, can protect time for social studies, um, and civics because often those are relegated towards, um, prepping for, um, standardized testing, um, or often for supplemental services.
Supplemental services should also be prioritized, but often kids are being pulled out of social studies for those supplemental services. Um, and so prioritizing social studies and civics and encouraging teachers to try new ways of teaching, even if it feels noisy or messy, um, and making sure that like it's, they feel okay about it.
Um, so that was a lot that I just said, but. Making sure both teachers and students are cared for. And that starts from caring for teachers, caring for um, uh, students, and then also making sure they're protected by their administrator and their institutions.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. I am like furiously scribbling notes.
This is amazing. I love all of this. I love the concept of pr, practicing democracy in theory, like Sure. Budgeting. So cool. I love the idea of protecting that time for social studies because one of the things we've found out from the third and fourth grade pilot with investigating history of Massachusetts is like, no one has time.
Like it's not, it's just not allotted. And so then it's like how do you create that time? Well, what is it being used for? Like you said, it's like standardized test prep and. It is so disheartening when it's like this is civics is like how you engage with the world, with your community. This is a lifelong thing that people need to develop capacity for, and yet we routinely kind of erase it from the structure of how school is done, particularly at lower levels.
And it is so depressing. So thank you for naming that. I really appreciate that. And I also just love your idea of like risk taking, like the idea of like risk taking pedagogically and like supporting that as an admin. So often I think as a teacher there's kind of this fear of like an observation is happening and it's gonna be punitive.
And it's like, how cool would it be if we had admin who are like, yeah, I support you trying that new thing, and I'll come in and I'll collect data for you and we can reflect together. And I know it's gonna be messy and it might be loud. And like all the things that traditional schooling tells us, it's like not good pedagogy, but like is great, you know?
Mm-hmm. I just. Oh my gosh. All the things. Yes. Thank you.
Sarah Burnham: Yeah, and like, so we would do like classroom observations for the evaluation and like teachers were so nervous and I was like, please do not be nervous. I don't, I don't care what you are doing. I wanna see how this, this, the classroom is functioning like as a whole, like it are the students engaging.
Like this is not evaluative, I'm not sharing this with anybody. This is all confidential and I think that was hard for teachers to kind of get over the, because like so often it's a higher up that's in the classroom. I'm just like, I am just here to take notes. Just here to take notes.
Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, I would love that culture broadly to permeate like the school, like both for outsiders, but like internal, like peer-to-peer teacher, like observations and things would be so lovely.
Um, and I know, so thank you so much for sharing so much of the research, that statistic about less than half of young people reporting belonging at school is like soul crushing makes me so sad. Also though, the hopeful part of me, the critical, hopeful part is like, how cool would it be if that is a metric that schools were tracking internally, right.
To just be like. Okay. Like, we're gonna measure this every three months or something, and we're gonna just like make moves towards increasing that number. So I, I do think for people who are engaging with this episode, like, you can do this, this is something that you can track and value it just as much, if not more, right.
Than those standardized test scores that we devote so much time and energy to. Um, but I know you have a lot of, a lot of research knowledge. Would love to, to learn from you in all of that. So curious what the research says about civic education in whatever way you wanna take that. I know that's. Super broad field of research, um, but also thinking about.
Specifically, I know you research like anti-oppressive attitudes in youth critical consciousness. Like what pedagogies or pedagogical practices foster critical consciousness in anti-oppressive attitudes. 'cause I think that's what many of us are in the work to do and would love to know what the research has on that.
Sarah Burnham: I. Yeah, that's a great question. And so before I get into like kind of the meat of this question, I just wanna make sure that, um, I'm clarifying what I mean by by critical consciousness and anti-oppression. So, critical consciousness, um, developed I think in the mid 19 hundreds. Um, so this refers to the ability to recognize and analyze oppressive political, economic and social forces that are shaping society and to take action against those forces.
So critical consciousness, um, and a lot of, at least the developmental sec. Uh, psychological literature, which is my background, um, has like three distinct, uh, dimensions of like critical reflection. So understanding kind of like your own positionality, um, political self-efficacy. So understanding what you can and can't do kind of in your position.
And then also sociopolitical action of like what are the actual actions that you're taking. Um, so that's my understanding of critical consciousness. Um. And then anti-oppressive attitudes. Um, so that's requiring someone to like actively acknowledging p power disparities and work for equity and liberation.
So these two concepts should ideally be working in tandem in education and then create a school climate that cares for teachers and students. Um, so, but to get back to the question at hand, um, so I think, um. I think this is a lot something that educators are grappling with, right, right now. But research paints a pretty clear picture that when done well, civic education works, right?
It's linked to better civic outcomes, like stronger community engagement. Um, understanding how, a better understanding of how government works and how you can affect government. And then also a deeper sense, deeper sense of a responsibility to participate in your community. Um. And so civic education is boosting knowledge, civic dispositions.
Um, but I also wanna emphasize that based also on circles, research that, um, having robust civic education, um, is not leading students to become overly per politicized outside of the classroom, which is I think something that, um, uh, a lot of, uh, naysayers against civic education. Um. Might have a concern about, um, it's not linked to partisan outcomes.
It's not links to ideological indoctrination. Um, what it's doing is giving students tools to make sense of the world and see themselves as people who can have a say in it. Um, and I think that's the core of civic education. And then, um, the critical, conscious and anti oppressiveness of like, understanding that you can affect your community and you have a responsibility as a citizen to kind of make things better for both yourself and for your community.
Um. So, um, I think one of the key shifts is around how we teach civics, um, not just what we teach. Um, and I think investigating history is a great example of that, where inquiry-based learning is a huge part of, uh, transitioning how we're thinking about teaching civics. So when students are encouraged to ask real questions and investigate issues that matter to them, um, and engage in dialogue with their peers, they're starting to build those critical thinking skills in the classroom.
And then those skills transfer far beyond the classroom, like in their afterschool activities, um, or maybe in, uh, even just in conversations with their families, which I will get to at a later point. Um, but also, uh, fostering critical consciousness. Um. It also re requires, um, making civic learning relevant to students' lives.
And I think that's also connected to having a classroom community where students feel like they belong, right? If they don't feel like they belong, then they're thinking that civic, civic learning is not relevant and then they're not fostering critical consciousness, um, which is kind of not where we wanna be.
Um, so it's. It about also about including more diverse voices in the curriculum and grounding the entire learning experience in students' identities, histories, and communities. Um, one of the things that we learned from the teachers during these, uh, evaluations was that, um. Social studies, classrooms, and lessons, um, often act as like windows, um, where we're looking out at other people, other places and other times.
Um, but we need to have more mirrors or spaces for students to reflect on their experiences, their own positionality, and how they fit into the broader social and historical context. Um, and this was something that. People like appreciated about investigating history was that it does provide some of those, um, mirrors, um, rather than like kind of the windows.
Um, and then. Yeah. So civic education is not just about kind of government structures or historical timelines. It's building the habits of democracy, um, feeling like you're connected to your community, your classroom. Um, and when students kind of see themselves in the story, then they kind of see that they have the power to shape kind of what comes next.
Lindsay Lyons: Amazing. Oh my gosh, what a great synthesis. Thank you. And, and I'm thinking about the teacher who might be, um, listening or reading the blog posts and, and thinking about their specific actions. So maybe they do have investigating hist history as a curriculum. Maybe, you know, they're, they're in a different state.
They don't have that. But they want to shift pedagogically, like how, you know, they're doing things. And I know you mentioned the inquiry being huge, like en engaging students and asking, I like that you said real questions. Real questions that mean something to them. And investigating those sources as well as having dialogue.
I love also just the idea of building habits of democracy. So how do teachers, I mean, what have you found in the research or how have you, how have you learned about. What specific practices may be things that, that teachers can do to kind of implement or, or bring about some of this learning for students?
Sarah Burnham: Yeah. Um, so, um, first I think it means centering student voice and like not just a buzz buzzword, but like in a way that's like real and consistent. Um, so creating classroom environments where students' opinions, questions, and lived experiences actually help shape, um, what happens in the room. Um, and that can be really uncomfortable.
And I think that also requires some self-reflection on the part of the teachers of like, do I feel okay with being this flexible in the classroom? Um, and but they also kind of need, again, their, uh, administrators to support them in making some of these choices. Um. Uh, in some of circle's research, and Ill be, these are with kind of older grades, but having that shared decision making framework, like participatory budgeting has been really effective in students feeling like they have a voice in kind of what happens in the classroom and what happens at their school.
Um, so that is really kind of centering student voice, um, and. Um, we've also heard that like having, um, adjusted materials can also, um, like adjusted materials to reflect kind of, um, student um, experiences in the classroom can also be really helpful. So, um. Like, uh, if it's, if they feel, if teachers feel uneasy discussing things, um, like they can ask for help to do so, um, and making sure that they feel okay to ask for help.
Um, and having kind of robust professional development is also really important. Um, and, um. Yeah. So for teachers, like it's, it's kind of like they're not just delivering content, they're also kind of shaping students' experiences of community, um, and kind of of democracy when they're trying, when they're doing this shared decision making in the classroom, if that's, um, an avenue do they decide to, uh, pursue.
Um, and yeah, so it means kinda doing a lot of self-reflection and then also feeling okay with. Exploring some of those more uncomfortable or uneasy kind of pieces that either about themselves or about kind of history, um, at large.
Lindsay Lyons: Love the different components of, of what you shared. What I really latched onto my like scholarly student voice brain was like, ooh.
Shared decision making structures. I love that. Are you, have you seen in the research the, like an example that you could share around either a class-based decision making structure, like something that you would invite students into to like. Help make a decision around, or even, I know you said upper grades, even if it's like a school based decision making structure, like an advisory council or anything.
Um, anything that you've come across that, that feels either interesting to you or just like you've, you've seen it come up in the research and, and wanted to share it?
Sarah Burnham: Yeah, so I can actually, so I wasn't, I'm not involved in the, um. Illinois kind of democracy school project as much as my colleagues. Um, but there was a big participatory budgeting, um, project in the Illinois Civic hub schools where, um, there were, they highlighted a couple of, um, high schools, um, where they were given like a small amount of money.
Um. And they were thinking about kind of what students needed. So, um, there was one, um, school where, um, they, uh, used the money to create a resource closet, um, for students. So, um, things like, um, clothes, um, hygiene supplies or food. Um, so students like basic needs could be met. Um, so that was one way that that kind of showed up in one of the high schools that they worked with.
Um, there was another, um, school that they did a similar project with participatory budgeting, um, where they looked at, um, students. Like students when they were like divided into, um, groups, um, especially with like different like abilities, they came up with like different ideas. Um, and then they had like, and this is also part and parcel with the participatory budgeting process of like generating ideas and then voting on some of the things.
But it was really interesting some of the ideas that came up. Um, of like new speakers having a coffee bar, um, having a digital media room. Um, ultimately that particular school, um, chose to set up like a calming room, um, so students could feel like comfortable and safe in their school. Um, but yeah, it like having students, like having their ideas heard, even if they weren't voted on.
I think it's still a very generative process for the students.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. Thank you for those concrete examples. I love those. And especially as a former high school teacher and, and thinking through the lens of like maybe a principal or someone who's listening to this from the high school lens, oh, I wanna measure student's sense of belonging.
That's gonna be a metric for our success. How do I do that? Well, I open up the floor for conversations and ideas like this. And if we aren't gonna go for a particular idea, someone nominated, we at least get back to them and say, I think that's one of the components of like Laura Lundy's, four pieces of voices.
Like, you gotta like get back to 'em and like let them know why, why we didn't choose something. Um, and I, I love that. So, such clear examples like of what can come out of inviting students into that process. I think I've even seen in as young as first grade in the student of voice literature that like even just co-designing the classroom space can be something, right?
Like, well, how you know it, there's like a weird impediment to like how you come into the classroom and hang up your stuff in your cubby and like how do we redesign that or. I need a calming space. How could we make that happen? Um, just last night, my, my kid was like, I, we have a corner in our preschool where I don't feel mad because you could just squeeze a stuffy.
And I was like, I love that. Would you like to make that at home? And he was like, we, we can do that. What? Yes, like just the tiniest things sometimes are just so valuable. So I appreciate your concrete examples and I think to transition to, to family life at home, I, I think. A lot of families or a lot of educators actually wear kind of two hats where they're like kind of parenting or supporting a young person in some capacity in their families and they're like, yeah, I do this at school, but maybe I don't think about bringing it home.
Or How could I bring it home? Or someone could like, share this episode with a family member, the of their student. Um, how can families also support? So we kind of have this dual support from both school and home. We have this kind of partnership around civic engagement. Any recommendations you have for families?
Sarah Burnham: Yeah, so I think that's a great point. And I think that like, you know, civic education is kind of also happening like all the time. Like I think a lot of times we think it like happens in schools like no, it's happened like all the time. Like when you're going to the grocery store and like even just like returning like.
The carriage like that is still like making things like better and easier for the other, um, folks at the grocery store. Um, but like, yeah, families are a huge part of the picture. Um, so, um, more often than not, young people are usually getting information from their immediate family members. Um, so, uh, seeing their, uh.
Parents or even their, or just caregivers talking about local issues, voting, attending different community events, or just having, um, like thoughtful conversations about what's happening in the world. Like young people are noticing that. Um, and they can see that like, Hey, this is something that matters to my community.
So what can parents do, um, or any family member do, like an older sibling, an aunt or an uncle of like just. Helping them volunteer or even just like taking your kid with you to go vote and see what the process looks like. Right. It's like it's, uh, at least, uh, when I was voting in Somerville a couple months ago, like it was pretty easy.
Everybody was so friendly and like the stickers are like so much fun to get. Um, I currently have a collection of I voted stickers, um, just like pasted on one of our cabinets. Um, and like. Young people are pick up on these things. They pick up on this. And, um, having family support is just really important.
Um, and then it's also kind of, especially before they turn 18, is like reinforcing those ideas, like of participating in democracy. So doing like, like bake sales, um, or just like going to like some of the afterschool, um, programming things. Um, or, um, modeling even just, uh, modeling, respectful disagreement during dinner conversations that can also.
But also be really effective in helping, uh, young people understand how to have those kinds of disagreements and to respectfully disagree. Um, because I think that's also something else that can come up in the classroom is how do we have those res, the respectful disagreements. And I think that's a great place to kind of see what's happening at home and then model that kind of in the classroom.
Um, so. I think like families, like don't need to be experts obviously, in this work. Um, but they kind of need to be open and engaged and kind of willing to show like their kids or, um, other family members that their voice matters, um, kind of now and not just when they turn 18 and they can vote.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh.
I love that you said that because that is consistently one of the kind of points of frustration of schooling as we always say. Like, oh, we're preparing them for this future time. And it's like, no, they right now they can do that right now. Yeah.
Sarah Burnham: Yeah. One of my colleagues like keep, like, keep saying in these conversations with civic education, we can't expect students to practice all these things at 18 when they haven't gotten any experience with it.
Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And, and we can't instill this idea in students that their voice matters and their ideas have impact. If, if we're not actually like doing that now, right. They're gonna be like, I guess only adults have that. 'cause you keep telling me to wait. I am so fascinated by all of that. You have shared, I'm sure there's so much more to that you have come across in the researcher.
Is there anything that we, before we get to kind of our lightning round questions, is there anything that we did not talk about that you wanted to bring up? I.
Sarah Burnham: Um, I don't think so. I talked a lot about things and I hope some of this was helpful
Lindsay Lyons: For sure. Um, yeah, no, for sure. It is. And I, and I think one of the things that people like is usually at the end we ask, uh, our first lightning round question, well, I'll just get to it, I guess is like some sort of first step.
So like an action I can take today or tomorrow. Upon ending the episode and being like, I wanna implement something. I know we talked about a range of things, both at home and in school. What do you think feels like an attainable, kind of like starter people could do soon?
Sarah Burnham: Um, yeah, so I at least, 'cause I mentioned being in Somerville, I know like our.
Municipal elections are coming up. So looking up who is running and what they stand for. So, um, there's been a lot of talk about funding the schools, um, in Somerville, um, and also libraries. So thinking about who your local representatives are, who's running, and find out what they stand for in terms of like fair compensation, um, and then public, like public goods funding, and then.
Like that also feeds into some of the, what I said before is like when teachers are feeling supported, um, it can create the kind of classrooms where students are empowered to ask these big questions. Um, and I know it might be. Harder for like, not cities, but it seems like a lot, at least in my experience, people who are running for office like are fine with like talking to you, like just sending like an email.
And if they're not fine with talking to you via email, then maybe you've focused your efforts to somebody else who's running.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh, I love that. I have a, a, a colleague, I'm pretty sure this was Cara, who, you know, Cara Pranov, who, who was saying, you know, actually all of my, like my kids and my niece and my nephews, like, they know and have talked to all of the people in their, um, like local, like people that represent them because it is possible to do, it is attainable.
You just have to like reach out. So I love that you brought that up. Um, and I, I really love this idea of like. Considering not just who's writing, but I I think you also mentioned like funding and I am so fascinated when you even hand over, like the hypothetical question of like, if you were to control the budget, where would you allocate money to?
Anyone from high school all the way to like a preschooler, right? I mean, the preschooler probably say like toys, which is the usual answer I get. But like, other than toys, where would you spend money? Um, but making sure that people have. What they need as kind of that lens and through line is like, where do you think people have a need?
Where do you, right. I think that's such a great conversation starter. 'cause every kid's gonna have a different answer. And so if you're at home, cool, you learn more about your kid and what they care about. And if you're in a school system, like, okay, in this class we had like 25 different answers. So how do we, how do people actually decide where to, like, that's such a lovely entry point into, um, conversations about civics and government and, and all of that.
Um, so I love that that lens of like, who are the leaders? Right? How does the funding get allocated? And then there's such a beautiful, um, kind of inquiry map that you can start there to dive into all of the structures and ways decisions are made.
Sarah Burnham: Exactly. Always inquiry all the time.
Lindsay Lyons: That's right. Um, okay.
This one is kind of just for fun, but it can be research based, but also just in your life in general. What are you learning about lately?
Sarah Burnham: Um, so I've actually, this is research based, so it's not like as fun or exciting, um, but it's fun and exciting to me 'cause I'm learning. Um, I've been attending some weekly webinars about research practice partnerships, um, or RPPs.
So they're like collaborations between, um, education agencies and researchers. Um. So there's like, they've been doing some short webinars, especially they've been kind of over lunch, so I don't really like talk. Um, but um, learning about like what makes a successful research practice partnership, I think like, uh, people may be more familiar with like the U Chicago, um, consortium where they primarily partner with, um, Chicago Public Schools, um, to, um, increase or improve, um, different aspects of, uh.
Just schooling of like, I think there's like computer science, education, um, reading and literacy, but they're like really purposeful, um, partnerships that people like Foster. Um, so I'm learning more about that. Um, but it seems like a very powerful way to connect evidence to poli policy decisions like in real time.
Lindsay Lyons: What that is fascinating. I have not heard of this, so I need to investigate. Thank you for that. Um, and then finally, how can our audience connect with you? Continue to follow your research. Check out what Circle is doing all the things.
Sarah Burnham: Yeah. So, um, I am on Blue Sky, um, as Bernham Burglar, that is my last name with burglar added to the end of it.
Um, I had been meeting about, I've been meeting to be better about using Blue Sky. Um. You can also follow me on LinkedIn as SL Burnham. Um, for more formal connections, you can email me at my Tufts email address. It's just, uh, sarah dot [email protected]. Um, and then for all circle research, which is not just on civic education, there's many aspects of young people civic life.
Um, I think we just posted something about, uh, rural turnout, um, and also youths connect, uh, young people's connection to social movements. Um, you can check out circle.ts.edu and there's a ton there. And you can also find more about some of the things I was talking about, especially with the participatory budgeting, um, project and some of the other work, um, in Illinois.
Lindsay Lyons: Amazing. Dr. Burnham, thank you so, so much for talking to us today.
Sarah Burnham: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.

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In this episode, host Lindsay talks with Kara Pranikoff and Dr. Eric Soto-Shed. They introduce a thoughtful framework designed to help educators navigate high emotion topics in the classroom. 

They specifically frame the conversation around current events involving ICE, and the intense emotional and political responses nationwide. Grounding the conversation in what’s currently impacting students today, this episode offers practical and hands-on knowledge for educators to apply to their classroom settings today.

Kara Pranikoff spent more than two decades in NYC schools as a classroom teacher; reading interventionist; Instructional Coach; curriculum designer; and an adjunct instructor at Bank Street College of Education. As a consultant and coach she nurtures educators in developing inquiry based practices in social studies and writing that develop independent student thinking, voice and a sense of belonging for all members of the community. 

Dr. Soto-Shed is a lecturer in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research centers on curriculum development and teacher training, with his work aiming to promote inquiry and equity in education. He also consults on school district initiatives and conducts professional development workshops for educators of all levels. 

Why?

At the time of recording (end of February 2026), over 30 people died in ICE detention facilities in 2025, six people have died interacting with ICE agents in 2026, and ICE arrested around 3,000 people over six weeks in Minnesota in early 2026. 

This has all led to widespread protests and fear among immigrant communities. Emotions are high, and anyone working with youth is wondering: how do we engage with this in a thoughtful way? This episode walks educators through the “Think, Feel, Do” framework to engage in this and other high-emotion topics with students and young people.

What: Understanding the Framework

The goal of the “Think, Feel, Do” framework is to both honor the range of natural responses that students would have, and then broaden their responses. The framework centers on the student experience, who will all respond differently: 

• Some students start with “think” — they want more information or content to understand the situation.
• Some start with “feel” — they connect with their emotions and lead with empathy. 

• Some start with “do” — they want to move to action and want to respond quickly. 

Understanding these differences helps educators respond in a range of different ways. 

How: Implementing “Think, Feel, Do” 

To begin engaging students in high-emotion conversations, like what’s happening with ICE, educators can implement the following action steps: 

1. Lead with content

While it’s not always the first thing we think about when addressing high-emotion topics, it is very important to leverage high-quality, accurate content about the topic. This grounds the conversation in facts and what’s really happening and helps students sort through the volume of information they’re exposed to. Content is a starting point for the conversation and will really engage the “think” side of things.

2. Reflect on values

In addition to the content, the facts, it’s also important for educators to start by lifting up fundamental values. What do we hold as true and important? How do these values influence our understanding of immigration policies and human dignity? This gets at the heart of the issue and connects with what we believe to be important. 

3. Create space for all responses

Knowing that students will engage in these conversations very differently is a key truth to start with. Some will know very little about the situation, whereas others may be actively engaged in protests or resistance. It’s important to create space for all responses—they’re all valid, and we can learn from each other. 

4. Engage students compassionately

When approaching high-emotion conversations, it’s also important to note that some students are directly (or materially) impacted by what’s happening. Educators can lead with compassion and understanding, checking in with students and tapping into that “feel” side to ensure they are safe and doing okay. 

5. Find joy amidst challenges

Bringing in experiences of joy and hope can offer a powerful compliment to the oppression and adversity people are going through. Educators can actively bring in these expressions of joy, like artistic forms of resistance and resilience, to emphasize our shared humanity. 

6. Partner with families 

Similar to how educators need to understand the different ways students engage in high-emotion topics (e.g., “think, feel, do” orientation), parents can benefit from understanding this, too. Even in the same household, children can have a range of responses. 

Parents can lead with authenticity, showing their kids how they’re responding to the news, and then process it with their children. They can also model media literacy and good media habits to be mindful of what information is being consumed in your house.

There also needs to be strong communication between educators and parents, offering guidance on how to continue these high-emotion conversations at home.

One Step to Take Today

To begin integrating this framework into educational practice, begin with a reflective practice. Educators can do this by considering personal responses to current events through the lens of the framework. 

Stay Connected

You can stay connected with our guests via their websites: Eric Soto-Shed and Kara Pranikoff.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, we’re sharing our Think Feel Do cards with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 252 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes: 

• 3:53  ”With the ‘Think, Feel, Do’ framework, we were really looking for a way that teachers could support their students in responding in a range of ways, and also deepen their response to the issues that come into the classroom.” (Kara)
• 26:32 “ I don't wanna make any light of the situation, but I just want to acknowledge the full, that people experience joy. That's part of being human. To humanize folks and really get into stories is just a powerful compliment to the very necessary attention to both the oppression and the resistance.” (Eric)

​​​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome to another episode of the Time for teachership podcast. Today I have my amazing adored colleagues, Dr. Eric Soche and Kara Proff here to talk to you about, uh, something that I think is coming up a lot for us all in all of the. Communities that we coach and work in and with, um, which is how to enter a conversation about ICE in this time.
Um, we're airing this in April 7th. We're recording this on February 20th, 2026. I just wanna like, contextualize that piece for everyone, but really we're kind of thinking about. Where we are in time. I'll set the stage here with some factual context and then kind of what do we do to respond to this time in partnership with fellow educators and thinking about the youth in our spaces, whether that's families or teachers.
So let's get into the context. So at least 32 people have died in ICE detention facilities in the year 2025. Six people have died interacting with ICE agents in 2026. And in early 2026 ICE arrested 3000 people over six weeks in Minnesota. I think that's an important context to set first because there's this been long history, right, and that's only looking at the last year, year or so.
Then Amids protest. Renee Good was shot and killed by an ice agent. Later in January, Alex Preddy was shot and killed by federal immigration agents while filming those agents and the Trump administration has called both victims domestic terrorists. Widespread protests have ensued and widespread fear in immigrant communities has resulted in reduced school attendance in an education setting and close many businesses.
So, so much is happening. Emotions are high, and I think anyone working with youth is wondering how do we help youth make sense of this? If they're seeing this on the news, how do we process and talk about this? What do I say if it comes up? Do I bring it up? So many questions. And one of the big questions that we've gotten from educators is, how do we do this without further traumatizing students?
Like, this is already like a hard thing. Um, and how do we do this in a thoughtful way? So with that, we have developed kind of a, a framework for, um, social studies, instruction and pedagogy generally. Cara, can you talk us through kind of the why behind the framework and how it connects to this moment?
Kara Pranikoff: Yeah, so thank you Lindsay.
I'm so happy to be here with you and Eric talking today. Um, in many of our conversations, again, trying to figure out the best way to address what's happening in current times with students and with families. We were looking. For a way to both honor the range of natural responses that students were going to have, and then also broaden their responses.
So we thought about a framework that really centered kind of the student experience. It's the think, feel, and do framework. So it's composed of kind of three different questions. So students, when they're. Brought to a current event or a, um, high emotion topic. Some students are gonna respond by thinking about what do I think?
So they're going to be curious. They're gonna want some more information. They're going to really delve into the desire for more content and some criticality. Some students are naturally gonna respond by thinking about how they feel. These are the students who really connect with their identities, connect with the emotions, and, um, lead kind of with empathy sometimes, um, even with joy.
And then some students are going to be thinking about, what can I do? They're going to be called to action. How can they respond? What are the skills that they can develop? To respond. So in the creation of this framework, the think, feel, and do framework, we were really looking for a way that teachers could respond or support their students in responding in a range of ways, and also kind of deepen their response, um, to the issues that come into the classroom.
Lindsay Lyons: Thank you for that overview. And Eric, what advice would you give us as we're thinking about all that stuff? Like what's on your mind?
Eric Soto-Shed: Well, you know, the first is, I'd love to know, ping back maybe a follow up, uh, to, to you Lindsay, and you talk about, you know, how do we sort of address this with our students without, you know, further potentially traumatizing or traumatizing students.
I'm, I'm curious if you could like, maybe unpack for us in the audience, like what do you mean when you say traumatized? Um, students.
Lindsay Lyons: I so appreciate that question and I, um, I'll definitely open it up to, I'd love to hear what all of your thoughts are. Not sure exactly what the each individual teacher who has asked a version of this question has meant, but what I interpret it to mean is really like, how do we engage and not avoid hard, like what I would call high emotion topics in the classroom.
And, um, particularly I'm thinking for students who are, you know, deeply feeling for students who are, whose backgrounds and experiences might be connected to whatever we're talking about, right? Like recognizing the opportunity for them to either step away, um, giving some space for just like the human response, to not be so overwhelming that now I can't function, I'm feeling.
Like, I'm, I'm debilitated for the day. Like I'm, I'm down and out. Um, and so what's the, what's the way we engage in kind of that optimal zone of emotional engagement where I can feel discomfort, but I am not so uncomfortable, um, that I am like unable to function.
Eric Soto-Shed: Appreciate that, that's really helpful. And I just think it's really, um, you know, important to sort of define the terms that we use because when we look at history, we look at current events, there are things that are hard, that are tough, that evoke a strong emotional responses.
And those are things that we want to engage in responsibly as a teacher. At the same time, there are real sort of trauma and impacts that we really wanna avoid in our classrooms. And so I think that distinction you made is really, um, helpful. Boy, there's so much we could say, but maybe lemme just jump in with a couple of points and, uh, you know, I'd love to just be in dialogue with y'all.
And so when we think about like, how do we address this, you know, I'm gonna name two things that I think are particularly useful to think about, particularly when we think about our framework. So, from the think, uh, part of our framework, we, we, we highlight curiosity and. Criticality, which I think are really high leverage, but I would, I would lift up content here, which is often the least sort of sexy and maybe appealing, but I think it could be really, really important because what content knowledge does is it provides.
Context and explanatory power. And as Cara mentioned, you know, kids are gonna be curious like what's going on, right? And some way we sort of help sort of meet that curiosity or engage with that. Curiosity is through content, is through explaining like, here are some facts, here are some backgrounds. So when we think about, you know.
And the particular, and at our current sort of moment right now, I really think it's important to take sort of a broad, sort of 40 year view of the history of sort of asylum, of the history of immigration or the more recent history of immigration. And that can really allay some fundamental, uh, content that can demystify what's happening.
That can provide some, some context and some explanatory power, and that could really help young people begin to make sense. Potentially take a stance or think through deeper or begin to engage with some other feelings. So I think content is really important. And then I'll just lift this up and then, you know, Carl, Lizzie, maybe you wanna riff on, I think values are really important because I think values are kind of a nice sort of, um, they sit in between, I think both feelings and thinking, right?
It's like, what do I hold to be really important? Some fundamental values. And I think through, um, lifting up values, it's a way to begin to, um, understand and explain. Certain policies and the impact of those policies and how we want to judge those through something that is, I think, on one hand could be a bit cerebral in sort of these values with these specific definitions.
But on the other hand, gets to the heart about what do I feel and what I believe to be true. So I think content and values are an important, uh, place to begin to start.
Lindsay Lyons: I love that. Thank you so much. Cara. Do you have thoughts at the moment?
Kara Pranikoff: You know, I was just gonna say that I'm so glad that you started with content, Eric, because I think one of the challenges of our current day is that students come in with really with a range of content.
They come in, some come in with a lot of information, some come in with misinformation. There's a lot of conversation that happens with students that can be really activating outside of the classroom. So I think if we are really clear about developing the, like leading with content, here are some facts.
So that everybody can be on the same playing field, I think it can really kind of deescalate, um, and, um, help students feel safe in order to be able to engage with the, um, the ideas that are coming up in the classroom. So I just wanna amplify that.
Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And I mean, I, I'm going to a couple, a couple thoughts.
One, just as we're talking, I'm, I'm thinking about. How my almost 4-year-old is like engaging with this like, imagery that's happening on the front page of the paper. Right. That comes to our house. And so how I've had to, you know, explain that and then thinking about like the traumatizing, like how, how big do you get when you're talking with little ones versus high school students?
Right. And so there's a range. Um, what I love about our framework though is that it's. It's agnostic to grade, right? It's agnostic to age. You can enter anywhere. So that content might look a little bit different for a 4-year-old, right? Than like a 14-year-old. Um, but that, that, that is just kind of like on my mind and what a cool, um, approach it is to kind of enter into any conversation with values regardless of how old they are.
Um, and so I've been thinking about like, what's the values? We use in our home with young people. Right. And then how, what are the values that I've used in high school settings with older kids? And so like one of the things that we've talked about with a lot of current events is like, uh, are people more important than money?
Right. And like, who's making, you know, like, we believe people are more important than money. Right? And so like what are kind of, in this case, it's not money, but it might be like a larger systemic like power, which is a little more. Maybe difficult to understand as a, as a 4-year-old, but more high school.
Um, I think about the idea of safety being really present here. Right? And so my initial thought was like, what's the value, tension, safety, and what? But I think even before that, you unpack safety for whom, right? So it's like, oh, I wanna feel safe, so maybe I am like very, um, I, I want like strong borders. I'm air quoting here.
For folks who are listening and this idea of safety, like, well, who gets to feel safe then? And who, who is safety for? Right. In that scenario. And so I think there's some like unpacking around values that could come up once we surface them. I'll stop there. I wanna know what you all are thinking.
Eric Soto-Shed: It's great.
I really appreciate how you unpack, uh, some values and if you wanna like look at, I think, um, you know, immigration policy from the broadest perspective, maybe the values start around as fairness, right? And it's like, what does it mean to be, treat people fairly who gets treated fair? Um, and I think there's just a lot that you can begin to do with just the, the concept of fairness and, uh, and get then get into some of the more minutia that was around like, you know, temporary protected status and how that was removed and.
I think you can go both big picture around immigration, uh, policy and enforcement, as well as sort of more of the important policies that are having real implications under the lens of fairness.
Kara Pranikoff: Um, I wanna. Just name two things first. Lindsay, you mentioned that one of the reasons that we really have enjoyed playing with this framework is that it is kind of grade agnostic. I also think the nice thing about this framework is that it is applicable not only in every grade, but in every, um, situation, right?
So it, right now we're talking about ice, but something else will come up, and this framework just provides a steady way to engage with events that are happening. And I know that as. Parents and as educators we know we want to talk about hard things and sometimes we wonder, well, what's the best way? Right?
So this framework really allows us to develop some muscles and our young people to develop some muscles, some ways into these conversations, um, and into listening to other folks responses. Um, in this situation when we're thinking about ice, I think it's interesting also to think about what can I do and what are people doing?
And I think there's a interesting range there to look at. Um, you know, what are protests? Who is protesting? What do those protests look like? Are the protests peaceful? Are they not peaceful? Who is helping support the protestors? Who's bringing food, who's bringing warm coffee? Who is teaching students who are not feeling safe going to school.
And so I think that this, um, moment in time, it can also allow us to show our young people kind of the range of ways that people can support moving forward towards good, towards safety for all, um, even in hard times. That it really takes all of us in a variety of ways. And I think young people can see that.
Lindsay Lyons: I love that you, you brought it there. I, I was also thinking about, there's research somewhere that a colleague when I was teaching and I was teaching about all these hard things, right? And she was like, I just wanna let you know very kindly that the research says, you know, kids who learn about all this hard stuff and current events and all this oppression that's happening and have even just a very small.
Recognition that there are people who are against this oppression and fighting back. They are just like so much better off than all the people who just learn the oppression and don't learn about the resistance.
Kara Pranikoff: Hmm.
Lindsay Lyons: And so that's such a great point and I think about. Uh, what that makes me think of is yes, the, the range and the focus on the civic action.
And I also think about the kid who's not quite there yet and entering in a different space and they're kind of stuck in the field, or not stuck in the field, but they're entering in the field. And so I'm thinking now of a teacher who is designing a lesson or who's facilitating a class conversation, maybe that bubbled up.
We have these various entry points, which I think the framework enables, but what considerations do, do you think a teacher should have when we have some kids who are like, yes, like I went to a protest immediately with my family, or I want to go do something right now. Then we have other kids who are in this other kind of state phase or parts of this three-pronged framework.
Um, how do you design for that? Or like what considerations should you have or maybe language to provide to teachers too. Deal with that situation.
Kara Pranikoff: So I think that's such an interesting question, Lindsay, and um, it makes me think about the courageous, uh, conversations Compass introduced by Glenn Singleton. And so Glenn Singleton introduced a compass that kind of introduced ways to. People respond when they're talking predominantly about race. And here I, one of the things that is strong about that is the recognition that all of the ways that we respond are okay.
It can help us understand why somebody might. Um, have a really large feeling that kind of stops them, that they might get stuck in that feeling while somebody else might jump up and say, we've gotta make policy changes right now. Right. So I think to take it back to the think, feel, and do framework, I think in the classroom, the first thing the framework does is it typifies or normalizes the fact that all of us can hear the same information and have a variety, kind of a spectrum of responses, and they are all okay.
I also think the next step is how can we learn from someone else's response? So if we were in a classroom and, um, Lindsay, you, you know, jumped up and you were like, I gotta go, go protest right now. Eric kind of took a step back and said, wait, I need some more information. I might, as an educator in that space say, okay, that's interesting.
Eric, can you explain to Lindsay why you feel like you need some more information? Let's see. Lindsay, can you hear that? Lindsay? Can you explain to Eric what is making, you just wanna get up and go protest? Eric, can you hear that? So it's ultimately, we want our young folks to understand there's gonna be a range of response.
All the responses are okay, and we can really learn. About other ways like expand our responses by hearing other people's natural reactions. Is that clear?
Eric Soto-Shed: Yeah. If I could build off of that. I think like, please, I just wanna amplify and say like that would be, I think the most important takeaway, what card just said that sort of getting the students in different places to actually engage with each other about those different places as a way to connect learning.
So I think that is like just such a powerful takeaway. That would be my like, headline. Um, one or two other things that I would note along with that is, um, also when we think about, um, you know, our, our framework, we talk about what can I do and we really kind of highlight skills and if you wanna kind of anchor kind of what's happening in the field, but what many teachers are doing, you can think about the C3 framework and this idea sort of wrapping up a learning or inquiry arc with like.
Take making a claim and taking it informed action based on what you've learned. Right. And I think if I had students in different places, I might lean into those sort of two different sort of parts of that, uh, of, of, of that, uh, sort of end of the inquiry arc by the C3, which is to say either you can sort of make a claim or begin to wrestle with a claim about take a stand on this issue.
Or you can actually act upon that and think about how do you want to get out there in the world and impact. I just think that offers two different options for students that are still sort of processing well, can we begin to take a stand and think about the other position, the other side, right? And, and make that claim, right?
Mm-hmm. If you're like, I'm really convicted, I've thought this through, and then what? How do you want to act? So that'd be my one small sort of thing I think you could do in addition. And I think what, um, is deeply in on all of our minds, but hasn't been said. And so I don't wanna say it explicitly, right.
To me, the biggest difference isn't, so it, it, it, the biggest difference that I would be thinking about all the possibilities of my students are who are my students that might be directly impacted by these policies. Right? And then that's a big game changer. And that's, I think first and foremost where my attention is going to, is like, how can we both learn about this event?
But make students that have real material sort of threats to their existence, um, feel that this is a place where they can process, think and belong. And so I would lift that up. Um, I mean, it just, it it is not lost on us, right? That we have students that are not going to school right now. Um, and so for our students who are showing up, how can we really meet them where they're at?
Um, I think just be the other thing that I'd be really considering.
Lindsay Lyons: It makes me think too of just like the importance of that foundational culture of discourse about anything hard or high emotion, right? Is like this idea of a baseline understanding, for example, of like all humans are worthy of dignity and existence and safety and whatever that is for your class, but like that has to be in place because we can't have people coming in being like there are people or identities that people hold that have no space here.
Right? That's like not, that's just like a no go. And I think that's important to note because I think. People are nervous sometimes in teacher positions or even leader positions that like we have to remain quote unquote neutral. And it's like, well, human dignity is not a thing to be neutral on. Right?
Like we can take the stance of like, we're not going there. That's not up for to be. And I just wanna like name that for teachers who are nervous.
Eric Soto-Shed: Thanks Lindsay. And just to like, you know, jump back to our framework too, when we think about like, those, you know, students that might be directly impacted by these policies, I think, you know, it might, you might wanna jump into the feel first, right?
Really get a sense of like what's going on with their feelings. Um, recognizing that students, regardless of not their impact, could have all sorts of strong feelings, but really important with folks that have like sort of real material threats in their lives to just do the check in around the feeling piece first, some processing and metabolizing.
Getting back to this idea of not further traumatizing students. So given a place for this to come to the service to work with this. And then move into the think right? And some of that more, or the skill piece. Whereas if um, you know, I feel students aren't gonna be as directly impacted, I might feel like, Hey, you know, a good entry point might be to build up, let's start with the content knowledge piece, right?
And so that's just one of the many considerations for teachers.
Kara Pranikoff: I also am thinking now, Eric, about where you started with this idea of content. 'cause I think when I think about this issue and our youngest students, our elementary school students, when they see a five-year-old, you know, detained, they do come in without understanding, but they know what a, a little child looks like, right?
And so I think about the content of, um, explaining how and why that happened and explaining. Who are the helpers in your, in your community? Who can you look to right here? To your point, Lindsay, that we always wanna make sure that our students, um, feel, feel safe and feel, um, like protected, right? And so we've gotta understand where our students are, are entering, um, and that the fears are, are real, um, and present.
Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. I, and I'm thinking this is a, maybe a drastic shift now, but I'm thinking about earlier in the conversation, Cara, you mentioned Joy as you were explaining the framework and you were saying, you know, maybe, maybe joy comes in for some people that took me in a variety of directions mentally. And so I, I mean, I could, I could remember, um, like, uh, you know, a moment in the, the 2016 Trump election, for example, where I had won student.
In the class who was excited that he won, and a lot of other students who were actively sobbing and fearful. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so there's like that dynamic when it comes to, to joy in our framework. I think about like also joy as, um, like artistic expression, which makes me think of like bad bunnies, super Bowl, halftime show and like how that was.
So connected to all of this, right? And so political, but expressed through, through joy, through through dance and like critical joy. I, I would, I don't know if that's a phrase, but you know what I mean? Like there was both, like there was both the critique and then there's both the presence of joy so as not to be extinguished amidst the oppression.
Like I think there's something there and I think sometimes. I mean the classic, like people who are so uncomfortable, they laugh at funerals, right? Or something like that. There's like these emotions that bubble up in these high emotion scenarios. So whether someone is laughing because they're nervous or joyful because they have a difference of opinion, or trying to find that joy so that oppression doesn't crush 'em, right?
Like I think there's sometimes, um, questions around joy and expressions of joy. And, and seeking joy in moments like these that can be such a conundrum for teachers. Any advice here?
Kara Pranikoff: I'm so glad you brought it back there because as I was explaining the framework, you know, I know that Joy is one of them and I was thinking it, it came out of my mouth almost before I could like think about it in this context.
That said, I do think in this context there's something that is, maybe, I wouldn't use the joy word, but maybe I would use the word like affirming. I think there is something affirming to having a group of people stand together. Um, in resistance, right? So I, I think that you can look at some of the protests that are happening or some of the resilience that's happening and find some affirmation or some joy in the human spirit of coming together, right?
Or, you know, you brought up Bad Bunny. We could also think about other artists who are having a response to these, um, policies and to what's been happening. Um, in our nation, and we could think about how they are channeling their creative expression, um, in a way that kind of affirms their humanity, which is joyful or affirming.
Do you know what I mean? Like, I, I think that there is a. We can think about that word in a variety of, of ways. But I think that fundamentally when we come together, um, even as we're protesting something awful, there is something that feels we are supposed to be in community working together. Right. And so I think that that taps into that affirmation or joy, bit of humanity
Eric Soto-Shed: again, car, I think, I think that's, that's a great point.
So I want, I wanna headline that please. Um. And also offer up, you know, um, the idea of also finding joy during oppressive times or oppressive moments, right? Mm. We can't look at. Um, you know, enslavement and say that there was no joy for folks who were enslaved, right? That just is denying their humanity and denying their existence and de denying the record, right?
Like the people do. So how do you hold both is really hard. But at the same time, I think, you know, when we are gonna talk about ice, we're gonna talk about immigration policy, you're gonna see a lot of the negative and a lot of the oppression, right? So are there al also moments say, let's take a total look at this and what are the examples?
What are the stories, you know? And I can just say. A small aside that I was, um, at the gas station a couple nights ago in Massachusetts, Massachusetts, it was freezing cold and I saw a family kinda walk by the gas station. It was looked to be like a husband or wife and maybe a 10-year-old child. This is like 10 o'clock at night.
And there's like, this is not like a place where you walk. It was driving right. And I immediately, like my heart goes out to this family. I'm trying to figure out, they have a big thing of luggage and I'm trying to think like, what can I do? And what I notice is that the boy seems to be playing this little 10-year-old seems to be playing with the cart, with the luggage and kind of jumping back and forth and like it's kind of like boisterous from from afar.
And so on one hand I had this like heavy moment of this family and then the other. Talk about resilience, talk about humanity. Seeing this young boy in this moment feeling that way and um, and so I don't wanna make any light of the situation, but I just want to acknowledge the full, that people experience joy.
That's part of being human. To humanize folks and really get into stories and see examples, I think is just a powerful compliment to the very necessary attention to both the oppression and the resistance.
Lindsay Lyons: You're making me, that's, I love Eric. You always bring it back to like some really good, amazing example.
I thank you for that. And you're making me think of, um, Goldie Mohammad's work, which we like intentionally thought of when we thought of like criticality and joy in our framework. And I was just pulling up some language from her. Around joy and she, she said, yes, studying what joy was for the ancestors.
Happiness is more immediate, but joy is long term. It's sustainable. Joy is what you have when adversity continues to strike and you retain your happiness. Mm. Find as wellness, healing, abolition, working toward a better humanity. For all beauty aesthetics we recognize in ourselves and within humanity. Cara, to your point, it's centering love and music and art and our learning experiences and our children's voices.
It's a collective, it is wide. Gold ham, man.
Kara Pranikoff: Uh, I I'm stress.
Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. So I think, man, it's hard to come after gold ham. Sorry guys.
Eric Soto-Shed: Take a pause.
Kara Pranikoff: Yeah. Seriously.
Eric Soto-Shed: Deep breath. Scene two.
Lindsay Lyons: So I think I am wondering, now we talk a lot about teachers 'cause we're, we're with teachers, right? A lot. Families, Eric, to your point about just even seeing the family, right?
Mm-hmm. And knowing that families are grappling with, with, with this, with, with lots of heavy stuff. Um, what can families do? Is it the same? Is there something different to consider for families who are supporting, you know, young kids or, or older kids, children at any age, I suppose, to grapple with the news and what, what's been going on?
Eric Soto-Shed: That's great. I'm thinking of my little 2-year-old right now, so that's a bigger jump for me. But I'm also trying to think. That's a great question. Mm-hmm. I mean, I feel like definitely I, I don't see anything we haven't said that you really wouldn't wanna. Apply as a family thinking about like, do I really need to engage with some background and help my child understand a little bit more of the context?
Do I really need to engage feelings and kind of surface for them, uh, what, what, what they might be feeling? So I do think much of what we said with the classroom applies, but Carl, I'm interested, said if you're also seeing some things around like family specific.
Kara Pranikoff: It's so interesting. So when I think about the family work, um, I think it's important for families to also understand that kids are gonna respond in a range, and that if you've got more than one child inside your house, they might also respond differently and that's okay.
So we know that there are some kids that aren't ready to talk about what's on their heart and mind, and you kind of need to. Wait for it. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that they're not feeling it. You've gotta cycle back and check in. I would say for families, um, you might want to bring up, here are some things that are happening in the community that we could do.
Here's what I'm drawn to do. Do you wanna come do that thing with me? Whatever it is. Whether it's protests, whether it's, whatever it might be. But I think that we can act as, um, role models. And I also think, as with families, I think we can be clear with our young folk about how this is settling for us. I think you can say to your, um, child, whatever their age is, you know, I.
I am really feeling concerned, or I really had a hard time sleeping last night because I saw this image or listened to this recording and I, um, it was hard for me to get out of my head. Right? And this is how I am processing, this is how I'm caretaking. Um, I'm wondering how you are feeling. Right? So I, I think that, I guess two things.
There's gonna be a range of responses, even if you're in the same house, and I think you wanna be clear about. Having your own chance as a parent to respond, um, and then figure out how to talk to your, to your kid, but be honest about, um, where you might fall, right? Or do you need more information? How are you feeling?
Is there something that you are looking to do?
Eric Soto-Shed: Yeah, I think if I could maybe add to, you know, maybe slightly older, you know, children, you know Yeah. 10, 12 and into the teen years. You know, in schools we talk a lot about media literacy. Um, and I think a unique role that the household can play is media habits, right?
Particularly now that the media has become so just, you know, bifurcated and kids have access and it does intersect with what we mean in terms of media literacy, in terms of like, how are you being criddle? Call your con of, of what you're consuming. But let's step, take a step back and ask what are you consuming?
Right. And you know, I can think back in my household, there's two things that I could tell you that every morning my dad listened to. 10, 10 wiz, you know, you give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world. Anytime I got up early, he was in the kitchen with a little radio listening to that. And that, um, he always got the Sunday paper, the New York Times and the Daily News like, and so while my dad never sat me down and said, you know, son, it's very important that you become informed.
Guess what I do? Every morning I listen to NPR. Guess what I do every weekend? I read the New York Digital Times, right? And so in this, you know, increasingly broadened, uh, land, and it doesn't have to be traditional media, but increasingly broadened landscape, is there one or two ways you can kind of share with the young people in your household?
Here's the thing that I'm reading, maybe check it out. You know, or just even just sharing what you do as a, an example as a model to say that there's, you know, there's all the stuff I'm seeing on my little social media feed, but then there's also this resource that I sit down with and digest and it puts it in context.
And so I think those examples and that modeling of sort of media consumption
Lindsay Lyons: mm-hmm.
Eric Soto-Shed: And I, and the habits that you have in terms of consuming, I think could be really also beneficial.
Lindsay Lyons: I love both of those answers and it makes me think about school, family partnership and communication, right? That is, that is two way.
And so my initial thought is like all those things you just said, like somebody type those up and put them in a little template letter to go home to families, right? It's like, I think. What we car you and I have tried for, for grading conversations is like, here's how you support at home. Like a shift in how to grade, right?
Like I think you could do that here easily or with any current event. Here's how you support at home. Here's how you think, feel, do at home. And I think if you just had a few bullet points to give some guidance, and it's not instruction, but I think it's like an offering, right? An invitation for families.
I think families, I, as a family member would feel personally like invited in and supported, um, rather than feeling like I was being given homework. And so I, I like that idea that, um. You know, there's so many ways that you can support, so thank you all for those. Any other advice you'd give for that school family partnership or communication around talking about these things in a classroom?
From the teacher point of view, communicating to families?
Kara Pranikoff: I would just say that I think that communication is essential, and I think the only thing that I would add is the teacher. I might say, here's the content that I was shared, and here are some of the ways that your students responded, because I think sometimes.
Families can't imagine what those conversations look like in any grade. And we want them to understand that they're happening in a way that, um, is supportive to students and in content that is bite-sized for students to understand. And so I think that can help families and it can also serve. Kind of to your point, Eric, of, of a model of how we explain to our students, um, where we're gathering our information, what media we're showing or not showing, and that it's important to be talking about what's happening in the world, but I think parents like to see, or families like to see kind of what content was shared.
Eric Soto-Shed: Yeah. And the only other thing I'll add, and I think it's um. It might be a little bit of nuance and just a reason to give pause, but I think it, it's worth mentioning, right, to say that you know, what happens when, you know, the families that we're working with, those educators might feel differently around the current events that we're talking about, right?
Mm-hmm. And so, one thing I'd like to lift up is I believe this. Statistic is 54% of, uh, voters, uh, for in the 2024 presidential election were broadly in support of mass deportation, not quite understanding what the policy would look like once it took inact, but when you given that sort of, that policy question, 54%.
So it's both, you know, both sides of the political, uh, spectrum. Um, and so with that being said, you know, I think what you can do when you're also thinking about that, that. Uh, community, the family and school partnership is really kind of leaning into the values and the content piece, right? And so even when there might be some different views on the policy, if we are talking about values around dignity and what we're trying to do in humanity, and we are talking about content in terms of understanding policies, I think that that could be a nice sort of, um.
Sort of way to bridge if you're dealing with different views, right? Again, teachers know their communities, they know their families, and so you can obviously curate to to, to the audience that you have. But there are a lot of teachers out there that have audiences where, uh, there might be some differences in opinion there.
And so I think really leaning into both content and values can be really powerful there.
Kara Pranikoff: Hmm.
Lindsay Lyons: Great idea. And it's also making me think of the importance and possibility of hosting family conversations too in evenings or something, right?
Eric Soto-Shed: Yes. Love that. Love that.
Lindsay Lyons: Alright, last question. In our final minute we'll do a speed lightning round.
Uh, we talked about a lot of things. What is one thing that a listener or audience member could do to day?
Like, where could they start?
Eric Soto-Shed: I know this is a lightning round, but do we have more questions or is this it? This is the last question
Lindsay Lyons: I was gonna invite you to share, kind of like where people can, can find you online, but if there's any other content you wanna share, go for it.
Eric Soto-Shed: Okay, cool. Um, so what, uh, so can you ask the question again?
That way I can hook you up with your edits.
Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. One, one thing that someone could do today.
Eric Soto-Shed: All right, I'm gonna go with one and, um, it's kind of, uh, uh, I'm cheating here 'cause I wanted to get this in somehow, but I really think you could do it. Um, and I think it would be, if you're thinking about, you know, supporting young people thinking through ice, thinking, through immigration policy, um, how do you do this with this framework where we're think talking about, think, feel, and do.
I would encourage you to purchase and read the book. Everyone Who Is Gone is here by Jonathan Blitzer. It is a powerful account. Of, um, the sort of US foreign policy, the history of immigration policy, and it's done through, uh, you know, powerful vignettes of about five or six people. And I mean, it will have you thinking and understanding content and broad notions of policy.
It will have you really like, sort of identifying and feeling people that are in these experiences. You will see, uh, people reacting, taking action, everything raging from being in protest with gun fire and shootouts.
Lindsay Lyons: Mm.
Eric Soto-Shed: To offering mental health services to people in their community. Mm. It is just a powerful and profound sort of take on sort of how we got here.
Um, and I highly recommend, uh, educators, parents reading that build out your own knowledge, but that is something you can definitely share with the young people that you work with and or live with.
Kara Pranikoff: I love that, Eric. It's immediately added to my PBR pile, so thank you. Always good. Um, I'm gonna go a different, uh, different angle.
I think as we are thinking about our framework of think, feel, do and the current situation around ICE and immigration policy. I think I would encourage educators and family members to take a pause and think for themselves about what they think, how they feel, and what they can do, and try to tap into where their natural space is and think about can they expand that right?
And really, I'm like still back thinking about the resilience and the joy. And I'm wondering if we as adults are, um, in a space, can we access. That kind of humanity and that resilience and how might that shift things for us? So I would encourage, um, adults to think, feel, and do on their own and experience, um, experience a framework that way.
Lindsay Lyons: I love it. I would add that people, we will link this, but people can download our framework along with some key questions that you can just have, like print it out or keep it on your computer and have to be able to consult while you are reflecting or while you're supporting your child to reflect or your student to reflect.
Okay. The very last question. Where can people connect with you all online? Who wants to go first?
Eric Soto-Shed: My day job is at the Graduate School of Education in Harvard, so you can find me there.
Kara Pranikoff: The easiest way to find me is through my website, car proff.com.
Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Kara and Eric, thank you both so much. It is really inspiring to think that amidst hard times, there are people doing this good work and that resilience and joy and critical thinking and collective action are possible. Um, and I would argue probable because we have such great educators and family members in the world with our young people and our young people themselves are amazing. So for all the resources on this, you all can go to lindsaybethlyons.com/blog/252, where we'll have a detailed show note section as well as that free resource.
​

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Iuri emphasizes the importance of moving away from reactive crisis interventions towards embedding positive psychology and growth mindset principles within school culture. He talks about providing skills to students from positive psychology best practices as well as offering support and early intervention.

The Big Dream 

Iuri Melo's big vision is to bless all families on the planet by revolutionizing the educational system to include mental health and wellness as a core component. Drawing inspiration from evidence-based wellbeing programs at higher education institutions like Harvard and Yale, he dreams of implementing similar proactive approaches at the middle and high school levels.

Mindset Shifts Required

A necessary mindset shift involves adopting a more inclusive approach to student wellness. Iuri and Lindsay discuss moving from a deficit-focused perspective to recognizing and leveraging assets within students and the broader school environment. This means focusing on mental excellence and fitness rather than solely addressing mental illness.

The other mindset shift is recognizing how this applies to different contexts. Superintendents, principals, counselors, and educators all have unique challenges and needs to be met through mental health tools and resources. Mental fitness or excellence is important across the board, but there are different targeted solutions to different parties.

Action Steps  

Educators and educational leaders looking to engage in more mental fitness and mental wellness learning and resourcing in the their contexts can start the journey with these action steps from Iuri:

Step 1: Engage both families and students in the mental health conversation. Proactively sharing positive psychology content consistently through emails or texts, and offering follow-up resources, can help address issues before they arise. 

Step 2: Offer resources that are engaging, fun, and meaningful to students and what they’re struggling with. Instead of focusing on what not to do, positive psychology resources should also offer information on what to do instead. 

Step 3: Integrate ready-made, evidence-based activities and videos into school curriculum to reduce teacher preparation time while delivering impactful wellness education.

Iuri’s platform, School Pulse, integrates these steps and makes mental health resources available to students, families, and educators. Students can access live texting with a real person (no AI), and research-backed content that’s fun and engaging. It’s a practical way to scale-up school-based mental health support that’s often stretched too thin.

Challenges?

Schools can be slow to make changes, competing against entrenched ideas and ways of doing things. So, implementing proactive wellness programs requires collaboration among superintendents, counselors, and teachers to overcome systemic barriers and develop sustainable cultural shifts within educational institutions.

One Step to Get Started 

Start each day with positive momentum for both students and staff. Educators should strive to begin and end their day on a positive note, fostering an environment of optimism and wellbeing that can ripple through the school community. This doesn’t have to be a huge thing, but can be something simple like offering encouragement or greeting kids with a smile at the door. 

Stay Connected

You can connect with Iuri Melo by email at [email protected] and learn more about his organization on its website, School Pulse. 

To help you implement today’s takeaways, our guest is sharing a page of mental health resources with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 251 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes: 

• 1:59 “We’re often so concerned with the crisis or the intervention part, that we forget about the other things that come before or after.”  
• 2:20 “Our goal is to  proactively tap kids on the shoulder and put at their fingertips—in their brains—the best positive psychology, the best growth mindset, and the best cognitive strategies that are like the golden standard of clinical practice and have been for a while, and to put it right where they are in a way that is fun, that is engaging, that's not boring.”
• 21:48 “We’re not just saying, ‘Don’t do this.’ We’re saying, ‘Here’s some reasons for why to not do that, or maybe to modify, adjust, or tweak your current perception of that.’”

​​​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome to the time for teachership podcast.
Iuri Melo: I am so happy to be here. And there's a good vibe, a good aura. Aura, that's the word, right? I mean, I'm, I'm in with teens all the time, so aura is like the word right now. There's a good aura about you. I'm loving it. So anyways, thank you so much for the invite.
I'm happy to be here. Excited to see where we take it today.
Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. I'm excited to put off a positive aura. That's my goal. What do you think as we come into this conversation, is really important for our listeners to either know about you beyond the, you know, typical bio or, um, to kind of keep in mind as we jump into the conversation today.
Iuri Melo: I'm a dad. I'm a husband. I've got five incredible kids. Uh, I've on a, I've been a therapist for 20 years, which I've absolutely loved. Uh, and over the past seven years, we've kind of started this school company called School Pulse. Um, but as we've engaged with schools, as we've engaged with districts, as we've engaged with thousands upon thousands of students in live text conversations.
Um, one of the things that I really noticed specifically as we talk to schools a lot is that sometimes we almost become a little bit in my, this is my opinion, of course, that we become a little bit enamored with just providing crisis intervention. We're almost waiting for crisis to happen so that we can then intervene.
Right. I, I had a, a great conversation with an individual the other day who said. I agree. I, I feel like sometimes we're just like a fire extinguisher on the wall, right? We're kind of waiting for that moment of crisis and then we break the glass and we Right. We spray all over the place. Um, and of course.
I'm being a little judgmental. The reality is this is how I live my life too, right? I, I don't go to the doctor unless something is wrong is happening with me. Like I said, I need to take my own medicine for sure, but I think this, this happens in schools, right? And, and so sometimes we we're often so concerned with the crisis or the intervention part that we forget about the other things that come before or that even come after.
And I think that that's one of the things that as school posts we've really tried to do is we try to not be reactive. Our goal is to proactively tap kids on the shoulder and put at their fingertips in their brains, right, the best positive psychology, the best growth mindset, and the best cognitive strategies that are like the golden standard of clinical practice and have been for a while.
And to put it. Right where they are in a way that is fun, that is engaging, that's not boring. We're intervening in early ways, early intervention, and providing some skill building, and then yes. There's the crisis intervention part, and then there's the postvention, right? There's the, the fact that we continue to provide that support.
And so that's one of the things that we've tried to bring, that's one of the paradigms that we're trying to shift, right, is, is we're not just gonna wait. We're gonna provide skills, we're gonna intervene early, and then we're gonna provide that support ongoing. And so I think we've really created this.
What in schools, they kind of call us a multi-tier system of support. Right. Or a positive behavior intervention system. Right. And we really aim to be just a complete solution to schools, uh, in a way that provides a ton of value with very little lift. That's, that's like our goal. That's what we wanna do. I have a, an older daughter that's, uh.
She's a special educator right now, and I mean, this is her first year. She loves it and, and, you know, and totally feels overwhelmed all the time. Um, and so our goal is to provide some tools that provide easy to find, easy to access stuff that is not gonna create problems for them. Find that schools at times, they're hard to move, but obviously we're in the change business, right?
Lindsay Lyons: Schools are institutions, and so it is so hard, right? To be like, oh, we've done things this way for a long time, let's do them differently. Uh, but that's why we're here, right? You and I both. And so I, I love that, and I, I think you started to kind of paint the dream for us. One of the questions I like to early on ask in these conversations.
Um, Dr. Betina love says their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. With that in mind, what is that big dream that you as an individual or school pulse as an organization kinda hold for the education space or for students at large?
Iuri Melo: Yeah, I really, I'm gonna have to give some thought to that quote.
It. Sometimes, right? We, we become resistant to the critique, right? Uh, because in a way we, we become, we can become a little defensive, like somehow we're failing or we're not doing well. And, and if we can, if, if we can be a little bit more humble and meek, I think, in our approach, then I, then I think we, we, we perhaps would be more willing to make some small adjustments.
But let, let, let's go back to. Your question. I'll tell you what my, my vision is, like, my, my vision is, is to like bless all the families in this planet. Like is to bless the families on earth. Like that's my big vision. There are a couple of authors out there that I think I, that I follow pretty regularly.
One of 'em is Arthur Brooks. He's kind of the, uh, he wrote, uh, maybe it's The Art of Happiness, uh, really good book. Uh, there's a couple of great podcasters out there. Basically what they do is kind of at the collegiate level. They have found like a, specifically at Harvard, at Yale, at Stanford, at some of these big institutions, some of the most attended classes.
Our classes on wellbeing, right? The science of happiness. The science of wellbeing, grounded in evidence and science, right? Uh, but that also address Eastern philosophies or religious, uh, practices, et cetera, but that are based on like creating more joy, right? To create more optimism, to create more academic and student success, right?
Better relationships, right? I'm like, why are we not doing this? At the middle and the high school level, like we absolutely should and it would not be difficult, Lindsay. It would not be difficult. I mean, we have hundreds of videos that that schools could easily use for that in a proactive educational early intervention way.
Instead of, right. We're just waiting for the bullying incidents. We're just waiting for when a student is, you know, gonna, you know, perpetrate violence, or we're just gonna wait until somebody is self-harming, or this, or that, or the other. We're dealing with these institutions and they're highly politicized institutions.
Right. This is very challenging. I mean, we have a state contract with the state of Idaho, which is absolutely fabulous. We're in every single one of their, uh, secondary schools. We have to make sure that our content is, the, the best word that I can describe is diplomatic and benign, right? We have to provide benign content that these administrators feel good about sharing with the public, right?
And, and, and a variety of, you know, belief systems or not belief, whatever it is, right? But I would love at state levels. For them to just look at some of these pieces, right, that we are seeing at Harvard or MIT or Yale. We could be delivering this same content that, by the way, would increase academic performance.
Student engagement in participation, improvement in behavior, increased wellness, better relationships, and better relationships are like the hallmark of short and long-term happiness. And so there's my dream
Lindsay Lyons: proactive, positive relationship building. I have a question about that. First, I just wanna clarify like one piece, so you said benign around your content.
Yes. Can you explain a little bit more about what do you mean by benign?
Iuri Melo: Yes. Earlier today, I had a conversation with, uh, three administrators and two counselors when, when we say mental health education, his concern was, I think we're more focused on mental illness than we are on mental excellence than we are on mental fitness, right?
Than we are on say, positive psychology on growth mindset strategies. Right. I feel like that that's where, that's why I love specifically, like, I mean within my own private practice as well, but why I love positive psychology, growth mindset and even cognitive strategies overall is because I feel like they're benign, right?
They're not conte, they're not connected to a specific methodology. Or political affiliation or religious affiliation. These are topics that are so general, that are based and grounded on research and evidence, right, that we can present to an atheist, an agnostic, or someone who's religious or not, or somebody who's a monk or a Buddhist or whatever identity, and it is good content.
It can be fit into whatever their perspective is. And provide positive outcomes.
Lindsay Lyons: The translation to like teacher speak, I think
Iuri Melo: give it to me.
Lindsay Lyons: Well, we have definitely like an asset based approach, right? So you're, you're talking about like recognizing assets and taking a positive psychology lens of things, um, versus a deficit lens, which is like the traditional mindset of this is what's wrong.
What I hear you saying is really that inclusion is important, that this is actually inclusive of everyone. Yes. And also what I'm hearing is the balancing act is really just in, in, in navigating, which so many educators have to do part, particularly educators who are like all about inclusion and justice, right?
We have to navigate sometimes state legislatures ban in particular words like SEL, we know it's good work for everyone and so linguistically, whatever we name it like. It's still good for all people and it's going to help all people. So that's kind of how I'm hearing you explain that. Does that feel Yeah.
Right.
Iuri Melo: Ab Absolutely. There's a reason why we call what we do, right? More along the lines of student wellness or student success, uh, or even, you know, psychological excellence or mental excellence. It's because unfortunately, right, there have been these. Odd associations, right. With SEL and and other things, right?
When we promote like these social and emotional learning components to students, like the evidence is pretty good that not only improves academic performance individually, but also culturally and climate wise within a school, like the improvement is pretty sustainable.
Lindsay Lyons: No one wants someone to be socially unwell or emotionally unwell.
Right? Like logical, but yeah. So I, I appreciate your honesty and just, y'all have to navigate the like climate and we can do the work that's important, so I appreciate that. When you're talking about building proactive positive relationships, here's what my teacher brain says. There's so much curriculum to cover, and this work is so important.
Like, how do you coach leaders or teachers or kind of have that conversation to switch the mindset to like, oh no, this, this is actually a valuable use of our time, whether it's student time. Out of the classroom as like a homework. I'm not sure how exactly, um, school calls all fits.
Iuri Melo: Sure.
Lindsay Lyons: Or if it's like literal time in the classroom where you're building student to student relationships while you're live in person or teacher to student relationships.
What is that aha moment that you've seen people be like, oh, right. Like this is why it's important to do.
Iuri Melo: We do visit, obviously with a lot of individuals that are decision makers, right. All the way from say, a superintendent. To a school administrator, to a school counselor, uh, to student service directors at the district level and other, and sometimes some curriculum leaders, et cetera.
And I feel like each one of those, right, has specific. Places of pain. Right? Where, where, so for example, say with a superintendent, school safety and liability protection is very important for them. Like, I'll give you an example. I had a, uh, a superintendent that I was working with, and he was involved in a civil lawsuit where he was being sued by a couple of parents because a couple of students had taken their life by suicide.
But, but as I was talking to the superintendent, he said to me, man, Yuri, I. I wish that I had school posts in my pocket walking into that school room for a superintendent, right at the district level. Right. Creating some of this, you know, student safety, um, liability protection. Like that's for them. That's like, yes.
For principals, right? We're talking more like you know, the school, like the school culture and climate. These things are gonna do two things for you. Number one, they're gonna impact student behavior, right? What does that mean? That means less problem, right? That means less disciplinary issues, right? This is gonna move the academic needle for you, and this is gonna impact the overall culture and climate of your school.
We wanna make this environment better for you by insti, by instituting this systemic right kind of enrichment, evidence-based content that shows. These things will improve over time, you know, even if we're just talking percentages. Right. And then of course with counselors, I feel like that's our easiest population, right?
Because in a way, they're viewed as kind of the mental health hub of the school, even though a lot of their work maybe has more to do with college readiness or, you know, dealing with scheduling and things like that. But they're, they're still viewed as, as the mental health hub. And man, we come in, we walk into a school and we just provide them with like just the.
Like the most comprehensive mental health resource in the world, like truly. I know that's so cliche to say, but it really is. And, and I would say for teachers, I would say for teachers as well, uh, you know, whether it's a special educator, whether it's a teacher or maybe you're in charge of like, you know, you have to have this kind of SEL minute or, uh, you know, provide some sort of student wellness type thing.
We can provide you with a tool that requires no prep time. That allows you to deliver the awesome evidence-based content if you want to engage with the students. We have it all done for you and it's, and it's digital, it's cool, it's fun, and you can finish that and you can go about teaching math or whatever it is that you're teaching and feel like you've been able to deliver that without like, oh my gosh, like now I've gotta be in charge of like providing the student wellness content.
Lindsay Lyons: Live text conversations. You said there's like little videos. What can you tell us more about, like what are these different avenues that students actually get to engage with the content?
Iuri Melo: Live text-based support, I would say is, is completely unique. Like nobody else is doing that out there specifically with the school.
And so that was kind of where we were born. And then since then, as we've listened to other administrators and supers and um, and other counselors, we've, we've listened, we've heard their challenges, their gaps, right? I. We've tried to create these really targeted solutions, right? To just address those. Our email campaign, I'll just start with that really quick, is the school provides us the emails for, for parents and students, and we just begin this proactive email campaign.
It's one email per week. It's not spammy where we deliver the student these student success activities, right? One per week. That's usually based on the time of the year. Um. Whether it's the holidays, whether it's the end of a quarter, whether it's the beginning of the school year, the end of the school year, we're aware of what students are struggling with during those times, and we provide these student success videos.
We provide them to parents. Transparency is huge for us. We want them to have great tools and we deliver them to students as well. Email is good. It allows us to do this kind of tier one universal. Everybody gets it. Then we have kind of our, our text-based support. And I would say that this is probably the most powerful tool we have.
It's powerful because we're actually engaging with actual parents and actual students, right, who may be doing really awesome and we want to keep that going. Right. Once again, we're a positive psychology service. And then of course, I mean, we have students who. Are texting us or parents by the way, who are themselves suicidal, struggling with substance abuse, going through a divorce, going through, uh, you know, custody battle or whatever it is, all the way to students, you know, who, who have reported, you know, physical or sexual abuse, who are self-harming, who are actively suicidal, who are actively homicidal, and we are providing a live touch point that's not ai.
When you think about, you know, how do we increase capacity at a school, right? How do we, you know, take this ratio of, you know, one counselor for every 400 or 500 students? How do we increase capacity? Well, this is how we do it, right? We create these proactive campaigns. We have live support that goes on after school, through the weekend, over the holidays, through the summer, and that's how we build these positive outcomes.
One student at a time. So when students engage in this service, right, whether the school ops them in, or you can see here in my little screen, I have this little QR code. Like we put these throughout the school and the kids just walk up. They scan that and, and it s them in, it's not an app. They don't have to create a username or password.
It literally just shows up as a text on their phone. Like, Hey, welcome to school Pulse. From that moment on, right? Every Tuesday and Friday, we're gonna proactively text those students with cool content. That's fun. It's engaging our student, our videos as well. Uh, and then anytime that they engage with us, then we have a live, live.
People like live support, like people who are just excited to talk to them, grateful that they're there, there to support them, cheer for them. Uh, and the, the cool part about the proactive piece, I just wanna say is it's really important, right? This is as a comparison to the kind of passive only crisis based type responses that you and I were talking about, right?
This is 85 to 90% of our interactions with students happen on those two days, on Tuesday and Friday when we tap them on the shoulder and say, Hey, check this out, or What do you think about this? Or. Students just respond, right? Simply because we're not waiting, we're engaging. And then that allows them to communicate in a really simple, very easy, right?
It's convenient, it's private, right? They don't have to walk down, you know, to the counselor's office, which we want them to. We want them to be connected there, but I know that many times they won't. Like, they're not going to. Then of course our goal is always we wanna connect those students to their primary network, right?
With whether it's a parent or a guardian or whoever is with them. Number two, to the professionals at the school, and number three to other resources should we need to, but, and then of course we have right these other activities, right? Which. Can either be delivered as part of a kind of disciplinary process or what I would call like restorative justice or restorative practice or corrective discipline, uh, all the way to material, right?
That's more specific to what a counselor would use when somebody comes into their office and they're overthinking or they're having problems with their friends, or you know, this, they're having problems with their parents at home, or they're experimenting with whatever, right? And we have all of those specific activities that are.
Lindsay Lyons: That's incredible. That is so cool. Yeah. I mean, two things that are just like really highlighted for me.
Iuri Melo: Yes.
Lindsay Lyons: One is the family and student connections. So you have both at both levels. Both tiers, which is super cool. Yeah, and I just think about how many schools struggle with family partnerships. So that's so valuable because often the dynamic is we don't reach out until there's a problem.
Right? So we're completely helping. Schools rethink, actually you can just reach out to share positive content. Yeah. And the, the second idea is just this, um, student success activities that you named. I love that there are just like these practical things that are like engaging. And I'm curious, do you mind sharing one of your most popular activities or ideas or
Iuri Melo: one of the ones that we created over the summer because there was a huge need for, so we actually created some videos specifically for like inappropriate use of ai.
Or really appropriate use of ai. So we actually created some really cool videos for that and one for misinformation as well. Our most watched video is our video on tardiness part of schools, you know, kind of corrective discipline, right? Is they want to provide, not just like, Hey, don't do this, but. Do this instead.
Right. And that's what really our videos are about, right? Is can we just, can we show you what to do better or why to do this better? We did one on, uh, once again at the request of a principle, profanity and inappropriate language and inappropriate language. You know, it is, whether it's like highly sexualized language or sometimes, you know, the very common, you know, kids will just throw stuff out like, you know, I'm gonna kill myself, or, you know, I'm gonna shoot up the school adults.
Like, we're gonna get triggered really quick and we've gotta respond. And so we have lots of videos there. Uh, one of my favorite videos that we, that we created was as my phone, a friend or a frenemy. We're not just saying the don't do this, we're, we're saying like, here's some reasons for why to not do this, or maybe to modify or adjust or tweak your current perception of that.
So I think we've tried to, to not just to deliver content that's rich, that isn't just prescriptive, but like that captures the meaning and the purpose behind it. Another one is like bullying videos. Of course we like those are shown a lot.
Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. I definitely watched a few and one that's stuck Oh good. Was around like relationships, like how do you talk to someone?
Like how do you continue the conversation over a time?
Iuri Melo: Oh yes.
Lindsay Lyons: You know, like I just feel like those are so practical for a kid who maybe struggling with anxiety or I don't, I can't name one friend, which is a common stat that we like hear on research is really cool that that's like proactive and socializing.
Iuri Melo: I think on that one, we actually created a couple of acronyms on that one, an acronym, which is cash, like compliment, ask questions, smile, offer to help, and then I think one for kind of keeping conversations going. Which was swift. Right. I kind of used Taylor Swift, but uh, she's the queen of course. Just fun stuff like that that I hope is practical.
Right. That's, that's the hope.
Lindsay Lyons: Okay. One thing that listeners could do once they end the episode that would kind of bring to life some of this stuff in their.
Iuri Melo: You parents start and end your day right with your kids. Like this, this concept of momentum is, is one that I really like. Um, and I think it matters, uh, you know, whether it's like at a, you know, at a soccer game or a football game, you know, and you, you can kind of tell when it's, when a team starts a game and they have this like, positive momentum and they're, and when they don't, right?
They're out there, they're dragging, you know, heads are down, whatever. And so I would say, um, and I would say for your spouse, for your partner, for your child, whatever it is. Just start your day with positive momentum and when possible, end it that way. And it, and I'm not talking about, it doesn't have to be this big, remarkable thing, but just like we're just talking about like just, you know.
Spend your kid to bed or saying, I love you or I care about you, or, today was hard and tomorrow will be better. Like, we got this. Like, whatever it is. But just manage those momentums is what I would say. And, and I think if you start it well, the chances that it will stay well or improve, it doesn't guarantee it, but it, it's improved.
So I would say manage your momentum, start your day great. And end it great. And, and man, I, I think life will be a lot happier for you.
Lindsay Lyons: I would even argue teachers can use that too. Start the class in class. Oh yes.
Iuri Melo: Oh my gosh. That is a great idea. You should put that into your, I'm sure you've got some sort of cool training thing going on.
Do that. Manage the momentum of your classroom. Right. Start, well, you know, by greeting kids at the door with a smile, with fist bumps, with cool. Whatever it is. Then, you know, even though the classroom may be a total disaster in the midst, but like, end it, well, you know, end it, well greet them again as they're exiting and just trust the process, right?
Trust that process. It's gonna yield good outcomes.
Lindsay Lyons: That's right. Okay. One.
Iuri Melo: Yeah. Well done Lindsay. I like that. Sorry.
Lindsay Lyons: Thank you. One thing you're learning about lately could be related to work, but doesn't have to be,
Iuri Melo: oh my gosh. You're gonna absolutely go crazy with this one. So this the latest thing that I've done that I've just had so much fun with, I'm totally blown away.
So I use, uh, like Chatt, PT, and Claude, which is like two ai. I'm, I'm sure most everybody or if not everybody is totally familiar with those. Um, but I started about three weeks ago. I, uh, opened up my little chatt PT on my app on my phone, and, uh, and I, and I said, I, I want to create a, like, little mini course.
And I said, I want you to take, um, like, 'cause I'm, I'm. I'm, I just love like thinking, I don't know how else to say it, but I really enjoy philosophy. I enjoy obviously psychology. Like this is what, like my whole degree is in. I love spirituality and so I asked Chad PI said, Hey, can you create a daily? Like mini lesson program.
And Lindsay, I challenge you. Go do this. I promise you'll love it. And create, and, and I just said I, I love philosophy, I love psychology. I love like eastern philosophy and, and like, uh, some of these other religious practices. And I want you to create a mini daily lesson that I'll like prompt you to start every day.
That just includes right, and almost kind of synthesizes some of these things together. And every day I just go next and it launches it, you know, all the way from Aristotle to Mahatma Gandhi to Viktor Frankl and all the way to, you know, Albert Ellis and cognitive behavioral therapy. And it just creates these little mini lessons that lend from right all the way from like, you know, Taoism to like cognitive behavioral therapy.
And it's just like packed with goodness and just these little tiny like lessons that I can read through. Um, talk about creating positive momentum at the beginning of your day, I promise you. Like, just start with that and it will inspire you. Like I, so anyways, that's been one of the little tools that I've started.
That I would say just add a little bit about your life. Hey, my name is Lindsay. I'm 27 years old. I'm, I'm trying to create this and I'm looking for inspiration from, you know, Eastern philosophy approaches or philosophy or the master's in psychology, whatever. And can you create a daily course? And of course, Jackie PT will be, you know, that's such a wonderful idea, Lindsay.
Let me set that right up for you. But I'm telling you like. There's some really cool things that, that you can do with that technology and it's been totally, so that would be my suggestion to you is try it out Lindsay and to all of you listeners, just give it a go and have fun with that.
Lindsay Lyons: Super cool. Thank you for that suggestion.
Yeah. Last question before we wrap up. Where can people learn more about you or connect with you?
Iuri Melo: Yeah, well you can go to, uh, you can go to school pulse.org, uh, or you can just. Email me. Uh, my name is Yuri. It's a strange name. It's Portuguese, but it's, it's spelled IURI. It makes no phonetic sense, so [email protected] and you can just email me or go to our website and find out more about us.
And man, let's, let's change the world. Let's do some good. Let's be proactive about it too. Not just reactive, but
Lindsay Lyons: nice. Positive ending. Like, you're like,
Iuri Melo: yes. Good momentum.
Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Thanks Yuri. I really appreciate this conversation.
Iuri Melo: Absolutely. Best of luck to you, Lindsay.
Lindsay Lyons: Thank you.

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In this episode, host Lindsay Lyons delves into the transformative power of stories and civic imagination. She draws on insights from the book, "Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Handbook" by Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova, offering strategies to help educators, leaders, and community facilitators co-create shared values and community agreements. 

She emphasizes the importance of imagination as a process to bridge differences and foster action-oriented discussions within classrooms and larger community settings. Lindsay also offers practical ways to guide a 60-minute session to co-create shared values as a group.

Why? 
The concept of civic imagination is essential in fostering environments where community members can envision and enact change. Lindsay shares the distinction made by the authors that civic action is distinct from political power struggles, focusing on shared beliefs, values, and trust that facilitate collective action. Pop culture often influences civic imagination, allowing communities to express social concerns and envision new possibilities for democracy and social justice.

Lindsay emphasizes the fact that imagination is both individual and collective and, as educators, we can draw on that collective imagination to address the real issues and open up possibilities for brand new solutions.

What?
Drawing on the insights from the “Practicing Futures” handbook, here’s Lindsay’s 60-minute session outline to help implement a civic imagination workshop, whether with educators as professional development or with your students. 

Step 1: Begin with an opening circle where participants share stories of fictional characters or real persons who inspire them to think about the future. This sets the stage for community building by sharing personally. (10 minutes.)

Step 2: Share an opening frame for the session such as, for example, introducing a guiding quote. Lindsay shares one from Henry Jenkins: “ Before we can change the world, we have to be able to envision the possibility of change. We have to be able to imagine what kinds of change would be desirable. And we have to be able to think of ourselves as people capable of making change. This is what we are calling the civic imagination.” (5 minutes.)

Step 3: Facilitate a collective brainstorming session where attendees imagine something new and transformational. A prompt might be: “Imagine it’s 2056. What would an amazing learning experience feel like, sound like, or look like?” Encourage fantastical thinking by suspending realistic constraints. As the facilitator, you could set the tone by coming up with your own response that is fantastical and creative. (15 minutes.)

Step 4: Now, after imagining these future scenarios, get the participants in small groups to start creating stories of how you’re going to get there and create a path to the envisioned future. Groups should incorporate elements from each member's ideas and engage in multimodal storytelling techniques. (15 minutes.)

Step 5: Have the groups share what they came up with, either by physically acting it out or creating “freeze frames” about what is happening. People could also draw and share through a gallery walk. Conclude by discussing the values and actions identified through the stories. Encourage reflection on how imagination guided the storytelling process and how these insights can integrate into real-life practices and policies. (15 minutes.)

Final Tip
Encourage participants to view imagination as a powerful tool to navigate civic life and foster dynamic community interactions.
To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Values via Civic Imagination slides with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 250 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes: 

• 6:51 “ We have this imagination that we often celebrate as an individual thing in students: ‘Oh, that student is so creative,’ or, ‘That student's super artistic.’ But we don't cultivate that collectively as part of a whole class activity.”
• 21:15 “ We just painted this vision that we all care about, that we think there is a path forward—however fantastical—but we think there's a path forward to actually get there.

We just made those stories and so how might we help this vision come to life in our school? We can invite conversation: How do we do that? How do we get students and school stakeholders to talk about these shared values? How do we get ourselves to practice and lift up these shared values that we just identified are important through story?”

​​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to the Time for teachership podcast. This is episode 250. Wow. Today we are talking about stories and civic imagination as an avenue to elicit shared class values and ultimately co-construct community agreements for discourse for how to be together in classroom or a larger school community.
The context for this episode is that I've read the book, practicing Futures, A Civic Imagination Handbook. Uh, that is absolutely amazing. Uh, Peters Lazaro and stress Dova are the authors. They are fantastic. They also have a website with a bunch of, I actually think you could get the book on the website for free.
And they also have a lot of images and slides and agendas for the variety of workshops they share. So it is truly an amazing resource. I wanna share a little bit of my ahas from the book and then walk you through kinda an adapted version of one of their workshops that I've tried to fit into a smaller time span for use.
In, in my setting, like conferences, right? Because we usually have 45 to 60 minutes. Similarly, I think leaders and teachers who are working directly with students as well as any other facilitators of communities. So this could be, um, family or PTA spaces as well. Uh, it could even just be like family units right at home.
I think there's so much value in this, um, after school programs and the applications are really truly endless. But I wanted to share kind of a backdrop, some guiding ideas, and then walk you through what you could do in like a 60 minute. A spot of time, wherever and with whomever that is for you to have kind of a co-creation of shared values as a group and get to those via stories and civic imagination.
So here we go. I love their distinction right up front at the start of the book. In the forward actually. Um, so it's, it's actually not the authors, but civics versus politics in the Forward is distinguished as. Follows The civic represents the shared beliefs and values, the underlying trust, which makes collective action possible.
While the political encapsulates struggles over power within the decision making process and end quote. So you have a lot of structure, right, and, and kind of power dynamics and negotiating of influence in the political sphere, the civic. Is more in my mind, community, right? It's the community piece. It's the shared beliefs and values.
It's the trust, it's the relationships. That's what enables us to take action. And the action might be, uh, in the political space. It often is in, in the political space, but it is. N not the same as like, um, fighting over power, divorced from the community piece, which I, I just think that's such an interesting distinction.
Um, and I love it. Also, they talk about imagination, right? So the whole book is on, um, civic imagination that's in the subtitle, and they talk about imagination as process. And again, this actually comes from the forward, but here's the quote, something we actively produce together. It goes on to say it allows otherwise opposing groups to find a path forward together.
End quote. I love this idea because opposing groups is what we're seeing. Play out what we're witnessing. Play out in many public spaces, in political discourse, in in general discourse. And our goal, and what we often talk about in the podcast is thinking about how we actually bring together in community people across differences of opinion so that we can live generatively together so we don't violate human dignity, right?
And so if imagination is, is thought of as a process where we're actively. Coming together across differences, across differing ideologies to forge kind of a path forward. I love this as a possibility. Um, they also talk about how it's really notable the authors now we're talking about state, that groups frequently throughout history have tapped into pop culture to translate and express social concerns, which is so cool because you see that kind of come up in their workshops and in throughout their book, how tapping into pop culture.
It actually feels like a nice avenue forward by considering what elements of pop culture figures, um, what elements of our superheroes or our kind of shared stories that Netflix show that everyone watched, you know, whatever it is. How can we tap into elements of that or values that underlie that character's actions in the world, even if it's fictional to kind of express social concerns about the reality we are living in.
And think about how those values or actions of those fictional folks actually kind of come to, uh, can come to fruition in our lives, to advance justice and help us live better together. They also talk about the others, talk about the shared values. That, uh, the importance being of shared values, that it supports the functions and structures of democracy.
And so they're talking about how effective democracy really requires its members to feel their ideas are valued and that the system values them. I think that's where a lot of people are very disillusioned or angry with. Um. Our current systems in the United States anyways, as we record this in early 2026, um, of, of perceived democracy because there is not that feeling of my ideas are valued, I am valued by the system.
Um, and so this idea of shared values, particularly in systems like schools where we can co-construct with authority figures such as teachers or leaders in those spaces, really is going to support. The, the truth of democracy, the real functioning of democracy, because it's an opportunity to co-create, be fully valued in the process of that co-creation and notice the policy implications and kind of ways of being, uh, that are present in those systems in a way that maybe isn't when we don't co-create, or we don't even talk about values, right?
Or we talk about values, but put them on the wall and don't do anything with them. Um, I love this point about Maxine Green saying imagination is individual and collective. So again, we have this imagination that we often celebrate as an individual thing in students, oh, that student is so creative, or that student's super artistic.
We don't cultivate that collectively as part of a whole class activity or part of a prompt or, or even assessment that is. I want you to civically imagine and we're gonna actually, that's gonna be the focus of our conversation and we're gonna build off each other. 'cause we're always better together.
Right? I'm again thinking about, but thinking a lot about his, uh, words. But James Nottingham is talking about when we talk, we want to help each other say something new or think about something in a new way. We want to expand our thinking. And recently having worked with a bunch of educators on a, uh, student led discourse workshop.
In pursuing the goal of student led discourse, many, many teachers who are doing amazing things have said one of the hardest things is to get students to build on each other, to listen deeply to each other, and to build something new together as opposed to just reiterating what they thought going into the conversation.
This is such a hard thing and such an important thing, and so again, Maxine Green saying imagination is individual and collective. I think this is such a great space and opportunity to build that skill. The last framing I will share before I dive into to this is, uh, the authors say, quote, when you start with creativity and imagination, you don't abandon the real problems.
Ah, so important. Okay? They go on to say rather, you learn to approach and see them in brand new ways, opening up possibilities for brand new solutions. End quote. I love this because I think a common pushback is, oh well we can't just like dream up this space that is gonna be so hard to get to, that's gonna be quote unquote impossible to get to.
Right? We have to live in the, now we have to be realistic. Right? This is such a interesting polarity or tension that is common and I actually think would be super fruitful to position as a prompt for discussion and discourse in, in the classroom space. Is this polarity, uh, of. Realism and optimism. I, I think that is so crucial and intergenerationally that conversation, that polarity, that kind of value tension can bring up so many interesting perspectives and stories that underlie those perspectives.
This could be really, really fruitful, but I think even just posing this idea, right, or posing this quote for conversation amongst students, amongst faculty, amongst a mixed group of students and faculty, Ooh, this would be so good. Families and students, right? Intergenerational conversations would love that.
Okay. So we're not abandoning the real problems. We're learning to approach them in new ways. We're opening up possibilities for brand new solutions. Okay, keep that in mind. Here we go. We're gonna transition to thinking about like, how, what does this look like? Okay. How is this gonna happen and how can we start doing something like this in a span of time that's maybe only 60 minutes at a staff meeting.
Right. Or, or 60 minutes at, uh, if you have 60 minutes, uh, for something like an advisory period or a community block. Right. Okay. So here's what I would say, and I'm gonna link. In the description, um, in the, excuse me, show notes, uh, for this episode, I'm gonna link this slide deck that, again, is based on this practicing futures book, uh, resources from them, from how they've done things.
But they've often done things in like a multi-hour, like half day session. And so I'm just kind of truncating this quite a bit to try to think about how this might be practical for you in 60 minutes or, or even less. So feel free to adapt this, um, download it. Adapt it to how you need it, um, that is going to be located for folks who are driving, we'll drop this link, of course, in the extended show notes, but that will be lindsay beth lyons.com/blog/ 2 5 0, and you'll be able to find that there.
Okay, so here we go. First thing I would do is. Start with an opening circle where we're sharing a story. So ideally, this is not the first time that we're ever meeting someone. However I have, and we'll continue to try to do this in conferences where we're bringing people who've never met each other before into a space.
Um, this requires a bit more vulnerability when folks don't know each other but is possible. Okay, here's the opening prompt. Share a story or character or real person, for sure. You could also do that, but I'm just leaning into that pop culture idea here. That inspires you to think of the future. I would also just have a line on the slide here or a cue verbally to let them know.
This could be a book, a movie, a TV show, a song like Get Creative and Think about who inspires you. I recently did this a couple of days ago with a team. That was just like a person. I, I think I said it could be fictional, but we actually as a, as a group, um, leaned very heavily into the real people in our lives.
So much so that I don't think one person brought in a fictional person. So feel free to lean as much in as much into either direction you want. Okay. So you're sharing someone that inspires you to think of the future. Okay. Once everyone has shared, we have brought the personal in. We have shared who inspires us.
We've shared it succinctly. I'm thinking this is 10 minutes. So if you have a group of 20 people, you know, you're sharing 30 seconds each quick, maybe two sentences, one sentence to describe who they are and kind of what they embody, what they do. Maybe one sentence to explain why that's important to you or how you kind of came to be connected with that person.
Um, or character. And then we move on. So we have kind of this community building. Okay. Then I would share an kind of an o, an opening frame, or if you're doing traditional circle format, this frame can go first and then you can have the, the circle. Um. As kind of like the main circle activity and then close out the circle formally, that's fine too.
Um, I'm just kind of mixing it up a little bit 'cause I think it's a nice segue. This would be a quote from Henry Jensen Jenkins, uh, on civic imaginations, kind of how it guides action. So the quote would be, before we can change the world, we have to be able to envision the possibility of change. We have to be able to imagine what kinds of change would be desirable.
And we have to be able to think of ourselves. As people capable of making change, this is what we are calling the civic imagination. So I think this is a nice segue, although we could also work first because we just had people talking about who inspires us towards change, and now we're making the transition to think about how we could embody that sense of like change agency.
Right. We have, I love that we have to be able to think of ourselves as people capable of making change. Okay. So then what I would say is kind of learn our hats on, let's do a thing that you could do with students, um, if you're working with staff. Otherwise we're just kind of just proceeding with, with students.
Um, if you're working as a teacher through the stack. Yeah. And the, the prompt would be we're gonna collectively brainstorm a future world and I, you know, they typically make it like 30 years out, so, okay. It's 2056. Right. What would an amazing experience, a learning experience, schooling experience, whatever it is for you, what would it feel like?
Sound like look like? Like what would the experience be like? Describe the amazing learning experience and I'm changing it right now 'cause I had school experience. I think learning is more expansive. Invite people to share just one sentence and also I think this is really, really, really important. Tell them temporarily suspend realistic constraints like the fantastical is possible, is language that they use the book.
I love that the fantastical is possible. We did this at a conference, uh, at NCSS in 2025 with Erica Carr and myself. And, uh, we had one person get really fantastical. They were like, time travel field trips. And I was like, yes. And everyone else was like, oh, I want students to feel loved. Okay, great. Love it.
Love that. Students can feel loved. I also think that's very possible tomorrow. Like I don't think we need 30 years for that. Right? Like what? Might we, what is so transformational that it would take 30 years to enact, to come to life, right? I think that's the framing we want. And if you would like, I often do this when I'm doing circle shares, if you wanna set the stage that might affect how others answer and so you can be the one to share your idea first and get really creative.
Think in advance if you're the facilitator. What's a super time travel field trip? There you go. Handing that one to you. Gift from a participant at NCSS, but. Share something that is going to set the stage for the fantastical thinking and get folks to, if they were gonna say something like, oh, I want students to feel happy, like.
Get them to transform that into something a little bit grander, right? So I also love think time. I would give people like, you know, three minutes to think here, draw a picture, write a key word, like do your independent thinking. Get them to really push their thinking. You could even share yours and then pause and say, we're gonna give everyone time to think, because they may have thought and then they were like, oh no, that wasn't fantastical enough.
Right. I think this whole circle share could be about 15 minutes. I mean, these, these first two activities are really like almost half the session. But then after everyone has shared their ideas, here's what we do. We say, okay, we're in 2056. These things have happened. How do we get there? And we are going to retroactively as a group, create the stories that got us there.
So they're gonna form a group, three to five people. Choose one of the topics. So ideally, someone's kind of charting. Maybe you as the facilitator are charting some of these ideas as people are sharing in the circle. So we have some different topical themes come up, choose a subtopic, choose a theme. Each group gets a different one.
Uh, you know, write your number, uh, the group number next to it on the chart, your initials on the chart so other people know what's taken. And then you're gonna get into a group. And there's a couple things you could do here. You could do kind of like a formal, uh, discourse protocol, like a discussion diamond.
And work through kind of your own ideas for a story. Everyone writes their ideas down and they kind of share very formal, structured, kind of share their ideas. Um, and then they have some time to kind of, you're gonna have some time to remix. Like, how do we integrate everyone's individual ideas into one cohesive story that borrows at at least one element from each individual in this group?
Right? Um, you would have a, a story that. Has a character or group at the center, a conflict that they face and a resolution that ultimately gets them to that future we described. Now, you could also do this in a variety of other ways. You could make it way more multimodal, you could make it way more artistic.
Um, you could have like a storyboard. So I'm thinking about the elementary kind of storyboards, where it's like, okay, here's the character. We're gonna draw a picture of the character. Here's the conflict that they face. Like, that's the middle box. Here's the third box. This is the resolution. And you could draw a picture and or caption it to kind of set the scene.
Okay, so then once you've had that small group time, and I'm thinking about 20 minutes here, um, so another kind of large chunk of time, um. I'm now wondering if I made this like a 75 minute activity, but you can adjust any of these pieces that you'd like or you could cut out whole activities if you'd like.
Um, but basically what we now wanna do, uh, is give a few minutes for one or more groups de depending on how long a time slot you have here, each group could kind of share out for just like 60 seconds I think is all, all that's needed. Um, you can act out. Like physically act out, uh, key pieces of your story and have one person kind of do a voiceover, uh, kind of like a skit style.
But I actually find that skits can be really, um, hard for particularly adults. Uh, but skits can be hard. But what you could do is you could have kind of like a, I don't remember what they're called, but where you physically kind of move. You have like a moving, um. Seen like almost like you're a statue and so you have kind of like these three freeze frames and so you as a group are kind of freeze frame one, and then you have one person kind of talk through what's happening here.
Okay. Freeze frame two and, and it's easier for the group to kind of move but not verbally share. And then just one person kind of reads through the notes and verbalizes you also as a group, if you're. If you've got some visual artists, you could do a kind of mini mural or drawing and then have one person kind of explain that or even just hang up the mini murals, maybe capture them a little bit so we know what we're looking at, but kind of do a gallery walk where we're walking around there.
Um, I think a nice audience move here as you are either kind of watching and or listening or engaging in gallery walk is just to notice what values are coming up. What do you infer the values of this group or this story Were. And then we're kind of charting them. Um, and now I think that what happens next, again, if you're working with staff, um, you're gonna have kind of this teacher hat moment of like, how could I bring this activity to students?
If you're working directly with students or your purpose is really just to do this with staff, I don't think you need the, how do I teach this kind of side of things. Um, but I do think there is. This sense of, you know, what values came up for us. So we have, you know, 10 minutes of discussion here. Maybe what values came up in the stories, like let's name those.
You might have jotted them on your own individual paper, but let's get them out in the space. What actions were present. Like what did people in these stories do? Were they young people? Were they adults? Were they working together in youth adult partnerships? So cool. Right. And what did you notice about your experience of the civic imagining process of the story creation and synthesizing with team?
Like what did you notice about yourself and other participants, other peers in this process of doing this thing? Like how do we communicate with one another perhaps differently? Than we normally would when we're talking about social issues and how can imagination serve us in our civic lives. This is a question from the book that I really, really love, so I wanted to work that in.
Um, but I love this idea of imagination serving us in civic lives. So how do we like kind of just put that out there? Maybe not as a question, maybe it's just a, oh, what a cool thought. Um, and maybe that's something you end on, I think another kind of. Angle to look at this with is like, we just painted this vision that we all care about, that we think there is a path forward, however fantastical, but we think there's a path forward to actually get there.
We just made those stories and so how might we, or how can we, how will we, right? Whatever verb you wanna use, help this vision come to life in our school and so. We can invite conversation, like how do we do that? How do we get students and school stakeholders to talk about these shared values? How do we get ourselves to practice and lift up these shared values that we just identified are important through story?
How do we make that a living part of the way we are in the school and the way school is, and the way we are as a community together? How do we nurture actions in our classrooms? How do we make sure our policies are reflective of this? What pedagogical moves, uh, can we borrow? We're if we're students that we can, or sorry if we're teachers and then we can use the students or, uh, what moves can we use?
Um, if you're doing this with a group of family members and caregivers. Like, what can we share with our, our kind of family units, right? Our, our children and the home space. So that is a long list of things. Uh, don't feel like you need to remember that all or take notes because you do have access to these slides for absolutely free.
Again, they are based on a fantastic book, kind of truncated as much as possible to like this 60 to 75 minute range. Feel free to edit and adjust more. I'm sure I will actually go in and as of this time of recording in January, 2026, they look one way and they're gonna probably exist in a very different way as I iterate and do this with different groups and, and learn as the authors of that book did, what works well and what can be adjusted so.
I will continue updating live in this Google Slide deck. So if you're listening in 2027, this may look different than I'm describing now. And good for you. You've got the updated version. So again, that is going to be [email protected] slash blog slash 2 5 0. You can go ahead and grab that resource, uh, make it your own, make a copy, edit it to your heart's content, and let me know how it goes for you.

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In this episode, we chat with Dr. Jennifer Berry, who discusses the importance of cultivating a culture of appropriate challenge in classrooms, particularly among STEM students. She emphasizes that a student's self-belief in their ability to belong, master rigorous challenges, and make impactful contributions is crucial across all fields, not just within STEM. 

Dr. Berry highlights that achieving this involves creating a conducive learning environment, allowing for productive struggle, and integrating hands-on learning with real-world applications.

The Big Dream 

Dr. Berry's vision is rooted in the right of all students to thrive as the best versions of themselves. Her dream is to break down the structures that hinder many youth from realizing their potential, empowering them to rise above their circumstances. She envisions an educational landscape where students are equipped not only to face challenges individually but also to collaborate and push against systemic barriers collectively.

Mindset Shifts Required

Dr. Berry argues for the critical mindset shift that recognizes the importance of allowing productive struggles, rather than stepping in to solve problems for students. This can be against educators' natural tendency to to step in and help solve everything. But by pausing before responding to students, you’re encouraging students to explore solutions themselves. 

Action Steps  

For educators wanting to enable their students to learn through “productive struggle,” Dr. Berry suggests the following action steps: 

Step 1: Create a learning environment that promotes collaboration, movement, and the integration of hands-on tools. This could be a dedicated space in the classroom or a specific area in a school that encourages project-based learning.

Step 2: Design curriculum activities that connect STEM tools with real-world issues and industry pathways, helping students see the relevance and applications of what they are learning.

Step 3: Actively engage the broader community by inviting mentors and professionals to share their experiences, thereby providing students with diverse role models and real-world insights.

Step 4: In all this, resist the temptation to jump in and solve, fix, or help students immediately. Let them have space to figure things out and engage in productive struggle. With practice, educators will know when you need to step in and when you don’t. As Dr. Berry says, “Pause before responding, pause before answering.”

Challenges?

The most significant challenge in fostering STEM identity is ensuring that all elements of learning, from curriculum design to community engagement, work together seamlessly. Teachers may become overly focused on one aspect, such as the technology involved, rather than integrating it with practical, real-world applications and wider educational goals.

One Step to Get Started 

Start by integrating a short pause before answering student questions in class. This simple action encourages students to think more deeply about their queries and explore potential solutions, reinforcing their problem-solving skills and growing their confidence. This approach sets the foundation for a broader shift in mindset, fostering a more inquisitive and resilient learning environment.

Stay Connected

You can find out more about and connect with Dr. Jennifer Berry on her website, SmartLab Learning, or on LinkedIn.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Culture Playlist with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 249 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes: 

• 1:00 “ As we're educating youth and as we're educating students in the classroom, we should always be thinking about what their future is. Obviously we want kids to be whole and the best versions of themselves … However, we should also be thinking about how we are setting them up for success, for future careers to be, and thriving in future industries.”
  
• 2:50 “We've defined STEM identity as a learner's self-belief that I belong, I can master rigorous challenges, and my ideas make an impact or have an impact.”
  
• 11:18 “You don’t want a student to struggle to the point where they give up … There is that zone of productive struggle that’s really important.”
  
• 18:20 “ Active rebellion doesn't have to be so rebellion-esque. It could be some small things that you're doing slightly differently that open your brain up to think about new ideas that think about ways to solve a problem in a way that maybe you hadn't thought of before.”
  

​​​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT
Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Jennifer Barry, welcome to the time for teachership podcast.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Oh, thank you for having me, Lindsay. I'm so happy to be here.
Lindsay Lyons: I am so excited that you're here because as we were saying right before we hit record, I'm really interested in this idea of like class culture and how we kind of build up, uh, a culture of appropriate challenge and all of that.
And I think your work is so, um, like it. Helpful in how we can like, make that actionable. Mm-hmm. Particularly for, for STEM classrooms, but I think honestly for, for every classroom, yes. It's so valuable no matter what you teach. Yeah. And so that's what's on my heart and mind this morning. And so I'm curious to know what is important for listeners to know that maybe you're thinking about today or that you want people to kind of keep in mind throughout.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, I love, I loved how you mentioned what's so key for students, whether they're in a STEM classroom or whether in they're in any kind of learning environment. But I also would translate that and transfer that even into a career, um, focus, right? Because as we're educating youth and as we're educating, um, uh, students in the classroom, we should always be thinking about what is their future, right?
Like obviously we want kids to be, um, you know, whole and best versions of themselves. And have, you know, the mental health capacity to survive in this kind of ever changing, in some case, some cases, scary world. However, we should also be as educators thinking about how are we setting up for them up for success, for future careers to be and, and, and be in and thriving in, uh, future industries, some that already exist and some that are yet to be, to be existing in existence because they're be.
Being developed as we speak. Right? And so I always like to say to myself and to others, and to my, my team who's developing our curriculum at Smart Lab, um, what do we think about, uh, as, as to what skills do students need in order to thrive in a career and be. Not only the best versions of themselves, but the top of their game and lead in, in whatever they choose to, to focus on in life.
So it isn't just okay when they're in the STEM classroom or when they're in the learning environment, but how does that connection connect to the broader, uh, life that they're gonna have, right? And, and their experiences that they're gonna bring to this world and how they're gonna contribute to this world in meaningful and positive ways.
So, you know, we have coined this sort of. STEM identity, uh, definition, which, you know, STEM identity has been, uh, studied for years. Right? And I know that I, the word identity can be very controversial, but the reality is, um, when you put the word stem in front of it, um, it, it really kind of loses that sort of polarizing perspective because it's really about thinking.
Uh, how, how do you think not can you use a STEM application, but how do you think, right? And so we've defined STEM identity as a learner's self-belief that I belong, I can master rigorous challenges and my ideas make an impact or have an impact, right? That cuts across any industry. Right. I'm not, I, I, man, you know, I am a CEO of a STEM company, but I don't consider myself a scientist, right?
I don't consider myself, although I love math, I don't consider myself a mathematician or in that field, right? I consider myself a leader. I consider myself a visionary. I consider myself somebody that really galvanizes an idea or people and move us forward so that we can be, again, the best versions of ourselves and contribute to this world meaningfully.
So. When I think about that, I think, oh, I actually have STEM identity because I do believe I belong in this seat. I do believe I can master rigorous challenges, and I do believe that my ideas make an impact. So somewhere along the way, through my early learning all the way through till now, I, I had that cultivated through mentors, through parents, through my community along the way.
And so that's my. That was my learner's self-belief, and now it's my adult self-belief and it translates into the industry that I've chosen. So I really like to think about STEM identity as beyond the STEM. Uh, acronym and really think about it from the standpoint of a learner's self-belief, right?
Because we all wanna belong. We all wanna believe that we can master a, a challenge. And like that challenge doesn't define us like we can. We can work through that challenge and get it to the other side, um, or decide, hey, that challenge is not even worth solving because it isn't really, uh, something that I can solve and bring in others and collaborate with others to help kind of get to that solvability.
Um. Or that place of, of solve. So you know that that's really what I think we as humans, even for, and I was talking to somebody the other day, they're like, oh, oh, so STEM identity is acquired? And I'm like, Hmm. I don't know. I think babies come out with STEM identity, right? Like I think they come out believing, oh, I belong here.
Right. I, I, I can master rigorous challenge because guess what? When I cry, somebody helps me in most cases, right? I know that's not in all cases, but in most cases I cry and somebody, right? So that was a challenge, and I overcame it by making sound, right? Uh, my ideas have impact, right? Because when I smile, a, a, an adult smiles back at me, right?
So that was an idea. So, I don't know. It's sort of, I know that's a little heady and maybe too meta for a lot of people, but I actually believe that people, um, as individuals come out with this sort of identity that they belong and that they can master rigorous challenges and their ideas have. And so therefore, because we've defined that as STEM identity, I believe people come out of the womb with STEM identity.
Now, what I do believe is that, that they need to be cultivated. They need to have environments that cultivate that identity. They need to have, um, people around them and systems around them that support the fact that they belong. Right? We know that there's systemically that's not always the case for all individuals, and so we need to work very carefully to make sure that all.
All humans get that inalienable right of, um, care to thrive with their own belief that they belong here.
Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, I, I love this so much. There's so much that I wanna like tap into. I think that this idea of, um, you know, every, every person just for the greater good of humanity and for their, like, role as a community member in a larger world.
I mean, we talk a lot about civic action and kind of like that social studies lens and this. Podcast. Yes. But like, that seems so relevant, right? Like, you want to be impactful, you want to be agentic, you want the sense of belonging and you wanna foster it for other people. You want to be able to tackle hard things instead of just shut down when the world is like nuts.
Right? Yeah. And, and I think that totally, totally resonates for civics as well.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, I agree.
Lindsay Lyons: I mean, that's what, that's just me kind of painting my dream. But I, I always try to ask at the start ish of episodes like. For guests. What, I'm curious what your freedom dream is. So Dr. Bettina love describes this as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Mm.
And
Lindsay Lyons: so you kind of alluded to like right, like some systems and structures are not just, and and like what you're painting a vision of is maybe counter two what some of the systems currently are. And so you maybe have already addressed this question, but I'm curious, is there anything you would add here around like the dream you hold for education?
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah. Um, I think it is rooted in, um, all students' rights to thrive and be best versions of themselves, um, and that sort of breaking down of the structures around them that prevent that for many youth. Um, so my dream is to sort of figure out how to bust the structures down and to, to protect the youth at the center of that so that they can thrive.
Whatever environment they're handed. Right? And so, because not every envi, not every student is handed the same environment for various reasons, right? Based on socioeconomic background, based on race, based on gender, based on, um, religion. You know, you can name, you can name all of the reasons why maybe not all, all students have the structures around them that support their, their learning.
So, you know, when I think about my sort of. Focus is to try to figure out in a small way, right? I, I don't, I, you know, I'm not able to solve all of the problems, um, across, across the u United States and world. Um, but I do believe that in a small way, if we can sort of. Bubble students to be able to thrive in whatever, uh, environment they're in so that they can feel like they matter, right?
And their, and their ideas add value, as we talked about earlier. And so to create an environment around them where they're almost protected, um, from some of the, the, the, the structures that. Down so that they can stand up on their own two feet and look up and go, wait, I can break down that barrier. I can push through that barrier.
I, collectively with my peers, can collaborate together to be the force that pushes against whatever is pushing against them. Right? So that I, I think, you know, to layer in. You know that, you know how I, how we as my an organization have defined that STEM identity term. You know, that's very narrow 'cause we run a STEM company, so that's very narrow.
But when I think about my own sort of seat in that as a CEO, it's bigger than that for me. It's really to make sure that the students that are in an environment that, that any environment of learning, that they can really thrive to be best versions of themselves and. See that they're better than their circumstances and that if they themselves as individuals and they can grab, gather collectively around them and build community, they can bust through the circumstances that are sort of pushed and forced upon them.
And then of course, my personal dream is that those that are outside of the student learning environment are also pushing from the, uh, outside in so that the students are pushing from the outside out, inside out. We're pushing from the. Outside in so that we can really crumble some of the stuff that really is, um, you know, disenfranchising a lot of, a lot of youth from being the best versions of themselves and being able to be productive individuals and be collective in their unity for society.
So.
Lindsay Lyons: I love that dream. Thank you for sharing that.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, of course.
Lindsay Lyons: I, I think now about like some of the actions that educators can take or, I mean, honestly even like family members, right? Supporting kids, like you're saying, like learning environments kinda are everywhere. We're like doing this kind of whole human wise now and in the future.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah.
Lindsay Lyons: I think often as a teacher, I will raise my hand on today that I, for sure when someone was like, miss, miss, like I'm struggling. It would be me running over from person to person helping, and I realize now, in retrospect as a coach, that was not helpful in the moment. I wasn't letting 'em, you know, rise to the challenge and figuring out ways to tackle the problem themselves.
Mm-hmm. And certainly my goal was to like alleviate their stress. Mm-hmm. Right. And to help, but it wasn't actually helpful, so. Mm-hmm. For me, this has been a mindset shift that I've gone through, but I'm curious, are there. Other mindset shifts that you think are really required for educators to make to be able to actually cultivate this STEM identity?
Yeah. That is different from how maybe traditionally school is done.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah. I'd say there's two things to that. So the first thing actually is exactly what you were saying, and I can even speak as a parent. So I have an 11-year-old daughter and. The natural instinct is always to jump in and solve, or to alleviate the stress or to help, um, and, and that natural instinct is because we're trying to make sure that they are feeling safe and they're, you know, not struggling.
Right. And we work a lot on this, even our curriculum set for, for Smart Lab, where we focus on teaching the facilitator how to allow productive struggle. Right. And that's key because you don't want a student to struggle past the point of, um, or where they give up or where they, um, sort of reach their pay grade, if you will.
They reach their level of, you know, capacity to like push past their, their amygdala firing and that fear of fight or fight happening. So there is this sort of productive struggle, um, zone that we really try to get facilitators to in our. Professional development of our facilitators in a smart lab because that productive struggle is really, really important.
Like, let the student struggle enough, kind of push through and fail enough times that they, um, can then see like, oh, I can go another place in my brain and try to get that to solve, you know, solve. Solve that, or I could walk away because I'm too frustrated right now. I'm allowed to walk away and come back to it later and then pick up right where I left off.
But there is that zone of productive struggle that's really important because you don't want to go past that zone. Because if you go past that zone, then students actually can retreat and that and their amygdala, right? Their fire or flight, um, uh, uh, nerve fires and then, and then your. Then they're not productive, right?
So there's that zone of letting 'em struggle enough without letting them get to that fight or flight zone. And even sometimes we actually do teach. Sometimes getting in that fight or flight zone is good because sometimes when you're fighting with the answer, there's ways that, I mean, we do this in life, right?
There's ways in which you need to walk away. Do some breathing, get out in nature, you know, read a book. Really get out of your environment so that you can come back a, the better version of yourself. Right. And I, I, I had this issue with my daughter last night. You know, she was, she was tired and she didn't wanna do her, her 20 minutes of reading that she's supposed to do every night.
And, um. She had just come from karate. And so I could tell she was just in this like zone of, of past the point of, I can, I can't even, I can't even figure out how to get into the bathroom and brush my own teeth, right? And she was just like, can you help me brush my teeth? And I'm thinking, you're 11. I don't need to help you brush your teeth, right?
But my natural reaction was like, yes, because I need, and I need you to read and I need you to go to sleep. So I'm gonna grab your toothbrush and I'm gonna brush your teeth for you. Right. And as I'm doing this because I'm, you know, although I talk about this a lot, I fail at it often. I'm brushing her teeth and she's standing there with her arms down and her eyes closed, and I'm thinking.
Oh, I have just enabled her to use me essentially because, and I could see in her eyes like, oh, I got you. Almost like, or I could see in her body language, I got you. And I know that's not, I don't think she was intentionally thinking that, but I think in her mind she was like. Oh, I was able to cry a little bit.
I was able to like pretend I don't know how to brush my teeth or I can't function right, because I am tired, right? And so I calmly put the toothbrush down. I said, okay, Jayla, I started this for you. I need you to finish and I will meet. I'm gonna go do my own. Brushing of the teeth and washing my own face and I will meet you in your room with my own book and we will read together.
Right? And but it took me, it took me that moment of doing to then also have my own moment of, wait a minute, I just got tricked here. Or I just fell into a pattern of trying to help and solve because I could see my poor child was tired and dah, dah, dah, and I had to really stop and I could see begrudgingly she was sort of like, Ugh.
But she picked up that toothbrush. She finished brushing her teeth, she got herself in bed. She opened her book and she was waiting for me to come in and she was reading, but by the time I got in there with my book to sit on the floor next door to read. So it was really powerful moment for me. A small example, but a very powerful for moment for me that we, we can jump in.
Like you said, you're walking around the classroom and you can jump in. But also when we're, we're mature enough to go, whoa, I've overstepped here and sort of. Kick it off for them and then walk away. So I don't, I think sometimes I see facilitators across the country like, oh, I'm supposed to just be hands off with everything and let them sort of, and it doesn't mean as an educator, you can't guide, you can't start, you can't maybe add value in the middle of, um.
You have to know when to back away. You have to know when to let them push through that obstacle. Right? So anyway, that's a great, that was a great example of something that happened to me last night that I had a moment of realization and, and I know despite that she was sort of. Angry about it. I know that, you know, she's more than capable of what I, you know, the tasks that she was trying to do, and it had I continued to help her, I would've been enabling her to lean on me too hard when things got hard for her.
Lindsay Lyons: I love that example of, thank you. Very relatable. I think that's great. Um, and I, yeah, I think that's also your idea, that it's okay if you find yourself in that moment and you can then step back. It's very forgiving. Yeah. For the people who are in transition from, like, I used to run to put out fires and help get too much and over scaffold.
Yes. But I can notice in the moment and remove myself. I love that. Like reframing of like, I kicked you off. Like we, I got you started. Here we go. Now it's you.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, now it's you. Yeah. Oh, and I had said there was a second thing, the second thing, and be, you know, and because we're a STEM organization, although I just believe this, in, in general, putting in a, a hands-on approach or some sort of tool or some sort of STEM application, whether it's a hands-on, you know, I believe STEM applications can even be paperclips.
Like sub application doesn't have to be, you know, an ai, VR, glass, you know, v ar VR glasses. Like it really could be just a paperclip, right? So I believe putting in some sort of hands-on tool into a student's learning process can help open up the brain in ways that, um, that. All humans need, right. That, that, that kind of going back to the root of play.
Right. And, you know, you, you, you play when you're young, but when you're, when you're, you know, elementary, middle, high school, and then even, you know, higher ed and even as an adult with me there, there's moments where I have to like pick up something and play with it to, to open up parts of my brain that can then.
Find a solution to something, right? When you're stuck in a problem, you have to that, that act of hands-on play. Now, in most cases, you want that act, that act of hands-on play to be connected to whatever you're trying to solve. But sometimes that act of play is, um. Is really just opening the, the brain up, right?
I, I had this conversation, somebody was interviewing me last night for, for something they were doing for their, uh, their MBA program and they were asking me sort of what were my tips and tricks and I said, you know, I sort of have this weird act of rebellion thing that I do, and it's, and they were like, Ooh, tell me more active rebellion.
That sounds really like gritty. And I'm like, actually, it's like sometimes I just drive home a different route. Sometimes I just listen to a different radio station. Sometimes I just, uh, brush my teeth with my left hand versus my right hand. Like this active rebellion doesn't have to be so. Rebellion esque.
It could be some small things that you're doing slightly different that open your brain up to think about new ideas that think about ways to solve a problem in a way that maybe you hadn't thought of before. So I, I kind of like this active rebellion. Maybe I'll write a book about it someday, but this sort of active rebellion that's very simple, acts during the course of your day.
To get you out of routine. And I believe in structure. I believe in routine. I believe in discipline, but you have to sometimes break those norms in order to have your brain open up for really amazing thoughts that are trapped, right? And so when you, I don't know how many times you've been in a car and driven and go, I don't even know how I got here.
You know, I have no idea how I got here. And, you know, uh, although if you force yourself to go a different route, then you're like, oh, wait, do I have to turn right? Do I have to turn left? Wait, where am I going? I'm in a different way. So I do that every day. I try to do this active rebellion in very small ways that sparked the brain.
So I can think about in a, in a classroom setting, a teacher, an educator, trying to think about maybe changing up their routine instead of walking the classroom and the, you know, they normally. Because teachers I know find themselves doing, I'm gonna always go to this side of the room first, and then go around to the left side, go the other direction and see what happens.
Right. You're gonna make the kids go. 'cause they also know, oh, she's gonna get to me last, so by the time she gets to me, I'll show her that I'm working on something. Right. But I'll be maybe doodling before she gets around to me. Right. But now, if the teacher's changing their walk, now you're, you're changing that student to go, oh, I have to be actively engaged now because she's not doing her normal.
Her normal left to right walk or right to left, walk right. So, I don't know, little things like that I think could be really helpful for a teacher. Um. Uh, you know, have the student have, you know, maybe the teacher sits on the floor one day outta nowhere, or sits on the desks, or has the kids sit on the floor, even if they're in high school, just like change it up and do these small acts of rebellion.
That I think can really, um, open up those spaces for, um, being okay with failure, for being okay with change, for being resilient when things aren't always as, as you've imagined them or are used to them being.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh, I love this idea that you're just like opening the brain up. You know, that like, I, I, that is so cool.
I'm latching onto that piece. I also was thinking about you describing your guide for facilitators. Mm-hmm. And so thinking about instruction and instruction design, like both the pre-planning, like I'm gonna design in this particular way to help kids, like have this opportunity for, for grappling and productive struggle.
But then I also. Like, I think we focus a lot on that and, and I know that that's super important and this idea of like the responsive piece, like I'm gonna see what kids can do and then I'm gonna respond accordingly so that they're in that zone you're describing.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Mm-hmm.
Lindsay Lyons: I'm curious if you could share some of those tips that you have in your kind of coaching of facilitators and facilitation of how to.
How to do this. Uh, if you know someone's listening and they're like, I'm gonna try this out today in class, you know, is there something that you could do differently to be more responsive?
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, I think two things that pop to mind. Um, you know, without going into the full facilitation training that we do, but two things that I think are really simple, like you said, what could they do today is, um.
Pause before responding, pause before answering. Um, you know, even a student that raises their hand and says, Hey, I have a question, right? This is my question. Instead of going, well, let me answer that for you because I'm the teacher, I'm the person that knows I'm supposed to, supposed to answer this question.
You know, pausing and saying, you know what? That's a really quick question. Tell me more about why you're asking that. Tell me more about what, what, what the point is of that question. Are you a, you know, do others have an idea to help that Stu, you know, to help that? Like, really putting the question back on the student.
I do this at work a lot and it throws people off actually many times. You know, when you're the CEO of a company, I, I didn't know this until I became a CEO, but people ask you the things that are like. So low level that as if you're supposed to know every answer, you know, and um, or even high level as if you're supposed to have all the high level answers, right.
And I find myself a lot going. I don't, I don't have any, I don't have any idea or that's a really interesting question or I haven't thought about that yet. Um, and, and I. I've now started to use this sort of, it's a, that's, that's a really good question. Tell me why you're asking. What is, what is, um, what do you think we would get from that?
By, by solving that or by, um, you know, that, that solution or that, if I answered that question, if I even dare to know the answer to that question, what would you get from that? Is there a point behind your question? Do you, what do you think the answer should be? That actually makes people uncomfortable?
They're like, oh. I asked you what I, of course, I don't know, but I'm like, no, I'm, I'm curious what, how do you think? And then all of a sudden they're like, well, I think we should do it this way, and I think you should do it that way. And I think maybe if we tried it this way and I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
Maybe we should try that. Maybe you could own that. Maybe that's a project you wanna take on. Right? And that opens up this sort of pause before you just jump in and answer. So that would be my one. One tip for people is just pause before you answer and sort of put. The question back on them, or maybe not the question back on them, but put the why they're asking back on them, because then it can force them to think about like, why am I asking that question?
What will that serve this discussion? You know, is it just because that it popped in my head and I'm that kid that just likes to ask questions? Or is it, I'm really curious about this and I think. Help me. If I understood this, it would help me understand that, you know, and make that kid sort of think through why that question matters.
And then of course, of course engage the rest of the class to maybe help them solve it rather than you, you know, standing up being the expert in the room. Right. Um, so that's one. The other, the other thing is this, um, this idea of when you see people struggling actively walk away. And you know, had I done that last night with my daughter in the toothbrush moment, I guarantee her standing in the bathroom with her arms down and the tears streaming, you know, you know, staring at the mirror.
But like, I'm not, I don't know how to brush my teeth. Had I walked away from that circumstance, she would've had to. Regroup. She would've had to eventually pick up the toothbrush and brush her teeth because she does know how to brush her teeth, right? So, had I done that rather than like, oh, I'm just gonna jump in and help you grab the toothbrush and shove it in your mouth and start the process, um, she would've had to work through.
Feelings in that moment and work through, like, I do know how to do this. I'm not gonna just stand here and cry all night. I need to pick up that toothbrush and brush my teeth and go into my room. Right? So that would be the second sort of like quick thing, the moment you see struggle or somebody frustrated in the corner.
Maybe just actively walking away, keeping your eye on them to make sure they don't get past that point of like, now I'm a wreck and now I'm hiding under the table, or now I'm arguing with my peer or whatever. Right. Or throwing things at the teacher. You know, those things can happen too, but walk away and sort of allow them to have their moment because most humans need those moments that they can figure out how to work through.
Right now there's some right that we, we know, that need other accommodations to help support them in their, in their time of need. But for the most part, you can identify like, Ooh, I'm gonna let that child struggle a little bit more. But I, as a teacher had to actively walk away because just like at the playground when a student fall or, or where a kid falls, they look for their parents' reaction.
And it's the same thing as you get older, right? Your, your, your, your, your rebellion in the classroom is looking to see, is somebody noticing, is somebody seeing me? Right? And sometimes walking away from that is them going, wait, I can, I can solve this. Or a peer jumps in and goes, let me help you. Right? So those would be the two things that I would recommend, um, that people can do out of the gate and that we try to really make sure the facilitators are strong at in a stem learning environment.
Lindsay Lyons: I love those. Thank you so much for those. Those are, yeah, immediately actionable. So super, super helpful and concrete. And thinking back to kind of at the start where you were talking about, and I wrote this down, how do you think like the idea of like STEM identity and like, you know, coaching students around this.
It's important to coach like the thinking, right. And the thinking is what we want to do. Yeah. Especially in like humanities, I think a lot of times we prioritize the way that you get the thinking out, like on a paper in writing, for example, and then the kid struggles of writing. It's like, oh, I can't see the thinking because I'm not thinking about the various ways that the thinking can come out.
But it really is about. The thinking mm-hmm. That we wanna cultivate. Um, and I'm also thinking about kind of your definition of STEM identity and thinking about that belonging, the rigorous challenge. Um, and then the third one, I can't read my own
Dr. Jennifer Berry: hand. My ideas have an impact. Thank you.
Lindsay Lyons: My
Dr. Jennifer Berry: ideas have an impact.
Yeah.
Lindsay Lyons: Ideas have an impact. What is, is there like an aspect of, of those pieces that you. Find that teachers have the most, um, kind of challenge with, or is there kind of a particular struggle that people face in, in cultivating that stem identity and, and kind of focusing on the thinking. Um, and, and then how do you like coach through a, a challenge like that?
I imagine it's not super easy to make that transition for teachers.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, so we, you know, smart Lab really focuses on an integrated ecosystem. So, you know, our, our, our, our tagline is we're an integrated ecosystem. That's that, uh, sparks, aha moments, that, and build stem identity for learners. That's sort of our tagline, right?
And we, we think of aha moments is that sort of sudden realization that learners have when they connect, um, ideas in new and meaningful ways. Right. So that's, that's how we define an aha moment. And if you have multiple aha moments, that's what's building your stem identity. If you have multi, multiple aha moments, you're starting to get that self-belief, that learner self-belief that you, you know, belong, can master rigorous challenges and your ideas add value.
So this, this, um, idea of, um. What is the hardest part of getting students? Their STEM identity is really allowing for multiple aha moments to happen. And so when we talk about the integrated ecosystem, you know, the environment matters. Right? At Smart Lab, we help, uh, we help classrooms. School districts, you know, schools themselves, uh, customize their learning environment to make sure their learning environment is conducive for hands-on project-based learning.
'cause not all learning environments are, and you can customize a corner of a library to do that. Or you can customize a room that you can lock and call it your STEM lab, right? So no matter where, or even in the classroom, a corner of a classroom, you can create a customized environment that is conducive for hands-on project based learning.
So at Smart Lab, we help. Schools do that. Um, but a teacher themselves in a classroom can create an environment in their classroom that is conducive for hands-on project based learning. And that's being really intentional about what that learning environment looks like. Is there collaborative spaces? Is there room for active play?
Is there room for movement? Right? Is there mo room for bringing in a STEM application to sort of use to facilitate learning, right? So that, that sort of. Customized learning environment is, is really key in this ecosystem, right? But as we both know, ecosystems are only as good as everything that's in 'em, not just the environment.
'cause otherwise that environment could just be a storage unit, right? So you wanna customize learning environment that optimizes for learning, but then you also need the curriculum that is designed to optimize learning, right? And so in our case, we design our curriculum all based on state standards and align.
But, and, but really we, what we do in our curriculum is take STEM applications. That students can use in a hands-on project based way and connect them to real world challenges as well as industry pathways. So that way there isn't just a, um, a, oh, I know how to use a 3D pen, but it's, oh, I, I've used a 3D pen, but let me tell you about the use case for that.
Right. Again, I'm gonna do a great example. I had a, a group of five fifth graders in my car the other day and um, we have brought Smart Lab to my daughter's elementary school. It's a public elementary school in San Diego and we have brought Smart Lab there. And, um, the foundation actually was so invested in getting stem, it's an IB school, but they were so invested in getting STEM into this public school that the foundation.
Uh, use their jogathon money and all of the donation money to put the Smart Lab in the school. So I had these five fifth graders in my car, right, where I'm taking them to their dance, their dance class, their dance team, um, class, and I asked 'em, Hey, how was Smart Lab this week? And they were like, oh my gosh.
Did you know we did the shadows in motion, um, uh, uh, unit. Did you know that in a field, the opposing team makes sure that the, uh, or the, the, the, the field, the, um. Home team makes sure that the opposing team sits with the sun in their eyes. And so when the shadow comes over the stadium that the opposing team has the sun in their eyes, did you know this mommy?
And I'm like, oh wow. Yeah, that's amazing. You know, this is cool. And all of them are rattling around like, yeah, and then this, this, use it for a shadow and this use for a shadow. And so, and I was like, well, what STEM application, what we're using? They're like, oh, we were using a 3D pen. And I'm like. Oh, so they weren't talking about the, the, the thing that's really cool and exciting, they were actually talking about the use case for it, right?
They were designing something with their 3D pen for the shadows in motion type activity that applied to something in real world. So they were actually more excited about the real world application. So that curriculum and how you use the hands-on tools and equipment is so important and can be, um, where.
Facilitators fail when they're just very, they're admiring the 3D pen and they're really excited about the, you know, the CNC machine, or they're really excited about teaching kids how to use a, a, you know, a 3D, you know, a 3D printer, you know, and so they're really excited about that opposed to how do you connect that thing?
To a real world problem. How do you connect that thing to learning that really gets the student to think about a real world, uh, industry or some sort of problem that can be solved through this use of this STEM tool. So that could be, uh, an area that people really need to think about because we, many times I see random acts of STEM happening in school districts, right?
Meaning the kids are getting to play with this stuff and they're very excited about this stuff, but there's no. Connection to anything. It's sort of like, okay, but what is the connection to that thing that you got to play with that now applies in real world, right? And now you and I know this AI powered world we live in, living in, eventually AI is gonna do all of those STEM applications.
It already does most of them, but it's gonna use those already gonna be able to do those STEM applications. So we want students to be able to know how they work, maybe play with how they work so that they can actually have that hands-on tools. But also more importantly, how it applies in real world, so that when they get to the real world, they know when to bring in that AI tool to do that thing because they know what it's used for.
Right? So they can lead in an AI powered world opposed to AI leading them. So that would be part of the, and then, so yeah, so the environment's important. The curriculum and the hands-on tools and equipment is important. We've already had talked about how important the facilitator is, right? And we certify our, our facilitators so that if it's a librarian that.
Becoming the, the STEM teacher or if it's a, if it's a, the, you know, the lead math instructor at the school becoming the stead or the science person that's becoming it, or they put a paraprofessional in that becomes a stem. Um, a facilitator that we make sure that we set them up for success so that they can understand the curriculum, understand the kids and equipment, understand the STEM applications, but more importantly, understand how to allow students to have a productive struggle.
While they're learning. Right? And then lastly, it's really the support and partnership, right? The this, this idea, when we think about our ecosystem, it's these five things and the support and partnership is really key. Now, support could be everything from, you know, at Smart Lab we have customer success people and we have tech support people.
Like, that's all support. But really I like to overemphasize, whether you're in a smart lab or you're just in a classroom trying to do this, or you're, you already have a STEM lab in another, in another. Is that you figure out how to bring the community into your environment, right? Even if it's in the humanities class, even if it's in the social studies class, even if it's in, you know, a STEM learning environment, to have the community come in so that students can see themselves.
Right. So they have representation. They see themselves in careers of the future. They can hear from potential mentors that maybe aren't their parents or aren't people that they get to see every day. Um, and that the, the facilitator or the adult that's coming into this environment to share their own experiences, gives reasons to believe that you don't have to be, you don't have to have the highest scores all the time.
You don't have to always go to the best schools. I always have to look a certain way to be successful in this world. So bringing the community in so that students have a variety of people that they get to see themselves in, I think can be really, really supportive. Supportive to that, to that optimized learning for, for kids future growth.
So I sort of roundabout answered your question about like, what is it that facil. Struggle with the most, and I think it's sort of making sure that all of the pieces are integrated together to optimize the learning, right? They focus on maybe one aspect of the learning environment or one aspect of the kits and equipment or, or to your point, focus too much on the designing of the curriculum, right?
Instead of like, how do I make sure the ecosystem is optimized? Is the learning environment strong? Is the, the curriculum developed? You know, in a way that's gonna optimize learning is the way in which I facilitate that. At at peak capacity, it am I bringing the community in to give real world examples and to give mentorship to these students.
So really making sure that you're thinking of the whole ecosystem, I think is where people struggle the most. Um, because they get overly fixated on one aspect or another. I
Lindsay Lyons: love the ecosystem frame. Love the components. Those are so good. Thank you for sharing that. And I think as a final question that I'm gonna sneak in as we close here, um, where can folks learn more about you or connect with you or Smart Lab online or, or otherwise?
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah. Yeah. So I hope people go to our website, um, and that's smart lab learning.com. So Smart Lab Learning spelled as you would expect.com. They can go there. There's a ton of free resources. We actually, on November 7th, have a, uh, what we're calling STEM Identity Day. So there is national STEM identity or national.
STEM Day. That is on November 8th, but it's a Saturday, so we wanted to make sure schools got to participate. So we're calling it, um, STEM Identity Day in support of National STEM Day. And we're inviting, um, the community into schools and we can help facilitate that so that it's all, you know, credentialed.
Everybody's credentialed and has their visitor passes and knows what to do, but we're inviting, um. Community into schools, not just smart labs, but schools, any school doesn't have to be a smart lab, any school to come in and share their stem identity story. So to take our definition and say, oh, where, where, where do I think I, um, gauge my own STEM identity along my journey and be able to share that with students and then for them to think about like, what's.
STEM applications do I use in my job and be able to share that with students as well. So that's on, uh, November 7th, so please have, you know, if you're interested, go to our website and learn about STEM Identity Day and come volunteer your time at a school districts across the country so you can share your own STEM identity journey with students so that we're really starting to make this movement a thing across.
For all students, as we talked about earlier. Um, so that's one way. And then of course there's tons of other tools and resources, um, on the website for people to, um, look at. And, and if you're like, oh, I don't have students, but I wanna participate in this, you know, we can help you match you with the school.
So you could donate money to the school or donate money to the, the foundation of that school so that they could put, you know, either a smart lab or some sort of stem learning environment into the hands of that. So we can match, we can match people that are interested in donating, uh, to schools and to to stem identity for students up with school districts in their community or across the country.
So we can help people do that. Um, and also we just really hope that people engage in this conversation and know that, you know, we want, um, we want Smart Lab to know, but we really want all students to know that they belong here. They can do this. They add value, and really they're future ready. So that really is important to us.
People can also look me up on LinkedIn, Dr. Jennifer Berry. I'm happy to talk to anybody, have to mentor. Happy to engage in conversation. I'm always here for people because I, uh, that's how I learn best.
Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Thank you Dr. Berry. And we'll link to all that stuff in the show notes in the blog post for this episode as well.
And it's been an episode. Pleasure talking to you today. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Thank you. You're amazing. I'm so happy you're doing this. And you told me earlier you've been doing this for five years. What an impressive, I can't wait to like follow you and start listening to all your episodes.
Lindsay Lyons: Oh, thank you.
Dr. Jennifer Berry: Yeah, thank you.

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Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:

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In this episode, host Lindsay reflects on a pivotal conversation she had with educational thought leader Zaretta Hammond on episode 247 (take a listen to the full episode!). Lindsay goes back to a part in the conversation where Zaretta challenges her thinking on the concept of student voice, a framework and theory Lindsay frequently draws on from Shane Safir’s work in Pedagogies of Voice. 

Lindsay discusses how Zaretta challenged her thinking and encouraged her to pursue a more nuanced approach to effectively teach both independent and dependent learners. 

Why? 
Research emphasizes the importance of adaptive change in educational spaces, particularly the need to incorporate both student voice and cognitive coaching. Zaretta Hammond suggests that while student voice is a powerful tool, it must be coupled with coaching strategies that help students understand and articulate their own learning processes, especially for dependent learners. 

What?

To strike this balance—the balance of student voice, yes, but also reaching all learners—Lindsay explores the Kubler-Ross change curve in relation to how she’s processing the challenges Zaretta brought to her thinking. 

The Kubler-Ross curve goes from denial to frustration, and then to depression, experimentation, decision, and integration (in order). Lindsay recognizes that her response in the moment to Zaretta’s challenges, follows this curve. She started with a sense of shame or embarrassment for not understanding something, but Zaretta responded with information that helped her reflect more deeply on this and adjust her thinking about student voice and transformative leadership. 

Here are  some key reflection points: 

1) Start with Communication and Information
Begin by addressing the initial denial stage of the change curve. It's crucial to communicate clearly with learners about the purpose and structure of educational approaches. Providing information helps demystify the learning process and encourages engagement.

2) Reflect and Support
During the stages of frustration and depression, support learners through reflective practices. Encourage them to watch, listen, and express their frustrations in a safe environment. Use coaching to help them process these emotions and integrate new strategies.

3) Experiment and Test Ideas 
Engage in playful experimentation with new ideas and practices. This stage involves testing out strategies and reflecting on their effectiveness. Zaretta Hammond's "chew and remix" approach allows learners to make sense of new information in a way that is meaningful to them.

4) Scan Your Hard-drive
Assist learners in scanning their own experiences and understanding past learning moments, just as Linday did after this conversation. Educators can encourage students to draw from previous successes in adapting new learning strategies, facilitating personal growth, and reflection.

5) Commit and Practice
Finally, encourage learners to commit to new approaches and integrate them into their regular practice. Focus on building emotional stamina and resilience, fostering an environment where new learning strategies become embedded and habitual.

Final Thoughts

The takeaway here is that it’s not student voice or cognitive coaching—it’s both. Both are important, just as literacy and critical thinking are important. But just as you can’t skip over literacy to reach criticality, Zaretta’s challenge was that we can’t skip over the “learn-to-learn” skills that help dependent learners and only focus on student voice. 

Finally, it’s always important to connect with learners on a human level by validating their experiences and emotions throughout the change process. This is the foundation for all our work, whether the emphasis is on student voice, cognitive coaching, helping dependent learners, or other areas that educators and coaches are focusing on.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Discourse Analysis Framework with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 248 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.
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​​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT

Ep 248Lindsay Lyons: Welcome back to the Time for teachership podcast. Last week we had the amazing Retta Hammond on the podcast. If you have not listened to that episode or engaged with that episode, please go back. Check that out. If you have not, and you insist on watching, listening to this first, uh. Feel free to engage knowing there was a conversation last week, and I'm gonna actually pull pieces of that conversation that we're gonna debrief or I'm gonna kind of unpack, uh, my own thinking around because Red Hammond makes you think and she has made me think, and I continue to think about our conversation in a particular part of our conversation.
So I'll be playing parts of that recording and that conversation. But for the larger one, you can go back and return to last week's at Lindsay beth lyons.com/blog/ 2 4 7. And then this is episode 2 48, so here we go. Reflections on my conversation with is Retta Hammond.
There was a moment in the conversation last week in which Zaretta Hammond stopped me and corrected my thinking. That student voice was this kind of end all, be all like supporting all students. And I'm gonna play part of this conversation and I'm gonna unpack my thinking of it. And I encourage you to think with me.
If you're a person who. Kind of would've thought the same way I thought. Um, which just for context prior to what I'm about to play you, which is her response I was saying, I read her book, um, rebuilding Students' Learning Power in Conversation, and at the same time as. Pedagogies is a voice, uh, by Shane and her colleagues.
And I of course love street data and talk about it all the time. Shane's previous book that she wrote with Jamela Dugan, um, on the podcast, and I was like, oh, this is the answer. Student voice is the answer to how we do kind of instructional observations, and we coach teachers and we, you know, assess what's happening in a classroom and in the learning environment, and students can just talk about their learning.
And so here is what she says.
Zaretta Hammond: I would, I wanna stop you right there because I think that is another core proxy, right? I love pedagogy of voice. I love Shane's work. Shane, I used to be coworkers, so I know her work and the kind of the foundation that it's on. And I think it is powerful. It is geared toward independent learners. So if you actually understand that who's talking, who actually has the understanding, because this is why I wrote the book.
So I think they're, they are compatible, but they are the continuum. We have a tendency to gear things around students who just may not be motivated, but they are not dependent learners. They are not so far behind. They're not three, four grade levels behind. They're not non-readers. These are the students.
Those dependent learners are the ones we have a tendency to forget about because it becomes a little more sexy to actually focus on, well, let's talk about students that are learning. The ones that actually can engage us in that conversation don't necessarily need our support. And I'm not saying young people don't need our support.
Every student needs to continue to grow until they are finished with their K 12 experience and they are, they have the tools and the confidence and the disposition to go forward, but there is a lot of students who are just being passed through and will never reach that graduation point with that full concert of disposition and skills.
That is what my book is focused on. That's what I hear from leaders. So talking to students about their learning is very different when you are trying to give them new tools for the learning because they can't tell you that. They can't tell you why they get stuck. They don't know what their own choke point is.
They have a belief that I'm just either broken as a student, as a learner, and I can't do that. They don't necessarily understand the role of effort, so they can't even speak to that. So what I'm saying is we need that full continuum. We need what pedagogy the voice brings, particularly as we wanna level up those students who have said, yes, I wanna step into my learning.
I got something to say about that. But the majority of folks. Students that leaders are worried about is the silent majority of dependent learners. And so I do think they're complimentary. I think the reality though is we shouldn't think. We can just interview students, give them more voice is going to teach them those five, learn how to learn skills.
Lindsay Lyons: Okay, so I sat with that for a second and I'll play you a little bit more of that conversation and my response in the moment. But I want to really break down, uh, kind of the Kula Ross change curve, the changing of mental models, kind of the whole conversation that Tta Hammond and I were having, which is that it is hard to make this shift.
And leading change involves some human elements, some strategic thinking, right? It is an adaptive change we're asking teachers to make here, to coach. Students cognitively and to help students recognize and learn their personal learning algorithm in in her words. Right? And so I'm just kind of breaking down my reflections immediately in the conversation.
Here's what was going through my brain and I'm being very transparent 'cause I want to recognize that a lot of us experience these moments of. Uh, discomfort and disorientation in the research from Mero who talks about this. Um, so I had this moment of like embarrassment and shame. Oh my gosh, I got this wrong.
I am not smart. I said this silly thing instead of in front of the red Hammond, and she had to correct me, right? Uh, that was like my initial number one, like red cheeks and very pale skin. Like my, my cheeks get really red, so I'm like, oh, and now she sees my embarrassment. Um, then my immediate next piece was a little bit of defensiveness, so.
I was like, oh my gosh, my identity as a teacher, as a scholar, as like this, this space I have pursued, um, as, as my title that I call myself as an educational justice coach, right? This, this pursuit of educational justice, like I am a failure. I was not actually serving the students that I wanted to serve.
Oh my goodness. Like, and as a result. Because there was all of this, like this shame spiral, right? A adaptive leadership scholars would call this like, hi fits. We call this resistance as loss, right? The loss of my identity in that moment, or the perceived loss of my identity, right, is like why? I'm like, oh, then that there must be some part of this that is actually wrong, that I am still right.
Right. So we have the embarrassment, the shame, the defensiveness. Then my brain just completely kinda shuts down. I had this like. Moment of pause where I'm like, I have no idea what I'm going to say in this moment. 'cause my brain is like shutting down. And actually, I, I will talk about this, uh, a little bit further in the episode, but like, I.
My brain shut down so much that as I was processing later on, like I was having drawing these conclusions and learning these things, and I went back to re-listen to the recording and I was like, oh, actually there, there was so much of this that Loretta Hammond was giving me, he was offering me, was sharing with me, with, with our audience.
And I like, didn't, I wasn't able to take it all in. It must must've been there somewhere in my consciousness 'cause it came out and as I was thinking more, um, but that, that. Wasn't something that I immediately was processing and sense making in the moment because it was so, like my brain was in this, doing this other thing, like my brain and body were in the shame spiral, the defensiveness, the like learning can't happen there, right?
And so I think there's so much of this that is instructive for us as adults, but also for students and like what is optimal learning? But that's a different episode. So the Cooper Ross change curve is something I wanted to bring up because it is featured in one of our episodes, I think episode one 90 on leading Change.
Um, and so I, I thought a lot about this and I actually wanted to like map my experience both onto leading change theories and stuff that is present in episode one 90. And we'll link that in the extended show notes for this as well. Um, but also. Retta Hammond's, like key point about learning to learn and the five learn to learn skills that she has brilliantly come up with.
And so I'm going to process this, uh, in, in kind of integrating both of those. So here we go. So the Kubler-Ross change curve. It goes from denial to frustration to depression, to experiment, to decision to integration. And so in the denial stage, my response, um, they say that the reaction is like shock and denial here.
And the state is kind of just like we stay at the status quo. And the approach to coaching through this is to communicate information. So here, here is what my response was, right? Embarrassment, shame, brain shut down. And Retta Hammond's solution in that moment. I mean, we're also on a podcast, but like brilliant, she just shared information, right?
So her frame is like, it, you know, it's helping students with, with um, low motivation, but who are actually still to a degree, independent learners, right? That's the fact. Like it is not that student voice is messed up and ineffective, it's actually just helping this group of students. And if students can't articulate what's happening in the learning process, then.
Like it's not super helpful to just ask them a bunch of questions about their learning. Right. Helpful information, right? Then the next phase of this Cooper Rush curve is kind of this frustration and depression space, and this is the state where they're like, you're in a state of kind of disruption.
Right? That's why I said like my brain was kind of shutting down. Maybe that's kind of this phase as well, and the approach here for leaders or coaches in this space is to watch, listen and support, and so. In my response rate, I have this kind of defensive mood. I have this loss of identity sense. My pursuits are failures, and so my, my approach was to deeply reflect, and I'm lucky enough to have a coach on my team as well, who really just helps me like, reflect and prompts reflection and give space for the emotions in the thinking.
And that was great because what I would do is I would have, I have my phone when I run. Um, and that's often a really good reflective time for me. And so I'm kind of sense making as I'm running the days after this conversation, leaving myself some written notes, some audio notes. I had just kind of this consistent journaling, um, activity.
And so I'm just doing a lot of thinking in this time. Um, so again, the watchlist and support resulted in just like thinking for me if I'm doing this on my own. Um, and then we have the experiment phase, and so this is really a place to kind of like play with and test ideas. I connected very much to t Hammond's kind of chew and remix phase of learning.
Um, I know there's like the five learn to learn skills and there's the process and, and to me that one is like the, the most interesting, um, because there's like, that's the sense making that was like lacking in the moment. For me in this conversation. And so here's kind of what I've been playing with and grappling within the days after and like testing out this, like understanding that it's truly a both and, right?
And, and I know like, we'll all play with the clip for you, the next clip for you in a minute. And I know she said this in the last clip I played, but it is, that's what she's saying, right? It's, it's like a both end. It's a continuum. I love her language around that. Um, but this idea of like the learn to learn skills, uh.
I think is, is applicable here. Perhaps it's just like the first three in this particular stage of the curve, but size it up and break it down as sort of step one, right? And so I'm thinking, okay, so the pieces are really student voice here. We have student voice as like an approach, um, and student voice. I also wanna like clarify for anyone who's listening and thinking like, oh, voice and choice is this kind of like tool or strategy in school spaces.
So my, uh, orientation to this work is very much like in the student voice, um, research field in the sense of like student voice in the un rights of the child. And so thinking about like, voice in all that I do and, and that this is something that, uh. Like students should be able to just make decisions about their lives.
So extended beyond the classroom, but also like the learning environment and other factors of the classroom that most of the world has ratified in the United States has not, which is interesting, but digression. Okay. Specific groups of students is another piece. So we have dependent learners and independent learners.
So she's talking about and clarifying that distinction here for me. And then skills, I'm, I'm thinking about the skills that are prerequisites to enable students to effectively participate in student voice opportunities when asked, right? What, what they, uh, what decisions they want to make or what they want their learning environments to be.
Um, like that's another kind of component of this conversation as well as kind of this arc of change theory in this mental model, um, shift that is happening f for me in this moment, and for educators probably. And so the next phase that she talks about is scan the hard drive. And so I scanned my own hard drive.
I've been scanning and think, Hey, I've had to unlearn before I've had, I've been in very uncomfortable moments where I have had similar feelings. I survived. I am better for it. And I actually look back on those moments and say, wow, I'm so full of gratitude for the people who have like, kind of beared with me.
I think that's the past tense of bear, uh, bored with me. Um, and, and. Just created like a space for me to learn. Like just, just we're willing to correct, to push back, to expand my thinking. Right. Again, I'm thinking, I'm thinking every day now, every conversation. I feel like I had mentioned the James Ingham comment of like, when we are in conversation with another, our goal is to expand our thinking so we're not just leaving thinking the same things that we came into the conversation with.
Right. And I'm just so grateful when that happens because when I end a conversation with someone who. We just were head nodding the whole time. It is not the same feeling. Might be comfortable, might be smiley, but it is not the same feeling as, wow, I really grew here. Like I really, my thinking has pushed.
It will result in some action. Um, and we're gonna get to that in a minute. But I, I just wanna like acknowledge that that like scanning a hard drive actually helped me realize I have been here before. I have been in the discomfort. The discomfort is actually good. I talk about this all the time. Like living it is a little bit different, right?
Having the, the real emotional, um, component is very different than just like, academically talking about information. But like, this is, this is the thing, okay, I'm affirmed moving to chew and remix, which is her step three. Um, or the third learn to learn scale. So here I, I talk about, um, or thought about, excuse me.
My experience with Student Voice, I had so many moments in the student created units that I would do, um. And then students would just tell me, I mean, really great students as well, like definitely independent learners did this as well. Um, but it's just really interesting to me to think about, uh, that moment of, okay, like what would you like to learn about or what is interesting to you about this?
Or how would you like to, like, demonstrate your learning? I mean, just like all sorts of of things. Conversations that I would have with students and a lot of students would tell me, just tell me what to do. Like you're the teacher, just. Choose for me, like just, I will do the thing. You can tell like, and I think there's so many aspects to that that when I now think of student voice, um, and over the past couple of years I've thought about like there should really be a leadership coaching for students in concert with coaching for teachers to invite student voice like that would make it effective and to.
When you are just expecting students to answer when it's like the first time they've ever been given choice in something like it's not gonna, it's not gonna potentially be fruitful. It might, the student might have, um, experience outside of school, external to school and be, uh, thinking about yo's cap, cultural capital, uh, cultural wealth model and cultural capitals that she discusses.
And there's a lot of, like, I've had to navigate institutions like I've had to. You know, push back on things. Like, I have had that experience and now I'm ready because I, I have been in those spaces, um, perhaps not in your class, but in others, and I'm gonna bring that skill set in. Other students have not.
Right. It's been, I, this is, I've been fairly successful in school. You tell me what to do, I do this. Okay. Again, digression, sorry. The cognitive routines. I love that. Za Red Hammond talks about cognitive routines and these have actually been really interesting to map a lot of my thinking and processing on, in, in the last couple of months since I've read her book.
Um, but distinctions is one of them. So one of the cognitive routines we do, and we're kind of sensemaking is, uh, these distinctions, and I apologize if I get any of this language wrong 'cause brain science is super interesting, but definitely not. Uh, I'm, I'm not an expert and so I am on the learning journey.
Um. Distinctions. What I was thinking about here is that there are kind of different skill sets that we wanna build. There is to her point about like you're not going to talk at a kid. No amount of discussion or talking to a kid is going to like teach them what a long O sounds like, or, I can't remember exactly what she said, but that the point being like the literacy skills, right, are a skillset and.
Um, you know, purpose purposefully building literacy is, I think, a different skillset than purposefully building, uh, communication and expression skills in a leadership context and, and building the researcher skills to that I often talk about and build a capacity for with students. Um, there, there are different skill here and I wanna like distinguish and just make that distinction.
And I've, I've heard a Hammond on another podcast say. You know, we often jump to criticality and so this idea of skipping literacy and the learning algorithm and just jumping to criticality is a thing that we often tend to do. I certainly tend to do, and I think it's really important. She said, similar to what she said here in, in a similar vein, is like.
Both are needed, but we can't just jump over literacy. We can't just jump over and say, well, you can't read, but you're gonna be a critical thinker. Right? Like, both are critically important. Right. And so I have realized that my space and area of learning and research and scholarship and practice in the teaching space have very much been like my skillset is coaching on criticality.
Um. And that is where I've kind of been, I've certainly been a literacy teacher, but I don't know that I could call myself a super effective literacy teacher. Uh, I, I, let me rephrase that. I cannot call myself a, an effective literacy teacher when I jump over literacy to, to prioritize criticality, right?
Both are, are needed. And so I think also about, um, the cognitive routine relationships as I'm processing here, and I've been thinking about how. Like various skills, including literacy skills and knowledge about students'. Personal learning algorithms enable students to make the most of student voice opportunities.
So I do think there's an element of like, it's helpful to have students understand their personal learning algorithm because it will lead to more effective advocacy with student voice opportunities. That's what I think Sotta Hammond is saying. And I also think, you know. That voice can be helpful first.
Like, I don't necessarily think voice exclusively comes after. I think that's the, that's the piece that I'm so grappling with is that yes, it's a continuum, but, but maybe it's more of like a circle. Um, and, and that voice can actually help come first to support the enabling conditions so that we then. Can get to work on the learning algorithm and then it's then we're gonna get to do this unit voice around the learning process, right?
And become, as she was talking about metacognitive and meta strategic thinkers, right? So I can now know, oh, this is what I need in this moment. I can utilize this tool because I know my learning algorithm and I know the learn to learn skills and I know the tools that are helpful for me in that moment of learning.
Um, and so. I, I think about right. That's super important. And the thing that can come first to support the enabling conditions might be, and this is, so this has been something I've hung onto a lot from my conversation with Loretta Hammond, is this idea of, like, I often talk about adaptive challenges and I cite or quote, uh, hefe scratch Linsky who talk about how, what we really need to get at, um, what underlies adaptive challenges, like the value, habit, and loyalty.
And then she was like, actually, uh. You know, she said, it's a story, right? And I, I'm like, whoa, I have like, never made that connection. 'cause I'm always talking about stories and personal connections and, and this, this entry point in it is the story. Of, for example, she was saying the story, the students were saying, I'm broken as a learner.
This sense of identity that comes from the story that we've been telling, students have been telling, teachers have been telling the student. Right. And I think part of what Student Voice can do is that it can first, um, surface, it can support the surfacing and, and kind of dispelling the story of I'm Broken as a learner.
So that we now have more enabling conditions so that we can now do the thinking about our thinking. So we can be metacognitive, meta strategic, do the learn to learn skills, and then we can advocate, um, even more intentionally around learning and utilizing those various tools. So I think that's, that's my current understanding.
I mean, ask me tomorrow and it might be really different, but, um, that is my current moment in time snapshot of what my brain is thinking. It's a both, and it's valuable for and after students become independent learners, but in different ways, like it's gonna, it's gonna look different. And so I think now the final phase of the change curve is decision and integration.
This is where we commit, right? So I, we commit and we make a plan. So I know that my research and practice is absolutely supported the low motivation kids. I've had so many success stories of like the low motivation kids who maybe actually are independent learners but have had not a lot of entry points.
Um, and yeah, that's great for them. And I can acknowledge that and commit to growing my ability to help dependent learners because I have not done a good job with that. And. I need to, and, and when I'm working with dependent learners and it's very much been like the Russian and like I will just hop from table to table and then you call me over, I'm not actually coaching, uh, coaching cognitively, um, you to understand your own personal learning algorithm.
I'm just kind of like over scaffolding, which is like a frustration as a coach now and like reflecting as a, as a teacher, I really wish someone just like pushed me hard in that area, um, because. If I get an opportunity to go back to the classroom, that is something I will grow. And as a parent, I certainly am growing more, my capacity to, um, support dependent learners in, in building, in rebuilding their learning power.
So here's what I think, uh, I making the commitment to help students who are dependent learners as a teacher, coach, parent, in all the areas I am now reviewing in terms of an action step. I'm reviewing all my coaching and workshop approaches to determine how to integrate kind of this both and like yes.
Student voice that is, I am. That is my, my training, my background, my experience, and I think it is valuable. Um, and I wanna be very clear about the purpose of the activities, the students' skills that are served with each. Each thing we're doing, cognitive coaching, student voice, like they work together. But they have to be, I think we have to be really intentional and I have to be really intentional about this is what we're building and this is what this activity leads to.
And, and actually I've been thinking a lot about outcomes-based contracting and really linking payment of people like myself, uh, educational consultants and contractors. To the actual student learning that's happening. Um, and I wanna use this to kind of support transparency in my work and commitment in my commitment.
Um, the last two parts of, uh, Retta Hammond's Learn to Learn Skills, those five skills would be skillful practice. And so this is where she says, you know, you adjust your emotional stamina, you self. And so I'm thinking about, you know, my coaching and, and spaces of integration. And as I've said, there's kind of this emotional kinda adjustment that's had to happen in my processing so I could truly sense, make and take action.
I hope that's been transparent here, uh, and that it's not been too much. And then the fifth piece is to make it sticky. So this is the actual. As I understand it, embedding and implementing. Um, for, for this particular piece for me is embedding and implementing this idea and this new mental model into my coaching and my workshops, um, and being really intentional around that.
Like, I am so fortunate, I think I said this at the beginning, that this was recorded. We don't always have the ability to go back and re-experience a conversation. And I did. So when I realized the recording, it's so funny that many of the ahas I had in thinking about it were actually present in the conversation.
Like what I said in the immediate, I totally forgot I even asked that question. I was just like so outta my head. And what's right. I Hammond said back to me like I was so focused on my discomfort and disorientation. I really couldn't process or sense make in the moment. But here is what happens, uh, next.
Absolutely. That makes total sense. I have a follow up. Yeah, do, do you think that there is value in talking to the students who might be dependent learners, not necessarily about their learning, like cognitive processes, if they haven't learned that piece yet? They don't know their choke points yet. But could um, could it be more about like learning environment things that are preconditions to that learning?
Zaretta Hammond: Well, a lot of times they can help you. They can be informed. So this is a key point I made in culturally responsive teaching in the brain that you should be in a learning partnership. This is what I say in this book around a cognitive apprenticeship. You're not trying to do anything to students. You're doing it with them.
The challenge is these students will resist. These students don't know what to ask. These students can't tell you what should be put into place. They can tell you how they feel, but again, remember the mental model conversation we just had. If they're explanatory story. Is actually, uh, I don't have the capacity or that compliance is the way through.
They are actually going to be undermining their own process. So this is why, as you read through the book, as it progresses, it's how do you get the student to be both metacognitive and then ultimately meta strategic? How do you get students to actually create the dispositions? Because they have now they can wield cognitive tools.
And part of that means you are listening to them. You are in conversation. But remember the apprenticeship model, novice journeyman mastery, you're moving students to that place where they have a greater voice. But that means I first have to unlock my understanding of what my own learning algorithm is.
And I think we have a tendency to wanna just jump to voice and choice, and we think more of that in this relational realm is going to actually shift. Instruction. It does not. We've tried that. There's nothing new about that approach, and I'm not suggesting it's not good. I'm just simply saying it's not unique in what we've tried in the past.
I think there are great tools for doing that with a equity lens and a, a much more culturally responsive way. But you're now talking about working with students who are on the other side of that inter independence that's not gonna get the, the, the students who are on the other side of cognitive redlining.
Lindsay Lyons: She's so brilliant. I am so grateful. Thank you. Ruta Hammond. For your brilliance and for your willingness to share and, and push on that. Um, I. Wanna just name that we talked in this whole conversation with Loretta Hammond. Um, and my whole conversation of like the mental model shift for me and the change experience for me reflectively in this episode.
You know, there's so many parallels to what I academically talked about in, uh, episode one 90, um, on leading change. So we'll link that in the extended show notes, but this is like, I guess the applied Human experience version. And it, it makes me think actually of Dr. Shari Bridges, Patrick's and I, uh, publication, which is adapted from Juan Eel's work.
On kind of the four quadrants of discourse and how when we're in generative mobilizing discourse, we're connecting and we're growing, and the distinction from that and kind of the share information or the intellectualizing, what we called it in the publication quadrant of conversation. Is that there is no emotion, like the human aspect is divorced from the information.
And I feel like I do a lot of that. And so one of my pushes to my own self is to kinda feel deeply, um, reach into like the human side of things, uh, both my own feelings and values, but also the values of others. And like connect on a human level. 'cause the connection and the emotional human part, I think, and the story part as, as an avenue into that space is where we grow is where we learn is where I would prefer to be than just, oh, I heard this, or here's this citation, or here's this evidence, or this book, or this scholar.
There's a lot of intellectualizing, I think, in, um, particularly white liberal spaces and discourses, and I participate that in that a lot. And I want to move more to the connecting growth space. So thinking about that and also thinking about this leading change and trying to integrate these, these ideas of kind of the head and the heart.
Um. One of the things that I, I just kinda wanna run through some of the key points that are present in there and that I'm hanging onto here and might be beneficial for our audience. Um, one thing that is discussed there is to kind of have a clear focus vision. My translation to that as I'm processing this conversation was, TTA Hammond is like, which students and skills are, is, is the PL supporting, is the PD supporting?
Right? I think that's like the vision in contracting, in conversation into the design of workshops and coaching. Cycles. It's like, what's the focus? Let's get real clear, right? What's the clear focus vision? Um, the next piece is like making time for the change. So less to focus on prioritization, right? So this is what we're doing.
We are supporting dependent learners. We are gonna have time to play with it to test things out. I love that in our, the conversation, not any of the excerpts I played for you today. But my conversation was redham and she said, you know, this is a book you can return to year after year and learn more after the next reread.
And I really appreciate that kind of permission, um, because I do think there's so much that we missed the first time around. I mean, even in just this, this one conversation, even in this like 10 minutes of conversation that I had with her that I just replayed. And then replay for you. And like the third listen is like, oh wow, I'm still getting more and more.
Um, so go back, reread, write time to test, time to integrate. Time to reflect in partnership with colleagues and professionals in the education space. The third point is to connect with the heart. So Kotter and Cohen talk about, uh, feelings that motivate useful action. I think that's really important because a lot of times what we do is we confront a discomfort.
We experience discomfort. And we kind of avoid, right? We focus on the feelings of discomfort and we don't focus on the feeling or the, what I would even argue is like a value, uh, a value alignment or the story I want to tell, right? The story I want to be true. Um, I want to be a justice focused teacher. I want to be a coach who supports dependent learners.
I want to support the kids who are not supported by other people, right? I, if that is the story I want to connect with. Then I need to connect with that story, that value, the feeling that, oh, that's not true yet. That feels uncomfortable, but that's where my heart is. So like I need to go there and now need to take action.
Right? Feelings that motivate, useful action. Thank you Ter and Cohen for that language. And then finally creating dissatisfaction and trying on other ways of thank you, uh, of thinking. So thank you Zoe Hammond for helping me to do this. I think about the work of Mero, my former. Uh, professor John Morgan.
And so, um, there's a change formula. We have, uh, glyco change formula that we put in the episode one 90, um, extended show notes, which is change equals dissatisfaction times, vision times first step is greater than resistance. So if we wanna outdo resistance. Then we need to have dissatisfaction, vision, and a first step.
'cause if any one of those are zero because they're being multiplied, the whole equation, like a zero, that side of the equation is zero and resistance wins. So the dissatisfaction is like Retta Hammond's comment sparked that disorienting dilemma for me. Right? Thank you Mero for that phrase. I have not been supporting kids to build their learning power.
Whoa. Right. That is dissatisfied. I am dissatisfied that that is the truth. Right? So that's my dis disorienting dilemma, my dissatisfaction. Now. I need a vision. Okay? I wanna help dependent learners. I want to be a person who helps the kids who are not being helped, right? Who need, who need support. Um, I wanna help dependent learners become independent learners so they can do this on their own so they don't need handholding so they can, um, feel affirmed and all the things, right?
And I still need one more thing. I need a first. And so in my estimation for this moment, I think the best first step is to apply Zaretta Hammond's learn to learn skills to ultimately integrate these ideas and be a more effective coach and educator and parent and human. Um, so that's where I am right now.
Please check out I was Ata Hammond's book. Rebuilding students' learning power. It is absolutely incredible. Read it like six or seven times. Listen to and engage with the episode, um, last week. And this one, share this with a friend if that feels helpful. If they're going through a, uh, mental model shift or change journey, um, you can find the extended show notes and any relevant links for this [email protected] slash blog slash 2 4 8.
And thank you everyone.

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