PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Steve [Intro]: 00:00 Hello and welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. Instructional coaches and leaders create the environment that supports teachers to continually imagine, grow and achieve. They model an excitement for learning that teachers in turn model for students. This podcast is dedicated to promoting the important aspects of instructional leadership. Thanks for listening.

Steve: 00:28 Examining the dark side of rigor. I came across an article titled, The Dark Side of Rigor” in the Independent School Magazine, and I invited the authors to to join the podcast and share their thinking. So I’m pleased to introduce Ole Jorgensen and Percy Abram, who are both heads of Independent Schools. So guys, would you take a moment and tell folks a little bit about the two schools that you’re serving now.

Percy: 00:58 Sure. I’ll go first. Thanks again, Steve, for this opportunity. Percy Abraham, I’m the head of the Bush school in Seattle Washington. The Bush school was founded in 1924 by a disciple of John Dewey named Helen Taylor Bush. And she believed fervently that the best learning came from doing and our tagline, “experience education” has been a part of our DNA since it’s early founding. We began as an all-girl school, we went coed in about 1972 and we are now a co-ed school K through 12 of about 700 students located just east of downtown Seattle.

Steve: 01:38 Great. Thanks. Ole?

Ole: 01:40 Thanks Steve and I’ll second Percy’s thank you for the opportunity. I serve Almaden Country Day School, we are a preschool through eighth grade school in San Jose, California. Much younger than the Bush school, ACDS was founded in 1982. Our mission is equally embedded in our DNA though, and that is to discover the gifts in every child. We are also a progressive school. We believe that children learn best in a high opportunity, low stress environment and we really try to emphasize student wellness and joy on par with rigor and trying to instill character development in children.

Steve: 02:20 Thanks. So when I read the article as being the dark side of rigor, I was guessing that that meant there was another side too. So I’m wondering if you if you might tell us about the two sides of rigor.

Percy: 02:36 Yeah, I think in many of our schools, rigor is purported to be something that not only students hope to achieve, faculty hope to achieve, but parents more so than any constituent group are hopeful in instilling in their children with the notion that increased pressure, higher stakes will lead to greater outcomes. And I think that is the more euphemistic side of how people view rigor and the dark side are the consequences of that. And consequentially, we have seen that increased pressure, higher stakes, leads to greater anxiety, greater bouts of depression, more negative student behaviors, and can ultimately, what I have found really discourage and dissuade students from engaging in really challenging, exciting engaging academic pursuits. And what I’ve noticed is that the sooner you begin to introduce rigor for the sake of rigor, the sooner students fall out of love with the process of becoming an educated citizen.

Ole: 03:50 Yeah. That’s really well said, Percy. I would add, in addition to the toll the dark side takes, the sleep deprivation and the emotional fatigue and anxiety, we have to recognize there’s a sub population of students of course who – I mean, looking at the bright side, there are students who thrive on, I think in the article we say, “being fed and watered with facts and memorization and massive homework loads,” but these are the in my opinion, and I defer to Percy’s workinf in the high school, but I think these are the exception and, you know, rigorous suffering, we call it, it does work for some kids, but it’s really other kids are paying the price. The bright side though, and we talk about in the article, when teachers demand that that students think deeply and stretch their intellectual grasp, like really push them to go beyond where they’re comfortable in terms of what they know and what they assume and what they believe, past their apprehension and into these academic challenges, intellectual academic challenges, as opposed to just a brutal workload, that’s the type of rigor that we are trying to regain or tap back into in the article.

Steve: 05:07 I’m hearing challenge and depth as more appropriate words to get to the brighter side of what rigor could mean.

Ole: 05:20 Yeah, as opposed to just workload. Just a crushing workload.

Percy: 05:25 Yeah. And that’s been my sense, Steve. Again, this is the fifth school that I’ve been a part of, the second school that I’ve led, at all schools, independent schools that is, now have this opportunity to create a mission and a philosophy and a pedagogical style that fits with their community. Being here at the Bush school, what I have noticed is there is no lack of academic challenge for our students. Our students are not only bright and capable, but they are eager learners and that is first seeded as they come into the school as five year olds and I have noticed that that continues on through graduation at 18. And it is very refreshing to see that our students want to learn more, they want to know how, not only for a grade, but really for the sense of, how can I better understand this material? How can I better understand my relationship with the material, my peers, and how can I, take this concept and idea and expand upon it for the growth of learning? And I think ultimately, that’s what the sensation, the joy that brought us into education and what our students are doing so well here and having served on Ole’s board when I was in California, I know that same joy in learning is expressed by his students at his school too.

Steve: 06:51 Quite a few of the schools that I’ve been working with, I’ve tossed around the thought that the COVID pandemic and quarantining of schools kind of put a spotlight on strengths that were in schools and weaknesses that were in schools. So more than creating something new, it kind of spotlighted things for us. I’m wondering, is there a connection with that happening? With the concept of rigor during that time?

Ole: 07:24 That’s a great question. I feel like – I haven’t read anything that that would be an academic research study or anything of that sort, but so this is anecdotal and maybe Percy has seen something different in Seattle, but it seemed like for a period of time during COVID, from March, 2020 until maybe June of this year, everyone was attuned to student wellness in ways that they might not have been before. I don’t know that all of the high schools around here necessarily adapted in ways that helped students stay well. I think if anything, the load increased with a lot of the memorization and so on, but I do think that for a while, people were really attentive to it. I don’t know what’s going to happen now, as we return to familiar practices ostensibly this school year, whether people will be eager to get back to the way things were or not.

Ole: 08:27 We had an open house right before COVID started and I think this illustrates it for you, Steve. This open house was the variety where parents come to campus during a school day and are allowed to pop into classrooms and our students come up and talk to the parents at the doorway about what they’re doing in class and parents can kind of observe for a little bit. So we had a dad that visited and went to a couple of the first and third grade classrooms and came up to me afterwards and he said, “so I’ve observed your classrooms and the first and third grade where my daughters will be attending next year and I noticed that, you know, there’s a lot of laughter and the students are working in groups and they’re clearly very engaged and they clearly love their teacher. At what grade you start getting curious about academics at your school?”

Ole: 09:13 So I think there’s this sense of, there’s this like false binary that if kids are joyful, like at Percy school, they’re joyful, they’re curious, they’re engaged, they want to learn, and they’re not suffering, then somehow that’s not academic. And I think that if we return to that after the pandemic is over, then I think we’ve lost an opportunity.

Percy: 09:39 Yeah, I will say my experience here has been that not only were faculty, teachers and staff and parents really attuned to their children’s mental health and understanding the effect that the larger world and the forces that were sort of coming, crashing down on them or having on their relationships with school, we all understood that. And we moved to a schedule that allotted a lot more time or breaks in the day, we allowed for different forms of assessment, which I think is a healthy way for us to determine which kids are actually accessing the curriculum as opposed to identifying the students who are able to access the curriculum most quickly.

Percy: 10:30 We gave students an opportunity to do different types of group work, all in the service of keeping them systematically engaged in
our academic program. I think we will continue to look for new and different ways to assess kids to understand that it is really not the rapidity with which you can come up with an answer that determines how successful you are in school and to also understand that there are multiple gifts that students bring into the classroom that may not have been recognized in the regular program. I would say I have had one or two parents who were, like Ole, who were concerned in June that we hadn’t completed the standard third grade curriculum and what were we going to do to remediate over the summer or accelerate in the fall and just in having an individual conversation with those parents and saying, look, if we’re behind, most people are behind. Everyone is going through this at the same time and what we’re most concerned with is, how is your child processing these forces, again, that really are changing the ways in which they are interacting with their peers on a daily basis. And I’m hoping we can keep that front and center as we move back out of the crisis of this pandemic.

Steve: 11:49 So let me extend that. In general, as observing in a classroom, what are the indicators that that kids are engaged in that depth and challenge?

Percy: 12:00 Well, some of them are the extent to which all students in the classroom are participating in the discussion. Because, again, it becomes very easy to recede back both physically in the classroom and sort of metaphorically and not participate if you have a number of students in there who are saying, “I have the answer first, I remember reading this last night.” But the extent to which all students are actively engaged in the conversation, I would say the extent to which the teacher is pushing each of the students beyond their boundaries and calling on other students who typically aren’t participating to be active participants in the class. So all of that really gives you a sense that there is action, there’s movement. That that’s one aspect. And I would also say, in the Helen and John Dewey tradition of learning by doing, the ways in which our kids are not only working in the classroom at their desks with their teachers, but are doing project based hands-on learning.

Ole: 13:09 I would just add a visual cause I totally agree with Percy. I headed boarding and a high school my first headship and we had a cluster of teachers in the high school where I remember being outside their rooms or in their classrooms and the students were so engaged in whatever the discussions were or the topics were that the teachers had to push them out the doors and they would go into the next class still going at it. And the math teacher would walk down the hall to the theory of knowledge teacher and say, “what are you doing to these kids?” So that is what we’re after that is lighting the fire and it’s possible.

Steve: 13:49 That makes me laugh because a whole lot of years ago, I was finding administrators who were looking for closure on a lesson and I suggested that when it ended without closure because kids were still arguing as they walked out in the hall, you probably were at a stronger spot for learning. Percy, in the article you mentioned some things that you were doing at the Bush school that I thought might be good to share with the listeners.

Percy: 14:17 Yeah. I’m happy to do that. So our high school was, until about four years ago, on a standard trimester program, 10 weeks per term, and each student took six classes per day. And what it essentially meant was that every day, you had homework and almost all of your classes. So you were coming home and doing homework across six classes and that at the end of a term, a teacher, because most of our courses in the upper school posts freshman year are elective classes, twice a year, our teachers will be creating a new class to be taught. So it just meant that the pace of the school day and the school year felt insufferable in some ways and was beginning to take its toll. And so we worked with an organization out of Stanford University called Challenge Success, where we put a team of parents, faculty, and students together to find different ways to sort of de-stress the day.

Percy: 15:15 And we moved to a new academic schedule, year long schedule that was on semesters and a daily schedule where the students met three times a day. And so they had about an hour and a half classes so that it’s all long blocks and there’s community time and what we call time for our students to meet with their teachers and advisors in the beginning of the end of the day so that no kid is leaving school, not clear on what an assignment is, not clear on what they need to know. I’m not clear on what their homework will look like for that evening and in the future. It came with a great deal of consternation because it did mean that we had to reduce the number of courses that we could offer and student choice was a big part of that. So what we did was implement what we call a cascades program.

Percy: 16:03 And our cascades program is an interdisciplinary time in the year, three weeks in January, three weeks in May, where we pair our teachers. So you have a science teacher or an English teacher who are talking about the ways in which Thoreau has influenced the scientists. And you talk about authentic learning and really touching kids at their passion, the cascades program does exactly that. So we added that element in there too, again, to add some student choice, but for three weeks, it’s just a concentrated block of time where kids are studying really deeply intently and purposefully about subjects they’re really passionate in. So we’ve done some survey work after that and what we have found again, the great consternation from students was lack of choice. The great consternation from families was lack of rigor.

Percy: 17:00 And what we have found is that in the academic day, our students are no less challenged by the work that they’re doing, find that there’s great opportunity for them to coordinate and plan with other students, find that they’re leaving each conference period at the end of the day, where the checking in with their teachers, with a clear understanding of what the assignment is and what work needs to be done. And then at the same has been true for our Cascades programs. We’ve measured the level of anxiety and stress and it’s gone down by about 40% in that time. It’s been a really big success. And our faculty have also found, I would say, sort of as an added bonus, that their levels of stress have gone down too, since they’re not churning through a new course after 10 weeks, not grading every kids in their class’s paper each night. And it’s meant for more hospitable environment and one that we’re centering student learning and engagement rather than on texts read, chapters filled. So it’s been a huge success and I would give all credit to the faculty for moving us through that change.

Steve: 18:20 Sounds great. Ole, I’m wondering if you might might trigger for us, a lot of our listeners to this podcast work as instructional coaches in classrooms or administrators who are highly engaged in the instructional coaching part of their administrative part. I’m wondering, what are the kinds of conversations you see people in those positions looking to have with teachers to assist teachers in making decisions along the lines of depth and challenge and rigor?

Ole: 19:03 Sure. So, one of the conversations at this school and at my previous school, the division heads had with faculty, because division heads in the schools where I serve, their primary role is as instructional coaches. For example, around the notion of homework, in 2012, I think it was, the Stanford’s Challenge Success Program, a bunch of their researchers developed a longitudinal study of research on homework and they extracted they created a white paper. It’s very readable. It’s on Stanford’s website, easy to get. But they aggregated 50 years of homework research and tried to distill some of the main points. And so, years ago, at this school and at my last school, the division heads talked about homework and in 2012, we’re able to use this white paper to go over some of the the findings and the guidance from these researchers.

Ole: 20:01 And one of the things that that became central in our conversation is, it’s really not so much about the amount of homework, although, there are some metrics that you can use that are recommended in terms of the number of hours, but it’s about the quality of the homework and the purpose of the homework and asking teachers to reflect on why they’re giving homework and what the intention of the homework is, really opens up opportunities to explore the notion of rigor and what we’re about what we’re after in our classrooms. At the boarding school, two things emerged from conversations about student wellness and rigor and this was back in 2004. The first one was, and we have a lot of control at a boarding school clearly, but we started the school day 45 minutes later. We changed the starting time later to give the students more time to sleep.

Ole: 20:52 And that made again, it’s all, tyranny of anecdotes, but anecdotally, the teachers said that the students were better prepared and more alert and more engaged in their early classes. The second thing that we did was we set up a test and assignment calendar and the division heads monitored it very closely. This is something that instructional coaches I know talk about as well. So that there’s a maximum of one major test per day or a maximum of, one project per week or whatever the negotiation is with the teachers because that, again helps give the students what they need. And that is time. Time to sleep, time to prepare, time to get their work done, time to do their sports, time to do some social stuff and have fun at school. So for instructional coaches, I think this notion of talking about why we’re doing what we’re doing, and then looking at ways that we can support student wellness without abandoning student achievement, but I think Percy would agree, they’re not mutually exclusive. In fact, kids are gonna achieve more if they have more bandwidth.

Steve: 22:06 Any sign-off, closing encouragement you want to put out there for administrators and teacher-leaders who are listening in?

Percy: 22:17 Well, the only piece that I would offer Steve is that, as I mentioned earlier, the reason why we got into this field in the first
place was really to see that spark that our students have as they are discovering new material, as they’re discovering how it relates to the world around them, and the extent to which that we can place that as a paramount importance in our work and our programming and in our curricular drive, I think we’ll see great success.

Ole: 22:44 Yeah, I agree and it’s going to take some time I think. I think we started this conversation by talking about how, and I think Percy may have put this forward, this idea that parents are driving this whole movement toward rigor and paradoxically, rigor as suffering is jeopardizing the health of their children. So on one front, we’ve got to work with parents and focus on parent education and that’s a steep that’s a steep challenge.

Ole: 23:09 But with regard to the teachers and the administrators who are listening to this podcast, if we come back to why we’re doing this, like Percy says, when you see that student in your class that gets it finally, and you have that burst of endorphins in your brain, you’ve been part of that connection. Or when you have these kids who challenge the assumptions you’re putting forward, who catch you making a point or a misstatement, or catch you in a bias statement, you realize that you’re helping shape this child, this young person for life. When they ask questions or when they question your answers. That’s what we’re after, that’s rigor. And we do that. And we just need to focus on doing more of it and realize that if we can do that and think about the wellness of these people in front of us, we can reset this ourselves across the country, especially at independent schools, because we have the privilege and the obligation to do the right thing for kids.

Steve: 24:18 Well, thanks to both of you. I knew when I when I read the piece that this would be a great conversation. I’ll put the link to the to your article into the lead-in as well. Have a great day, guys.

Percy: 24:34 You too, Steve.

Ole: 24:34 Thanks, Steve.

Steve [Outro]: 24:37 Thank you for listening. You can subscribe to Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud on iTunes and Podbean. And please remember to
rate and review us on iTunes. I also want to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter @stevebarkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTSteve [Intro]: 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the parents as learning coaches edition of the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. Parents and caregivers play many different roles, at times, even somewhat conflicting roles as they support children’s development. The pandemic has shown a light on the importance of parents supporting learners. In this podcast, I’ll look to share my experiences as a teacher, educator, parent, grandparent, and continuous learner that can support your coaching efforts.

Steve: 00:32 Parents supporting play today. We are joined by Madeleine Rogin, a parent of two, a kindergarten and dance teacher in El Cerito, California. I contacted her after reading a piece that she had written about the importance of play during the time of of distance learning. Welcome Madeleine.

Madeleine: 00:59 Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Steve: 01:01 The very opening of your article, you described how you miss watching your students play during the quarantine and I wonder if you’d just start by sharing a little bit of that with parents.

Madeleine: 01:14 Oh my goodness. I mean, we, so like, so many of us went into this distance learning experience, very abruptly at my school, and didn’t really – weren’t really prepared for it. One day we were just told we’re taking it all home, grab your stuff, go home, teach online. And I had so many questions about how to do that with little kids, but I just found myself missing the experience of being with children in the classroom and what I was really missing was what we call “choice time” in kindergarten. So the time of day where students are just playing. We put out lots of open-ended materials, blocks and watercolors and lots of different things and they are completely immersed in a way that they aren’t in any other part of the day at school. It’s all self-driven. They are so excited about being together in this playful way and sharing the things that they’re creating and their ideas of each other.

Madeleine: 02:12 They have such thoughtful ideas during play, and I missed hearing their dialogue, you know, when they would just create
worlds. And I just sit there and listen to, you know, how the bears are going to guard the castle. And now here comes a big dragon! And you know, all of this imaginary play that was so beautiful to listen to and in the way that they would solve problems too, you know, when things would happen and they’d be the ones to say, “well, if there’s only one purple block, then we shouldn’t have a purple block, because then it’s not fair for everybody.” So they would get rid of the purple blocks on their own so that everybody could have the other blocks and no one felt bad. So seeing them working out like, they’re just growing ideas around empathy and fairness and all of it coming from them, I just really, I miss that a lot.

Steve: 03:03 Well, I thought of you this week when I stopped at the at the grocery store and here in Switzerland with all the produce, they have scales that that print the price. So you pick up your produce and you put it on the scale and press the button that tells the scale what it is that you bought and it prints off the little sticker to put on it. And as I was approaching the scale, this little lad, somewhere between two and three came up to the scale and he was carrying a can, which I don’t know where he got, but he reached up, it was like up over the top of his head. He plopped it on the scale, but then realized he couldn’t reach any of the buttons to push them. So I was watching for a while. So he looked around and he found a sticker that somebody didn’t use and he picked it up and put the sticker on and headed off over to the to the shopping cart. And I was just laughing the whole time I was watching him. It was so much fun.

Madeleine: 04:10 Oh, that’s great. It’s so funny, I see my kids doing things like that in the classroom a lot. We have fake – not fake, we have scales that they can use to, you know, take different little toys or stuffed animals and practice weighing them. And it’s really fun to see how serious they are about their experiments that they’re creating, you know?

Steve: 04:30 Yeah. Just terrific. So I’m wondering if you could talk about the the importance of play and the impact that it has on physical, mental, social-emotional wellbeing. How does it plug in there?

Madeleine: 04:48 I think it’s so important. I know that social-emotional learning is becoming more and more valued and, you know, adopted by so many schools like, really great robust programs. We have one that we use called the toolbox, which is about giving kids these different tools that they have, you know, whether it’s like the empathy tool or the listening tool, and then they practice using their tools in different ways. And I love the fact that schools are adopting this because it’s so essential to this, you know, whole child, the wellbeing of students that we really pay attention to what’s happening emotionally, and that they start to name their feelings and recognize feelings in others. And I have to say, you know, I worry sometimes just like in all aspects of teaching that when it’s too top down, when it’s too much about, here’s the curriculum, and here’s what you need to know, that if we don’t balance that with giving kids the opportunity to practice and have a lot of time with each other in play, especially young children, but I think children of all ages need these opportunities to experience conflict, to experience a problem.

Madeleine: 06:04 You know, when kids are playing, they are so self-directed and so motivated to solve their own problems in a way that they’re not at other times of the day, because they have these goals that they’ve set for themselves. You know, whether it’s, I really want – we have these beautiful tools in our class called Magna-Tiles, that they all fit together in these different ways and they’re very colorful and they’re very popular. And so often, there’s conflict around them and the students have to file these conflicts with each other and through play, they’re able to discover new ways of communicating with each other, and they’re able to practice using language around this is how I feel. We teach in our class something called “i-messages,” which is when you’re having an emotion, it’s difficult and you’re angry at somebody to say, instead of saying, “stop it” or “why did you do that?” To say, “I feel sad when I don’t have what I need when I’m playing.” And, “I would like to have some more blocks,” or “I feel sad when you walked away from me.” So really practicing, locating the feeling and communicating it to their friends and that all happens during play naturally. So I think that’s really important – all these skills that they’re working on through play just socially-emotionally are so important.

Steve: 07:25 As I was listening to you, I’m thinking of watching kids play in the yard or on a playground with other kids or playing at home alone. What’s the role that a parent – I was going to ask what the role is, but I guess I’m better asking, what’s the thinking that that would be doing as they’re watching kids?

Madeleine: 07:51 I love that question. So often, I think we can, I’ve done it as a parent, we want to direct, and we want things to go a certain way. I think it happens because we have ideas about how things should be, whether it’s that, you know, we should always be nice to each other, lids should never fight or if they do fight, it should look a certain way or, you know, it makes us uncomfortable. I know for me, I don’t like it when my kids fight. And I remember my mom, when I would fight with my sister, my mom would always say, “birds in their little nest agree.” And that didn’t really work, but we, you know, I understand that feeling to want to kind of direct and then have things look a certain way, but what really is powerful for kids – when parents are present, when they’re near, when they’re as much as he can be, you know, like, I’m imagining play outside in the backyard or play somewhere where you are sort of near what’s happening to be able to listen in and notice when they might need some support or guidance that isn’t necessarily telling them, here’s what you need to do, here’s what you need to say, but saying, have you – first of all, asking questions.

Madeleine: 08:55 Like, “how are you feeling?” Or noticing – giving kids, you know, recognizing that you see what’s happening for them. So rather than saying, “why are you doing that?” Saying, “I’m noticing that you seem frustrated, are you feeling frustrated?” And allowing kids to name their emotions before they get to the next step, which is what they need to happen or what they want to be different. So a lot of listening and watching and observing, and then giving them guidance, you know, whether it’s have you tried telling your sister, “I really am sad because I really wanted to play this game with you” and allowing the other child to also communicate their feelings and needs. Another thing that parents can do that can be really fun is just taking notes on what your children are saying and doing when they’re playing.

Madeleine: 09:51 I mean, it’s really fun to have that just for your own memories and to talk about later when your kids are older, but also because you’re learning all of these new and different things about your kids when they’re playing, because they’re creating these worlds often, especially in imaginary play. And just to notice what’s happening and what they’re interested in and what kinds of characters they develop and how these characters that they develop in play can influence them in non play times. You know, like you can bring that back to your child and say, I remember when you were the queen of the world. You remember that feeling when you were the queen of the world and what you, and how you were so powerful and all these beautiful things that happened when you were playing that game. I think for kids, they feel really valued and seen in a different way when the adults around them pay attention to the way that they play.

Madeleine: 10:40 I think it makes them feel like, really important in a really nice way. And it’s kind of, again, this is coming from them. So it’s a way that you can honor who your child is. And, you know, that’s very child centered. It’s not so much about, you know, what have you achieved or how are you doing your chores, or, you know, how are you doing in school, but more just being present for this other part of their creativity.

Steve: 11:11 One of the one of the sites that you recommended in an article that that I followed up on, I found this quote, it’s really connecting to what you’re saying now and as a parent and grandparent, I’m going to hang on to this quote. It said, “memories of joyful and meaningful play experiences, help bind families together emotionally, even long after children are grown.” Can you speak to that a little?

Madeleine: 11:46 Well, when we’re playing, adults too, because I know when I play, mostly it’s with, because I’m a teacher, it’s more – it’s rare to have experiences with other adults when you’re actually playing in the way that kids play. But it happened. I remember when my school did I get an intentional play bonding activity and all the teachers went to this place called adventure playground and we all played together for a couple hours. And to that quote, I remember that forever because I saw things in my colleagues I’d never seen before. Like the kind of silliness and joy and the way that there were these zip lines at the playground and I saw teachers on those ziplines that I never would have expected would do something like that. And we had challenges we had to complete. You know, I think so you’re learning new things about each other in play and it can be surprising.

Madeleine: 12:39 And I think those moments, it feels like time stops and it’s very rich in a different way than other other times of the day when things are again, more kind of goal oriented and in different way, or you have tasks that you need to accomplish. I mean, this is a time when it’s almost like being in the theater. You know, that feeling of being in the theater where it’s kind of magical, anything could happen, everybody’s an actor and we don’t get those experiences a lot outside of play and especially as adults. So doing that with kids, I mean, those are the things I think your children remember too, when you’re able to enter into that world. And whether it’s a game that you all play together or some experiencing nature where you’re just kind of, you know, children love to go into nature and like make forts anywhere, especially young kids, like in the house, anywhere. And if you enter into that with them, like go into the fort with them and even just read in there or allow them to tell you their ideas about their building. Yeah, I think it does have a magical quality that creates these really beautiful memories.

Steve: 13:49 You’re spinning me back to one with my grandkids. And they’re separated by by five years, but we spent the day picnicking on the side of a creek, pretty big creek, but we went in and built a hot tub by piling the rocks up and sitting in the tub as the water – and that was probably five years ago and it’s not uncommon if we’re anywhere near a creek or reexamining a spot that we’re at, they’ll go back to that story and say something about the hot tub or something that happened that day. So it really did sink in our memories.

Madeleine: 14:38 Right. And for them to see you as a participant in that play, you know, that I think is so meaningful for kids to know that their family members, the adults around them want to go there them, you know, I think it means a lot.

Steve: 14:55 My 13 year old grandchild is a swimmer and just loves the water. I mean, constant water. And they just last week, took two days off to sneak to the shore for some fresh air out of the quarantine. But the picture that I got sent was my daughter going into the water that was way too cold, but she had to go in because her 13 year old daughter was shaming her into play.

Madeleine: 15:32 [laughter] The things we

Steve: 15:32 And I know that that’s a precious moment that they’ll hang on to.

Madeleine: 15:38 And that’s interesting is there always is risk I think involved, especially for adults, it’s not necessarily always about getting into cold water, but the risk of seeming childlike or the risk of losing authority in some way.

Steve: 15:52 Trust me, I’ve been the dragon underneath the sliding board, trying to grab a leg of the of the person going down the board and having to growl from under there and hope that there weren’t other adults who saw me hiding there. But you’re right, those moments, they do stick with us forever. I’m wondering if there’s any last words of encouragement you’d like to leave for parents here?

Madeleine: 16:20 Well, I just keep thinking about – I know like I’m a single parent and time can be full and there’s lots of can constraints
in there’s stress and so I’m just thinking about like empathizing with parents who, you know, may be thinking, well, this sounds great, but we’re busy and you know, how can we actually make play happen at home? And I guess I would just say, you know, thinking back to my own childhood what really works for me as a child with my mom, especially who’s an artist and a playwright, was when I always wanted her to kind of just be present for me. And when she would do that and allow us to write plays together or act out scenes, or, you know, just kind of enter into play in this theatrical way, I always felt so loved. And so I guess I would just say for parents, it really is pretty simple to create an environment where children are showing you how they play.

Madeleine: 17:17 And it really is just about being present and maybe taking a moment, like an hour or a half hour to just kind of sit with your kids and ask them questions. Like, what are you interested in right now? What are you doing when you play? And watching, especially with young kids, it’s a lot of observing, but with older kids, it’s conversation about their curiosity and what they’re really interested in. And play looks different at different ages. And sometimes it is just dialogue. Sometimes it’s just, you know, that. But just for parents to know it’s complicated and I think it can really, it can relieve stress when you slow down a little bit, especially now with everything being so kind of at our fingertips. And sometimes it involves like leaving the house and going into the yard away from distractions, but just that simplicity of being present for your kids, I think is what I’d say.

Steve: 18:10 Thank you. It’s a great connect. I just recorded a podcast this week with a school counselor focusing on middle school kids. And her advice for parents was that conversation was that was that critical spot and play, it actually creates an easier time with older students to have that conversation during a playful moment, rather than an investigatory parent question.

Madeleine: 18:44 Exactly. Yes. And also that reminds me too, as the importance of older kids as being really – and they don’t love this all the time. I have two teenagers who are like mom, stop telling us about your childhood, but I still do it because I want them to know stories from my own life. So I feel like for parents of older kids, to be able to just relay times that you felt really excited about your own creativity or playing or learning, whatever that moment is that you want to connect around with your kids to be able to share your own experiences I think is really important too.

Steve: 19:21 Thank you. Thank you. Madeleine, we’ll put your we’ll put your email address into the lead-in to this podcast along with links to that that article that I mentioned, you want to go ahead and go and share your your email address so that people who are listening can grab onto it too?

Madeleine: 19:42 Yes. So it’s my full name, which is madeleinerogin@gmail.com. A lot of the writing that I’ve done is on Medium. So you can
find that at medium.com and just search under my name and a lot of the blogs that I’ve written are on there. Yeah, and I’m coming out with a book.

Steve: 20:05 Oh, terrific.

Madeleine: 20:05 Yes, it’s called “Early and Often: An Educator’s Guide to Conversations About Race and Racism With Young Children” and actually meeting you has inspired me to propose a book about play.

Steve: 20:21 Alright!

Madeleine: 20:21 So I just put that into the company I work with and then hopefully we’ll get this into, I keep thinking about it beause I
really appreciate these conversations. I think it’s so important to talk about play right now.

Steve: 20:34 Well let me know when your new book comes out and we’ll have you back on the podcast around that book.

Madeleine: 20:40 Yay!

Steve: 20:41 Alright, thank you.

Madeleine: 20:41 Thank you.

Steve [Outro]: 20:44 Thank you for listening. You can subscribe to Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud on iTunes and Podbean. And please remember to rate and review us on iTunes. I also want to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter @stevebarkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTAnnouncer: 00:00 Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud is brought to you by Academy for Educators. Online, professional development for teachers and leaders. Online courses, modules, and micro-credential programs for teachers to enhance their skillsets. Now featuring the instructional coaching micro-credential including five online modules framed around the work of Steve Barkley. Learn, grow, inspire. Academyforeducators.org.

Steve [Intro]: 00:25 Hello and welcome to the Steve Barkley ponders out loud podcast for over three decades. I’ve had the opportunity to learn with educators at all levels, both nationally and internationally. I invite you to listen as I explore my thoughts and learning on a variety of topics connected to teaching, learning, and leading with some of the best and brightest educators from around the globe. Thanks for listening in.

Steve: 00:49 Supporting teachers’ social emotional needs with Sherry St. Clair. Today, my guest is Sherry St. Clair. She’s the author of “Coaching Redefined,” a guide to leading meaningful instructional coaching. Sherry is an experienced instructional coach and school administrator and I recently had the opportunity to join her on a panel at Jim Knight’s Teaching, Learning, Coaching conference. I also got a chance to complete the virtual workshop session that she provided there that looked at the same topic that we have here today and so I had asked Sherry to join us. So, welcome Sherry.

Sherry : 01:45 Thank you for having me. It’s a great pleasure to be here. I enjoyed our panel discussion at Jim Knight’s conference and really look forward to today as well.

Steve: 01:54 Great. Well, Sherry, I know that looking at teachers’ social emotional needs was a topic that you were engaged in prior to the COVID pandemic. So, can you talk a little bit about what raised that to the surface and made it important for you?

Sherry : 02:17 Sure, yes. You know, for me as a coach, to school leaders and teachers, it’s always important for me to be very well grounded in research, but also be well grounded in sitting down with teachers and administrators and just assessing some of those soft skills that may not may or may not show up in research. And one of the things that I was noticing is an increased level of stress on teachers and administrators. I think one of the biggest aha moments for me was sitting in a group at a conference, you know, prior to COVID, this large group of administrators and the speaker asked how many of you have dealt with a student committing suicide in your school this year? And Steve, there was barely a table that didn’t have a hand raised during that time. That to me just gave me chills because that’s some – you know, there’s a weight to that, that we carry when our students are struggling.

Sherry : 03:33 And, you know, when students commit suicide, they’re struggling. So there was that piece, there was the piece of just talking to teachers and teachers saying how much more can we handle? And there’s the piece of teachers not going into the profession at the level they did before and leaving the profession and an increased rate. All these things told me that we have some work to do that is causing these things in our society to happen. If you look at the research, focusing on social-emotional needs of our teachers can lessen the burnout, increase job satisfaction and improve student teacher relationships. And then if you look at John Hattie’s research on what that means to student learning it just, the pieces just started lining up for me that this was a piece that we have to pay more attention to in our coaching,

Steve: 04:37 A strong ripple effect.

Sherry : 04:40 Right, right. You know, we talk about in leadership, getting to the root cause of things. And sometimes it’s asking those five, why questions. Why is this happening? Why is this happening? And that, for me, it was just what I kept asking myself in my mind is that this is off kilter. We have to fix this piece, or we have to try to fix this piece in our society. And so, that’s really where it came from is just paying attention to those that I was talking to and then watching the data and knowing that it wasn’t headed in the right direction. And then of course, when COVID hit, and all of that stress comes and know both teachers and administrators are probably on plan Z at this point. It’s just even more important now.

Steve: 05:33 When I had the chance to read your read your book, you talk about coaches getting started with a listening tour. And it struck me that as you know, I was just on today with with a district that is in their first conversations of, are they gonna start up hybrid at the end of this month or whether it’s going to be put off. So I’m thinking whenever those startup times are, or if the startup is that we’re staying virtual, this idea of a listing tour fits in now wherever coaches are at with the teachers and the administrators at their school. So wanna share a little bit about the listening tour?

Sherry : 06:23 Sure. So a listening tour is simply a way of hearing from all of your stakeholders. So it is whether it be that the school administrator, or if the school has an instructional coach, either of those can lead this. And it’s just a matter of sitting down with those groups of stakeholders and finding out what they feel about the teaching and learning that’s happening in the school. So those, the questions that are put in coaching redefined, are very centered around how those individuals feel about the teaching and learning has happened in the school. And the leaders, whether they be the administrators or the coaches will sit down with teachers, students, parents, and the business community and just ask them how they feel about what is occurring. I think it’s important to do this because not only does it tell the stakeholders, your thoughts are important to me, but every time leaders do this, things surface that they really don’t expect. Both in what people tell them and what people do not tell them. You know, there’s one piece of communication is what we say. Another piece of communication is what they hear, what they feel. And we have to be in tune with both of those. So a listening tour really gives those school leaders a way to hear from those stakeholders so that they know that they’re making the best decisions for their students.

Steve: 08:06 I’m pondering your thought about what wasn’t said. So, you know, if I’m out there during that tour and I know that certain things are present, but people choose not to bring them up, I’d have to begin to ponder what the message behind that is.

Sherry : 08:26 Right.

Steve: 08:26 And the other thought was going through my head – I’m a big Margaret Wheatley fan and Wheatley talks a lot about the need for information to flow through the system. And so your listening tour sounds a great strategy for getting that that flow of information that we need.

Sherry : 08:48 Yes. That flow of information. And then also to make sure what you think you’re saying is what they’re hearing. You know, you might think that your school is really focused in one area, but if you sit and you talk to those students or the business meeting your parents and they’ve never heard of it, or they don’t mention it at all, then it’s not quite as embedded as you are thinking that it is. So all those things are very important for a leader to keep in mind.

Steve: 09:22 You’re bringing a story back to me of a listening tour that I did in a district where the central office person, staff person that I was working with, filled me in on these couple of important things that were happening. And as I went out to the buildings and started talking to people, nobody brought them up. So I got the sense that that poor district leader was getting the exact message that every district meeting that he or she wanted to get as feedback from people but what was really happening after the people left the meeting wasn’t following through. So Sherry, in the workshop that you did, you addressed five different areas that were important for coaches and leaders to be considering. And so what I’d like to do is just kind of play each of them out to you and ask you to give us a little bit of defining of that area so that the listeners can walk away and see if there’s something off this list that makes sense for them to be paying some extra attention to right now.

Steve: 10:32 So the first one that you had talked about was accepting stress.

Sherry : 10:38 Right. So, I think that it is important for us as leaders to acknowledge that right now is a stressful time and on our whole
society, not just teachers, not just leaders, but I think in our whole society just with what is happening around COVID and think that will be the case for quite some time because of the ripple effect. But we can’t go in to our learning environments right now and treat it the same way we did prior to COVID and just ignore that teachers are trying to juggle being parents and teaching online and managing every aspect of – sometimes we’re teaching both ways, online and face to face at the same time. There is a different level of stress that goes along with that. Any leader in this school needs to pay attention to the level of stress that they are taking on as well.

Sherry : 11:45 It’s just different, Steve. You know, we can look at the research along with cognition and what stress does to our ability to remember and take one new initiatives and see the impact of stress and you just can’t ignore the fact that stress does cause us to be able to learn or not learn in different ways. So the idea of accepting stress means that we’re not going to try to lead the same way that we led prior to COVID. We’re going to understand that our society, our communities, our schools, our parents, teachers are under a different kind of stress and we have to take that into account in the new initiatives we bring up, the way that we coach, the way that we lead in our schools.

Steve: 12:50 The second one that you labeled for us was normalizing self care.

Sherry : 12:56 Right. So, self care is one of those areas where sometimes in education, we make it as an extra if we get time to take care of ourselves. And the idea of normalizing self care is giving your staff permission and spaces to where you show that that truly is important. I had the privilege of working on a project with a successful practices network, and they were working in connection with ASA. And our goal was to go out and find the most innovative school districts in the country and look at what they were doing. And one of the patterns that I saw in that work was schools would set up extra events for their teachers that really didn’t have anything to do directly with teaching in the classroom, such as yoga classes, such as catered meals, such as sponsored book clubs that were not just related to education. And, you know, these things model self care. They model that we expect you not to spend a hundred percent of your life inside the school because we know that’s going to lead to burnout. We realize that you need to take care of yourself. And so that’s the idea around self care. We know that if we can help educators understand that we, the leaders in the school value you taking care of yourself, we’re investing in you as a human and knowing that it’s going to lead to a place of longevity in your career.

Steve: 14:58 I like it. The third one that you had mentioned was modeling compassion. And I found early on, in the process last spring, that teachers shared with me the empathy and compassion they were finding from their administrators and how they valued it. And I think teachers were sharing stories with me of how they had compassion for their students. And I locked early on to thinking, boy, I sure hope we don’t lose that when we open the school doors back up. So how did you see that modeling compassion fitting in?

Sherry : 15:46 Yeah, so I I’m in the same boat as you. I hope we don’t lose that as we get back to whatever it looks like after COVID because it is an important piece. I think that again, you know, that the soft skills of coaching tell you it’s important because we see that different way that someone that we’re coaching responds, but also the research behind that shows that if we approach somebody with compassion, that their stress level actually decreases and they can better hear what we have to say. And that lead to a much more meaningful conversation about student learning in classrooms. So the research that is there that supports it, compassion is not always the thing that we have prior to COVID connected with a strong leader, but it has always been connected with a strong leader too.

Sherry : 16:51 We just haven’t really talked about it. So I think as leaders, we can go forth being a good compassionate leader by modeling
it with our teachers, but also ensuring that our teachers are modeling it with our students as well. You know, you talked about your school is making a decision of whether to go to hybrid or I think you said full virtual or face to face. You know, this is also stressful for our students. You know, I’ve got a child entering high school this year who – that’s their first experience with high school is being in a virtual classroom and ninth grade is a hard transition year. Trying to do it virtually is extra hard and I just am thankful for his teachers who have been compassionate with them as he tries to learn and understanding that he can’t do the same thing he would do in a face to face classroom the same way in the virtual classroom. So I think it goes both ways, both with people who are leading teachers and teachers who are leading students, that we have to understand the importance of that compassion. Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t move forward with trying to help teachers perfect their craft and learn. It doesn’t mean professional learning stops, but it means that we handle it in a different way maybe than we did before this.

Steve: 18:43 The fourth item that you had had discussed was arranging collaborative spaces.

Sherry : 18:51 So I think this is another one where it was important before COVID. And I think we have seen the importance of this amplified through COVID in terms of when we are together as humans – I mean, we’re social beings and we build off of each other’s ideas. We learn empathy and compassion by sitting and talking and truly listening to each other and learning from each other. And so the idea of arranging those collaborative spaces is just that we know this is important for society. We know this is important for professional learning. We know this is important for our teachers to grow towards each other. And so, however we have to do that, we need to make sure that we are continuing to do that so that teachers can continue to communicate with each other. And same for students. They need that as well in the school, but for this conversation, it goes more towards the leaders, that the teachers need that collaborative space.

Sherry : 20:09 So, you know, I’m thankful that we have tools like zoom and Google meet for that right now. We have to understand that they’re not the same as those face to face tools, but they might be as good as we can get for those collaborative spaces. But just don’t give up on those collaborative spaces. Remember as a school leader during this time, we’re still wanting to create an environment where teachers are growing towards each other and growing towards that family of learners, I call it that learning organization in a school. And in order to do that, we have to have those collaborative spaces. So it might be that it’s an outdoor space right now, it might be indoors with masks, you know, six feet apart or whatever. The safety protocol is at that time, that just don’t give up on the idea that we need that.

Steve: 21:06 As I’m listening to you, one is jumping in my head of – I was just facilitating a meeting with a school social-emotional team. They have that role for their school and their school is still virtual, but they’ve planned for the faculty to take part in a fundraising walk-a-thon in the in the next week or so as actually the first faculty activity. So we can come with masks on and we can be distant, but we can still all wear the school shirt and walk the walk the fundraiser walk together. And as I was listening to you, I could just sense where that activity is a start of moving people along that along that process.

Sherry : 22:01 Absolutely. And, you know, I’m so thankful for social media’s ability to have a positive impact there, you know, there’s things that social media has had a negative impact on our world. But for this, it can have a positive impact if we allow it to. You know, Steve, and I think I told you prior to this conversation about getting in front of an audience, my first audience after you know, as we’re transitioning back to the face to face, and I almost came to tears. I mean, we had all safety protocols in place, it’s a big conference room that tables are far apart, masks on. And so it’s not the same as it was prior to COVID, but I found myself getting very emotional just to be around other people and laughing and talking. And I’m thinking, I mean, I know the research about this, but there is an element of us being together as people that I just look forward to that.

Steve: 23:12 Sherry, the last one that you had pointed out catches my attention as well. And that was leading through positives. How are you defining that?

Sherry : 23:23 So, first of all, I want to make this point because I know there is some research on the other side of this too. This is an area that I’m spending quite a bit of time reading and researching right now, because I believe so strongly in it. Leading through positives does not mean that we ignore all the negative things that are happening in a school. I think that when you talk about leading through positivity, sometimes that’s the pushback you get. It doesn’t mean that you don’t see them as a leader, it means that you can see the negative areas and know where to place them in the pyramid of importance so that you know how to grow your organization through their strengths. So if you’re going to grow your organization through your strengths, and whether that be the teachers or the teachers together, or teachers growing students, you have to be able to see those positive elements and lead through positivity.

Sherry : 24:30 If I know that someone else can see my strengths, it just motivates me. And that’s what the research also shows, that we are motivated by people who believe in us. So, you know, I use the example sometimes in my workshops of how I was writing for two different organizations and one organization was paying me more than the second organization but the second organization was so positive, Steve, I would have done it for free.

Steve: 25:08 [laughter]

Sherry : 25:08 The first organization, anytime that I would send something in, it was, “what have you thought about this? Have you thought
about this? Have you thought?” And I was like, “when do I get it right?” And I just use that as an example that teachers feel the same way. If somebody comes into their classroom and they can never say anything positive, or you can’t see my strengths at all, what chance do I have to be successful and students the same way? So that’s the idea of positivity is just, it’s not that you can’t see what’s not working, but you can take something that’s working and know that if you build on those unique gifts and talents, then you are going to impact the other.

Steve: 25:56 I’m smiling as I’m listening to you. I’m recalling early in my coaching career, I was modeling an observation and post-conference with a new teacher. And so I had a videotaped lesson of the teachers and I watched the video and then I role played what my coaching conference would be. And somebody said to me, when, as I wrapped it up, how did you find so many positive things to say? And I said, well, I spent 99% of my time looking for them. You know, what the new teacher could do to improve it, didn’t take me about two or three moments to find that. And so I stopped looking for anything more for the teacher to work on, and I spent all the time focused on what were those positive things there that we could that we could build off of.

Steve: 26:51 And I just see that powering into the words that you laid out there, that once you could recognize those positive things in a person, and then you could show them that area of growth, they were ready to jump and go to work on it. Well, Sherry, I really appreciate the time you’ve shared with us today and your thoughts. I’m wondering if there’s anything that comes to mind as a last word that you’d like to put out there for school leaders and instructional coaches to especially consider as they’re doing their work, which is always important, but I think has gotten multiplied in its importance right now.

Sherry : 27:39 Well, you know, Steve, you know this from reading my book, I think that my work is around instructional leadership, whether it be with coaches in the schools or the administrators or the system leaders and I focus on three main areas. I think there’s three threads that make strong instructional leaders. It is knowing what content to coach, when to coach it being well versed in that and the research goes around it, developing strong leadership skills and relationships, and that relationship piece I talk about first, because I don’t think you can get to the other pieces if you don’t have the strong relationships, which is why I talk about the listening tour in the initial stages of my book. So I guess the final piece that I would say to leaders here is, right now, that relationship piece is just really critical. And if it is taking the majority of your time to make sure that that is strong and a strong foundational piece, I think that’s time well spent because without that piece, we are left with a very unstable structure to really move forward in the area of instructional growth.

Steve: 29:06 Well said, well said. So thanks again, Sherry. We will we’ll put your contact information, your website and email in the lead-in into this podcast so it will be easy for folks to find. Why don’t you just go ahead though and for those that are perhaps listening while they’re jogging, give us the key for finding your website.

Sherry : 29:30 Sure. My website is Reflective Learning, and you can find it at www.reflecttolearn.com.

Steve: 29:37 Thank you.

Steve [Outro]: 29:42 Thanks again for listening, you can subscribe to Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud on iTunes and Podbean. And please remember to rate and review us on iTunes. I also want to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter @stevebarkley or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.