Student Voice - Future Leaders

Thinking about how we navigate our classroom managment.

In this bonus episode, I wanna talk about the idea of a teacher holding their classroom as if they were holding it in the palm of their hand versus a tight fist.

As brand new teachers, we are in the process of holding our hand so tight around that classroom. We imagine that in order to manage that classroom, we have to be in control, and control a lot of times looks like holding our hand in that fist.

I've recently had several conversations. Guests about that idea of classroom management, making a fist in terms of how I keep my classroom in control, and I've started to wonder if it's a benefit.

We're often told don't smile until Thanksgiving. You don't want to let them know that you have a heart. I wonder if that's really good advice there's this underlying message that you are in charge. You are in control, and I'm not sure that's the message we wanna give.

When I speak with Shane Lawrence in the near future, he mentioned that as a new teacher, he also felt like he had to hold his hand in a fist. With more experience the less he held his hand so tight and started to open it up and open palm with his students, allowing them to engage with empowerment and the student voice in the classroom.

Do I wanna push people away with control? It gives you this false sense of comfortability and lack of vulnerability. But in the end, you're really putting barriers up for yourself and for those around you. And as a teacher, the last thing that we should wanna do is to put a barrier between us and the students.

If you have a classroom and you control it with a closed fist, you will not have the kind of relationships we want. I also think of Ross's interview. And his experience of being bullied and feeling so alone, he was connected to teachers that had open hands, but I don't think enough of us understand how important opening our hands and empowering our students.

This whole podcast is geared toward student voice.

How do we engage student voice?

How do we empower students to use their voice?

If you chose to engage and talk with your students. You are absolutely tapping into a valuable resource, our students are an incredible resource. I don't think we use them as a resource enough.

I encourage you to try. Try one lesson. Operating with a hand that's open. If nothing else, recognize the lack of energy that you have to put in holding onto your fist and the energy that comes out from those students. What a beautiful place that could be.

Developing student voice as we develop into confident leaders

Meet Shane Lawrence, he has been teaching for 17 years, mostly within the arts. Over that time, he has taught Drama, ELA, Social Studies, Photography, Computers, Film, Art, & Digital Media. His biggest passion is teaching Film Studies and Production. Outside of work, he is a husband, a dad of two young ones, a cyclist (as time allows), and someone with too many hobbies and interests. 

 

I wonder if you've considered asking students what they wanna do in your classroom. Do you think you're afraid of what might happen? If we ask them, you actually might be surprised at what their answers are. I like to think of it as if I just use my ideas. I'm only one brain if I include my students now I'm working with 20 Brains or however many students you have. 

 

In my conversation with Shane, we explore our feelings about being a first-year teacher versus a veteran teacher, and how that's really changed who we are and how we operate. How have you developed as an educator? How has your role changed? What do you think we could do to support new teachers so that they can see the value and not be so afraid of student voice? This interview with Shane really made me think about being a new teacher and some of those fears and lack of confidence. That new teachers face, and how that really impacts our ability to engage and empower students.

 

Shane shares how he knows student voice can be terrifying basically because of our training as new teachers, that you are the authority in the room. As he has grown as a teacher however, the understanding of what the student's role in the classroom is has helped him identify what he believes student voice is, it has to do with just empowering students to be more than just receptacles, more than just the people who come in and do the things that you assign them.

 

He has gone from holding my lesson plans tightly in my hand to hold it out in an open palm.

 

We talk about how the title teacher may be a source of the problem, maybe we need to coin a new word or a new term for that person who stands in front of the room, and what we call our students.  

 

I ask him about the transformation into less of an authoritarian role. When he started to realize he didn't need to be hanging onto this so tight and he is always willing to see if he can make ideas from students work. Why would you shy away from that? This is making things better, so let's do that. he tells my students all the time, if this doesn't work, Stop. We'll back it up. We'll try something different. Or if you have something different that you would like to do, let me know and we'll see if we can incorporate that. 

 

I love the idea of how if you don't activate that student voice, if you don't engage with them and empower them, then you really are missing out on something that could be better and different in a good way. 

I ask Shane to give advice to a new teacher, and he says, “Chop your lesson plans in half.” What are the things your kids need to learn? Is what you're proposing, is that the only way? Or can you make it more flexible? Don’t pretend to give them choice, they will figure it out. And then when you actually decide that you want to give them choices, they're not gonna feel empowered to share. So if you can instead give them real choices, show them that you are a professional and that you can do things in more than one way.

You can find his Podcast here https://unpro.podbean.com

Bullies impact us in long lasting ways - how does bullying follow you as an adult

In this episode we meet Ross L, Ross is a powerlifting coach, life coach, podcaster, content creator, father, partner, and aspiring public speaker to name a few things.  After having lived a life of limits and circumstances, Ross now seeks life-expanding challenges on a regular base.  Especially challenges that allow him to connect with and support others in their journeys to break free from self-limiting beliefs.  If we can pause for a moment to recognize the learning opportunities in all of life's events, we can move forward empowered to create the experiences we most desire.  Cultivating an internal sense of belonging to move forward with.  The journey of life is full of great joy when one has a sense of belonging! 

 

We revisit his experiences in school, where he was the target of bullying. He internalized the statements that others made about him as his self-talk for most of his life. 

The phrase we tell young children “Stick and Stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you,” was something he heard, but instead of helping it invalidated his experiences and what was going on for him because it did hurt. 

The impact was in many areas of his life including relationships, at 28 he realized the patterns and started therapy and working on himself to have a better relationship with himself.

Our peers really impact our self-talk but how do we challenge that self-talk? At the young ages of elementary school, we should be focusing more on identity and validating who each individual person is, and teaching compassion and kindness. 

We talk a little about school and Dana Martin's book, Radical Unschooling, and the idea of connection over correction which removes that authoritarian paradigm and puts us all on the same level playing field. In the classroom, teachers are afraid to accept responsibility or apologize. Ross noted that in the classes where the teacher allowed flexibility, there was more connection and collaboration. 

We discussed how many of our responses come from a place of our own experiences and hurt. I asked Ross to give some advice to teachers about bullying. He believes the foundation answer to that question of why our kids continue to get bullied is because, as adults, we set the example and we continue to bully.  All behaviors are learned. We teach them how to behave by how we lead. He reminds us there's no such thing as a bad kid or a misbehaved kid, only a kid who's lacking belonging and significance. Paying attention to behavior and understanding that the kid is trying to express something through this behavior. He also says we should see the bullies, see the bad behavior, and see them for the actions and the communication that they are trying to share with us.

Connect with Ross here:

Instagram: @ross.leppala

Facebook: Ross Leppala

Spotify: Project UnchainED

Youtube: Project UnchainED  - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSKZWCi0TIXIb3ScM5CM00w

 

 

Let’s celebrate how we all learn differently

In this bonus episode, I challenge the ideas about student behavior. I examine how I may have contributed to the struggles students had in my classroom. I explore the idea that students can benefit from talking about the ways we all learn differently.

I am excited to revisit the conversations I had with Kela and how she shared the difference between giving 100% as a student and what I the teacher expected 100% to look like. I revisit the learning I gained from talking with Kiana about her son Tristan's behavior. I also examine the information that Maggie and Ellery shared in their interviews with me, as well as the zoom they attended to share their ideas with other educators.

There is a lot packed into this episode and I am excited to promote the Student-Driven Solution Program that all schools should develop! A sustainable program that empowers your students to be part of the solutions and takes the work off the teacher and administrator plates. It is a win-win for all involved. You should click here to connect with me on how you too can bring the Student-Driven Solutions Program to your school today!

 

What are ways adminstration can listen to student voice?

Dr. Joseph Williams III is a K12 leader, who currently works as a high school principal with Seattle Public Schools. He has 20+ years of PreK-12 experience, including 10 years as a special education teacher and 13+ years as an assistant principal and principal at the elementary and secondary level. He has earned multiple university degrees, including his doctorate degree in educational administration and MBA degree. He is certified as a teacher and administrator in the state of Washington, Missouri, and Georgia. As an African American school leader, Dr. Williams believes that all children should have an opportunity to get a quality education and have an amazing life!

In this episode, I interview Dr. Joseph a K-12 educator since 1994. I started off as a teacher and a coach. He taught for 12 years before becoming an administrator, and for the last almost 17 years he’s been a school administrator. 

He shares, “Students don't care how much you know until they know how much you care about them.” 

One way to create that for administrators is to make sure that they're visible and vocal.

Dr. Joseph gives an example of a student's voice by using a student advisory council, which is something that allows our students to have a voice to be able to come to him, he allows them to run that group and they're asking him questions, set the agenda, and bring up issues that concern them (what concerns us as adults might not necessarily concern students). He believes that it is very important to also make sure that everyone is represented in the group.

One very important thing he state was that there are student leaders in the building without a title, and those are the kind of kids we want on the Student advisory council. Also, he knows there are students who are natural leaders who might not be good role models for their peers because leading is not leading in a good way. So he challenges them to be a part of a group like the advisory council.

We talk about how pronouns were a challenge for him, but allowing students to engage with him and his staff brought about great learning and community.

He is big on the approach of taking it from both the administrative point of view and the student point of view.

Dr. Joseph is a big believer in being a facilitator of the learning environment. We challenge the issues teachers to have with cell phones - he states that teachers should incorporate the technologies so that the students stay engaged. He knows that it is important to embrace the technology that's out there. These kids are digital natives.

We talk about how imperative it is to build relationships with his educators. If we're truly educators. We don't need to stop learning.  We need to keep learning as well, just like we were teaching our students the same principles. It's very important for us to embrace we're still growing and we can't be stuck in 1995, 

Connect here with Dr. Joseph

Linked In

My K12 Career Show

Podcast Co-hosts share - finding thier voice, learning to meld their habits in working together

Meet Shriya - Shriya is a junior in high school and is working on her own book about podcasting! At school, she is the president of the Science National Honors Society and Lead Organizer of the TEDx Club. Outside school, she works as the Social Media Director for the Project: Empower non-profit, and President of the Teen Council at the local library. In her free time, she loves to sing and spend time with her little brother. She also hopes you enjoy this episode :)

 

Meet Julia - Julia is a junior in high school and cohost of the Almost Average (formerly Id, Ego, and Us) Podcast. At her school, she has been a member of the National English Honors Society, the school newspaper, the school magazine, the girls track and field/cross country teams, Amnesty International, the Upward Bound Program, etc. She enjoys reading, running, brain teasers, and adventures. Julia aspires to work in a career that allows her to make a positive impact on the world.

In February of 2021, Julia and Shriya started a podcast as young teenagers. They never thought it would be as fun or easy as it was to create something like it. It was something they created because they didn’t feel like they had a lot of chance to control the things in our lives, and they wanted something that was our own.

 

The podcast was originally called Id, Ego and the Super Ego, but they recently rebranded the podcast to Almost Average Podcast. They share how they came up with the idea, name and focus of their podcast. 

 

Creating the podcast not only gave them a voice, it helped connect them during covid, and they share that Covid, for all the bad that it brought, made this a lot easier because they learned so many skills to record it.

 

In our conversation I asked them about their study habits, how they learned them, and if there is a place for them to talk about study habits in school. I was not surprised, but their thoughts made me think about adding that into my practice.

 

I asked them both about opportunities for leadership or making mistakes in general. School size had an impact on their thoughts and their advice for educators and peers were really easy to implement - listen and see your students as people, find opportunities to use your voice - and public speaking is not as bad as it seems. 

 

What I enjoyed most was hearing Shriya share an idea and then Julia countering that thought. It was really great to hear two different perspectives at the same time.

 

You can find Shriya on Linked in at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shriyajo/

Their podcast Almost Average can be heard on all platforms using this link https://linktr.ee/almostaverage

Learning from Advice: The value of inclusion in every classroom

In this episode, I talk about inclusion, inclusion in the classroom. As a new teacher, I really loved the tracking system. I loved being able to guide all of my instruction to a specific student. In my teacher training, however, learned about differentiation, students with special needs or differentiated needs. I have grown to know the difference between my ease and the beauty of students learning from each other.

 

I reference my conversation with Ellery, how great it would be if all students were able to share how they learned, having a class where we learned about how students learn differently. Differentiation is designed to help all students achieve a level of understanding in different ways, but her advice of allowing students to learn from each other sharing how they learn, the best areas of strengths, and areas of growth. 

 

I share some insights from my interview with Caroline, a student with special needs. Her advice was to include students in your classroom with special needs, especially kids with significant learning differences. In my interview with Christian, we talked about how his class encouraged me to include the students from the life skills program and allow one or two students from my mainstream classroom to go be in the life skills program.

 

Stepping outside of your comfort zone is important, especially as a teenager, and giving students that opportunity to have different experiences, and see differences in how we learn allows a student an opportunity to really grow. 

 

I have grown as a teacher. Engaging with students who learn differently from me challenges me, and I think when I, as a teacher am challenged, my students see that challenging experiences are accepted and encouraged. Life is full of challenges. Life is full of ups and downs, and we are teaching those strategies in our classroom.

 

I share how I learned so much from my interview with Kiana about her son Tristan's learning experience. I don't know that I saw students demonstrating needs through their behaviors until she shared that with me, and now I see my student's bad behaviors in a really different light.

 

I give space for that behavior and, and open up the door for a conversation. Asking what is happening in my classroom that is making it hard for you to learn. What can I do in this environment to help you learn better? All of that comes from being open to seeing that learning happens differently for each student.

As an educator, we need to care more about the student as an individual than as a student - Authentic Learning is the Key

Sarah Hunt, M. Ed. has more than 20 years of classroom instructing and school leadership expertise. She has implemented, led, and built an entire school-wide experiential learning program. Additionally, as an experienced Project-Based Learning (PBL) educator, her students learned by working on real-world, personally relevant projects.  She also has served on countless strategy teams and school boards tasked with evaluating, implementing, and launching new school initiatives.  Sarah is also the recipient of the 2019 NSEE Outstanding Leader in Experiential Education: K-12 award. 

In this episode, Sarah talks to us about Authentic Learning, and how this approach to education not only enhances the ability to engage student voice, but it is also a great strategy for engaging and motivating students. It isn’t easy, but Sarah gives some steps on how to incorporate it into your classroom practices. There is no doubt Sarah is passionate about Authentic Learning and she would love to talk to any interested educator about their ideas.

Sarah and I talk about how authentic learning developed for her as an educator. She noticed that it felt more relevant to give students opportunities to connect what they were learning to the real world. Her students became more invested and their learning was on a deeper level. 

Since starting she has known that project-based learning and authentic learning were more valuable, and she has worked with some great educators, to understand the research behind the benefits. 

Sarah is always trying to find ways to give students voice and choice in the classroom. One of the best things we can do as a teacher is to put ourselves in our student's shoes and try to remember what it was like for us to be seen and valued and heard. 

As a consultant, she shares how she works with educators to shift the way that they're teaching, and add more authenticity to their curriculum. She dispels the idea that authentic learning is an approach in which kids can learn whatever they want, and learning doesn't really matter. Authentic learning has standards we want them to meet. There's flexibility in how you get there. 

Sarah shares that the most critical aspect of teaching is creating a relationship, so her students feel like she cares about who they are as an individual, more than she cares about who they are as a student. 

 

Sarah shares resources 

Another colleague who's also trying it.

Buck Institute 

Other teachers 

YouTube

Her organization Purposeful development

 

What is Purposeful Development:

Teaching teachers how to teach and improving the environment. 

Professional development on how authentic learning can improve student motivation. 

Consulting on how you can improve your programming. 

Implementation build a school-wide experiential learning program and helps you implement it.

Sarah’s email: shunt@purposefuldevelopment.org

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How does the Human Connection show up in our classrooms

Voice can be shared in a variety of places and ways (podcast)

Vulnerability in a classroom - are you are students

Have you ever had a student lose a parent? How do you handle that emotion for your student for their peers - what about engaging them all in the conversation

What guidance do we give students about life after HS? Do we give the impression that college is the next best step? What are our biases in that? Do we do what we are supposed to do or want to do at this phase in our lives?

Do you relate to students who learn in the same ways you learn - do you struggle with students who learn differently or do you engage with them on how you can better serve them as an educator?

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou, We talk about how this relates to an educator

Maybe we learn so much more about teaching when we are students and when we become parents.

Find Matt on The Life Shift Podcast

Linked in

You tube

 

A curious student talks about uncovering her passion and not feeling driven to talk the conventional path

Meet Abigail, a podcast host and co-host, a voice actress, and a wife. She lives in the Dallas area with her husband and three dogs. She hosts the Manic Pixie Weirdo, a podcast where we talk about relationships a place where everybody can come and be free to explore the world. She is also the Co-host of Best Idea in the Room. 

In this episode of Education Unimagined we're going to be talking about Abigail’s leadership skills and how she developed them. We're going to be discussing some unconventional paths after high school, opportunities to explore different things, taking initiative in schools, and opportunities to explore. We're also going to be talking about curiosity, projects and group work, and the anxiety that comes when we engage in a group. Finally, we'll be discussing acceptance and forgiveness.

In my interview with Abigail, we talk about her leadership skills: love of learning, curiosity, love, fairness, and kindness, and her path of education which was an unconventional path after high school. She has gone to community college and is not finished as she is trying hard to not graduate with any debt, she only takes classes when she can afford to take them. It has given her opportunities to explore different things.

We talked about how taking initiative in schools is difficult. How she found herself to be often bored, and why don't we give students the opportunity to explore the things that they're curious about or the things that they're interested in, Why we're so driven to take the conventional path once we graduate high school? 

I ask her about the need to reframe questions we ask in the classroom and wait time, we talk about projects and group work. She shares her experiences with the science fair. She gives advice on how teachers can support students with group work anxiety.

I ask her to give advice to her younger self. From her advice, we talk about acceptance and forgiveness.

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