BRIGHT: Stories of Hope & Innovation in Michigan Classrooms

When students are excited to be at school and take ownership over their learning, the results can be absolutely incredible, In this episode of BRIGHT, we talk to Kyle Saari, a fifth-grade teacher for Negaunee Public Schools, who explores his belief that “comfort leads to confidence” and shows us that when students feel confident, they’re more willing to tackle bigger projects that are conducive to deep learning.

Every student, every teacher, every person has a story. In this episode of BRIGHT, we talk to Ben Gilpin, principal of Warner Elementary School, who explores how he and his staff have cultivated a family-like atmosphere at their school and why educating the "whole child" means listening to and honoring their whole story.

Many students think they’re “bad at math.” In this episode of BRIGHT, we talk to Christy Trombetta, an online math teacher at Michigan Virtual, who has a particular knack for helping students develop growth mindsets in her online math classroom. When a student tells her they’re “bad at math,” she takes this self-labeling as a signal that the student may need extra support to shift their inner dialogue from “I’m bad at math” to “I can actually do this.”

What if there's something better than “grade levels” to frame how students progress through the K-12 curriculum? What if rather than basing academic progression on the age of a student, we instead focused on what they know and can do? In this episode of BRIGHT, we talk to Mike Burde, assistant superintendent at Kenowa Hills Public Schools who shares his vision for a system of schooling that goes beyond “time-based advancement” and instead revolves around personal mastery. Throughout our conversion, he sheds insight into why this shift matters and how his district is using Marzano’s framework for high-reliability schools to build a system of schooling where all students — not just most — can thrive.

Sometimes, in education, we need to step back to see the forest for the trees. But not always. In this episode of BRIGHT, we talk to Kelly Tillman, an art educator at Walled Lake Consolidated Schools who teaches in a choice-based art classroom and reminds us that it’s often the variation between the trees themselves that makes the forest most beautiful.

Especially now with teachers asked to play so many different roles, the model of “community education” provides a compelling and sustainable answer to the question: How can we support the “whole child” in education?  In this episode of BRIGHT, we talk to Kerry Downs, the executive director of the Flint Community Education Initiative about the innovative work her organization does to bring community partners together to support Flint teachers, students, and families.

For many new teachers, it can be a struggle to figure out how to be an authentic version of yourself while navigating the many and varied expectations of what a teacher is “supposed to be.” In this episode of BRIGHT, we talk to Amos Briscoe, an art educator for the Washtenaw Alliance for Virtual Education (WAVE) who shares his journey going from feeling like an actor on a stage to bringing authenticity front and center in his classroom.

Tanya Leon believes our education system needs reimagining to make learning meaningful and effective for ALL students. “Are we doing things because it's the way we've always done it,” she asks, “or because it's what's best for kids?” In this episode of BRIGHT, we talk to Tanya about her vision for a personalized, competency-based system of schooling and what this looks like in practice in her English classroom at Richards Middle School in Fraser, MI.

There’s a difference between acknowledging diversity in education and valuing it. In this episode, we talk to Joy Taylor, a teacher consultant at the Washtenaw Alliance for Virtual Education who shares her experiences personalizing learning for students left behind by the traditional system and posits a vision for education that goes beyond lip service to truly value diverse perspectives.

The role of technology in our classrooms has never been so prominent, nor so strained as during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instructional technology coaches for Dearborn Public Schools, Amy Gwizdz and Bob Harrison, share their hopes that we can emerge from this crisis not adverse to technology in the classroom, but simply more intentional with it.