For this last episode of the OEA Grow Podcast, member co-producers Beth Aydelott and Leonne Bannister discuss what the podcast has meant to their own professional growth and that of educators, not only in Oregon, but around the world. With 135 episodes and over 20,000 downloads and streams, the podcast has built union member community and addressed educator concerns from conflict resolution strategies to incorporating art and innovation in the classroom; from creating welcoming and inclusive school communities to maintaining a healthy work/life balance. Topics for each conversation have arisen from educators’ needs, interests, and expertise, living up to the goal of amplifying educator voice. This podcast has always been by OEA members for OEA members.

This episode also features clips from the following episodes:

• Season 1 episode Compassion Fatigue and Burnout with host Jesse Bray and guest Talia Akre

What happens when school design is inspired by students and collaboratively run by a group of teachers? Wendy Salcedo-Fierro, Director of Teacher-Powered Coaching, explains how shared leadership works in the teacher-powered public schools that thrive in 27 states. Equity-minded educators in these schools share power with students, families, and the full educator team. Decision-making is accomplished by those directly affected, resulting in strong relationships and rich learning. Students feel that their voices are heard and become agents of change. Educators become learners as they listen and respond.

Educators who are interested in this model of school governance are encouraged to consult the resources listed below. The goal is to create spaces where everyone feels as if they belong and as if they matter.

Resources - 

Teacher-Powered Schools and Student-Centered Learning

Teacher-Led Schools: They’re Here and More Are on the Way

When Teachers Take Charge 

Steps to Creating a Teacher-Powered Schools

How can schools engage families in their children’s education? This episode’s guests offer concrete suggestions for supporting dialogue between parents and educators. Rebecca Honig, Director of Content and Curriculum with Parent Powered, and Ilana Steinhauer, Executive Director of Volunteers in Medicine (VIM), explain how both organizations offer educators strategies for partnering with their students’ families. At the core of these efforts is building trust through communication in whatever form meets the families’ needs. 

Rebecca and Ilana stress that parents want to know that their feedback matters. Suggestions for engaging families include contact in different ways throughout the year and asking directly about specific needs. Educators can offer support for families and show them how to partner with their children’s school.

This episode examines the connections between schools and the families and neighborhoods they serve. Tiffany Koyama-Lane, a third-grade teacher at Sunnyside Environmental School in Portland, discusses place-based and environmental education, using students’ local communities as educational resources. Part of the learning experience happens beyond the walls of the actual school building. Natural spaces and gardens, local neighborhoods, even the students’ own school yard - these locations provide a context for the core curriculum and help children make meaning of the world and environmental concerns around them. 

As an educator with fifteen years of experience, Teacher Tiffany, as she likes to be called, realizes that the challenges of the surrounding community also show up in the classroom. She extends her role beyond traditional education to support families in the often-complicated processes of life in America. She feels lucky to live in the neighborhood where she teaches, but she suggests ways for all educators to communicate with families and discover how best to meet their needs. Teacher Tiffany is taking her passion for engaging the community to a new level this year by declaring her candidacy for Portland City Council. 

Resources - 

Sunnyside Environmental School

Place-Based Learning: A Multi-Faceted Approach

Close Your Textbooks and Go Outside

What can alternative education programs teach us about welcoming and engaging students with diverse experiences and needs? This week Lauren and Angela discuss programs serving students whose ways of learning might not fit the traditional school structure. Their guests are Gretchen Mollers, Janine Weir, and Eric Passes from the Merlo Station campus in the Beaverton School District. All three educators advocate listening to students as they express their needs and silencing the din of what education “should” be.

The Passages Re-Engagement Program for high school students and the UpGrade Program for middle school are based on centering the student voice and recognizing that it’s impossible for a single model of education to work for everyone. Both programs work toward helping students gain confidence in themselves, navigate non-academic barriers, and rebuild their trust in education. The question is how can educators help students where they are, rather than how can the students be fitted into the system. The result may look messy on the surface, but the programs are removing barriers to accommodate different ways of learning and to give students the time and respect to develop their individual plans for the future. 

Resources - 

Passages Reengagement Program

UpGrade Program

William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick, Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People for Change   

Playful Inquiry - that’s the student-centered approach discussed in this episode about re-imagining curriculum. Angela and Lauren welcome Soobin Oh, Co-Director of Teaching Preschool Partners (TPP), a nonprofit that engages with schools to nurture inclusive, inquisitive, and collaborative school communities. In the playful inquiry promoted by TPP, educators are encouraged to let go of control and instead to be flexible and listen, responding to each child’s interests, aspirations, cultural background, and linguistic capabilities. Classrooms become places for curiosity, joy, and possibility to thrive.

Families are ideally involved in this concept of curriculum with the cultural wealth that they can bring in dialogue with the classroom. The result is a curriculum that revolves around collaboration, a culturally relevant curriculum for all grade levels. 

Resources - 

Teaching Preschool Partners

Soobin Oh Discusses Anti-Bias Education in Early Childhood 

Soobin Oh, an Early Childhood Teacher Nerd on YouTube

Funds of Knowledge, Norma Gonzalez, Luis C. Moll, and Cathy Amanti, editors

Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy, Gholdy Muhammad

How can a school become a community school? Hosts Angela Vargas and Lauren McCartney talk with Christine Schuch and Karen Alford of United Community Schools, who work with interested schools in New York City and offer suggestions for schools everywhere.

United Community Schools is a teacher-inspired nonprofit that seeks to expand the traditional sense of a school as merely a place for students to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. Christine and Karen explain how community schools arise out of a collaboration of educator, parent, and community stake-holders to provide health and wellness resources, extended learning time with a seamless after-school component, educator and academic support, and educational justice - equity, access, and possibility.

Learn from this episode how schools across the country are using the community school model to support student success, teacher retention, and community engagement. 

Resources - 

What are Community Schools?

United Community Schools 

Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) in Portland

Transforming a School, a Neighborhood, and a System in Cincinnati

OEA Grow is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network

Does your school focus on the whole child, emphasizing not only academic learning, but also wellness and community engagement? Tune into Season 15 of our OEA Grow podcast to learn about Community Schools in Oregon, public schools that provide integrated services and support to meet the needs of students, families, and communities.

Our hosts for the season are Angela Vargas and Lauren MCartney, both educators in the Beaverton School District and leaders on state and national levels in racial and social justice efforts in education. Angela is an Early Learning TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment), who partners with teachers to develop a practice of student-centered inquiry. Lauren teaches Humanities and Social Studies at Meadow Park Middle School. 

In the coming weeks, Angela and Lauren will talk with a number of educators whose efforts lead to strong connections between schools and the communities that they serve. Listeners will learn ways to serve our students both in and outside the classroom. 

Educators interested in learning more about community schools are encouraged to consult the resources below. They may contact Dave Greenberg at [email protected] and Angelia Ebner at [email protected] for more information. 

Resources:

Angela Vargas, OEA Member Spotlight 

What are Community Schools?

5 Steps to Kickstarting Community Schools in Your District

Institute for Educational Leadership Community Schools Coalition 

NEA Community School work 

OEA Grow is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network

How exactly does art fit into the classroom, and how can educators make this happen? Host Colleen Arriola wraps up this season’s podcast with ideas and suggestions for expanding the classroom curriculum through art. Summing up Season 14 guests’ observations, Colleen reminds us that art provides students ways to communicate thoughts, feelings, and personal experiences that might otherwise be difficult to articulate. Art can complement the standard curriculum by allowing students alternate ways to show what they know. Colleen notes that we don’t experience life in separate subjects, and our learning can also be a mixture of forms of understanding and communicating.

Educators who don’t consider themselves artists should not be discouraged. Colleen describes several simple ways to engage students through art - maybe commenting on a painting related to a subject, sketch notes instead of written notes, collages to pull together aspects of a topic. Educators can access a number of resources for support in these efforts. As Colleen and her guests this season remind us, art massages the brain, helping students learn how to think, not merely what to think. 

Resources - 

Oregon Arts Education Standards

“Goodbye ‘Core Subjects,’ Hello ‘Well-Rounded Education’”  

What Does a Global Arts Classroom Look Like? 

Local art museums are usually great resources for educators. The Portland Art Museum offers a number of educator resources for schools across the state. 

Art education can create a space for excitement and joy in learning according to Colleen’s guest, Shannon Johnson, Arts Education Specialist at the Oregon Department of Education (ODE). Colleen, a visual artist herself, explains the crucial role that art plays in Transformational Social-Emotional Learning (TSEL) by playing to individual strengths, building confidence, and encouraging students to express themselves in their own unique ways. 

Among the many resources discussed in this episode, Shannon highlights the Arts, Care & Connection Project for elementary grades in which teaching artists provide videos integrating the Core Art Standards in dance, music, theater, and visual arts with Oregon’s TSEL standards. Educators, regardless of their own artistic experience, become co-learners with their students as they incorporate various ways of self-expression in their explorations.

Integrating art into the curriculum involves finding connections between various art forms and subject content. Shannon points out multiple sources where educators will find ideas and support for adding an artistic aspect to their classroom.

Resources - 

Arts for Learning Northwest - connecting teaching artists with schools for educational arts programming, workshops, performances, and artist residencies  

Arts, Care & Connection Program - arts integration lessons and professional learning for educators  

Young Audiences Arts for Learning - the nation’s oldest and largest arts-in-education learning network  

Oregon Department of Education resources - 

Arts Education Resources

Oregon Open Learning Hub

Chronicles of Oregon Open Learning - a monthly newsetter

Arts Access Toolkit

Arts Education Newsletter    

OEA Grow is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network