Leaders of Today: From Teens to Titans

What is a highly sensitive person and how does that show up in my classroom?

I wonder if you've considered the stress an average person puts on their nervous system with stimuli like social media or any notifications, and now add being in a highly stimulated environment of a classroom. It's really enough to make anyone need a break, but did you know that one in five of us is considered highly sensitive and that these stimuli have an even greater impact on our reactions? Knowing that about ourselves and our students is really key to helping all students succeed. 

Do you practice mindfulness? Do you take the time? Have you considered using it in your classroom setting? I wonder if we might get better results from our students, especially our highly sensitive students if we did a little brain training implementing some mindfulness into our classroom practice. 

What are some things to look for in students or adults who are highly sensitive? This Is something that Nikolai and I talk about. She is an incredible resource and there is so much that you'll learn by listening to her in our conversation.

Nikolai shares what a highly sensitive person is, and what some of the challenges are that they face so that in our classroom educators can be more aware and empathetic when students exhibit highly sensitive behaviors. Highly sensitive students can often be our over achievers, and Nikolai tells us why that tends to be the case.

Authentic Assessment and listening to student voices

Batsheva Frankel, MAT, a veteran educator of over 25 years, is the producer and host of the popular, entertaining podcast Overthrowing Education. As an educational consultant with her company New Lens Ed., Batsheva gives workshops, courses, coaching, and consulting for educators at universities, conferences, schools, and other organizations internationally in person and online. She also teaches courses on podcasting for teens nd designs active, student-centered curricula for institutions throughout the US. Batsheva has turned her popular Lenses of Questioning workshops into an online course, now available at NewLensEd.com. In 2017, Behrman House published her book, The Jewish Educator’s Companion.

Have you been able to tap into your student's interests? How about if you've had a student who's expressed to you that they just don't feel like they are creative? How do you handle those situations? In my conversation with Batsheva, we explore how we might engage, and challenge those beliefs about students and really how to tap into their interests.

Batsheva is one of the most experienced educators I've had the pleasure to speak with her experience and ideas around authentic learning and authentic assessments are really exciting, 

She talks about how she is helping schools dealing with chatGPT and AI to make it positive and exciting.

We talk about learning who the student is and how teachers can allow them to express themselves in their work and learning

Batsheva talks about how she uses student voices when she creates authentic assessments. She shares some examples and you will really love them. We then explore how these experiences are memorable to students.

We talk about one of Batsheva's favorite topics, the importance of taking grades out of the equation for students.

Batsheva is a great resource and you can check her out at the following social links:

Overthrowing Education Podcast Website

New Lens ed Website

Twitter

LinkedIn

Student shares why he wasn’t sure he was a leader

Have you ever wondered how a student might respond if we ask them to give us some time to think about changes that we wanna implement in the school? Do you think they would say, no, I don't want you to take your time? I wanna do school right now, or do you think they might have some understanding? In this conversation with Izaiah, I explore that question with him about the response to Covid.

 

The answer was really surprising to me when he said, I wish we had just taken some time. It was really fascinating. I don't think we give students enough credit, and we also talk about why students might be afraid to take on the title of leader or take on a leadership role. He's not the first student that has expressed this concern to me, but it was really interesting to hear his perspective.

 

The reason I interviewed Izaiah was that when I knew him as a student, I saw him as a leader, and I remember trying to convince him to join Peer Leadership at the time initially, he didn't see himself in that role, but he also experienced covid in high school.

 

We talk about what COVID was like for him as a student, and how some of the experiences were actually good for him. We talk about how he was able to connect or not with his teachers, and what his advice to those in charge would have been if he had been in the driver's seat during COVID. 

 

Izaiah describes himself as a hands-on learner and we talk about what types of classes and subjects he found to be enjoyable as a student. He shares about science is really good for him, but also when his English classes would do plays and how he liked making presentations. 

 

We explore how certain teachers in your experience supported him to be the best that he can be and how being a leader was a bit of a challenge for him initially. When I asked him why he shared with leadership, it's a lot of responsibility, trust and everyone looks up to you and just more eyes on you at once, and that's why he was hesitant to do it at first, but then he started to learn the main focus isn't to put focus on you. It is to get you out there so you can help people. People can trust you and like you have a better relationship with people you might not have spoken to in your regular day-to-day class in high school. 

 

I asked him to give advice to teachers, he shared try to get to know your students a little better. I loved that when I asked him about a lesson or words of wisdom he answered, “Just be friends with everyone at the moment. Don't worry about arguing or disliking other students due to the fact that you don't know what they've been through. Try to get to know students that don't talk that much. Try to get to know the students that may have special learning disabilities and they might need a little extra help.”

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.