 Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Lindsay Lyons: Sean Priest has been the principal at Sequoia High School in Redwood City, California since 2014. He helped drive and strengthen a culture of equity and systemic reform in order to serve the large and diverse bay area population of students and families. Sequoia's priorities under Sean's leadership have been shifting grading practices towards greater equity, expanding inclusion in the schools I. P. Program, implementing mindfulness practices schoolwide, and developing future leaders in education. He completed a Stanford Principal Fellowship in 2017 and leads school accreditation teams for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Prior to becoming a school leader, Sean taught Spanish and AVID for eight years. For reference, this episode was recorded August 18th, 2021. Let's hear from Sean Priest. Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality, and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. 00:01:07 I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in. Sean Priest, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Sean Priest: Hello. Thanks for having me. This is awesome. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you so much for being here. I'm excited for our conversation today. I know I just read your professional bio, is there anything else you would like to say to further introduce yourself to our listeners Sean Priest: Only that I really feel, and this is every day that I have the best job in the world. There's no two days that are alike. Being a principal is always exciting, it's challenging, but those challenges are worthy and the problems that we solve are ones that help make people's lives better. 00:02:13 And over the years I've gotten to know so many amazing people on their good days and on their bad days, they've definitely enriched my life. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, that's awesome, thank you so much for sharing that. I love that. And so one of the things we like to start with on this show is this idea of freedom dreaming and kind of the dreams that we have for education and I absolutely love Dr. Bettina Love's quote about freedom dreaming where she says, dreams grounded in the critique of injustice and really kind of what we're talking about. And so with that quote in mind, what is the big dream that you hold for the field of education? Sean Priest: Well for me it's all about empowerment. I think about our students coming in and we use this phrase equity and access equity and outcomes a lot as part of our, you know, discussions around our values and how they inform what we do. And so for me it's all about empowerment. It's all about helping students understand what their story is. And how to, I think draw from that story. Lindsay Lyons: I love that, that's so great and I love that equity and access equity and outcomes as well. When you think about kind of the equity journey that you and your school have kind of taken and the practices that you embody as an educational community, were there times where people had to like shift their minds from more traditional grading, traditional assessment, traditional practices to what you have now, or was, you know, the mindset kind of already present in so many of the educators and it just kind of has, has been refined and honed and flourished, that I'm curious about this minds at peace because I think for so many listeners who might be in traditional schools or have colleagues who are, you know, traditionally grading and they're trying to experiment with something different, you know, what is that mindset shift that maybe needs to occur in a traditional setting, to be able to have more equity in assessment and equity and outcome? 00:04:05 Sean Priest: Yeah. For us, what was successful was really grounding the conversation from the beginning and values. So I, you know, I never came to my staff and said, here's what we're gonna do because I think it's the right thing. I feel like sources of authority are at there are our strongest when they are grounded in sort of a moral imperative, You know. I mean, I can get the building to get out onto the football field by turning on the alarm and going on to the loudspeaker because everybody acknowledges that my authority as the principal is to be able to evacuate the building and keep people safe. But when it comes to actually changing classroom practices and having people who have maybe been doing something for some way for their entire career and are used to that even before they started into teaching, those are, that's a much different conversation. And so to ground those changes in, hey, I'm the principal, this is what I want to do. Or even, hey, your department members are doing this. I need you to come along. You're gonna have a very low rate of return. So what we've done from the beginning is sort of exercised in conversations about values. And I've been really explicit, I frame my values around questions, you know, so I'm saying like I need people to know that to be on the same page as me, 00:05:20 you're affirmatively answering the question, do you believe that all students want to be successful in their learning? I mean that's just like the fundamental for me, right? It's not just students, all people, people want to be successful in the things they said about to learn and to master, otherwise they wouldn't set about to learn then to master. Now, that's not always the same thing as being successful in school, but it pretty much, I think it's true across the board, whether it's skateboarding, video games or calculus. And then the other question that I always follow that one up with is do you believe that there are things outside of students control that are impeding that learning or impeding that success? And so now it gets really interesting because the third question is, do you believe that it's our duty as public educators to either dismantle those obstacles or boost kids over those obstacles or take a sledgehammer and try and crash down those obstacles so that our students can break through. And, and for me, that's what's exciting about, you know, working in this field, that's what's exciting about public 00:06:23 and guess what I've said for years that public education is really the frontline of the civil rights movement in this country, certainly. And so the answering affirmatively to all those things leads them to where I think the biggest kind of intersection, when you think about what are those obstacles and what are the roots of those obstacles, whether their cultural, whether they're systemic within education, whether their socioeconomic, whether their cognitive, whatever those obstacles are, that impede students from their learning. For me, it then becomes a question of, okay, let's let's look at our grading practices and how, how we grade, right? Unless it's purely a reflection. And then the way that we give feedback unless it's purely a reflection of how successful the student has been in mastering the standards. What is it, what is it then? Is it reinforcing some of those systemic obstacles? Is it reinforcing some of those cognitive obstacles and then we can start to have a real conversation that's grounded in this moral imperative, right? I believe I answered yes to those first three questions. Why am I still giving extra credit for tissues for Kleenex boxes? 00:07:32 Yeah. So that's kind of how I ground those equity conversations. What's been really cool though, is that over the past two years, and again, you work in a community that is brought at least for me at a large comprehensive high school and where we're at where we're situated, we serve community pockets of a large community that are going to come with their own ideas about social justice, about equity, about public education. And so sometimes, and this has been always been kind of a frustrating thing for me, because I take language very seriously. Sometimes I found myself kind of couching these conversations in the sort of euphemisms that I would maybe rather not use. I'd rather be more explicit. And so what's been cool about the last couple of years is that we've just been calling white supremacy culture, white supremacy culture, we've just been calling racism, racism. And so that's been nice because now I think for anyway, for our staff and, and you know, having been here for a while, we've been able to hire and orient enough teachers around our values so that now we're kind of on the same page in a big way. For a school with 130 teachers, to really have these explicit conversations and really ground these tough, hey, I'm going to change what I'm doing this year conversations in because I have to unless I want to be continuing to uphold some of these systemic issues. 00:08:56 So that's been powerful. Lindsay Lyons: That's amazing. So I love the idea of framing it as question values of questions. I think that's such a great way to engage people in that conversation. If the initial language is like a barrier to engagement and then having that language paired, that's like really precise and honest paired with the questions, I think it's a lovely kind of combination to engage teachers in that journey. And I also just love the quote that you said, that education is the front line of the civil rights movement. I think that's so profound and so much of what we're doing, right?. If we're not educating for justice, what are we really doing here? So I think that's really great. You talked a bit about assessment and I know we wanted to dive into that conversation a bit more. What does that, you know, look like to have equitable assessment and so thinking about kind of the brave actions that it takes to kind of continue an educational community in the vein of justice and equity. What steps can leaders take, particularly when thinking about grading and assessment, You know, what does it mean to be anti racist and how we grade or assess students? 00:09:58 What does it mean to be equitable in assessments? Sean Priest: Well, I think, you know, the most important thing is that you're, the grades that you give, and how you determine what those grades are, and the feedback that you give students about how they can, you know, demonstrate their mastery, right? As it connects to those grades, has to be consistent. And it has to be just about the learning, right? And it's really hard because what I've found over the years is that very few practices that I would call inequitable, especially around grading and assessment, come from a place of wanting to uphold inequities. In most cases, what I've found is that, you know, the kinds of things teachers are doing, things like participation grades that are highly subjective, are a lot of times away for teachers say, well, this kid doesn't do that well on my tests. And I don't, but I don't want to give him a D. I want to give him a B. So let me just give him a huge participation score, which, you know, okay, you feel better because the student got a B, but in reality that's a, like almost designed for that one kid, right? 00:11:11 As opposed, and maybe you put that in place because your first or second year as a teacher, you did find yourself going through with the quarter at the semester and there was that one kid, like, I can't, I just don't feel right about this, I got to switch things up and have this, you know, a nebulous, subjective way that I can sort of alter grades when it comes time to at the end of the semester, so that I can, but it's just then over time that that becomes a practice. And how much does that erode from its initial intent to being away for you or for a teacher to uphold practices that ultimately, you know, don't help kids or don't help your school in your school culture be more equitable. So those are, and so those are really hard to let go of as well, because you see, I come from this place at, from a good place. The other one, I think that's really tough for teachers to let go of is the motivation piece, right? And the idea of homework, which to me has always been a, you know, a social justice issue, right? 00:12:15 Homework is an equity issue and whether or not a student has a job, especially when you're talking about high school. You know I was in a US History class with 11th graders last year or last week sorry. And just I had a few minutes to, I was covering for a teacher and they were done with their assignments. So I just started talking with them and I said how many of you all had a summer job, you know like raise your hand if you work this summer. And I knew, I mean I had an idea that there was gonna be a lot of students who raised their hands. And sure enough it was a good 80% of the kids in the class. So then we started talking about where they had worked, boys and girls club, chick fillet all over the place. You had a whole range of, and so to understand, yeah everybody's working, everybody's proud of that work. You know, that was the other thing is that the kids lit up. They all got really quiet and listen to each other as they were talking about what their summer jobs were, right? And so this idea, especially when you're dealing with high schoolers that everybody's just going home, everybody is going to a desk and turning on their lamp in their room and opening their, cracking open their books and getting to work and if they're not doing that, they don't care about their education. Like that's a really archaic idea. 00:13:18 If I reframe it that way, everybody is going to roll their eyes and say, well, that's not what I believe. But if homework has a 40%, 60%, 30%, 10% value, you are in some way acknowledging that that's what you believe, right? And if you're saying, well, if I don't put a grade on to it, then the kids won't do their homework. You know, it sounds great. Everybody's like, yeah, if you don't put any value on and there are kids who purely do homework for the value of it on as it affects their grade because that's how they've been trained and they're good at learning. And there's other students though, and a lot of students who getting a zero on the homework does not mean, oh, shoot, I better do my homework tonight. It doesn't change anything because maybe they don't have that kind of choice for those kinds of opportunities or resources or maybe it's just not a motivator. So I think kind of disabusing some of those notions, right, that kids will not continue to work. Because we've seen examples, within models that don't grade, you know, that don't provide value to homework where again, that appears that pier equitable model where the grade truly is a reflection of how well the student has been able to demonstrate mastery of the standards. Here are the things that everybody is going to learn in this class. 00:14:29 Here are the ways that you're going to be able to demonstrate. And there are lots of ways that you're gonna be able to demonstrate it. And as few of them as possible are time bound. In other words, if you can master this, you can show me that you've mastered this in october, great. But if you can't do it until March, also, great because we've got the whole year together and the most important thing is that you've mastered this standard at the end of it. Now, you're starting to open up conversations about what are ways that were actually differentiating for some of those cognitive differences in students, linguistic differences in students and again, some of those things socioeconomic or cultural where kids don't have necessarily the same amount of time and resources at home to do things like homework., so those are again, those are the conversations that you open up when you start really, I think giving staff time to step back and reflect on what their practices are really are. Because I think that's the other thing is we're just in such a fast paced environment. We don't take a lot of time to step back and say, okay, we are going to really look at what we do. We've been lucky through our Education Foundation will be able to fund a release day for every department. 00:15:36 So each department has pulled out of school once a year and we've done that for gosh, the past, I think 13 years or so here at Sequoia. It's been a while and for many of those years we will, we've looked at grading explicitly, right? And the conversation always starts with like a little self assessment. So just on your own, everybody take your laptop and go through this questionnaire and then let's look at the results and really think about how, what you do aligns with what you profess to be your values, and that's where you get the aha. And then it's not me saying, hey, I need you to stop doing this practice, it's the teacher thing, I need to stop doing this practice because it's, it's actually harming kids. Lindsay Lyons: I love so much of what you just said, particularly, I love that you were able to have that release date for each department. I know as a teacher when I finally got to a school where we would, we would have a day, we would usually use as curriculum development like we're in a department, we're brainstorming the cool curriculum that were, you know, personalizing for our students and I love that also, I think it really connects and you're kind of speaking to this beyond just like the grading and how you actually give the reflection on a student's piece of work and what it is, 00:16:44 great. It's also creating the opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery in a variety of ways, which is also curriculum development in a way, right? It's where do we enable students to have multiple opportunities in multiple means? And I love that you said it's not time bound because I think that's the other thing that teachers who are kind of shifting to that idea are struggling with or I've heard that they struggle with is, but I need all of my class to be on, you know, this particular unit and this particular moment in time so that we can move on together. Whereas that's just not how student brains work. And so, you know, recognizing that it's going to take people more time. And also recognizing, you know, these are the skills as you said, and these are the standards that we're assessing being really thoughtful to and what we're choosing to focus on and center and have multiple opportunities throughout the year to practice and demonstrate mastery on, I think is a huge kind of planning piece to this, this equitable assessment work and also very necessary if we want to have equity and how we grade. Because if we say there's like, you know, 500 standards that we're going to, you know, assess students on, 00:17:51 it's just impossible to give 500 assessments multiple times for each standard. And so it's really, I think that priority conversation sounds like it might be I am wondering I guess is that part of the conversation when people have those released days of how do we plan for this? How do we plan the standards and the assessment pieces? Sean Priest: Yes. And you know, we we've been lucky here at Sequoia to have very smart and strategic department chairs who have partnered in creating, you know, the sort of the the next, you know, step in a day like that, right? So we lay out, here's how the day is going to start, and then where do we envision this going for your department? And each department is kind of in its own place as you do this kind of work. You know, we were never, we never sat down and said we want to be a standards based grading school by, you know, 2015 or something like that. We said here's what we want to do. Here's what, here's where we want to go. We want it, we want to like expand equitable grading practices across our school. 00:18:55 And we would love that to mean that let's say 50% of our teachers, our curricular teams rather are doing this consistently within three years within five years. And then it became really a conversation with the department chairs. How do you think we get there? And what is this day look like? The reason that the fourth, you know, I went through those three of those four questions. The reason that the fourth question question for me is about grading as opposed to, let's say, just you know, standards or curriculum or some other areas because I do feel and you you touched on it, I think, right? That all these conversations spiral out of grading for me, that's where they all sort of meet. And because you do you know when you are thinking to yourself, I need to come up with a grade book, and each grade book has to have an item in the grade book and each each item has to have a point value and those point values need to be weighted so that you know. That kind of dictates how your whole semester is going to lay out, that's how you're gonna build units, lessons the whole thing, right? 00:19:58 Whereas when you say like, the goal is to, you know, by the time we run out of days, right? that my students will have been able to demonstrate mastery of these, let's say 10 standards. Then it's a whole different conversation about how you sort of structure your time and I think it allows for a lot more creativity and freedom and certainly that we get back to this idea of empowerment, right? The most effective models that I've seen are when the teachers have designed an interface, and some of the grading platforms do this okay, but that where there is an interface that the student can interact with, where they can actually see where they're at with all of those standards. That's the conversation, right? That is most interesting in this is when you just run into a kid in the hallway and you ask them about their English class and instead of telling you what novel they're reading, right? They tell you, oh, well, you know, what, what are you working on now? Well, I'm trying to get better at, you know, defending claims with evidence, like that's like, okay, 00:21:04 yes, like that's what I want to, that's exciting, right? And that's ultimately what, you know, because there's that's something that the kids sees, hey, this is something that makes me more effective and more like this, This gives me power, this allows me to flex and and so that's really exciting to me when you can, when you design a model, the whole course kind of comes kind of shakes out of this model where where it's all about students really understanding what they're doing. And if they haven't and it takes a lot of that anxiety to away, like, so we have a whole component of our school site plan that addresses socio emotional wellness and balance, right? I feel like when we talk about grading that's a huge source of stress and anxiety for kids, whether it's the kids who are trying to get into uber competitive colleges or whether it's kids who just don't feel like they belong because they've never, You know, had success academically and so that by the time they're in 9th, 10th, 11th grade, I just sort of given up on school as being something that's there for them or something that's theirs. 00:22:06 This model of saying, you know what, you have a lot of power here, right? And your ability to demonstrate master, we're gonna give you lots of opportunities and different ways you might demonstrate that mastery. Now, all of a sudden that changes the equation. It makes it so that this quiz on friday isn't do or die if I do great on it, awesome, if I don't, it doesn't sink my grade, I still might get in to Ramona even though I didn't do well on the quiz on Friday. And I think it just creates a better sense of balance of the school and then you can really say, hey, we care about wellness and students say, yeah, but I'm like doing eight hours of homework a night or yeah. but this teacher keeps failing because I don't, you know, bring my homework in or I'm late to class. So I keep losing points. So do you care about me? Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Such profound examples. And I love that you're talking about voice and centering, kind of a student voice and student power and ownership of this process. And I think, one of the things that I'm curious about is you as a leader are dedicated to leading schoolwide growth towards equity. 00:23:13 You see that in the conversations about grading we've just had, and I'm curious to know kind of two questions related to that. One : What are the sources of authority that informed, like how you lead and how you're an equitable leader? And then also like what are the actions that if a listener is thinking, like, I wanna, you know, lead equitable change in my school, that you found to be really successful in advancing equity in your school? Sean Priest: So the conversation about sources of authority is for me rooted in a, and I keep it close by here. I'm not, this is not, this is a book called Moral Leadership by Thomas Sergiovanni. And I was introduced to this book probably seven years ago and he's explicit about naming the different sources. There's lots of sources of authority, right? So my ability just to have a conversation one on one maybe with one of my staff members and their orientation to me and to the school and to their profession, that might be enough. I might be able to just say, "hey, I really need you to do this. It's really important to me." but that's not gonna work for 130 teachers and it might not even be sustaining, right? 00:24:21 That might not be something that teachers like, great, I'll do whatever you say. And then when the next person comes along and says, now I need you to do this and say, okay, I'll do that. But for me that again, that this was the highest authority comes from that moral source, right? So it's not like, I hope that nobody at my school is doing work around equity because they think that's what I want them to do. I hope they value my partnership and know that I'm there to support them and defend their work if it comes under scrutiny. But I hope they're not doing it just because they think I want them to, because that's not sustaining, right? The work should come from the idea that to, but do this would be sort of an abdication of this, I think very, very sacred duty that we have in public education, which is to dismantle some of these obstacles, whatever obstacles we can to keep our students from being successful in their learning, because it's a really sacred covenant, I think that we have, right? I mean, you're setting more than anything. 00:25:22 We talk about the skills of the 21st century and do we know what our students are, the jobs, they're even going to have? All that stuff is very interesting, is sort of a thought exercise. But at the end of the day, like if we don't graduate students who feel like they can be successful in their learning and that they can, that they will be successful in their learning because they have specific strategies and skills and examples of where it's worked and that's the ultimate failure, Right? So I find that to be I think the most potent source of authority. It's again, it's not about necessarily systems that we put in place or things that we do, but really the taking the time, setting aside the time to have the conversations where folks, you know, very, very smart professionals come to these conclusions on their own and or maybe pushed to do so, but it's not about because you know, the the principal says so or you know, I want to do what Sean says, that's not sustaining, Lindsay Lyons: I love that you're emphasizing to throughout the conversation just that moment of reflection or those moments of reflection, because I think that for colleagues, you know adults, but also young people in classes and having that ability, like you're saying to recognize they can be successful in their learning both in and out of school, both now and in the future and that I think is the moments where I have seen personally myself learned most, and also the students in my classes learn the most when we actually take the time to have those reflective moments and think about what worked for me, what didn't work for me? 00:26:51 Let's have the conversation. And so that reflection, I feel like it's just such a strong theme, whether you're leading a staff or you know, you're facilitating a classroom learning experience, that reflection seems to be really critical to leading equity work and growing and being really an empowered kind of agent of change for oneself. Sean Priest: Another reflection that we have this, Yeah, is how do we model what we want to see in the teacher's, right? So if I'm, you know, advocating for teachers to let go maybe of some of their authority, you know, things they've held as authority pieces in their classroom, or if I'm advocating for teachers to look for ways that they can empower students through their practices, you got to do the same thing, right? You can't be an autocrat and then expect the other to work the other way. So, in terms of school leadership, you know, it is there's lots of opportunity that's kind of always the first question that we ask when we're trying to design some of these experiences as our admin team are working with our department chairs or some of our other teacher leaders, how are we going to model what we want to see in the activities that we do? 00:28:07 Lindsay Lyons: It's such a profound kind of concept. I remember I, we were talking before we started recording that I used to work at a NPS school or international network for public schools and they have these principles that they operate under and one of them is a shared learning model and so that's exactly what it was. It's we as adults are modeling and doing the same exact things in our own growth and development that we aim for students to do. And it opens up so many cool conversations where you can just talk to students about what you're learning and what you're doing and we've invited students into professional development. And we've kind of co learned together and there's so much opportunity when you're able to work and operate in that way. So I'm so thankful that you brought that up, I think that's super cool. Sean Priest: I'm fascinated by the idea of how to bring a stronger student voice into the, like actual nuts and bolts professional development, right? I mean I think there's like two there's two kinds of professional development. That there's a professional development where I tell you what you need to know, right, to do your job or what I think you need to know to do your job or somebody thinks you need to know. And then there's a professional development that like helps you think about how you're going to solve the problems that you need to solve to do your job, right? 00:29:17 And that second one, you know, there's like, there's the first one is like kind of that, I think the mandatory HR training, like you need to watch this video for 60 minutes and answered 10 questions. The second version to me is like the much more interesting. So if I'm ever, wherever designing activities for our staff of the departments that doesn't fall into that second category, I know we're on the wrong track. But to me that the richness of being able to look at our professional practice through that lens, but with students, you know, as a part of that conversation, that's been, that's something that I have not figured out, and so I'm super interested in how to do That one that we've tried a number of things, what I find to be really challenging is our ways in which that a real authentic student voice can get to the table right? Because when you have students who are at the table, the whole, everything changes right? There's this like, it's the, they're thinking about,, what am I doing here, what do they want, what do people want me to hear, what, you know, what do you want me to say? 00:30:25 So every once in a while, you kind of get lightning in a bottle, but I've never quite been able to crack what it is. That would be, my guess is that it can't be one off stuff. It's got to be ongoing, you've got to establish real trust and I think it would probably be the kind of thing where, you know, a model that could be developed that as part of a kind of a regular classroom activity, whether it was using, I mean, and I think you see some of it in restorative practices, I think this could be very valuable in developing the kind of trust that would really push educators to be responsive to student voice in their practice. But in terms of making it happen Schoolwide, it's been something that has been elusive thus far. So I'm always interested in hearing more. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, and I would love for anyone listening, if you have thoughts that you want to share, absolutely go for it. I'd love to hear that for me, one of the things that I've realized, and I'm trying to think about, there's the organization that I cannot think of the name of, that is based out of University of Vermont that has really cool student voice and youth adult partnerships stuff. That they've been doing, where they have students who again, yeah, you're right, it's this ongoing thing with their student groups who actually lead professional development. 00:31:45 So it's actually almost kind of like version one of what you're talking about with pd. So it's like a transfer of information but it's student led. And so it's like here are the things that we see, here are the things that you can do to partner with us in curriculum development and facilitation of learning. And so that's kind of one approach that I've seen And then the other just factor that I think is really interesting in the research that I've seen is kind of the tokenization of students. So like you're saying like bringing in students. If you have a smaller number of students than adults, like your ratio is like one student to 20 adults in a pd, that's absolutely what happens is the students kind of like, I don't even know why I'm here and they're kind of conforming to whatever the adult dynamic is, versus having like 50/50 split where now the students are like, okay half of us are students. You know, maybe my voice is more meaningful and authentic and value to the point where I can disagree with my teacher who's sitting across the table and that's okay, that's why I'm here. So I think that's a really interesting dynamic and I'm totally learning this as well. 00:32:46 So again, any listeners who want to share some ideas, I'd love to hear that. But I think a really valuable goal that you're striving for as well to do that more with students. So thank you for sharing that. I think we've talked about so many different things today on the podcast and so I'm curious to know for the listeners who are kind of finishing up the episode and ready to take action. What's one starting point? Like one thing that you could encourage someone to kind of start the journey toward leading equity, equitable grading practices, whatever it is, what's that first thing that they could do? Sean Priest: So number one, I think is taking the time to really reflect on and articulate your values. And the articulating them I think is a key thing because I think it's easy to sort of think about, why this is what I value and it's important to me, it's important to me. But then write them down and say them out loud, right? And then come back to him the next day, right? It's not a one off and see them all out again and revise them and really think about what they mean to you and whether or not they really are part of, you know, your professional identity. 00:33:52 And if they're not to make sure they are, and be able to articulate and be comfortable articulating into all kinds of people, right, to students, to your colleagues, right? Don't don't be shy, like be proud of those values. That's an important first step, because then what you can do, I think is you can do some sort of a self assessment of your practices and reflected what is it that I do? Exactly, right? Whether it's around assessment, grading, feedback. And then how much do I, you know, how much do those practices can either conform to or, maybe, you know, go against what I profess to be my values. And that's a that's a really cool journey to go on, because I think then then you just you've you've opened yourself up. For me, I've seen this be kind of a real career changer, right? So I've had a number of teachers who are at that sort of 14 to 18 year mark in their career. They're really, really good, really good teachers, amazing with kids. They know their stuff, they have that, you know, they never break a sweat. 00:34:59 Kids love their classes are challenged and they're, you know, they're all about equity. And then you have this conversation where you start saying, okay, well, let's really look at the things that you're doing and where are there ways that we're maybe upholding some of these things that are keeping kids out and it's been, you know, it's rejuvenating. It's like, all of a sudden, now I have a whole new sense of purpose And it's not to punish anyone for what they've been doing. I mean, we all have, like, this is a journey, right? And that's again, modeling that idea of lifelong learning. There's tons of things as a team. I mean, this is for me, is that when I look back on my eight years in the classroom, there's all kinds of stuff I was doing that, I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that I was in there. There are also little seeds of things that I didn't know why I did them, but they turned out to be like, that's pretty cool that I did that. Like, I had no equity framework to necessarily, you know, explain why I was doing that. It just sort of seemed like the right thing to do and now that I think now that I know more about this now that I've read more things that I learned more and I've seen more examples, it's like, that was pretty cool. 00:36:06 So I think it's, you know, it's important not to say like you've been doing it wrong for the last 14 years because people should be very proud of a career in the classroom. That's like an amazing accomplishment to reach a decade to reach 15 years, but it doesn't necessarily have to mean that you, you're on the backstretch and that you can just sort of coast in to retirement. It really hopefully, can be a point of rejuvenation for teachers Lindsay Lyons: And I love that what you're naming their about lifelong learning is a perfect segue into this question that I just asked for fun for the most part, but being lifelong learners ourselves, I'm just curious what's something that you have been learning about lately? It could be related to education, but it could also be anything. Sean Priest: Well, I'm so, I'm fascinated by, like ideas of information and knowledge. So I was reading a book. It's by Susan Orlean, it's called The Library. I don't know if, The Library Book and it's sort of about like it tells a story about the fire, there was a fire in 1986 in the L A Public library, the central library burned down, had a pretty bad fire. But that's just the through line, through which she sort of, I think looks at a whole bunch of different ideas of how the concept of the library has changed since, you know, the 19th century or before, as a as a public institution. 00:37:25 And you know, she's talking about the library is being this place where it's open to everybody. There's a sense of kindness that pervades it, right? You don't turn people away unless they're disruptive or whatever. And you have this, I think this sense of like we can take on problems without necessarily having any sort of, like agenda or political bent. And so I was thinking about that library model and how much it's changed. We sort of had a renaissance of our library media center over the past five years. We have an amazing media specialist and as we look at that as a model for, you know, what information looks like in, you know, as we move ahead and how we process information, we hold information. I'm very interested in these ideas of just like what it means to know something? I guess it's filled epistemology classes I took when I was a philosophy major, but I'm still very interested in this idea of like, what does it even mean to know something that the whole knowledge when I've got, you know, the greatest library in the world has ever seen in my pocket. 00:38:34 And I'm really fascinated always about these, I like anything I can read where it's like talking about, like what is the nature of knowing how is that evolving and how does information, you know, empower people. Because that gets back to this idea again for both professionally and personally as I'm sort of, all about empowering. Lindsay Lyons: That is super fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. And now I really want to read that book. So that's going on my to read list. The last question I have for you is where can listeners learn more about you, connect with you, find your school online so that they can learn more Sean Priest: Well, I'm, you know, I'm not, I don't have huge social media footprint. I am on Twitter and I get a lot of great ideas. I'm at capital P priest, capital S, capital M, and you know, I think I like to follow a lot of sort of voices and education, voices and equity. I learned a lot, and sort of go down a lot of rabbit holes that way. That's probably my best social media. And then, you know, our school Sequoia High School is in Redwood City California. You can see a lot of work that our department has done, just kind of browsing around the website. 00:39:43 What I'll also do is I'll share with you the self assessment tool that we created for our teachers as part of that department work that we did around equitable grading. I think it's just a Google form. It's a real, but again, it's something that you can copy and create or modify for your needs if you're in school leadership or in on the education forefront. Lindsay Lyons: That sounds amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that and thank you for this conversation today Sean, Sean Priest: Great, thanks a lot. Good to be here. Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show, so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. You can find Sean on Twitter or on his school website.
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Lindsay Lyons: This episode was recorded August 16th, 2021 and in it we are talking to Colin Hogan. Colin is head of school at Learning Community Charter School and has been since 2013 in Jersey City, New Jersey. From 2010 to 2013, he was the social studies coordinator for the Highland Park School District. Mr Hogan began his career in education in 1999, teaching in Chicago. He has won numerous awards for teaching and was recognized as New Jersey History Teacher of the Year in 2013. In 2017, the New Jersey Charter Schools Association named him Administrator of the Year. He currently is a faculty member at the New Jersey EXCEL program, teaching aspiring school administrators and teachers leaders. He is the proud parent of two wonderful young men and is married to an incredibly kind and understanding husband in New Jersey. Let's hear from Colin Hogan.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality, and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. 00:01:11 I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, If you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in Hello and welcome to the Time for a Teachership podcast. Colin Hogan: Hi there. Nice. It's nice to meet you. Lindsay Lyons: So nice to meet you. I just read your amazing bio and I'm wondering if there's anything that you want to say to either add to that or frame the episode, anything you're thinking about lately just to start us off. Colin Hogan: Yes. So we are very excited over at learning community because, we were just named a Lighthouse School by the state of New Jersey. And what the Lighthouse Award is, it's an award that focuses on issues of equity and education. 00:02:17 And there are three areas where you can win the award. You can win the award for, equity in regards to student discipline, course enrollment or diversity in staffing. Now it was funny when I heard about this award because I was very excited about the first two because those are things that are really in our wheelhouse, but we actually were for diversity and staffing. So we're really proud. I think this is actually something that we're not only proud, we're very excited about that. As we return to school, we know that we have one of the most diverse faculties and we are the most diverse school in the state of New Jersey. So I feel that coming back to full instruction with all the students, we will have a school where our students can find an adult that will serve as a window and a mirror to their own experience. And I think that will be essential as we sort of embark on the, as we enter into the unknown of returning after a year and a half of a, you know, pandemic-based education. 00:03:21 Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, that's such a powerful point. And it connects so much to students needing to feel a sense of belonging and all of that good stuff. So, I love that, and I think we'll return to that point later in the conversation, because that is that is a powerful statistic that you just shared and a powerful award that you won. So, as we kind of get into your thoughts for education, your dreams for the field of education, I love using Dr. Bettina Loves' words around freedom dreaming, and she says, you know, their dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so I'm curious to know what is the dream that you hold for the field of education? Colin Hogan: Well, first of all, I want to say that I'm so excited about the Bettina Love quote, because she's been someone that has been really guiding a lot of our thought process. We read her book last summer as a faculty group of people that were really engaged with it, and we love how she doesn't give anybody any easy outs at all, which is great. So I would say that I was thinking about this, and, I think that what really matters in terms of that big dream would be true equity for everyone in education. And what that means is that we can envision an educational experience that really meets the needs of every single learner, 00:04:33 and that's a really huge undertaking, and it's a huge commitment. I think that sometimes what exists instead is, and I can say this as a school leader and I can certainly say this as a parent. That what schools do is, a lot of the time they will provide an education obviously within the means of what they could do. But if we're talking about dreams, it would be incredible to be able to create an educational experience that could meet the needs of every single learner within a school system around the country and potentially around the world, I guess. What that's going to take? A lot of money and a real issue and a lot of wrestling with a lot of other things that people would need to think about because, you know, we know now that so much of what education is, it's about those people that have the most access and the loudest voices and the most resources and that often can lead to other people not getting as much as what they need. Or sometimes almost because that system exists, 00:05:41 I feel like when you work in a place that especially doesn't capitalize on that vision of an education that really would empower everyone and a lot of times what will happen is that, we'll do what we've always done and that will be fine. And if it's not working well, that must be you, not us. And so creating more of just in terms of that is part of it too. So I think that it's really about envisioning, re envisioning everything about education. How do we not lose people? How do we empower people? And how do we, and how do you create the time to make that happen? And the support, build the supports to make that happen. Lindsay Lyons: I love that, and I love that you were talking to about, you know, having to really shift from prior ways of doing things and making that the dream right, is that it doesn't need to be the way that we've always done things. 00:06:45 And I'm curious to know what are some of the shift away from traditional mindsets that you see as really required for people to teach in that way, to educate in that way, one that is pursuing equity and advancing equity. Are there particular mindsets that people should be giving up or or switching over to? Colin Hogan: Well, I think that you have to kind of begin to really rethink a little bit about your relationship to student achievement and the student experience overall. What's explore, what is okay with you and what will keep you up at night. So I think that's the big question. When I was teaching, I used to always think a lot about this, is that I would every time a student would get a D or an F, and I was a middle school teacher, so every time you have like a D or an F, these were alarming to me because I felt like these were my own grades and because it seems that I had failed. I personally believe that was the case. 00:07:49 How is it that a student should be in my class and fail? It was simply I had to decide that that was unacceptable for that to happen. And that's even saying that making that statement is for anybody that's been in schools. It's fairly radical because there are a lot of people that say, well, you know, some kids deserve to fail. Now that's a really complicated thing that we need to unpack because we need to understand a little bit about what are the reasons that are causing failure and why are people not being successful. So I think that it goes into the re envisioning the concept of the classroom. I mean, I found when I was in, sort of getting my administration certification, I read a lot of Carolyn Tomlinson and what was very powerful for me, was it really changed me a lot because of her ideas about differentiation in the classroom and I started to really realize that through differentiating instructions, I could empower my students on levels that I never had before. I could give them choice, which is something that's a high leverage factor for anybody, but especially for early adolescence, but I could also ensure greater levels of success and mastery and learning. 00:09:03 And so I feel like looking at education from a very different lens in terms of what people's proficiencies are and where their comfort level is and helping people build, is really key to kind of employ those practices. So I feel like that's kind of where it begins and it's a great template for kind of expanding outward and looking at institutions. Like at LCCS, my learning community where I'm at, I have the honor to lead, what we try to think about a lot is how we can have every student have moments where they truly shine and are celebrated. And so there are traditional places where that happens. Through academics, athletics and the arts, those are huge things that our schools'. So that happens. But I knew that wasn't enough. And so one thing that we started to do was just, we started to think about how we could recognize kids in other ways because there are, you know, you hear about students and everybody's met, that student with that incredible heart, but maybe that student is not somebody that we've recognized because they don't fall into one of those categories. 00:10:16 And so we actually kind of combined two things, we created a house system based on our school's core values. And what it did was it provides an opportunity for older students to mentor younger students. It also creates an internal faculty based family for our faculty because teachers can sometimes be in little silos. Maybe you're, if you're teaching kindergarten, you might never interact with the eighth grade math teacher. But now you can, because you're all in this house together, they're all mixed up. And then what we saw was there was a student, and I remember this so vividly. She was in eighth grade and I've known her for a long time and I want the kid with the great heart and you know, she wasn't someone that, she was on our basketball team, but she wasn't the star basketball player. She was a good student, but not the top student. And what we saw though was when we were in these, when they had their first house meeting and she was an eighth grader. She was with a group of kindergarteners. All of a sudden she was organizing them, she was leading them, and she was so engaged with it. 00:11:21 Who know that this is probably a potential future educator and we arranged for her to assist in a kindergarten with one of our other teachers. So she would go up during her lunch and recess about once a week and she spent time with the kindergarten. And that was something that we were able to create for her. But we would have never seen that if we hadn't looked to create this kind of experience first. Lindsay Lyons: That is such a powerful example and I love that you're already taking it from, you know, not just the mindset of rethinking, but how do we do the actions we can take, how do we actually do this as a school? And so much of, I think what people are hungry for, that are listening to the podcast or like what do I do, what do I do as a teacher? What do we do as a leader. And so I love this house idea. Could you explain a little bit more about if someone's listening and like, you know, a leader of a school or an educator out of school? I was like, oh, I kind of want to do this in my school. What did that look like to, to set that up or how does that operate in your school? Colin Hogan: Well, so the house system, the way it came to be was, we were very intrigued by the idea of enhancing culture and climate. 00:12:24 We, the school is, our school is very teacher led and run and, but the school, it's since we were a charter school, we grew over time, but as a school. So what happens in charter school in, like if you look at, if you talk to anybody that's involved in a charter school from its inception, to maybe, now we're about 26 years old. There's a real change in an organization over time as it grows and reaches its full potential. So what wound up happening was, is that the people loved the small, intense experience of starting the school. But when the school grows to what it fully is, it's a very different thing than it's no longer that small, you know, kind of thing that it used industry that it used to be. So one of the things that we tried to do with the house system was to recapture that, to create more of that sense of family within, with, to make that small feeling again and to create that sense of connection. I wanted, 00:13:25 I hoped I envisioned that our older students would have tight connections with our younger students and, they could serve as mentors and role models. And they could also, this would also be a place for student voice and leadership. We really wanted that to be a main component of this process. And then for faculty members, this could be another place of support and connection. So you could potentially develop partnerships between people. So we know that we had two teachers that they described, that they had two kind of quirky classes and they decided they would get them together on a regular basis, and that came out of the house system. So we really feel that we wanted to make that a place where there would be sort of a family. And then we've kind of continued to build on it as time has gone on. So now we have a teacher that actually focuses on coordinating our house system. It's a real passion of hers and she does an incredible job. And we also want to, we also have the, a faculty member that's interested in leadership development from each house work with student leaders in the house, so that the student leaders are essentially running all of the house meeting. 00:14:38 We want the faculty members to get the benefit of the collaboration and the joy of the support, but we don't want this to be one other thing that we're doing. We want this to really be something that students owned and led and really something that they're proud of. So we still have a ways to go. I think what was really interesting though is that we, this past year because of Covid, we had to actually do this virtually to some degree. So we had to have these, you know, house meetings in zoom rooms and things like that. But it totally worked. And I had this very profound experience because the teacher that we were working with, who was the house advisor, she was moving that day. So she said, I can't lead, and I said, okay, well I'll lead your house meeting, no problem. She said, that's great, you really don't have to do anything aside from admitting people into the zoom room. That's all you're gonna be doing, because the two students that were running the house meeting, they had everything, they pretty much ran the whole thing. I was just basically their tech support, and this was really profound, and those were 2 six graders, no less. So that's ultimately a sign of success and what we hope to see in the future. But I highly recommend it because doing something like this creates a greater sense of family and ownership and home at school, and we really want to capture that as much as possible. 00:16:01 We want our students to feel that they're seen and loved and cared about and challenged all the time. And that's something that we really feel. I know that when people come into the building, they always comment on how much they love being at our school. It has that feeling when you're there, it feels kind of like, I like to say, it feels like a hug, I guess, or something along those lines. It's a very warm place, and I think that is a lot to do with the original vision of the school of being that kind of a place. So the house system just complements that and enables us to have more of that intimate platform. So that's why we looked at the Ron Clark Academy House System, which is kind of the most famous of all of them, which they kind of based a little bit of Harry Potter. and we definitely use that as our initial platform, but it was very easy for it to, once it got going and once we really kept moving with it, it's really become something quite different. Lindsay Lyons: That's amazing. And I'm just out of curiosity, how big are each of the houses? 00:17:05 So there is like one faculty and then a set number of students? Colin Hogan: That's a good question. So we have a little bit of a problem there because we did random sorting. So what wound up happening is that you wound up having these huge houses and then these small houses, houses that were heavy with younger students, houses that were heavy with older sisters. But you know what, I personally don't mind that because I think it creates diversity in terms of that and that I think that gives you a lot, it's very interesting, like are we definitely have two big houses that have quite a rivalry? But then we have some, but some of our smaller houses do such interesting work and are really because they're smaller. I feel like they have even a tighter connection, so that's awesome. Lindsay Lyons: Wow, that's so fascinating. I'm so curious to know more about that. So we talked about actions. The house system is one type of action. I didn't want to preclude you from sharing any other type of action. I think your school is so unique in so many ways. 00:18:07 And so if there's anything else that, you know, maybe a person at a traditional school, public school, you know, is thinking, how could I bring some of this creativity over to my school or create something like this? Is there anything else you think that is unique and in what you all do, that allows, you know, for that equitable dream to come true, that maybe public schools or traditional methods of schooling, don't do as much? Colin Hogan: You know, there's nothing that we do that no one else cannot do. I I, and the things that we're doing are not even things that cost any money. It's just simply a mindset shift, I think in terms of, you know, why not? Or let's try it and you know, why we want to, you know, we think of always why we want to do this for our students. So that really is a, you know, we're always looking to see how we can do something really important that obviously matches our core value because we don't do everything. But what we really do try to do our things that empower our students, to be people that will make a difference in their own communities and beyond, that's kind of the mission of the school. 00:19:22 And so whatever we do, we think about how these are new opportunities. So we start by always, you always start by thinking about like, how could you create more of an opportunity to enhance the student experience and to increase student voice, to increase student mastery of learning and to, you know, help capture what a student will, how a student will sort of be engaged and seen, and I think that's something that is really important. And there's lots of different ways to do that. I mean we have things like from, you know, even our physical spaces, we try to transform them as much as possible. Like I have a lego wall on my wall in my office that I built with students that I knew we're the kind of kids that would like to build that. I only got to that one because you get to build it once, but it was really special and experience. We have a school dog, we have all sorts of things that we try to do that, we want to make sure that people want to come to school. 00:20:23 And I think that's something that we all learned about this past year is that some kids don't want to come to school. And I think that's something that you have to think about a lot in terms of, and we thought a lot about that about like sort of looking, we looked at a lot at the work of Fisher, Fry and Hattie, that they had done a lot, they've done a tremendous amount in terms of, they sort of guided us through this whole process and they're guiding us out, but sending sort of norms and developing strong relationships with the students. But we already, we did a lot of things that were recommended, but because these pieces were already in place, I think it was easier to move in and out of virtual learning to hybrid and beyond because we had established these really close relationships. You know, the greatest story that I can think of in terms of this is that our music teacher who is quite a genius, but not someone tech savvy at all. But she decided that, she said, well we're going to have a concert and she got some, you know, we had these concerts with these kids would, you know, they would, they would submit, she got them to submit all their, their sound videos and stuff like that ahead and edited and they killed themselves at home. 00:21:40 And then she told me we were going to have a musical. And we did Aladdin, but not a single one of the kids ever met each other in practice in person. I mean you had the magic carpet ride, you have everything. So it's all about just kind of having that kind of relationship and vision, and just really wanting to see what you can do for kids and just being unencumbered by that. I think that's really the key to a really powerful experience and it's also really empowering for teachers as well because our teacher, what we do ever do are, whenever we do our faculty surveys, people always say that autonomy is the thing that they value the most. And I think that's because they feel people feel very trusted to really do great things for kids and we worked very hard and Lindsay Lyons: I think that's so important to name too because when we're having, you know, a lot of student voice, a lot of teacher voice in terms of leadership, that's so critical that the autonomy is present, the trust is present. Because to say, I mean I have seen schools that say they are teacher led and don't trust the teachers, and that creates a different dynamic that really impairs a lot of that forward progress. 00:22:50 So I love that you named that specifically and also I'm so curious your school was founded initially by parents and so I think that origin story, I'm sure must impact and influence, you know, the way the school operates and has kind of come to be, like you were saying there's so much stuff that was already in place as you create some of these new practices and habits that were just part part of the core of the mission of the school initially. And so I'm just curious to know like how have you seen that kind of evolve or how was the origin kind of influenced where you are today? Colin Hogan: Well, it's funny you should mention that because we, when we celebrated our 20th anniversary, but we want to do all sorts of special things. Like we've made a time capsule. We had a very special, we have a special gala evening for the parents. But one of the other things that I thought would be really amazing was, is I wanted to find the founding principal of the school and you know, have him come visit the school and talk to the students a little bit about what it was like, because obviously none of the students were there anymore. And it was really a special experience and we took him to the fourth grade, he wanted to visit the fourth grade and he told them all about how he became the principal of the school and what school was like and the kids were kind of amazed because a lot of what he said was still there. You know, that it was still a place where, you know, kids were very valued and loved and it was a very exciting place and it was a very fun place to learn. And there was a lot of laughter. And so, that I think really captured a lot of the experience and it was, it was a very special, I was one of, it was a very, very special experience for all of us to have that happen and so we were really pleased to meet one of the school's founders and to hear those stories. 00:24:46 Lindsay Lyons: I love how it stayed true to its mission and also evolved and like added on to it. I think that's such a beautiful blend. Another thing that I'm fascinated by in terms of historical context here and there and where the school is now, is prior to becoming a teacher, you are a community organizer and I find that so powerful as a history of in terms of influencing your leadership in terms of influencing, you know, the skills that you bring and bring out in people in your school community. How do you think those, those two things are related? You know, community organizing and running the Justice Center School? Colin Hogan: You know, it's funny that you picked up on that. I think a lot of it is about envisioning the power of what people can do and really putting that what you said before, about trusting people and really trying to see possibilities and taking risks, I think is part of it. And then also really trying to see what everyone can contribute has been really helpful. Those are things that I learned from those previous experiences. And we're really, you know, emphasize, I mean it was, I think that was always what I wanted to do personally as just. Even when I was in high school, I started to think about like that, I wanted to make a real difference in the world, this was something that was very important. 00:26:00 And I didn't really know what that was going to be, but I knew that was really essential. So that was something that I think really stuck with me even into this, Lindsay Lyons: That's beautiful and your story kind of parallels mine as well. I never actually wanted to be a teacher and I was just like, I want to do justice work and I'm not sure what that looks like, and then here we are in teaching and you're like, Colin Hogan: Right, right, right. Lindsay Lyons: The other thing I think is such an interesting point and you brought this up at the very top of the episode is that your school is the most diverse school, ethnically in New Jersey in terms of student population and faculty. And I wanna like point out too that it truly is the most diverse school. Sometimes people use the word diverse incorrectly. And so they'll say it's, you know, the most diverse when it is, you know, predominantly students of color or faculty of color, and, but it's not actually diverse, right? It's just predominant students of color. Your school is actually the most diverse in terms of I think the way that they calculate it is if you randomly sample any two students or faculty members, there's a high likelihood that they will be from a different ethnic background. 00:27:07 And so I'm so curious about what that means for your school in terms of, you know, maintaining and sustaining that diversity, but also honoring and affirming that diversity is a value and it is of value to have a highly diverse school. Colin Hogan: Yeah. You know, i, it's something that we're really, really, really, it's the thing that we love the most. I'm certain that is, my parents were the most popular K through eight, a pre K through eight option for parents in the city. And I know it's clearly because of this because people know that their children are getting a huge advantage. How else can you say it? I mean, there's no way that's not happening because our students really develop a deeper understanding and sense of empathy. And really the, you know, urban areas are very, you know, they are sort of different. They are segregated. So I think this is one of the few places where people can come and that's not the situation. 00:28:11 In fact the school even moved to our current location to avoid some of the sort of, not to, to maintain its diversity. That's how, what a strong commitment the school has to it. And it's, and we introduced a weighted lottery a few years ago to give greater preference to people that were in section eight housing or free and reduced lunch so that we could maintain our diversity because it's so essential, you know, Jersey City, because we're right across the river from New York is gentrifying like crazy. And so you have to work very, very hard to think about strategies to maintain your student diversity and your faculty diversity. We're really excited because we're launching like a bypath leadership committee this year. And we feel that that will be really helpful for being a place where our faculty are bypath-ed faculty will have support and be a forum for them to, express concerns, ideas and really and create another internal family and network at school, which we think is really essential. 00:29:23 You know, because a lot of the times, if you don't work to develop strategies to maintain your and sustain your diversity, you will lose it. So that's something. And I would say that at the school, we spent a lot of time being a conscious effort to really do deep dives into things and not sort of a surface area look. So, we are, we just read that our, our school read this year was the undefeated, like Kwame Alexander, and we really spent a lot of time unpacking what that would mean for us to read that book pre K through eight because it's not the easiest book. There's some really difficult stuff in there because it tells the story of the black experience, the United States and it's great, but it's also a lot. And we spend a lot of time thinking about how we can do this, you know, from all ages and having a really good, intense conversation about this allowed everybody, and for people to also say, I don't know how to do this and having a space where people could say that and feel safe saying that, is also really important because that way we can do a better job, we can help each other. 00:30:40 So that's why I think kind of where we are with that. Lindsay Lyons: That's so incredibly well said, and I love that you're modeling all of the things that go into it. It's not just, we read this book and that's it, you know. There's so much, you know, culture work or agreement building that is involved in that to do it well. And so I really appreciate not only that, but also that you're like, it can be done K through eight, right? Like some people might argue that it couldn't and I agree that it absolutely can and should be. And I love that you're doing that and having those conversations about the how, not debating the why or should it be? So that's beautiful. We've talked about so many things in this episode and so I'm curious to note for the listener who's feeling excited but also may be overwhelmed by all the things. Where's one place they could start or one action that they could take as their kind of closing the episode and ready to go put something into action. Colin Hogan: Oh, well, one thing I would say is I would have two recommendations. Is one is don't forget that the most important thing our relationships. So you know, making sure that you start the year, we always have our faculty start with something we call the significant 72, which is a very common concept of spending the 1st 72 hours of school focused only on building student relationships. 00:31:56 We really, really want to. And you can obviously get and listen, I know because I'm a middle school person. That you can get your routines in, you can get all that stuff in through building relationships. So don't worry, you can get, you can make that all happen, but really making sure that you have those relationships in place are very important. And then I think the secondary thing is I remember this so vividly from going back to what Carolyn Tomlinson said, that she said, you know, when you think about differentiated practice, you don't think about when you start to cook, you don't make a gourmet meal every night. You might make something ambitious once and then, you know, you start to build your repertoire. So doing something at least one less than a week that you can differentiate or focus on, is a great start. And it will be very empowering for your students. And there will be times when it won't work and that's ok, and you will try it again and you'll think about that and take some time to reflect. So I encourage both those practices because I think they're very, very powerful and will set up any students that you're serving with for success. 00:32:57 Lindsay Lyons: I love those and I loved to that there is a phrase I never knew, it's called the significant 72. We always did that when I was teaching, but I never knew there was a phrase to it, so that's awesome. One of the things that I asked just for fun at the end of episodes are, you know, we've all kind of been saying all of the guests on the podcast. We've been saying in this episode, you know, the things that we've been learning and kind of growing our practice around. And so I'm curious to know what is something that you have been learning about lately and it could be education related or otherwise, but anything that you've been learning Colin Hogan: Well, I've been spending a lot of time thinking a lot about PLCs because we are revisiting that concept for the fall. So I'm spending a lot of time really working on that. So that's something and I'm also trying to figure out, I would like to be able to braid bread a lot better than I currently do because it's not going so well. I try and I'm told by my family oh that looks nice, just being sarcastic. 00:34:00 Lindsay Lyons: I love it. I love that there's an education one and then a home one. So great and then finally, I'm sure listeners are going to want to connect with you, follow your school and find you guys online. So where can people go do that? Colin Hogan: Sure. So you can follow me at @Mrcolinhogan on Twitter, and I've been a little bit taking a little break but I'm getting back on it. And then we can be found on Instagram and Twitter at, let me just LCCS. It's @lccs_jerseycity. And then our website obviously is another place to find us as well. Lindsay Lyons: Perfect thank you so much. This is a great conversation and thank you for being on the podcast Colin Colin Hogan: Thank you so much. It was wonderful. Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show, so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave and be your best self. You can contact Colin via:
5/16/2022 Toss Out the Assumption That Your First Years of Teaching Will Be Miserable with Jeanne WolzRead Now
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Lindsay Lyons: In this episode, you'll be hearing from Jeanne Wolz. For reference, this episode was recorded on November 10th, 2021. So let me tell you a little bit about Jeanne. She's a former middle school teacher, department chair, school leader and college instructor and is the founder of the New Teacher Masterminds, a transformational virtual PLC network that connects and powers and provides wraparound support for new teachers across the country. As a new teacher herself, she won the Outstanding Beginning Teacher Award from the Illinois Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Jeanne's Mission is to help new teachers thrive during their first years of teaching so they feel they can stay and grow in the profession for years to come. I'm so excited for you to hear from Jeanne, Let's dive into the episode. Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality, and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. 00:01:12 If you are a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach or a classroom teacher, excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in. Jeanne Wolz, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Jeanne Wolz: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I'm so excited that you're here and I'd love to just get your thoughts on, you know, I just read your professional bio but I think sometimes there's like this element of professionalism to bios that you kind of missed the personal aspect or you know, you want to ground yourself in something other than like the list of things that we have accomplished. So, I love asking the question of, you know, how do you want to add to that formal intro and introduce yourself to our listeners? Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, I love that you're asking this question because I also agree, I'm the biggest creature than you are more than a teacher and more than your accomplishments. 00:02:20 So I think just some more personal things about me. I love to travel. We're actually gonna go on this RV adventure this winter for a few months. And also that I am a mom of an almost two year old, which is crazy to think, but that takes up a lot of my brain most of the time as well, Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. And as a fellow traveler, I feel like that is an important distinction to make. Like there's something about travelers who are like, let's go do stuff, awesome. So as we think about, kind of your dream for education and we kind of laid the foundation for the episode around what education would look like, you know, if you could kind of create it. I love Dr. Bettina Loves' quote about freedom dreaming and she says there are dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so through that lens, thinking about the big dream you hold for the field of education, how would you describe that for our listeners? Jeanne Wolz: Yeah. I think my dream for education is for every new teacher to experience their first few years as a cherished and important role in person and agent in education and equity and education. 00:03:38 And in order for that to happen for all schools to have induction programs for new teachers that are designed and sober to the challenges that all new teachers face, and are designed to keep their vision and their passion intact, which is so important and I just feel so often overlooked, but it doesn't need to be. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. That idea of keeping your vision and passion intact is, I think what is often the cause of people leaving the profession after 3-5 years, right? Like that almost happened to me just being in these different school systems that were not what I envisioned teaching to be, and did not give me the level of autonomy and support that I needed. And I almost quit teaching after three years and just completely tried to do professions. Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, and that could have been solved very easily. Well, maybe not very easily, but it could have been solved and it's something I think we need to pay attention to if we want teachers to be staying in the profession. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely, and so I'm curious to know because oftentimes we don't solve that right? We don't do those things. 00:04:40 So what are the ways that educational leaders maybe need to be thinking a little bit differently or even teachers need to be thinking a little bit differently and really shift their mindset around, you know, what those first few years of teaching look like and what supports for those teachers and their initial years look like? Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, so the first one and the biggest one, I think the most foundational one, and this is something that I say, to new teachers all the time, but now I'm really speaking to veteran teachers and building leaders, and that is tossing out this assumption that your first few years of teaching have to be miserable. Like if we're assuming that then what supports, like, what's the point of supporting new teachers? So instead of that, the mindset shift, I really want to challenge everyone listening to make, is how can we create the first few years or make the first few years of teaching the best years of a teacher's career, like how can we aim for that and just think about how much that shifts the conversation, 00:05:43 and the kinds of supports that we need to enact and the kinds of experiences we want to give our first, 2nd, 3rd year teachers in our buildings. So that's the biggest one and I have another one, but I don't know if you wanted to. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely, let's hear it. Jeanne Wolz: So the second one, and it's kind of building off of this, is that teachers support needs to go beyond just best practice. We know with students if they are not in an emotionally stable state or if they're not getting their basic needs met that they can't learn. And it's the same thing with teachers and especially with new teachers. Your first few years teaching, you're going through challenges that are not just professionally challenging, but they are emotionally taxing and they are also, you're also going through a huge identity shift and I think if you've been a teacher, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a huge identity shift. It's almost, I actually think now being a new parent, it's very similar to becoming a new parent, like it's just a giant shift and you're coming up against a lot of challenges and so we need to be designing programs that take that into account, predict it and then provide some for teachers. 00:07:01 Lindsay Lyons: I love that. Oh my gosh, not only the assumption the first one around assuming that the years are going to be miserable. I think that's really a powerful thing to shift away from, but also that idea that that identity shift is so real, whether you're new to the career as your first career or like a career changer or whatever it is. Seeing yourself as a teacher is a really interesting shift and I love that you likened it to parenthood as well. I think people appreciate that shift a bit more than they do that of a teacher and what it means to be a teacher. Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, yeah. I mean, so many people, usually teachers very often when they become a teacher, this is something they've been dreaming about or thinking about for a really long time. And so when they're starting teaching, they're trying to figure out, okay, when am I going to be a good teacher? Am I going to be good at this thing that I've dreamt of doing? Am I going to be this teacher that I've always wanted to be? And then two, is this for me? Like this is kind of their trial run. And so, yeah, I think it's just really important to think about it and I think to, when I'm thinking about identity shift, I'm also thinking about, like just speaking from my own experience, when I, when I became a teacher, I have been used to being a high achiever, good at things, organized, prepared. And now for the first time in my career, essentially had just been a student before that, but in my career I wasn't feeling organized. I was feeling chaos all the time, no matter how hard I worked. I was feeling like a failure. 00:08:28 I was feeling all these things, even if we're thinking about the equity piece, I had always thought of myself as a very accepting person. Of course not a racist. And all of a sudden I had students telling me I was a racist. I never ever experienced that before. And that happens many, many times for teachers. And so I mean across the board for new teachers. And so these are things that we all kind of know, I think are very common for new teachers to be going through. And since we all know them, I think we need to be, you know, thinking about them and how we're supporting new teachers. Lindsay Lyons: So powerful that you just shared all of that. Thank you for speaking to your experience because I think so many people just resonated with all the things that you shared because it is real. And to avoid thinking about those things that we do know happened, right? It's just not a good way to support teachers. And so if people are listening thinking, okay, yeah, like I want to create the conditions for someone to feel really supported and like they're thriving at work and they know how to navigate that identity shift, what does that look like in terms of, you know, brave actions for educational leaders to take or even teachers themselves to take to really live into that dream you were describing. . 00:09:44 Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, so I'm gonna really highly paraphrase some research in teacher retention by Ingersoll. I think it's Richard Ingersoll, so I'm pretty sure that's, his, ingersoll definitely his last name. And he's done extensive research, I think over the last 30 years in what keeps teachers and buildings, what keeps them in the profession. And the things that he notices in terms of teacher induction programs, is the more elements of kind of best practice for induction programs that are, that exists in a program, the more likely teachers are to stay. So those elements are things like a mentor program, things like having professional development workshops, maybe having and forgetting the other one, there's one other one, professional development workshops, so instruction strong and structural coaching and the mentorship program. But the one thing that I always think about that really stands out to me that he lists that I very seldom see in schools and would have been amazing for myself as a new teacher and I know for so many new teachers that I work with that is a lightened workload. 00:10:51 I mean, again, this makes sense. Like when we say it a lot, it's like, well duh? We have new teachers that are expected to do everything a veteran teacher is doing and yet they are also learning the ropes, they're learning how to do this. I mean anytime you're learning anything, it's going to take longer. So like it makes sense why lightened workloads can be so powerful for new teachers in terms of keeping them in buildings and keeping them in the profession. So that's the first one, and I really, and I say that also right away because I know that's probably one that feels lofty because it messes with the magical master schedule. But I think it's something a conversation that needs to be had. And even if you are not a principal in your building, you, if you are working with the new teachers, I'm challenging you to talk to your administration, talked to higher administration about how can you make this happen for the new positions that you're hiring for, so that new teachers have the space to grow, to process all these things, to learn their skills to get all this support. 00:11:56 And I think also I'm spending so much time on this first one too, because in order to add the other things, I'm going to suggest teachers need to carve out and have space for those support programs. I've worked with amazing, amazing, supportive districts for new teachers that give them more things to do, more things to do, more things to do, but they don't take anything off those plates. So they're meeting with a mentor every single week, awesome! They're meeting with masterminds every single week, awesome! Like it's all these things, but teachers are super overwhelmed because they don't have any time to do their jobs. So you want to have the both worlds, you want the lightened workload, so they could still be getting, you know, doing the rubber hits the road and learning how to do this job as they go, but you also want to carve out that space for them to get the support that they need. And then thinking about the kinds of support that I have seen that new teachers really, really benefit from. One is access to a safe space to ask for help from veterans and peer teachers. That veteran piece because they have a lot of expertise and wisdom to bring to the table, but also appears other first year teachers, second year, third year teachers who can empathize with them and say, hey, it's totally normal that what you're going through, I'm going through that too. 00:13:11 And having that camaraderie and feeling like they're not the only one feeling like a failure. There are not the only one feeling like, this is just a lot more than I thought it was gonna be or something like that. And then the other piece to that, access to a safe space. The mastermind groups I run, I really wanted to create a space for teachers where connecting across building and even across districts and the reason I wanted to create those spaces, these mastermind groups where teachers were talking to people outside their building is because even if you have the safest political culture in your building, a new teacher may not even know that. So like, best case scenario, nobody gossips, nobody's gonna go behind the new teachers back. But the new teacher, if they're smart, knows not to trust that that's the case in the building, so they may not feel comfortable to open up with their mentor teacher, with the teacher next to them, that could help them or even with their instructional coach. So the more that you can connect new teachers outside of your building, I think the better so that they have a safe space to feel like they can be vulnerable to get help on the things that they are actually struggling with. 00:14:20 And that's personally why I think mastermind groups are so awesome because you can create these safe family environments where you're working to create a safe space throughout the year that people feel more and more comfortable being vulnerable. And I think that's what's really, really needed to help new teachers so comfortable to open up. And then even if it's not a mastermind group, just a space, it's specifically designed to be safe for new teachers. And then the next one, so lightened loads, access to a safe space, ask for help, and then the third one would be workshops and coaching that helps to help, that works to help new teachers process these high emotional challenges, these identity shifts. On top of course, like basic skills and things like that, but workshops that also address this more affective aspect of teaching, I think it would be awesome if all teachers had a therapist. I am a big proponent of therapy, I think it would be great. But I think there are a lot of other ways to support teachers on that kind of emotional and identity journey than therapy that schools can provide their teachers. So workshops that help teachers become aware of their biases and to process those. I know that I would have so benefited from that as a new teacher rather than struggling with this on my own when I knew that so many other teachers were also struggling with this, but it was just kind of a taboo thing to talk about. 00:15:48 And then the second thing for workshops and coaching, I think is helping teachers process these all of the shoulds that they brought to teaching. My kids should be listening to me while I'm talking. I should be able to get through my grading stack, you know, when I get home at night and I feel tired. I should be designing these lessons that are super engaging every single day and then confronting what's actually happening on classroom, maybe they're tired and they didn't get an awesome lesson plan that day, or maybe they're they have a class that is a little bit chatty right now and they have to be working through that and like that's a very normal thing. But a lot of new teachers don't realize it's a very normal thing to be working through during the year. So, or maybe even something that they can harness and use to their as an asset in their classroom when they're, as they're teaching. So workshops that work with those sheds, like confronting what it is that how they can work with, what reality really is in front of them. And then I think another, another piece on helping teachers confront their vision versus what they are perceiving as reality in their classroom, 00:17:01 and in the contrast between those. I think this is a really key place and a really pivotal moment for teachers in their journey to become anti bias, anti racist educators because so often this is the moment where teachers fork, they say, okay, students are not being X, y and Z, that I expect them to be. Either I need to learn how to do this in a different way or it's just these kids, like these kids can't do this or this school isn't like this. I need to go to a different school or something like that. So I think this is a key part of equity and education is coaching new teachers through that dissidents that they're going to experience their first year and their expectations and what's actually happening. Okay, so the final thing I would say, the concrete thing, I think the new teachers need and lots and lots and lots of, is targeted instruction and culture for making the job sustainable. So my first institute day, when I was a student teacher, I'm so lucky that this was my first, it was the first seminar and my first institute day. It was led by this amazing teacher who I actually worked down the hall from when I was student teaching, and it was a workshop on how to save time grading. 00:18:17 And she started the workshop by saying, Okay, let's think about like how many students you have 120. Let's think about if you sent five minutes grading every single one of those papers, how many hours would you spend grading? And I think that's something I can't remember, 10 hours, I'm not gonna do that math like that. Something really crazy. And so she said every minute that you add onto your grading for every single paper is going to be another two hours of your life. So let's think about like what is the highest power move that we can make as teachers rather than spending 10 hours grading this paper, that students may not look at, What, how could we spend those 10 hours in a different way or how can I spend those 10 hours to rejuvenate myself? And so that institute day, I mean there was gold advice, but it also framed the way that I thought about teaching from then on, because this was my first impression of like, okay teacher community, this is what we're talking about with each other. But I have yet to like go to another workshop like that, it was just a really awesome workshop this first time. And so I think we need so much more of that for new teachers. 00:19:20 And again it goes along with this fucking this assumption that your first few years have to be miserable. Because again, I think a lot of times we don't give new teachers these things because we're like, oh you know your first year, it's gonna suck, you're gonna be here until eight at night. I remember those days kind of thing. Again, a lot of similarities to new parenthood, what you hear. And so having a culture where no, this is not how it's gonna be for you, not even your new teacher and we're gonna help you learn how to do this job more efficiently, more powerfully and more meaningfully. I was listening to a one of your podcast episodes, it was Dr. Sweet, I don't remember her first name, but I loved what she was talking about. An encouraging joy and passion outside of your teacher day and then also challenging the workaholic building culture. I think just, if you haven't listened to that episode, go listen to it. I'm just going to echo it. I think it's super important and I think it's especially important for our new teachers who are forming the impression of what teaching is and if it's for them. 00:20:26 Yeah, those are the things I would recommend. That was a lot, Lindsay Lyons: Wow, that was a lot. But it was so good. I mean I just, I was nodding my head the entire time you were speaking. So I just think about, you know, lightened loads. I constantly am trying to talk to leaders about how do we take something off of people's plates right? We can't just keep adding and I love that you center that around new teachers, but particularly new teachers reflecting on what I taught. Like I taught seven completely different classes as a first year teacher. Like that's nuts. That's nuts. Even for a veteran teacher and often it's because I mean, for me, I was jumping at the first job that I was offered because I was just like, yeah, well otherwise I'm not teaching and then I'm kicked out of my program and then I don't have anywhere to live and you know, there's this spiral of, I don't even know how to interview. So I think thinking about how do we make sure that that is sustainable because ultimately if we're investing all of this time and energy and resources into building up new teachers who are going to stay with us for a while because we have great culture and we have that space for coaching and we have all the workshops you've been talking about, you know, that's going to pay off for us as a school as well as for the students in those classes, right? 00:21:38 A lot of times I think teachers who are new, get the the students who need the most support and probably would benefit from a veteran teacher who has all this experience. And so we're constantly challenging new teachers in ways that, you know, don't don't need to be the case, right? And so I love your first institute day just thinking about that framing of, how else can we spend our time versus spending 10 minutes, you know, a paper or whatever on grading and giving feedback that might not even be looked at. And so thinking about ways to make the work sustainable. I just want to echo is so critical because if we burn teachers out, we are not going to get anywhere and we're just going to be spinning our wheels and that culture building process just kind of stagnates when we have people running out the door constantly. And I just I want to say that this list is brilliant and I hope people like replay that section of the episode because it is so, so good. Jeanne Wolz: Yeah. I just want to like, I empathize with what you're saying as a first year teacher having seven classes, I was given four class, four preps, three different grade levels of writing. It was a core class, but somehow I was like the cog that fit in, you know, like all the empty gaps in the master schedule kind of thing and I got the job probably, 00:22:53 why are they? My position was open probably for the same reason yours was because nobody, no other veteran teacher wanted it with reason. I don't blame them. But I would argue that that needs to go back to reworking the master schedule. How can we make a humane schedule for everybody? But it's not okay if one of our team members is getting this totally unreasonable load. And it's especially not okay if it's going to be one of our new teachers and I think it's especially especially not okay if it's one of our new teachers that we think very highly of. I think a lot of times that's justification. It's like, well, she's awesome, so she'll be able to handle it, it's fine. And then that's the teacher that gets burned out and leaves the profession. So I think these are kinds of conversations that we need to be having and thinking about when we're creating master schedules, when we're opening positions and when we're talking to our veteran teachers about who is going to get what position and things like that. Lindsay Lyons: Wow, yes. Oh my gosh, as you were describing that the kind of equity of distribution of classes, I was thinking the other teachers particularly 00:23:54 so I was a special education teacher. So the other special education teachers had similar workloads to me, but the general education teachers taught maybe two different preps and so it's just like the discrepancy there between seven and two is nuts. And I never thought that yeah, we should be having this conversation with those teachers, you know, as a school, so smart. So as you've worked for so long with new teachers, I'm curious to know what has surprised you the most in working with that population of teachers. Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, I have a few things. First of all I love, obviously I love working with new teachers as I work with them, but I think some of the things that has really surprised me, it has to do with preparation and how we structure it. And so one of them is how much step by step support new teachers need, especially that summer, you know. I was going to see that summer before their first year teaching. But I think it's actually 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th year teaching. I have this, I have an online course for new teachers that walks them step by step through preparing for their first day and for the year and I have teachers taking that class, sometimes with zero years of experience and sometimes with, like 15 years of experience. and I am, 00:25:14 so what I'm saying is what surprises me is how much step by step support. I mean like, okay, we know best practice is to backwards design grades. We know that we need, we need to start with the assessment in mind, great. But what does that look like? Like literally what do you write on the piece of paper? You know, like when we're thinking about scaffolding for students, I think many times teacher prep programs talk about big ideas, which is great, theory, which is great, equity, fantastic. But we need, when are we going to get into the nitty gritty of like, okay, we're gonna sit down, this is how you lesson plan, this is where you put this, these are the kinds of notes I do. Let's model that for a teacher in a sustainable way too. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is kind of in conversation with that first one, and that is, what was so striking to me, was this one time I was giving a workshop. I'm used to giving workshops to, like, 1st, 2nd, 3rd year teachers. I was giving a workshop that I thought it was at a conference and I thought it was, I was gonna get first or third year teachers and as I was going, I realized something was off and just in terms of the engagement and what I was seeing in the teacher's spaces, and somehow, at some point during that workshop, I discovered that almost everybody in the room was a pre service teacher. And it was just this kind of big realization about when teachers, when is the right time for new teachers to receive different kinds of information. 00:26:51 So, yes, new teacher prep programs a lot of times they may, and I'm not sure, but it seems to me that it, many times they lack enough step by step support in creating lesson plans, those kinds of things. But at the same time, I have found that first through third year teachers are total sponges because they're so desperate to solve the problems that they're dealing with day in and day out. And pre service teachers understandably are overloaded with information and they don't know what they're gonna need. It's just like, okay, here's all this advice and then they don't know what they're gonna need when they teach. And so I think to me, what it suggests is that we need to be incorporating more hands on, more, more experiences where teachers have pre service teachers have autonomy in the classroom. So they can actually have something to pin their learning to, and know what to look for when they are learning to be teachers. And then it also means that we need to be extending that hands on workshops and side by side support for new teachers, those first or third year teachers, rather than just saying, here's all, there's, here's how you'd be a teacher, 00:28:04 okay, go do it. Thanks. Lindsay Lyons: Yes. Oh my gosh. The research on job embedded support like that too is really positive, right? Like this is what teachers actually need is to be supported as they're doing this. Yes. Oh my gosh, So I love these things that you're talking about, and I want to know why, I think so much of what you've already talked about. You've mentioned this a bit already, is so tied to these ideas of justice and equity that we always talked about on the podcast. So I'm curious to know if you have anything to add from what you've said already around the importance of this work in that frame. Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, I think we've kind of, we've danced around a little bit, kind of talking about certain aspects, but just to kind of bring it home. If we think about who are teachers are teaching and who are veteran teachers going to, where our veteran teachers fleeing to? What kinds of schools, what kinds of grade levels, What kinds of workloads, where are they going? And who, where, what positions are being opened up? We're talking about schools that maybe have lower income. We're talking about schools that have higher levels of diversity or maybe have higher needs in terms of instructional needs. 00:29:16 And if those are the positions opening up and those are the those are positions being filled by first or third year teachers, that's where all of our support needs to be. And that's what it's going to be creating these cycles of inequity every single year, if we don't address and kind of put a plug to these teacher retention problems that we're seeing, and things like that. I was gonna say one other piece of that, and now I'm forgetting what I was gonna say. But I mean, in a nutshell to me, this work is not just about making new teachers' lives easier. Of course it is, but it's also about solving huge issues of inequity in our school systems across the country. And conversations that we need to be having about how workloads and how positions and how master schedules are created and who is filling those positions and what kind of support we're giving them and what assumptions we're making about, what should that experience look like for that teacher? 00:30:18 What are we asking teachers to just accept?, And do because they're a good teacher and they want to be a teacher, and this is what they should be doing, kind of like you're talking about, like, okay, I want to get a job. I don't feel like I should be looking for a different kind of job. I don't think I feel like I should be advocating for myself, because I think all teachers deserve a reasonable workload. And also, if we want good teachers to stay in the profession and continue to grow and for our students to reap the benefits of that, then we need to be paying attention to these kinds of things. Lindsay Lyons: So well said. I'm so glad that we were able to kinda like, wrap all that together because you're right, we're kind of we're talking about it in so many ways, but what you just said is absolutely it and why this work is so necessary. So, thank you for naming that so clearly. As we think about, you know, coming to a close of the episode and all of the great things that you've shared, I'm imagining a listener just kind of being like, okay, there's so much that I could be doing if I'm a leader to support educators and if I'm a new teacher to kind of wrap my mind around some of these things or ways of thinking, ways of doing things that maybe I didn't learn in teacher prep school, because I think we should actually start now. 00:31:29 I think we should start like, your own teacher prep school, because I think everything you're describing is like, yes, I wish is this is what the school was like before I got into teaching. but as people are kind of hearing all this stuff. What is one thing if they were just kind of getting started there? Like I like these ideas that you've been sharing. I want to take one next step to start building that momentum towards kind of living it out. What would that recommendation be? Jeanne Wolz: Yeah. I think, well in all change, I really like to think of it in terms of think big, start small, be consistent. So I would, if you could, I always would recommend doing a mind dump, brain dump of all the different ways that you could be improving, maybe what you're doing yourself, what the school can be doing. And then kind of picking one to start with from there. In terms of giving a little bit of direction, I think the first thing that's really really important, a good place to start is to figure out where we can start taking things off of new teachers place, so we can make space for all these things. 00:32:36 So teachers can even, I have teachers that love our mastermind groups that dropped out because they just have too much on their plate and so they're making this choice to fly solo so that they can survive rather than have a list of support that they can have. So that would be the first steps that teachers feel like they can accept help. And then I think to a really easy way to make a shift that doesn't require more time and energy from you, is to think about how you're talking to new teachers, how you're talking to them about the profession, about what's a reasonable workload for them to accept. And and teaching them boundary setting. And maybe even like scaring and when you're, I'm just talking about conversations you will be having anyway with new teachers. How can we start steering new teachers to more student centered strategies rather than strategies that are centering on them doing tons and tons of work? And then of course checking yourself if you are prone to that badge of honor for working late into the night, those kinds of things because those are culture shifts that we can all be responsible for making and they don't require any extra help and energy. 00:33:50 And then of course if you've got more energy and time, take a look at that list I was talking about before and see which one would be reasonable for you to tackle first. Lindsay Lyons: Beautiful. I love it. And as a final kind of question that I love asking just for fun, I think everyone who comes on the podcast is just constantly growing and learning themselves. And so I'm curious to know what is something that you have been learning about lately? Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, so I'm really excited about this class I'm taking right now. It's called Playing Big Facilitators. Of course, I think it's the name, but it's by Tara Mohr. If you've ever read the book, Playing Big, fantastic book, so powerful. Tora Mohr, she's a coach that helps women and leaders sidelined their inner critic, amp up their own inner wisdom and tune into that and then play bigger in their lives, however, that looks for them. So this course that I'm taking is about helping other women and other leaders do that and I just find it so fascinating, thinking about especially since teaching is such a woman dominated industry, thinking about how different pressures and socialization and cultural expectations have been placed by women, how that translates into perhaps that workaholic culture and not maybe not stepping up and speaking up when they could be when they have so much wisdom and expertise to share and helping and just thinking about how to help teachers do that in their buildings and play bigger, Lindsay Lyons: Wow, that sounds like an amazing book I now need to read. 00:35:24 Jeanne Wolz: Yes, definitely recommend Lindsay Lyons: That is great. And I'm sure people are going to be really sad that this episode is ending because they want to continue talking to you and learning from you. And so I'm curious to know where would you some listeners who are interested in connecting, learning more about you taking your course or joining your masterminds. Jeanne Wolz: Yeah, I think the central hub would be the Teacher Off Duty website, it's just teacher off duty dot com. That's my first website. That's kind of where they're at least to everything. If you want to learn more about the New Teacher Mastermind Program, you can just go to new teacher masterminds dot com. And you can find me on social media with through teacher off duty handle on everything. And then if you wanted to learn more about how to shift mindset and challenge missed about supporting new teachers and concrete ideas about how to support new teachers, I have a freebie on the New Teacher Masterminds website that you can download for free, about 10 ways to support new teachers. Lindsay Lyons: That sounds amazing and I'm gonna drop links to all those things into the show notes in the blog post for this episode. 00:36:28 So if you're driving or running or something, don't worry about like writing these things down in the moment, You can totally grab them later. But Jeanne, thank you so so much for this really wise and brilliant conversation. Jeanne Wolz: Thank you Lindsey. It was wonderful talking to you. Thank you for having me. Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show, so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time leaders, continue to think big,, act brave, and be your best self. Jeanne can be found on her websites: www.teacheroffduty.com www.newteachermasterminds.com Or on social media: Instagram: @teacheroffduty Facebook: facebook.com/TeacherOffDuty
5/9/2022 Genuinely Valuable Members of an Intergenerational Learning Community with Skyler, Rhys, Amelia, and Sam from SpringhouseRead Now
www.instagram.com/5kyl3/Lindsay Lyons : In this episode we get to hear from High School students. These students are members of the Springhouse Community, their names are Skyler, Rhys, Amelia, and Sam. So we have four different students from a range of grades in this school community, and I'm so excited to just introduce and give you a sense of a few of their backgrounds. Just for reference, this episode was recorded in November 16th of 2021.
So the oldest student, or the highest grade student we have on this podcast, is Skyler. He is a senior as well as a student visionary at Springhouse. He works alongside the founding visionary to keep the vision of the school clear, and helped turn the vision into action. In connection with the school, he's also leading events and shows that invite people to take a deeper look at themselves, the world around them, and the ambiguity of life. Our youngest participant today is thirteen years old, this is Rhys Bowman and she loves to read, write and has also been known to crochet in her free time. She has two younger siblings, a sister and a brother, both of which go to the New River Valley Montessori, and she's been going to Springhouse since September 7th of 2021. 00:01:05 She's first year at Springhouse, who's experienced both private and public schooling, whether it be online or in person, which really helps her to have a well rounded perspective about schooling here in Virginia. So excited for you to hear from all of these folks today - again, Skyler, Rhys, Amelia, and Sam, let's dive into this great conversation with students. Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality and sustain an inclusive, anti-racist culture where all students thrive. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was - you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself - you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. 00:02:16 Let's dive in. Skyler, Rhys, Amelia, and Sam, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. I am so excited to have you all on today from Springhouse. We're going to start with just a little bit of intro on, you know, if one of you wants to speak about your school.... and then if you each want to kind of introduce yourself... kind of where you are in terms of your learning journey, whatever feels relevant to share about yourself as a learner or even more broadly, right, as a person. So, I don't know who wants to jump in first, but feel free. Skyler : I guess I can start here. So, my name is Skyler, my pronouns are he, him. I am a senior here at Springhouse, I've been here since 7th grade, so I've basically had the full run. And I'm also the student visionary who works alongside the founding visionary, whose name is Jenny Finn. Yeah. So. Rhys : I'm Rhys I use she, her pronouns. This is my first year in Springhouse. I'm in 8th grade and, yeah, this is my... it's a very new experience and I'm really excited to be here because already I've learned a lot. 00:03:34 Sam : My name is Sam. I use he, him pronoun. I'm in the middle of cohort here at Springhouse and this is my first year. Amelia : My name is Amelia, I'm happy with all pronouns. I'm in 11th grade and I work with Piper Pollack to help, like, design the funding model. Lindsay : This is so cool. And so you're already speaking to some roles that students don't typically have in schools that are more traditional settings or institutionalized settings. And so I am really excited to dig into that a bit further - but I'd love for someone to kind of give me a summary of, like, what is it like at Springhouse in comparison to... I'm not sure if you all started in more traditional places, you know, prior... like in elementary school, prior to coming to Springhouse - but what makes Springhouse different or unique? Or what is it about Springhouse that you think people should know as they're listening who may not be familiar with, you know, different models of education? Sam : Well, I feel like at Springhouse... as I went to public school for ten years before I came here... and I feel like at this place I am much... I'm more than just a number for my grade and, like, I'm much more than what my grades are. 00:04:51 Speaker:: I know that I've switched between private and public and, like, independent schools a lot - and the difference definitely between Springhouse, like Sam said, is that you're not just your grade, you're an actual human being and not just like a number who's learning and might take a different pace. While as in public school it's a little harder. Skyler : Beyond it just not being a number, I think it's... it actually goes a lot deeper than that. It goes to a level of... you're not just a person, you're a member of this community, you are a friend... you know... you are a genuinely valuable member of this group. And it's not like it's, like, some, like, exclusive, like, membership club, but it's, like, we deeper than just, you know... you're not a number, you're, like truly, truly, truly seen at a real level. 00:05:55 And you also are given the opportunity not just to be seen, but to see as well. So it's a two way back... it's like... it's like... it also is like, it's not even just two ways, it's all different ways of, like, of feeding and nourishing yourself and nourishing other people and it's a whole community, And that goes beyond age, and that goes beyond, you know, where you... where you live... it goes deeper than that. And that's why Springhouse, as an organization, isn't just a day school program for teenagers - it also has opportunities for adults, it also has opportunities for young children. And so it's, like, deeper than just being a school we're also a... the word that we've used in the past is the Intergenerational Learning Community. Lindsay : That is so beautiful. I love that, an Intergenerational Learning Community. And so, as you're describing this, to me it feels like... and I know, Skyler, you are saying you hold the role of the student visionary, I think you said, right? And so that I think speaks to my first question around this idea of really thinking about what is possible for learning organizations and beyond the, you know, traditional way we tend to kind of think about education. And so I love Dr Bettina Love - her book We Want to Do More Than Survive is one of my favorite educational books, 00:07:25 and in it she talks about this idea of freedom dreaming and so really like dreaming about the possible in ways that advance freedom and she talks specifically about them as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, which I just think is a fabulous quote. And so as I say that and you're kind of thinking about the dream that you hold for learning communities, either your own or learning communities more broadly, you know - what is that dream that you have for kind of what education could be? What do you wish school was like? And anyone can start? Speaker : I know that for me, what I would dream of, what school would be like is... it's very similar. It probably... there's a lot of similarities in Springhouse, it's just kind of being able to know that there's a lot of different intelligences rather than just mathematical or scientific intelligences. Is that there's different ways that people learn and that they're not just their grades and how they're ranked in that specific academic intelligences. Because I know there's a lot of people that are more creativity... how their intelligence is more focused in creativity, like drawing or in theater or something that's not like the... I don't want to say, like, normal, I guess... or like the standard - I think that what I feel, like, school should be is that everyone is able to learn at their own pace. 00:08:55 And, like, be able to be seen as a human and not just as this standard. Skyler : Yeah. And I would also add on top of that that when we look at the world around us, I would say there's a lot of stuff that's going on, there's a lot of really challenging things going on in the world today... and I hold the opinion that the leverage point in society where we can really make change, where we can really move the world forward, is in the education system. Education is the leverage point, and education is where... it's where our system starts. And so if we can find a way... well, actually no, we have found a way, and we do orient around life, orient around what the principles of life... we have... not to get super into it, but we have a thing that we share with other organizations that are, you know, wanting to learn from us. We have several principles that we follow, and those principles are taking care of vulnerability, cultivating personhood, building beloved community, respecting the wisdom of the earth, and loving and serving others. 00:10:16 So those are like some principles that we have, and what I would say, in my opinion, if we implement that into a wider school system that can lead to our society and our culture, in at least America as a whole, moving more towards principles like that - or principles that are more life giving than the ones that we currently have. Speaker : Well, like, yeah, like Skyler was saying, like, children and, like, young people are the future of the world, and if we can teach them to, like, love and be compassionate and, like, care about the earth, then we could... we could see a much brighter future. Speaker : Something that I see happen at Springhouse, but I think is a part of education that needs to be there, is, like, having it be accessible to lots of different people that could be, like, financially, or, like, the way things are structured, or, like, even... we're kind of far out from, like, town and stuff... we're not exactly in the middle of nowhere, but probably, like, half an hour from town. 00:11:32 So, like, we do a lot of carpooling when, like... I mean we are in a pandemic, but before the pandemic we had a lot of carpooling, but, like, transportation and stuff. Lindsay : I love that, and I love that each of the things you're speaking to really speak to those larger principles that... that Skyler that you mentioned, as well, and this is - I agree that if we could just do that on a broader scale, right? For all schools to be able to tap into those - I think we would have a very different system than we have now. So, as we think about this, I think... especially thinking about a lot of the listeners who typically listen to this podcast are folks who are educators in some respect... in mostly traditional schools. And so I'd be curious to know, and I think you spoke to this a little bit, but if there's, like, something that really helped you shift your mind from that traditional education system that I think many of you spoke to being in prior to being at Springhouse and coming over to Springhouse - like, what was the thing that you had to, kind of, shift your thinking around? Or what would be the thing that you think listeners would be really, you know, they would benefit from shifting their thinking around in order to really live out that dream that you've been describing so far? 00:12:49 Speaker : I think that a really important part of Springhouse is that we, like, really value emotions and, like, take the time to listen and care about people. We have, like, mentorships so that, like, every learner has mentor, even that staff has mentors, so, like, you have someone to go to and, like, trust with things that are happening. And I think that if, like, emotions were, like, valued and respected then it would be good. Speaker : I feel like there is such... it's such a community, like, when I came here... because it's not... it's definitely not what I was expecting, like, it's... we're all very close to each other I feel like, especially with, like, the staff and, like, student relationships with, like... with, like, mentors and stuff like that. So it's really healthy and, yeah, it's giving me, like, a much broader sense of community and, like, having, like, a place to belong than any other school has ever done. 00:13:58 Rhys : Yeah, I think the mentorships really did help with, like, the transitioning between public school and here. You also kind of have to get in the mindset that, like, you don't have to be the best in, like, a specific thing. Because it's all about learning - that's kind of what you come to school to do, and here you're able to just not be the best at something and be able to learn, and grow from it. And I think that's something that, like, I had to, like, think about for a little bit because it was kind of hard because I came from, like, a, like, a school situation where if I was not the best then I would feel like I was...So coming here and being able to just learn instead of just having to be the best is definitely something that was helpful as well. Skyler : Yeah, I love that. I would love to add on top of everything, like, I love everything that y'all just said. And also I think, like, one thing that I really think about when I think about how you can bring this at a smaller scale into a, you know, in your class in like a public school setting, 00:15:16 I think about trust. I think about how the importance of learner agency and learner trust - and that's a trust that goes both ways. Right now we are all students here, there is no facilitator watching us, there is no... we are in these rooms alone because they trust us - and in turn we trust them. And so there's this trust that needs to be there. And something to invite the student to something bigger, something... And I see, like, a higher power, not, like, you know, like some... some, like, religious thing... I mean a higher power is in the group, the community that you're in - that's a higher power that if you contribute to, you can make that higher power stronger. And so if that becomes clear, not just through words, but through actions and through the way that you structure everything, that will invite students into something that they would have never tried otherwise. 00:16:24 Lindsay: Wow, these are wonderful ideas. And so I'm thinking about... and I like, Skyler, that you were kind of starting to take us there, too, so this is a great segue. You know, what does this look like to be able to bring these mindset shifts and these dreams that we just described into... perhaps in small waves at first... into a more traditional, perhaps public school setting? And I'm curious to know what are... what are the actions, like, what does it look like at the practical level for, you know, a learning guide? Like, what would a learning guide do? Or an educator do? What would a learner experience? Like, what are the things that... as educators are listening... they can take action on, you know, tomorrow in their class or in their school communities or learning environments more broadly? Speaker : I think that maybe one thing might just be able to kind of get in the headset or, like, think about how everyone learns differently. So, say, if in public school there's a kid who likes to draw a lot... maybe their math class... maybe somehow try to incorporate and, like, understand - try to help the kid understand what's going on and maybe have them do the assignment through something that they're good at. 00:17:33 Whether it be (unintelligible) understand. Just get in the headset that everybody kind of learns differently, is what I'd say. Skyler : Yeah. I mean, like, this has been a defined like, I'm... the reason why I'm in the role that I'm in is because I'm a... I'm a big vision guy, and I really struggle with the entire bringing it down thing. But, yeah, I would say... I would say... and this is maybe not something that you can do, like, tomorrow, this is a little bit of a bigger thing, but, like, the complete removal of assessment helps big time. We, as a school, have gone through a lot. I mean in my six years of being at the school, there has been a shift in the way that we do assessments every year, which... it went from, like, you have to do a presentation to you have, like, grades to... you know... we have, like, a special assessment thing. It's like a scale of, like, one to four, and now It's like none of that. Now it's just, like,, let's talk about it, let's just talk about where we're... let's talk about what you're good at, what you maybe are not good at 00:18:48 and let's just have a conversation. And that's what we're doing right now, actually. We're currently in our, quote, it's called a "Reflection of Learning Week". And so... and everybody just has conversations about the skills that we practice in the courses. In the sense of, like, in a teacher public school type of setting, I would say allow, like, allow for failure, like, create projects that are not something that... create projects and allow the kids to fail. And I don't mean, like, set it up for failure - but set up, like, create a project that is challenging and don't baby it. Don't say, like, you should do this next and you should do this next - maybe if they reach out to you and they're, like, I need some support here, maybe yeah,, totally do that. But, you know, creating... creating... again... the learner... giving a learner a task and a vision to put together and... and use, is really special. 00:20:06 Yeah. Excellent. Amelia, Sam, did you want to weigh in - I can't remember if you spoke on this question yet? I can't remember if we did, but something that I can add is I think just, like, getting lower involvement where you can, it could be like really small or like huge, but just, like, actively trying to get learner voices and, like, hear what they have to say about things. If you're going to make like a decision about your class or your school, ask the people in it. Absolutely. So well said, I think that's so critical. Yeah, I think that, like, you're at Springhouse, we definitely have like are like a lot of voices are definitely more heard and then, like, some other school settings that I've been to and I feel like, and I feel like that gives a more of a mutual respect for, like, students and teachers... or I guess I should say like students and teachers... but, like, yeah, like the learners and, like, yeah. 00:21:13 And I think that if other... if other schools would implement that more. if they yeah, they a bit, like, hear us, like, hear, like, the students more, I feel like that would be really beneficial. Lindsay: Yeah,, and I'd love to hear... and any one of you can speak either Sam if you want to follow up on that or I know, Amelia, you spoke that as well, you know, that idea of student voice and learner voice - what does that actually look like for someone who is, you know, teaching in this typical traditional public school and they're thinking, you know, to what degree do I engage learners in conversation - or when do I engage learners? Is this like a daily conversation? Is this like, as I'm starting to build a unit and we're, like, co -creating the unit together? Is it something that you have an opportunity to do, you know, when... when, like, Skyler, you spoke about, for example, the assessment changes that have been made over time, you know, is that something that learners were involved in? And at what part of the process or, you know, throughout the process? So I don't know if anyone wants to speak to any of those pieces, but I'd love to just get clear on, you know, how does that... how does that work? 00:22:17 Amelia: We have some, like, smaller and larger ways that we bring it in. Because, I mean, a fun thing about Springhouse is we're, like, constantly changing and reimagining how we're doing things. So, like, we had committees and now we don't have committees anymore - now there's just, like, people who can get together, committees when they see a need... and so having, like, we call it "The Round Table" and it's like a group of (unintelligible) Skyler and I are both on it, so kind of get to convey... it's not exactly like learners to the staff members, but sometimes it's like learner stuff to, like, (unintelligible) 'cause they're not often as involved there today, but... and then some smaller things we do is, like, we do a lot of discussions just, like... even if it's just, like, an in-class discussion... then we can just discuss and see where it takes us. 00:23:18 And we do, like, very regularly, just, like, check-ins at the beginning of class - they could be, like, fun check-ins, like what type of animal are you today? Or they could be more serious check-ins, like "How's the course going for you?" And also because I think that we have this trust - if sometimes there is, like, something that's happening that's not being brought up then at least I... and I think probably most of the student body... feels comfortable going to staff members to, like, talk about things that are happening during the school just because we, like, understand that they'll hear us and so... Skyler : Yeah.. I think that... I think about restorative justice here, how like, you know, kind of, you know, adding on to what you're saying, Amelia, and, yeah, I... it's, like... and that ties... like it really all ties down to trust. Is kind of like what I've realized over the time is, like, I trust that I can make a mistake and it's not the end of the world, you know. And that's... and it's okay to make mistakes and it's okay to be a jerk sometimes. And it's okay to... to, you know, deal with, like, all of these, like, facets and deep things that, like, we experience as people. 00:24:52 And I just really... it's like... and I guess... I guess it's just something that, like, is really like if you want something to happen now in your... in your classroom, I would say, yeah, again, they're just, like, absolutely, truly trust your students. And at first they might be like, oh, they might, like, not know how to deal with that and eventually, and relatively pretty quickly, I think that trust will actually become a mutual thing. And then your relationship really becomes that - a relationship - and not just like a, you know, big talking head in front of a bunch of people who don't care. Um and so... yeah LIndsay : Absolutely. Thank you so much for just speaking to that, that clearly????, you know, how how does that look? So, one of the things I'm just really curious about... and this is more of a fun question here... but this idea of, you know, what your experience has been like and all these positive things you've been talking about - is there, like, one learning experience that you've had that really influenced you or has been really memorable or helped you a lot? 00:26:08 Something that you would want to share with people to kind of illustrate what life at Springhouse like Skyler : Something that comes up for me is a few years ago, like, yes, like, in, like, four years now - I was, like, I was this kid who, like... and not to get super... not only to get... trying to do it without getting political here... but as a young... as a young kid, I was very convinced by, like, conservative internet stuff, and I, like, got like very trapped in it, and it, like, lead to, like, homophobia for myself and, like, all this and, like, really messed up stuff that I was thinking at the time. And then Jenny... who's the founding visionary here... did a class called Restore... No, it wasn't, it was called... oh I forgot what it's called... but it was... it was about white privilege, and it was about... It was co-led by Jenny, who's a white woman, and Shauna Tucker, who's a black woman, and they... and we just had like, all different types of people come in and we discussed privilege - and it was a very, very moving experience for me and really pulled me into, like... "Oh wow!" It taught me a lot about empathy and a lot about the mistakes that I had made, and the privilege that I have. And so in that sense that class was extraordinarily moving for me. 00:27:56 And it was all... it was called Courageous Conversations, that was what it was called. And it was just conversations, we were all in a circle and just talking about race and privilege in all different aspects of that stuff. And, yeah. Lindsay : Thank you so much for your vulnerability and sharing that story, Skyler, I really appreciate it. Rhys, Amelia or Sam - do you want to share one? Amelia : A couple of times that stand out to me are the times that I've been invited to help do things that I wasn't, like, expecting to be asked to help with. Like,, I think my second year at Springhouse, I was asked to help MC a fundraising event - and it was, like, "Wow, I get to help lead this with, like, a community elder!" And I was not expecting, like, being invited to leadership like that - and it was... it made me feel really, like, valued in the community. And then I've got into, like, MC a couple other events, like I got to help Chris Wolfe, one of our staff members, with our presentation night last year - and that was also really special - just because getting invited into, like, leadership that I've always thought were, like " Oh, those are, like, adult roles and you can't do that because, whatever the reason is, you're young and you're unprepared or whatnot." But actually doing it, and it going well, it just builds so much confidence and it was just so special those times. Lindsay : Amelia, thank you so much for sharing. Rhys, did you have something you wanted to say? 00:29:42 Rhys : Yeah., I think one thing that's really popping out is actually when I was invited to,like, be on the podcast. I actually was... I didn't really... if I... we kind of did like a raise your hand thing and I was going to, but I didn't really think I'd be able to, like, do it anyway, so I kept my hand down, and this one person was like " Hey, I think Rhys should do this." And I was like... and it was very (unintelligible), it made me really happy. It made me feel very seen. And I think that was really something that's definitely gonna stick with me for a long time. Lindsay : That's so beautiful, thank you so much for sharing that. And I'm so grateful to that person who recommended you, because you have been wonderful so far. Thank you. Sam, did you want to share a story? Sam : Well, just, like... we've been doing our reflections of learning for... on, like, the Monday, and a bit of today, and just, like, hearing what a lot of my... hearing what my teachers had to really, like, say about me - like, what they, like, noticed and picked up on and, like, my learning, really made me feel, like... it really made me feel heard and like "Oh, they noticed this about me," or, like, something similar. And, yeah, that's just, like, really moving to me that they... that they'd noticed, and, like, and even noticed... like, noticed that, like, enough to be, like "Hey you do this a lot and I think that's really something you should reflect on." 00:31:13 Lindsay " Yeah, thank you for speaking to that, because I have seen that in my survey design research in terms of the questions that we ask students and so, you know, not qualitative conversational responses where students are explaining, but just the survey answers they select around a question like that - How often do you feel like your teachers notice you, or notice that you're upset, or notice that you did this. And it's, it's really, you know, nationwide. Anecdotally, just looking at the data I've seen, is really low, like, it's such a basic thing, but it's really low, typically, for students. and I appreciate you speaking to that. (Unintelligible) it's such a basic thing that we can do, right? Is just pay attention to the folks around us and that goes a really long way. So I really appreciate that. And I love that you spoke too, in reference to, you know, you're in Reflection Week, and thinking about that. And so maybe we'll jump to that question of what is something that you have been learning about lately, whether that's, you know, the content in terms of the actual stuff you're learning this week, or this past unit that you've done or, you know, however you wanna segment time? Or it could be kind of like on a, you know, a skill-based or self - reflective level of as you're reflecting on the things you've done, you know, what is it that you're learning about yourself or your skill sets or something like that? 00:32:27 So feel free to interpret that question in any way that you'd like, I'd love to hear from each of you. Sam : Well, I feel like I've learned that like, I'm a lot like... this sounds weird... but, like, I'm a lot better at school than I thought I was. And, like... I've worked, like, for, like, these, like, years and just thought to myself, like, maybe I'm just, like, not smart, I guess. But now were, like, coming to, like, Springhouse that kind of made me realize that they're reflecting on all of a sudden being able to, like, learn all the stuff. I was just like, "Oh, I can learn, I just wasn't doing it." Not really. Just wasn't like, really able to do it the way that was beneficial to me. And I feel like that's, like, a big part of, like, I was like... it's very individual - like, every student's different - and they see that Lindsay : Thanks Sam. Anyone else wanna share? Rhys : I think for me it was kind of like relearning how to learn - if that makes any sense? Because I remember when I was in public school everything that I was taught... I can't remember, like, any of it. And now that I'm here I'm kind of relearning how to learn and remember, kind of, like, what I'm learning - and it's a lot easier because... how do I put this? 00:33:43 I kind of... they put it... they teach it in a way that all learners can understand and if a learner can't you can go up and ask a question. Like, you can actually ask a question and you'll be able to, like, be, like, "I don't know this, I need a little help." And I think that that's... yeah it's really great. Lindsay : Thank you Rhys. Skyler or Amelia- anything you guys have been learning about lately? Skyler : Um, yeah. But so... in our main course so we usually learn... what's it called... I forget the terminology... phenomenon... Is that the word? Do you know Amelia? Amelia : No. Skyler : We learned... we usually learn by taking a big subject, and then pulling different things out of it and studying things out of it. We've been doing a course on culture - and we've been looking at how culture... we kind of looked at culture through the lens of the Icarus myth... I don't know if you know that one, but it's the classic fly too high, low, fire under the sun. 00:35:09 And we were talking about, like, how does society, like, how does our culture, at least in America, go too high or too low - and where is that... where is that land? And then we kind of, like, led to this place of thinking about this term called Monoculture. Now, it's, you know, it's usually used in, like, farming - but in this context it's like a sociopolitical concept around a culture that focuses on one thing. one thing smushes all the other, you know, little things that come up through the cracks... or at least tries to. And so, what that's led to is, you know, me and Jenny are currently working on projects with the mission in mind of disrupting the Monoculture. And, you know, the kind of... the conclusion that I, personally, came to in the course was that our Monoculture orients around money, and success, and being better than the person next to you. 00:36:18 And, you know, in the course, we really asked the question "Can we go deeper?" And so that's kind of a really, really, moving course for me. Lindsay : Thanks Skyler, that's awesome. I want to take that course. Skyler : It's really cool. Lindsay : Amelia, did you want to share one? Amelia : I would. I've been having a hard time choosing, because, like, all of the courses I've done have been, like, really great. But I think the course that usually stands out to me when I've asked questions like this is last year I was, like, mostly virtual for the whole year, and not everyone was, and that was pretty challenging. But in the middle of the year, there was a course... I believe it was called Body and Isolation... and it was kind of an anatomy course... because we were learning a lot about the brain and, like, the brain's reaction to things, and, like, all the different departments do. But then it also had various parts like movement and stuff. I'd never taken a course with Roxanne before, and it was really helpful for me on zoom, because the zoom week was just like, zoom... you're sitting down for the whole time. 00:37:34 But Roxanne would always be, like, "Okay, we're standing up, we're moving around, we're doing some breathing exercises." And it was really nice to help, like, recenter into the body, and we're actually here learning about this. And then the learning was more valuable and engaging because of that. And we also learned in that course a lot of different things like the brain's reaction to trauma and like breathing things you can do to help you when, like, you're going into a 'fight or flight' response and, like, it was a very engaging course for being on zoom. There were a lot of slide shows and, like, discussions and things. And so it was course that really lifted me up and let me get through the rest of the year Lindsay : And it sounds really relevant to the time in the context of Covid, right? And just, like, everything feels really practical, like, those breathing strategies, I'm sure the standing and moving and, like, the learning about trauma and, like, Covid being a collective trauma, right? Societally, it sounds really, really on the mark that someone was, like, this is a course we need to teach now and in this way. 00:38:42 Excellent. All right, so, as we wrap up the episode, I'm just curious to know... as we talked about so many things... So, as folks are listening, and they're kind of, you know, closing out their commute, or going for a run, or however they're listening... and just thinking, "I want one tangible thing to kind of remember as they close the episode." So, something that either one of us have said so far, or a call to action, like an action stuff they can take - anything that you think that we've talked about, that you want to just highlight or emphasize as we close that could be the takeaway item for someone who's ending the episode now - any thoughts on what that might be? Skyler : If you... I've said this earlier... if you teach adolescents, you gotta trust them, you gotta trust them. The thing is, we are more capable than you might think. We are very capable of doing really awesome stuff. But often, how I look at it in the (Unintelligible) things that I've experienced, 00:39:46 it felt like I haven't gotten the opportunity to really test myself, really push myself, really go to the edge of my capacity. And so, you know, that's one really tangible thing is just, like, actually do the practices in yourself to learn how to trust your students in a way that yeah, you know... learning to trust them, and give them opportunities to test both yourself and your trust of them, you know. Be like, you know, "I want you to set up something and I depend on you," and allow them to figure it out - because we can do some really cool stuff if we are given the opportunity... and I think that you're... that part of your job as a facilitator is to give us the opportunity. So, yeah. Lindsay : Beautifully said. What other things do people want to highlight? Amelia : I think that, in connection with you, Skyler, if you're a learner listening to this, try to trust your facilitator, because then you can make that connection. 00:41:02 Lindsay : Great suggestion, Amelia, thank you. Say more, Rhys? Rhys : I think that, like, listening to your students, like, listening to your learners and the learners listening to the teachers, like, is such a crucial part of, like, of the healthy school environment. And I think that, like, yes, so much, like how Skyler was saying - how, like, capable adolescents are like, okay, well we are... we could be so much more capable if we had great resources to do it. Skyler : Yes,, thank you. Speaker : I think that, like, what everyone, especially Skyler, was talking about, is that definitely that mutual trust. and just being able to recognize and understand that everybody learns differently and that some... yeah just like Sam said, just being able to challenge, yeah... sorry, that didn't make much sense and (unintelligible) interpreted as well. 00:42:18 But not really, I don't know, Lindsay : I think that makes perfect sense. Yeah, I think and that's a really, really great point that I think all of these responses seem connected to that idea of relationality, right? And in building that relationality with students and fostering that sense of not everyone learns the same, right? And we need to listen to be able to figure out how students learn, right? And there's all these interconnections between what you all just highlighted - we need to build that trust to be able to have that relationship in the first place. So, I think this is brilliant wisdom to be able to share at the close of the episode. And the very last question... I'm not sure if you all have a space online that folks could learn more about the school? I know Jenny had spoken on a previous episode with... that I had with Jenny... she spoke about the school webpage. So I don't know if there are other things like class blogs or project spaces that people can go to, to see any of your work... or if you, you know, if you're wanting to connect with folks individually... absolutely feel free to share that as well... but I'm just wondering what people can do to kind of follow up and learn more about you all and your work Skyler : Immediately off the top of my head here... 00:43:25 the school, me and Jenny and a few other people, really worked a few years ago on designing education design principles... the ones that I told you... and they are part of this thing that we call Sourced Design - and we have all types of opportunities for educators and business owners and nonprofit people, but to really study and look into it. And so we do have a web page, the source to design dot org, where you can really dig into, like, the real nitty gritty of what we've been talking about here. Lindsay : Perfect. And I'll link to that in the show notes, too. So, for anyone who's driving while listening, you can grab that, they're in the blog post when you're done driving. Thank you all so, so much, I just want to reiterate my gratitude for you all taking time out of your day to come together and talk about this and provide some really insightful commentary and suggestions for educators who are trying to do the great things that you're speaking about today. 00:44:30 So, thank you all - Skyler, Rhys, Amelia, Sam, thank you so much for for being on the podcast. Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me at Lindsay Beth Lyons, or leave a review of the show so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time, Leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. School Contact Links: How to get in touch with our guests:
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Lindsay Lyons: I'm excited for you to hear from Dr. Kelly Cerialo today. She's an associate professor and program coordinator in the Business and Hospitality Department at Paul Smith's College, she is the co-chair of the Unesco Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve, New York and Vermont, a steering committee member for the US Unesco Biosphere Network, and focal point liaison for the US Biosphere Reserve Youth Network. She coordinates international student exchanges with a focus on eco-tourism in Unesco Biosphere reserves in Europe and Africa. She is the co-founder of the Adirondack to Appennino Sustainable Parks and Communities Project, an international sustainable initiative between the Appennino Tusco-Emiliano Biosphere Reserve in Italy and the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve. Dr. Cerialo is the former director of the Global Center for Rural Communities at Paul Smith's College and has over a decade of experience building international sustainable development collaborations. She received the Chamberlain Excellence in Teaching Award in 2019 and Faculty Member of the Year at Paul Smith's College in 2018. Dr. Cerialo has presented her research on sustainable tourism and youth leadership development at conferences in the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
00:01:05 She has a PhD in Leadership and Change from Antioch University, a master's degree in Communication Management from the University of Southern California, master's degree in Leadership and Change from Antioch University, and a bachelor's degree in Public Relations, Mass Media Communication from the College of New Jersey. Her research interests include sustainable tourism development, the social impacts of tourism in internationally designated areas, sustainable tourism in Unesco Biosphere reserves, Unesco Biosphere reserve governance and management, recreation overuse, and youth leadership development in internationally designated areas. Let's get right to the episode. For a reference I'll tell you when this episode was recorded, which was August 9, 2021. Here we go. [upbeat violin sounds] Lindsay Lyons: Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality, and sustain an inclusive, anti-racist culture where all students thrive. 00:02:06 I'm a former teacher leader-turned instructional coach, educational consultant, and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach, or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in. Lindsay Lyons: Welcome Dr. Kelly Cerialo to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. I just read your professional bio. Is there anything you want to add to that intro? Dr. Kelly Cerialo: So Lindsay, thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm honored and it's-- I'm excited to share with you my perspectives about study abroad. So I would say that the main thing I wanted to add about this before we get started is that a lot of what I'm discussing today is a mix of my own academic research and experience. So I'm not the traditional academic. I would say I'm a more scholar practitioner and so a lot of the context of what I'm discussing is based on conducting service-learning study abroad trips for the last seven years in Italy and South Africa. 00:03:19 And so a lot of it again isn't just based on my scholarly research, but more my practice in the field. So I wanted to say that and I think another aspect that might be helpful to frame our conversation is to tell you a little bit about the college where I teach and the student demographics. I think that will help understand how I've learned from this study abroad approach and how I've tried to strengthen the service-learning aspect of the study abroad piece. So I teach at a very small rural private college in upstate New York, in the northern Adirondacks actually, so it's about six hours north of New York City. It's called Paul Smith's College and the whole model of learning there is focused on innovative experiential learning and so I know that a lot of programs focus on that, but it's really changed my perspective of what that can look like and more importantly, how place-based education fits into that. So in terms of the college itself and the location, it's a really interesting learning ground. We have in our school, we have programs that range from Forestry Management, where it's literally the students are barely in the classroom, they're always outside, you know, it's-- our campus is 14,000 acres so the students are outside, you know, in the field all the time learning. 00:04:36 And in my program I teach in the Business and Hospitality Department. So we're always quote unquote in the field too. I'm not in the forest as much, but we're always, you know, in the field meeting with, tourism operators to learn about, you know, things related to our field. So it's truly out of the classroom experiential learning. And that's-- it was interesting because that actually helped me improve my approach to study abroad because it really focused on place-based learning. And then I tried to apply that in a global setting so to improve my approach to study abroad and how I can make that more generative for the students, not only in our local community but more importantly abroad. So in terms of the student demographics that I teach, so, again it's a very small school and we have about 1000 undergraduate students, we just launched one master's program, but the bachelor's program is about 1000. And most of the students are first generation college students, low income families, most of them receive federal funding in order to supplement their tuition. 00:05:38 And so this isn't a traditional kind of western, extremely wealthy, you know, New York City-based college, it's-- these are certainly low income and first generation college students that in traditional academic settings may not have an opportunity to study abroad. But I'm proud that at our school we've built in funding opportunities in scholarships that allow these students to be able to go to all different locations. You know, whether it's Russia, I don't run the Russia study abroad. We have another program in Biology that does a study abroad trip to Russia, but then also in Italy, South Africa. So it's a really, I think unique, innovative and I like to think an inclusive model that our whole school is introduced. I don't think it's just me. I think the other faculty members have really wrapped their, you know, hands around and minds around creating truly innovative place-based education in our area and then abroad. So it's pretty unique in that and I'm proud to, proud to be a part of it. 00:06:36 Lindsay Lyons: That's amazing and it kind of speaks-- that, that answer was kind of speaks to the next question that I'm going to ask, which is around this idea that Dr. Bettina Love talks about: freedom dreaming. She describes that, I love her description, as "Dreams grounded in the critique of injustice". And so I'd love to hear from you, you know, what is your big dream that you hold for the field of education? Dr. Kelly Cerialo: So many, right, I have a laundry list, but I think the one that's so relevant to this episode, and I say the-- I think, it's so relevant just in terms of what's going on in the world today is the idea of trying to figure out a way for educators and administrators to introduce their-- to reimagine the idea of place as pedagogy, right? So the idea of thinking about how place as pedagogy can create opportunities for students to think critically about injustice in their own towns, but also abroad. Along with that, I think what is critical is to think about how students and even faculty, I, you know, needed to reflect on this myself several times, 00:07:47 is thinking about how our own intersectional lenses influence the way that we see, we feel, and we think about, right? Those three aspects: seeing, feeling, and thinking about our culture and other cultures, I think, are a critical piece to place as pedagogy, right? So it's not only seeing it, but you feel a certain way when you're experiencing a place, right? When you're sensing a place. And then when you're thinking about it, sometimes your thoughts don't always align with what you're seeing. And so I think considering those three aspects is really important. So I think when I'm dreaming again about this big idea, you know, what dream do I hold for education is really how can we introduce that way of thinking about place as pedagogy to think critically, for students to think critically about injustice and in that, in that same aspect of thinking about injustice is also thinking about what opportunities in that can we create for social change, because I think that's the piece, it's not just saying there's injustice there, but we can use place as pedagogy to find opportunities for social change. 00:08:53 So I think it's a pretty pie in the sky, you know, dream that, I think it's possible. And I think that, yeah, it's something I'm at least striving for. Lindsay Lyons: I love that so much, and I think that's such a great point. We don't want to just point out injustice and identify where it exists, but we want to actually advance justice and, you know, make social change. And so I love that, that piece of the dream, and I'm thinking, you know, this is, as you said, kind of pie in the sky, or maybe a deviation from, particularly when we're talking about, you know, undergraduate students and what college looks like, that has been a very specific way for a very long time in terms of the pedagogy of college and, all of that, and I mean down through K-12 as well, right, there's this traditional way of doing things. And so I'm curious to know what mindset shifts are required either for the students, for faculty, like whoever you see as really needing that mindset shift to get people to buy into that idea of place as pedagogy and moving for social change. Dr. Kelly Cerialo: Yeah, so I'd say the first and I think most important shift that needs to happen is when you're thinking about place as pedagogy is that there's, [sigh] there's a danger in hierarchies 00:10:04 when you think about place as pedagogy, and I think when you're trying to use a place as grounds to educate, it's important to establish networks instead of reinforce hierarchies. So the idea of how do I network with the local business and the community to make sure that we are introducing ideas, you know, the student ideas for a project. One example I can think about is that my students have worked with a local organization to help them develop a self-assessment to be more sustainable in hotels. So it's for hotels and they come up with a self-assessment. And so what was interesting in that process was that, it-- instead of the hotel is looking at the students and saying, "What do they know about sustainability?" and, you know, the strict hierarchy of, "I'm older", "I've been in the field for a really long time", "You have no idea about our budget", "You have no idea about...", you know, what it takes to be sustainable. It broke that hierarchy down and it gave, it empowered the students through our network with them, in our relationship with them, to find a voice and to research what they needed to do to create the self-assessment for hotels. 00:11:08 So what was interesting in that process was my students were working locally with these-- it was a series of hotels in the Lake Placid area, which is a very, you know, it's Lake Placid where our- my College is about 30 minutes from Lake Placid, a 30 minute drive. And it's a popular tourist destination. It was known, they hosted the Olympics there twice in 1932 and 1980. And so it's a big tourist destination, totally for the Olympics, but it's also, outdoor recreation is really popular and hiking and so hotels are a strong economic driver in this region. So my students having the opportunity to create something that could be more sustainable for these hotels was an incredible opportunity and it couldn't have happened without that breakdown of the hierarchies and without the networking experience. And what was interesting too was that in terms of empowering the students instead of trying to control them in that process, I stepped back and I kind of, you know, it was, we were doing this, it actually happened, you know, in a semester that I was partially-- it was a hybrid of the course, we were part in person and part, you know, online and I was able to step back and let them really drive the idea. 00:12:19 So think about innovative ways to approach this, instead of me saying this is what we're going to do, this is, you know why this is important in this hotel and this is why the self-assessment... So they really created that project. So going back to that question, the mindset shift, I think that are required to really strengthen that place as pedagogy is to break down the hierarchies and encourage networks and then I would say empower instead of control and that again, all those, both of those concepts can mean a lot of layers, right? So it can be hierarchies within the educational framework, hierarchies within, you know, the community framework or abroad because we'll be talking about the study abroad a little bit later internationally, and then the empowering instead of controlling, you know, in my example was really about empowering the students instead of strictly saying this is what you're gonna do, and I think the other layer to that was the hotels also trusted the students enough and empowered them enough to let their voice come forward. 00:13:20 And so I think that was a really critical piece in place as pedagogy is allowing that empowerment to come through. So it worked, I think that, you know, it was really great and the way I, you know, know it worked was that hotels were excited to use the end product and this, again, this is a community, a local community example, but this I'll be talking about later some examples of how this can be applied internationally and you know, in the study abroad programs, but, the student and when the hotels were using this tool or thinking about this tool, you know, they were proud to say that it was a student initiative, right? It wasn't something they were saying, like "We came up this idea ourselves, we're sustainable", it was more of the students developed this locally and it just, it really strengthened a lot of ties in the community. So, and I do have to admit this was, you know, I've done several of these programs locally and not all of them are as successful or, you know, easy as this one was, I don't want to say it was easy, it was difficult for the students, but you know, I think it takes some trial and error to come to that. 00:14:23 And I think this one was an example of one that could work, an example of how to break down that hierarchy and empower the students, so. Lindsay Lyons: It sounds too like you're kind of talking about finding the right partners as well. Like, so not necessarily shifting mindsets, although I think there probably is a requirement to kind of shift people along that continuum, but people who are already at the point where they're like, "Yeah, we're willing to work with students, we're excited to say this was student created", like that's a particular type of partner. It sounds like that you'd want to establish in that network versus to try to convert someone who is very hierarchical, very "I don't want to work with students". It sounds like it's better to partner with the right people right off the bat. Dr. Kelly Cerialo: Absolutely. And it takes-- it's a lot of vetting that goes through that and it took me quite some time to figure out how to do that, you know, and it's a lot of times it doesn't come to the surface, you know, in terms of what their expectations are with the students. And one thing for me is that you also, in finding that right partner, a lot of times people would be like, "Oh, free help", you know, "A student project, that sounds great", and I have to be really mindful of protecting the students from that, you know, making sure that from a learning perspective that our course objectives are met, that they are empowered in a way that's, you know, from start to finish throughout the class, not just for one week of the class that they have say, but that model stays, you know, throughout the whole semester, So I think you're exactly right. 00:15:46 I think the partner in this is critical, again, not just on the community level, but more thinking of finding partners, for a study abroad experience for place as pedagogy. It's equally, if not more important, so absolutely. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. And yeah, let's talk about study abroad a little bit. So I think one of the things that I think is really critical is taking brave action and developing, you know, programs and structures and practices just like you've been talking about and I know you've done that for a study abroad program. So I don't know if you want to give us an overview of that program or talk about kind of an overview of those brave actions that required to kind of set it all up and then we can go into, you know, what are the challenges and all of that. But I'd love to just get you to introduce that for our listeners to see the great stuff you're doing. Dr. Kelly Cerialo: Sure. So the program that I should say this and I think this was a critical part for myself in this process is that I co-- I'm the co-founder, I don't do this alone, you know, I think that would be extra for myself. I need, you know, a partner in this because I think so much of place as pedagogy and especially study abroad is important to self reflect on what's going on, not only for the students, but also for the faculty. 00:16:56 And so, I have a partner, Dr. Eric Holmlund who also works at Paul Smith's College, that I've built the Adirondack to Appenninos Sustainable Parks and Communities Project. That's the name of the project, the study abroad. And it was interesting how this program came to be. So it's a, without speaking for three hours, I'll cut to the chase about it, but it was in 2013 my Chair at the time had said, "Would you be interested in taking students on a study abroad trip to Italy? We have a partner that's looking for a faculty member to go". And I was like, "Who wouldn't want to go on a study abroad trip to Italy? Yes." And so what was interesting, long story short, I was going with another faculty member who fortunately had led several study abroads, so I absolutely, he was a mentor and I learned from Dr. Holmlund through this process. So I went on the trip, I'll start this. So the program itself was designed with the idea of looking at the impacts of sustainable tourism on protected areas. So looking at the social impacts, economic, and environmental. We've used a lot of the United Nations sustainable development goals as a framework. Later on in the program, when we started this, it was in 2013, 00:18:09 so those goals came out later. but the initial program was really focusing on how looking at the impacts of tourism in these protected areas. And so Dr. Holmlund and I were trying to figure out when we're creating this program, how can we make sure this is a generative experience for the students that it's something that we are actually making a difference in the country that we're working with, but not determining what we should be doing that's good for us based on our learning objectives, but more importantly, and you know, kind of equally balancing our learning objectives with the needs of the local community. So, we were very fortunate in identifying administrators from a Unesco site, it's a Unesco biosphere reserve, so it's a protected landscape that has, it's extremely biodiverse. It's incredible hiking areas, really great for outdoor recreation. So the idea was how can we work with these local partners to identify, you know, learning experience for the students that gave back to the local community but was also meeting our learning objectives. 00:19:14 So, that was the bit the framework for this project, the whole project. So what happened over the years as Dr. Holmlund and I had worked on this project, we were trying to figure out as the-- when we started, we knew that this was going to be multi-year engagement, multi-year partnership. And the idea behind that was that finding an in-country partner that communicated clearly about what the community's needs for, that understood our purpose, right? So like, I think a lot of the mistakes in study abroads, I know that when I was first thinking about study abroad, a lot of the mistakes were, you know, you're going, it's-- the idea was you're going as a vacation, right? This isn't tourism, you know, in terms of the study abroad experience, it's not a vacation for students, it's education and so how can we make sure that this multi-year relationship is focused on education, is meeting the community needs, and also understanding that in terms of giving back to our school that we-- Eric and I, the-- professor Holmlund and I designed the program that if either one of us left that the program could continue with our school. 00:20:20 So like if for some reason, you know, that one of the faculty members changed, that another faculty member could pick this up and continue. So I think that it was, that was really important to us. So in any event that was the project, the Adirondack Appennino Sustainable Parks and Community Project. So when we first developed this and you start-- first started running the trip we, you know, Eric fortunately was again, he had a lot more experience than I did in study abroads. I had never run a study abroad and so I was not prepared for students being afraid on the plane. Students, you know had, you know, having withdrawal from their cell phones, you know, students, you know..., you name it, I was completely unprepared. And so what was great was that we had the opportunity in our school to do pre-trip. The way we run it is we run a full semester before of pre-trip coursework preparation, cultural preparation, some basic language preparation, some, you know, some context about the political, social, economic context in the area, 00:21:24 environmental, you know, and we used the Adirondacks, like where our school is based as a point of differentiation, so again that place as pedagogy, the Adirondacks was used as a comparison to, in this case we were looking at Unesco site in Italy. And so what was beneficial is that the students knew the Adirondacks and then when we would eventually get on the ground in Italy they'd be like, "Oh, this is what's similar, this is what's different" culturally, socially, economically from our areas. So we used that full semester to kind of build that up. When we first started it I don't know if it was as productive but as we went through the seven years we saw what was really important right? So beginning that self reflective piece, thinking about again how your intersectional lens of how you experience your own culture, you know, your own perceptions of race, your own perceptions of religion before you go, not just waiting 'til you're on the ground there. So we started to build in that self reflection piece even, you know, when we were still in the US. And so I think over the years we've-- that was one piece that we strengthened considerably. 00:22:30 The other thing that we did very intentionally was we always had an interdisciplinary team. It was never just one major and I did that because I was also, I introduced this and was pretty strict about this because I saw the benefit in all of, I teach a lot of communication courses too at the school. And so I see the benefit of having interdisciplinary teams together, especially in communication courses, but the study abroad course, I really wanted to see the different perspectives and avoid groupthink and I also think it challenges students to learn and appreciate and see things outside of their own field, right? So we have some biology students that go, we have culinary students, we have sustainability students, we have hospitality students, we have recreation. And so I think, this is just my opinion, I'd be interested to hear my partner's opinion on this, but the most successful trips are really with the students that have a wide range of perspectives and experiences within their field. 00:23:31 You know, I had taken-- Eric wasn't able to come one year, so I had taken a professor, her background is in Biology and she also is in, I know, has studied a variety of different aspects of biology and seeing and experiencing Italy, the same territory that I've been traveling to, through her eyes changed my perspective, right? And so in turn, you know, in years following that it absolutely shifted the way that I approached the course because it was, it made me more sensitive to other disciplines and so with that I think the students also bring the different disciplines is really rich in terms of diversity and perspectives. So that's a little bit about the program that we've developed. And I think it also gives the actions that our, our school trusted us to develop this. So when we first started, I think that was when we were talking about, like, brave actions are required. I think what was brave and what our university did or our college did was that they trusted Eric and I to build this program to set up scholarship opportunities. 00:24:39 We didn't set that up. The school had that built in: international study abroad scholarship opportunities. But they would carve out, you know, it was a significant amount of money that students can get up to $1,000 per trip. And so I think that's a significant opportunity. And then, so in terms of the brave actions, having that funding opportunity and then also I think the other brave action our administration took was that in times that our school financially, you know, couldn't afford to pay us, meaning the instructors, as an overload, to go, they figured out ways to fold the study abroad experience like into our normal course work. So it was, they were taking risks. They were thinking outside of the box in terms of, they knew the value of this. We showed them the value of what the effect this had on the students, the place as pedagogy specifically in this case, in terms of study abroad. So they continued to support that and I think that it, without our administration's support and them seeing, figuring out ways to make sure that we can continue the trip, to continue our relationship with our Unesco partners, you know, in Italy, 00:25:47 and then eventually we did the trip in South Africa too and I'll speak to that later. I think that the trust of the administration, the flexibility, the innovativeness, they were, they were always open to us trying this. And I think what was also interesting on our partners on the ground, we made sure that, you know, it wasn't, you know, I think that my-- I cringe when I think about this idea of, you know, the white savior-ism specifically and I-- and our trip to, you know, South Africa prepping the students of why that is, you know, it's-- we need to be thinking about this on a deep level. And so what I think was important in our context and our, you know, preparation for these programs (I'm rambling a bit...) [inaudible] for these programs was that they--, our administration really believed in what we were doing and tried innovative ways to continue supporting it after we showed them the benefits. And so we wanted to make sure that what we were doing for the local communities in Italy and South Africa lasted, it wasn't something that would just go away when we left after the two or three weeks when we were there, it was something that they can continue to integrate and so we set it up that the projects would last long term and it didn't require extra resources that were unreasonable, it didn't require you know additional things that they didn't have. 00:27:11 So I think that was, that was a key part to it. Lindsay Lyons: That's so helpful that you highlighted, I think you threw out some challenges there, you threw out some brave actions there. That was so helpful to kind of hear how this is all coming together and the focus for you as a co-creator of this program in terms of what you wanted to have happen and I think as we continue the conversation I think that will come out more and more in terms of the choices that you made or the experiences and specific anecdotes that kind of highlight how that focus has become even more precise. I know you threw out some challenges but were there other challenges that you wanted to share around, you know, developing curriculum or setting all this up in terms of the city abroad program really being what you wanted it to be? Dr. Kelly Cerialo: Yeah, so I'll share kind of two aspects of this. So I think in terms of the biggest challenges with curriculum development for study abroad programs, there's a lot in the literature about this, right? So if there's a lot of information about study abroad, like how to, how to develop the curriculum correctly and then, you know, what challenges are in terms of actually executing it on the ground. 00:28:17 So I think what with some of the challenges, especially with the service learning focused ones are that I mentioned this earlier that a lot of, for cost reasons and for time reasons, I shouldn't say a lot, but certain study abroad programs are contracted out to third party vendors, so when you're coming up and developing a curriculum for study abroad and a third party vendor is actually the one that's executing it or private businesses actually executing it and you, as the faculty member have less control over it. That certainly changes the outcomes. In my opinion, my experience, it changed the outcome. The other aspect, I did touch on this briefly, but the idea of when you're developing a curriculum, it in some circumstances, fortunately we tried to avoid this, but in some circumstances, the idea, especially when you're contracting sometimes and I shouldn't say all third party vendors are not terrible and all private businesses for study abroads are not terrible. I think they're actually excellent. There are really strong ones. 00:29:18 I think there are-- the ones that are focused on the service learning and really creating those generative experience, not, you know, focused on tourism, but more education I think is what's key. So I think the idea of, when you're fine-- if you are choosing to develop a curriculum and you choose a third party or private business to execute that, it's important to select something or an organization that is prioritizing the educational piece and not just taking them around to the pretty sights and you know, kind of skimming the surface of what's actually happening. The other aspect of curriculum development for study abroad programs and I think the biggest challenge and something to be aware of, especially when you're going in non-Western cultures or you know, it's critically important is that being aware of the use of colonialist language that you're talking about, in the way that you're framing this with the students because I think a lot of it is from a Western perspective and when you're going to a country, you know that say you're going to Uganda or in my case we've taken students South Africa, it's recognizing the language that you're using in the curriculum and how you're introducing different sources, you know, not just using Western sources. I think, you know, it's-- with me, I was very, you know, I had taken a different professor than Eric on this. 00:30:40 I was working with a cultural anthropologist that went with me to South Africa and it was incredible because he was an excellent resource. It was Professor Joe Henderson, also at Paul Smith's College, he was an incredible resource at helping find and source, you know, Native South African, you know, speakers and Native South african written books and videos and podcasts, right? And so we would use that as a pre-trip resource to compare and contrast, so use-- developing that curriculum that integrated cultural relevant pedagogy and then also being mindful and then really intentional about finding thing-- resources from the country that you're visiting and not just from a Western perspective and what we did was we challenged the students to compare and contrast it and man, that was a pretty intense, you know, class conversation that we enjoyed and I think it was great even before we were on the ground and yeah, we used that throughout the trip. So I think in terms of curriculum development it's, you know, there's several challenges I think, you know, just to highlight it's really... when you're developing the curriculum, be cognizant if you are using a third party to make sure that the third party or private business is, you know, prioritizing educational piece over the tourism piece, being cognizant of the language that you're using, you know, that it's not the colonialist language that, you know, you're introducing into the curriculum. 00:32:06 And then also, you know, thinking about... thinking about ways to introduce resources that are not just from the Western perspective, you know, when you're developing the curriculum. So yeah. Lindsay Lyons: Those are great suggestions and I was just thinking of the colonialist language, I mean that comes out in a lot of different ways. One specific example, I was-- we were talking before we started recording that I was able to do some study abroad trips and one of the ones that resonates with me is in the north of Ireland and I say the north of Ireland very precisely because I learned in that pre-trip phase in the course that we had leading up to it, that choosing to say, you know, Northern Ireland is like a particular frame, like you're supporting the imperialism of Northern Ireland by England and so the north of Ireland is cognizant of Ireland as a republic. And so just that little tiny shift, I mean, things like that are so nuanced and if we didn't study it ahead of time, I never would have realized in speaking to different people that that nuance is present in language that people who are living there speaking and that I am coming off in certain ways to certain people. 00:33:13 And so I think that's just one tiny example, but I think that's so powerful, but you're naming all of those things. And actually, if I can continue just with that vein of study abroad trips in my personal experience, I have had so many, Nicaragua, Ireland, South Africa, Mauritius, I mean just so many different places that I've been able to go and study and I felt great about myself in the moment, like "Yes, I'm doing this really cool work" and looking back really what the experiences are with the lens that I have now, they really felt in many cases more like what has been called poverty tourism or white savior-ism and they weren't super generative. I wasn't really working with an organization on the ground to have that sustainable impact like you're talking about. I wasn't always challenging my ways of thinking and so I think that's such a challenge, you know, within country partners and having a study abroad experience. So how do you really set the stage? And I think you kind of talked about this a little bit already, but how do you set the stage with that specifically in mind, that we don't want to just be taken to sites that are looking at economic poverty or other situations and feeling like we're not contributing and just kind of looking at people's hardship and almost like, you know, trauma and seeing that as the purpose of the trip, is to bear witness to trauma. 00:34:38 I think that's such a challenging line to walk in terms of recognizing what is happening and also being generative in partnering with people. So I'm so curious to know any other tips that you have for people or experiences that you've had that we're learning moments, or kind of recognizing what you wanted the program to really be in evolution there. Dr. Kelly Cerialo: Yeah, so I would say in terms of how to-- how I tried to set the stage with in-country partners and with the students before they leave so they have more generative experience. And first I just, I admire how many places you went to and I would love to, in another conversation, hear about all that because I think so much of what I've, you know, done and learned through this study abroad experience is also hearing about other study abroad trips of how I can improve and tweak mine and getting feedback on it. So that's incredible that you had that opportunity and I think it's so valuable. So I think in terms of how I try to set the stage and again this came from trial and error and learning myself, I want to be super, you know, transparent about this. I was very naive when I first started doing the study abroad experiences and reflecting back on it, you know, it's just-- it took me experiencing and admittedly messing up, right, you know, not understanding the impacts of that white savior-ism and poverty tourism and all of those things. 00:35:55 So I think I want to just put that out there and admit, you know, I absolutely, you know, learned from that myself. So it's something that, it didn't just happen, you know, this isn't perfect, it was, you know, learned over time. So the things that I try to do now after learning from that, in terms of setting the stage with in-country partners and the students before they leave, I think, there's a tool I'm sure you're familiar with. So Geert Hofstede came up with this idea of the cultural dimensions. So these cultural dimensions, what-- it's cool about them and I think there is some, I tell students to take it with a grain of salt, what they do is they introduce different lenses of looking at cultural. So for instance, they look at is the culture, you know, based on his dimensions. And again, this is a very specific framework so you have to take with a grain of salt, but does it tend to be a more collectivist or individualistic society? Is it more feminine or masculine? Is it more, you know, where they, I can't think of the word for it, but are they more in terms of showing wealth, you know, how-- what is their likely propensity to showing wealth? 00:37:02 And so I use that as a basis for discussion because the tool is actually incredible. They allow you to compare it to other countries. So I'll have the students as an activity before we leave, look at that. So look at first as a comparison to America because that's what their context is and what they know the best. I'll have them compare it to another country that they're also interested in. So say for instance, if we were taking the students to Italy, I'd have them compare it first, you know, using Hofstede cultural dimensions, looking at how does Italy approach? Are they more of an individualistic society or collectivist in comparison to America? And then I'll have them look at, say, students very interested in japanese culture. So I'll have them compare Italy to Japan in terms of the range of collectivist versus individual. And then we have a discussion about it, right? We reflect on it, what surprised them, what, you know, did they expect that and how I have them try to think about how they will see this playing out on the ground when we're there, like thinking about now that we've talked about this, like how could this look like. And then when we're in country I pull that back in and I'll say, "Remember when we were looking at that? Was that accurate?" and sometimes it's not. 00:38:12 And I think that's equally as valuable as a learning tool when it's not. We can say, "That's cool, Hofstede. We got that.", that is, you know, very-- that-- insightful that we saw that. But we also noticed this. And I think what's interesting is that when you use any of these tools it's not specific to Hofstede is that the students and from your experience, you know, this was developed during a certain time period, right? So we're in, you know, 2021 2022 and so this can change, you know, these like, the countries evolve and experiences evolve, economic, political situations change. So when this tool was developed, the dimensions can also change with that. And so I think that that's also a valuable learning opportunity. So in terms of pre-trip preparation, I do an extensive amount. We try to do it for a semester long, so it'll run for, you know, three-- around three months, you know, to prepare them to think critically about this and not just--, I don't do, you know, it's-- yes, I'll have some power point slides but so much of it is discussion based, I avoid, like I-- it's not-- you're--, they're not, they're not learning anything by me just talking about, "Here's what you're gonna see in Italy." It's more of like, let's look at these dimensions, let's think critically about what this is gonna look like and then have them, you know, reflect about how they think about this on the ground, how they're feeling about this and what they're actually seeing on the ground through those dimensions. 00:39:30 And so that's one of many tools that we kind of integrate. Another piece that I've used in this experience too is a lot of-- our school offers a pretty interesting recreation-- outdoor recreation program and there's a lot of leadership development and that goes into these outdoor recreations. So in terms of like, you know, the-- just group dynamics and understanding like how groups function, you know, and the idea of when you're experiencing a foreign culture, the idea that, you know the norming storming, you know, the, you know in terms of group dynamics, understanding how your experience of a place and learning about this place changes based on your group dynamics. So if one person, one student or one faculty member in the group is having a very, you know, strong opinion about x, you know, maybe it's about the food, "I hate the taste of this food," or "I love the sound of this language," or you know, "This is beautiful," it shifts and it can, you know, depending on the group dynamic change the way that you experience that. 00:40:32 So in the pre-trip planning, we also discussed that: looking at the group dynamics, getting to know each other in the context. So I have them do activities about you know, it's a five finger... I can't remember off the top my head, but it's like, "What am I going to bring to this? What do I fear most about it? What's something somebody wouldn't know about me? What's...", you know, those type of like team building activities that help them understand that because we're going in a group, it's-- you're not just experiencing this thing on your own, this is an educational aspect and you're experiencing an-- another culture with other people through your own lens but also understanding that their lenses could affect your experience too. And my lens as an instructor can affect your experience. And I own that, that was something I never did in the beginning, but I've learned especially from the study abroad trip I ran in South Africa, the way that I framed South Africa before for them was very different of how they experienced it on the ground. And the students were very vocal about that and I appreciated it so much. Because I had introduced, I had lived in South Africa for three months working on a Unesco project. 00:41:36 And so I had, I mean, I had very, you know, deep feelings and beliefs and you know, thoughts on South Africa that I wanted to communicate to them and I tried to do it as broad a way as possible. But I realized in the pre-trip planning, the way that I framed it my lenses, you know, influenced the way that, you know, they-- that they were perceiving different aspects of apartheid or they were perceiving different aspects of the socioeconomic situation. And so what was great, and I think that because I just did the trip with them in 2020 and right before the pandemic in January 2020. So I just did the trip with them was that we used that as a learning opportunity, they were great and they were, I felt encouraged that they were empowered enough to say that, you know what we were-- when we were doing the self reflections in the country, they were saying, you know, "Remember in class, when you were telling us about...", we'll say Winnie Mandela, right? So I was giving, you know, I'd given them, you know, a discussion about Winnie Mandela, and they said, you know, "We were expecting her to be this great freedom fighter, but we learned on the ground here that there's a lot of other layers that people view her here. 00:42:43 They, you know, she's not, you know, and so it was through our interviews and in-country experiences, it introduced different complexities to perceptions that were not introduced them before. So I think what was, it's valuable to leave space for that and try to, you know, I think the one thing I learned was that, and I always say this and that I prepare them by saying, "It's never gonna go as you planned. Our study abroad trip is never going to go as you plan. Poop is gonna hit the fan. We're gonna have to like rethink things, it's not going to be what you think". And I think allowing myself to pivot and learn from those moments where I could have been better in terms of the pre-trip prep or thought about introducing different resources to use that and allow them to have a voice, or empower them enough to have a voice in their self reflection too, about it. And so, so yeah, I think that's one of the critical pieces. The other, in terms of the other ways I set the stage for in-country, you know, the in-country partners and with the students is that I do try as much as I can to think about de-centering the american perspective and the western perspective. 00:43:55 I mentioned that before, but I think that is a really important piece coming from New York, coming from America. How can we make sure that these students, especially students that haven't traveled before, start to think about, you know, we're not the only perspective and where we're going, you know, when we go to Italy, you know, there's a lot of, you know similarities that we can find in our own cultures with Italian cultures in terms of economics, in terms of environmental approaches. When you go to South Africa, it's a different ballgame and so understanding and starting to introduce those resources to the students before we get there is important. Again, as I mentioned, different books, different videos from Native South Africans, is a really important piece. So the last thing I want to say is that it's-- in terms of the prep and how to stage it is that in terms of-- with partners, I-- we mentioned this or you and I mentioned this earlier is that the partners are the critical piece, right? So with the strong partner, they help you set this all up. 00:44:57 Right? So it's something that I feel very fortunate in the partners that we've had in South Africa and also in Italy and that we've kept for a long time. They understand that what our goals are and that we're looking to create experiences that aren't just riding in a bus, finger pointing, and trying to understand a culture from a bus window, but instead on the ground to see like what, you know, again, a lot of our projects focus on tourism, looking at sustainable models of tourism. And so in South Africa, not just going looking from a bus window and driving through Soweto, which, you know, it's in terms of looking at the townships of-- that were created from the apartheid, like understanding Soweto, not just as an economically depressed area and an area that is, you know, again, as you mentioned earlier, looking at poverty tourism and driving through and saying, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe people live in these conditions," but instead looking at other models of tourism that for instance, we work with a company called Dreamcatcher South Africa 00:45:57 that's created a program called Wasteland Graceland. And so what it was was that it was a township that was built outside, it was built during apartheid era. And so the blacks were moved from the main cities to this community and it was right near a waste dump. And so over the years, the waste dump had polluted their water. It's created several health issues over the years for the local community. So over time this Dreamcatcher has helped develop a project, not only to clean up the waste site in order to clean the water and reduce the health issues, but they also started a program that to use the waste from that site to train the local community members and teach them how to make jewelry, how to make products for the home out of the waist. They got funding from the local government to create, like the-- to buy machines that actually make jewelry and can create home goods and so now they sell them to tourists. And so now that area is not just driving through a bus, like pointing there, but instead telling the story of Wasteland Graceland, how that became to be, like what that waste site looked like, how long term as a tourism model 00:47:11 this works, like how this is, you know, empowered the local community and you know, again over time, this is giving back in so many ways instead of again just riding through on a bus and saying, you know, this is, you know where Nelson Mandela once lived and then, you know, passing through Soweto. So I think that, you know, showing different models and understanding that white savior-ism in study abroad trips is real. And so the idea of how can you create and find a partner that will help with de-centering the american perspective and not having it as a white savior, but instead as an educational experience that also can give back to the local community in some way and it's not easy and it's-- I think it changes based on the country that you're working with, based on the community that you are working with within that country and just truly listening and giving. The other thing I recognize is that oftentimes when you first meet a partner, it takes several conversations to identify the true community needs because I think at first it's-- "Well what are your objectives for the class?" 00:48:16 And so I tell them that, but then it takes continual converse-- "Well what can we really do to help?" and like, to give back and you know, with that program, the Wasteland Graceland, what was really-- what they needed was a perspective of how to improve it from tourists. So we gave them that, we had said, you know, "This is what we really liked about the students did a survey," and like said, "This is what we really liked about it. This is what, from a tourism perspective could make it really interesting, and here's what we think that could do to help however, this is from our perspective," and I-- we had them recognize this is from an american perspective. We talked about how different cultures, different South African cultures could experience that differently. And so how that could be, you know, more inclusive to not just white tourists from America, but how this can, you know, entice you know different communities and other members of the South African community to enjoy what they have and to see all of the cool things that they're doing. So again, I think that's-- the pre-trip prep is critical across the board and understanding that if you can figure out a way to de-center the american perspective, that's I think a huge step in the battle with this and I don't want to say battle, but the huge step in terms of creating a really interesting and generative study abroad experience. 00:49:31 Lindsay Lyons: So I love all the things that you have shared so far. There's so much to consider. If there is a person listening who either is teaching at the undergrad level or even, I'm even thinking like some high school teachers who might be interested in a short term study abroad or something. What advice do you have for any educator who might be interested in developing a study abroad program like yours, one that's focused on service learning, that's focused on advancing justice, de-centering whiteness and de-centering, you know, American-ness. And you know that could be a range of things and then I usually ask a final, like call-to-action question of "What is one thing?", right? There might be, like five things they could do, but what is one thing that they could do if they're just getting started with developing? What's that, that kind of first thing they could do? Dr. Kelly Cerialo: So I think in terms of the "What advice for the educators", is that, you know, in terms of-- as you're developing this, considering what a more inclusive and reflective, I think those two words, you know, it's I think again that inclusive, you know, it can be so many things, but figuring out a way to introduce a more inclusive, reflective approach to place-based pedagogy. 00:50:37 So I mentioned the beginning of our discussion about how I did that on the local level with the class within our own community, but also abroad. Right? So how can you figure out a way to make the experience not only beneficial for the students in terms of achieving your learning objectives, but more importantly, how is this helping the community needs with avoiding that white savior-ism right? Especially, you know, in, you know, abroad context. So I think reflective-- reflecting critically first before you design anything. Right? So I think a lot of it what I've learned and my growth in this has been through self reflection and how-- what should that look like and start to do some research in the literature that's out there and talking to others, you know, I think that's-- it's a very, you know, based start, you know, in terms of finding that. In terms of the second piece of advice I would give is finding, and we talked about how important this is, finding a strong in-country partner that can help you see that vision and understand how you want to use this experiential learning opportunity that-- it isn't, you know, just poverty tourism that you're looking for, that you're looking for the service learning focus project that's generative to students but also can benefit the local community, you know abroad in some way. 00:51:56 So, and then I would say the third and this is something again, it's-- I just have seen the benefits, consider introducing an interdisciplinary team. I think that not only in terms of the faculty that you are considering bringing on the trip, you know, if it's one or two. But you know, having somebody for instance, my background, you know, I majored in communications and you know, my research focuses in terms of the social impacts of tourism, but my partners that I've taken on the study abroad trips, my-- Eric Holmlund that I referenced in the beginning, his background's in environmental science, the professor that I went to South Africa with, he's a cultural anthropologist. So I think that the diversity and disciplines really enriches the experience for the faculty and also for the students and it brings a diversity of perspectives to the host community that you're working with. So, and it certainly avoids groupthink. It's challenging, I do have to say, you know, when you're developing curriculum for an interdisciplinary team and a study abroad. It's hard, right? 00:52:58 So, you know, when I'm working with just communication students or you know, and just, we'll say tourism and hospitality students, you know, it's a bit easier to think about what's going to resonate with them, but when you have an interdisciplinary team, it's challenging to say, you know, "I don't know a lot of things about biology", right? So, you know, and how do you speak to them? And I think that, but in the end, I think that what I found is that when you have that interdisciplinary team, it gives... it gives so much back not only to the students and it introduces a degree of tolerance, I think also between disciplines, right? So there's tolerance and in terms of, you know, their silos in schools, right? So I know in our school it's like the hospitality kids hang out with hospitality kids, the forestry kids hang out with the forestry, you know, biology hangs out with biology, sustainability. And so this helps them develop teams and understand and appreciate not only the benefit of diversity in terms of race, religion, you know, cultural, but also in terms of the benefits of diversity and disciplines and how to work with that. 00:54:04 You know, it's-- in the beginning, you know, when I would have, you know, the students together, I didn't-- I wasn't completely sure of how to best integrate that, but then over time we figured out models of how to do that. And that's really about you, in terms of the discussions, encouraging their voices, "What does this look like from your field?", "How does this look like in your field?" and "What could this mean for say, your field?" You know, for instance, what does this look like from a, you know, environmental science perspective? Okay, so how would that influence, like from a tourism perspective? So connecting those, taking it as an opportunity for connection. And so yeah, that's-- I think that's the main three pieces of advice. So I'd say first, again thinking about that more inclusive and reflective approach that place-based pedagogy. The second being researching and finding a strong in-country partner. Usually they come not through a basic internet search. I want to say ours came from, like our in-country partnerships came from our professional and personal networks. It wasn't just like this general, like broad google search. It was like, "Hey do you happen to know somebody that lives here?" 00:55:05 And then it was like connect, connect, connect, you know, and you end up with a really strong partner. And then lastly, that considering forming that interdisciplinary team of students and faculties, I think it's really, you know, that diversity of fields introduces a diversity of perspective and also a degree of understanding and tolerance and reflectiveness that doesn't happen if it's just, you know, the same field and the same, you know, students and faculty. Lindsay Lyons: I love that idea of expanding, you know, the notion of diversity beyond like our typical, you know, identities that we hold to something like discipline or even if people are-- haven't defined, you know, their major yet or something just like the way someone is thinking or their passions, it's so helpful to be able to add that dimension into thinking about intersectionally who we are. So that's super cool, thank you for that. And one of the final questions I'd like to ask just for fun is what is something that you have been learning about lately. Dr. Kelly Cerialo: So the, as you know, and I think the-- our PhD program that we were both in encourages this, so absolutely lifelong leaders. 00:56:10 So right now I'm focusing on, I'm looking at responsible, inclusive leadership in affecting or mitigating the social impacts of tourism. So, you know, typically those two topics: responsible inclusive leadership and like the social impacts of tourism have been two totally separate fields and there's a really, you know, extensive body of literature about both. And I'm trying to figure out how they come together. And so I've been looking specifically at Dr. Lize Booysen who, you know of, a professor in our PhD program, her work on responsible inclusive leadership. And then recently, Anna Spenceley had published a-- it's basically a handbook for sustainable tourism for practitioners and a discussion about leadership in different context within sustainable tourism. So, I've been trying to look at both of those together and figuring out how responsible inclusive leadership can potentially help to mitigate the social impacts of tourism. 00:57:12 So that's something I've been nerding out on recently. Lindsay Lyons: It's awesome. And I love how this episode has basically just been a testament to those days, kind of emerging. Like, this study abroad program is a perfect example of how those things come together, so super cool. Dr. Kelly Cerialo: Thanks. Thank you. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. And finally, where can listeners learn more about you or connect with you online? Dr. Kelly Cerialo: Yeah. So, on instagram, my instagram is @kcerialo. So it's K C E R I A L O. And then I'm also on LinkedIn. It's just my first and last name. Again it's Kelly, and then it's-- K E L L Y and my last name is C E R I A L O. And yes, I'm happy to hear from any listeners if you are interested in developing a study abroad program. I am more than happy to speak with you., I'm certainly open and transparent about my experiences. Like I said from the beginning, I've learned through trial and error and I think I've grown from this process and continue to learn each time. And I think again, it's-- I'm happy to help anyone that's interested and I'm very interested also to hear about others' experiences. 00:58:14 So if you've had other experiences and study abroad and whether it's good or bad, I would love to hear because I also learn from that. So I would welcome and you sharing any experiences and certainly, you know, happy to share some tips and some lessons that I've learned through not so great experiences too, you know, that I'm happy to share with others. But I'd love to hear, you know, some of your experiences too. Lindsay Lyons: Awesome. And I encourage people to reach out and chat about that because I think that's where the really cool stuff happens, where we innovate together and think about new possibilities. So that's awesome. Dr. Kelly Cerialo, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Dr. Kelly Cerialo: Thank you so much Lindsay. This was incredible. I'm honored to be your guest and I look forward to continuing to talk about study abroad with you and other interesting Teachership opportunities. So keep up the great work and thank you again. [upbeat violin music] Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show, so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time, leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. Links:
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Lindsay Lyons: I'm excited for you to hear from today's guest who's coming to us all the way from South Africa : Dr Francois Naude. His experience in evolutionary biology and science education led to him receiving the national teacher's award. He trained more than 1500 teachers and is now dedicated to assisting teachers and school leaders to discover their superpowers and ensure that every teacher can teach like the superheroes they are. He works with teachers and school leaders by enveloping them in a community of practice. He shares his learnings from science, psychology and school leadership so you can solve the challenges that you face in the classroom, staff room and in life. This conversation was recorded in September 15, 2021. Let's get to the episode. Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. 00:01:05 I'm a former teacher, leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you are a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader and if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself. You're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in. Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Francois Naude, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Dr. Francois Naude: Thank you Lindsay. It's great being here. Lindsay Lyons: I'm so excited to have you today. I would love to start with a different way of beginning, which you just introduced me to. And I love this idea where can listeners learn more about you or connected with you online? And the reason we're asking that is your brilliant idea for like being able to follow along and look at some of your social media as people are listening to the episode. Dr. Francois Naude: Yeah, well we know people are multitasking, we've got double screens and three screens while we're working. 00:02:10 So um I like telling people they can, they can go and stalk me on on my website at www.staysuper.co.za I'm from South Africa. So that's the z a part at the end of www.staysuper.co.za and they can go and stalk me in the work I do while we have the conversation. Lindsay Lyons: Excellent. Thanks so much. And so I love this first question. Just diving right into really, what are dreams for education are Dr. Bettina Love talks about the idea of freedom dreaming and she describes these as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. So with that in mind, what is that dream that you have for the fields? Dr. Francois Naude: My big dream would be that we revolutionize the education system in such a way that we assist learners in self discovery in that they can take charge of their own learning that it is a self directed type of approach where the one size fits all kind of education, I don't think fits within the 21st century. 00:03:13 So the more we can give autonomy to our learners, the more we can drive towards their interest and self directed learning, the more injustices will be able to to eliminate. Because everybody's got a different um interest has got different learning trajectory for themselves, laid out. They can go and take agency and destroy or eliminate the injustices in their own lives. Lindsay Lyons: I love that and different things resonate with different folks, right? And then I love that, that's such a personalized vision as well of like a dream for education. So that is great as you think about, you know, the you work with a lot of teachers, a lot of leaders and and thinking about, you know, working towards that dream of being able to personalize the learning in such a way where people, students and and adults even can really teach and learn and grow within that framework you just described, what are the kind of either barriers, challenges kind of ways that we need to shift away from traditional thinking perhaps to this new way of thinking, What are the things you've seen either be successful and people shift over their mindsets to that dream or what are the challenges that you've seen in people kind of trying to shift to that. 00:04:29 Dr. Francois Naude: There's a few things that get in the way of this. The first one of course is legacy thinking the whole fact that we've been doing it in a specific way for a long time. It's been working for us, or at least there's not a lot of resistance. So in the short term it's working. So let's just stick with what we know and in that essence, we really just keep on being busy in education. School leaders are busy. Teachers are busy. Whenever I work with teaching and the coaching I do, they always tell me I'm so busy, I'm so busy. I just can't get time for everything. And then my question to them is, well, are you busy moving forward or are you moving towards? And that's a big difference. That a lot of people are moving forward. We do what needs to be done in the classroom. We do what needs to be done in the community or in the school. But if we don't have a clear victory condition, if we don't have a clear goal, we're working towards, we'll just keep on remaining busy and we'll still be stuck in the mindset of the status quo and the innovation, the change doesn't happen for individuals who just keep on being busy. 00:05:41 So we need to be very intentional and the school leaders that I work with that are intentional about the change they want to bring about in the school. They are the ones that, you know, they're part of communities of practice their part of professional learning networks and they try and broaden their horizons and see what the options are available to them. Taking that and just experimenting. And I think with that comes a lot of courage because it's easy for me to say, you know what we need to be innovative, we need to change the way in which we eat, but there's a lot of courage that needs to go with it. Somebody that is willing to take the first step, even if it's a small minor change they want to bring about that typically leads to the first, like I just want to say a chain reaction within changes in the school. So just changing that one little thing that you feel is going to affect change and then taking that scientific mindset to it. Like, well, let's let's measure, let's see what the outcome was. Are we moving towards our hypothesis? 00:06:42 Are we moving towards the goal or are we just moving forward? The framework that I've chosen to build everything around? And the work that I do is that of being a super teacher. The program that I've started, the talks that I give to schools, whether it's being online or in person at the school is framed around teaching like a superhero. Because I believe teachers and the great teachers are superheroes to the learners in the classroom. So when within this frame we need to understand that education is in a crisis and definitely in my country, it is a big pain point and I've seen that around the world, that there is, there needs a lot of disruption to come in education. And if we are in a crisis, who are we hoping towards, what are we hoping for is the savior is some form of hero that's going to step in and save us from the crisis. And I believe teachers are those role models. Teachers are those beacons of hope in communities and that's why I believe strongly that teachers need to be super teachers and not just your mediocre teachers or average teachers. 00:09:09 And unfortunately there are many mediocre teachers and it's that mindset of well, how can we improve how can we take the first step to solving the challenges or improving my community or at least just improving my own life? Because the I think one of the challenges is that our personal lives get in the way of what magic can happen in the classroom. If a teacher is struggling personally, that often spills over into into the classroom. So what's been working quite well is these individual sessions or group sessions that we have with teachers. So the teachers like a superhero mastermind, The teachers who are part of it can on a regular basis say, well, here's my challenge. I'm struggling with the following, can we within the team of Avengers, if we can take the metaphor a bit further, if we've got a group of super teachers together now we can start collaborating because where my weakness is, you might have that strength and in these communities of practice we discover that and then we learn new strategies, new methodologies that we can bring into the classroom and affect the change. 00:10:22 Lindsay Lyons: Oh I love that so much. Okay, so and I'm thinking about all the themes to in terms of, you know, some of the stuff that I do and talk about a lot of the podcast that's totally connected here. So I'm just thinking, my first question was you know as you were talking about being a super teacher super teaching like a superhero. You know, what is what do you define as, you know, being a super teacher super teaching like a superhero because for me I'm thinking that element of collaboration you just brought in at the end really resonates. So I'm thinking even collaboration with students and you you started with this dream of you know, a personalized environment. So just teaching like a superhero and I know the words hero and savior kind of conjure up a certain certain image. Does that also mean you know, knowing when to step back, Does that also mean knowing when to let students lead or two to collaborate with students in addition to their colleagues. Like what kind of definition do you have for teaching in that way. Dr. Francois Naude: So it's a difficult one because I mean, teachers are so individualized and there's no stock standard answer to that. And I've made it my professional mission to go and discover the traits of a super teacher. 00:11:28 And that's what I share in the public talk. Um, that when I do talks at schools, it's what are the three? I would also say bare minimum attributes or characteristics of a super teacher. And um, I would love to share it with you. So we, we start off and I believe that even though we say we are the super teachers, a super teacher understands that they are not the hero of the story. That the champion is in the chair. If we lose sight of that, then we become egotistical teacher. Because a lot of teachers feel that you know, I am the hero. If I step into the classroom and you say that I'm everything, you guys need to listen to me, I'm this oracle of knowledge bow down before me, then you're a mediocre teacher, you're a very, very average teacher. It's the ones that understand that my purpose here isn't to be in the limelight. My purpose is to be the sage on the stage, is to be the guide on the side. 00:12:29 It's somebody that's going to support the hero, which is the learner on their journey to victory. So that's the first thing that a super teacher does is realizing that they are not the heroes of the story. The second thing that super teachers do is they disrupt distraction. There are so many distractions for our learners and especially with hybrid learning, online learning, the distractions are just being amplified. So what a super teacher does is they've got these hacks, these tips and tricks to ensure that they can maintain attention. And I always say like in the in the discourse of superheroes, they super teachers are the Ironman and the Batman kind of superhero. You know, you get superheroes that needs to be bitten by a radioactive spider in order to get their superpower or you get no these superheroes that are accidentally became heroes like there was a radioactive explosion and now they got their superpowers, but that's not the kind of superhero that teachers should be. 00:13:36 Teachers are the Ironman, the Batman, the people with the utility belts that can use tools to there that's at their disposal to hack attention. And unfortunately, I mean that's I think that's so difficult for teachers to like try and grasp in a half an hour and that's why it's a career long journey. Um and that's why the lifelong learning and the self directed learning for teachers are so important because we get to learn new. As the as the environment changes and we saw it in the last few years as the teaching environment changes, we need to find the tools in our utility belts. It's going to help us to disrupt distraction and then the last thing that super teachers do is we get close and we get close with our learners. We build a relationship with them, you know, the social emotional learning component to our careers. It's it's not just sterile content that's being taught, it's understanding that within the bigger social context. 00:14:41 Um there are many other factors that influence learning and we need to get close enough to our learners that we understand their interests. We get to understand their preferences and that we then design learning environments and learning situations that's optimized for the learners we're teaching. So they get close to the learners and I have already mentioned, they get close to their colleagues, they collaborate, they find their Avengers. So we get close. But the most important thing in getting close as we get close to ourselves. Society wants us to or conditions us to focus on our weaknesses and we often get trapped within our weaknesses and how we structure our personal and professional development is around our weaknesses. When I believe that we should rather be focusing on our strengths. You know what your teacher superpower is. You know what your strengths are. 00:15:44 Well if you don't you can start discovering it but start focusing on the things you're doing well before you start focusing on the things you're struggling with. Get that one superpower dialed in. Some teachers are humorous teachers, they love bringing humor into the classroom and that helps to translate the content. Other teachers are amazing storytellers. Other teachers are great at the administrative side of their teaching, focus on what you're good at, perfect that and then start worrying about the rest. So in a nutshell, those three things I believe that the super teachers have as a theme or at a minimum and then we start building all of the other characteristics, start being built up on top of that. Lindsay Lyons: I am so grateful that you just share those three. Those are so powerful and so interconnected too. Right? If we get close, if we get close with students, we get close with colleagues. If we get closer to ourselves, we can do the other things, we can disrupt distraction, right? We can make sure we're not the hero of the story and the students are. 00:16:47 Lindsay Lyons: I love that, that's such a, such a wonderful framework and I really appreciate that you shared it with our listeners. Um one of the things that I'm wondering is where or how do you find super teachers? So in this idea of recruiting and hiring and um, that kind of thing, what would you say to to leaders who are asking this question of themselves? Dr. Francois Naude: Finding super teachers? If you look at all of the movies, it's like all of the super teachers are in costume, they're hiding away. They want to hide their true identity, but finding the competent teachers who work at your, at your institute and that I'd say is probably one of the bare essentials. The starting point of uplifting your school. Howard Mann in one of his podcasts explained the concept of recruiting that before you go and look for candidates that can fill positions, you have to first do an internal audit of competence. Look at the staff that you currently have and give yourself a rating out of 10. 00:17:50 So think about, most principles or most, most school leaders will be able to do that because they interact and they're busy or they know their staff competence. They can go like if I were to rate my staff component, I'll give them on competence, a six out of 10, whatever your measure is. But then when you hire new staff and your goal, your victory condition is you would like to have a eight out of 10 average or a nine out of 10 average. you can't be hiring more sixes. You can't be hiring fives and fours. With every hire, you should be hiring somebody whose competence is above the average competence that you deem in your school. And that process, even though it sounds simple is difficult. Because how, how can you in an interview determine the competence of a teacher. So what we do is I've started recruitment company for teachers called: goteach.co.za. And my philosophy around that is to assist even our student teachers as well as practicing teachers to start building up the proof of competence, in digital assets in digital portfolios of evidence that then um they have at their disposal that when they do apply for a job because that's the other part of the the portal, is that the schools advertise their vacancies. 00:19:20 But then we use our algorithms and to screen out candidates that we feel won't fit the ethos of the school or what the school's guideline is. So we have a very intense discussion with the school in determining their culture, in determining their ethos and then slotting all of those parameters into our algorithms and then getting from the applicants, like precipitating out the super teachers from that. But then we always ask the teachers, well, where's your proof? Do you have videos of you teaching? Do you know what principles are looking for? Do you have testimonials? Because everybody's putting references on their CVS, but very few people phone the people or if you do, what are they going to tell you? Nobody's gonna lie or at least they're not going to tell you. Oh no, this teacher was absolutely horrible. Don't hire them. Nobody does that. So rather building up case studies from parents, building up case studies from learners that you've been working with, of course you can change the names or anything. 00:20:27 But the point being, how are you using digital assets to prove your competence, to prove that you are a super teacher. And I can promise you if you are part of 50 or 100 teachers that apply for a job and you're the only one that can prove your competence, you're the priest word candidate. So finding those teachers is the one part that's the recruitment aspect. And then the other part that we do is assisting schools in the internship project because we believe strongly in schools having to grow their own number. They're taking in student teachers in an internship project. And then for the time of their studies in our country, our teachers study a four year degree. So during the four years they are in service every day in school, getting to know the ethos and the culture of the school. And we assist in with the mentor teacher support, we assist with the intern support, but by the time they're qualified, you don't need to go and look for super teachers. You've grown a super teacher in your own headquarters. 00:21:32 Lindsay Lyons: I love that that, that both trying to make sure that you have great, you know, super teachers coming in and also that there is capacity for change and growth within the staff that you already have. I also loved your idea of you know, thinking about doing an internal audit like and and really figuring out where you are in the ratings for each of those, it reminds me of what I was about to say earlier and totally spaced on the values in action. I don't know if it's valuesinaction.com. I can link to it in the show notes, but they are a group of positive psychologists who have tried to focus more on the strength space what you were saying earlier, as opposed to deficits let's look at strength. And I actually had experimented with as a teacher, we did that as a staff, we had all of our students do that. And then we had everyone who taught those students in a in a cohort um to do it as well. And we all got to talk about our strengths in a way that was not very bragy. It was like, oh, I took this inventory and here are my strengths and you know, you have these strengths and we would be a great team for this project. 00:22:32 And so even students to student thinking about what the strengths are. You know, doing that audit in a sense of what are my colleagues or my staff, but also where are the strength of my students and where do we maybe need more in the staff to enable that in the students. I mean, there's so much possibility in what you were sharing that I just think it's so cool to be so cool to hear, you know, how teachers are our leaders are doing that. And then I also just love the idea of testimonials beyond your supervisors, like you were saying, family members, learners, I mean that that's who you want to hear from, right, when you're interviewing, you want to know what the experience of those family members were when they talked with the teacher. Was that communication a one way street, was it a partnership? Did you only get calls that were like your kid misbehaved in school today? You know? And what did the learners experience, you know, feel like to them when they were in the class? So brilliant suggestions. I absolutely love these, These are really exciting. Did you, do we cover enough about all the various things that you do, I know you do so much. 00:23:34 Was there a program that we missed there? Dr. Francois Naude: No, I think, we we've covered quite a lot of what I'm busy with the moment, of course, with the aim of supporting teachers, because that's the that's the thing for me, I never wanted to be a teacher, it was never on my radar as a job. I went to study, I've got my BSC honors in zoology and it was only in my first year that I thought, yes, I want to do something else, and one of my own lecturers said, well why don't you consider teaching? And I went that's such a brilliant idea because for a lazy student like myself, teaching is the best job out there, and, you know, half day job, you get the four holidays a year, it's basically babysitting. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do this. But it was only like after the first week of teaching 15 year olds about, you know, sexual reproduction, that I realized, I love what I do, just getting that fire in the classroom. So I ended up in teaching per accident, but I had the passion, I had enthusiasm for the job, but still being thrown into the deep end, not receiving the support. I could have easily just decided after the first three years, you know, I'm out, I don't want to do this because it's teaching is a difficult job. 00:24:51 I saw the research on this and teaching is as difficult, as dreadful as air traffic controllers, as firefighters. It's shocking that people generally don't understand how stressful a job it is to be a teacher and we're losing teachers at a very young age. So I made it my mission to support, not only novice teachers, because they are retired or close to retirement, teachers also need support so that everything I decided to get involved with, because you're as judged by what you say no to as to what you say yes to, that the things that I've decided to say yes to has to be supporting teachers. and so the recruitment company, the intern support, the masterminds, the public speaking, all of it has got this mission on supporting teachers to become the super teachers so that we can teach like superheroes. Lindsay Lyons: That's so powerful and it's such an issue like retention. I mean I was a special education teacher and part of the reason that I got into teaching is the same, I was not intending to become a teacher and then there are all these alternative certification programs where it's like, we'll pay for your college degree in education if you just come teach in this subject area that we don't have anyone wanting to teach in. 00:26:08 And it's because people leave after 3-5 years, you know, 50% of special education teachers are just not teaching anymore and it's bananas because it is, you know, such a, there is such opportunity like you were speaking to the joy and like I actually really love this job. And that is what I think when you're talking about even close to retirement teachers, when you don't have that joy anymore, it starts to hurt your own well being, which then impacts, as you said earlier, the student's well being and the student experience and it's all interconnected and so I love that your mission is really just amplifying that joy that expertise and you know, the experience for all learners. So that is so beautiful. Um, I know we talked about a lot of different things that teachers could do, our leaders could do. And so I'm wondering as a final call to action, what would you say if there's just one thing where a listener is ending the episode and they're like, I'm gonna go do one thing to kind of build that momentum based on what you talked about today. What's that? One thing you would encourage people to go do after kind of hanging up to your beds? 00:27:09 Dr. Francois Naude: Well, the one thing would be to go and discover their superpower. That would be like if you need to write it down somewhere, figure out your superpower. And there's, there's three ways that I like triangulate and ask people to go and discover their superpower. The first thing is listen to podcasts like this one. Go and find out because we need to find out what are the typical traits of super teacher. If we don't know what is available traits or what has worked in the past, it's very difficult to frame something just out of context. So by curating content, listening to podcasts, reading books or watching youtube videos and there are so many amazing content creators on Tiktok. The teacher Tiktok is amazing and I love it. So go and go and view these things, follow other competent teachers because you'll soon realize ah this is a trait I also have. Okay, I'm not that kind of teacher now you're comparing and seeing, okay, where do I fit? number one 00:28:12 and the second one is going to do a personality test, do yourself a favor, go and do a personality test. There are many free ones online but go and do one and go and see what kind of person you are. So you're getting close to yourself, you're discovering what psychologists deem your strengths are. And then go and ask your friends, your family just to mention five traits that that they admire about you. What are the things that they believe your superpower is? Because now you'll be able to compare and see out of the five people that sent me responses three times came out humoristic. Okay, I know that's so you get a perspective, an outside perspective, a professional perspective and in your own and triangulation between this is going to help you discover your superpower. Lindsay Lyons: Wow, that is so cool. It reminds me of Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts, she does a lot of positive psychology research and she has the reflected best self. So it's basically what you're saying is you're asking all these people like if you could reflect back a time where I was at my best, what was that time? 00:29:19 And so they come up with all these anecdotes and yeah you can pull the values and the strength from them and it's such a fun activity and I know I asked for one action but I'm even thinking an extension for people who are listening could be you know, do that with your students to write like you could have the students tell each other this as well and say, you know, I, I did this for myself. Um now I want you to have this joy of just hearing the good things about yourself. Like there's something really beautiful about that. Dr. Francois Naude: There is on Saturday, I did a teacher wellness workshop and it's strange now to do in person workshops because for the last two years it's been all online, but I had my, one of the first in person teacher wellness trainings and we did this, we did all three of these, but then I asked the teachers to share with each other the point place and just the change in the mood in the conference hall was tangible. As soon as people started sharing these positives with each other, you could just feel because hey, we like it when people speak about us and then when they speak positive things about us, we like it even more. 00:30:22 So it was ego stroking type of exercise, which I think is that necessarily at times. But just the, the, the change in the mood was so tangible and we need to do more of this, imagine how kids would feel if we start sharing with them their strengths instead of picking on them and just writing them and like getting the, you know, sitting down and shutting up type of conversations with them. It's like, let's rather share with them what you just did. I respect what you just did. Just that sentence alone. What it does for a child's self esteem is amazing. Lindsay Lyons: That is so cool to think about what the possibilities in a school like that would be like. So thank you so much for sharing that activity. I love it. And finally this last question is just for fun. I'm just, I'm curious to know everyone who comes out on the podcast has been really a self described learner and you know, invests in their own learning. I know we're in a mastermind together, so we're investing in our learning, but I'm just curious to know something that you have been learning about lately. Dr. Francois Naude: I am, I'm like a serial entrepreneur, I'm also like a serial curator of information. 00:31:30 so learning for me has become a habit and I don't, I think like my attention deficit is speaking here because I can't focus on one thing at a time. So I don't learn about one aspect every single or in like larger chunks. I prefer to spread out my learning through different interests and behind me Lindsay you'll be able to see it at my bookshelf. I've got 10 books that I'm currently reading at the same time, But I do what I, what I do is I read 10 pages from one book, but then also capturing and that's very important because we forget like 90% of the things we consume. I would then retain the nice things from the 10 pages I've read. And I actually send myself an email with that information so I can recall it later. And then that book goes in the back of the queue because tomorrow I'll be reading another book. And the interest is, it's from like fantasy genres of of uh you know, fiction to nonfiction biographies of business leaders. 00:32:38 Because I feel that I don't know what I don't know. So let me like spread my wings and read as much as I can and then start incorporating that in my day. Lindsay Lyons: I love that strategy of the 10 pages email yourself. I think I might start using that. This is the first year that I allowed myself to read multiple books at once. So in order to retain, I'm using your strategy now. Dr. Francois Naude: We call it, you need to have an idea trap because whenever you get an idea you need to capture it because your ideas are fleeting. Like many times you're in the shower thinking of something and then you're like, oh this is a great idea. Probably like a multi billion dollar business idea. And then you just step out of the shower and you forgot or you got it in the car and somebody swerves in front of you. Like you forgot the idea. So um I use I use an app and I can share the, the app's name. I just want to quickly double check it on my phone. It's called Brain Toss Brain Toss is an app, you can use that to capture any ideas. You can capture the pages of a book on a photo or you can send yourself a voice note or you can type in a text with links and stuff like that. 00:33:41 It immediately emails it to you and you've got it in the bank. Lindsay Lyons: So cool, awesome. Thank you so much. I'm gonna use that now Francois thank you so much for being a guest on this podcast. Dr. Francois Naude: It's a pleasure chatting with you Lindsay. Thank you for having me. Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for listening. Amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me at Lindsay Beth Lyons or labor review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it to continue the conversation. You can head over to our Time for Teachership ship facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries. Until next time leaders continue to think big act brave and be your best self. Links:
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Lindsay Lyons: What has the greatest impact on student learning and achievement? Fresh out of graduate school, looking to change the world, Mitch felt like there was something he was missing. No matter how hard he tried, many of students were still struggling. One thing was clear. In order to help his struggling students, he needed tools to use in heterogeneous classrooms, resources that would move the needle for underperforming students but also empower those who were succeeding and everyone in between. He assumed he could amplify the impact of these resources if there was common adoption across subject areas and grade levels. It just needed content agnostic tools for use in diverse classrooms, but they were missing. It's from this place organized binder began. The initial challenge was finding time. Educators are hired to teach a subject or grade level and his job was to teach Biology. He found there was rarely enough time in the school day to do that job well. Where would he ever find the time to also teach his students the skills and habits they needed to achieve academically. Then one day it hit him. He should embed practice using these skills directly into his classroom routine. If you can figure out how to do this, his students would gain daily practice employing these skills and he would have time to do his job. Moreover, he would create a predictable and dependable learning environment for students. 00:01:06 Win, win. win. What coalesced in the following two years of design and constant redesign was the initial iteration of Organized Binder. It was amazing. His students begin to succeed and they began to see themselves as capable learners. They developed agency and confidence. 10 years later, Organized Binder is an evidence based MTSS Tier one universal solution that creates a structured and dependable environment with clear expectations and routines. This content agnostic platform gives students exposure to goal setting, reflective learning and meta cognitive practice, time and task management, city strategies, organizational skills and more. Organized Binder aligns directly with universal design for learning framework and is an integral component for ensuring least restrictive environments. Mitch founded this company to widen the impact of Organized Binder beyond the walls of his classroom in school. He's honored to work with K-12 districts, networks in schools as well as colleges, home schools and individual families around the country and internationally. The positive impact has been overwhelming. Schools are increasing their scores. Exceptional learners are reporting huge gains, and initiatives such as PLCs are finding needed continuity and cohesion. In addition to empowering students Organized Binder helps educators implement best teaching practices. 00:02:11 I am so excited for you to hear from Mitch Weathers in this conversation. For reference, this conversation was recorded in September 20th, 2021. Now let's get to it. Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality, and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach or a classroom teacher, excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in. 00:03:19 Mitch Weathers, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Mitch Weathers: Thank you for having me, I'm happy to be here. Lindsay Lyons: I'm so glad you're here. And I wanted to have ride in my first big question for you is in line with what Dr. Bettina Love talks about. She talks about freedom dreaming and she describes it as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. As I love this quote from her, it's pretty deep, pretty powerful, but I'd love to know, thinking about that, you know, what is the big dream that you hold for the field of education? Mitch Weathers: Well, thanks for having me, first of all. My big dream is rooted in my experience as a classroom teacher and it's a little intro. I'm a high school teacher. I still am a high school teacher. This is my 20th year in the classroom and if I had to say one big dream is that we would take the modeling of and teaching of skills column, executive function or non cognitive skills or what some schools that we work with called studentness, that we would take the modeling and teaching of those skills or that suite of skills as serious as we do, the contents or curriculum in our grade levels or classes. Recognizing that for any and all learners, that's the foundation or the bedrock for learning. 00:04:54 And yet, what has frustrated me for two decades now? If you follow, just to be blunt, if you follow the money in education, you find a lot of it in outside of salary and payroll benefits of course, but you find a lot of it wrapped up in testing and in textbooks and in technology, all of which are not bad things, but none of which really laid the foundation for learning. So that would be my big dream. Lindsay Lyons: That's a great dream. I love that idea of like taking those skills seriously and thinking about the fact that if we did that, like, what, you know, dreaming of what all of those possibilities could be for school as opposed to, you know, test prep centers or whatever they are now, like you described. So I think that's a big shift for people. So people listening may think that is not how my school currently does things. We are very much a test prep institution. And so I'm wondering in terms of, you know, the mindset that is required to really prioritize those skills that you're describing, 00:06:04 what are the things that you would suggest for a teacher or a leader who's listening and thinking like, okay, yeah, that's interesting. And now how do I wrap my head around doing that? Like, what's, what is that mindset that they would need to have moving forward? Mitch Weathers: That's a really good question. And if I could add to it. Mindset, yes, but the challenge, the real challenge to this work is that we're hired to teach that content and were assessed and so are our students by these tests. So it's also a time issue where, and it's also a budget issue. There's no, as far as I've learned, there's no executive function budget, right? Where we would the money makes it a priority in education. So it's like, wow, I really want to do this work, but how would we ever fund that? And for the classroom teacher or any teacher, it's a time thing. You name any teacher listening to this who has enough time in a school year to cover everything they want to cover. 00:07:12 We don't. So there's other factors, just besides mindset in terms of approaching this. And so the key is this, and this is, well, here's what I would say is one of the keys. If you are lacking for time, but you recognize that the agency that students develop when they figure out how they learn and so they can approach their learning with more dexterity and too often, and certainly for my students and I would bet anybody listening for certain populations are certain students, it's as if they are passive objects in their education instead of active subjects. The way I've described it often as like students are there, they are present, but it's like their education is happening all around them or to them and they don't quite understand how to jump in and participate. 00:08:24 You can kind of be there, but it's spinning all around them. And these executive functions are these non cognitive skills that research has overwhelmingly indicated what give students that dexterity and that agency to jump in and participate are key. But the key here is the modeling of and practice with those because I don't have enough time to finish what I'm doing. And to be perfectly honest, if I looked at some of these skills that research has indicated help students just having another lesson on the importance of them would probably be pretty boring, right? So it's like, here's what meta cognition is a retrieval practice or even goal setting. Students don't want to have a lesson on the importance of goal setting. Instead, let's set goals within the context of our subject and then measure them and work with them and evaluate them and reset them throughout the school year. So they're kind of like a working part of our course. 00:09:29 And so the key that this belabored point I'm making here is that if students can gain exposure to and practice with these executive functions by virtue of classroom routine, then I don't infringe upon the time I need to teach my content. And that's what Organized Binder does for the classroom teacher. For the students, it's all about practice with these skills and habits which lead to mindsets. But for the teacher, and this is what's often kind of unknown or missed about Organized Binder, is that it creates for students and for teachers a very predictable routine. And by virtue of that routine, just by engaging in it, and I mean very simple, like how we start, how we transition, how are we organizing our materials, How do we end. Like predictable learning spaces are safer and students are more likely to take the risks inherent to learning in those spaces. 00:10:34 And if by virtue of that predictable routine, I happen to get practice with all these skills, it's a win win. So I'm actually freeing up time to focus on my content while giving students exposure to these skills. Wow, that was a really long winded answer to your question about what kind of mindset a teacher would need. So I hope that I didn't miss the mark there. Lindsay Lyons: No, not at all. I think you said it perfectly. So I'm just envisioning like, you know, a priorities list almost in my head, just to make it concrete. And so just like taking a step back, at times for me as a teacher was important to be like what is most important, what is my priority for today? And a lot of times it would be, if I were to really ask myself that question and think about it, it would be that we have practiced with goal setting or we have practiced with this thing. And so yeah, how can I then mindset shift, how can I then embed it, you know, in terms of a way that gives me more time back. And I think that that is exactly how we have to look at it because we can't continue to cram things in, which is I think historically how we try to do it. It's like, let's add this entire executive functioning curriculum to my existing subjects, like that's not possible and it's also not practical. 00:11:52 So it's, I love this blend and this reframe that you're sharing, It really makes sense. Mitch Weathers: I've asked, first, in any talk I give or presentation at a conference or whatever. I always start with just a blanket question of what has the greatest impact on student learning and achievement? Just throw it out there and let people brain served. I can tell you, I've never heard in a long time, a lot of years and I've been all over the country asking this question, somebody say really good textbooks, which again, are not a bad thing. More technology, not a bad thing. Like it's, it all comes down to these, you know, it comes down to relationships with students of course because this is a human to human endeavor. But it's always these content, agnostic skills and habits that when I developed, again, it's that agency is a learner that's so often missing and I made the mistake as a new teacher. I'm a science teacher and lucky me, right? We get to blow things up and go outside and drop watermelons off buildings. And that stuff is all fun and engaging, but it does not equate to learning all the time if these skills and habits are missing. 00:13:12 And that's what we're the kind of history of my work as an educator. That's what really struck me when I first came into the classroom and I came out of a nonprofit background. And so I had quite a few years of experience working with young people and when I entered the classroom and how to interact with young people, which is gonna take a few years for some teachers to figure just that piece out. But the relationship piece I kind of, I could do and it just became like overwhelmingly clear like, oh, you don't know how to do this school thing. And most of them, I worked with a large, migrant population, undocumented population, second language learners, historic academic failure and yet gifted. And too often students, many students are viewed through a deficit lens as opposed to an asset lens, meaning our industry sees them for lack of better expression. 00:14:18 Our industry sees them for what they don't bring to the classroom rather than what they do. And it became clear to me like we have to uncover all of those because you'd have a lot of these executive functions already as well as others. But how do we uncover those? Practice them and leverage them in the classroom as assets? Lindsay Lyons: That's such a powerful point. And I think it takes me to my next question to which is kind of what does that look like at the classroom level. So I know you have Organized Binder, you have all of these great approaches and practices. Do you mind walking us through like either a strategy or just kind of like what that might look like in a school day? Mitch Weathers: Yeah, I'm glad I'm really glad you asked that. I didn't know you were gonna ask that. I became completely obsessed when, so Organized Binder just came out of my classroom and in my practice. And answer your question in just a moment, like what's one specific? But one thing I can't stand about our industry is, well, first of all, any professional development, that's a one time flash in the pan, we never see you again? Done. 00:15:27 We need to just banned those people and whoever is doing that, it's not worth it. That's not to say a key note's wrong. But when we were talking about professional development and to your really important question of what's it look like tomorrow in my class, I would sit through these, you know, even really inspiring and helpful professional learning experiences. But to make it a part of my daily practice took so much work on the backside that eventually it just became another thing on the shelf. Then my officer in my classroom that I never really could get around to and I never wanted that for Organized Binder. So I, once it kind of came about and again, I had no intention of sharing this whatsoever, but colleagues started showing up and saying, hey, I'm working with the same kiddos and I'm not having any success and they're all telling me about what's going on in your room and they're fired up about it. And I was like, what are you doing? And I'm like, well, I've started designing this, the system that the kids called Organized Binder because there actually is a physical binder to it and they actually were organized for the first time and that's where the name came from, for better or worse. But I wanted teachers in an audience to sit through a training or experience, and the next day, hit the ground running with almost no friction and that's possible. 00:16:56 That's something that I'm really proud of now. What's it look like? I can tell you that when I first started teaching I had, this is just one example, I had a really, really out of control tardy situation our school did, but not so much truancy, but tardy and it drove me crazy. Come on, kids would be standing outside my classroom. They'd be like running down the hall. They would be up and like, it was just like, I think in their mind, like if they were kind of even in the general vicinity or geography, that that's like good enough. And for me, it hit me one day. I was like, okay, well I just assumed, and that's the "A" word in education, right? As soon as we make one assumption as a classroom teacher, like we always have to check ourselves because as soon as you start making assumptions, you could be so off the mark, right? But I just assumed everybody knew that when the bell rang, because we were a school that had bells, that meant class started. And when class starts, that means you're in your seat. I've assigned you a seat and you're at least facing forward so we can talk, You know. And I just assumed that everybody had that understanding. And then it hit me one day, like, oh, big classes back then was really challenging students. 00:18:21 Like it wouldn't be uncommon to have like 40 kids in my class and be like... So there's my idea of what it means to be on time, and then there's 40 other versions of that and we've never talked about it. I don't even know what you think because you might think being outside the class, which is driving me crazy. And now we're having like a relational conflict and I'm having to be the authoritarian, all because we haven't communicated. It has nothing to do with like, the expectation, It's just a lack of clarity. And so I didn't, I certainly didn't ask anyone's opinion on what it meant to be on time. I just had to make my expectations hyper explicit. So one of my favorite books is called Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit. And if I had to summarize her thesis in that is that we need that which is implicit in the classroom, we need to make explicit. And I could no longer just assume that you knew what it meant to be on time because I hadn't made that hyper explicit. 00:19:31 And so where Organized Binder really became like a, I really like it spark of magic was, I became obsessed with creating hyper predictable classroom routines that I could communicate without using words. So with this again, I tend to get a little long winded here, so cut me off whenever, but you asked what does it look like? I would, once it came about and you, I wish everyone had an Organized Binder in their hands because they would see that it's this physical tactile, yes, everybody out there, it's actual paper and a binder, and it exists digitally, if you're curious, but I'm a proponent of this physical binder. But it's all color coded for visual queuing in the classroom, and if you work with second language learners or students with learning differences or whatever it might be, and I would say anybody having these visual cues so that I'm reducing barriers or friction so that you can engage, better engage with the class community, it's all good. 00:20:41 So I would say this, I'd walk into class, whatever when I'm going over what it means to be on time in my first week of school. And I would do it this way and say, okay everybody, Mr. Weathers welcome blah, blah, blah, here's what it means to be on time in my class. And I would walk out of the classroom not very long because that's against ed code. But I would just kind of like mess with them a little bit and then I'd walk back in. I grabbed some kids binder, they're Organized Binder. I would find an empty spot, I would sit down and I would open my binder to this white B tab and in there they're called weekly lifelines and they're white. And I would just sit there. And then I would stand up and I'd hand that kids behind her back and I'd walk up to the front of the class and I'd say, okay, now turn to your neighbor and tell them what it means to be on time. And the whole class would erupt in conversation. And then of course we would, you know, perish it, tell me what you heard and if by doing so everybody knew, I'm like, hey, look, that's all you have to do. 00:21:44 Just get here on time. It's, we, it's what I've often said is, there's a lot of gray areas in teachers and oftentimes in teacher's lesson plans. A lot of ambiguity and that's where we lose Kids. Like those undefined spaces even if they're 30 seconds or 15 seconds or and I'm not saying this is like an authoritarian thing, but we do our students a favor by painting the gray areas black and white. That's what I've always told my students to like, look now you have a decision to make. I call him character questions. You're going to show up or not. Like if you know what's expected and it's fair and you can do it, then I've kind of left that up to you and that's where some of this agency starts to come in. And by again by virtue of that routine. I get practiced with these different skills, it can be a win win. Lindsay Lyons: That's an excellent example and I love that you're naming to, I'm thinking about for Multilingual learners who are relatively new to English, just being able to watch you do that, watch you come into the room, sit down to get the binder flip to that page, 00:22:53 like that is already like a hurdle that we're overcoming. That could be a hurdle if we were using words initially. I mean there's so much there that's just like universal design for learning. Mitch Weathers: Yeah. And the other thing I didn't mention for a classroom context, everything that a student has in their physical Organized Binder, this is why it actually exists digitally. I'm projecting in the classroom, so they're seeing it in their binder. If there were 40 kids in the room, which I hope there's not, there's 39 other versions and it's up there. So I'm constantly and I always see it as reducing friction. Like what I'm trying to do, let's talk about second language or multi language learners for a moment. They tend to spend a significant amount of cognitive energy just navigating the school day or the class period, just trying to keep up. And if you've worked with those students and those populations, there's a certain fatigue on their face at the end of the school day that I don't think is the result of like, oh I've just learned so much, right? I don't think that's what's going on. It's just taxing, it's so taxing to everything I'm learning. 00:24:09 In other words, everything I'm seeing and I'm hearing for the most part I'm translating, and I'm constantly just trying to keep up. And so if I can reduce friction or in other words, if I can have such a hyper predictable learning routine that you just know what to do to engage with the learning community, then I'm liberating percentages of cognitive energy that once was spent on navigating and what win for the students, right? And they just feel better because it's safer and it, I want students to walk to my learning space knowing exactly what to do to be successful. And here's the other thing. When they do, it gives me an opportunity to acknowledge the successes and I always call them victories because for many of the students that I've worked with historically, they don't have all that many successes or victories in an academic setting. 00:25:12 And these victories Lindsay, that we're talking about are not tied to content mastery. And most of the time in the modern classroom, success for victories are largely tied to content mastery. Such that if I'm struggling with the content, I may see myself as a learner is less a part of this learning community because I'm not as "smart" or as gifted as some of these, others. I could be wrong about that interpretation, but as soon as I start telling myself that, students tend to lean back rather than lean in and I've seen this work over and over when students experience celebrated victory. So I have to acknowledge it too. It's not just them figuring it out on their own. And so with the students I was first working with, when Organized Binder started to coalesce, like I could walk around and be like, way to go, you have your binder open to the B page, the weekly lifeline. Or with like all these little things that had nothing to do with the lesson. You and I this whole time had yet to talk about any subject matter any less in any context and that's the whole point, right? 00:26:22 This is a content agnostic tool. But when students experience those celebrated victories at a minimum, they just like being there because they're tired of failing. Who likes to fail all the time when they show up to something? But they can begin, there's a paradigm shift that can happen. I've seen it happen. Well, they'll start to lean in because we know when you're struggling, that's the time to lean in and try even harder. But sometimes we have to foster that, and this is one way to do it. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely, okay. I love that. And I also know, you said this is the start to, but it helps teachers as well, right? If I am thinking about planning units worth of lessons once they have a two month unit, okay, now I'm facing down, you know, however many units that would, or lessons that would be the 40 lessons, and I want to get creative and I want to engage students and now I'm on teachers, pay teachers paying money out of my own pocket to try to do all these creative activities. 00:27:24 When really, if we did five routines and repeated them throughout the entire two months, our students would have more cognitive ability to engage with the content that's changing every day. They would have more success. We would be able to better focus on what it is I need to teach every day. We'd have more energy for student relationships because we're not lesson planning into like, you know, three in the morning. I mean, there's so much that is here that benefits both the students I think and the teachers that is so important. Especially when we mentioned time at the start, like not only do teachers feel like they don't have enough time for the content and fitting it all in, but just to be able to do all the tasks that teachers need to do in their planning time without taking work home is like, time is such a factor. This feels like a win win for students and teachers. Mitch Weathers: No doubt. It's been, I can't tell you how many times I've heard from in veteran teachers saying, oh my gosh, like on the backside of a training or something. This is all the stuff I've wanted or known I need to do for years and I just have not found the time to do it. And here it is for me, you're gifting this to me and it will actually save class time because you have a more predictable learning routine. 00:28:47 So absolutely a win win. And for new teachers out there, get a hold of us. It's like a Godsend for just having that lesson structure. We're not really going into a whole intro right now, but there's Organized Binder will frame a daily lesson plan, but it also captures teachers unit sequencing, which is just as important. And ultimately what a teacher a couple of weeks ago called the crown jewel at the end of the school year or the semester because they work at colleges as well, students walk with a curated portfolio of their learning from the first day of school till the last day. And I've started calling them trophies because talk about agency and pride, like just beaming and we're not and they keep saying this, we're not talking about content and we're not talking about grades. You could have a C minus and you have your crown jewel at the end of the school year that you've created, 00:29:50 not me. This is your daily reflections, your daily plan. We're doing it together as a class community, but it's a profound experience, but it's all built from this predictable routine that you're noticing for teachers, what it can do to set them up for success as well. Lindsay Lyons: And I don't want you to give too much away. But I'm curious to know. I think as a listener I had heard about Organized Binder before I actually met you and I was like, oh, I want to like kind of picture what this looks like. And so I'm just wondering, could you know, at the beginning when you were saying, okay, I come in, I flipped the white page. And you specifically said, you know, it's a white pages under the, B tab that, you know, like all of these things like what does the, can you describe a little bit. What the binder looks like? What are the various pieces of a binder that frame like just that lesson level that you're talking about. Mitch Weathers: Yeah, so, yeah, we'll do this verbally and then everybody just go over to the website and you can see one and it'll all make sense. So there's, as we call it a student bundle and a teacher would get what's called a class set of 40, which is usually more than enough. 00:31:00 But also it's another thing that bothers me about our Educational system when you, there's an initiative at the school and I get my class set and it's like I got 32 of whatever it is and there's 36 kids in my class. So we try to go super heavy because we're all rooted in the teacher's reality and experience. And they would open up their bundle and add this in because we've talked about teachers, we've talked about students and we also have to talk about families because family engagement is paramount for student success. And what every Organized Binder bundle comes with is a bilingual family guide or parent guide that goes home to basically explain the system and how it's used. But to offer kind of sets parents and families up to support learners as well, but with specific prompts to try to move it away from, How was school today? What did you learn? 00:32:03 Nothing. Do you have any homework? Like those conversations can very quickly develop. But if I have specific prompts around the goals I've set in my daily tasks or my reflection or even just knowing like, What you guys do today? Why I can look in your binder and it's all there, that kind of thing. So they would see that, but then the, our binders which are, I'm super proud of this, so I just gotta put it in there. It's one of the only, SFC certified green binders, you'll find. Honestly, it's a pretty hard process to get your stuff certified. So everything that we having, you know, our whole product line is all US made and 100% recycled materials for the lowest carbon possible carbon footprint. And no crappy vinyls and plastics that would end up in a landfill because why should we, you know, nurture the next generation and ruin the planet at the same time, and our industry is a bad actor when it comes to that Anyway, 00:33:14 so I'm proud of our product line. They open it up, there's eight tabs. If we're talking about K- 12, this is a little bit different for college. A and it's very simple, all color coded A through H. And A, if you flipped the A tab, you would see a gold goal setting page. And so students get to together as a class community, but very individually set goals. And we review and come back to them. Like I was saying each term or each quarter or every few weeks. Then there's a B tab C tab and they're all they're all color coded. I could go through the whole thing. But again, it's all for visual cueing, that I could just see where I need to be and flip to that tab. Does that answer your question? Lindsay Lyons: That is perfect. Yeah. And I think that's a great point. Like people can actually open this and look at it online, right? You have like these, these templates and there, I think the images are color coded as well, right? They show like this paper is going to be in this color. 00:34:17 Mitch Weathers: Yup., yup. You can see it all and if you want the best way to get that intro. So for all you listeners out there, we can share with you or gift you a digital copy of our bilingual parent guide. And give you access to some tutorials, not as so much of training because I know you don't maybe even know what this whole thing is. But if you did want to check it out and like see it opened up and the working components Lindsay, I think we should do those tutorials. That would be helpful. Lindsay Lyons: That sounds perfect. So those will be the freebies for this episode and I'll link those in the show notes and on the blog post. So that would be great. Thank you so much for kind of going through all of that. I know we just talked about a lot of different things and there are a lot of different pieces to this. And so if I am maybe like a teacher, my administrator hasn't decided to go ahead and actually purchase Organized Binder. But like I'm starting to get ready to have that conversation with them or I'm starting to like start small in my class and think about like, how do I kind of really wrap my head around prioritizing these learning routines that are, what was the phrase that you used: hyper predictable. 00:35:27 I love that. And you know, what would that one thing be that would get me started on that. If I could just take one step after this episode, what would you say that should be? Mitch Weathers: Yeah, good question, good questions. In terms of the Organized Binder thing. I would and always do encourage that. So in other words, the pilot: something small, that one teacher or a handful of teachers or maybe one class, or something along those lines so that it's kind of running an experiment to see like, hey, is this, is this worthwhile? Is it going to do everything that this guy is saying, kind of thing. But really to make it your own and the school zone and kind of kick the tires. So that, that's the way I would go about it rather than like a school wide roll out in the first year. I don't, I don't advocate for that. If you're a classroom teacher and the funding is not there, or you think it's not there then I would say contact me. 00:36:31 Well Mike, I'm sure you can get a hold of me here. We can have that conversation because you'd be pretty surprised about the funding and how we can make it work. But the lens or the review of your own practice, your own pedagogy is, can you, if you're interested in creating predictable learning spaces and that's true of a brick and mortar classroom or our last year and a half in distance learning or whatever that environment, a predictable routine isn't it? It's not just a classroom thing, is what I'm saying, but let's just pretend we're talking to the classroom teacher. Start to review and reflect upon your expectations or your policies or procedures or whatever you call them, and ask yourself if you can communicate them non verbally. Do students know when it's possible, know your expectations without, of course you have to communicate them once or twice, but where you know where we typically see them, I could ask you a question. Let me ask you Lindsay reverse roles: where if you were to walk into a classroom, where most often do you see a list of expectations? 00:37:50 Lindsay Lyons: I would say like a poster on the wall? Mitch Weathers: Poster on the wall. And I can, there is research around this that if we're not constantly kind of curating that which is on our walls in the classroom and I forget the time frame but it's surprisingly short, that it literally becomes invisible. Like students are not seeing it anymore. And we all do this, that's a good idea. But there's this poster up there and sometimes it's like five years old because you have really good expectations. I'm telling you there, if you're struggling with them engaging with those, it could be your communication modality. So trying to make them part of a routine and trying to make them when possible, communicated nonverbally or at least working towards that, can be really, really helpful. That's some of the underpinnings of Organized Binder. If you wanted to bring some of this into your classroom, go listen and watch all those tutorials. 00:38:52 I'm basically going to pull the veil back on our online training program for free. For all of you. You don't, it's not embedded and of course, so you can just go watch the videos, just go check them out. And then see what you get from that. But I can tell you all of it is built around the skills and habits that research has overwhelmingly indicated help students be successful. And again, it's content agnostic. So it doesn't matter what you teach, it doesn't matter what grade level you teach. These are universal. Lindsay Lyons: I love a good content agnostic tool. This is the best. And so as we move to a close, I really appreciate all of just the value that you've provided for teachers and content in this episode and for leaders as well. I'm just curious to know, I think everyone on the podcast is like a self described lifelong learner. I know we're in a mastermind together, so we, you know, we continue to learn and grow, but what is something that you've been learning about lately? Mitch Weathers: I've been learning that in our next newsletter, 00:39:56 this is the title for it. I've really been struck by this. Don't try this alone is going to be, what are our next newsletter And what I mean by that is in other words teaching and school leadership. Like don't try this alone, that the coaching and the support that's out there. I've been just learning a lot about really cool organizations and entities that are all around coaching or supporting, whether it be school leaders or teachers. And it's just really struck me lately. I've had some really interesting conversations, and also diving into some interesting literature around. Like. getting dialed in on what what does it mean to support and coach classroom teachers so that, but that there is some data and metrics around that. It's not like Kumbaya, not that that's a bad thing. But, so that's that's one thing that has really struck me lately, like this is, we can't you can't do this alone. 00:41:07 And maybe that's why our our attrition rates are so high. You know, in the first 3 to 5 years in our industry and so often like new teachers in certain environments can just be going at it alone and it's hard. It's hard. So yeah, in terms of education space, that's something I've been learning. Lindsay Lyons: That's awesome and so powerful. Yes, because I was ready to quit after the first three years of my teaching career. And like I love teaching. I think it was actually like a decent teacher, you know, once I got a handle on things, but it took those three years of figuring it out with minimal support and so if that support exists, which it totally does, like it is well worth whatever time or monetary investment that you need to make to get it and just feel better the rest of your career. So yeah, Mitch Weathers: And you'd be hard pressed and other careers too. That's part of it, right? Like the ongoing support and training and yet with teachers like, right now I'm supporting a brand new teacher, I think I've shared this with you. 00:42:10 She's the second career coming out of second career teacher coming out of a very successful careers and the executive media executive. And her last job that was with MGM and like she's transitioned into the classroom and she has a heart for migrant and immigrant students and she got a job teaching digital media as a CTE teacher middle school. And it's, I mean she's working with it a very marginalized population, and with that comes specific challenges and now we meet every week and we just talk. She's using Organized Binder and we're doing that. And I asked her this last week, I'm like, so it's kind of cliche and everybody says how hard teaching is. I'm like just comparing for me like, is teaching harder than what you've done before? And she was just like, she about fell out of her chair. And she's only teaching three classes, and what she's recognizing is not only just the workload in figuring out how do you, how do you teach? 00:43:18 Like, kind of like, that's just how do I teach all this stuff, right? The emotional, the relational, what's the right word or expression for it? What we've spent a lot, I'll just tell you, we've spent a lot of time not talking about her content or in that like the positive meditation. But like, where do I put my gaze? Because If I have 30 kids in a room and these four are giving me some static every day, our tendency is to just focus on that. And I keep trying to tell her like, but there's 26 other students in the room and you're not, not that you're not seeing them. It's that when you go home at night and you go home on the weekends, I can promise you, you're just focused on those four and it's like the emotional, you know, weight of that. Like, there's certain things about teaching that are taxing that no one can see or they don't talk about in graduate school and all that. 00:44:21 So that's the: don't go at it alone. You gotta have somebody to support you and talk to you. Lindsay Lyons: That is perfect. And finally, last question, where can listeners learn more about you or Organized Binder or connect online? Mitch Weathers: Yeah. Well, you know how active I am on social media. I'm kidding, everybody. Best way would be just go to our website, organized binder dot com, and if you, easiest way so you don't have to forget just go to the contact link. And if you want to chat with me, that that won't go to my inbox. But if you say, "hey, I wanna, I heard Mitch on Lindsay's show, I want to chat." I would love to speak with you via phone, meet up on a Zoom, I love doing that. So that's probably the easiest way, but yes, you can find our Organized Binder handle on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all of those places. But warning, we don't post too often. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you so much for sharing much and thank you so much for being on the podcast. 00:45:27 This was wonderful for me. Mitch Weathers: This is super fun. Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show, so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave and be your best self. Links from the episode:
And for one final bonus...
Mitch has generously offered to give away a physical Organized Binder setup to the FIRST 3 educators who post a screenshot of the episode from their device or a picture of themselves listening to the episode and tag me AND Mitch @OrganizedBinder!
Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Lindsay Lyons: Dr. Dana Goodier has 22 years of experience in education. She has taught world languages in English and worked as a middle school administrator. She completed her doctorate degree in educational leadership in early 2020. For her dissertation, she researched reasons parents were opting their students out of high stakes testing at middle schools and how that affected the district accreditation rating. She often speaks at conferences providing educators with techniques to minimize off task behavior into increased time on task. She is the host of the Out of the Trenches podcast which features educators who share their stories of resiliency. Follow her on Twitter @danagoodier and visit her website at www.danagoodier.com. This conversation was recorded in September 28, 2021, so it's being released in April but recorded several months beforehand. *Latest update: Dana's book "Get Yourself Out of the Trenches of Teaching And Into the Light Through Discovering Your True Potential" is set to be published late summer 2022 so keep an eye out for that! Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality, and sustain an inclusive, anti racist culture where all students thrive. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. 00:01:24 If you're a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, If you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth, and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in Dr. Dana Goodier, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Dr. Dana Goodier: Thank you. Lindsay Lyons: I'm so excited to have you here. I just read your professional bio but is there anything else you want to add to further introduce yourself to our listeners today? Dr. Dana Goodier: Well, we connected because we've both been working with Daniel Bauer of Better Leaders Better Schools and, you know, we have different perspectives. Kind of looking at some of the reading that he does with his mastermind. So we'll talk a little bit about some of the reading. and we'll also talk a little bit about my upcoming book that I will highlight one of your questions. 00:02:31 So, I think we'll just go ahead and get started and then if there's anything I'll add it. Lindsay Lyons: Perfect. That sounds great. And I was so excited to talk about your book. This is really exciting news. As we kind of jump in to think about like, you know, this big thinking that we do around education. I really like centering Dr. Bettina's Love's quote about freedom dreaming where she says, dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, you know, or really what we're talking about. And so I'm curious to know what that big dream is for you in terms of the field of education and where you see, you know, what's possible for it Dr. Dana Goodier: So I'm thinking of the macro picture right? You want to dream big? You want all, like if I was to say, all districts across the US right? My big dream is to moving to more equitable practices across all districts, right? We're looking more and more at this since the summer of 2020. But I know it's a slow going process and it really depends on what area of the country you're in. And we're seeing, I know not only where I live in Colorado, but there's different places throughout the US 00:03:34 where there is a lot of strife amongst stakeholders, right? Depending on what is being taught in the classroom, and I know some of those stakeholders might not be comfortable with the teachers teaching about history that has been hidden for many generations. However, as a parent of a current middle school or in two children in elementary school, I know that they're like sponges, right? My son was just talking to me the other day. My 8th grade son was talking to me the other day about, he doesn't want to celebrate thanksgiving this year because he knows the true meaning behind what happened. And you know, so it's just interesting how he's, you know, learned a lot of this stuff recently and just reactions. These kids that pick up things and they're like sponges and how as educated, we just need to know that you know, a lot of us are just learning about some of this history right now. But if we want to make the difference, we need to learn how we can make that difference today, right? As educators make the difference today, so the youth can make that difference tomorrow, right? 00:04:41 We can have a better place for all of us tomorrow. So, you know, this equitable practices and cultural relevant pedagogy, you know, it may not happen all at once, right? And it may take 5 to 10 years, but I'm hoping and you know, by that time in 2030 or so that we, you know, see a lot more of the history being taught in schools that, you know, has been hit. Lindsay Lyons: Yes, such great points. And I love that you mentioned to just, you know, like that when we make that change today, now our students can, our young people can, you know, grow and live in that way, that is full of change as they grow older and become teachers and all of that. And so I think about a lot of people being frustrated with having to learn or unlearn, right? Like thanksgiving is a great example : unlearn what they've been taught in elementary school or whatever and then have to relearn. But if we just decide now, like we're actually going to teach factual history, those kids won't have to deal with that as adults. That frustration will be gone because they'll actually just learn it right the first time. 00:05:43 And so I think that's such a good point that you're raising. I know that for a lot of people that's a really difficult transition to make. You know, like having that frustration and having that recognition that maybe what they learned in their own schooling experience or even how they learned in their own schooling experience, you know, is not working for the kids that they're teaching and should be changed. But I think a lot of that requires a real mindset shift around, like, okay, well I thought education was this way and I was always doing it this way and I'm used to doing it. Right now, I'm trying to do better, I'm trying to make this shift. What do you think that requires, you know, what is that shift that's required for people to really achieve that dream of, like you're saying culturally responsive pedagogy and equitable education? Dr. Dana Goodier: A great question. You know, and as you pointed out, yeah, it does take intentionality, right? I think it takes being open as a teacher, as a leader, as a practitioner. Whether or not your district, in your school building is adopting more culturally relevant practices, you need to be open to learning more about it. You need to take a stance for what you're teaching in your classroom or how you're leading your school. 00:07:02 So you know, if your district has taken an initiative to adopt certain curriculum and to implement certain things, make sure you're informing yourself in attending trainings, right? Also be open to what you can explore more as an educator, how you can be anti racist. Just be open to a reading, listening to podcasts, attending webinars. There's so much out there today, right? And it's an explosion since summer of 2020 but I know there was a lot out there before. I remember when I went to job interviews like in 2018 and stuff and I would often be asked, you know, we have a very diverse population and you know, how do you teach students with multiple ethnicities and races? And I would always talk about culturally relevant, relevant pedagogy and how you know, I've learned a lot from the principal Catoly for example, and a lot of his books even before he published his most recent book. But so there's always been a lot of information out there, in books, but more so now than ever that you can just consume via the podcasts. And a lot of what I know we've talked about, you were on my podcast and I just think it's just being that open to learning, of being about lifelong learner and having those difficult conversations with stakeholders if needed, 00:08:30 and with our colleagues? Lindsay Lyons: Yeah, that's a great point, right? That is, that it's being a lifelong learner is so inherent in all that we do if we're going to do it well, like we have to keep growing and evolving. And so I really like that you name that and I will ask a question at the very end that comes back to that because I think it's so fun to think about, you know, how are we living that out? So you mentioned so many great suggestions for action that people could take. Just even things like listening to podcasts, right? Like these little things that are just going to help us continue that learning journey. And I'm wondering are there other steps or specific practices that you would encourage people to do? In terms of like, you know what you have seen be really successful in your practice or what you encourage the people that you work with to do to really bring that out in themselves, and also the like you said, their colleagues and having those conversations. Dr. Dana Goodier: So if you're a district leader, a school leader or even somebody who's like a teacher coach, you know, leading professional development at your building or even a department chair, 00:09:36 you can help lead and develop professional development at your school. Even just the teacher, even if you're newer to the building, you can reach out to your administration and talk about like you know, do we have an agenda for teaching any of these practices of this year and how would you feel about having that maybe you know, as it could be a recorded P. D? It could be you know, accessible when teachers have time to access that. And it could be just a discussion that you have in teams as well. I also think something that's a brave action could be putting out posts on social media. This is for any educator right? And in order to get feedback these could be you know polls. These could be you know, just provocative questions right? This could be you know, images and just kind of starting that conversation with that post. Right? I also think definitely blog and blog posts are important. 00:10:39 So I blog for the Teach Better Team. I know there are a few bloggers out there who are doing blogs and that's becoming more popular you know as yourself. You do blogs and some people who have subscribed to their blogs. They have been starting to do vlogs as well. So whether or not you have a newsletter that goes out or you just blog such as I do for an organization. You know, finding a subject that you can blog or blog about that is not provoking and that you can share out on social media and get feedback just as you would with that thought provoking post. And I think as leaders, leaders can be vulnerable to learn more. You know, you are sending the example for your building, more for your district. So the ed leaders need to keep themselves informed through reading. They need to be attending webinars. There's always I mean, I get a ton of emails so there's always webinars going on pretty much every day right? 00:11:41 Some from some educational organization. So if you are working a full time job but you can set aside two hours maybe in the week to attend a webinar, you can always catch the reporting right? And then you can all also advocate for district pd to support culturally relevant pedagogy. And this could be as I said, it could be a P. D. that's accessible. A synchronously right? It could be something that maybe you're having your whole building attend for maybe half a day right? During a teacher work day. But you know, you also want to gauge how much does your staff know and how much is your staff already using, right? It's not going to be a one size fits all necessarily pd right? And you also want to list the help of some of your staff members who are using this in the classroom and have been using this for years. So have them give examples and have them also be the QnA if they're comfortable because those teachers who want to know more, they're gonna want to know how do you implement this in your classroom. 00:12:43 Lindsay Lyons: Wow, that's so many great examples right there. From you know, from even just asking the question or advocating like what P. D. do we have available, what when can we use it? And also to like, you know, like you said leading the Pd or even leading what I think we would both probably call Pd in the blog space, right? That's professional development in a sense that just extends beyond and so yeah. I think organizations like Teach Better, great. I mean even things like Learning for Justice formerly Teaching Tolerance, they let you, I think they even pay you for articles that you write if you're accepted. There's so many organizations that will take blog posts from educators and leaders who are just really excited about this work. And so if you're doing it and you have something to share, you know? Absolutely. I would echo that. And I think one of the things that I've learned that makes it a little bit more manageable to kind of wrap my head around blogging, I used to think I have to talk about something different every single. And then I was like, I have a particular niche or set of niches and that's really helpful. 00:13:44 One of the things that you actually do is help teachers to find kind of their PD niche, and I think that sounds really exciting and was a huge like kind of pivot point for me to really harness my energy and focus it around like these key areas. Can you say a little bit more about what you do in this life? Dr. Dana Goodier: So yes this is a breakout session I've led at a few conferences and I also have offerings on my website for PD to give you, know, in person or virtual PD to districts and schools. And it's basically meeting with teams and departments and narrowing down how you would want to plan out your PD plan for the year. Now you know, if I were to give a training in February you know, you still want to look at kind of what you've already done, right? And there's so many places that you can go. As I've already mentioned webinars, you know podcast, those types of things. But as a team, you want to find out, like what where is an area of focus we want to work on and that you know could be the trauma informed practices, culturally relevant pedagogy. It could be more focused on literacy and you know curricular materials. 00:14:55 So you know, when you're thinking of adult learning, when I developed the P. D., this pd, but also when I was working on the capstone for my doctorate, it was a professional develop module for a school district. I had never written a big pd for adults before, right? And when I got some feedback from the Director of Professional Development in the district, she was just saying, we'll think about how kids work. Right? So when I do this session I talked about, you know, when you start a school year with kids, you think about, you want to help them identify what kind of order they are, right? So as adults, you know we could be visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners right? And an example I'll tell you of like a conference definitely that has a lot of kinesthetic learning that I've spoken at is the SHAPE Conference. It's the pe teacher conference, right? 00:15:56 So you're gonna have obviously a lot of things with jump ropes and those type of things. But are you the type of learner whether or not you teach P. E. that likes a type of session and this will mostly for those in person sessions but it could be for virtual, likes type of session where you're getting up and about in your, you know, you have hands on things, right? You're moving around, it's not just to sit and get. Or are you the type of learner who just likes to listen. So I would say probably myself because I consume a lot of podcasts and you know, I'll go on a run and I'll listen to these podcasts a lot of time. I'll probably say I'm an auditory learner, right? But I do like to listen and then take notes a lot of the time as well. You know, some people are those visual learners and they'll read read, read. You know, those are the people who consume a lot of the, the post, the visual posts and read a lot of these blocks. So, you know, I will, I always start out that at the session by talking about what type of learner are you, right? And then just narrowing down those choices and I highlight things like getting started with a book club. 00:16:59 And I think that's something that a lot of schools did start during the shutdown in the spring of 2020. But some schools probably haven't even thought about that still yet, right? And I was part that spring also in the district of a book club with, it was the, it was a book by Diana Graber about teaching. Well, I don't remember exactly the name of the book, but it's about technology and tech tools and teaching students, right. With the tech tools and, you know, cyber safety. Right? So, you know, when you have those type of book clubs and it could be a synchronous or it can be live, right? And leading the book clubs for your school and, you know, having people learn through just reading of, you know, chapters and I know both of us have been in the mastermind. We read books and we discussed those and we might not always get to the chapters during the session that we're meeting with the group 00:17:59 , but just how you're being held accountable, right? You're being told to read those chapters. You're learning a lot from the book that you're reading. So I think that's a big part of it in finding your pd niche and, you know, there's a lot more I could say, but I encourage people to check out the trading I guess. And if you'd like to have, speak to your school or district or you know, all be speaking hopefully at conferences coming up as well, sending out several proposals for, there are some in person conferences in the spring. Lindsay Lyons: That's amazing. And I love that you're talking about content and also process, right? Like how do you learn as well as what is your kind of area of focus? And I love that it's focused and it's also, I think for leaders hearing this, recognizing that their teachers learn in a variety of ways. And so even if as a school we have the same similar content focus or as a team, that's going to need different mechanisms of delivery, just like you said. With students, how they learn, and I think that's a great, just even reminder, if that's already something people are like, oh yeah, that makes total sense. 00:19:04 I mean as a leader to be like, do I have the option for someone to consume during their commute a podcast or something, you know, where we can multitask when our plates are already so overloaded. I think as educators many times like how do I, you know, tap into what my teachers really need in that way. So super valuable. I encourage everyone to go check out Dana's website and I'll link to that in the show notes to in the blog post for the episode. The other thing I'm really interested in your work on is working with stakeholders to identify attendance challenges in students history. Also, you know, pre Covid even, right? And that cycle of truancy, like how do we really how do we stop that? How do we really address what's going on there at the root? Dr. Dana Goodier: And like you said, it's getting to the bottom of the problem, like looking at the root cause. Right? So I'll give an example. So when I've worked as an Attendance Dean for example. I looked at seventh grader and you want to look at data. You know, going back several years. You're not just looking at the seventh grade year. You want to look at, you know, how are they attending, even back to fifth grade, even in elementary school, right? 00:20:16 And depending on what type of data system your district uses, a lot of districts use Infinite Campus, but you might be using something that has a visual, you know, you could use graphs, things like that. But drilling it down to looking at the days of the week that the student didn't attend, which is often those bookends of the weekends, right? The Monday in the Friday, right? It could be, if you're looking at a secondary school student looking at certain teachers to the student isn't attending the class of right? Or looking at certain times of day. The student might be rolling in at 10:30 in the morning. So you definitely want to look at some of those pieces in order to be able to turn around the cycle of truancy, right? Because whether or not you're in an administrative position, working with attendance or you're a teacher and you're just trying to get your students come to class. Because that was something when I taught French for example. And, you know, you're teaching new things all the time and you're teaching them foreign language, 00:21:21 you know, become frustrating if I didn't see a student for a couple of weeks. So I was very much on top of making sure I contacted the parents and finding out, you know, if there's something that was going on at home and you know, making sure that the student was able to pick up missing worker coming for help. But you know, you really just got to form those relationships. I think it's also like knowing like if the high schoolers coming in the third period they, you know, missed 1st and 2nd. And it could be because of dropping off a younger sibling. It could be you know, a middle school or who is just not waking up because there's nobody at home when school starts. It could be you know, there's peers in a certain teachers class and they just don't want to be around those peers. So it's not just, you know, it's not using the punitive approach. I know so long districts, you know, they look at the parties and they'll, you know, say you have all these absences and it's just gonna stack against you and you know, some some districts have gone to the extremes that say, you know, if you have X 00:22:26 number of absences, you're going to get a letter grade, a lower letter grade or something like that. So I think it's stopping the truancy in its tracks before it's too late, right? So if you're working with student attendance at the beginning of the year, you want to look at you know, the historical data, right? Look at how they were last year. Look at it and it averages have taken place, right? There's the RTI Process and TSS Process. However, you know, educators have stretched them, like you're saying. So have there been people that have reached out? So and then like looking throughout the year, right? If you're in November December, right? How has the student's attendance been? If you're getting towards winter break and the student is approaching the 10-15 days of absences, unexcused absences, you know, they are approaching that chronically truant label, right? And they might be up for a student review board at their district, which could lead to truancy court, right? 00:23:27 So then it gets more serious. So it's keeping track of those students. It's making sure that them and their parents are well informed of the need to attend. And I know it's, you know, I'm talking mostly about pre Covid, but you know, we have a lot of students right now who are coming back into the building in the fall of 2021. And you know, they might not have attended if their school was virtual most of the year last year. They might not have attended much, right? So it's kind of getting used to being back in the building. It's if there's a high school where for example, who took a full time job and it's still in that job. It's finding other options. Means those districts do have some type of an online option or alternative school. So it's finding other ways to achieve those credits for those high schoolers. So, but I think it's, you know, it's that team, it's a team approach is that process. It's the communication with the stakeholders and it's everybody who works with the student. Also just being on board to help the students succeed and to pass along the information needed to the parents. 00:24:30 And, you know, if the parents are really busy, they're working two or three jobs, it's also just making sure the student is aware and you know, that there's some type of a family member who also maybe grandparent or somebody who really knows the importance of that student getting to school on time. Lindsay Lyons: Wow! So many wonderful ideas there. And I, they, you know, resonate intellectually. But also I found myself at times resonating personally because I always was a person who struggled to get there first thing in the morning. So I had my brother and my sister and I was the oldest. I was the one who always drove and I would always have to like corral everyone in. We would always be late. And the policy was, if you're late three times you get detention and what that actually manifested as I was late to softball practice or basketball practice or I couldn't go to math tutoring, which I did after school. Like I needed that tutoring to pass the class. And so it's interesting how these punitive things that we actually put into place might actually hurt people's experience in the school of belonging or in extracurriculars or with academic, you know, progress. 00:25:33 And so I think so much of that resonated with me and just looking at all of the data, thinking to look the year before or, you know, a few grades before, brilliant. And I don't know why I like, I've never thought about that or I've never heard of anyone doing that, so I really appreciate you naming that. I also want to make sure we save time to talk about your book and I'm really excited about this, so it's going to be published by the Road To Awesome Publishing. Can you tell us more about the book? What's it about? You know, how did you come to this idea or what's it been like to write the book? Whatever you think would be interesting for people. Dr. Dana Goodier: So, you know, I came to the idea, I would say, you know, having hosted my podcast Out of the Trenches that I launched in May of 2020. And, you know, I got this idea basically a year later. Kind of May, June of 2021. You know, I've had a lot of people on who were launching their books and you know, I had a couple of those people were publishing through Road To Awesome. So, you know, and I read their books and, you know, it kind of got the idea. You know, I've written a doctorate, I did a capstone instead of a dissertation, but it was still quite lengthy and went through that process of getting it approved and everything. But you know, this is not academic work, right? 00:26:48 The fact that we have to have, you know, certain academic language and, you know, all our bibliography a certain way that the university requires. Right? So it's not that hard. I would say of writing is when you're doing a doctorate. So, you know, I've written a lot of blogs the past year. I've been writing with Teach Better team. But also when you're writing a book, you know, you have to kind of think about the big picture, right? So, I would say a challenge is kind of writing over a longer period of time right now. I'm aiming to get a manuscript done probably in the next month or so. So, you know, and I'm hoping depending on the kind of turnaround process with the edits and all that, that it would be out in the spring of 2022. So it is about, you know, the out of the trenches, where what are they basically is your trench? Right? A lot of people have interviewed for the podcast would say they are currently in the trenches and they like being in the trenches. So, you know, that a lot of people would say they defined the trenches as the work with the students and getting there, you know, feet dirty. So, you know, what does that mean for you? 00:28:00 You know, how is that, how does that manifest in your work and the difference you make in kids lives? You know, another part of that is also finding your why, and why it's important to define your why. I think since the pandemic started, a lot of people are kind of re-evaluating their why, right? A lot of people are shifting to different types of positions or leaving education altogether. So it's redefining your why, finding out what's important. It's also about really what is the trench? And is it something that you want to get out of? So, on my podcast, I always ask people, tell me about the time when you're in the trenches and managed to crawl out. And you know, as I said, some people say, I'm currently still in the trenches, but a lot of people might go back to when they first started teaching, right, in a difficult situation or something that caught them off guard, right? It's something they learned from and became a better person. 00:29:01 So, you know, these, I would say kind of roller coaster situations, as educators kind of what have they taught us. So that's also a part of it is you know, we all go through challenges. You know, failure does not define us. So those are some of the big ideas for the book and there is a video about the book and you could put the link in the show notes. It's on the road to Austin dot net website. So there's a bunch of authors listed there, but under my information, there is a short video where I talk about it and yeah, people can find out more. So I'm excited. Lindsay Lyons: I'm excited too. That sounds amazing and I encourage people to check that out. I will draft that link. You have gone through so many amazing, really concrete both examples and suggestions for people to take as they are listening to this episode. I'm sure people's minds are kind of like all over the place of like, oh, I could do this or this and so I'm wondering what's a good starting point for people? 00:30:04 So if they're really trying to live in alignment with those values of justice and equity and that dream that you shared at the start, you know. Where might be a good place to start as kind of the one next thing that they could do. Dr. Dana Goodier: Yeah, I think it's just finding the resources that you need to inform yourself on equitable practices. And you know, there's so much out there, but you know, you could, if you want to start from scratch, it's just Google it, right? Articles, you know, what's been recently published? What are some good people to follow? Right? It's also attending pd which it could be those webinars.] It could be listening to a podcast and I'll suggest one in the next question. But it's also having those conversations with colleagues. So if you are working with colleagues who are currently, you know, and have been using culturally relevant pedagogy for a long time, it's asking questions. What can I do to be more open and learn more about this? You know, there's a lot of people who have a lot of resources they can share. 00:31:09 It's asking questions, you know, if you are teaching, if you are a white educator and you're teaching mostly students of color, it's asking, you know, how do I present this topic or am I going about it the right way or you know, being aware of our biases are unconscious biases, right? And not being afraid to ask because I think as educators we know that, you know, as I said, people are always learning and we all want to support each other. So I don't think people will look at others negatively if they have those questions and they want to learn more and they're being vulnerable in the fact that, you know, I might not be so important about this particular topic and I want to learn more and I think that opens the door to just that, just having a more constructive conversation with a colleague and developing a better relationship with somebody we might not have really known before, we might have worked with for several years. Lindsay Lyons: That is great advice. 00:32:10 Thank you. And I'm curious to know, I know I previewed this earlier, but I love asking this question at the end. What is something, as a lifelong learner, that you have been learning about lately? Dr. Dana Goodier: Well, so in the Mastermind with Daniel Bauer, we've been reading about the history of the caste system in America. The book is Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and it is a history book pretty much, but it kind of ties things into more modern history as well. And in some parts of the book, it parallels, the treatment of African Americans in America and parallels that with treatment of the Jews during Nazi Germany. And so I think that's interesting and also talks about kind of how this is effective modern society, right? So very eye opening. Some people would say it's a difficult read. I really don't think it's a difficult read. It just, it kind of goes into many, I'm not done with it yet, but it just goes into so many areas. And so I would definitely suggest that book and anything that's, you know, more just about like, so as I mentioned earlier, like principal Catoly, I forgot the name of his most recent book. But you know, culturally relevant pedagogy books that he's written right? The 100 things that you want to know. 00:33:43 So those are either easier reads right, that you can read in a few days. Also I want to suggest the Leading Equity podcast with Dr. Sheldon Eakins. I had him on the podcast about a year ago, but he has his own podcast that he's been putting episodes out for several years. And so he's a lot of the episodes. He, it seems to me he's interviewing people who are maybe at the university level or people who have read books on equity and kind of their experiences with, you know, kind of teaching and students that they've interacted with, but, you know, very thought provoking conversations as well. Lindsay Lyons: I would strongly echo both of those. Caste was one of the best books that I think I've read in the last couple of years and Leading Equity is one of my favorite podcasts. So I definitely agree with those recommendations. Speaking of podcasts, you have your own podcast. So people should go check that out right? Out of the Trenches, you named before. And then where else can people find you online or connect with you or learn about what you're doing. Dr. Dana Goodier: So, I'm on Twitter and Instagram. my Twitter handle is just my name@DanaGoodier. 00:34:50 I also have a podcast Out of Trenches PC and on Instagram it's Out of Trenches PC. You can find me on LinkedIn and also my website is just my name, danagoodier.com. Lindsay Lyons: That's amazing. Thank you Dana so much for being on the podcast today. I really appreciate this conversation. Dr. Dana Goodier: It was my pleasure. Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show, so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. *Latest update: Dana's book "Get Yourself Out of the Trenches of Teaching And Into the Light Through Discovering Your True Potential" is set to be published late summer 2022 so keep an eye out for that! Links:
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Lindsay: I'm so excited for you to hear from today's guest, Mark Taylor. Mark has been a professional percussionist for 25 years and has had the opportunity of performing with some of the UK's finest orchestras and theater companies. Finding his passion and voice through music gave Mark the desire to share this understanding through his drum and percussion teaching, which he provides in schools and in his private practice.
Each person has their own interest to follow and story to tell. However, there are some common threads of knowledge and wisdom that sparked a flame in Mark to find out more, a desire to share these ideas with the world. This was the beginning of his podcast : Education on Fire. Mark interviews educators from around the world so that he can enable you to support your children to live, learn and grow to their full potential. Having spoken to over 200 guests, Mark uses these insights to support teachers and parents in his role as vice chair of the National Association for Primary Education, a non-political charity in the UK. I want to name that this episode was recorded August 9th of 2021. Let's get to the episode. 00:01:07 Hi! I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality, and sustain an inclusive, anti-racist culture where all students thrive. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach, educational consultant and leadership scholar. If you are a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in. Mark Taylor, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Mark: Lindsay, thank you so much. I really appreciate you asking me to be a guest. Lindsay: I'm so excited to have you and I love that, I got to be on your show and now you're on mine, so this is such a cool continuation of a previous conversation. I just read your professional bio at the top of the episode and I'm just wondering, is there anything you want to add to that in terms of context, things that we should know about you? 00:02:20E Mark: I guess the main thing is because I don't believe in the silo way of life. You know, I've got 3 children at home, you know, one of them is just about to turn 20 unbelievably. And then two other teenagers. So I've sort of seen them through the primary stage and into the secondary stage and then beyond and we're just in this kind of little hiatus of them going to college and all of that kind of thing. So I think that kind of context in terms of having a parental experience of the breath of education and how that cates well, it takes a different kind of context when you're on that side of the fence and just being an educator I think is really important. And you know, the silo thing is important because obviously many teachers and leaders listening are going to be parents as well and it's having that slightly different hats and I don't think that's really interesting. And it certainly came across the course when there was all the homeschooling because teachers and leaders and everything doing everything in sort of juggling all those things together, those different hats and ways of coming across makes a big difference to the perspective of how you take these things on. Lindsay: Absolutely. And such a valuable perspective to have to, because it's such a, I imagine, I'm not a parent but it's, you know, it's such a different experience. I imagine from that parent view, so thank you so much for contextualizing that. 00:03:31 And I hope more guests, you know, want to talk about that as well, so thank you for setting that stage. One of the first questions I always ask is in line with the idea of freedom dreaming, which Dr Bettina Love describes as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. I'm curious to know what is the big dream that you hold for the field of education. Mark: For me it was really the idea of opportunity and the idea that it's all about questioning and the lens that we put this in the environment that we put the contextual idea of it in, rather than every child should be this level at this age, in this subject in their way. And I think to understand that when every child is born, they have this natural ability to grow. You know, we don't teach them to walk, we don't teach them to do these things, it's in built, we give them the environment, they need to keep them safe, all of that kind of stuff, and just allow them to go. And we kind of lose that as we start to go through the education world, and the system doesn't necessarily give that breadth that you actually need. 00:04:35 And so I kind of think to bring that into the education world, I think then just enables so many things to happen organically, whether it's well being, whether it's the ability to feel like any aspiration is possible. And then our job is just to be able to then, okay, how do we go about making sure they understand how to go about it. Lindsay: I love that idea, and I love the comparison to walking because it's absolutely right, we're not like, okay, you take this foot and then you go here. We just kind of let it happen and we trust that it will happen. And I just wonder like, you know, I think there's so much trust that is missing from the process in terms of educators trusting children and students in our educational context. I think, you know, we lose that more and more as we kind of push kids through this traditional model of schooling, so I'm fascinated by that comparison. Thank you for that. Mark: That's right. Just as a little aside to that. Today, I was, we were on the summer holidays here in the UK. And my youngest daughter is into gymnastics and tumbling and you know, it goes a couple of times a week and does athletics and all that kind of thing, and there's clubs after school. And then this last few weeks it's been very sort of, we're just at home, you know, she's not being able to go to a couple because it's the holidays and she's been in her room a lot. She's now sort of 14, so we're thinking we need to structure the activities that we do this, and I'm sort of talking to myself in terms of, it's their holidays, they worked really hard, they've just been through a year of homeschooling, you know, all of that kind of thing. 00:06:03 And then just as I was kind of thinking, I don't know, maybe I should do something or say something or be the parent or teacher or whatever it happens to be. She's sort of walked past me, went out into the garden with her gym mat that she got herself from the garage, went onto the lawn and spent an hour or two out stretching, balancing, doing all of that stuff completely on her own. And I thought, yes, I'm glad I didn't say anything. That natural ability of just giving her the space she needed to relax to get the old term out of her system to enjoy time with her friends, which she did with a couple of sleepovers, hence the tiredness as well as the teenager. And then away she goes back to her natural self and wanting to be active and stretching and all of that. And I thought, yeah, just sometimes you just need that breadth and the ability for these things to happen organically. Lindsay: That's a perfect example. That is amazing. Thank you for sharing that. And when we think about, kind of the, I almost think about the hesitancy of teachers and you know, educational leaders to enable students to just do that, right? To be able to just be go forth and learn in the way that they do and give them that space and just kind of focus on the environment that we create for them to learn. 00:07:14 I'm curious to know what mindset shifts you think that educators, educational leaders are going to need to have if they've been doing education in a traditional way, not letting kind of loose the reins, so to speak, you know, and letting students just experiment and kind of find their way. What would you say to those educators or people who work with those educators or people who work under those leaders, to try to make it possible for that kind of vision that you have for education to be possible in their realities. Mark: I think in a lot of way it needs to be fearless. And it also needs to be empowered by leaders and teachers who know all of this stuff already. I think that the hardest thing at the moment is that the system, I mean, certainly in the UK and I'm sure it's the same in the US as well, it's that kind of, you know, the grades, the standards, it must look like this, it has to be like this, everyone needs to conform. That's just stifling, it's just really difficult to do. Whereas those leaders who say, "let's forget all of that, let's start with : what does every child need? They need to be loved. They need to be nurtured, they need to be inspired. 00:08:22 They need to have the opportunity to experience. They need to be part of a community." You know, what is it that we want our children when they leave this area of their education to move onto the next thing? What do we want them to leave with? And then with that, you'll bring in what you need. You know, there's going to be Arts, there's going to be Sports, there's going to be Humanities. There's, you know, as well as the STEM subjects and all of that. It's not about one particular thing. It's about starting with all of those things. And one of the things I quite like is my podcast is Education on Fire, and the fire, I've been thinking about this a lot. I'm talking with my daughter as well and I said I need to come up with some kind of sort of acronym or something which helps sort of work with that. And we came up together. We were just in the car on a journey and we said: "Failure". Really really important to understand what failure is and in a safe environment, you know, what is that? Because we've all fail over and over and over again. But let's make sure that we know what that means and how it works and how we grow and what we learn from it. "Inspiration". When we just had the Olympics. You know, one of the things on the TV 00:09:23 this morning for us was Max Whitlock and Adam Peaty, two of our gold winning medalists, talking about the effort they put in and what they can do and how they want to give back to students, and that's inspirational! I mean, that's amazing. But then you need the "Resilience" because, of course that's great, I'd love to be an olympic medalist. However, that's going to take some work. It's going to take some understanding you know, how do I find a coach where do all of that kind of stuff, really, really important. And then the most important thing then for the E was the "Empowerment". So okay, great. You've got this. Inspiration is where you want to go. How do we then go about it? How do we give them the idea of well being? Where do they find a mental? Where's that teacher that really sees the student who can then take them under their wing and show them the way to go. You know, you need to learn this, you need to understand that. Where can we put all these things together to put you on the right path? And with all of those things, every child has the chance to do what they were born to do in a natural way. There doesn't have to be, as I said, siloed into certain things. And I think that's really important because then it's fearless and like I said, those those leaders that can create that environment and be fearless like that, Of course we live in a system that has testing and it has all those things that we've talked about already. 00:10:39 But generally speaking because the breadth of the understanding and the knowledge that the children have experienced, they usually thrive in that and they excel because they're doing it from a sense of that perspective : "I might fail, but I'm going to give it a good go. I've found the teacher that can really support me to do it, you know? I'm inspired by the fact that I know my older brother managed to achieve it last year or the year before. I've seen someone else do it, you know. And I actually know about how to go about it. If I don't, okay, I'll try again next year or the year after. Or maybe this particular thing doesn't matter. I'll do it in a different way, in a different subject with a different person." But all of it is a positive step by step learning experience to for them to live their life, which is what it's all about, rather than everyone living the same life. And I think that fearless, I guess kind of picture and model in an environment that leaders can create, that's the way to do it. And then allow the rest of it to kind of seeped through into the world of what education and school looks like from the outside as it were looking in rather than starting with that child. What do we want them to leave their school with? 00:11:44 Let's start there and let the rest of it take care of itself. Lindsay: I love that. And that acronym is amazing. I am so excited about that, Mark: I'd love to take all the credit, but it was my daughter that came up with most of them, which I love even more because it comes from the people that I'm trying to help. So it's fantastic. Lindsay: It's totally like modeling in action what you're talking about in this. Mark: Absolutely, Lindsay: And I love that it starts with a failure as well, because it's such a, you know, a moment where you're like, well, the first letter stands for a failure, like that, you know, that's so uncommon in education. And so to just kind of throw that out there and kind of give people that moment of like, oh, I need to shift my mind around this because this is not what I'm used to hearing and it's just so powerful. And I'm thinking about, you know, when we moved to, okay, this is how we need to think. This is kind of the mindset stuff we've been talking about and then we moved to, well, how do we put that into action? What is the brave action that I need to take to make this kind of "FIRE" model come to life in my class? I'm just thinking about a bunch of different possibilities. How do you envision people putting this model into being in their classroom or their school? 00:12:49 Mark: I think a part of it, or actually the majority of it, is just having these conversations about what it is that we want to do. What is it about us, as people. What is it about us as a community of schools, about how we want to show up and do it. And then you have the opportunity to say, and it looks like this in this situation based on maybe something that's happened personally, you know. So you might have deemed this a failure because you've got 10 out of 20 in a test. But what did we learn from it? What did you learn that you didn't know about it? How can we change it? Right now, I want to do a little bit more, you know? Okay, so we'll go about that. Here's the skills that we need. Read this, do this. Can I help you with this? And so you've got that personal element that you can do child on child, or class on class? Or even show it from above, like say, just talking about sort of Olympic athletes, you know, seeing it from a story you're given by someone who's kind of been there and done it as it were, you know. If that's an important part of what you're looking at or studying or want to sort of put into their awareness. You can see it from all those different perspectives, but I think it all just then comes down to the hearing now, you know? 00:13:57 So what am I feeling now, did I fail? Actually, I didn't fail, you know. How do I want to go about learning it? Well, I can do this : what's my next step? Who supported me? Or you are as my teacher or you are as my mentor, my guide or whoever it happens to be. And I think understanding that and understanding that it's also further around and just your immediacy of your school, it might be someone just outside of your school. It might be a parent, it might be a friend. It might be, they will do in the same sort of thing. And once you identify the traits and the understanding and what will get you to, what you think you're going to achieve in, and that of course that changes and you don't know what it is, but it all comes down to a feeling. This feels good. This I want to find out more about this. I want to experiment with. There's not quite so much. Okay, well let's go with the good stuff. Let's feel how that goes and then you can thrive. And I think a combination of all of those things are going to certainly give you the impetus, you need to put you on the right path Lindsay: And I'm hearing a lot in there to moments for reflection, like creating that environment where we enable students to reflect on that test score. Or you know, reflect on whatever failure it was and think about, is this the path I want to go down? 00:15:05 I mean those are questions that I think, sometimes we, as teachers, have informally with students. We think of this as something we do, you know, in between classes or before the school day officially starts. But building in time for that, you know, actual class day as part of a lesson, enabling that personalization that you're talking about, I think is a wonderful opportunity and kind of necessary in the world that you're creating here for us to think about and so pivotal when we think about. I think a lot about the curriculum design and I'm fascinated by curriculum design, but one of the things I hear a lot is we don't have time in the curriculum to do social emotional learning or this thing or this, you know, and thinking about, can we have a curriculum, can we create something that is so flexible and enables for that breath of, you know, talking about failure, talking about what kids are interested in and their passions and helping them co- create requires that kind of flexibility and reflective moments. 00:16:05 And so I love that, that's just kind of part of what I'm hearing, as you're explaining what this would actually look like in practice. Mark: Yeah, and I think it has to be that because then you've always got the skills and the emotional context and the understanding of yourself about the next thing. Because like we said, whether that's about your math test or maybe it's about something related to sporting activity you did, or maybe there's something really happening in your home life that you don't know how to go about it. The same things apply, because you're getting used to what life is all about and how you show up in it and how you perceive it and how you can go about changing it if you want to or accepting it, if it just needs accepting. So then you've got the skills that you need and then you can adapt it. Because I think the one thing we all know about the world moving forward is It's not going to be anything like it is today. It wasn't like it was 20 years ago. So therefore that is the most important thing and to give our children the skills they need for that, to let them fly, to let them solve the problems that need to be solved. To feel empowered that they can do it whether they fail 100 times, but get it 101 times or whether they, you know, it's just an understanding that they're on the right path and they're going to keep doing it and they can surround themselves with the people they need to surround themselves with, you know, again and again and again, it's a positive situation rather than I'm now learning this or this subject or this thing all in those silos, which just kind of, I don't know that's just the thing about I'm going to school, I do as I'm told, I don't ask any questions, I did pretty well on the test. 00:17:35 Okay, great. Now I'm 18 and now, what do I do? You know I mean? The whole thing is just a completely different situation. Lindsay: Yeah, totally doesn't prepare people for life. And so I love that what you're talking about prepares people for life, right? This is so profound and so well said. Thank you so much for summarizing that. And the way that you did, I just think there's so much to think about there. One of the things that people ask me a lot of times is, okay, Lindsay you're talking about this ideal situation or you're talking about justice or whatever and your experiences in the high school setting. But what does this look like for younger grades or younger levels of schooling. And so you are the vice chair of the National Association for Primary Education in the UK. Amazing. And I'm just curious to know, can you speak to what that type of education might look like in those younger grades. Mark: Yeah. I had a fantastic conversation recently with Jonathan Lear, and he's one of the associates for an organization called Independent Thinking, and he's also a class teacher, and he was talking to me about the curriculum. And he's, I think it's now deputy head of an inner city school, multiple languages at all spoken in the school and you know, they have the same pressures of kind of, it must look like this and this is the curriculum and this is the national curriculum and how did you put it together? 00:18:56 And they took a step back and they were like, okay, what is it that we want the children to understand and learn because of course that's going to be very different for everyone, especially with the type of community that they have. And the one thing they learned was that they did the first step, which I think lots of people start to do, which is, we need to be more creative. Okay, so let's have a fantastic curriculum which has all this great inquiry and topic based and you know, wind all that in with some of the subjects which are traditionally taught in a traditional way in terms of two plus two is four and you do need to learn that at some stage in some way or another. But what he said, we found was is it was still us as the adults, kind of leading the children. It was still our creativity. Yes, it was fantastic and it might be, you know, a really inspiring day about whatever the topic had to be. But it still came from them and then the children did some fantastic work related to it. However, it still was the adults setting the scene and then the children doing a very good job within it. 00:20:00 And so what they did was they took it another step forward and they made it really, really inquiry based. And so the example that he gave was, he said they were doing sort of earthquakes, natural disasters, volcanoes, that kind of topic, which we do here in the UK. And he said, for example, normally, the art part of that is a paper mache brilliant model of a volcano and you can do the science with it and make it explode and all of that kind of stuff, brilliant. Excellent. You learn loads of stuff and everyone's very happy. Brilliant. You know, that was really great. But then you said beyond that you then sort of take it and the concepts and take it even further. So they then started talking about, okay, so you're in an earthquake, there's been a natural disaster. You know, let's talk about how that would look in terms of resilience. What sort of adversity would you find yourself in? You know, what strength would you need? What would the world look like afterwards? What if your village was the one that was just by the volcano? 00:21:02 What do you do then? And he said then all of a sudden we had a conversation, you know, one child will be talking about, well, I'd be really scared and you know, could we run away. You know, would we have to have no possessions at all? What would that feel like? And he said at that point, we've created the environment. We've set the topic. We're still in control. You know, we are the teachers, we are providing the curriculum, but where that then led, the art doesn't necessarily need to be a paper mache volcano. It could be anything, you know. And it gets very personal. It gets very conversational and it can take you in any particular direction. And that is then a way of all of the skills from all the subjects and all the things that you want to cover then come into the sort of focus because children decide they want to take it in this direction or that direction. So we can do this or we can do that or we can do the other. And there is no final outcome. It doesn't need to look like the perfect volcano paper mache thing, which is what you kind of want because you can go take: Yes, that's what we wanted. 00:22:06 Some children did a good one, Some did not so good one. This one was amazing. There's no volcano paper mache end, It could be anything, you know. And he said that's brilliant because then it's all about the questioning, it's about the environment. Where do we want to take this? Do we even need to do a piece of art like that? Can it be a piece of writing? You know? Actually I'm feeling I want to talk about how I was feeling as I saw the ash start to come down. Okay, well let's maybe talk about, let me draw a picture of it actually just being completely desolate after it happened. So no longer we're doing big science things and lots of explosions. We're just doing a completely dark gray, desolate kind of piece of work. It's kind of giving the emotion in the understanding of what that was. That's not something the teacher said you had to do. That's not something that came from "I need to do a piece of art." It came from an expression of what was related to the topic beyond it. And I think all of a sudden that kind of gives everyone the ability, I think, to be empowered to take it in their own direction 00:23:16 because of course you could have the same conversation in a different school, in a different country, in a different county in the UK and they'd all have a different idea about what they want that to be. And then you can really start to support them. If you think why there's somewhere here, we can take this even further. Or you can sort of decide, are there somewhere we can take this. Have you heard about this? Have you heard about that? There's a situation that happened in a different country. Let's just look at that for now. And so you can guide it, but you're not in complete control and you don't have a picture of what you'd like it to end up with. Again back to that. You need to be a fearless leader to do that because you don't know what that end result is going to be. But I would bet nine times out of 10 it's a hell of a lot further or higher in what your expectation would be that you would probably set had you set out to begin with. Lindsay: That's such a great point and a great example. I think so many times my students have surprised me. You know, even in the higher grades, just when we enable them to kind of follow their own path of inquiry and that's such a powerful example. 00:24:20 It makes me think of, you know, the driving question of a unit. Like you might set the driving question of the unit to be something like, you know, what would happen or how would you experience this event or something? And then from there, I mean that's an engaging question that everyone's going to want to answer from there. They develop their own project specific questions and I think that kind of balance between what you're saying, there's still an ability to guide, there's still ability to spark the interest right away, and go to all those places that you initially wanted them to. You know, we're gonna learn about volcanoes, we're gonna learn about all these things. But to have them guide that and to have them kind of niche down into, well this is the subtopic, within volcanoes that I'm super interested in. And so I'm just gonna have the freedom to go there, is so wonderful. And I hope that balance between, you know, guiding and student voice, enabling student voice helps people kind of paint a picture of, oh this is possible for my class and I can do this and it doesn't seem as scary as just completely letting go of all control. And so this is a lovely picture you're painting for us. Mark: And I think the one thing that came across from my conversation with him was the fact that he said it might look different next year because, you know, we created this and we've learned, as educators and leaders and teachers, of how we thought it might go and were surprised. But we can also then tweak that slightly differently to make it even better with different boundaries or support network or whatever, it happens to be, not being rigid ourselves as leaders to think all right, okay, now we found the, you know, the golden bullet or the silver bullet rather to kind of make it look a certain way so that it then looks fantastic and we know that within this we're going to get some great results to be able to morph and change and see how it is. 00:26:00 The next year group is a different year group with different personalities and different situations. And so I think, yeah, just to have it from both sides that we're all learning, we're all morphing, we all have that fluidity to kind of beyond that journey together, we're learning together and I think that's a really powerful place to be Lindsay: Super powerful. I love that. And I know we kind of mentioned arts within that framework of the volcano example and what could art look like. And so as an advocate for the arts and education yourself, what ways have you seen art be used, you know, in education to help students have that voice, to help students pursue whatever their interests are and really help them flourish as people in the classroom? Mark: Well, I think that the main thing is my personal experience and I'm a professional musician, you know. I'm a drummer and percussionist and I've got to play all over the world and all sorts of different situations. But I remember being at school and you know, you go to Math, you go to English to French, you do all of those subjects and then we did Music. And there was something about that that was different. 00:27:04 And I had a drum teacher who kind of took me under his wing and I thought this is really great and he said, "maybe you should perform in some local ensembles.", which I did and the whole world opened up. But what it did is it showed me there was a voice that I could use to show up in the world as me in a way that I didn't in any other way. And I think that's what the arts does. You know, whether it's in drama, whether it's actually art in its traditional sense in terms of creating something or painting or drawing or whatever it is. If you can find a way to show up in the world authentically, I think the arts gives you that outlet. And I think that's where the broad curriculum comes from. You know, it may be sport, it may be something else, but the arts, I think just for so many people, it gives them an environment where they can actually say yes, there's something I can just pinpoint. It was this bit of drama, it was this play, it was this, you know, reading this some particular piece of text that just that really spoke to me, what does that mean? 00:28:07 Why did I feel like this then when I've never felt it before, or I felt that once more, but that was in my real life not to do with this. Why did identify with that? And again with them, back to the questioning and then hopefully because you've created the environment within the school, that question then goes back into school, whether it's the teacher or mentor whoever it is. What was this? Where does this come from? And then again, off you can go and make that kind of work and, you know, that sort of emphasis of like, great, this is something in your life which you want to just explore whether that's something that lasts a day, a week, a month, a year or in my case, my career. You know, it just opened up that entire world and I think it's really, really important from that point of view And the other thing, which I know, it's certainly when children struggle and they have mental health issues and that kind of thing. The one thing that's always at the front of everything is: we're going to do some art related stuff. We're going to take everything back to its simplest way. We're going to color in. We're going to draw. We're going to just do something that just focuses the mind on the here and now. And I think there's very little in the arts that you can do, which doesn't make you be in the hearing now. And that's really, really important because then that gives you a connection with yourself. 00:29:24 So there's the voice in terms of, yes, this is me, I can tell you what I'm all about. But there's also the understanding of there's, there's more to this than just another subject. And I think just having, just knowing that as educators giving that as an option not but just because it's a wider opportunity within the curriculum, but because it's an integral part of what we want our students to experience, no matter how far they take that in their life, but it's very different than just a broad curriculum then it's actually about that real kind of learning and empowerment. Lindsay: Wow! I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it in that way, in both that it helps you be in the here and now, and it also helps you find a way to show up authentically in the world. That is so powerful and so connected to, you know, a lot of the work that I do around student voice and student leadership and so powerful for the, I mean, the world is always changing and current events are always happening and things are always going on. But covid particularly I think for a lot of kids, you know, to be just here and now in a particular classroom in a particular moment and to kind of land there as opposed to kind of being all over the place in your head, thinking about, you know, how's how's grandma recovering from Covid or you know, like all of these different things that are happening in our world, I think that's so profound in so many ways, both being in the here and now and being an agent of change for your community in so many ways and I just absolutely love that. Thank you for sharing that Mark: Pleasure, and I think it carries on a little bit for what we spoke about when you're on my show. We were talking about that kind of student voice and being able to be on a board or to chat to the leadership about what you want to do. 00:31:07 You know, this also kind of gives you, you know, if there's arts in there and you know, you decided to come up with your own play, you come up with your own speech, your ability to present something. You know, it may give you a framework to do that, which you don't have because there are x number of students on the board somewhere they can get those things across. And I think that there's sort of a broader context about how you can then seize your opportunities and just express yourself and get your point across in a way that's already embedded in the school, hopefully, but maybe not in the traditional sense of now we've got a leadership meeting and I'm going to tell you that the children think that Lindsay: Oh my gosh, that's so brilliant. It makes me think of, there's a one student voice study that I included in the literature review of my dissertation that I was just fascinated by, which it was high school students. But I think it could work for anyone where they were actually an after school club. I don't think it was part of the daily curriculum, but they were in drama and they created their own play around experiences of being part of the L. G. B. T. Q. Community and then they facilitated a discussion with community members, family staff as students afterwards. 00:32:13 Like, okay, well how did this part of the play make you feel and like let's talk about this connected to policy in our school and that was I had totally forgotten about that study for years until you just said that. And so that just makes me think, yes, there's so much potential and there are people doing it and using art in that way already. And so I think that is so cool. I hope someone listen to this episode and takes that idea and run with it and lets us know how it goes. And so you also you mentioned I was on your podcast, Education on Fire. You host a wonderful podcast. People should check it out. I'm curious to know having all of the guests on that you've had, what have you learned from from hosting that podcast. Are there any stories or ideas that have stuck with you in being a host? Mark: Yeah. I mean there are a few things. I think the one thing that comes across most is the fact that everyone talks about the personal connection. So it was this teacher that made me feel like this. It was this teacher that gave me this opportunity. It was this teacher that opened my eyes to something. No one's ever said, I remember how to do the five times table now because of X. 00:33:19 And there might have been a fantastic thing and the nine times table. We all know you can use your knuckles and all that kind of thing. But it's all about the emotion. It's about the feeling, the being seen, the understanding of the relationship. And I think that comes across a lot in terms of that's the most important thing, because that's what we're all about. We're all humans, it's about the community and the environment. But one particular guest that always I go back to Vondale Singleton was on, and you know, we're talking about equity and the idea of everyone having an opportunity. I'll do it backwards. So he is, I think he's got a Masters. He is the person who created something called Champs, which is a male mentoring organization in Chicago. He's helping so many people. It's just inspirational, absolutely inspirational But more so, when he talked about how it all started, he had a mother who died from drugs from cocaine and crack cocaine. 00:34:27 I think his father was in prison through his high school years. He was part of the Ida B. Wells Housing Project. I think it's a very tough situation to be and I think he was surrounded by very difficult people in a difficult situation. When he tells the story, it's very much almost like a very desolate movie script. You know, you can kind of sort of see, how do you survive that. But more importantly, how do you get to be the person that's just inspiring so many people in the world. And it's that kind of thing. No matter where you start from, that isn't where you're going to end up. You have that choice. So with no support and parents that obviously really were struggling in their life and unable to help him through his school, he had a mentor and this mentor showed him the opportunities, got him to chat, gave him the opportunities within the school, open desires to what was possible. 00:35:29 And you know, he obviously, he studied hard and he worked and he kind of created those opportunities for himself. But he pins it all on this one person. And the thing that struck me was he went to his mentor and said, I can't thank you enough, you know, what is it that I can do to pay you? How can I help? What can I, how can I respond and just do that and pay you back? And the answer was, do for someone else like I've done for you. Basically just pay it forward. And then all of a sudden, it all kind of makes sense. You know, it's that kind of, I can use everything I've learned, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. I can help someone else. I can use what I've learned and my skills and that will look different for me than it will look for you or somebody else. But it's all equitable in as much as we can all decide to do that based on what it is that we want to do, and he was the person who went out and created this most amazing opportunity. And it's helping, you know, so many young people in Chicago, just to understand all the sorts of things that we've been talking about today. 00:36:36 You know, he's not teaching them necessarily how to read and write. He is teaching them how to be, you know, good citizens, to understand how they can help other people, how they can support themselves, how they can create a life that they want to do and live in the best kind of way. And I just find that that's so inspiring, you know, that's not kind of not equitable inasmuch as, you know, we can all start here and we can finish there and it needs to look like this. It's equitable, because if you understand, I think the majority of what we've talked about today, you can then take the personalization of that and take it in whichever journey you happen to be, because, you know, it's not a situation where you have to have this experience or that experience or or anything like that. It's about taking it on board and showing how you can move it forward, and that's what I love about doing the podcast, is that hopefully, and like you, you expressed before, people hear these stories and understand these things and think I never thought that was possible, but somebody has done it. So I've heard someone do it and it might be that you can change that tomorrow in your classroom, or it might be that it's a conversation you can have with someone in the staff room and say, just have a listen to this, or just, you know, think about this, can we put this into place and it might be five years, 10 years down the line before it comes to fruition, but it's making that change, it's making a difference and that's the best thing you can possibly do. 00:37:56 Lindsay: I love that. I think that's a huge piece of, I always say, like, think big or dream big and we start with that dream question at the start of each podcast because we have to know what is possible. We have to dream up something that is possible that may not be in existence right now. And I think podcasts are a beautiful way, particularly how you do your podcast centered on stories centered on the personal experiences of folks who are in education, because that's what grabs people by the heart and that's what gives people that possibility and that imagination. And so I absolutely love that, that you're doing that podcast and everyone should go check that podcast out. Subscribe to it. It's amazing. As we kind of start to wrap up the episode, I'm curious to know what's one thing you would encourage listeners to do once they turn off the podcast, they're going about their day, something that enables them to really live in alignment with these values of justice and equity, the things that we've been talking about today. Mark: I think it's a really great question and I was thinking about it before, Lindsay. And I just think the one thing I would suggest and it makes a big difference, but it's a small thing : ask someone a question to get an answer about their life that you didn't know. 00:39:08 And then that opens up a conversation. It gives you an insight into their world that you didn't know existed before. It gives you a frame of reference and an understanding and without knowing where that will go in that kind of fearless way. I I don't know where that is, but it will completely: 1) Give you that emotional connection, and it will just open up a door somewhere that will help somebody in a way that you never thought was possible. Lindsay: That is so powerful. I'm also thinking about just the notion of curiosity which I think is really tied to justice conversations and having conversations about justice that aren't polarizing, that don't shut people down. It is just being curious and what a wonderful way to just manifest that and actually just practice curiosity by just asking people questions. This is brilliant. I love it and such an easy thing to do. Mark: Absolutely. And I think that's a really great point you made there is the fact that, you know, we talk about system change. We talk about these massive things and I think it all usually comes back to the moment as we spoke about before, but more importantly about you know, the here and now, what can we do now? 00:40:14 That one question, that one one piece of advice, or often just to look, just that kind of: Yeah, I know where you are today, I've got you. But that comes from having those conversations and those questions before. So yeah, it's a small thing, but I think like you say, can be really important. Lindsay: Awesome, and this is just a question that I usually ask for fun. What is something that you have been learning about lately? And I asked that just because I think everyone on the podcast is really a lifelong learner and going about, you know, not only teaching and educating in that sense, but really educating ourselves and learning. So what's one thing you've been learning about? Mark: So certainly one of the things I've been reading actually is a book by Margaret Rooke and it's called You Can Change the World. And in that she interviews, I think it's 50 teenagers. And it's basically people who are showing up doing amazing things, sharing their stories from amazingly different circumstances, some of them quite difficult circumstances, but really changing their world and in turn inspiring others. 00:41:21 And the thing I love about it the most is it changes the narrative about what society and maybe the media perceive is what teenagers are about and what they do. You know, these are young people who are literally inspirational as teenagers. This is what I'm going to do when I'm 20, 30, having been to college, university. This is what they're doing now as teenagers. You know, some of it very personal, some of it very practical, but really just that kind of, it just fills you with, it's a lens again. It's that kind of, this is what teenagers can do and are doing. So let's see what those teenagers are doing in your life or my life and see if we can encourage that. Lindsay: So cool, and I think about how you were talking about the "I" in "FIRE", you know, inspiring and being really excited about sharing stories like athletes and things like that, that is such a great content. If someone was like, oh I want to go do that, I want to inspire people. Like grab that book, open it up, you know, give it to kids, give excerpts to kids and really let them dream up. You know, whether it's for class, like this is a project that I want to do, and I know it's possible because I read about this in this book, or for life right now, like outside of the classroom and being an agent of change. 00:42:37 So I love, like concrete recommendations like that, that you can go ahead and use right away. So amazing. And finally where can listeners learn more about you or connect with you online. Mark: Yes. So as you mentioned, educationonfire.com is my world online and what I've done because I think what you're doing is so important and so helpful for so many people. Part of my job is the National Association for Primary Education Vice Chair as you mentioned, Is they provide a professional journal three times a year. And a recent issue was about equity and diversity and a whole range of things like that. So what I've done is I've created a page which gives you a link to be able to read that journal online free. And also I did a couple of follow up podcasts for NAPE as well, which are, I'll copy them into that page. So you've got it all there in one go. So if you go to educationonfire.com/timeforteachership, then we'll make sure that all of that is there for you just to have a look at and hopefully will give you a little bit of extra inspiration and support. 00:43:41 Lindsay: That is amazing. Mark Taylor thank you so much for doing that and for being on the podcast today. This is a wonderful conversation Mark: Lindsay, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Lindsay: Thanks for listening, amazing. educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show, so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time, leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. Mark can be found on his website.
3/31/2022 Planning Series BONUS Episode: Give Yourself the Gift of Time & Believe You Deserve It with Lori DollRead Now Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below: Lindsay Lyons: I am super excited for this bonus episode where you get to listen to Lori Doll. Lori was born and raised in the Reno Tahoe area of Nevada, a place she will always call home. She graduated with a bachelor's in education (history) from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1987. She taught in northern Nevada for 13 years and she had a wide variety of experiences including technical schools, adult education, as both large, suburban and small rural high schools. In 2010. Her family relocated to Connecticut and she earned her master's in education technology from Central Connecticut State University where she was awarded a fellowship in the Educational Leadership Policy and Instructional Technology Department. But knowing her joy came from teaching adolescents, she went back to teaching middle and high school. And so she's currently teaching history at Bloomfield High School in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Lori was a student in my Work Less Teach More course. She has revolutionized her sustainable teaching practice and work-life balance and I can't wait for you to hear what her experience has been like in radically transforming that work life, particularly amidst a pandemic. 00:01:05 She also has created an amazing resource for you all around how she prioritizes her To-Do list, which we'll include in a link to the show notes and on our blog post/transcript for this episode. Get excited to listen to Lori Doll. [upbeat violin music] Hi, I'm Lindsay Lyons and I love helping school communities envision bold possibilities, take brave action to make those dreams a reality, and sustain an inclusive, anti-racist culture where all students thrive, I'm a former teacher leader-turned instructional coach, educational consultant, and leadership scholar. If you are a leader in the education world, whether you're a principal, superintendent, instructional coach, or a classroom teacher excited about school wide change like I was, you are a leader. And if you enjoy nerding out about the latest educational books and podcasts, if you're committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growth and being the best version of yourself, you're going to love the Time for Teachership podcast. Let's dive in. [upbeat violin music] Lindsay Lyons: Lori Doll. 00:02:14 Welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast. Lori Doll: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Lindsay Lyons: I'm so excited that you're here and I'm so excited for our conversation and before we kind of jump into it, I just read your professional bio and so I'm wondering if there's anything else that you want to add to that or anything you think, you know, listeners should know as they kind of jump into this episode. Lori Doll: So I have a variety of experience in education, but I must say that my favorite place to be is in the classroom, whether it's high school or middle school. So out of all the other experiences, this is... this is where I want to be and I actually left the collegiate level to come back here, because it makes me the happiest. Lindsay Lyons: Oh, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. So one of the things that I always like to start the podcast episodes with is just this idea of Freedom Dreaming and Dr. Bettina Love talks about it as "Dreams grounded in the critique of injustice". And I think this just really situates all of the different work that we do as educators, and so I'm curious to know as we kind of get into this episode, what is that big dream that you hold for the field of education broadly? For educators? 00:03:19 You know, however you interpret that question. Lori Doll: I think that I really would like to see more creativity and imagination come into our classrooms. I think that the way that american education has been going, we are so focused on the academic skills and test scores and that's all well and good because our kids need that. But I feel like in my years of being in the classroom that this generation has really stopped being imaginative. And I think it's several reasons why I think this overuse of technology, they don't have to imagine things because it's right there in front of them, but I also think it's that we have really taken out some of that creativity of just having fun in the classroom. Every, every activity has to be connected with the standard and it's not about just, you know, let's just enjoy learning today or enjoy each other's company today. And because of that, I think that we've stifled the creativity and because everything is linked to a standard, I think sometimes kids are afraid to try because they're afraid if they have the wrong answer or what they're going for is not exactly right, that perfectionism, they stop, they stifle themselves, they just stop. 00:04:41 And then with the technology again, I think they just don't have that quiet time that we need to focus to be creative. Sometimes we just need to sit in that quiet and take a few deep breaths and really think and contemplate and reflect. And I would like to see education get back to that, not just for our students, but for our teachers too, because I think teachers are becoming stifled as well. And we're losing the creativity and the love of learning that we carry to our students. You know, because if we're bored with our lesson plan, of course, the students are gonna be bored with our lesson plan. Like I, I don't want to have the classroom like, "Oh my God, I can't believe I'm teaching this. I'm so bored". I don't want that in my classroom. I really do feel I want to bring creativity and imagination, and of course you can have academic skills go along with that. And I think by pulling out opportunities from our campuses and separating into magnet schools and saying, "Oh, this is the vocational high school". 00:05:47 Well now the kid who wants to do AP classes, where are they going to be able to take a shop class or a cooking class and that's creativeness. That's where we put our math and our science into the application, but they don't have that opportunity. It's all academics or it's all vocational or it's all visual arts or it's..., you know. So I feel like we're really just doing a disservice to our students that way. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, what a great answer. There's so much in that around, like, you know, what education could be as well as thinking from a student perspective and like you said, the educator perspective too, right? We need to take care of our educators and I think we'll talk a lot about that today in our conversation, but I think that's so critically important, this creativity element and just being able to have fun, right? Like you can hit the standards and then you can also have fun and you can have those days where you're in connection like you said. Oh my gosh, I just love everything that you said and I hope listeners rewind and listen to that part again. As you kind of think about this idea of educator wellness and thinking about maintaining that creative spark for educators, I'd love for you to talk about... 00:06:54 so let me back up, rewind, and so talking about the course that I developed, the Work Less Teach More course, that wasn't part for my dream, which is kind of what you're speaking to for educators. Like I want educators to live their lives to the fullest extent, both personally and professionally, to find that creative energy, to not feel burned out. And that's really common now that COVID has hit and so you took this course, you absolutely rocked it. I am just shocked and amazed by all of the amazing things you just kind of took and ran with and so I am so curious if you are willing to kind of go there and have conversation about, you know, what that was like for you? How did you put those concepts into action? Lori Doll: Sure. So I am a self proclaimed workaholic, and my children who are in high school will say the same thing. They ask about my work ethic and say "Oh my parents work all the time". And we do really. We have this ideal of "This is important work that we're doing." But I let it take over my life and like, before I took your course I worked all the time. And even though I had kids and was taking care of kids, I would leave this-- I would get to the school at 6:30 in the morning and then I wouldn't leave until four or five o'clock at night, and then I would take care of all the activities that my kids were in and take care of my kids and put them to bed, and then I would go and work for another three or four hours. 00:08:25 I was getting like four or five hours of sleep at night. I was incredibly stressed and tired. I worked all the time and I had this mentality that everything had to be perfect. It had to be-- I had to always have something new and I always had to have this-- the perfect stuff and I let this perfectionism kind of take over my life. And I was tired and I was stressed and I wasn't happy teaching. That-- I had returned back into the high school classroom. The district I work at is great, but our curriculum is very prescribed at times and I really didn't like the methods that they wanted us to use. But as a person who's kind of a perfectionist in their job, I got to do what I'm asked to do and I have to do when I'm asked to do it. So I let that kind of... that kind of take over, this perfection takeover. And so, in March of 2020, before lockdown, my husband had a heart attack. 00:09:28 And so, things were so crazy then and I just, I didn't know what I was going to do because we really co-parent and now he's like on the sidelines and I have all this stuff to do and I have to do his stuff. And it was crazy and I was on Facebook like, yes I still had time to scroll through Facebook and I saw your ad for your course and I'm like, "I gotta try something". So you have like a little introduction to the course, I'm like, "Oh my God, I need this. I really need to do this". And so I purchased the course and then we went into lockdown so then everything changed because we were all quarantined. My whole family was at home, working from home, learning from home, teaching from home. And so we were, you know, it was just like overwhelming and then school really took over my life because I was doing everything all the time. I was online all the time helping the kids and the kids wanted to have school like between nine p.m. and 12 p.m. Like that's when they were up, they were sleeping during the day and at first we didn't do Zoom classes or anything like that. 00:10:36 So it was really just all up in the air and like, gosh I really need to get organized. So I started going through your course and like, the first one of the first lessons was your schedule. Like, "Budgeting Your Time" and that just like was a lifesaver, you know. So I set boundaries, this is what I'm teaching, this is when I have family time and it really... it really helped. So and setting priorities in my life. What do I want? What do I want for my classroom? What do I want for my kids? What do I want for my relationships? And by setting priorities and being able to say "No, you know, I can't do that right now". It really set the tone for when I was gonna schedule. And so and then I love research. Like, research is one of my favorite things to do. So I am that teacher that when I go to lesson plan, I go down the rabbit hole, not because I'm getting lost but because I want to dig deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. 00:11:37 And so I learned to set a timer. Really setting that timer, sticking to certain sites. Not, you know, and it's not that I can't go there. I bookmark a lot of stuff now, I'll come back to that. We'll look at that later. So that has helped as well to cut down that time. And then the way that you divided time into the 40, 50, 10. It was a huge help because it was like an assessment. I don't need to grade everything, which I didn't always grade everything, but it really helped kind of like pinpoint those key things that I want to assess and with the standards, I would say, okay, we're looking at key detail today. So that is all I'm going to look at in this constructive response is key detail or citing evidence or whatever the standard I'm--, that's all I'm gonna grade, nothing else. Like I'm not going to grade if they had a good topic sentence or anything else, just very focused on what skill we're doing. And by focusing that, grading became controllable and then my favorite is the professional development. 00:12:53 So like, I love learning. Like, I love, love learning. So being able to listen to podcasts and sign up for classes and doing that is great. And although I don't do a lot of it in my prep time, I do--, I have put for my commute time, I do a lot of listening to podcasts and audiobooks and in different things. And it also allows me to kind of decompress for the day, like this is just my time and I get to learn and I get to learn what I want to learn. And so it's been really helpful there and I put that into my practice. I really try to find new things to put into my pedagogy and to really try to just be a great teacher because that's what I-- that's what I am. I want to be a great teacher and I'm getting there. I think I'm okay. The kids like this. I get better every day and that's all I ask of all my students is you just got to get a little better every day and I think that's like the biggest takeaway from me. That there's no guilt, just do what you need to do, get it done when you can, and do the best you can. 00:13:59 So, and the stress level is really gone down, although even through the pandemic and the hybrid teaching last year, which was just nuts. I was able to, you know, kind of keep it together, which really was good for everybody. My kids thought it was really good too. Lindsay Lyons: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love, I love the kind of overview of like all the things, all the practices and mindset shifts that you kind of got and put into action. And I love that you're kind of going there now towards this idea of like lowered stress and what that looks like. Could you kind of paint us a picture for like, I know you painted us a picture of what did life look like, you know, a few years back. That, like, exhaustion and like the constant working, sleeping four hours a night, what does it look like today? Like what is your day to day? Either in work or out of work? However you want to answer that question real quick. Lori Doll: Yeah, so now I still come in the morning between 6:30 and 7 but if I'm having a slow morning, I'm good to get here at 7:10. Like, I don't stress out about it. 00:15:03 It's like, okay, I'm just a little later today. I do like, I wouldn't say I'm a morning person, but I definitely am more productive in the morning, so my prep periods all in the afternoon. So I do like to come a few minutes, half hour earlier to kind of do that, for me, and I'm also able to kind of focus. I do my calendar in the morning and so that really helps me, you know, focus my day. So I set three or four priorities. This is what I want to complete today before I leave. And so it just kind of keeps me focused. I also, at the end of the day I say I'm done with any schoolwork. I still sometimes take school work home, but I say after nine o'clock it's done. The computer shut. I shut down my computer. I don't look at my emails, I don't look at my text messages like I'm done, I'm gonna get ready for bed and I try to be asleep by 11. So it's still pretty late for me. My husband thinks I'm crazy. He goes to bed at eight, so it's like, "11? 00:16:04 Oh my God", but for me, I just need that time and it's my time and I'll crochet. I finished a beautiful afghan for my mother over lockdown and it wasn't because I was sitting at home. It was because I actually budgeted time to do it. So I was able to finish this afghan and I really did budget time. Like I said, I'm gonna work on this for a half hour. I'm gonna work on this for an hour. And I try to do that when I, when I sit down and do my schedule, I usually do it Sunday night or Monday morning and I make this To-Do list and then I schedule my To-Do list. So I don't only, I not only schedule what appointments if I have and, and meetings and things like that. Well, if I have to grade papers, I schedule a time to grade the papers. If I have to, if I want to go out to dinner with my friends. I put that in the schedule. And then it's there and I look at it and I'm like, "Oh, I have to get all this done because over here I have this that I want to do". And I try to get at least 5-10 minutes for myself. 00:17:06 Like if I'm going to crochet, or I'm going to go out with friends, or play games, or just something that's me. And then I always budget time for our family. [inaudible] Sometimes that's difficult with, we kind of have to rearrange things to accommodate their schedules. But we really try to eat as a family every night and come together. And that family time is so important to us. So being able to do that and again, it's just budgeting time. And the stress level of my house is so much better for all of us. And we had to make these lifestyle changes because of my husband's health and we want to be good role models for our kids. Like I don't want my kids to be in jobs and just stress over work all the time. I want them to know what a balanced life is as well. Lindsay Lyons: Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. I think about like my personal journey to teaching and I started as a kid being like "I will never be a teacher" because I had two teacher parents who would bring home the stress and be like, "I have a ton of work to grade" and all these things and I think "That's what teaching is. I don't want that." And then I realized there's all the good, which is why they stay in the jobs. But sometimes kids don't see that when we take that home, so that's such a good point, I appreciate that. 00:18:17 And as you kind of think about, I know you talked a lot about like some mindset shifts, some specific practices. If there is a person who is currently kind of where you were two years ago, what are the things you would emphasize for them or what would you want them to know in terms of like either what is possible, what can be done, or anything that you haven't said so far that you want to make sure that they kind of come away from this episode knowing. Lori Doll: That's-- you, you can do this. You have to believe that you can balance your life. And like, my life is not perfect and I'm working at it every day. It's a process. I always tell myself it's a process. You're getting better and there are goals that I want to meet and set. But I want people to know that they can do this, and if you start doing this, and budgeting your time, and really telling yourself you don't have to have everything done at the end of the day, that you can come back to it, reschedule. 00:19:18 that's okay and that-- then take the baby steps. Like, if you feel that you can't leave at three o'clock every day, then just leave 10 minutes earlier than you did yesterday, and then the next day, 10 minutes earlier than the next day. So you-- sometimes you can't do it all at one time. I think for me, it was so transformative because of lockdown. Like, it was like the whole world was changing and everybody was in this like up in the air kind of position, that it was easier for me to just throw everything up in the air and change everything. So, but that's not possible. when we're not in that situation. So little changes. Like, little things. Start making a To-Do list and putting it in your calendar, or start saying, "Okay, I have 90 minutes and 45 is going to be for planning," and set your timer. And go just these little changes and little changes end up to be big changes. Habits that you form just and if you say "I gotta do this" and I don't, don't be guilty, don't kill yourself with guilt. 00:20:30 Just start again. Like, because I think as a perfectionist that I know I still am. Like, it's still, I'm a perfectionist, I want everything to be perfect in my way. Kind of selfish that way. I know that if I let myself feel guilty or try to punish myself for not getting things done, that it's going to be counterproductive. So I have to let that go. I would, I would forgive a student, you know, we're always giving our students second chances. Well, don't be so hard on yourself. Give yourself a second chance. And then find ways to motivate yourself. Like, just find ways to say "This is what I want," and again and believe that you deserve it. You deserve it. Believe in yourself. Believe that your time is a gift. And by setting those priorities, you are giving yourself the gift of time. So it's-- and I think that's important to know that you're worth it. Like, I think sometimes teachers, we are givers and we give, give, give. So, but you're worth it. 00:21:34 You're-- the gift is yours. So you should take it. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh. Yes, exactly that. I'm just going to echo that. That is, that is exactly right. And I think there's so much pressure that we as, like you were saying, as givers, we put on ourselves to just be there for everyone else. Our families, our students, our colleagues, our-- just everyone, and we can't show up for those people if we don't like give to ourselves. And so I love that you, you framed that that way, that the guilt too is just kind of like a... I've heard it called like a shame shower also, right? It's just like, I'm so ashamed and like that guilt is not helpful. It's not productive. It's not generative. And I love that that is kind of hopefully a big takeaway for listeners. It's just like, don't get it done. Don't take that guilt with you. It just doesn't get done and we'll come back to it. It's fine. Lori Doll: Yeah, It's, you know, it's--, we're really--, in my district were really trying to do growth mindset and we have to have a growth mindset for ourselves as well. We have to be able to say it's a process. 00:22:36 And you know, sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't and we just have to really believe that we'll get there. Lindsay Lyons: Absolutely. And I think one of the things that can feel overwhelming is kind of the big difference between like where I am now and then where I could be or where I want to be and it's sometimes it just feels so overwhelming. Like you were saying with COVID, I'm sure like all of it is so overwhelming because everything is changing, right? And there's so much overwhelm. And in a way, I love that you had a positive frame. Like, in a way that's good because you're like, all right. Let's throw it all out and restart. And in other ways I think some people could get stuck in that overwhelm. So I'm curious to know if someone's kind of listening and like, "Yes, I want this transformation for myself, but I'm stuck kind of in the overwhelmed phase of, I don't know where to just start". Like, what's the first step or what's the most important step that you would say to someone if there's one takeaway they have, that that would be it. Lori Doll: For me, it was budgeting my time. And making a schedule. So I make my schedule every week. 00:23:38 And so, and I know that if I miss that Sunday night or Monday morning, my week-- I play catch up. I play catch up every single day because I've missed that. And I don't like that. So I try not to do that. Like, that's my motivation. I know what I'm going to feel like on Wednesday. So let's get it done tonight. And so, and to realize you're never going to budget everything. Like, you're never going to get everything in there. So really prioritize. So prioritize and schedule. Those were the two big steps that helped me the most. I am a really productive person. Like I, it wasn't that I wasn't getting things done, I wasn't overwhelmed because I wasn't getting things done. I was overwhelmed with the amount of time I was spending doing things that were not important to me. And so by prioritizing and scheduling, now I'm still busy, like my kids still say I work a lot, but now I am working on the things that are important to me, important to make my students stronger students, important to make my school a stronger school and on the personal side, 00:24:51 my family life, my spiritual life, all of that is what's, you know, important. So that's what I budget for. Budget my time. And so, you know, and I still, like if I want to binge watch something, I just put it on the schedule. it's not like I'm working all the time, but it's just really, so if people feel overwhelmed, make your list of priorities, 3 to 4 things that are really important to you for the week and then schedule. And I say schedule everything. Like, my husband still does it To-Do list. He says, "I don't get through my To-Do list". I'm like "Put it in your calendar". Like, don't just write it on a piece of paper, put it in your calendar and then you say this is what I'm working on this. And you still have phone calls and emails that kind of trip you up. But you can always put that on the calendar too. Like this is my email time. This is my phone call time. Lindsay Lyons: Oh my gosh, yes. Put it on the calendar. I love that. That is amazing. 00:25:55 So as you kind of think about or as we kind of move to close, close the episode today, I think this is just a really fun question to think about. It's not really necessarily related to what we're talking about, although it can be, but I just love that everyone who's on the podcast as a guest is a lifelong learner and kind of self described as like being excited about their personal or professional growth. And so I'm just curious about, it could be totally related, unrelated to work or again unrelated to this conversation. What's something that you've been learning about lately? Lori Doll: So my modern world history class right now is looking at World War I. And I haven't--, this is the first year I've taught modern world history in about 13 years. So it's been a long time since I've taught this class. And so I'm like relearning everything too from the European kind of world perspective I've taught of course World War I in US history. So we're looking at the impacts of war through art and we're looking at two artists. 00:26:59 One is Anna Ladd who created these prosthetic masks for the mutilated faces of war wounded warriors. And so and how this sculptor, she was a sculptor, I was able to create these masks and then we're looking at the impact on their lives. So the kids are looking at not only the mask but like why would they need the mask? And like we were in class and like "These aren't... these aren't so bad, why do they need a mask? Like why, you know, I'm not, this isn't disturbing, this is dull, why would they need this? Why can't they just go around", and I go "Why don't you think it's disturbing?" And so then we got to talk about culture where they're exposed to so much more through the internet and through movies and the people in 1918 weren't and this was just so grotesque to them that they were never exposed to disability like this. 00:28:00 And so that we had a great discussion about, "Do we need to mask disability? And is this something that we have to hide? Do we have to hide our flaws?" So that was just like a great teachable moment that I just loved. And then we're also looking at Kathe Kollwitz who lost her son, a german artist who lost her son in World War I and her reaction and her sketches and etchings that display the loss and the grief and the anger for war widows and mothers and children, Lindsay Lyons: Wow, that is powerful. I am really excited as a former history teacher, I want to like now dive into those artists, more about what they've done. That's amazing in terms of the conversation that's coming out of that and I love that you are so creative in what you're bringing to the class and also how you let the class kind of go where it needs to go. That's really inspiring. Lori Doll: And again, that was all through art and creativity and bringing in, you know, we didn't have to read a speech and it wasn't political and it wasn't, I mean, we could talk about the politics and bring that in later, but all they did was like, look at this lady's work with Anna Ladd and look at how the men were reacting when they were because they filmed it. There's film of it, so that it's just amazing that we have that archive and then with the work with Kathe Kollwitz, 00:29:34 it's-- it really is, I mean, they're just sketches, but they're so powerful and the kids connect with that because they're human beings. They're little human beings that connect and they have brains. And they can make the connections to the politics and as curriculum wise, you know, with like we need to look at the Treaty of Versailles and we need to look at the boundaries on our map and that's all fun. I mean, I love that stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love looking at maps and I love looking at treaties, but I think to make it-- to find that love and for the kids finding the creative side of it and finding what they connect to, then that will spark their curiosity to say, "Well why would we have this for?" Like, you know, and now that I just said that I made you this unit at the beginning and not the middle, right, and make that the connection to find, why did this happen? So that's-- that is something else that I learned in your class is really reflecting and I've tried to reflect and so yeah, I have [inaudible] write that down. 00:30:38 Lindsay Lyons: That is a brilliant idea. Yeah, definitely write that down. I love that as a creative book. and then I guess the final question, I thank you so much. First of all for sharing so much great information and wisdom throughout this episode. But I think a lot of people are going to be like, okay, I want to learn more. I want to follow what you're doing or I just have questions. If people have questions or want to just kind of connect, where would you recommend they go to be able to do that? So I don't have a huge online presence, which is crazy because my masters is in educational technology. But I, I do have my PLN on Twitter @mrsldoll yeah @mrsldoll. So that's my twitter. And that's really my PLN and I, you know, that's where I go to follow people and get information. And then my email is mrsldoll@gmail.com. So if they have questions. But I put it on my big dreams, you know, find time to create a website and be more online. 00:31:44 Have that presence. Lindsay Lyons: That is fantastic. And I am so excited for people to connect with you and learn more from you. Thank you so much Lori. This has been a wonderful conversation. I just really appreciate your time and being here on the podcast today with us. Lori Doll: Well thank you because it's your course that really has changed my life. So you really impacted my life and I appreciate it. Thank you. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you so much. [upbeat violin music] Lindsay Lyons: Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show, so leaders like you will be more likely to find it. Until next time, leaders, continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self. Lori can be found on:
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AuthorLindsay Lyons (she/her) is an educational justice coach who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Archives
August 2022
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