Read by Example

Communicating feedback to teachers is one of the most challenging aspects of leadership. How do we influence instruction in a positive way while maintaining trust and respecting teachers as professionals?

Dr. Viviane Robinson, author of Reduce Change to Increase Improvement (Corwin, 2017), offers readers sound research and rich examples for supporting teaching and learning in all classrooms. In this episode, we discussed:

* The difference between “change” and “improvement”,

* Why feedback needs to be anchored first in student outcomes, and

* How to engage in conversations with teachers that builds trust.

Educational leadership is difficult work. The ideas and strategies described here can help make this work a little easier and a lot more effective for instructional improvement.

Related Resources

* Audio + Transcript

* Dr. Robinson’s university webpage

* Purchase Dr. Robinson’s book

* Preview her previous book, Student-Centered Leadership

* Check out all episodes on Apple Podcasts (and give a rating!)

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick (00:05)

I'd like to welcome Dr. Viviane Robinson. She is the distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Auckland-New Zealand. She's also the director of Viviane Robinson Consulting Limited, and the author of the book that we're talking about today, Reduce Change to Increase Improvement and is part of the Core Impact Leadership Series. Welcome Dr. Robinson.

Viviane Robinson (00:30):

Thank you, Matt. It's lovely to be speaking with you.

Matt Renwick (00:33):

And I picked up your book at a conference and I was really interested in your title. It's Reduce Change to Increase Improvement. It's an interesting frame, and I was just curious, change and improvement can be sometimes synonymous. Could you just explain the distinction and why it became the topic of your book?

Viviane Robinson (00:54):

Well, it became the topic of my book, Matt, because in my work with school leaders it seemed, in school improvement, I've seen too much change that has not led to improvement, and you'll be familiar with the cycles of reform that happened in our schools. One set of reforms after another that have patchy results at best. So, I think that that's very debilitating, for the effort, energy and motivation of teachers and leaders, but it's also not serving our students well, because the problems that these reforms were designed to solve persist. And the one I'm thinking of in particular is the equity problem. Change is simply the process of doing something different. That's all. Change means that we're doing something different. The thing we're doing different could be the same or worse or better than what happened before improve.

Viviane Robinson (01:55):

If we shoot for improvement rather than change, it means right from the outset, we have to say, "What's wrong with the status quo?" Okay. And many leaders bring in changes without saying why teachers need to be going through all the hassle of that. So we need to, if we're talking about improving, we need to be upfront right from the beginning about the fact that we want things to be better. Doesn't mean they're terrible now, but they have to be better. That's usually driven by student results, social outcomes, academic outcomes. And then if we're talking about improvement, we'd better have a jolly good idea about why, what we're proposing is going to be better because it takes a lot of time, money, and effort. So I want to encourage leaders to be more forthright in their intention, more honest and more ambitious. They're not interested in change, or they shouldn't be, they should be interested in improvement.

Matt Renwick (03:10):

That sounds great. And I think the way you frame it and I read it, but just hearing it again, just helps me remind myself of the distinction as they prepare for a new school year too. So thank you for explaining that. In your book you cited a previous meta-analysis that you were involved in, thinking about change, you noted that the one leadership practice, "leading teacher learning and development", had the largest impact on student outcomes. What about this practice is so powerful for student learning?

Viviane Robinson (03:42):

Well, I think there's a number of reasons. When I ask leaders why they think it and teachers why they think it's so powerful, they tend to say because of the symbolic importance that the leader can spend time being involved with the professional learning, then that sends a very powerful symbolic message to teachers about how it must be important. And that's true. But I actually think that there are other reasons as well. One of the most powerful ways a leader can gain influence with teachers is through helping them solve their problems of teaching and learning. The more leaders know, the more they themselves learn, the more able they are to help teachers solve their classroom problems. And that increases the sphere and intensity of influence that leaders have over teachers. So teachers come to them and seek help and they learn from the leader or with the leader - together - with the leader.

Viviane Robinson (04:57):

So that's a second reason. The third reason is that if we're going to succeed and solving the equity problems that bedevil all of us, then that's hard work. Lots of very smart and dedicated people have failed to solve those problems before us. And the reason why we are not very good at solving them is because we don't have sufficient specialist knowledge. If you want to improve maths problem solving or literacy, secondary level science literacy, for example, that's a very specialist area. And I think we underestimate how much we need to learn in order to solve those problems. Most of the difficulty is not about teacher will. It's about teacher capability, teacher and leader capability. So school culture, which has a culture of dedication to professional learning, not as a menu of opportunities - that's hopeless - but as professional learning to solve problems that are anchored in student outcomes, that is a powerful school culture. And it's a powerful way of leading.

Matt Renwick (06:31):

Yeah. When I speak with my teachers, when I visit classrooms, it would be hard for me to have a conversation with them without having that same set of knowledge and skill development that, you know, we're both trying to go through.

Viviane Robinson (06:45):

Yes, yes. And you said both trying to go through Matt and I think that's the point, especially at secondary level, even at primary. I'm not asking leaders to know everything; that would be ridiculous. We're not going back to heroic leadership, that I am asking them to lead a very focused, intense, collaborative learning process, where people stick at it until the student outcome problem is solved.

Matt Renwick (07:19):

That is part of it too, is committing to it long-term. And having that patience to follow through. I highlighted one quote from your book that kind of relates to engaging teachers. In those conversations, you said "Careful inquiry into teachers' theory of action gives leaders insight into teacher's concerns and enhances access to the levels of change." And could you just say more about that and what this inquiry might look like?

Viviane Robinson (07:46):

Yes. In the book I've got transcripts of the actual conversations to illustrate what you actually say. I think in order to have these conversations, the starting point for leaders, all the relations with teachers should be the experience or outcomes of students. That's your starting point. So for example these particular teachers, students are very good at maths fluency, but they're very limited in their math problem solving, right? So to know that, that's your starting point and this connects to your question about feedback as well. Then your next step is to investigate, inquire into what might the teachers of those students be doing and not doing. So that directs your inquiry, your observations with the collaboration, of course, into their practices. How are they teaching maths in a way that might connect with the low scores in maths problem-solving, okay?

Viviane Robinson (09:08):

So you then focus on that. You may need some specialist help and knowing what to look for when you go into that classroom. Then you discover how they're teaching. You summarize it. You get agreement with the teacher that yes, that's how they're teaching. Now, normally leaders stop at that point. But if they're doing a deep inquiry, they [leaders] say, "Can you talk to me about why you're using so many quizzes and worksheets? Talk to me about why you're not using rich text." Then you will discover a goldmine of beliefs, fears, anxieties, prior experience, horrible experiences that that teacher will talk to you about. And when you can connect the teacher's beliefs with what they do and don't do, and the outcomes for students, then you have knowledge of their theory of action. And boy, that's powerful because it's the causes of their practices.

Matt Renwick (10:18):

So critical too, to have that trust. I think for them to be able to admit, these are my concerns, these are my beliefs.

Viviane Robinson (10:26):

Well, when we teach this in our leadership development courses, we've got videos that show how to do this in seven minutes. And the transcripts in the book are no longer than that. So it's about the leader's skill and incorporate the latest ability to say, "Look, I really want to know why you're just using quizzes and worksheets, and this is not a blame game. Unless we can together talk about this and understand the barriers you've experienced," - notice my language - "the barriers you've experienced, then I can't suggest any way of helping you, because I need to know what's important to you." Now that sentence, that sentence creates trust.

Matt Renwick (11:19):

Yeah. It's a very empathetic response, and it takes their perspectives. And I very much appreciate that, but this is a tough skill too. I mean, it's something I've worked on. And I know in your book, you talk about the two approaches that leaders take: bypass versus engagement. And why do leaders like myself at times tend to default to the former approach, to bypass, even when we know at some level that engagement with teachers' thinking and actions are more effective.

Viviane Robinson (11:49):

Well, there's a number of reasons. One is that your bosses, your superintendents probably expect you to implement this reform, have this professional learning in your school, do this, fix this, fix that. Now I don't know Matt, what sort of school you run and what your situation is. But that happens to a lot of leaders, in other words, the "fix it mentality". And the fix it mentality means that you see the results and then you immediately move to, well, what are we going to do? That's different. What changes are we going to make? So they have pressure which leads leaders to bypass the theories of action of teachers. And it produces this churn of reform as teachers comply or not, and still have their fears and anxieties about doing it, and what's going to happen with their students and their classrooms unaddressed.

Viviane Robinson (12:59):

So that's one reason: the pressure to fix it. Another reason is the one you've spoken about, which is that, people are not very good at empathic inquiry, at actually discovering a theory of action. And they believe that it's going to take a lot of time, which it doesn't, as I said: all our videos about how to do this take no longer than seven minutes. And that's a lot less time then pushing and pushing and pushing and getting nowhere. So that belief that it's going to take too long, and then leaders fear that they're going to upset their teachers. If they do causal inquiry at all, they will inquire and they will get responses about students' background and the previous years' teachers and things like that. And they will be very reluctant to say, "Well, actually, I wonder whether there's something that you're unwittingly doing or not doing in the class that may be contributing to this. I'm not saying it is, but let's explore that because we need all hypotheses on the table." And again, notice my language: "hypotheses". All right? Now that takes one sentence to make that shift from talking about what's wrong with the students to raising the possibility about teaching in class.

Matt Renwick (14:39):

Much more objective and evidence driven, which can really help with having those conversations and keeping the, I guess, the ego out of it is as much as possible. And just be more evidence-based. We were previously exchanging in a conversation around how to effectively communicate feedback to teachers. And I appreciate you encouraging me to continue to expand on this concept, you've had some nice examples in here. Any other suggestions for getting started in this process, and to experience some kind of quick success with it, so they [leaders] want to keep doing it?

Viviane Robinson (15:21):

I think rather than again, making it very complicated reform around instructional walks, you might eventually get to that, but you keep it simple: feedback should be anchored in what's happening for students. Okay. That's what it should be. So what's your purpose in giving feedback? Your purpose is to help the teacher do a better job for particular students. That's its purpose. It's not surveillance, it's not compliance. It's not checking up. It's not because the state requires a principal to make so many visits a term or a semester to every teacher's classroom. It's because you're there, it's because you and the teacher are examining your impact on students. So if you've got students that have a poor relationship with a teacher, then your feedback to their teacher, you start negotiating a process of trying to figure out why that is.

Viviane Robinson (16:32):

And you direct your feedback towards investigating that. Now often that's not about observing in the class. That might be about talking with the student either together or separately or both. So the first step is that the teacher and you agree there is a student problem to be solved. And I don't mean a problem with the student. I mean, a problem in the interaction between the school and the student or the teacher and the student, or the way the subject is being taught and the student, that's the starting point, that's the purpose. And that builds common ground and trust. And then together you're investigating, what's the cause of that problem. And the feedback is about that based on your evidence. Again, it's not, "I'm coming in with a checklist or a protocol, and I'm going to go through the protocol and give you feedback because that's the protocol."

Matt Renwick (17:37):

It seems like a more responsive and grounded approach to the actual classroom. There's an actual problem of practice they're trying to solve. Well, this has great. I enjoyed your book. I appreciate that it was just a shade over a hundred pages. As a busy principal, that was wonderful. Where can we learn more about your resources that leaders could take advantage of?

Viviane Robinson (18:06):

There's a previous book. You talked about the meta-analysis that had shown that leading professional teacher learning is a very powerful form of leadership in terms of its impact on the students of the teachers who are participating in the professional learning. And that's all written up in my 2011 book, Student-Centered Leadership. All the professional development work that we're doing is commercial. And if you want to be part of that or to talk about that, you'd probably need to do that in partnership with your district.

Matt Renwick (18:49):

Well, thank you, Dr. Robinson.

Viviane Robinson (18:50):

You're welcome.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

How do we ensure all students can access the curriculum plus find it relevant and engaging?

Angela Di Michele Lalor, author of Making Curriculum Matter: How to Build SEL, Equity, and Other Priorities into Daily Instruction, offers a guide for teachers and leaders to begin this work.

In our conversation, we discuss:

* Why it is important to prepare for an uncertain future,

* The five lense for viewing our instructional plans, and

* How purchasing curriculum resources is not enough.

As Angela points out, “curriculum can impact student learning because it's more than just a product; it's a process.”

Recommended Resources

* Audio + Transcript

* Purchase the Book

* Angela’s Website

* Listen on Apple Podcasts and Leave a Rating!

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick (00:00):

Welcome Angela to the podcast. I'm excited to have you here.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (00:11):

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Matt Renwick (00:13):

I was just sharing with you just how I came across your work. I was teaching curriculum courses for UW-Superior, The University of Wisconsin-Superior. I used your first book, Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum as our primary text. And I appreciated how you described the steps to engage in that work. You made it very clear, lots of examples. So I was excited to learn that you're coming out with a new book and it's now out, Making Curriculum Matter: How to Build SEL, Equity, and Other Priorities into Daily Instruction. It's also through ASCD. If you want to share a little bit about your role in education and how you work with teachers, schools, and districts...

Angela Di Michele Lalor (00:55):

Sure. So I have been in education now for about 25 years. I started off as a classroom teacher and then started to do professional development with teachers from all different grade levels and subject areas. It was kind of a life transition. I had the opportunity to start working with teachers and share my own story about how I was engaging students in my classroom, using projects and performance-based assessments, and at the same time had my children and was able to make that transition. I've always found that working with educators to be a very satisfying job, because as I have worked with them, I've learned from them. And unfortunately, you know, educators don't have the opportunity to travel from one classroom to the other. And so I have always made it my goal and my mission to share the stories of educators as I traveled from one school to another, and to share their best practices and what I've seen.

Matt Renwick (02:03):

Yeah. Your book, your newest book, Making Curriculum Matter, it has a lot of nice examples from different grade levels and different subject areas, which I know it can be very hard, especially for an author to highlight all those different stories. So it's relevant to anyone who's reading it. And I thought they were really nice. I liked how you juxtaposed [how] this is what it might look in the beginning, but here's how you can improve it through these five lenses. That's what you offer in the book: practices, deep thinking, social and emotional learning, civic engagement and discourse, and equity, which we can go over in a little bit. I wanted to start in the beginning. You talk about your family a little bit and just how the pandemic gave you a new perspective, especially with your daughter working in the medical field in New York, correct?

Angela Di Michele Lalor (02:51):

Yes. She was a frontline worker and I have to say, I deeply respect everyone in the medical field: frontline workers, first responders who went through everything that we've gone through in the last two years. And to see my daughter who was a new nurse. So 22 years old, going out every day and working to save lives. That's really what it came down to. As a parent, that was a difficult experience and we wanted to do anything that we could to support her. So, when you ask me that question, there's a lot of things that come to mind, you know, how that whole experience has impacted us as a family, how it's impacted my view on education and just life in general.

Matt Renwick (03:54):

How did your experience with your daughter, how did that influence your beliefs about education? You mentioned the flying pigs example and what's possible.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (04:04):

Yeah, initially we weren't sure what was going to happen. And it was very easy to believe that we were, that it was gonna be really difficult to come out of this situation and to see that perseverance, to see the commitment. That's really the piece that stayed with me and that's about, anything is possible when my daughter would go into work. She really did not know what was going to happen while she was there. It was unpredictable. And she would come home sometimes and just say, "Wow, I didn't know if I was going to make it." Because she was used to being an ICU nurse. She was used to having unstable patients, but never so many at the same time. And so I think about that in terms of education. It made me realize that we have to really think about schools as places to prepare kids for the unknown, because this was completely unexpected. No one could predict what was needed, what was necessary. And we were asking people to make decisions based on what limited knowledge they had. And so that's something we had to prepare everyone to do. So I think that's the challenge of education. How do we prepare for a future of unknown?

Matt Renwick (05:27):

Yeah. Going into this year, 2021 and the fall, we know more. So we feel a little more competent, but then we have all these variables too. Are they masking? Are they not? And I think we're still going to be living that unknown. It kind of related to your book. You have this word cloud of all the initiatives and issues that educators have to deal with and it was just enormous. And I could relate: how do you manage all of these ideas and education? But in your book, you focus on these five ideas. How did you come up with...how did you decide on these five ideas to help frame the book and frame curriculum development?

Angela Di Michele Lalor (06:06):

So when I wrote Ensuring a High-Quality Curriculum, that was really about, what are the elements of a quality curriculum that could impact student learning? And from there, I started to think about, is this about what the curriculum should look like, what should we be addressing? What are the valued outcomes that need to be addressed in every single curriculum? Because I truly believe that curriculum is a tool that teachers use to make informed decisions about what happens in their classroom. And if that's the case, then we need a curriculum that does more than just focus on content because teachers are expected to do more than just focus on content. And so I started to think about all the professional development initiatives that I've facilitated over the years and the different topics I've been asked to come in and speak about and to work with teachers.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (07:00):

And that started to really help me to formulate some of those areas of focus, some of the elements of a curriculum that matters. So often I'm brought in to work with subject area teachers and the subject area teachers, discipline-specific teachers. They really know their content very deeply and very well, but there's a part of their content that really is about working with information. And that is the practices. So often I was coming into schools to work with practices. How do we take historical thinking skills, the standard for mathematical practices, and really tie them into content specific practices and use them in the classroom. So part of the different part of the process for me in identifying these elements was on that experience. I was doing a lot of work with districts on developing critical thinkers. So I started to think about the kind of the buckets in terms of what I was being asked to do. And then I was also starting to do a lot of work around the vision and mission of schools. So we started to look at what is the vision and mission and how are you taking your vision and mission and carrying it out in school buildings, and how does your curriculum tie to that? And so that also brought a new way for me to think about what are these main categories that I'm seeing consistently over different, in different places around the country.

Matt Renwick (08:32):

It's really that lived experience working with all these schools and then seeing their mission and vision, and so very practical. When I read these five, I could not disagree with any of them. And I see a lot of that language in many of the missions and visions as well. So you make a point to, and I think it was important, [that] you're not adding more to the curriculum, but really it's about changing the lens. From the book, "changing the lens for viewing, discussing, and implementing the curriculum" Can you just say a little bit more about that?

Angela Di Michele Lalor (09:09):

Sure. So one of the things with these categories is that it it's a category. So it allows each school to look at what's in their vision and mission, what's in their curriculum in a way that's very localized and personalized to that school.

Matt Renwick (09:25):

I want to piggy back off that and say, as a principal, I appreciate having these elements and ideas for myself to view the curriculum and help with the implementation of it. Because I can focus on practices or deep thinking or social emotional learning in any classroom. I think you speak to that in the book and here as well.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (09:52):

Yeah. I think what happens is that when you categorize something, we're putting it into category, but the lines are really blurry. And that's where you get into that concept of changing the lens. So in order to do something well, we have to be able to identify it, talk about it, and then look at it in terms of implementation. So you need the category in order to do that. Um, and so I think that changing the lens makes it more manageable. You can begin to say, okay, so I'm looking at practices which is taking a look at what professionals are doing in the real world is going to help you to make a connection to the ultimate goal of any curriculum, which is to provide students with equitable learning experiences. So we have to be able to see each of the lenses in the curriculum, which is why we're not adding more, we're being able to identify it, to do it more intentionally in order to build equitable learning experiences for all kids.

Matt Renwick (10:58):

And I think all five can lead to that. And I just thought, if you could take a moment just to briefly expand on each idea, what it is and why it's important for making curriculum matter. If we can start with the first one, practices.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (11:17):

I spoke a little bit about practices. Every discipline has a set of practices. And I think when I use the term practice, I guess the best analogy is really thinking about sports or music, right? So I spent a good portion of my life driving my kids to practice. And what did they do at practice? They did drills so that they can improve in a lot of ways. That's what we want to see happen in a classroom. So practices are the kinds of things, strategies that students can use so they can improve in their learning.

Matt Renwick (11:49):

It's not necessarily teaching practices. Although those are also important. It's the disciplinary...if you're studying, writing, you know, it's the practices of a writer.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (12:02):

Exactly. And so if we want to grow as writers, then we have to practice writing and we have certain strategies we can use to do that. And when we repeat them, they become a way or a process to become a writer to grow as a writer. So it seems like a logical place for schools to start to really look at their curriculum, because if the practices are not there, it's hard then to build in the other elements. It's not impossible, but it's just checking to see, are they explicitly identified or do we see practices as being, for example, the mathematical practices. Are they not listed in every single unit? Then we're not really emphasized and focusing and giving students tools that they need to access high expectations, which is one of the components of an equitable curriculum.

Matt Renwick (12:56):

And it makes it more relevant, I would think too, that the practices are associated with that career or vocation of that unit. The next one is deep thinking, where you speak about different levels of cognition and also knowledge.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (13:14):

Yes. We talked about deep thinking. It's a combination of both. I think about Bloom's revised taxonomy. I think it is an excellent tool for really understanding deep thinking because it's taking in what kind of thinking am I doing? And what am I thinking about? And so any kind of engaging meaningful task is going to require deep thinking because engaging meaningful tasks are usually multiple steps. The other thing is that we engage in deep thinking, when we really want to make sense of something and we want apply new knowledge, we have to recognize when we're giving students the opportunity to engage in deep thinking,

Matt Renwick (13:56):

Third, social emotional learning. I have personally sometimes struggled with, how do we weave that part of it into the more academic side of things? What are your thoughts on that?

Angela Di Michele Lalor (14:07):

So the quick answer is there's two ways that we can do it. One is we can look at what we're teaching students. So you think about the book students are reading or history or the historical figures that they're studying. And you use them as examples or non examples of how social emotional skills and competencies have been used. So when a character makes a responsible decision, you point that out to the students, "What was that decision making process? What did we learn from watching the character making them make that decision make?" Go through that decision making process that you can use yourself. So that's one simple way of how we incorporate it. The other is that we are, [and] it goes back to engagement, if we're truly asking students to engage in their learning, they need to monitor themselves. And so we can't assume that students know how to do that. Multi-step tasks, multi-step projects require students to think about, "I have to do this as a priority first, and when that's done, then I can move to step two." So actually getting into the responsible decision-making and that management process is easily integrated into the curriculum.

Matt Renwick (15:24):

Yeah, the way you describe it, that seems like a natural fit. Civic engagement and discourse, probably more needed than ever. What entry points do you see with the curriculum?

Angela Di Michele Lalor (15:40):

So this is one of the elements that came from the vision and mission of schools. Every vision and mission I've read has always said, "We want our students to be responsible, we want them to engage, to be responsible citizens." And then I would ask, "So how, how do you do that?" Most schools don't have have students engaging in the local community or making some kind of contribution to an organization that they choose and they feel that they need to support. And so when I asked that question, "How do you see it?", this is what led to that civic engagement being part of the curriculum. It calls for project-based learning and for students to engage in curriculum embedded assessments, where they are actually engaged in projects that they are learning while they're doing and that become a form of assessment that's real life, authentic experiences.

Matt Renwick (16:45):

Yeah. I recall one example you put in there about studying a bill that's currently being discussed and debated, and then actually writing a letter to your local representative. And I appreciate that just for the authenticity of it, but also it could actually make an impact. I mean, you could change someone's mind, which is really powerful.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (17:09):

I've discussed this with other educators and sometimes I'll get the question: "Do you engage in discourse first or in the action itself?" And it's not that one goes in front of the other. It's just a natural integration of both. And I think it's important. We have to teach students how to speak to each other. We have to get them to really understand how to use evidence to support their thinking. And that's part of that civic engagement and discourse that should be completely integrated into all content areas.

Matt Renwick (17:43):

And how to listen. That flip side to speaking. I don't see it taught a lot in schools, how to listen. So I appreciated seeing that in there. The last one, equity... It seemed like everything listed here kind of leads toward equity. Is that how you designed it with the book?

Angela Di Michele Lalor (18:04):

Yeah, absolutely. That's where it goes. Changing the lens is so important. So as you are changing the lens to look at each of these different elements, you begin to see how they really are engaging students in learning. And then looking through the lens of equity gives language and actions to what we are doing. We are building a curriculum in this way because it's the intentionality that leads to the equitable learning experiences. But equity is an element in and of itself. Just because you have quality learning experience, doesn't allow for all students to engage in equitable learning experiences. There is an examination of self that needs to go into this. There's an understanding of culturally responsive practices. It's a deep understanding of who the students are in front of you. And that's why it is the ultimate goal, but it's also an element in and of itself.

Matt Renwick (19:07):

Yeah, your list and your descriptions caused me to already change our professional learning plan this year. I think I need to go back to practices first. I was looking at equity first, and I think we can talk about it, but just going through your resource here it's been helpful for me to think about where to start and where we want to go. So I had one more question for you, and this is just more of a lived experience here. Curriculum development is time-consuming work. I'm sure you've found that. And I have heard educators who are engaging in this work ask, "Why are we doing this?" You know districts will buy a program off the shelf and call it the curriculum. So what about this work helps ensure the curriculum matters to students and teachers versus just finding one and adopting it.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (20:01):

So I think that curriculum can impact student learning because it's more than just a product; it's a process. And so that's why it's worth the time, effort and energy to take a group of teachers and have them really think about what they're teaching, why they're teaching it, and what students are learning as a result - how students are engaged in that process. So it is something that is ongoing. You're never done once you're done. It's time to start again, even in districts where they do purchase a program. I think it's still important to develop some type of document that really highlights what's most important. This program: Why did we choose this program? How can we use this program to meet the needs of the students who are sitting in front of us? Because if we want equitable learning opportunities for all students, then a pre-packaged program is not going to do that because it doesn't know who the students are, who were sitting in front of the teacher. So even just being able to say, this is how we see, this is how we modify. This is how we can use this program. What's in it to meet the needs of our students is worth the time and effort of going through the curriculum process.

Matt Renwick (21:26):

You're not against purchasing a resource, but what you're promoting is to make sure you personalize it and make it relevant and meaningful and equitable all your students. Well, I've enjoyed listening to you. I've been taking notes for my own work as you've been talking and should be rereading parts of your book, Making Curriculum Matter: How to Build SEL, Equity and Other Priorities into Daily Instruction. I would also encourage any listeners to check out her previous book, Ensuring High-Quality Curriculum. Where can we go to learn more about your work, Angela?

Angela Di Michele Lalor (21:59):

So I have a new website, it's adlalorconsulting.com. There's some resources there, some tools, there's also a blog that I occasionally will add to, but that's the best place to find more information about me.

Matt Renwick (22:18):

Well, thank you Angela and good luck with this upcoming school year.

Angela Di Michele Lalor (22:22):

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Matt. I appreciate it.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

We follow up on our previous conversation for Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, I am joined by contributors Gen Arcovio, Ryanne Deschane, Rhonda Precourt, and Carrie Thomas.

We used the following three questions to guide our conversation:

* What takeaways did you gain from this book?

* What questions do you still have?

* How have you changed after reading this book?

This wraps up the book study. Thank you for your readership and leadership!

Relevant Resources

* Listen on Apple Podcasts (and Give a Rating!)

* Order Cultivating Genius from Scholastic

* Dr. Muhammad’s Website

* Dedicated Page for Book Study

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick:

So, I want to welcome everyone to the second of two book discussions around Cultivating Genius by Gholdy Muhammad, and I have several guests with us today. We're just going to go around the room and introduce yourselves, and we'll start with Ryanne.

Ryanne Deschane:

My name is Ryanne Deschane, and I am a first grade teacher in northern Wisconsin.

Rhonda Precourt:

I can go next. I am Rhonda Precourt, and I am a reading recovery teacher/K-2 literacy interventionist, although this past school year, I did teach kindergarten, and I teach in upstate New York. I also blog with Gen at literacypages.wordpress.com, and we also have a Facebook group. You can search Literacy Pages. And we also have a Twitter. You can follow us on Twitter @literacypages, too.

Gen Arcovio:

I think it makes sense for me to go next. I'm Gen Arcovio, and I am also a literacy specialist interventionist and trained reading recovery teacher in upstate New York. I work in the same district as Rhonda, and I am the co-creator of the Literacy Pages blog.

Carrie Thomas:

Hi, and I'm Carrie Thomas. I am a reading specialist/literacy coach in a small, private school outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Matt Renwick:

Well, I am excited to be with Ryanne, Gen, Carrie, and Rhonda here. They've already posted their posts at this point, and they've been well-received by readers. In response to the book, Cultivating Genius... seemed like just such a timely text. I realize it came out last year, but it's been very helpful for me as I think about preparing for the 2021-2022 school year. So, I thought we'd just go around the room and just everyone share one response to each of the three questions around the book. The first one is what are one, two, or three key ideas that you took away from Cultivating Genius? And we'll start with Ryanne.

Ryanne Deschane:

Okay. So for me, it's a very complex text, but think my biggest takeaway is the histories of marginalized people are important for us to understand our present educational system as well as a path forward. If we don't understand the history, then we don't understand maybe where some of those systemic inequities have came from and what we need to do to move forward in a new direction. So, that was my big takeaway.

Matt Renwick:

I would concur with that.

Gen Arcovio:

I'll go next, because what I was going to say connects to what Ryanne was talking about. I think you can't read this book without taking away the fact that White educators need to do more research themselves. And I think it's been a few years in the making for me, culminating now with reading this book, to really understand how inequitable my own education was, except I was the one that benefited from it and didn't even realize that it was at the expense of other people. And it kind of brings up some anger to be at this point in my life and only just be realizing how inequitable it was in so many ways.

Gen Arcovio:

And then, when I read Cultivating Genius, to realize how much history there is in Black culture regarding literacy and learning that I am only just now knowing. So, it's my responsibility now to kind of redefine my own identity as an educator and do more research in that regard.

Matt Renwick:

I appreciate the honest perspective, Gen. Carrie or Rhonda, do you want to share kind of key ideas here?

Carrie Thomas:

I'll go next. One of the things I took away and I thought was really fascinating... So, Gen, you brought up the literary... and how Black folks have a history of these literary societies. And actually, Philadelphia has a ton... has such a rich history of Black literary societies. And me being right outside of Philadelphia, and I teach students who come to my school from Philadelphia schools and in the city, and so it just kind of is like this natural way to connect the students with literacy history and be like, "No, actually, there is a rich history."

Carrie Thomas:

And I think it's like you said. I'm a White educator, and I teach mostly Black and Brown students. And so, to have this history of these literary societies that now I know about, and it is my responsibility to be like, "Oh, here is this fantastic history, and here are things we've learned from these literary societies that we can take into schools now and really lift up and celebrate what all of our students have to bring to the table."

Matt Renwick:

Yeah. You're well positioned, Carrie, within this context of the book, as well as where you're located.

Rhonda Precourt:

Something I really took away was just this whole idea of teaching kids how to have a positive identity about themselves, because that's not just for people of a different color. There're so many different things within identity that serve a minority like women, like homosexuals, students who are learning English for the first time. All of these groups really could serve to have this focus on knowing who they are as people and understanding their culture and background. It leads to more acceptance of yourself and others being accepting of you and feeling like you belong and have a place in the classroom and in your world. So, I found myself reading that part about identity over and over again, because it just really, really made me think.

Matt Renwick:

Yeah. For myself, I appreciate the distinction that the author made between culturally-relevant and culturally-responsive literacy instruction. I don't think anyone that I've read yet has differentiated between the two. I mean, culturally-relevant seemed more like more on the curriculum side of things, and culturally-responsive more on the instruction side of things. But like you said, Rhonda, I need to reread it to make sure I'm understanding it correctly. But yeah, a lot of rich ideas that you've all illuminated.

Matt Renwick:

And you talk about identity. Thinking about one or two changes that you might want to make or you've already made since you've read this, I'll just kind of throw out for the whole group. I can certainly go first. I think I've always... I teach in a predominantly White area, and I've always thought I need to make sure that I'm representing in our texts and our instruction a lot of diverse representations, I guess, but it really hit home for me that even if this is what our population is, how critical it is for those one or two or three kids that do come in our schools. I mean, I wouldn't say it's more important, but it's just really important for those kids to see themselves when they live in an area like I live in. Other thoughts on that, and just changes you've made or you're planning to make?

Carrie Thomas:

So, I'll speak. I actually just submitted my post about this today, but I thought of two... And it's funny, because I actually picked up this book right when it came out. I saw it, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm going to get this. It's going to be great for my students. It's going to be great for my school. And so, I have... On the cover, it says "An Equity Framework," and I have literally used this book for the framework to design the literacy program at my school. Before I got there, there was no real comprehensive, cohesive literacy program, so I was kind of tasked with building one from the ground up. And so, I had to do a lot of digging into, what had already been there? What materials are we using? What does the curriculum look like? How are we assessing our students?

Carrie Thomas:

And what I found out, especially from after reading this book, I realized that a lot of the materials we were using, a lot of the ways we were assessing the students and finding levels and doing all that stuff you have to take data on and everything was not very culturally-responsive at all. Matt, you talked about being in a predominantly White area, and I kind of ran into the problem where I teach mostly predominantly Black and Brown students, but the texts that we were using still featured mostly White people on the cover, or animals, right? Because animals have a higher percentage of being on covers than Black and Brown students.

Carrie Thomas:

So, I kind of had a similar problem that I had to start finding texts and finding materials where the students could see themselves at all represented, because they just weren't seeing themselves in anything. Weren't reading stories about themselves, weren't getting assessments that they could recognize names or situations or anything like that.

Carrie Thomas:

And so, one of the biggest takeaways was the identity and just reinforced how important it is where students can see themselves in the text and really make that connection. Once I started showing students books with characters that looked like them, and they were like, "Oh, my gosh, this character looks like me, and I know what it's like to go to the barbershop and get my locks taken care of." Or, "I know what it's like to see an LGBTQ character doing this, because I can relate to that." It just kind of reinforced the importance of that seeing themselves in the text.

Matt Renwick:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Gen or Rhonda, what are your thoughts on this in terms of changes you might make or you already have?

Gen Arcovio:

I think there are some quick changes that I can make. A higher focus, even though I'm an interventionist, and so I'm primarily working with individuals or small groups of students, I can still do more work with identity. I can still use this framework to look at my lessons every day and see if I am accounting for all of these areas that she's talking about. Building identity, building intellectualism, all of those pieces that she's talking about. This book is really a call to action for us all to critique what we're doing, and I can do that right now with what I'm in control of where I work.

Gen Arcovio:

I think asking daily, "Does what I'm doing right now today with this student or these students really develop their intellectual wisdom, or is it telling them what to be or do?" And so, that's something quick I can do now, but then there comes the systemic part. How do we disrupt the system to favor all students? That's the bigger change that has to take place that requires a bigger group of people. So, that will be on our plates to make sure that what we've learned here goes someplace else besides my room and the students I work with.

Matt Renwick:

Yeah. I like that call to action, and I think that's a great, great way to see this book. Rhonda, did you want to add to that?

Rhonda Precourt:

Yeah. There was a part in the book about how students are often described kind of in a negative way, Black students, especially, in urban areas. And so, I think too, as a literacy specialist, you meet with teachers a lot, so it gives us the opportunity to model that positive talk. Leading with the student's strengths rather than starting with the things that they need. So, that's one way I think that I could make a change. Well, it's something that I'm doing, but to be a little bit more intentional about it, maybe.

Rhonda Precourt:

Another thing I was thinking about is to maybe just question things more. This book made me think about so many situations that I've come across as a teacher, and one situation that just popped in my head today was I had a parent contact me before school started, and they wanted to know if there were going to be any other Black children in the classroom, because her daughter was Black. And I feel like at the time, I just... I was kind of like, "Well, okay," but I don't think I really thought about it the way I should have. Now I'm thinking, what was that parent's experience like in school? Most likely, she grew up in that same area in the same classrooms with lots of White people.

Rhonda Precourt:

Even just think about my own kids, if I had to advocate for them to be in a setting where they would be with other kids like them so they would feel like they belong. If education looked different, and we already had things in place, it wouldn't matter, I feel like, if you were in a classroom with people that... wasn't very diverse, if it was set up in a way that they could still see themselves in different ways, if that makes any sense.

Matt Renwick:

For sure. One of the posts, I can't remember whose it was, but it started to question just a typical practice that they've had in their school. It might have been Gen. Was it you, Gen?

Gen Arcovio:

Yeah, the "what you want to be when you grow up"?

Matt Renwick:

Yeah.

Gen Arcovio:

Yeah.

Matt Renwick:

You almost seemed like you were looking at that event through new eyes, and I thought that was a nice example of what Rhonda's talking about. And I think kind of leads into our last part, which is just, what's one question you have still after reading this book? And for me, it's... I don't know why I get stuck on these things, but I wanted to see the unit template. She talked about units and lessons. I'm such a concrete thinker in some ways, but I wanted to see, what was the unit template looking like? Her lessons were great in the back, but just from a book standpoint, what was that progression of learning? What was that kind of story that you can create around historically-responsible literacy instruction beyond just the one lesson? But it was just that a question I had. What about you? Ryanne, what do you think?

Ryanne Deschane:

I'm going to be the elephant-in-the-room person. Mine is for administrators or principals and other colleagues who haven't yet begun to grapple or delve into this work who maybe come from a stance of, "You're going at this too fast, and it's very politically charged." How to shift that mindset to beginning the work and engaging and investing in learning more. I think that's a difficult challenge, especially where I'm at, because we don't have a lot of diversity, so sometimes, the narrative is, "Why does it matter?" I guess years ago, I probably was on that same wavelength, because it's like Maya says, do what you know until you know better, and then do better. And so, I'm trying really hard to do better, but I don't quite know how to get others there. And so, that's my big question of, how do we do that?

Matt Renwick:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). That culture is huge.

Rhonda Precourt:

Ryanne, Ryanne, I think I was thinking along the same lines as you. I think that we do have a pretty big push in our area to attack this type of work, but I don't... How do we get to the place where we're not just kind of going through the motions of learning about these things or even doing a book study, but it doesn't really meet the need that... or meet the purpose that we really want to meet?

Ryanne Deschane:

Yeah. I want that call to action to be now. I want everybody to be on that same wavelength of, "Hey, we need to jump in with both feet." There is no, "People aren't ready for this." Come on. Let's just do it.

Gen Arcovio:

And it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable. And when you see something that doesn't look like it will be equitable, or it looks like it may support oppression in some way, it's uncomfortable to say something, but we have to say it. I think that's my... my goal for myself is to always say something, but you're right, because not everyone is in the place to hear it. And so, I had that down as a question, too. How do we get this in front of people who need to see it? Like you're saying, the ideas, we need to go fully, we need to build this up, we need to make everyone comfortable, but there have been millions of people who have not been comfortable for a very long time. So, that's also my question, too. And then also, where do I look next? What resource do I go to next to help with that?

Carrie Thomas:

So, yeah, I feel like I have a similar question, right? Like, how do we get other people on board with this? Because it's one thing for us all to be sitting here having a book club and talking about the book and like, "Oh, we're going to read this," but what do we do? And so, that's something I've been thinking a lot about this year. At my school, I'm one of the founding members of our diversity committee, and so we are very committed to action steps as part of the group, because it's like we just need to do something, and as small as it is, it just has to be something.

Carrie Thomas:

So, we take small actions, like, "What can we do?" I frequently send out booklets and highlight some celebrations that are coming up. You know, "It's Ramadan, so here's a book list for Ramadan that's coming up." Right? "It's Eid, so here is what we do on Eid." Just these action steps and getting it into just everyday language. This is what we're about now. This is what the school is about. This is what instruction is about. And really, when the question comes up, because it always comes up, like, "Why do we have to do this? We've been doing this for 30 years. I don't know why we need to change things." And it's because it always comes back to the students. It's like, "Well, look at the students. What is the best thing for our students? What do our students need?" Because that's what we're doing in school, right?

Carrie Thomas:

And so, I think that's kind of where I tie everything, and sometimes it's difficult for people to get on board with that, but I think really just being strong, and this is for our students, and this is the world our students are growing up in, and this is what they need to know, and this is how to prepare them to be out there. So, I think my question is kind of like, how do we get other people on board, and what size is the action step? Where is that line between too little and then too much, and how do we navigate that area of action there?

Matt Renwick:

I think the fact that we're recording this, and we're going to post this publicly, our thoughts, I think is a great first step. I think when we talk about this as a group, we normalize it, just like we would do in a school, and it just gives permission for everyone else to start talking about it, too. And little things that you're doing in your schools to make it part of your culture and to be the leaders that you are. I don't think of any of you as just teachers. I think of you all as leaders, too, and your willingness to put your thoughts down publicly, I think, is courageous. So, I want to thank you all for doing that and thank you for being here tonight.

Carrie Thomas:

Thank you.

Gen Arcovio:

Thank you.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

In this special episode, I am joined by Gen Arcovio and Rhonda Precourt in a conversation around this summer’s book study selection: Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad.

We used the following three questions to guide our conversation:

* What resonated with you?

* What surprised you?

* What questions do you have?

This kicks off the book study. We hope you can join us for the month of July as we read and respond in writing to this excellent and essential resource.

Relevant Resources

* Audio + Transcript

* Also Listen on Apple Podcasts (and Give It a Rating!)

* Order Cultivating Genius from Scholastic

* Dr. Muhammad’s Website

* Dedicated Page for Book Study

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick (00:04):

We are here for a discussion around the book, Cultivating Genius, our book study for this summer. And I've got two colleagues with me here today, if you want to introduce yourselves.

Rhonda Precourt (00:20):

I'm Rhonda Precourt. I am a teacher in the upstate New York area. I have been for a big chunk of years previously been teaching in the literacy area, but this year I am teaching kindergarten

Matt Renwick (00:40):

And Rhonda, you've been blogging with us for a couple of years now, too.

Rhonda Precourt (00:45):

Yeah, we blog at literacypages.wordpress.com and that is also our Twitter handle @literacypages. We also have a Facebook group as well.

Matt Renwick (01:01):

And you brought along your esteemed colleague, Gen.

Gen Arcovio (01:05):

Hello, I'm Gen and I am a K through 2 literacy specialist also in upstate New York. I work with Rhonda and both of us are trained in Reading Recovery, active reading recovery teachers typically, although not this year. And like she mentioned, we blog together and we extend our learning together in all kinds of ways.

Matt Renwick (01:33):

Everyone's doing different positions this year, or it's just adding on new roles. I had our art teacher teaching second grade, our phy ed teacher teaching fifth, just to make these new times work. So it's great to have you both join the discussion and I found three questions that I think will start to get our thinking going about around the book, Cultivating Genius by Dr. Goldy Muhammed. And the first one is, what resonated with you? If anyone wants to start us off, otherwise I'm happy to chime in.

Rhonda Precourt (02:17):

I think what is resonating with me the most is just how far we haven't come in a long period of time. And it's a little bit depressing read it. I love reading about the history. I think it's so powerful, but then it just strikes you about how similar the times are that they're talking about to where we are right now.

Matt Renwick (02:46):

Yeah. She even mentioned the expectations were higher back then, back in the 1800s, at least for these literary groups. And the other thing that resonated for me was just how they combined everything and it wasn't, here's your reading, and then we're going to do some writing here, and we'll practice some speaking and listening. It was all integrated toward a kind of purpose, which was to empower themselves and cause change. So that was just something that resonated with me. It makes it easier for us to teach reading here and writing there, but it's not always conducive for kids, especially from what I understand from the book, students of color. It can make it more challenging. Well, what about you, Gen? What did you find just compelling?

Gen Arcovio (03:43):

I was thinking two things. One of them along the lines of what you were saying, and what Rhonda was saying, that the history that I'm reading in this book, a lot of it's new to me and that's astonishing to me and it's causing a significant amount of self-reflection. I think that's one of the more important pieces of this book, is the amount of self reflection that it causes you to do in your own teaching and everything they've done up till this point and what you want to be as a teacher starting today. And then also the integrated approach that Rhonda and I write about all the time, but to see it laid out in this way and how significant it is to teach literacy in that way, so that you have a way of teaching that is empowering everybody. Rhonda and I work in a district that is predominantly white, but when you reading, this has really brought to light the fact that if you teach in this way, you are preventing discrimination in the future for everybody that you teach. This is such an important read. I love it.

Matt Renwick (05:15):

And you and Rhonda, that's one thing I like about Reading Recovery. With my last school, we had it and it takes an integrated approach, right? I mean, you're doing some reading, some writing, you are doing word work and so you have some of that background. But even with your extensive background, you still found it surprising and caused you to really rethink some of your practices.

Gen Arcovio (05:40):

I think the purpose, having a purpose for what you're reading and writing is what stood out to me. And it's making me think a lot about what I've done and what I'm going to do. What is the significant purpose for the reading and writing that makes it engaging for them and helps them to grow in their own identities?

Matt Renwick (06:03):

Yeah, what's the why.

Matt Renwick (06:05):

The second question, as I mentioned was, what surprised you? I could go here. Tt didn't really surprise me, but I guess I realized how much I didn't know about how persons of color were prevented from, even in the Northern states, prevented from engaging in literacy practices. It was like an editorial, I think, or a column, an essay about, he was a free man, but he wasn't really a free man, because of all these limits that had been put on them because of their race. We have, at least in the elementary level, a kind of a simplistic view of history, like "In the Northern states, they did not have slavery and then the Southern did," but it's more complex than that. They had to contend with those challenges throughout. So that's one thing, I guess that surprised me just like you were saying, Gen, how much I didn't know. So glad we picked this book.

Gen Arcovio (07:33):

It's almost what's surprising is not necessarily how much you didn't know, but what you thought you did know that isn't aligned or lining up with what's really happened. You know, I think that's something we need to take a good, hard look at in our curriculum across the board. Because I think a lot of us walked away from our education with a different view of where we are in education, in equality, in everything.

Matt Renwick (08:15):

Okay.

Rhonda Precourt (08:19):

I was familiar with the term literacy societies, but honestly I had no idea about black literacy societies and how they grew from just a small number of people to these huge groups of hundreds of members. And I was looking at, I just kept reading those 10 lessons from black literacy society. I just was so blown away. I mean, these things that we can learn from them are just so amazing. Like there was the one about how we teach each other, how then they came together, they taught each other how to read. They taught each other how to become better writers. It was just such a collaborative environment. And we do try for that, but I think especially as kids move up in grades, the way our schools schools are set up in education is very competitive. You're always trying to get in the top 10, or you're trying to get the best grade there. It's not like this where you're, where you're looking out for each other, trying to teach each other so you can better each other.

Matt Renwick (09:36):

Yeah. It's definitely something to aspire to with our classrooms and school. Questions that you had?

Rhonda Precourt (09:53):

I keep asking myself, because there's a lot of examples so far of how to apply this. I picture more of a middle school or high school setting. So I keep questioning, how can I bring this down to the younger students that I work with? What would that look like there? Because I definitely think you can, you can start this really early from the beginning. What would it look like?

Matt Renwick (10:21):

Yeah. It had some nice examples in the back to reference, the lesson plans, but yeah that's a good question. How do you talk about this? I mean, I think third grade and lower. That's a good question.

Gen Arcovio (10:37):

I keep asking myself, how do we get everyone talking about this, and acting on it, I think is the key because early on, I think somewhere in chapter two, it talks about how cultural models and cultural curriculum can't be an add on. And I think we see that all the time, you know, let's just put these few books into our libraries or into our read alouds. This is saying literacy was always connected to social justice and you can't connect literacy to social justice with five new read alouds in your curriculum. She wants us to be asking ourselves, how does this help them understand their own identities and how does it lead to social justice in every lesson and in every piece of your curriculum. And so, how do I help move this where it needs to go actively?

Matt Renwick (12:02):

I think those are great questions for future articles in July, if it moves you that way. I wish I had a good answer for that. The question I just had is, how do we create safe spaces in which people can talk about it and, you know, not fear for making mistakes or saying something stupid and then it coming back on you as being insensitive or worse. I think about that, I guess even just now talking about it. I just want to make sure I'm being respectful and at the same time that's part of learning, is making mistakes. It just seems like a really charged atmosphere right now with everything going on, legislation coming through and what we can and cannot teach. It's a unique time. So this has been a great book so far. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it and writing something around it. Again, thanks Gen and Rhonda for joining us. And I'm looking forward to what you have to share.

Gen Arcovio (13:17):

Thank you for having me. I'm really enjoying it. Such an important read.

Rhonda Precourt (13:22):

Thank you so much. I agree.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

Where do we start when striving for equity? What does this concept mean in everyday classrooms? How does a relevant curriculum lead to a more equitable education?

I explore these questions with Dr. Chaunté Garrett, superintendent at Rocky Mount Preparatory School in North Carolina. She is an instructional leader with building- and district-level experience in transforming schools and leading students to high achievement levels.

This episode offers practical ideas for any teacher or leader to apply, for example asking students what they want you to know about them as the first question of the school year. When we approach our roles as a learner first and create holding spaces for others, students can create their own narratives for success.

Enjoyed this post but not subscribed? Sign up today for weekly publications around literacy leadership. Most articles and all podcast episodes are free.

Relevant Resources

* Audio + Transcript

* Dr. Garrett’s Educational Leadership article, “Relevant Curriculum is Equitable Curriculum”

* Dr. Garrett’s website

* Connect with Chaunté on Twitter

* Listen to this episode on Apple - and rate this podcast!

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick (00:00):

Where do we start when striving for equity? What does this concept mean in everyday classrooms? How does a relevant curriculum lead to a more equitable education? I explore these questions with Dr. Chaunté Garrett, superintendent at Rocky Mount Preparatory School in North Carolina. She is an instructional leader with building and district level experience in transforming schools and leading students to high achievement levels. This episode offers practical ideas for any teacher or leader to apply, for example asking students what they want you to know about them as the first question of the school year. When we approach our roles as a learner first, and then create holding spaces for others, students can create their own narratives for success.

Matt Renwick (00:43):

Welcome Dr. Garrett, thanks for joining me today.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (00:47):

Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be with you. Thank you.

Matt Renwick (00:51):

You are a superintendent of a K-12 charter school district in North Carolina and also taught high school math. Anything you want to add?

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (01:01):

To that? No, I just positioned myself as a learner, in the spaces that I have the privilege of serving in, even capacities, you know, such as spending time with you this morning. So I collect all of my experiences as learning opportunities in order to be the best and wherever I am sent in that time or the next time.

Matt Renwick (01:29):

And that's how I came across your work, as you very much presented yourself as a learner. What a powerful story in that Educational Leadership article. It's titled Relevant Curriculum is Equitable Curriculum. And I just thought it really nicely encapsulated what equity needs to be about, for all of our students. I loved your story about being accelerated, I don't know if that's the appropriate word, to sixth grade, and just seemed life altering. Can you just share that part of your learning journey and just how it made a difference for you?

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (02:11):

Yeah. You know, when I taught high school math, I would open up my high school math class with a story related to that, to my time in Mr. Bryant's sixth grade elective. Because I struggled in math and that was one of the reasons why I became a math teacher, because I finally found a space where I excelled in math and really realize math was something that I could do and not just do, but do well. And so even, you know, the story reads I was placed in Mr. Bryant's math class by happenstance. And I don't know if you saw, but I was able to present Mr. Bryant with a framed copy of the article, because that was the least I could do for what I gained as being in his math class.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (03:06):

But one of the things I shared with him in that moment is that I wasn't Chaunté Garrett, the smartest of a sixth grade class that got placed in Mr. Bryant, seventh grade elective, that wasn't the case. We all came to Mr. Bryant's class, that was just a space where it wasn't questionable, whether we could do math. It was just our ability to enjoy it. You know, being able to enjoy it. When we got to that classroom, our ability to do math just was not a question. He treated us like we could do math. He taught us like we could do math. He coached us, like he expected us to do better in math. And he created understanding for us as though we were supposed to do math. He had extremely high expectations for us. And that was just the context of the classroom period. So, you know, I walked into a space where I was carrying this baggage of the struggle I was going to have, the challenges, how long was it going to take me to do the assignments and all that kind of stuff. And it just opened up this world of not only I can do this, but I can actually excel. And every last one of us sitting in the seats, in those classrooms, we're no different.

Matt Renwick (04:35):

And that seems to define equity. I mean, at least an outcome of what we would want to see. And, I really liked your definition in the article. I've shared it with my teachers. They can actually, when I forget one part, they can say, oh, it's meeting students where they are. You define equity as giving students what they need to support their success, meeting students where they are, or/and breaking down barriers to success. So what does that look like in your classrooms or school-wide in your district?

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (05:08):

So, you know all schools and districts have been really challenged. You know, this year I haven't met a leader that hasn't dealt with inequities. And even before that time, we know that they existed. I remember times where we just have to say out loud in professional development. We're not dying on the hill of the pencil. The kid comes to class without a pencil, give them a pencil and let's keep this movement. Like we're not losing instructional time over this. So what we're talking about, giving them what they need to be successful, it is that matter of resources. So one of the things with this pandemic that we did this year was, each quarter we sent home school supplies. I don't just mean like, their textbooks and, and we did the devices, but it was so much more than devices, right?

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (06:11):

It's what happens on the other side of the device and the ability to access school and learning when we got the devices when they were in the kids' hands. And so we, whatever it is, were are they going to need crayons? We sent home crayons. How are we going to assess their learning? We sent home whiteboards and markers so that they can hold them up in the screen until we came up with the better solution. We were trying to send home document cameras, but they became at a short supply as well. And so it was making sure that however, we have to do education, we set our scholars up for success by making sure that their access to materials was not going to be a barrier.

Matt Renwick (07:01):

That's a great idea. Just the quarterly supplies home, access what they need. Um, so it's a challenge, and we talked about this prior, but the challenge with making a curriculum relevant and equitable is you want it to be consistent as well. And sometimes teachers are given scripts to follow and consistency is great, but they can also create gaps. Just in your experience, help teachers work within these constraints to make instruction meaningful for kids.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (07:29):

Yeah. In the article, I talked about the way Mr. Bryant made math live for us, but he made math live for us because he attached it to things that we knew. He attached it to things that we valued within our communities. He attached it to people that were images and reflections of who we aspire to be within our community. And so when we talk about relevant, so often we can get stuck on the script. They'll talk about basketball, baseball, soccer, dance class, and think that they're creating relevance around these activities that may not even be inclusive for all the students that may sit in a classroom. And so the onus is on us as educators to know what our students, we call our students scholars, what our scholars and what our families value and make that a part of the curriculum. So how does this live out in your day to day life? Not just monitor or not just the way this curriculum manual states it, because there's so much more.

Matt Renwick (08:44):

And I liked that question you had in there. Near the end of the article, I think it was, "What's one thing that you want me to know about you?", At the beginning of the year. I think would just set the tone for not just your instruction, but the entire community in your classroom.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (09:02):

You know, we're starting a college and career academy and yes, that is very much about becoming more equitable, a more equitable community in terms of access to opportunity. But we opened that meeting with, "You are here tonight. What is it that you want for your scholar to have at the end of their high school experience?" And while there are some things that were the same, there were also some variations because that's what matters in those families, cultures in their lives, and in what they're trying to pursue. And that's a great way to start a connection, but it's also a great way to build understanding of even where to go to build this context. Yes, this takes work because we don't all live in each other's world, but it's the work that's worth doing when it comes to educating our students.

Matt Renwick (10:03):

Nice, and you kind of related, you talk about the harm we might cause when we strive to create equity in our classrooms in schools or help us not always helpful. Can you say more about that, and just maybe what educators might want to be aware of as we strive for equity.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (10:19):

Yeah. So when you're really striving to, one of the terms that we here use now is hold space. So we want to create space for kids to be processing what what's happening in our world. The racial trauma, the injustices, all of those things that are taking place and realizing that they may not impact everyone culturally the same, but it is impacting everyone, period. And so you have to one, which is also one of the reasons why I'm positioning myself as a learner right now, is you have to position yourself as a learner, as an educator. Try to understand and gain understanding as to what these events may mean. You also have to position yourself in truth because there are some things that have become political that just are not political.

Matt Renwick (11:31):

There's not two sides to certain things.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (11:35):

Exactly. So, you know, one of the things when I had a teacher come up to me and say, "Dr. Garrett, how am I going to hold a conversation about this?" You're going to hold it in truth. We will stand in front of our kids and teach truth every single day. And it's making sure that we are not recreating trauma, the images of black men dying in the streets and being beaten. They don't have to be the images that we put in front of our children in terms of holding space. They've seen enough of that. They have it at their fingertips with their phone. Facilitating that process of healing does not start there. And I want educators to be careful about recreating traumatic experience in the name of helping people understand. And I'll also want educators to be thoughtful about making sure and being intentional about placing affirming identities in front of students or affirming students' identities by placing affirming images and opportunities in front of them.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (12:55):

So when we talk about cultural relevance in our school community, we talk about it from the responsive perspective. We don't ignore what's happening in the world, because we want our scholars to be able to process and critically think about their role in making change in terms of relevance. We get to know our scholars and their families and their backgrounds, and that becomes the context of their learning. It doesn't mean that you don't follow standards. It means we show them how they, their lives, their cultures contribute to the learning that they are seeking and what they are learning about the world. We affirm their identities and the identities that they are developing and becoming for themselves. And that means that we don't place images and in contexts that is harmful and traumatic, and we help them attach themselves to those images and contexts that are affirming as they are pursuing.

Matt Renwick (14:02):

And then the way you described this makes it very doable. I think sometimes we try to overthink this or try to think of what topics or subjects are we going to bring in, and we just need to listen to our kids and our families and start with an opening here. So just to kind of wrap things up, you've listed a variety of ideas here to create a more equitable space and help kids feel valued. What's one thing that you would recommend a leader or a teacher do just to continue to hold that space, that holding environment and within their communities.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (14:46):

This is where we always start year. Know the story before you create the story. And so it's going straight to the source. And as Brene Brown says, "We always come up with our first draft. Nix the first draft; go straight to the source." And that's where you start, with your understanding to begin the work that needs to be done within your community. And if you have a minute, I want to go back to the number two. Because it's about the resources, but it's also closing those gaps on experiences too. Just like our kids come to school with varying abilities to fulfill the supply list and all that kind of stuff and get the tools, part of that resource gap is those experiences and exposures.

Matt Renwick (15:52):

Background knowledge

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (15:53):

Exactly. You know, there are things that affluent families have access to, you know, even if it's piano lessons, participating in different types of athletics, outside of school, you know, music, what have you, those things outside of school that enhance what's being learned inside of school and creates those opportunities for acceleration. And so it's about our schools developing those partnerships. If you can create them within your community, that also adds those additional exposures and experiences. It's about hosting those clubs and creating space and time to be more inclusive so that more students, especially those that may not have access to them outside of school, can have access to them. And that's another way to break down the barriers, but it's also about having those hard conversations around our policies and our practices for many of us, you know, that technology policy slapped us in the face when the pandemic came. And so what are those other things that aren't serving our marginalized and minoritized communities well, and having hard conversations about the why and dismantling those.

Matt Renwick (17:26):

Well, thank you. This has been very helpful for me, as I am a learner too, and to continue to expand my perspective. So thank you, Dr. Garrett.

Dr. Chaunté Garrett (17:40):

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be with you.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

In this special episode, recorded during our third and final writers group, we talked shop - writers workshop - with Tom Romano and Regie Routman.

Tom is the author of several books on writing, including Write What Matters: For Yourself, For Others.

Regie has also authored many professional literacy resources for educators, most recently Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence, and Equity for All Learners.

So get out your notebooks, settle in with a favorite beverage, and soak up the wisdom from two excellent teachers of writers and writing.

Related Resources

* Transcript + Audio

* Tom’s article we discussed: “Giant at Reds”

* Regie’s article we discussed: “Roaming Around the Known” (plus her website)

* A book Tom recommended about writing memoir: Inventing the Truth

* Check this episode out on Apple below, and give the podcast a rating!

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick:

In this special episode recorded during our third and final writers group, we talk shop - writer's workshop - with Tom Romano and Regie Routman. Tom is the author of several books on writing, including Write What Matters For Yourself, For Others. Regie has also authored many professional literacy resources for educators, most recently, Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence, and Equity For All Learners. So get out your notebooks, settle in with a favorite beverage and soak up the wisdom from two excellent teachers of writers and writing.

Matt Renwick:

Again, feel free to chime in, any questions or if you want to piggyback, for Tom or for Regie. And you both spoke to this just now, which is great. And in your pieces that I shared out too, involve story. Is that a great place to start with writing or do you see it as more than just a tool for your own writing purposes I guess? I'll start with Tom on that.

Tom Romano:

There is very little I write that doesn't have story in it some way. If I'm writing that piece about the night the giant visited, I mean, it's pretty much all story, except, I think the last part in the last paragraph and that version of, did I say about giants all around us and teachers, I guess there I'm being a little bit expository. But I can't imagine writing anything that doesn't have at least the kernel of story in it, because stories appeal to us all. They are how we know the world. I mean, think about the trial that just ended. There were two stories, two arguments, but here's the story of how this went down, here's another story of how this went down.

Tom Romano:

For me, it's just, the story is bedrock. I guess that's why I always, when the Common Core standards came out in Ohio, well, I guess they were nationwide, and then they got rid of them, and then pretty much states just use them anyway and call them their own standards. They seem to me to really disrespect story and how I know story work in people's writing. So what did I just read? I just read an Anne Lamott book that was published in 2017 or 2018. And she said, "Story abideth." Tom just ran out of gas here, go ahead Regie.

Regie Routman:

No, I agree with everything you said. A story for me, I'm looking at it in a little bit different way. I'm trying to be an anti-racist like everybody else, not just talking about it, but trying to do something. And one of the ways I think that's very powerful is valuing every child's story and having them write their story and honor that story, their language, their culture that goes with it through poetry, through a vignette from part of their life, writing about something that happened that, the story of their life. And using story in a way that even though that story that you've just written was very painful perhaps, you're working with older kids, your story is not foretold by what's happened so far. But your story can be changed. And using story in that way is a part of what I'm working on now, that you have the power to rewrite your story. That might seem preordained because of your circumstances, because of your housing, lack of resources, but it's not.

Regie Routman:

So I see our job as educators, as being opportunity makers. And one way to do that is to get kids to write and first to value their own stories, which is so, so powerful. And then I would model, of course I would share one of my stories that shaped me. And it would be probably about my grandmother who never went to school, but never got past fifth grade because she had to support her family and didn't consider herself a writer. But when I would stay overnight with her, she'd pull out this big brown box from the top of her closet, and she was writing her stories down, but didn't consider herself a writer.

Tom Romano:

Wow.

Regie Routman:

But she was.

Matt Renwick:

You both speak to a sense of self-empowerment too, with Tom writing in the study halls and your grandmother writing, but not identifying as a writer themselves. And I noted in Tom's book here on page four, just your first activity here, Tom says, "Give yourself 15 minutes long if you need it, write about why you write, what you get out of it, and what rewards writing holds for you. Maybe you've not articulated that before, don't be afraid to ramble, Joey wasn't. With faith and fearlessness write through to the truth." I've heard that phrase before, "Write through to the truth." Tom, can you say more about that?

Tom Romano:

Write through to the truth. From last June until January, I wrote a memoir that I'm trying to find a publisher to read, and that's not always easy since it's not really a Heinemann book, or a Stenhouse book, or Scholastic book. But a lot of times I'm just trying to tell things as truthfully as I can, the way I remember, the way that I imagine it. Like that giant story, I was thinking about that. I mean, I think there's truth in there. There's a lot that's made up. And what I mean is, I don't remember that... Like I say, Joe Keester, there's a character who said, "That's Paul Bunyan" right off the bat. Well, I don't remember that happening, but my dad had a friend named Joe Keester and I found out some way that that wrestler was Paul Bunyan. And so I invented that.

Tom Romano:

There's a book called Inventing the Truth and it's about writing memoir. So there's a lot of places in there where I think I did invent the truth. Although I stayed close to the emotions, I'm pretty sure I remember feeling. And some of the things that were indelible memories, like when he would, I think I wrote that, "He would put forward and all his hair would go over his face and then he would go like that and comment like that, and then push it forward." That's an indelible memory. I really believe in those for sure. Now I want to get kids, whether they're elementary school kids or graduate students in a class, I want them to start trying to find those indelible moments or indelible memories. They don't usually last very long. And I want them to write about those.

Tom Romano:

I think the last two or three things that I have published in English Journal came from me, writing in my college class with my undergraduates. I asked them to find indelible moments. And I did that too with them and develop that into a piece of writing, which I'm trying to stay close to how I remember and how I think. Yeah. Writing through to the truth.

Regie Routman:

I think one of the, I used to tell the kids the secrets of what writers do, is that when they write memoir, I remember working with fifth graders on this, that you can't possibly remember what was said, what somebody said five, six years ago.

Tom Romano:

No.

Regie Routman:

So you have to invent that dialogue, but the feelings are true. And as long as you stay true to those feelings, right, it's going to work because you can't remember exactly what happened. But you do, those feelings are there.

Tom Romano:

You mentioned dialogue, Regie. I always thought in schools, that's the great underused form of expression, that kids don't put dialogue in their pieces. And I love dialogue. When I'm reading a novel, I love turning the page and see those indentations. I want to invent that dialogue that moves my story along. I think that makes for good reading.

Matt Renwick:

Really reveal characters and what they're thinking, and then move things along and apply. And as you said, evoke that feeling. And you've both used journals, notebooks, I should say, how do you use them specifically? Everyone has a different method to help, not just document experiences, feelings, and moments, but also to generate more writing and document your reading. Regie, how do you use notebooks specifically and why do you...?

Regie Routman:

I specifically grab my notebook and let me just find it. Start with Tom or someone...

Matt Renwick:

All right.

Tom Romano:

I have friends, Penny Kittle and Linda Reef. Their notebooks are just beautiful. I mean, they write in them, but they also draw in them and they're aesthetically pleasing on their own, I think what they're creating. And I also know that Penny, a lot of times will, if she's writing the piece for Voices From the Middle or any other publication, that she will often draft in the notebook. I don't do that. I can't do that. If I have a piece I know I'm going to write, I might doodle a little bit in the notebook, but I would get out of a yellow pad. And part of the reason I use a yellow pad instead of drafting on the computer is because I like to drink coffee and I don't want it to get cold too quickly. So I could write with my left hand and drink coffee with my other hand.

Tom Romano:

The way I use the journal is pretty much to collect things. People say things I noticed rambling around in my thoughts. As I told you, that I would start to write on a note pad if I had something that I wanted to write for publication. I just thought of an exception to that. When I came home from Italy in 2018, my wife and I spent two weeks in Italy and we came back, I had some things to write about and I wrote about them discursively in my notebook, went on for several pages. When I was writing in this memoir and I came to the chapter that had to do with that subject matter, I went to my notebook and typed a lot of that stuff that I used for the chapter then. I guess once in a while, I might start an article or a chapter in there. Regie, what about you? How do you use that notebook?

Regie Routman:

Well, it depends what's going on in my life, right, at the time. So like the article that you have for me, Roaming Around the Known with an Adult Learner, I'm working right now twice a week, tutoring, a 54 year old man teaching him to read. And so that's been pretty fascinating. And so you've got the start of the story there. Now we've been working together for 10 months. And I've always worked like this. So I have a notebook and it's just messy. But every time that I'm working with them, I'm writing down everything that he's saying, everything that we're doing, thoughts that come into my head. This is like almost a full notebook just from working together.

Regie Routman:

And at some point, you can see just a lot of writing there. What happened, what I'm thinking. I use it a lot for reflection and I know I'm going to write something from that. I have no idea what it's going to be. But it's the only way I can remember. I used to tell teachers, "Even though you've got all those kids in front of you, tell them, show them your notebook." Okay. Kids take out your book. I write down what just happened because I don't want to lose it. You just can't remember even the actual words that somebody said. And a lot of the kids will start keeping their own notebook. I think of it more as a place to reflect. Then I go back and look at it.

Regie Routman:

But this is such an intense thing that I'm involved in right now. So I have a whole notebook just devoted to that. And that's been really helpful because there's no way I could remember some of the gems that he says, it helps me with my planning and also the writing. And then I feel like I have a body of work there.

Tom Romano:

I mean, who knows if I'll write another book. But when I'd have a professional book, I wanted to write, I would go back to my notebooks from where the last book ended. And I would read through everything for maybe three, four years just to see what I could pick up. And invariably, I picked up stuff that I had completely forgotten about, that I was able to then use in the book.

Matt Renwick:

This is great. I can listen to this all day. And normally when I have more time, I send the questions ahead of time for doing a podcast or something like that. But we can tell Tom and Regie had no problems speaking very knowledgeably about this topic. But does anyone else have any questions for Tom or Regie?

Virginia Soukup:

Not a question. I just wanted to comment about Regie's notebook, since you encouraged me last time to start one. I have. And so I keep one at school about the different things that teachers are doing just to... Because that's what I like to write about. It's the work. So you inspired me to start that.

Tom Romano:

Regie, what gave you the idea to start writing in a notebook regularly? When did you start that?

Regie Routman:

I have no idea. I don't ever remember being told that I was a writer. I always wrote poetry for some reason, but it was the rhyming poetry. Of course, it's all free verse poetry. I don't know. I think it was... When I started this first grade book flood, what was called this experiment in this school in Shaker Heights, where the kids were all failing in literacy, I just did it. I got introduced to Don Graves' work. Maybe it was something I read from him. I don't know. But it just seemed to make sense. I wasn't smart enough to remember everything. And so I had to write it down. What are the kids saying? What are they doing? What's the plan for the next day?

Regie Routman:

It wasn't a notebook in the sense of the way Penny keeps it. It wasn't like I'm thinking about writing ideas. It was, here's what I'm thinking about my life, about one of the things that I did because I want those of you that are teachers like me to also be bringing your life into the classroom. So in my last book, Literacy Essentials, I interwove stories, professional and personal stories into my book and then recorded them to speak them, which I think is really important because for... And you can find that on my website, if you wanted to see that. I think for kids whose stories are not valued, their culture is not valued, and even if they're having struggle with reading and writing, they can record their stories. That's so powerful. Oh my goodness, look, I'm a writer. And then they see it in writing and it makes them feel like they're a writer.

Regie Routman:

So it's been always important to me to bring my life, not separate my life like this and cooking from my husband and not having hugged my grandkids yet and what that's like to bring that into school as part of the stories that I tell. And that helps kids value. "Oh, she's just writing about hugging somebody. Well, I could write about that." Or just not to separate it as their school writing and then there's home writing. I think of it as teaching, learning and living and they all go together.

Tom Romano:

That is a good title, Regie.

Regie Routman:

I know. I'm thinking about my next book because I think we separate it too much. We separate it too much. And Matt knows. We've talked about this a lot because we've become good friends over the years, is always all about relationships. Kids are not going to bare their soul if they haven't developed a trusting relationship with us, right?

Tom Romano:

Right.

Regie Routman:

And so that's true with school and it's true with real life, right? Everything is about trusting relationships. So I think they all go together. And so I don't know, I just write whatever comes into my head. So then I don't want to forget it. And then I can go back to it. I have like this. I probably have about eight notebooks over... One notebook might last me, I don't know, six months, it might last me three months, it might last me two years. And I keep everything in one notebook so that I can find it. And then I just read. So if I go to a conference, my notes are there. So I can always find what I'm looking for by the date. So I think it's a little different than just whatever works for you. But they can also keep just a simple notebook and reflect on their life and ideas and what they're thinking. And it doesn't have to be complicated.

Matt Renwick:

Just get it down.

Tom Romano:

Can I say one other thing about that?

Matt Renwick:

Please.

Tom Romano:

I think that writing in a journal notebook taught me how to write better. I wish that a teacher had told me, that had me in high school, "Keep a notebook. Start keeping a journal." Because I didn't start writing in a journal until I was about, I would be about 24 years old in the summertime I was taking classes. I read Daniel Fader's Hooked On Books. And one of the things that, he had them reading paperbacks, huge new thing then, right. Having these juvenile delinquent kids read paperbacks, and then also keep a journal. And I thought, this is just the thing for... I had some kids in a class ignominiously titled Basic Skills for juniors in high school would not turn you on. But I thought, this is perfect for those kids to help them write a journal. And then I thought, well, I better do this myself if I'm going to have them do it. And man, I've been hooked on that ever since.

Matt Renwick:

Yeah. Both of you as the adults in the room or the teachers in the room, you go first and then the kids follow.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

It is no secret that some traditional teacher evaluation systems are less than effective in supporting professional growth. Faculty want feedback, and yet tired policies and lack of imagination can prevent leaders from seeing what is possible.

Consider a different approach to this area of instructional leadership. Matt Cormier, an elementary principal in Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado, takes more of a coaching stance to his work, including:

* feedback that is focused on the future and on teacher growth,

* how documentation can show alignment between teachers’ beliefs and their practices plus current research, and

* engaging in more conversation and less judgment around instruction.

Enjoyed this episode? Share it with your colleagues and your PLN. If you post this podcast on Twitter and include my handle (@ReadByExample), you could win a one year subscription to Choice Literacy.

Related Resources

* Transcript + Audio

* Matt’s District Webpage, Bio

* Matt’s Recommended Sources for Research: The Marshall Memo, The Main Idea

* Matt’s Coach, Samantha Bennett (Linkedin)

* Literacy Walks e-course (Choice Literacy)

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick:

It is no secret that teacher evaluation systems are less than effective in supporting professional growth. Faculty want feedback, and yet tired policies and lack of imagination can prevent leaders from seeing what's possible.

Matt Renwick:

In this episode of Read by Example, I talk with Matt Cormier, a principal in Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado about his unique approach to teachers who provision. It is teacher driven, aligned with mutual goals, and focused on improvement instead of only evaluation.

Matt Renwick:

Hey, Matt, thanks for joining me today. And we spoke before about just this unique approach you have to staff supervision and evaluation. And so I asked if we could connect again and just kind of lay it out and just think about how this might work for teachers and you. Anyway, it's quite different, but can you just explain just your staff supervision and evaluation approach and what is it and why did you move toward it?

Matt Cormier:

So I would definitely say the theme of the approach is that my feedback to teachers is not about the lesson I just watched. It's not about today. The focus is really about tomorrow. You've got to go in with that mindset that it isn't about what you just saw. It's about what the teacher will do with feedback and what tomorrow might look like.

Matt Cormier:

The other thing too, I think foundationally, I have to say, I would never use this process with somebody I didn't know, or somebody that I was concerned about their performance. I don't believe that that's the right direction to go. With folks that you don't know, I think that it's important to have to utilize the formal process that's been approved by the school district and by the association. And I think that's key. And for somebody who you're concerned about their performance, I think that you have to follow that as well.

Matt Cormier:

Now, my situation, like many others I have a stable staff. Some of the folks that I'm working with, I've worked with the entire time I've been here. So this is my seventh year. And as I kind of reflected last year about their performance, I could go down the list of my staff and say, at the end of the year, my guess is this staff member will end up as effective. This staff member will end up as highly effective. Just I know them, I've worked with them long enough to know that would be the case. And so it kind of felt like that the structure that we had in place was going to lead to that ending, that maybe there was an opportunity for a different structure, something that felt different to everybody.

Matt Cormier:

So I guess I would say that one of the pieces of this process is that I still need to do what the school district says that I have to do, which is have a formal observation of every teacher by the end of semester one. And for people who are probationary, I have to have two formal observations by the end of the year. And so the way that I do that is they self-evaluate their work against the 23 indicators in the school district. And they submit their self-evaluation to me of those 23 indicators. And generally, I ask for that to be done by Labor Day.

Matt Cormier:

And then between Labor Day and the end of September, I take their ratings from their self-evaluation. I put them in the formal observation document. I take a look and I compare how they rated themselves against their most recent evaluation that I did using those 23 indicators. And I say, does this align with what I know about this person? Does this make sense? And if it does, I send them back their formal document. I say, "This looks good to me. Does it look good to you? Let's have a meeting."

Matt Cormier:

So in that meeting, it could be a long meeting, but not about the formal, the fall observation. The conversation about the fall formal goes like this. "Hey, do you agree with all these ratings in here? Yeah, you do? All right. That sounds good. Would you sign the document for me? Okay. Send the document. Now let's talk about what do you want to get better at?"

Matt Renwick:

Right.

Matt Cormier:

Because if I'm going to come into your room, say I'm going into come in your room six times, seven times this year, and I can look for whatever you want and I'm going to then look for research that backs up what you're doing. What do you want me to look for? What is it you want me to pay attention to? And that's where the length of the conversation happens for folks in the fall.

Matt Cormier:

So basically one of the things I love about this is I'm done with everybody's fall formal document by the end of September. There's no problem, nobody worrying about whether I've got my documents done at the school district. They're done. I probably could do everybody at this point. I could do everybody's spring formal if I needed to do that for the probationary folks. And honestly, I could start to work on the finals evaluations right now, too, because I'm just literally going to take the fall formal ratings and put it into a final document and have a very similar conversation in April. "Hey, do you agree with all these ratings? You do? All right. Now, let's talk about the other things. You told me you wanted to get better at this. Let's talk about that."

Matt Renwick:

Yeah.

Matt Cormier:

That's why I say, part of it is understanding that what I do is get what is required of me by the school district done very soon, very quickly so that I can engage in this process of writing letters of reflection after doing observations, which leads me to my next key piece here, which is when I write a letter of reflection, I am making sure that there is alignment between a teacher's philosophical beliefs about education and who they are as a teacher. So there's alignment between their beliefs with actually what they're doing. The teacher moves that I notice in class, and then I match that with research. So those three pieces.

Matt Cormier:

So we got to take one step back because in August, when all teachers come back, I asked teachers to write me a context letter. And the context letter is filled with their beliefs about what it means to be a teacher, their beliefs about good teaching and what gets them out of bed in the morning? Why do they choose to do this job? And so everybody is asked to write that and submit that to me before Labor Day so I have that. And then as I go into.. I reread everybody's context letter. Every time that I go, every single time I read the context letter, I talk and say, "These are the teacher moves that I noticed. And here's the research that backs you up. This is what the researchers say." And generally I look for opportunities to look for the things that they asked me to look for.

Matt Renwick:

There's a real shift in the power dynamic when you have teachers self-assessing and telling you what they want you to look for. Did you have any initial concerns as you shifted to this approach? You're releasing some of that, I wouldn't say authority, but you're just sharing it, I guess more than anything.

Matt Cormier:

Yeah. I mean, I think there were concerns, both from teachers and for me. The biggest concern for teachers was sitting down and writing a context letter. It's almost like, I would say to them like, literally, "Wake up before the house wakes up. Get a cup of tea or a cup of coffee. Sit down and write your beliefs about being a teacher. When you're done, you will say that was the greatest time you spent, because nobody's asked you to do that in a long time. And it feels good to try to reflect on who you are, why this matters to you." But teachers were nervous. They were nervous about it. And they said, "Are you going to check my spelling and grammar?" I said, "No, I just want your thoughts."

Matt Renwick:

Right.

Matt Cormier:

So in hindsight, I think I probably should give a devoted time and say, "I'm serving you the tea and coffee. Now we're going to sit and you're going to do this incredible thing."

Matt Renwick:

There you go.

Matt Cormier:

For me, I think the toughest thing was the idea that everybody delivers a train wreck of a lesson. And there are times where I've gone in to go through this new process and write a letter of reflection. And it's a train wreck. And I know it, and I'm hoping to God, the teacher knows it too, because if the teacher knows it, the teacher looks at me and says, "Oh my Lord," then I feel great. Then I feel great. Like yeah, nothing went the way you wanted it to go, or the moves felt awkward today. And if the teacher could just say to me, "Oh Lord, do overplays," then I would feel so much better because a lot of times I have this piece of where I'm actually wondering, do they know it was a train wreck because in the process that I undergo, I don't sit there and go," Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. That was a train wreck." Instead, I look at the positive pieces.

Matt Cormier:

And so it does become hard when you want to say like, "Hey, I think that was in your blind spot. You missed a great opportunity there to create a letter that might give that feedback," but it also makes the teacher want to get up the next day and do this again because teachers pour so much of who they are personally into their work that sometimes feedback about their work feels like feedback about them. [crosstalk 00:11:30].

Matt Renwick:

Yeah. In the traditional approach, they're not asking for feedback. It's just something you have to do. And when they write that context letter and then say, "This is what I want you to look for," the early shifts and the feedback becomes something that they want, versus something they're going to get. I liked reading your context letter, and I'm very interested in history. And you're very open about your history and your philosophy and approaching that. Being vulnerable with them, I'm sure helped them craft their own letters and feel okay about it. And you mentioned that you read their contexts letters. How else do you use that when you go into classrooms and give them the reflection letter itself?

Matt Cormier:

I often will think through, because the idea is to try to match their beliefs with the teaching moves. And so sometimes I've read the context letter before I go in and I think I know I'm going to pull out these beliefs, but then I'll actually observe something and be able to go back and say, "Wait a second. I remember seeing that," and then pull out another component there where you're just...

Matt Cormier:

And I'll write sometimes in the section where I write about teacher moves, instead of saying, "Hey, I'm going to match your move to research. I'm not going to tell you which researcher has got your back, but I'm going to tell you that your belief system has your back. When you say you want to do right by all kids and then I noticed that you made an adjustment in the lesson at the moment, because you were clearly teaching to one group of kids and you noticed it. And in the moment you said, 'Wait a second, I got to adjust something right here,' that's a point where when I write about that teaching move, I will say in your book that that is so aligned with your belief system."

Matt Cormier:

The other thing I love about the context letter is it says, I see you, I see who you are as a person. I see who you are as an educator because often teachers will share with me personal stories in their contexts letter. What gets them out of bed in the morning might be an experience that they had as a young person. Think of the, Thank You, Mr. Falker, Patricia Polacco book, right? A lot of teachers have that book, their own book written, and they might share something with me. And then you can see them treat another kid in the way that they were treated. And to say, "Look at how you believe and look at what you did for that kid," there is alignment.

Matt Cormier:

And I think a lot of times what I'm saying is I see you, I see you and I hear you. And I know you as an individual and as a professional. I think there's a lot of... My teachers have given me a lot of feedback that this process, they don't put on a dog and pony, they're not trying to hit all 23 indicators and be like, "I know if I say this, I've hit an indicator to see." Instead, it feels very different for them.

Matt Renwick:

Yeah. They're showing you the real deal. And again, I think it comes back to what you did with your own context letter of revealing your own experience as a teacher. And it wasn't always perfect. That's got to be huge. So I think you started with one teacher, right, Matt, to try it with, and it sounds like it's expanded, more teachers are electing for this more authentic approach. Is that all your teachers now are on it, or how many?

Matt Cormier:

Everybody's on it. Last year, it was opt in. You had to say yes. And I had almost all teachers opt in. And when I asked some teachers, "Why didn't you do it?" They said, "I'm nervous about writing the context letter."

Matt Renwick:

Writing. I gotcha.

Matt Cormier:

But I thought to myself, but you wanted the 23 indicators where I rate you, you wanted that. Who wants that? So this year it was opt out. This year it was, this is what I want to do. You can opt out. Nobody opted out.

Matt Renwick:

Yeah.

Matt Cormier:

Nobody at all.

Matt Renwick:

Kind of a passive permission in a sense, maybe that little nudge for those people who are still unsure. That's a cool way to think about that. You mentioned your teachers give you feedback. What do they say about this process now that you've got it now a couple of years?

Matt Cormier:

I think mostly what they would say is that it doesn't feel stressful. That it feels safe. And so that's probably the most powerful thing that I've gotten out of this period of time. Because I think that if we can create a very safe environment... Probably a lot of us as principals say the same kind of thing, right? It's that idea that why don't we learn through failure and success? Why don't we learn by trying? And we say all those things, but there are all these immense pressures on teachers to take those risks. That can be a big step for a lot of people because there's way too many other pressures.

Matt Cormier:

And so, if really what I've gotten out of this period of time, just a little over a year with the pandemic lockdown down in the middle of that, is that everybody feels safer about when I come into the classroom, then I'll take that without a doubt. I do get some really good back and forth conversations because when I write a letter of reflection, it always ends with, "Now, tell me what you're thinking. Tell me what you're thinking about, what I said or the research that I shared." Sometimes where I quote research, I'll actually make a copy of that article, put it in their box. "And what do you think?" And we can end up with a back and forth conversation.

Matt Cormier:

Some of my favorites are honestly, where I might have a question that does challenge. I recently observed a teacher who wasn't posting learning targets and freely admitted it. "I haven't posted a learning target in a while." And it was a great opportunity for me to say, "Tell me why. Why is it that you didn't do that? Philosophically, what is it that stopped you from doing that?" Because to me, a learning target is foundational to a good lesson or a bad lesson. To any lesson at all kids need to know what they're working towards.

Matt Cormier:

So this was a great moment for me to say like, "This is not a gotcha moment. I actually really want to know what is getting in the way." And obviously the feedback could actually be time, but my response on time is my son called me today and said, "Dad, I need you. I've just been in a car accident." I would get out of this building and go. He is that important to me. To me, in lesson planning, the learning target is that important. I would never, ever not create a lesson plan that didn't have a learning target and success criteria that everybody moved towards. So it was fantastic for me to ask, "What stopped you from doing that? What is your belief system?" And I think that is rich to have it be a place where teachers don't feel scared to engage in that. It's not a gotcha.

Matt Renwick:

And you're feeling safe too, it sounds like to share your own belief system about learning targets, but in a way that's not confrontational, just here's where I'm at. Here's where I understand you're at. And we're just trying to engage in a conversation versus a battle of wills.

Matt Cormier:

Because here's the truth. This teachers' evaluation around learning targets has already been written, right? It's already been written. Whatever rating that we agreed upon, she's gotten. And if somebody were to say, "Well, Matt, but what if she doesn't do learning targets?" Well, here's the thing. If I were to do a scheduled observation and rate her 23 indicators, do you think she'd have her learning targets up on that day? She'd have her learning targets up on that day. So the fact that she did it on that day, that I came in out of compliance around a 23 indicator rubric, that is not as rich and meaty as the conversation I get to have with her, when she admits I haven't posted them in a while. And I get to say, "Why?"

Matt Renwick:

Yeah, you have established trust and relationships. And you're clear about what you're working on. And yeah, no, that's powerful. The clear distinction between the traditional approach and you're more learning-centered structure, what skills did you need to development, Matt, in order to make this process successful?

Matt Cormier:

There's so many. I laugh because I am just struggling every day in this and it feels great. It's the best part of my day is to engage in this struggle, which is writing a good reflection letter. At first, when I thought about, I have to see if there's alignment between beliefs, actions, and research, I thought, how on earth am I going to do the research? I spend most of my evenings watching woodworking videos. I don't just peruse educational publications or read articles for fun. I don't do that.

Matt Renwick:

I was going to ask, when do you read the research? But you mentioned the Marshall Memo was one way you can kind of stay on top of current studies.

Matt Cormier:

Yeah, that was probably one of the biggest benefits, was somebody who was saying, "Get access to the Marshall Memo." That's an incredible resource because you just, you know you want to give somebody feedback about shifting of the cognitive load or you know you want to give somebody some feedback about their feedback. And you can only quote John Hattie's effect size on feedback so many times. You're like, "Somebody give me an article that quoted John Hattie. There we go." And so the Marshall Memo has been incredible. And then, now the gifts that I've received. My boss gave me a gift of access to Jenn David-Lang's summaries of books. That was a great gift.

Matt Cormier:

The other thing that I would say that I really benefited from is every time my boss walks into the building, I look and I say, "Hey, no chitchat. Let's get in classrooms." And then we go into a classroom and she helps me write that letter of reflection. And that has been one of the best gifts because to have two people writing a letter of reflection and me getting to benefit from when she looks for articles. Now I've got that article in my repository that I can pick. And actually she's doing that for a lot of people. So that was the hardest part was to write a really good letter of reflection and find some good research for folks.

Matt Cormier:

And then I came across this idea that my school district had put out these look-fors for when teaching moves were effective. And each of the 23 indicators, they've got quite a few bullets of look-fors underneath those. And I just thought there's some language. I don't know that I have to... When I write about the teacher moves that I noticed, and I want to write something that feels like it's worth people's time of reading and it really kind of matches what we want to say in an educational world and a professional world, well, there it is. I was able to say, "When you're adapting, okay, let me look at the look-fors. I'm seeing those things. Why don't I just pull that right in to my document of feedback?" And that's been a nice way to marry the old process of rating 23 indicators with this new process of saying these are the teacher moves that I noticed and using some of that language.

Matt Renwick:

It gives you the language to make it evidence-based and it's aligned and it takes a little bit of the thinking work and try to be creative, which I struggle with sometimes. What do I want to say exactly here? And just having those terms up is helpful. So I assume you would never go back to your former model.

Matt Cormier:

No.

Matt Renwick:

No. But if someone is thinking about, like me, truly kind of marrying authentic feedback and growth with an evaluation system, what would be some first steps in getting started in the process that you would recommend?

Matt Cormier:

I think I would ask you to reflect on this question that I was challenged with. So this, everything I'm talking about came from one of the most amazing intellects I've met in recent years, Ms. Sam Bennett, and that's who challenged me to think differently about this work. And she challenged me with this question. I would ask everybody to think it through as well. "Do you think that your current process is getting you the results and getting teachers the results they want?" And I actually, honestly, I answered back very quickly. I said, "Yes, it is. Because when I rate teacher ineffective or partially effective, the next time I go in, they have absolutely made a change."

Matt Cormier:

But then, the question I think, came up was "Well, what happens if you go in the next time or the time after?" And I thought, no, it's compliance. Right? The current system I have is about compliance and it doesn't feel good when I hear teachers say to me is they're nervous. Even the very best of them who say, "You can come in anytime you want, Matt." Because we've all heard that. "Come in anytime you want. I don't want to change a thing." The fact is when I walk in, I notice a change either in the voice or just in some of the moves. If I've got a computer with me, there's a change.

Matt Cormier:

And so I recognize that the old system, wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want a compliance-based system. I didn't want to worry in November if I had gone through all the pieces the district required me to do or again in April. And how many of us have written evaluations on Saturday nights in April? I didn't want to do that anymore. I didn't want to worry about compliance. I'd worry about authentic growth, something that the teacher wanted. And so that's what I would say to everybody first to get started, ask that question of yourself. Are you getting what you want? Are your teachers getting what you want? Because if you're not, then that is the definition of insanity.

Matt Renwick:

Yeah.

Matt Cormier:

You have to think about something different. And my guess is your school district, like my school district probably offers some flexibility around how you do that.

Matt Renwick:

Yeah. And especially this year with observing Zooms and all kind of creative ways to get in the classroom. Well, this is very helpful, Matt. Remind me, which district are you out of? You're in Colorado.

Matt Cormier:

That's right. Best district in Colorado. I'm in Jefferson County, Jeffco Schools, which is on the west side of Denver. We're a good sized school district, over 80,000 kids. And I'm super proud of this district. I've been here 20 years. No, 19 years. 19 years. But I think it's forward thinking, forward looking and definitely been given some grace around thinking through the different process here.

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What world are we preparing our students for? The future is difficult to predict, yet we are confident that a capacity for lifelong learning, including a willingness to take risks and make mistakes, will be essential.

One approach to developing fearless learners is described in The Genius Hour Guidebook: Fostering Passion, Wonder, and Inquiry in the Classroom by Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi. Both classroom teachers, Denise and Gallit share their experience in supporting students’ ideas and independence, including:

* the importance of first building trust and community,

* how Genius Hour can foster critical thinking, and

* favorite picture books for inspiring readers and learners.

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Related Resources

* Transcript + Audio

* Buy the book!

* A Middleweb article by Denise and Gallit about genius hour for remote learners

* My experience (here and here) using genius hour with my own children

* Every podcast episode on Apple (if you can, leave a rating!)

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Full Transcript

Matt Renwick:

Welcome Gallit and Denise, thank you for talking with me today. You are both practicing teachers, correct?

Gallit Zvi:

Yeah. Well, I'm on maternity leave right now, but until I had my baby, I was.

Matt Renwick:

Congratulations.

Gallit Zvi:

Thanks.

Matt Renwick:

And where are you specifically located?

Gallit Zvi:

So I am in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. So a suburb of Vancouver. Wonderful school district up here in BC.

Denise Krebs:

And right now I'm located in Bahrain teaching in a bilingual school, Arabic and English speaking school.

Matt Renwick:

And just with your classroom work, the first edition of your book, The Genius Hour Guidebook was born out of your work in the classroom, as well as networking with other educators online. And I think this was how I came across the first version of your book on Twitter. And at that same time, my wife was teaching second grade and she had a few students with some significant needs, especially around behavior. I suggested The Genius Hour Guidebook and its apprentice for her at the end of the school day, as part of her action research project. She implemented it and the results were impressive. For one student, their behaviors were reduced by 70%, seven, zero since implementing Genius Hour.

Matt Renwick:

And when she asked kids what made the difference, they noted that they just wanted to think at the end of the day. Your second edition of the book is out now and I wanted to make other educators aware of the power of Genius Hour in the classroom. And so with that, there's certainly more to it than just wanting to tinker, but what is Genius Hour and why should teachers incorporate it into their classrooms?

Denise Krebs:

Yeah, I'll go. It is tinkering as part of it, but it's a time in the school week when students are given autonomy, they're empowered to do their own learning. They get to choose what they want to learn at the time when teachers get out of the way and let them learn purposefully. That's why those second graders felt empowered. They didn't want to misbehave because they were entrusted to wonder, to learn, to create, to do research, to take action, to produce things they can spend time mastering. They choose the learning adventure. So, we think they become fearless learners. They make learning visible then by sharing their projects or what they've been doing and the process. So a lot of times with a larger global audience or just at their school level or with people. It's hard to just put it in a few words, but Gallit, do you want to add anything?

Matt Renwick:

That's good.

Gallit Zvi:

I think the short version of it for me always is it's passion-based and inquiry-based learning smushed together.

Matt Renwick:

And you mentioned too, trust. That you're trusting the kids to use this time for their own passions and interests. And I believe at some point it was mentioned Genius Hour should be proceeded with building community and relationships. And how did teachers know when kids are ready for self-directed learning?

Gallit Zvi:

Good question. So, we talk about that early in the book where we talk about how for us, we don't start a Genius Hour project with a new class until we've spent some time building community in the classroom. And so how do when you build that community? I guess it's just a feeling you have, it's hard to say that X, Y, and Z has to happen before for you go, but for me, if I have a new class of students, I generally spend the first few months working on building community. So having classroom meetings, going outside and doing leadership challenges, playing games together, just spending that time, getting to know each other and building that trust before we say, "Hey, we want you to do something that can be a little bit risky, to take the chance and work on a project and share the obstacles you're facing with the rest of the class."

Gallit Zvi:

That's some vulnerable work that they're taking on. And so we want them to have that sense of community first. So I thought about this before. I don't know that this happens and then you know you've built it. It's more of that feeling you get where you know that there's some trust here, the kids are getting along well, there's a sense of community. And so for me, our school year goes September to June. So generally I would spend September, October, November, and then not really bothered starting in December because we're only there for half the month. So usually a Genius Hour, we would start when we come back in January after winter break.

Gallit Zvi:

But that being said, I've also had the pleasure of teaching the same students for two or three years in a row. And so if I have the same group of kids or mostly the same group of kids, we usually start way earlier then, because they already know what it's all about and they're eager to start. They don't want to wait until term two. They're ready to go. But I guess you as a teacher, every class is going to be different. And so you get that feeling with your kids when you know that.

Matt Renwick:

You can tell when the kids are already by that level of trust between each other and among each other too, because you're asking them to make mistakes and try new things.

Gallit Zvi:

Yeah.

Matt Renwick:

I like this quote you included in the book, it's from Alan November, from his book that I've also read and enjoyed, Who Owns the Learning. He said, "If we teach one skill to prepare our students to survive in a web based world, it should be that of critical thinking and the analysis of online information." Survive is a strong word. And I would agree with that verb choice. How does Genius Hour strengthen critical thinking with students?

Denise Krebs:

Yeah. We know these last few years in America, especially navigating online information, misinformation, disinformation, it is so critical. It is a matter of survival, isn't it? We have people who are believing conspiracy theories and going doing crazy things. So critical thinking is a key to healthy living and healthy choices to make needed changes in the world. We have to have critical thinkers. And of course, Genius Hour is no panacea for that, but it is a step. It's one step in a process of students learning to trust themselves, to solve their own learning dilemmas, to make good choices and have a mentor facilitator teacher with them as they do it. So, yeah, it can happen and talking about that quote was about online, but, but yeah we have to teach critical thinking.

Matt Renwick:

And speaking of online information or any information, I love that you devoted an entire chapter to picture books, then inspire kids to engage in Genius Hour. This is a literacy leadership site, any titles in particular that you would highly recommend for any classroom K-12

Gallit Zvi:

Yeah. We love picture books there. They're our favorite. We love them so much. So in the book we talk about 16 different titles. There's way more of the course that you could use for Genius Hour. And so I was thinking about that, like which one would be the one go-to one and it's so hard to pick because there's so many wonderful picture books out there. And I totally believe in using picture books all the way up to any grade level when I taught education students at university, we use picture books there too. So, definitely encourage the use of picture books for all grades. I think the one I've used the most is called, The Most Magnificent Thing with a little girl that is working on her own project, trying to create the most magnificent thing. So she's is a little maker and she gets quite in the book when things don't go right.

Gallit Zvi:

And this little project falls apart. And so that's the one I've probably used the most in class to teach persistence and I'm sticking to it. She gets quite frustrated, but she goes for a walk and takes a break, takes a breather from her project and then comes back at it with fresh eyes. And so we have a good conversation with the kids around that book because a lot of them do get frustrated. They've chosen a topic or an inquiry question and they go at it, and then part way through, they're like, "No, I want to quit. This is stupid. It's not working. I can't do it." And so just going back to those character traits that we learned from the picture books and talking about what that little girl did in The Most Magnificent Things. So that for me as a personal favorite, I really like that one. But goodness, there's so many. Rosie Revere, Engineer, Anything by Peter Reynolds. There's so many good choices.

Denise Krebs:

Yeah. My favorites are The Dot and The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds.

Matt Renwick:

I think I brought several of those home with my own kids based on that list, I was at the public library and checking out those books and just made them available to read on their own and get some inspiration. So it's a very helpful curated list. Thinking broader with a crowded curriculum and even greater constraints with the pandemic, how can leaders convince or persuade teachers at least to incorporate Genius Hour as part of their day?

Denise Krebs:

I love the way you worded that question actually, because I feel like teachers, if they know about it and want to do it, they just want permission. So if a leader is willing to let them try, then I think they're going to jump all over that. But you're right that curriculum is crazy. We went from... I only had seven periods of English in fifth grade. We went down to two in the pandemic. So, how do you even begin to teach? We're not teaching the curriculum really, anyway? We can't make even justice of it, but I did do Genius Hour last spring. And it was just such a fresh air for the learning environment. The kids were so happy and it was just out of the routine and they were just at home working, so they had all their supplies handy and they made the messes at home. It was easier for me too, that they did art and cooked and learned music and languages and played and sang. And it was just beautiful.

Denise Krebs:

And not only that, they were doing English curriculum, because we're a bilingual school. These are second language learners. So they were defending their proposals, they were doing these beautiful presentations on Flipgrid and giving good feedback to each other. So much English language going on as well. And I think if the leaders are willing to let them do it, it is a beautiful, healthy way to spend some of this pandemic curriculum. And we can still find... We're always finding curriculum ties. It is curriculum. Giving them permission to learn on their own.

Matt Renwick:

You bring up a good point that you don't have to separate Genius Hour from the rest of it. It can be a part of it and really an independent opportunity to apply those skills. And you list quite a few standards in the book and how this applies really in any subject area. What is one thing you would recommend to a teacher new to Genius Hour and wanting to give it a try and experience initial success?

Gallit Zvi:

My gut reaction is to say, you just do it. That's the one thing. Just don't be scared and just give it a try. You can reflect afterwards as we do on any lesson or unit that we teach. Reflect afterwards and say, "Okay, what could I do to make it better next year or next term?" But give it a go. Don't be afraid, it's my first reaction. And then the second one would be, okay, now slow down and take your time with it. Really introduce it properly, read the picture books, watch the inspiring videos, do your own Genius Hour project and share it with the kids, and then let them go and then just have fun and see where they end up and you'll learn along the way. And then at the end reflect and just figure out, okay, what can we do differently next year to make it better?

Gallit Zvi:

I know the first Genius Hour project we did in our classes, that was quite a few years ago, Denise. I don't remember the year, but it was... I don't know. It was a long time ago.

Denise Krebs:

10 years ago.

Gallit Zvi:

No, 10 years ago. Yeah. And the way I do it now is a little bit differently than the way I did it then. It's like, you learn as you go each time and make little tweaks and changes and improvements to make it better suit yourself and your current group of kids too. It's different depending on your class. But yeah, I guess number one tip, just do it, just go for it, have fun, jump in, don't be scared, and part B to that is now that you've just jumped in, slow down a bit and take the time to properly introduce it. You don't need to jump right to doing projects. Get excited first, get inspired, brainstorm, do all those steps first that we talk about in the book.

Matt Renwick:

And the idea of the teacher doing a Genius Hour project in front of the kids and the kids seeing the teacher excited about a personal project, it has to be impactful for the kids, right? Well, thank you, Gallit and Denise, the book is The Genius Hour Guidebook, it's in its second edition, which always means a lot of teachers got their hands on the first edition. And so there's a lot. I've read both editions, there are more information in this current version and I would highly recommend it for any teacher, any grade level. So thank you for putting this out in the world and good luck with you and the rest of the school year.

Denise Krebs:

Thank you, Matt.

Gallit Zvi:

Thank you, Matt.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

Walkthrough forms and rubrics are tools we are sometimes pressed to use as leaders. Yet these tools do not facilitate teacher growth alone. It is the conversation between professionals, supported by classroom evidence, that actually leads to improvement.

Justin Baeder, author of Now We’re Talking: 21 Days to High-Performance Instructional Leadership, gives leaders a clear pathway toward our shared goals. I recently had a conversation with Justin on the subject, including:

* why dialogue is more effective as feedback than only leaving notes,

* the many benefits we see when we make classroom visits a habit, and

* why it is essential that faculty are clear on effective practices.

If trying to faciltiate professional growth has felt out of reach, check out Now We’re Talking. It is a solid approach to supporting teachers in the classroom.

Take care,

Matt

P.S. Share this post on Twitter and include my handle in the tweet (@ReadByExample) to enter a giveaway for a free copy of Justin’s book!

Recommended Reading and Resources

* Justin also runs The Principal Center, a website with many resources for leaders to explore for their school.

* Student engagement is one area of instruction that garners a lot of attention. I along with other educators wrote about engagement for Education Week.

* One of my favorite learning experiences is when students help organize the classroom library. Check out my brief video presentation (along with three other educators) for Choice Literacy on empowering choice.

* I discovered this interesting leadership profile about President Biden from last year (The Daily Beast). Biden is known for having both high expectations and a high tolerance for mistake making, which has led to strong loyalty from his staff.

* I have an upcoming course on Literacy Walks for Choice Literacy. Full subscribers - stay tuned for further details.

Full Transcript

Matt Renwick (00:04):

Welcome to the podcast. We're happy to have you here and be here. I've had the pleasure of working with you through our local educational organization on instructional leadership. It's been very informative for me to watch you lead groups and just learn a little bit more about what principals need and how we can use, I wouldn't say simple, but I would say very practical strategies to be just more effective and making me think about ways to rethink my days. So a lot of this work is based on your book, Now We're Talking: 21 Days to High Performance Instructional Leadership, but you also have The Principal Center and you do a lot of work out of there. And you work with many principals from what I understand, can you just say more about The Principal Center? What it's about? What do you do and how do you help leaders?

Justin Baeder (00:55):

Absolutely. So at The Principal Center, it's our mission to build capacity for instructional leadership and a big part of that has always been around helping school leaders regularly get into classrooms because I believe that that's where the true work is being done. Right. You know, if we are to be instructional leaders, it only makes sense that we would spend a significant amount of time in classrooms where the instruction, where the learning is taking place. So that's a big part of what we do. And through all of our programs through the book, as you mentioned, it all comes down to those key interactions between instructional leaders and the teachers that work with.

Matt Renwick (01:34):

In the title of your book as it's suggested, professional growth occurs through conversation around practice. So how do frequent visits to classrooms help these discussions?

Justin Baeder (01:50):

Yeah, that's a great framing there that professional growth occurs through conversation because you know, it makes sense. We nod our heads and kind of agree with that, but a lot of instructional leadership really isn't based on that assumption, a lot of what's out there of what's being done in the name of improving teaching and learning is much more along the lines of directive feedback, or kind of drive-by feedback or, you know, feedback that's left on the doorstep or left on a sticky note or left on a form rather than a true conversation. So I think to have a true conversation adds a human dimension that really gets at how we change, how we make decisions as humans. So I don't want to understate the importance of the conversation aspect there, because it is something that often we overlook, we think, "Well, I'm the principal, of course, they'll listen to me."

Justin Baeder (02:42):

It can be a one-way conversation, but really, if we want people to truly be open to change, we have to be open to listening as well, and it does have to be a conversation. So to your question about how does our practice of getting into classrooms more contribute to that? I think a lot of it comes down to context, right. As a principal, you're required to be in classrooms X number of times a year, and X is usually a pretty small number, right? The one or two formal observations. And I have to ask Matt, when you were a teacher, did you ever get visited much more than that, or was it pretty minimal when you were a teacher?

Matt Renwick (03:22):

It was pretty minimal and, to be fair to my leaders, that was just the standard practice. I mean, I think walkthroughs are just coming into prominence. But it was once, maybe twice a year. Yeah.

Justin Baeder (03:35):

It's my experience as well. And I think that's the experience of almost everyone that you just don't see your principal or assistant principal who evaluates you all that often. And of course that's because they're busy, right. There are a million other things to do. There are fires to put out, metaphorically speaking, and sometimes literally, and there's just so much else that instructional leadership is always one of those important but not urgent kinds of things. But I think when it's always not urgent, we lose the frequency that makes it not really true that we can have quality over quantity. You know what I mean? There is this idea that like, "Oh, if you spend quality time with your kids, you know, it's not about the quantity." Well, I mean, to a certain extent, maybe quality matters more than quantity, but you can't really have quality without quantity.

Justin Baeder (04:24):

You know, if I'm going to spend time with my kids, I want it to be frequently, right. I want it to be all the time, not just a little bit here and there, but very high quality. I'd much rather have a lower stakes, more frequent opportunity to get into classrooms than just that big once a year everybody's prepared for it, we've protected against any interruptions. I would rather run the risk of being interrupted or getting sidetracked or not seeing something that's all that interesting by coming more often and having more chances because it's in that frequency that you get the context that you need to really understand what you're seeing to be able to put it all in perspective rather than just be kind of a stranger to the classroom. Just like, I don't want to be a stranger to my kids and say, "Hey, I'm, I'm here for some quality time." We really got to invest that time in the relationship and in building the awareness of what's going on in every classroom, what's going on with our curriculum, knowing our students and what they're working on as learners. So I think all that context is hugely relevant for the feedback that we provide to teachers in those conversations.

Matt Renwick (05:29):

That's a good point you make is, I'd rather be interrupted while I'm in classrooms and at least I'm making the time, prioritizing that. And if I have to be pulled away, so be it, but at least I'm making that attempt. And as you mentioned, you value efficiencies of getting in there frequently, as well as the effectiveness. They seem to work hand in hand, the more times we're in there, the more context we receive. How did you arrive on three visits per day?

Justin Baeder (06:01):

Yeah, I think three a day just seemed to be the sweet spot for me. It's not impossible to keep it in your head, like you can kind of tell if you've done three visits a day. It's enough that you have to really strive for it. It's not going to happen that easily. You have to really push yourself to get into classrooms three times a day, but it also gets you around to each person on a pretty regular basis if you have about 30 teachers, I think 30 is a typical kind of average. Some people have 45 teachers and some people may only have 15 that they supervise. But if you think about an average number of teachers that a given administrator supervises, you can get around to everyone roughly every two weeks, if you visit three people a day. Sothat to me is what makes it the sweet spot andgoing two weeks without seeing somebody it's not too much and it's not too little. They're not sick of you if you've dropped by every two weeks, but you also are not a stranger to the classroom.

Matt Renwick (06:56):

That's exactly, I have 30, around 30 in my school. And especially during the pandemic I've noticed when I have not been there as much because of just the situation, I feel a little like I'm missing out on what what's happening. We don't have an instructional pulse as they call it. So in order to have these conversations be productive, we were talking before about school-wide expectations and having clearly spelled out practices or strategies, a framework to be able to have conversations around. So what strategies do you find effective? Not just for clarity, I think is important, but also for commitment of everyone to say, "Yeah, I, I hear what you're saying but also that I agree with that practice and I'm going to try it."

Justin Baeder (07:44):

Yeah, I think establishing a common vocabulary really is the first step. And sometimes we think we have a common vocabulary, but what we really have is common buzzwords or common terms without common definitions. I think the biggest opportunity in most schools is to simply get more familiar with the existing evaluation language. You know, it's easy to be reminded to pull out the evaluation rubric at the beginning of the year for goal setting and at the end of the year for writing the final evaluation. But if that's the only chance we have to use that language as our vocabulary, when we're talking about practice, it's just not going to be that familiar to us as leaders. And certainly not to teachers. You know, if they're only using this language for a two hour window every year, then it's just not going to reach that level of a shared vocabulary, a shared understanding.

Justin Baeder (08:39):

So I encourage people to look at their existing evaluation criteria. If you have a rubric like Charlotte Danielson's very high quality rubric that describes very clear criteria, you know, very clear areas, it's broken into domains and components. Those are all broken out very, very neatly. And then there are levels of performance for each component. And when we use that language on a frequent basis, we look at that rubric and we say, "Okay, I see this word is in this column to describe this practice," we start to sharpen our vision and get on the same page in a conversation so that we're not just using a common buzzword. We're not just saying, well, we both use the term differentiate. So we know what that means. We're using language in a more precise and leveled way because we're drawing from that common document that serves as our shared framework.

Justin Baeder (09:31):

And then I think we can also establish that kind of language that's unique to our school. You know, there are certainly things in every school that distinguish your school from other schools that make it a unique place. And being able to describe that in specific terms, if you think in terms of that Danielson framework format, if you can break an expectation into components and then describe levels of performance for those components, you're going to be in great shape and you're not going to be limited to just the buzzwords. And I think that's the key thing is to really be specific about what you mean. And I think the commitment comes just from having input, having a voice in developing those expectations.

Matt Renwick (10:11):

So you can take some of that language and make it your own thing, is what you're saying, as long as it's aligned with how we're being evaluated, but also really how it's related to success for kids as well. But you can parse out that language too, to make it work within the identity of your own school. So it's not just lockstep with an evaluation tool.

Justin Baeder (10:32):

Yeah. And I think people should feel free to add to it, not to say that we have different standards here, but we have unique things that we care about here that are more directly applicable to what our teachers are teaching. You know, like one thing to keep in mind about Danielson and other evaluation frameworks is that they're designed to cover everything for every subject, every grade, K through 12. And that means that they're easier for us to use as administrators, but they're not very specific as to what teachers are doing. So if you have a math department or if you have a kindergarten team, they are going to be doing things in particular ways that are worth getting on the same page about that are worth establishing common expectations for, but it's not the level of detail that you're gonna find in an existing rubric, like the Danielson framework. So being able to develop that in-house is just an incredible professional development exercise. And then you have an asset that you can use for improvement. It's a great tool to have developed internally.

Matt Renwick (11:27):

And that's where the ownership comes in because you're absolutely creating an agreement around those kind of terms, but on your terms. In Your book, you note this too and I could definitely relate. You said as expertise grows and you've addressed some of that low-hanging fruit right away, they're more easy wins, leaders sometimes feel this sense of urgency to be critical. And that's not always the best approach. How do you resist that stance in what should we do instead?

Justin Baeder (12:00):

Yeah. Great question. So this is a hill that we're all going to encounter in our climb to get into classrooms more, you know, the first opportunity is that low-hanging fruit, right? Like if maybe you're new to a building and your predecessor did not get into classrooms very much at all. Well, you start getting into classrooms, you're going to see some opportunities for quick wins that have been missed for years, and you're gonna be able to provide feedback that makes a big difference right away. And that's going to feel great. You're going to feel like a true instructional leader. Your teachers are going to be hopefully pretty happy about it. Maybe you've had to shake some things up a little bit, and people have gotten the message that they're not just going to be totally ignored and left alone, but after you've taken advantage of those quick wins, you're in a slightly difficult position because it's like, what do you do next?

Justin Baeder (12:47):

Do I continue to just kind of ratchet up the pressure? You know, if the next opportunities are a little harder one, if it's not going to be quite so easy to make those improvements, because we already solved the big problems we already took advantage of the easy opportunities. Do we just get more critical? And I think especially for experienced teachers, it can be really hard to find something that would constitute a big improvement. You know, we can make a little suggestion. "Hey, have you thought about doing this instead of that," but often the teacher has thought about doing this instead of that, they're an experienced professional. They've been down this road before. They've tried a lot of the things that are going to occur to us to try, and it can start to feel a little bit like we're just trying to find fault.

Justin Baeder (13:32):

And I think that's especially true when we don't have expertise in or experience in the same grade level or same subject area as the teachers we're working with. They can feel like our well-intended efforts to lead continuous improvement are just an unending kind of ratcheting up of the criticism. So I think that's a challenge that could on the one hand encourage us to kind of back off and give up. But I think it's an opportunity to get more curious and to say, "You know, the problem is not that teachers need to worry about smaller and smaller things and I needed to be more and more critical. The challenge for me now as an instructional leader is that I need to get more curious and I need to be willing to go deeper into our curriculum, deeper into the pedagogy of subjects that I've never taught." So that my feedback that I have is going to be based on a deeper understanding than I had before. It's not that we need to be more critical; it's that we need to go deeper to really understand the kinds of decisions teachers are making once they've solved those kinds of low-hanging fruit issues.

Matt Renwick (14:38):

I was just in a first grade classroom. I don't know if it was first grade; it was a primary grade that they were doing some letter writing and they had scaffolded parts of the letter. And I had never taught primary. It was intermediate. And so maybe in the past, I would've said, "That's too much scaffolding," or not enough. And I just instead asked, "How do you decide how much scaffolding, how many sentence stems do you decide?" How do you decide that? And she went into just a very great explanation of, we've been out for a month and a half, and I felt like I've had to increase my scaffolding so kids can be successful right away. She was able to explain that and explain her thinking, but maybe she'll walk away and say, "You know, maybe the kids are ready sooner." I don't know. But I liked that suggestion of being curious. I also liked the suggestion in your book of clustering your classroom visits, at least in the beginning around a grade level or department. And you mentioned before creating context, and how does that work when you're in the same subject area or age level, and how does that help your visits?

Justin Baeder (15:44):

So a lot of it is context and some of it's just efficiency, right? If you are heading out of the office to go visit classrooms, in most schools, there's some sort of geographic clustering. You might have a first grade wing or a science building. If you're on a large high school campus, you might have a fifth grade hallway, so just geographically, it's easier to go from one room to a room right next door to it. But it also does provide context in the sense that often teachers are teaching the same subject at the same time. So you can see one part of a lesson in one classroom, and then the continuation of that same lesson in a different classroom. And you'll know more about both clips of instruction that you saw, so to speak, because you were in that other classroom, you can see an entire lesson. Sometimes it would work.

Justin Baeder (16:32):

It doesn't always work out this way, but sometimes it works out that you spend 45 minutes visiting three classrooms, you see an entire lesson, you just see a different part of it taught by three different people. And that gives you, you know, it saves you the difficulty of being in the dark about where this was going, or what happened before, earlier in the lesson. You have three times as much context for the lesson that way. I would say the other thing that it allows is more direct comparison between the approaches of different people, because when you see side-by-side, same curriculum, same age group of kids, same day. It allows you to see more clearly the contrasts between different people. And sometimes your feedback can just be advising the person to do what you just saw there. You don't even have to tell one person that you're getting this from their teammate next door. But it really helps with the specificity of the feedback, because you can see those, you know, those comparisons between classrooms.

Matt Renwick (17:30):

That's kind of had an influence on professional learning communities, for example, when you're then meeting as teams and you're a part of that community, that collaboration versus using their time to have them explain to you what what they did, and you can let me get kind of a continuation. The last question I had is, it's just an ongoing debate of whether informal classroom visits should be evaluative or non-evaluative. I've always tried to approach it myself, as what I write up, my notes are not going into your evaluation. I mean, you could put it in there as an artifact and you walk and teachers have, but-one teacher said, but you can't unsee instruction. Right? And you can't forget about it. I mean, that has to influence your judgment, and she's not wrong. So where are you at, on this issue right now with walkthroughs and where it falls along, the support versus judgment spectrum.

Justin Baeder (18:33):

That's just it, right. That you can't unsee something. Once you know, it, it's going to factor into kind of your holistic judgments. You know, even if it's not a specific criteria that you evaluate someone on, if you develop a concern or if you see something really great, you're going to remember it, it's going to affect the way that you pay attention. It's going to affect what you notice and how thoroughly you document. So I advise administrators to never say that their visits are non-evaluative. Like, never say that anything is not evaluative because truly nothing really is not evaluative, if you're aware of some facts are going to factor in. But what we don't want is for everything to feel high stakes, right? We don't want every single walkthrough to feel like the teacher is on trial. And part of the whole point of getting into classrooms more frequently is to avoid this problem of those one or two formal observations, being "it" right? Feeling like this is a high stakes opportunity. This is my one chance to show that I'm competent for the administrator. This is my one chance to give the teachers any useful feedback. Like the frequency is inversely proportional to the stakes, right? The more we're there, the lower the stakes. The less we're there, the higher the stakes of each individual visit. So I feel like those go together.

Matt Renwick (19:48):

That's a good point too. You're going to see a lot of good things too. And those could be also a part of someone's portfolio of artifacts, if that's something that you have to collect. And so it does go both ways, but I do like that point too, just the more you're in there. And I have noticed that too, people are just used to me coming in and it really is lower the stakes when I'm actually coming in with the formal observation. It's just, "Oh, it's Matt again." No more different. It's just another day. And he's been in here how many times? So the book is Now We're Talking: 21 Days to High-Performance Instructional Leadership. I've been applying these ideas myself working with Justin. I have found them very helpful. And where do you find The Principal Center resource? And you have a lot of nice resources on that site.

Justin Baeder (20:40):

Yeah. We have a lot of free resources. If you just go to theprincipalcenter.com, and down at the bottom, one in particular that I think would be for your listeners is the note cards, just for keeping track of classroom visits. And we have software and everybody's got software they use for this, but I found that a lot of people really liked just having a physical note card. So we have a note cards template that you'll see there, at theprincipalcenter.com/notecards, where you make a note card for each teacher and you take three of those note cards every day, you visit those three teachers, write down the date and then put those note cards on the bottom of the stack every day, you've got your three teachers to visit and you keep that consistent rotation. However you want to organize them by team or department or whatever. It's a great way to make sure that you don't skip anyone. There are some feedback questions on the back. So highly recommend checking those out.

Matt Renwick (21:27):

And the principals in our group have been using those. And they've said that same thing, I feel like I'm in the classrooms more and they liked that quick opportunity for feedback. Really it's kind of an accountability system just to make sure I'm getting in classrooms. Well, thanksJustin. This was great. Thanks for being here.

Justin Baeder (21:47):

Well, thanks, Matt. It's been a pleasure.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com/subscribe

Every teacher knows these students: the reluctant reader, the class clown, the resistant writer. Cris Tovani, author of Why Do I have to Read This? Literacy Stategies to Engage Our Most Reluctant Students, views these masks that kids wear as entry points into understanding who they are and then responding to their needs.

In my conversation with Cris, we talk about:

* developing a partnership approach to teaching and learning with our students,

* planning literacy instruction long term so we can anticipate challenges, and

* how our own interests and questions can be models for our students’ inquiries.

Related Resources:

* Purchase This Book

* Transcript + Audio

* Listen on Apple Podcasts

* Stenhouse Podcast with Cris and Samantha Bennett, instructional coach

Transcript of Conversation

Matt Renwick (00:04):

Welcome Chris to the podcast.

Matt Renwick (00:10):

I was just sharing my introduction to your work. This is 20, almost over 20 years ago. Now your first book, I Read It, But I Don't Get It. I was a newly minted fifth and sixth grade teacher. And I realized I had to teach readers and not just reading as a subject area. And I wasn't sure what to do. So I found your book and read it a couple of times. I had so many post-its in there, kind of taking it to heart, what you recommend. And the text was much thicker with all the post-it notes inside of it after I'd read it a couple of times. I've enjoyed every one of your books since then. Your newest one is Why Do I Have to Read This? Literacy Strategies to Engage Our Most Reluctant Students. So tell me if you can, tell us what prompted you to write this book?

Cris Tovani (01:02):

Well, thank you for reading my book. I do appreciate that and for your time. You know, I guess I think for me, there was always, there's always been kids that I just struggled to hook and I really wanted to dig into to those kids to figure out what, you know, how do I get, how do I get those students engaged? And we were just talking about my instructional coach and friend Sam Bennett, and I think when she would come visit, that was one of the things that she would always ask me, you know, who did you get smarter about today and what did you learn about so-and-so? And that so-and-so was usually a kid who was disengaged. And so it became a sort of curiosity for me to think about, okay, what's that? What does that student need to, you know, just to dig into the text, to dig into writing and discussing them, just really participating in school.

Matt Renwick (01:59):

You mentioned Sam in your Stenhouse podcast and she noted that it took her four years or around 40 classroom visits before she could actually ask you a question that you cared about, or make a point that changed how you. What happened in those first four years? Was it around building relationships and professional trust?

Cris Tovani (02:20):

Well, if you don't know Sam, she's a little hyperbolic and I don't think it was four years. We always had a good relationship. We always laugh and had fun. I think what I started to really let her coach me was when she started sharing questions, she was truly curious about, and it became more a partnership than somebody facilitating people running through my classroom. And I think that's when it became fun because I was taking all these risks, letting visitors observe. Until she started taking risks, sharing what she did, what she wanted to get smarter about it, that's when things started clicking.

Matt Renwick (03:00):

So when she was sharing her own inquiries with you, it became more of a level playing field, so to speak.

Cris Tovani (03:08):

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we laughed because I introduced her the first few times when she started facilitating visitors for me as my coach. What I was really trying to do was give her credibility to these kinds of crusty high school teachers that had been sent there to be fixed by their principal. I didn't really intend for her to be my coach, but she took that to heart. And so initially it was like, "Wait, what are you doing? What, what are you telling me? Is this for, what are you asking me this for?" We sort of had to redefine our roles and she, she just didn't give up on me either. That was the other piece too. I think she just kept coming back and coming back with questions. And finally there was some things that I started to care about. I saw how much she could really lend them on instruction.

Matt Renwick (03:55):

Yeah. That story with her pushing you to rethink that one class and honorable of you two to open up like that. So that, I think I just felt very affirming when I read that. And I think anyone can read this book and just feel like I can do that and nd it's okay to make mistakes. Speaking of trust, um, you kind of use the metaphor of masks, which I'm sure you, weren't thinking about when you wrote this to our current reality. The mask, more of a metaphor of just the personas and personalities that kids wear when they come into your classroom. The mask of apathy and anger, for example. But they all seem to relate to relationships and trust that that we have with our kids, especially in the beginning of the year. What makes a teacher trustworthy to help pull off the masks with kids?

Cris Tovani (04:53):

You know, it was weird. There was that, that we wrote about masks, because we turned the final draft in way before COVID. I think for me, one of my core beliefs is that students would, if they could. That nobody wants to look like a loser or fail. And so when I would see kids coming in angry or fooling around. I just didn't want to label them as that way all the time, because I had seen them in different contexts. I had seen them around the school or on the football field, and they didn't have that same mask on. And so when they would come into class with that mask on, it was just this kind of fun challenge, really, to figure out, "Okay, what is this kid going to need to take this mask off and be serious like he is when hewhen he's on the field with his football team, or when he's in the cafeteria talking to his buddies?" How can I, you know, get him to really be vulnerable too and what his needs are or how he'd like to get smarter?

Matt Renwick (06:03):

Hmm. I'm thinking about Mauricio is one example from your book in the beginning. All these kids were trying to develop their identities at the secondary level and who they are while trying to fit in and avoid looking dumb. What you talk about there, it seems like entry points with these kids, not as necessarily bad things, they bring a different mask to your classroom, but as ways to engage with their level. So Mauricio did not want to finish his writing, and he was done. But you presented that authentic audience to him and that engaged him to write a better piece through the writing process. Can you say more about that?

Cris Tovani (06:47):

Sure. Yeah. Mauricio was a really great kid, but he really just intended to graduate from high school. Part of it was because he was undocumented and for college really wasn't an option at that point for him. He was just trying to get by with minimal effort. So when I think about myself, like when I'm just trying to get by, or when I'm doing something that I don't like to do, or that's hard for me to do, I've got to have a real reason to dig back into it. I think that having an audience that, that we send you, I send writing out to people, because I think that gives you an urgency to make it better. I don't know, it just seems like if a real person is going to read it, you're going to try better and you're going to revise it. You're going to put some effort into it. The kids all knew I loved them. So, you know, it was like, "Okay, whatever, this is good enough." But for other people, that seemed, an authentic audience, seemed to lend some urgency to kids wanting to redo and revise.

Matt Renwick (07:49):

So then that leads into the heart of the text is developing curriculum that you can anticipate, CYA. It was an interesting approach. You have expectations for kids, right. But sometimes those can be reflected in our curriculum. So how does your approach with curriculum so that we're not, I guess, selling them short, how does your approach to curriculum, CYA, help you keep your expectations high?

Cris Tovani (08:19):

Well, I read when I was writing a book, Sam gave me a little excerpt from, um, Steven Wolk's book, Being Good. He cites two researchers in there, deMarrias and LeCompte's, and their definition of what curriculum was. I didn't really know the curriculum was everything teachers do. I just thought it was, you know, the stuff you had to read or write or view. I didn't realize it could also be the way you arrange the seating in the room or talk to kids. And so it sort of opened my eyes, that curriculum is so much bigger. We were, Sam and I were sitting there doing a little revising, she helped me with the major editing of this book, and she said, "Okay, when you go in to do demo lessons, how do you prepare for these kids that you've never seen before?"

Cris Tovani (09:11):

Like, like how do you plan for that? And I just looked at her and I said, "Well, I gotta cover my ass." We'd start laughing, at CYA. So we started to take that Curriculum You Anticipate for mixed audiences. I know it was of gotten to like a PG rating now on your podcast. But to think about, if you're not one for longterm planning, which I wasn't, I didn't want to waste my time planning for kids. I didn't know yet, which was a big mistake because once kids come to the class, you hit the ground running. I realized that if I did a little bit of long-term planning, it was going to give me more time, in class doing individualized teaching or instruction because I wasn't trying to coax a kid into doing what I wanted him to do.

Cris Tovani (10:00):

And so, you know, you've taught and you've been a principal. You just start to accept that, you know you're going to have struggling readers. We're going to have at least one, and you know you're going to have somebody who's going to say, "This is stupid. I really learned this." And you know you're going to have somebody who says, 'Why do I have to read this?" And, you know, you're going to have somebody who wants to know, is this good enough, they need a model. So if I started anticipating some of those questions, as I planned units, I would have that text ready for the kid who struggled. I would have a reason to say, "Okay, here's why we're digging into this." I have a case study that, the one I had chosen to use as a model for the class didn't work, I would have another case study I could share with the kids. So he could see a reason. Those kinds of things in the CYA structures helped me with the long-term planning. So during the day when I'm with kids, I can make those tweaks. And those small changes to re-engage kids who have kind of dropped off a little bit.

Matt Renwick (11:06):

And you carry those plans for year after year, as any curriculum, but you adapt them to each group of kids that you get?

Cris Tovani (11:18):

Yeah. And so you thinking about, you know, I'm trying to couch, I'm trying to really cradle all standards in compelling topics.

Matt Renwick (11:30):

The cradling of the standards. I think that for me, that made a lot of sense,

Cris Tovani (11:34):

This is all that equity work we're talking about now, and fairer standards to different populations of kids and just trying to think about, if I can find a really compelling topic, that's going to be timeless. So work from the previous year that I don't necessarily have to change. The fun work would be, you know, opinion articles and updating the text. I am just trying to build onto each year, onto what I've done the year before, but not to a point where you forget what it was like on a first read. When you read the same book over and over again with kids, you just forget what it was like, and then you are not as patient. So I tried to model a couple of those in the book for teachers. So they could see that not every year they were having to throw everything out and start over again, because that is just grueling in terms of planning. And also, I think articulating what you've done between grade level as well. If every year the teachers are doing something different than, than they did a year before, then it's hard for 10th grade teachers to know how to build onto that.

Matt Renwick (12:35):

So you want that articulation through, throughout the grades too. Is there a tool or a template that you liked? That was one thing I was wondering too, is do you use a curriculum mapping tool or do you use more just a Microsoft word document? Where do you keep these plans?

Cris Tovani (12:57):

Well, I have a format and I have it in the book. I think I have it in the book, where I just kind of go through all those six keys. I literally just write them out. And then I have that workshop wheel where the work time is a major part of the time I'm with kids. And that's where I start thinking about, okay, what are kids going to read, write and talk about during that period? So, I guess I have two tools. I have one to kind of do a long range plan, and then I've got a little daily plan that is very simple that there's some days I don't do it every day. But I don't have to because of that long-term plan in place. I know where I'm going.

Matt Renwick (13:44):

You got two things in place. You've got the unit of study, but you've got the framework of the workshop model that kind of drives your daily instruction. I remember a quote that I appreciated too. Early in your teaching career, you felt like "Everyday it felt like starting over again." That's when you started and I felt the same way teaching too. in my first years. You started to integrate more purpose in your workshop beyond just becoming just better readers and writers, which is not a priority for every kid in our classroom. But looking towards something. You just saw that larger purpose. Workshop connotes making something, right? And so you talk about the makes and the dos in your tasks with them.

Cris Tovani (14:27):

Yeah. You know, I was an elementary school teacher for 10 years before going to high school. The last grade I taught was first grade before I had high school. I had learned a lot and had the privilege to study a little bit with Donald Graves and Donald Murray. And so I brought a lot of that old-school workshop to high school with me. I think my mindset was okay, I'm gonna use workshop to make them into better readers and writers so they can survive their other courses. I thought the strategies as really tools to access content. The problem was, you're right, when you say that that's not enough for a lot of kids. I wasn't giving kids a chance to use those tools to do real work. And I think that's where, planning with long term plans with compelling topics in mind, really gave kids an opportunity to read and write and talk about authentic things that were happening.

Cris Tovani (15:34):

I think it goes down to these reasons, like kids need more than one reason to really read a lot of times. I could get kids to do things just because they like to, but there was always three or four, especially 10th grade girls that would I just annoy, I don't know why. But it wasn't enough for them. But Once there was an audience that they were writing for that hooked those three. Sometimes it was controversial questions that didn't necessarily one right answer that hooked another three kids. Choice of texts with another few kids. So I started thinking about, okay, how can I give kids more reason to read and write? I think then that's when the workshop really started coming alive, they were making things that they saw a purpose in.

Matt Renwick (16:21):

You seem to add more structure to a workshop model in a sense, in terms of your long-term planning. I mean, you were very fluid in your daily instruction, but adding more maybe entry points, I guess, to the unit of study itself. That was what I took away.

Cris Tovani (16:35):

Yeah. I interview people all the time formally and sometimes more informally. I just started realizing how many people just didn't choose to read or like to read. And it didn't matter if you gave them the hottest YA book there was, or the best seller on the New York Times, just because you said it was a good book that wasn't going to be enough. Especially when I would talk to men or young men, they were like, "I want to read for reason, I want to read to be able to do something." And that kind of really hit home with me, that a lot of kids in my intervention classes were ones who just, who didn't read for enjoyment, who didn't read, because somebody said this is a great book. But they would read if it was something that was going to empower them.

Matt Renwick (17:28):

The stories from the book are great. And you kind of walk the reader through every process, from where they started to using these tools to be successful, empowered. This quote from page 67, I highlighted: "Our questions drive how we build our prior knowledge about a topic. Our goal is not to memorize facts, dates, names, or places; it’s to study a real-world problem that can affect how we vote, the health of the economy, and how we respond to an international issue." So you made a good point there too about providing students with background knowledge that, that they genuinely care about. What is your process for collecting this information and knowledge to be able to give them those additional entry points? I know you're active on Twitter, for example, you pull up permission from there. What is your reading diet like?

Cris Tovani (18:20):

I tend to get a lot of, I read a lot of nonfiction. I read a lot of newspapers. I don't read as much fiction and I probably should, because I think I like some of those young men of my classes, I like to read and get smarter about something. I think that that whole background piece: there's a study I read by Hattie and Yates and they talked about how background knowledge is the number one predictor of success. The faster you can assess what kids know, the faster you can build it so they can go deeper. And I thought, Okay, so what would that look like if we were trying to build background knowledge about an issue that you didn't have a lot of information about? So what I write a lot about in the book is Syria.

Cris Tovani (19:10):

I had just kind of heard snippets of the Syrian refugee crisis, and I didn't really know what it was about. But I thought, Okay, I think that would be a really interesting unit to build, and while I'm building that, I can watch how I build my own background knowledge. That will inform how I share with how I can teach kids to build their own. So I think as a teacher, and I learned this from Debbie Miller, an amazing first grade teacher in Colorado, Debbie said, "My job isn't to build background knowledge for these first graders. It's to show them how to build their own background knowledge because that's going to empower them." And so watching what I need to get smarter about an issue or a topic informs them what I want to share with students.

Cris Tovani (20:00):

It's like Syria. I really wasn't even quite sure where on the map it was. I mean, I knew it was in the Middle East and I wanted to know like what the big deal was and why Obama was crying because of the chemical weapons that had been dropped. I started asking all these questions and then those questions led me to nonfiction, but then the questions I had helped me sift and sort what part of that non fiction I read. It was such a big topic that even though I had to study that for two months before I taught the unit, there was so much more I didn't know about it. That then provided that sort of shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration that I could do with the kids. "Here's how I found this out. Maybe you can find your answer to your question, trying the same process." So I think it's like being more collaborative and just modeling those thinking processes for kids.

Matt Renwick (20:54):

Sounds like a similar partnership, relationship between you and your coach.

Cris Tovani (21:00):

Yeah. I mean questions, right? Questions drive, our curiosity drives what we give our time to and what we decide to read and what we decided to skip and what we decide to read more of. I think it's just a lot of it's reigniting that curiosity with high school kids. They're curious, just not necessarily about the topics we want them to be curious about. We have to create that curiosity.

Matt Renwick (21:26):

The concept of engagement has been around a while. But I think this book presents it in a whole new light and just allows the reader, educator to dive deep into your process and kind of walk out of it feeling like they can do it. The book is Why Do I Have to Read This? Literacy Strategies to Engage Your Most Reluctant Students by Cris Tovani. This is your fifth book, correct? And each one - they're all good - but each one gets a little better, a little more personal, a little more real, and funny. Thank you, Cris.

Cris Tovani (22:11):

Thank you for your time today. I appreciate it.

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