#SmallBites

As Texas is praised for/comes under scrutiny after its recent landmark #abortionban, I am reminded of a conversation between students talking about reproductive rights. They were on opposite sides of the abortion issue and yet, they acknowledged the validity of all arguments presented. They also agreed that it was wrong that men who fathered children were not held accountable, and that men should not be responsible for making laws about body parts they don't have. I was a fly on the wall. I asked for clarification here and there, but mostly, I just listened and let them know how proud I was of having students who could disagree about a heated topic with maturity, respect and civility. I may have said something about how they were way better at civil discourse than many adults. If I didn't, I should have. 

This year, that conversation or conversations like it, could be heavily scrutinized because of legislation passed to restrict conversations around race and gender discrimination. It could be scrutinized but I could not be penalized because I never offered my opinion. My goal as a teacher is to ensure that students learn to think and not parrot what they hear, even what they hear from me. 

This year, especially as laws around classroom conversations shift, ensure that you teach strong media literacy skills, critical thinking and ask, don't tell.

Use this infographic on the 6 types of socratic questions to help you craft strong questions and stay out of the way of student learning. 

Source: R. W. Paul, L. Elder: The Thinkers Guide to The Art of Socratic Questioning, 2007; via jamesbowman.me

Today we'll be flying the last plane out of Afghanistan, ending our longest war ever. To those who've lost family in Afghanistan, thank you for your sacrifice. I'll never understand loss of life on foreign soil, my condolences are with you.

To those who made the decision to spend 300 million a day every day for the last 20 years, I am afraid my sympathies don't run so deep.  As an educator, a parent, an advocate, I can't help but look at the Brown University Cost of War numbers and wonder kind of impact a daily 300 million dollar domestic investment would make.

According to the National Priorities Project, we spend almost 10 times more on military than on education. In fact, over half of the 2019 federal discretionary budget was devoted to military spending. What does that say about our priorities? We say that we prioritize education and our country's future but we don't invest in it.

The next time you have a chance to vote in a local election, I hope you'll consider what you learned here and vote your priorities. 

Find out about your candidates and their priorities at Ballotpedia.

My mom said that when I was a little girl I once came in crying. When she asked what was wrong, my reply was that the kids were fighting, and I wanted to play, not fight. 

I know that sometimes conflict is necessary, but why we're having conflict over doing our best to protect people--our teachers, our nurses, the frail among us--I'm not sure. This week, I don't have many strategies, only this from the CDC:

Due to the circulating and highly contagious Delta variant, CDC recommends universal indoor masking by all students (age 2 and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.

As you listen to this week's SmallBites, think of the costs and anxiety involved for those listening to news about rising COVID cases and impending court cases. Think of the unthinkable: threats to withhold funding in a year when students already need access to every resource possible. Think of how, by wearing a mask, we can change all of that for the better. Now think of who you can call or write--a friend, a politician, a co-worker with kids. Share the CDC guidance with them. Share SmallBites with them. 

Access and equity begin with health and life, so want to 'love your neighbor as yourself'? Try this: One simple ask, wear a mask. 

It's that time of the year, folks! While you're on your Dollar Tree/Target, run listen to my Babyface concert story, I had a ball. Oh, and special for August, I mention a few activities you can use to build community in your class. This year may be different because of what kids learned and may not have learned last year; because of what you may or may not be able to talk about in your class; or even because the last 18 months have shaken you to your core and changed your priorities as an educator. One thing that has not changed is the fact that all good years begin with good relationships. Here are a few tips and strategies for doing just that. 

Happy back to school!

5 ways to promote class unity and understanding:

1. Explore diverse perspectives by having students discover and retell a family history story from a grandparent or older relative or adult.Bonus points if they bring artifacts—or the relative!

2. Promote media literacy by allowing students to examine the story of the week using AllSides Media.

3. Celebrate learning by having students share what they learned or a challenge they overcame during the pandemic. Here are some examples.

4. Develop leadership skills in your students by appointing app captains to coach other students (and you too) in the usage and mastery of school related ed tech applications.

5. Build community and teach civil discourse by allowing students to lead discussions on current events or possibly controversial topics.

Visit Hedreich.com for more resources.

When my son finally made it to me at the airport to pick me up after a wonderful week with the Jefferson County Public School educators, he hugged me hard and whispered these terrifying words into my neck; "Mom, I got pulled over." 

Still shaken, he recounted the terror going through his brain ('just act normal, don't get shot') the menacing words of the officers ('cooperate with us, we'll cooperate with you'--why wouldn't he cooperate?) and the humiliation of standing in the high grass getting bit by Texas mosquitoes as they searched his car. 

I wondered at his calm in recounting it, how he said they were only doing their job, that it was no big deal. I held him tightly, thankful that I still could. It was 15 or 20 minutes of his life. He made it to me. Why am I still not able to let it go?

It's because too many BIPOC drivers are pulled over and far too many encounters end tragically. It's because in similar countries, US police officers lead the world in the use of deadly force against civilians. It's because my son has been driving less than 3 months and neither officer thought to reassure him that he'd be fine. 

What about educators? Are the discipline statistics similar in that the number of referrals in BIPOC communities are disproportionate? They are, and it's frightening. The bias that plays out on the streets between BIPOC communities and police is the same bias that plays out in classrooms each week between August and May. 

What do you think about your students? What shoe box do you put them in? Is it a help or a hindrance to them? To you? To your school community?  Where can you start if you want to learn about and mitigate your personal biases? Well, here are some tests you can take from the Harvard Implicit Project. Here is my favorite infographic on cognitive biases. And here is the SmallBites Bias Collection to get you started. Policing has its issues and departments are working on them. However, as an educator, I understand that change in K-12 equals change in policing and in every other industry. 

It's almost time to go back into our classes, let's go back being more inclusive and less biased in service to us all. 

I've always been one for a dramatic title, this week is no different. And yet, the drama adequately reflects what I see as the biggest challenge to learning in the coming years. Operating out of fear is always a bad idea and we have allowed the learning loss data to morph into an evil mythical creature of epic proportions. How will we slay the dragons, keep our funding and keep from going insane in the process? There is only one way. High quality teaching, one small bite at a time. Yes, there may be a few tweaks, but hopefully, you are simply going to be doing your best--like every year.

The educators I know are already doing a phenomenal job of being responsive to the needs of their learners, hopefully you are too. Here are a few guiding tips: first, let's approach this year from the position of strength. What have your students learned during the pandemic? Tenacity, team spirit? Have they learned to care for each other remotely? Have they learned to take more responsibility for their families and themselves? Have they simply survived the worst global crisis of their lives? Praise them for it. Remind your students and yourself that we have all learned things that no test developed for a pre-pandemic world will measure. Start there. 

Next, don't let the data scare ya. You can still only do your best for one student at a time, one class at a time. Do that. Do what you do best. Resist the urge to take your anxiety home about what will happen if you don't "catch the kids up". There is no such thing. We will never return to a pre-pandemic state of learning. The whole world is in the same boat. So remember, and remind your students, parents and even admin if you need to. Celebrate wins, learn from losses and do your best, just as you (hopefully) have every year of your career. Take care of yourself, take care of your kids. The rest will come.

Do your best, do what you can to augment learning (cause, hey, isn't that what you do anyway?) but spend this year just being grateful that we all survived.

What happens when 2 educators get news of a post describing 21 JEDI (justice, equity, diversity and inclusion) terms as Critical Race Theory terms being used to indoctrinate students in K-12 classrooms?

In part 2 of this podcast, Dr. Sheldon Eakins of the Leading Equity Center helps explain the tenuous, almost mythical connection between culturally responsive teaching (CRT) and critical race theory (CRT). Spoiler alert: Only the initialism is the same.

Once again (for the people in the back), critical race theory is:

"a framework that offers researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers a race-conscious approach to understanding educational inequality and structural racism to find solutions that lead to greater justice."--The Oxford Research Encyclopedia

"a theoretical and interpretive mode that examines the appearance of race and racism across dominant cultural modes of expression. In adopting this approach, CRT scholars attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural perceptions of race and how they are able to represent themselves to counter prejudice"--Purdue Owl

“not a diversity and inclusion 'training' but a practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship."--The American Bar Association

Further, "in the field of education, CRT is a helpful tool for analyzing policy issues such as school funding, segregation, language policies, discipline policies, and testing and accountability policies. It is also helpful for critically examining the larger issues of epistemology and knowledge production, which are reflected in curriculum and pedagogy." --The Oxford Research Encyclopedia

If you are reading or hearing that CRT is anything other than a way to reflect on whose voices are being heard and whose are lacking in representation; so that you can amplify the voices of all students, you are being misled.

About the guest:

Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D. is the founder of the Leading Equity Center and host of the Leading Equity Podcast. With over 11 years in education, he has served as a teacher, principal, and Director of Special Education. Dr. Eakins has a passion for helping educators accomplish equitable practices in their schools. He has earned a B.S. degree in Social Science Education, an M.S. degree in Educational Leadership, and a Ph.D. in K-12 Education. Hear an earlier conversation between Dr. Eakins and Hedreich on Critical Race Theory on the Leading Equity Podcast here.

What happens when 2 educators get news of a post describing 21 JEDI (justice, equity, diversity and inclusion) terms as Critical Race Theory terms being used to indoctrinate students in K-12 classrooms? 

In this podcast, Dr. Sheldon Eakins of the Leading Equity Center helps explain the tenuous, almost mythical connection between culturally responsive teaching (CRT) and critical race theory (CRT). Spoiler alert: Only the initialism is the same.

Once again (for the people in the back), critical race theory is:

"a framework that offers researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers a race-conscious approach to understanding educational inequality and structural racism to find solutions that lead to greater justice."--The Oxford Research Encyclopedia

"a theoretical and interpretive mode that examines the appearance of race and racism across dominant cultural modes of expression. In adopting this approach, CRT scholars attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural perceptions of race and how they are able to represent themselves to counter prejudice"--Purdue Owl

“not a diversity and inclusion 'training' but a practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship."--The American Bar Association

Further, "in the field of education, CRT is a helpful tool for analyzing policy issues such as school funding, segregation, language policies, discipline policies, and testing and accountability policies. It is also helpful for critically examining the larger issues of epistemology and knowledge production, which are reflected in curriculum and pedagogy." --The Oxford Research Encyclopedia

If you are reading or hearing that CRT is anything other than a way to reflect on whose voices are being heard and whose are lacking in representation; so that you can amplify the voices of all students, you are being misled. 

About the guest:

Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D. is the founder of the Leading Equity Center and host of the Leading Equity Podcast. With over 11 years in education, he has served as a teacher, principal, and Director of Special Education. Dr. Eakins has a passion for helping educators accomplish equitable practices in their schools. He has earned a B.S. degree in Social Science Education, an M.S. degree in Educational Leadership, and a Ph.D. in K-12 Education. Hear an earlier conversation between Dr. Eakins and Hedreich on Critical Race Theory on the Leading Equity Podcast here. 

Although I am a writer and a researcher, I also enjoy using pop culture references to bring home points about academic topics. This episode uses Grey's Anatomy's S11E4 to take an allegorical look at just how bad a problem can get when its ignored. In the episode, there is a happy ending, but not before a girl with a mass the size of a soccer ball almost dies. Her mother is undocumented and said, because of her fear of the outcomes, she hoped, prayed her daughter would be ok. Pretty soon no longer saw the mass when she looked at her daughter. 

See where I'm going with this?

Join SmallBites next week when DR. Sheldon Eakins from the Leading Equity Center will join me to debunk some popular myths in a 2 part series on Critical Race Theory.

This episode is less a resource and more an admonition. While I pride myself on not telling folks what to do, I am certain of this one thing: If we do not stand for liberty, justice and democracy, not only do we flaut the ideals of our founding fathers, we are heading in a direction that may lead to more devastation than we can imagine. 

Read our constitution. Read the preamble. Decide whether the rights of any one party or candidate are more important than the ideals that have made this nation great. 

When I saw our flag being used to beat the blue instead of back the blue, I hurt in a place deep in my patriotic soul. Have we really come so far that our flag means so little to those who claim the word 'patriot' as their own?

Let this episode remind us all of what we stand for and let's sacrifice individual preference for the greater good of us all. With this admonition, I affirm, I. Am. A. Patriot.