FocusED Show Notes with Guest Adriana Villavicencio

Dr. Villavicencio decided to write her book because of the discrepancies in education--it can be both a wonderful experience for some students as well as an exclusionary one for others.

She says that we often have great policies that could work, but limitations and pitfalls can provide setbacks that bring us pause, prompting us to abandon them before they stick.

Adriana explains the Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) that was intended to decrease achievement gaps for students of color, particularly black and brown boys.

The ESI was implemented in 40 public high schools. She described some of what worked, including mentorships--both peer-to-peer and adult-to-peer.

One thing that mattered a lot was setting high academic goals and having high expectations for all students.

The curriculum was important in the project as well--advanced coursework, scaffolding, etc.

Adriana said that the school leader is critical and that the ESI strategies worked better in schools where the leader was strong and put teachers in charge.

She tells us that a loud minority can derail productive innovation. Adriana said that leaders ought to expect resistance to change. She offers two strategies: 1. Being persistent with the vision (a written statement of the north star) is critical. 2. Where leaders have the latitude to pick their team, they’ve been more effective.

Adriana discussed internal and external challenges to change, including media, boards, unions, and political divisions. She wants to study these challenges even further.

Dr. Villavicencio says that one of the biggest problems with educating young black and brown students is the deficit mindset that exists in schools. The stories that we tell shape our interactions, assumptions, and expectations.

Adriana says that much of the way we learn as children is the same way we learn as older pupils and adults.

She calls for mini-action research projects in schools to study ways that we might solve our problems of practice.

Adriana describes some of her reading habits; she likes to read widely and outside of education.

She ends with a quote “the personal is the professional and the professional is the personal.”

She has a call to action that we should challenge ourselves and our own assumptions about teaching and learning. Don’t let the fact that you can’t change everyone prevent you from doing the work to make the changes that you can.

Books We Recommend Based on this Podcast with Adriana Villavicencio

Mindset by Carol Dweck

Grit by Angela Duckworth

Lifelong Kindergarten by Mitchel Resnik

Weird Ideas that Work by Robert Sutton

Managing the Unexpectedby Carl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe

FocusED Show Notes with Guest Vicky Essebag

Vicky starts by defining “relationspaces” as the way that we bring ourselves to the spaces where we develop relationships.

Vicky tells us that we have preconceived notions about how we’re communicating and sometimes it’s effective and other times it’s not.

Vicky gives us an example of where our communication as teachers to students might be landing wrong in a way that only supports more misbehavior.

It’s better to minimize our noticing of the behaviors that are not desirable and maximize our noticing of the desired behaviors.

Solution-Focused is a strength-based approach. And, the future aspect of it asks the question, what does the person want?

Vicky says that success happens in small increments. Change happens gradually. Her advice is to take a few steps back when things aren’t going the way we want them to and then to become more inclusive.

She tells us that relationships have to be the foundation of everything we do and have to be prioritized as important in the minds of every leader.

Vicky explains that Solution-Focused has a premise that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it; if it’s working, don’t change it; and if something is wrong, do something about it.”

Don’t miss what she says about future-oriented types of questions.

Vicky talked about a scenario and exercise that she did with students who were refusing to come to school, and they built hypothetical machines to help bring them back to school.

She talks about her own growth and a program she’s in right now to gain a certification that she wants for more international credibility.

Vicky says that the most important part about commuting with others is our presence.

We asked Vicky to give us some techniques for asking questions. She says that the best questions are open-ended and up to the person being asked to provide their answer versus searching for the right ones.

If we can inspire people with hope, why not. ~ Vicky Essebag

This is Episode 77 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Nason Lollar; Joe and TJ interview Nason about educator professional conduct, human resources, managing and sustaining a positive culture, school leadership…and so much more.

FocusED Show Notes with Guest Christina Hidek

Christina starts out with some suggestions about how school leaders can get on the same page with the PTO/PTA President by meeting on a regular basis. The key is to meet ahead of the actual PTA meetings and separate from them.

School leaders should explain their vision for the school and the school year to the parent groups, starting with the PTA President.

School leaders and PTA Presidents should have a clear understanding of how they want to communicate.

Christina describes the strongest relationships that she had with principals and the trust and openingness that it takes.

School leaders should attend their PTA meetings and the measure of success is a lack of turnover in the group.

Every parent group should have at least one teacher liaison; the main point of the role is to bring the parent group information back to the teachers so that it doesn't fall on the principals.

Christina reminds us that parents are volunteers, and they may need training. As soon as a group is formed, they need to be empowered and equipped with the right tools and information to go in the right direction.

There’s no PTA school. ~ Christina Hidek.

Christina consistently brings the conversation back to professional learning for parents. They can’t be a resource if they don’t know how.

She talks about her parent group raising $26K and what that means to the school community.

She hates the movie Bad Moms.

A tip for school leaders is to celebrate and highlight the work of their parent groups.

Christina tells us that there aren’t enough resources for PTOs/PTAs and school leaders who want to engage parents in the best way.

PTOAnswers/principals.com has resources for principals who want to better engage parent groups.

Check out FamilyEngagementTools.com.

Shawn tells us that “future-ready” is about students recognizing their purpose; he reminds us about the goal of education and the gaps that exist right now with what we provide and what students actually need.

Dr. Dilly talked about the need for leaders to stay true to who they are, that relationships matter, and that we should celebrate our differences.

Shawn elevates competencies that students need, including what he calls “human skills.”

He talks about a “tsunami of change” that is coming our way along with the advent of AI and other disruptive technologies.

Shawn tells us that part of the systemic barriers that perpetuate the problems with the curriculum, instruction, assessments, and resources is that we’re too highly regulated and legislated to change fast enough.

He describes a problem for schools in that 65% of our students in school now will be working in jobs that aren’t currently available yet.

Joe asks Dr. Dilly to help leaders to advocate for change that isn’t just based on policy requirements.

Shawn calls to action that leaders align themselves to people who are thinking about problems in a way that we can work together to drive change. He also says that it’s important for school leaders to get involved in their state agencies at the highest levels.

Shawn encourages leaders to ask the question: are our students ready? And, if the answer is no, what’s missing? That will drive what we need to do next.

One change that he emphasized is the need for more student collaboration in schools--a life skill that everyone will need.

He talked about the need for students to exercise imagination and curiosity as well as oral and written communication.

Shawn names our biggest challenge as keeping up with AI in schools and classrooms.

Dr. Dilly tells us that students will need to learn global dexterity and branding. They’ll need to work globally with people who are vastly different from them and yet maintain their identity. And, they need to be able to compete in a global world by selling themselves by integrating the proper credentials with an attractive reputation.

Shawn mentions McKinsey and the World Economic Forum. Joe asks about other resources that he frequents. Check out the book list below.

This is Episode 74 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Peter Cookson; we discuss community leadership, supporting students in poverty, school culture…and so much more.

Peter Cookson Brings a Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Peter Cookson serves as a senior researcher with the Learning Policy Institute, a founding principal investigator for the American Voices Project based at Stanford University, and an educational policy teacher at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University.

He has written extensively on the causes and consequences of American poverty and advocates for a new vision for public education. He began his career in education as a fifth-grade teacher in rural Massachusetts.

He received his doctorate from New York University and most recently completed a Master of Arts in religion from the Yale Divinity School where he held the Katsuso Miho Scholarship in Peacemaking.

He founded the Center for Educational Outreach and Innovation at Teachers College and The Equity Project at the American Institutes for Research and before that, he was the executive director of Ed Sector in Washington D.C.

Peter is the author of School Communities of Strength: Strategies for Educating Children Living in Deep Poverty.

FocusED Show Notes with Guest Peter Cookson

All kids learn in environments where threats to their self-esteem are diminished. ~ Peter Cookson

Peter starts by defining “communities of strength.” Included in his definition is that the whole community believes that every student can learn and that learning is joyful.

Peter says that he learned more doing the project for this book than any other project he has done.

He tells us that 5 million kids in the US live in “deep poverty,” that’s 50% or more lower than the national threshold.

Peter tells us about the resilience of students in poverty is inspirational.

Peter’s passion for this work comes from his time as a 5th grade teacher in a school where many of the students lived in deep poverty. This motivated him to go back to school to become a sociologist to study the intersection between poverty and learning.

He unfolds a story about his time as a teacher where he was able to experiment. He was doing project-based learning before it was a thing.

Peter’s vision for the book when he started was to make it a practical guide versus just a sad story about the current scenarios in schools that serve students in poverty.

The book includes the science of learning because we know more now about how to teach and how people learn than ever before.

One key, says Peter, is that the staff has to bring a “second to known” mentality to their approach to teaching the whole child.

He tells us that the primary responsibility of the school leader is to create an environment for teachers and students.

Peter tells a story about a superintendent who fired any principal who didn’t fully believe that all students can learn. Don’t miss what he says about the commitment factor.

Peter mentions Linda Darling-Hammond as an expert on the science of learning, among other things.

He says that each of the principles in the book comes with implementation guidance.

This is Episode 73 of FocusED, and it features our guest, Kate Koch; we discuss women in leadership positions, mentorship, balance at work…and so much more.

Kate Koch Brings a Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

Dr. Kate Koch is the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources for Lemont-Bromberek SD113a.

She has served as an elementary principal, an assistant principal, and a middle school history teacher.

She is also the co-host of the Unsupervised Leadership Podcast and the author of Unsupervised Leadership: Celebrating and Elevating Fun, Fab, and Fierce Females.

FocusED Show Notes with Guest Kate Koch

“Unsupervised leadership” is about being in a space where you can lead authentically. In these cases, the leader can be themselves without fear of making mistakes.

Kate talks about women in leadership, specifically in education where the balance is off between the number of women in the profession versus the number of administrators who are men.

Kate has been getting feedback from listeners that her message about women in leadership is giving them the confidence to apply for jobs and ask for the highest salary possible.

Dr. Koch tells us a few stories about her experience with leadership roles and what she faced in interviews and other spaces as a female.

Kate talks about the differences between the way women lead and the way that men lead and the need for both perspectives. TJ brings up the Jane Goodall episode with Tim Ferriss where Goodall says that women should not try to lead like men because we need female leaders, not just more males.

She tells us about what “balance” means for her. Two strategies: turn it off and have an accountability partner.

Kate shares a story about how much time she was putting into her work and the feeling that she might need to walk away; we need to create conditions where people have balance or we will continue to lose educators.

Joe asks Kate who inspires her and she told us about her mentor, Kate Chambers, and her podcast co-host, Courtney Orzel. She calls out several other peers and mentors who guide and support her work.

Kate talked about listening to books, and her current favorite read is Anxious Generation.

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Ben starts off by telling us about a committee that he has going to help unpack “emerging technology,” and things are literally changing overnight.

For us to lead in a tech-driven environment, Ben says that we have to be willing to say “I don’t know what that means, yet.”

He tells us about the human-centered design process that they use at his schools--building something for empathy for the end-user of whatever we’re building.

Joe asks Ben to talk about anything traditional that they’re abandoning in the curriculum to be able to spend the time they do on future-driven learning.

Don’t miss what he says about grading. They figured out how to create a competency-based system that spits out a letter grade at the end.

Ben talks about the influences of his background: Beijing, Montessori, Thacher, Bowdoin, and more. All of this feeds his ideas about schools teaching more of an entrepreneur thought process.

He shares about the competitive nature of the marketplace for schools in Beijing. Students literally need to have an international passport. This means that the schools are all working to differentiate themselves from others like them.

We discuss what it looks like to prepare students to do jobs that don’t exist yet. Ben talks about the fact that one important thing we can do, even though we don’t know what the jobs are, is to help students learn how to navigate competition within a start-up environment.

It's awesome to hear how he elevates student voice by asking them to tell him what the future of schooling, including the use of AI, should look like.

Joe reminds listeners of our podcast with Don Wettrick.

Ben recognizes that many parents are still a bit leery about system changes, and he comes back to what students are going to need for the rest of their lives, including the moral responsibility to use these new tools ethically. Philosophically, he wants his students to explore their passions in the evening versus doing more school work.

All 9th graders at NEIH take Foundations of Entrepreneurship.

Ben invites our listeners to reach out to him at NEIH. He calls it the gift of time to just sit and talk.

Ben tells us about an experience he had in Rwanda that showed him that if they could overcome what they needed to overcome, we can do anything.