As I review the posts from the past year, I see two major themes: language/voice and equity/justice. I am grateful for having had the time to reflect, synthesize, and write throughout the year; and I appreciate all my readers out there! Today I want to focus on the theme of language/voice as I believe that when we give space for students to share their experiences, their ideas, and their genius, we are working towards equity and justice.
Information Processing
Tools for Calling In to Conversations About Race
A colleague recently said to me, “We know we are doing important equity work if people are asking lots of questions, when people are getting uncomfortable.” Like many, I like to refer to the conversations we have as Healing or Courageous Conversations rather than Hard Conversations. In a recent email, Elena Aguilar called these simply “Conversations About Race.” Aguilar writes, “Even if they’re uncomfortable or complicated, these conversations can bring relief, closure, and closeness.” I think that Hard Conversations are about me, while Healing and Courageous focus on the purpose which is to address racist actions, biases, and microaggressions. The purpose is to be an advocate for marginalized groups and to plant seeds of awareness, reflection, and potentially transformation for those who intentionally or unintentionally cause harm. The purpose, in education, is to continually ask “How Are the Children?” In this post, I want to share two tools to help engage in Conversations About Race.
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The Importance of Effective Classroom Talk
The productive hum of students engaged in talking and learning is like hearing a symphony, a favorite song. They are evidence of a teacher intentionally planning for and developing the expectations and strategies of effective talk with their students.
“Children’s speaking and listening lead the way for their reading and writing skills, and together these language skills are the primary tools of the mind for all future learning.” – Roskos, Tabors, & Lenhart, 2009
Increased effective discourse between students leads to deeper learning.
“According to John Hattie (2018), teachers can ask between 200 and 300 questions a day – whereas students typically ask clarification questions. Research also indicates that teachers should limit their speaking to 20-30% of the class time and the student talk time should be around 80%.” – Greenwood
According to Hattie’s meta-analysis, classroom discussion has an effect size of .82 which is more than twice the average growth in a year! When students talk together, their relationships strengthen, their oral language skills grow, they see each other’s strengths and feel an increasing sense of belonging, and engagement increases! Today I want to bring together some rich resources on classroom discourse, to support the ways that teachers scaffold increasingly complex student talk in their classrooms.
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The Four Pivots, Part One
The purpose of my writing this blog over time is to synthesize my own learning and to share my learning with others. As I write today, I’m returning to my purpose because I know how important it is to remind myself of my why, especially since today is the day I’ve added a “Subscription” feature to my webpage! I’m extremely excited about the privilege and opportunity to share my writing in a more systematic way with my readers.
In this post, I want to begin a synthesis of The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves, by Shawn Ginwright, PhD. This will be the first in a four part series, each part comprising one of Ginwright’s pivots. As I read the book, I was inspired by the connection between self work and social justice work. The focus on Belonging also stood out to me because it is one of my Core Values and because we know that in order for learning and healing to occur, we need Belonging. Reading the book, I had many take-aways for myself, my leadership moves, and my teaching. I highly recommend reading the text and know many educational leaders and learners will be embracing it over the years to come!
Protocols, Protocols, Protocols!
Yesterday I learned about the “Sailboat Protocol” and want to write today about the protocol because it has so many potential uses: for coaching partnerships, teams, and student engagement and empowerment. Protocols are powerful because they provide structure, interdependence, and language to collaborative conversations. Structure frees up our energy and thinking so that we can hear all voices in the room and create transformational ideas together. The “Sailboat Protocol” is a useful way to address personalization and equity because it is a structured protocol and because of the steps that keep the focus on addressing barriers and moving towards our desired state.
The Power of a Process Observer
I have to admit I was initially afraid to use Process Observers to give feedback on meetings. I read about the Process Observer (PO) role in Elena Aguilar’s The Art of Coaching Teams and was intrigued. However I had never participated in a meeting where a person was designated or trained as a PO. Fortunately a colleague modeled the process for me in a meeting we co-facilitated. I immediately saw the benefit for team growth. In today’s post I will summarize some of what I’ve learned and tried with the PO role.
We Got This: Tools for Teams and Teachers
This year, a team of teachers at my site read the book We Got This. Equity Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be, by Cornelius Minor. I highly recommend the text, in order to become a more reflective teacher, to center student voices, and to ensure that classroom practices and curriculum work for students. It is a rich source of planning and reflection tools. In this post, I want to share a few of the tools that we have used and found to be extremely useful.
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Having a Positive Racial Identity
There are many strategies and ideas for developing/deepening identity, in order to be an anti-racist human. This starts with knowing the “Why” and includes developing understanding of the intersections of the different parts of one’s identities. Below find some ideas around identity exploration.
Equity and Access: The Universal Design for Learning Guidelines
Just as we design buildings to be accessible by all people, we should design accessible learning opportunities. No two learners are alike – we are as unique as our fingerprints. If anything is a constant in education, it is that we can expect variability in the students and the adults with whom we work, each with individual strengths and goals. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework through which educators can intentionally plan for a variety of ways to access, engage with, and express learning. The learning is towards rigorous and meaningful goals. This is a huge move toward high outcomes for all learners. In this post, I want to share some thoughts and resources around UDL.
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Kid Equity Group
Over the past few weeks, two of my professional dreams came true. One is that I was able to formally introduce myself as a coach to my colleagues. The other is that we are developing a Kid Equity group at my school. Today I am excited to write about the Kid Equity group and some of our first lessons with the students in the group!