John Dewey once famously said, “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” As the Tarrant Institute for Innovation Education (TIIE) sunsets as an organization, we found it appropriate to reflect and share some tidbits of what we have learned.
Here are some thoughts and reflections from former TIIE staff (alphabetized by last name) when asked:
“What is one important thing you learned through your connection with TIIE that you’d like to share with middle level educators?”
Penny Bishop, Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at University of Maine & former Founding Director at TIIE
TIIE helped me understand the extraordinary nature of middle grades educators. They literally change the world each day they believe in, connect with, and elevate young adolescents.
Katy Farber, Assistant Professor of Education at Saint Michael’s College & former Professional Development Coordinator at TIIE
TIIE taught me that school change is possible, that small groups of people — when connected, when encouraged, when joined with instead of told — can create schools that work against the systems that have dominated for so long — and grow community, grow connections, purpose, engagement, and meaning. Centering the voices of students, amplifying their stories and brilliance.
I learned about the strength, power and persistence of VT educators, who show up in all the ways they can everyday for their students. To help them, in any way, was the purpose and privilege of working at TIIE.
Susan Hennessey, Technology Integration Coach at Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union & former Professional Development Coordinator at TIIE
In reflecting back on my time at the Tarrant Institute, I am struck by just how much can be accomplished when a team commits to meeting norms, working agreements, and protocol driven structures to complete complex and creative tasks. Our collective commitment to the work in this way allowed us to be innovative risk takers.
Emily Hoyler, Operations Manager at UVM’s Institute for Agroecology & former Managing Director at TIIE
I learned and grew so much during my time with TIIE. I think the most important thing that I will carry with me is the importance of nurturing relationships and tending to “the container,” whether that “container” is our classroom community, the adult culture in our building, or any community that we find ourselves in. I’ve learned that how we do the things we do is as important as what we do and that showing up with self-awareness, compassion, and vulnerability are essential ingredients for thriving. I feel so much gratitude for being part of such amazing work in the Vermont education community over the past six years.
Life LeGeros, Equity Scholar in Residence at the Institute for Liberatory Innovation, former Professional Development Coordinator at TIIE
I have deepened my understanding and personal interpretation of the beautiful struggle. The day to day work of teaching, school and district leadership, systems transformation: these are incredibly hard things to do. The products of our efforts aren’t often readily apparent and don’t always manifest. But the power of this work lies in its potential: working together based on shared values rooted in equity, learning to better love ourselves and others, freedom dreaming about a better tomorrow, and showing up every day as our true selves striving to make each moment as human/e as possible. Successfully changing social systems is not guaranteed, so the struggle itself may be all we have; and that’s okay because when we enact hope together, it’s beautiful.
Rachel Mark, Director of Academic Support at Vermont State University- Castleton & former Professional Development Coordinator at TIIE
As a result of my time working for the Tarrant Institute, I’ve learned so many things. Perhaps what strikes me most of all is what I’ve learned about attending to the way we work in teams and systems. The process of working together as people in systems is just as important as the content of the work. Perhaps we learned this together because we lived and worked through a pandemic, when so much of our world was unpredictable and in turmoil. I learned that we needed to surface our emotions and take care of one another as we worked through this time. Fortunately, we never let go of working this way.
Our agreements and working norms as a Tarrant team are extraordinary, and I hope to carry them with me into all of my future endeavors. Two of my favorite agreements are “Take space, make space, hold space” and “Welcome our fully human selves”. I’m forever grateful for the opportunity to learn from and with you all.
Steve Netcoh, Coordinator of Extended Learning Opportunities at Farmington High School in Connecticut & former Postdoctoral Associate at TIIE
The most important lesson I learned through my work with TIIE is that the community is an invaluable source of meaningful learning opportunities for middle grades youth. From offering relevant questions and issues that can serve as the foundation for curriculum to providing experts who can help youth explore their passions and interests, the community is essential for helping to foster purpose, identity, and engagement for young adolescents within and outside school walls.
Mark Olofson, Director of Educator Data, Research, and Strategy at Texas Education Agency & former Graduate Research Fellow at TIIE
Often I think about how middle school is a transformative time period for students, where they change and are changed – but working with TIIE I saw educators and other professionals change, and be changed through collaborative and purpose-driven action. I guess – it’s not just the students having transformative experiences.
Jeanie Phillips, Senior Associate at Great Schools Partnership & former Professional Development Coordinator at TIIE
The biggest takeaway I have from my time at TIIE is RELATIONSHIPS! This work allowed me to develop deep, meaningful, lasting relationships with my colleagues, educators around Vermont, and students. I learned so much from all the people I worked alongside in schools and beyond, and I cherish those connections. AND I watched as educators nurtured relationships with students, colleagues, families, community members, and those of us at TIIE – building strong learning organizations rooted in belonging and care. I’m deeply grateful for Vermont educators and students for the opportunity to connect and learn with you!
Scott Thompson, Director of Curriculum at Franklin West Supervisory Union &former Professional Development Coordinator at TIIE
Middle School Matters! Developmentally, academically, socially, and emotionally it is such a unique time that has had long impacts on YA’s. In my time with TIIE and as a middle school teacher, when students feel welcome, cared about, and involved in their education is where I have seen the most benefit. Despite all the pressures of testing and rigor, I’d offer to focus on the students. The rest will fall into place,
There is a reason that we’ve written so many stories about students doing cool projects in and with their communities! Relevant, real world learning experiences are highly engaging for young adolescents.
The learning and work feels meaningful, and youth feel energized with their emerging sense of agency: I can make a difference in my community. Here and now. This matters.
Seriously, there’s no way we can capture them all here in this toolkit, and it’s likely that almost any post makes at least some reference to students engaging with the larger community. You can find the permanent link to the toolkit here.
But whatever you call it, when it has the essential ingredients of real world, student driven, making a difference and, crucially, engaging with members and organizations in the local community. Community engaged learning is a huge boon for student students and for communities – it’s a win-win!
Manchester Elementary and Middle School 5th graders created profiles of compassionate community members. To illustrate, includes video and examples of student work.
Burke Town School 8th graders spent a semester connecting with community members and creating art to honor them. To illustrate, includes video and examples of student work.
Crossett Brook Middle School’s Brainado project allows an 8th grader to connect with a local mechanic (and parlay it into a summer job!). To illustrate, includes video.
Burke Town School 8th graders connect with community leaders and use the UN Global Goals to contribute to the community. To illustrate, includes video.
Lyndon Town School 6th graders participate in a town-wide planning process to improve the community. To illustrate, includes video, lesson plans from teachers, and learning scales.
Burke Town School students in grade 3-5 work to reconnect their community after pandemic school closures. To illustrate, includes video and lesson plans.
Manchester Elementary Middle School 7th graders used oral histories and 3D printing to create mini documentaries about local history. To illustrate, includes description and video.
Students at Harwood Union High School partnered with community members to facilitate a community conversation about the name of a primary school in the district.
Podcast episodes (and transcripts) about Community Engaged Learning
We have a saying around here that “middle school is not a building” and we also believe that classrooms do not have to be rooms. There are so many benefits to being outside for humans’ wellbeing and for students’ learning. We’ve collected our favorite blog posts – find the toolkit’s permanent link here.
Revamp the Ville project from Lyndon Town School 6th graders
Waking Up Gently: Using the Post-Winter Landscape as a Guide for Educators
Teaching Place-Based, Decolonized Ecology in the Middle School Classroom
De-Colonizing Place-Based Education
Outdoor & Place-Based Education in the Now
Connecting students to Vermont's rich dairy history in Cabot
How to make real, sustainable change in the Northeast Kingdom
Learning Manchester's history through storytelling and 3D printing
How can students make global connections?
What does service learning look like in Vermont?
Building a chicken coop at The Dorset School
The Crossett Brook Legacy Mural
What is the Cougar Co-op?
Meet the Humans of Burke
Burke Town School on: Hydroelectric power
Should Vermont host the next Olympics?
Wilderness Semester
The value of community mentors
Vermont's Race Against Racism
Planning The Harvest Dinner at Stowe Middle School
Measuring air quality in Shelburne VT
How to make National Park green screen videos with students
Studying hurricanes in a 1:1 iPad environment
Making geology games with ARIS
The Digital Anthropologists of Cabot, VT
Meet the Digital Cartographers of Cabot
Meet the Digital Historians of Cabot, Vermont
Wild City Project @ Edge: Year 2
Welcome to the Wild City Project
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Outdoor and place-based learning are tightly connected with so many other things we hold dear. Understanding our place in the wider outdoor world is important for building community together and for students to explore their identity. The outdoors are a great place for engaging in reflection , while thinking deeply about our relationship with the environment and the legacies of a place are powerful ingredients for equity. And so many fabulous project based learning experiences take place in part or fully outside.
We hope you enjoy digging in here, and, of course, getting out there!
Example from Leland and Gray Union Middle and High School that walks through their service learning process. See this short video about the project, too.
Describes how students from the Cabot School regularly work at Molly Brook Farm as part of their Cabot Leads service learning program. Includes a video.
Examples of other forms of outdoor and place-based learning
Equity is the moral imperative behind all of the work we do here at the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education. In this new toolkit, we have collected many of our favorite posts about equity, including analyses and syntheses about equity in general, how to support equity in professional learning and in classrooms, and examples of student projects with equity at the center. Find the toolkit’s permanent location here.
Equity is the basis of the middle school movement that we hold dear, which originated as a challenge to the status quo of junior high schools. As progressive educators, we promote shifts in education to bring more equitable outcomes, more humane learning spaces, and expanded opportunities for students to analyze and act to bring greater justice to our society.
And an important shift in the middle school movement over the last decade is the recognition that equity needs to be explicitly centered in order to be effectively pursued. While it may be a driver behind the work, and there are important practices that promote it, equity itself demands to be named, analyzed, researched, learned, taught, and applied. Please see below for some of our favorite blog posts that address equity head-on.
Considers ways to de-center quantifiable data and focus more on qualitative data and human experience. Draw heavily on ideas from the book Street Data: A Next Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and Transformation.
Describes professional learning in South Burlington School District that asks educators to reflect on their personal relationship to equity and systems.
Christie Nold’s 6th grade social studies unit. Includes some of Christie’s curriculum materials, interviews with students, and a poetry reading by a student.
Lindsay McQueen’s presentation at the 2021 Middle Grades Conference. Includes video and slides from the presentation, slides used with students during the unit, and an example of a student project.
Sam Nelson reflects on his inquiry question “How can students use social justice as a lens for designing curriculum?” He provides examples of how he and his student planning committee integrated social justice throughout the school year.
Grace Gilmour’s presentation at the 2021 Middle Grades Conference about a grade 7-8 Humanities unit. Includes video, transcript, description of activities, and student reflections.
Provides resources and tips for talking about race by tracing Christie Nold’s 6th grade student’s learning and actions related to hate speech at their school.
Dillin, a seventh grade student at Newark Street School (NSS), had this to say about starting school with 30 minutes of daily movement:
“So my perspective is, I really like it. It gets you healthy. Your heart beats, and then you get ready for the day you have after you’re done doing it. Like you get to take all your energy out.”
Asked what would happen if he didn’t get his energy out, Dillin replies, “Oh, it’d be different. I’d be annoying. … With Power Hour, my brain is ready to learn – it, like, observes more.”
This 30 minutes of daily movement is called Power Hour (along with 15 minutes of breakfast and a 15 minute morning meeting). The school started it this year along with Exploratory Fridays, which devotes a half day each week to activities such as hiking, canoeing, or skiing.
These programs are having a positive impact already. Students seem to love it, especially students like Dillin who need to “get their energy out” or others who aren’t able to regularly access these activities because of cost or other barriers. The school has seen benefits in terms of student engagement, academic achievement, and behavior. Let’s take a look at how it works and why it is readily replicable.
Power Hour
The structure for Power Hour is simple: every day starts with 20-30 minutes of a movement-based activity. For K-2 students, it is similar to a recess. For students in grades 3-8, they get to choose among a number of activities. During warmer seasons, the choices could include biking, walking, running, or playground games. During the winter, there’s snow shoeing, cross country skiing, calisthenics, and sports in the gym.
Shared by Tim Mulligan, principal, and Ty Mulligan, grade 8 student, in a presentation at the 2023 Middle Grades Conference.
After exercising, students have breakfast and then circle up for morning meetings to get ready for the rest of the school day. In several interviews with students and adults, there was widespread agreement that Power Hour carries benefits throughout the school day in terms of focus and social connection. More on that later.
Exploratory Fridays
Once a week, students spend half of their school day engaging in experiential activities that often have a recreational or creative emphasis.
In some cases Exploratory Fridays are extensions of Power Hour. For example, students might bike each day around the school, and then head to the Kingdom Trail network on Fridays. I accompanied one of these trips and students conveyed that the daily biking was fun but that the Friday trips were the place where they got to see their skill and stamina gains pay off.
Shared by Tim Mulligan, principal, and Ty Mulligan, grade 8 student, in a presentation at the 2023 Middle Grades Conference.
In many cases, Exploratory Fridays involve community partners to provide more supervision and structure. Many of the activities plug students into established offerings that in past years may have been accessed more as one shot field trips.
Tatum, an 8th grade student, noted that while Power Hour is all about exercise, Exploratory Fridays was better described as “personalized learning.” It is less about getting the heart rate up as it is about leveling up.
Why does it work
There is solid scientific evidence behind the theory that daily movement prepares the brain for learning. Tim Mulligan, principal of NSS, had encountered this evidence in the book Spark, written by Dr. John J. Ratey. In a recent presentation at the Middle Grades Conference, Tim summarized Ratey’s evidence for the benefits of daily movement:
Opens neurological pathways that prepare the brain for learning
Cardiovascular activities actually create new neuro-pathways. The best way to take advantage of this is to engage in academics following sustained movement!
Provides therapeutic effects for everyone!
Especially for students with ADHD, anxiety, depression and other mental, emotional, and social health conditions.
Increases cardio-respiratory fitness
Develops a healthy habit that reduces risks of many chronic diseases.
Supports a healthy body composition
Promotes greater sense of self-worth and esteem
Creates positive social interactions and builds a stronger community
Tim has not been shy about sharing the research rationale for daily movement with teachers, students and community members. Mary Jane, a 7th grade student, had this response to a hypothetical skeptic that worried about a loss of “academic” time:
“Actually, studies show that biking or walking, or doing anything that exercises your body in the morning helps your brain learn better which will make our grades go up compared to having less movement in our day.”
Quite convincing!
As for Exploratory Fridays, the focus on doing is exactly what many students need, especially young adolescents. According to the Association for Experiential Education,
“Experiential education is a teaching philosophy that informs many methodologies in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills, clarify values, and develop people’s capacity to contribute to their communities.”
The approaches used in Exploratory Fridays, such as outdoor learning and place-based education, are squarely in the experiential learning umbrella. Middle grades students at NSS reflect weekly in their personalized portfolios to make connections to their learning and lives.
Shared by Tim Mulligan, principal, and Ty Mulligan, grade 8 student, in a presentation at the 2023 Middle Grades Conference.
Early evidence of impact
So far, these programs appear to be living up to the promise of the research that is behind them. The principal cites several indicators heading in the right direction:
Attendance has improved
Test scores are up
Bullying incidents and misbehavior is down
There is a positive vibe about the programs. In interviews, students shared things like:
“I’ve noticed that when you are active, your brain works better” (Andrew, grade 6)
“I really enjoy it, and I do feel a difference in wanting to be at school earlier, and being more motivated to get up in the morning, get dressed, eat breakfast, and pack my bag” (Tatum, grade 8)
Yeah, it puts me in a better mood, because it’s waking me up. And I just like that moving in in the morning before I do school.: (Graham, grade 7)
“I would encourage other schools to do it, because it’s just so much fun to not just be in a classroom and just to be outside and doing all of these things.: (Ava, grade7)
These positive comments align with the survey feedback that NSS solicits from students and parents every few months. The vast majority of responses show that these programs are perceived as enjoyable and that students feel well supported. For those few who respond otherwise, the principal follows up to improve things for those students.
How do they do it
Tim Mulligan, principal at NSS, has worked with local community members to defray the costs of these programs. Through monetary and other types of donations (like letting students ride bikes on their land, or parent volunteerism), the cost of these programs to the school budget is kept to $15,000 per year.
Shared by Tim Mulligan, principal, and Ty Mulligan, grade 8 student, in a presentation at the 2023 Middle Grades Conference.
Morgan Moore, the Director of Experiential Learning for the district, supports Tim with some logistics and in making connections to community organizations. The district uses grant funds and deploys staff from their after school programs to support these types of experiences in other schools. Morgan brings in students from the Outdoor Education program at Northern Vermont University as well. At Concord School, Applied Academics teachers are the backbone of Exploratory Fridays.
Morgan notes: “Every school is different for how they can make this work. But it’s so important to make these opportunities available during the school day. Every student deserves to be exposed to these skills, the land, these local organizations, and of course Transferable Skills like teamwork.”
Making these opportunities a priority is perhaps the most important element in making them widespread and equitably available. Tim points to the challenges facing schools as the ultimate justification for innovation:
“How are we meeting the needs of all of our kids? ADHD, mental health, depression, the trauma so many have experienced. And all of us adults going through the same things? We have to try something different than what we’ve done in the past.”
So every school is different, and it is time to try something different. Getting students moving and exploring is a great place to start, however you do it.
How will you get students moving and exploring at your school?
At the Tarrant Institute, we write a lot about Project Based Learning (PBL). We consider it one of the engaging and meaningful instructional pedagogies that we endorse. As an approach, PBL offers many of the traits that address the important needs of young adolescents. It engages students in thinking about real-world problems, gives time for inquiry and research, and suggests that students create their own solutions to questions. Which is why we’re so excited to share our new Project Based Learning toolkit with you. Find it in its permanent location here.
Before anyone sets out to implement PBL, we encourage you to build the culture for this learning. This blogpost about creating a PBL culture in your classroom shares strategies and activities. Our Community & Culture toolkit can also provide you with some resources and strategies to prepare your learners to engage successfully with Project Based Learning.
But even when you build the culture, we know that teaching and learning with PBL can be messy. Students are collaborating in groups. They have varied paths they want to follow. There is trial and error. It isn’t easy! We have worked with countless teachers and schools to help them tell their PBL stories. And we have learned from their work to help guide us forward.
In this toolkit, you will find topics that might resonate with your own inquiry about PBL. Attached are some of our most valuable and relevant resources to help you on your journey towards understanding and implementing PBL with students.
PBL How-To
These posts offer suggestions, steps, and planning tools for how to build and implement PBL in your classroom.
When the pandemic forced students to be at home, we got creative about how to keep PBL alive and well. While students are in person now, we can still learn from this time.
Like a lot of teaching strategies, we have learned from our mistakes implementing PBL. Here are some resources that address some of the potential pitfalls.
It’s that time again! One of our favorite times of the year around here: our annual Winter Reading post. This year, for your listening pleasure, a few of us have also included podcast recommendations! Oh, and as an extra special surprise, we have guest contributions from a few former colleagues!
So without further ado, may we present our lists…
Rachel Mark
I love to read, and that’s no secret. But what I have recently realized is that I love the actual hunt for discovering the right book. As we head into this winter, I think I have really nailed it in finding some “right books” for me.
At the top of my stack is Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. This novel sounds like an endearing story about a female chemist in the 1960’s whose trajectory takes an unexpected turn. Its description as “funny” and “feminist” has made me eye it for months. In fact, I received two copies of it from separate gift givers for my recent birthday. That hasn’t happened since I unwrapped six copies of Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume for my 12th birthday, so it must be a solid choice.
Another fictional pick is on my list is Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A novel by Gabrielle Zevin. I must admit it was the beautiful and creative cover art that drew me to this book. But the story involves an intersection of love, success and video game design that sounds fascinating. Indie Bound gives it “rave” reviews. I can’t wait to crack its cover.
To satisfy my professional side, I plan to read Leaders of Their Learning: Transforming Schools Through Student-Engaged Assessment by Ron Berger, Leah Rugen, and Libby Woodfin. In part, I’m reading this book to become more attuned and aligned with a specific school district’s work and goals. But it’s compelling to me for other reasons. This book will contribute to my long-term passion project around empowering and engaging students. Its particular attention to student-led conferences, passage presentations with portfolios, and standards-based grading will be relevant and will deep my own learning.
The latest book by Maira Kalman, Women Holding Things, is also on my to-read list this winter. This is not your average book. It contains extraordinary and whimsical illustrations, paired with witty and wise words. I think this book speaks intimately to me. Kalman writes, “What do women hold? The home and the family. And the children and the food. The friendships. The work. The work of the world. And the work of being human. The memories. And the troubles. And the sorrows and the triumphs. And the love.” If you’ve never read Maira Kalman or looked at her artwork, I highly recommend that you do. Her book And the Pursuit of Happiness is one of my favorites. Happy Reading!
Life LeGeros
I write this in the throes of World Cup fever. My love of the beautiful game (soccer) is only matched by my appreciation of a good book. Throw in middle school and equity and I’m hopelessly hooked. I was long ago devoted to Front Desk series, and yet the fourth installment, Key Player, had me particularly excited. Hearing author Kelly Yang recount the famous match at the Rose Bowl between the United States Women’s National Team and the Chinese team was so fun. And then learning that this book was just as autobiographical as the others was simply amazing.
I’m currently reading Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by sister scholars Karen E. Fields (historian) and Barbara J. Fields (sociologist). The book is a collection of essays that are chock full of brilliant scholarship and exquisite writing. They challenge some of my ideas about how identity operates, about how and why anti-Black racism arose in America, and about whether ideology is about belief or, as they argue, is grounded in day to day practices. It’s good to be challenged and I look forward to reading their recommendations for action.
As I get ready to grow my To Be Read pile here at the end of the calendar year, I need to circle back to some of the books that have been in that stack throughout 2022. One of my kids pulled Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor off the bookshelf the other day to use to prop up the book she was reading. An acclaimed book by one of my favorite authors, that I had forgotten that I own? Perfect! Thank you, universe.
I’ve been working with schools in the Northeast Kingdom this year, which has made for some lengthy and very pretty drives. Here are my favorite podcasts depending on mood:
For deep learning about race and whiteness, the Seeing White season of Scene on Radio was a life changer for me, while Teaching While White has taught me a ton and continues to put out new compelling episodes.
For inspiration and insights about life, apparently podcasts featuring sisters are my thing. I enjoy How to Survive the End of the World with adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown; and We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle who along with amazing guests often invites sis Amanda Doyle and wife Abby Wambach.
For amazing journalism about crucial topics, my go tos are Reveal for investigative reporting and Throughline for historical context on contemporary issues.
For story telling you can’t beat Snap Judgment and it’s scary story spinoff, Spooked.
For Vermont-centric stories that are as good as anything out there, Rumble Strip is illuminating and mesmerizing while Brave Little State is a treasure. The special series Homegoings, focused on Black musicians in Vermont, is especially powerful.
I’m not always in the mood for a podcast, though. There’s live radio, music, or just sitting in silence with my thoughts. However you like to exist, I hope you get plenty of it this winter.
Emily Hoyler
I confess: I’ve been quite swept away with reality TV these days. I seem to go through phases, and currently I’m not in a book phase. Actually, that’s not quite true. As a doctoral student, I’m doing a lot of reading. But it’s not the wind-down-take-it-easy kind of reading. It’s you-better-have-a-dictionary-and-deep-focus kind. Hence the current Survivor obsession. But given that stacks of books are the key element in my home design aesthetic, there are plenty around, and a few titles that have drawn me in lately.
When it does come time to snuggle up with a book, I am prepared. Not only do I have books, but I have a puppy to snuggle with. As such, Herbs for Pets is on my reading list, as well as Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, recommended and loaned to me by my friend Samantha. I also optimistically checked out a stack of books from the library as well. I’m really excited to dive into this stack, which includes The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley, Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley, and All Adults Here by Emma Straub.
As for listening, the pandemic really crushed the commuting time during which I listened to podcasts. But I still manage to stay caught up with a few. Current favorites include Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt’s Hot Take, which keeps me current on the unfolding climate crisis with some amazing dad jokes thrown in – keeping it light, folks. When I’m up for more unsettling, I listen to Ayana Johnson’s For the Wild: An Anthology of the Anthropocene, which blends sweet music with interviews of visionary activists and changemakers. Lately though, I’ve been feeling saturated, and choose music instead. (Hello, Taylor Swift.)
Bonus Features!
Katy Farber
I was gobsmacked by the brilliance of this book: Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. It was a bit slow moving at first, but the writing is so gorgeous, lyrical, and descriptive, I’m glad I stuck with it. By the end, I was exclaiming to the woods, my cat, how these stories and worlds came together, through decades, gloriously human and beloved characters, connected to this earth, a story, and each other. I just can’t believe it. If you would have asked me if I was interested in Ancient Greek texts I’d say nope. But this? A book that is dedicated to librarians, present and future? It pulled me along and then sailed me through the last 200 pages like a fast boat ride. Books connecting people, saving people, transforming people. So much love and humanity in this. If you have read it, my goodness! Would love to hear what you thought.
Shout out to Aggie in the background. Best reading partner!
Jeanie Phillips
I’ve got a cozy stack of books awaiting the first snowy days, and one I’ve already begun that I’m loving. Let’s start with that one.
Ruha Benjamin was such an amazing speaker that the Rowland Foundation invited her to be the keynote at their annual conference not once, but TWICE! Her latest book, Viral Justice, is just like her keynotes: warm, personal, and beautiful but also insightful, inspiring, and revolutionary. She weaves together research, policy, science, and her own story — encouraging us to make small changes that will coalesce to make the world more just and humane for everyone. I’ve been listening to this one on audio (read by the author!) but had to have a print copy to annotate and underline. Plus – the cover!!!
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu was recommended (and loaned) to me by my friend Rhiannon. Pausing here to say I just love reading books recommended by dear friends — I love the shared experience of a book and the many conversations that follow — it’s a kind of kinship that brings me so much joy! Interior Chinatown is a satirical look at race and assimilation. It’s the perfect follow-up to the book I’m currently reading: Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts, where assimilation is policed by a patriotic America that has no tolerance for difference.
I’ve got a memoir in the stack, too: Deborah Copaken’s Ladyparts. This one comes to me via my friend Emily who assures me that it is both hilariously funny and powerfully feminist (just like Emily!).
And then there is Inciting Joy! Ross Gay is a poet, but his book of essays, The Book of Delights, is one of my most favorite books ever. In it, he conjures delight from the most mundane things: the roots of trees, pick-up basketball games, two people carrying a shopping bag together — 1 handle each. His essays, like his poems, stir deep gratitude in me and remind me to savor small things.
Here is wishing you joy this winter — in your reading, your gathering, and your resting.
It’s no secret we’re big fans of advisory around here.
And we don’t just mean the time on the schedule that’s called “advisory,” but the practice of circling up with students to build relationships and connections, share ourselves, and laugh, play, and maybe occasionally even cry together. Which is why we’re so excited to announce our new Advisory toolkit. Find it in its permanent location here.
Young adolescents are deep in the throes of exploring who they are, both individually and collectively, and we have the wonderful privilege of stewarding this process. It can be a tricky time for students to navigate increasingly complex social relationships, not to mention juggling multiple teachers (and homework assignments).
Advisory is one of the key ways we support our students.
Advisory, done well, is a core middle grades practice
Despite its name, the morning meeting can happen any time of day. And it can “fit” into whatever time is available, although 20-30 minutes a day is ideal. It’s a time to build relationships and community through greeting each other and being greeted, sharing about our lives, and having fun together. Nothing builds engagement like an enlivening round of Is This Seat Taken? or Silent Ball.
But it’s not all just fun and games in advisory
Advisory is often the structure schools use to create a “home base” for students, most of whom have many more teachers in their schedule than they’ve had in the past. The role of the advisor is to deeply know, advocate for, and celebrate their advisees. Advisors often serve as the key home-school contact, and co-facilitate student-led conferences. In this way, we can make sure that every student is connected with a caring adult at school.
And advisory isn’t just about a circle of chairs. It’s about building relationships and community all day long. That’s why our Identity toolkit, Community & Culture toolkit and our Adult Culture toolkit also have wisdom to offer on this topic.
How do you use the advisory structure to build community and relationship?
Advisory How-To:
These posts offer suggestions, insights, and research on how to build and facilitate advisory.
The pandemic reinforced what we already know: social connections are essential. And some of you got really good at virtual advisory. Here are a few posts sharing those strategies.
Still not convinced? Or need to convince your colleague to invest in this highly effective best practice? Read this series from middle level expert Nancy Doda.
You know the vibe when you walk into a classroom where everyone is engaged and buzzing with learning, and the room is humming with good energy? It’s not accidental. Culture takes deliberate work to build and grow. Learning is happening. Collaboration is smooth. Laughter is present.
How do we get more of that?
Building community, all day, every day
We know that a thriving learning community is essential to student success and wellbeing. And a connected class brings more joy to each school day. But how do we build and maintain an engaged, respectful, and curiosity-centered classroom culture?
Slowly. Daily. With patience, clarity, and laughter.
Community & Culture is such an important topic that we’ve written about it a lot and often. So we are especially excited to present our new Community & Culture Toolkit. Find it in it’s permanent location here.
Building the Culture & the Beginning of the Year
We all want to get off to a strong, solid start. These posts share ideas on how to build the foundation of a strong learning community from the beginning.
See also our tool kit on advisory for more ideas on how to build culture through advisory.
A positive and thriving learning culture must be tended throughout the academic year. These posts address keeping things fresh and real in pursuit of a learning community.
The pandemic may not be over, but we have certainly progressed from the early moments of 2020 when we pivoted to remote schooling. We’ve moved past the mask mandate and daily case reports, into now, the as-yet undefined third year of pandemic schooling. While many things have returned to ‘normal’, we are changed. This collection of posts by middle level expert Nancy Doda offers rumination on what we’ve learned, what’s important, and what we should still be asking ourselves.
A positive and collaborative adult culture is essential to a positive and collaborative student culture. As educators, we must attend to both. We believe that a thriving adult community in schools is essential, so we built a special toolkit just for that topic.Find it here!
The sixth grade team at Lyndon Town School were looking for an end of year interdisciplinary project. They wanted students to reconnect with the community after two years of pandemic schooling.
The Town of Lyndon was calling for community members to help generate ideas about how to improve downtown. They were in the “consider” phase of the Revamp the ‘Ville, a year-long “community-driven planning process.”
Students, town officials, and community members intermingled. Connections ensued. And a whole slew of fantastic ideas were developed, shared, and celebrated.
Read on for a play by play of this magical month of project based learning, along with reflections and tips from the students and adults who made it happen.
Breaking out of COVID isolation
After a year of pandemic schooling in 2020-2021 with social distancing and many students opting for remote rather than in-person learning, everybody was ready to get back to something more normal. The beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, however, saw a rise in cases that caused more disruptions and further cautionary measures.
By the end of the year, things were feeling more settled. Going into the spring, the sixth grade team knew they wanted to do an interdisciplinary project. They also wanted to help students make connections across content areas and with the community. Tyler Willis, the Humanities teacher, enrolled in a graduate course about project based learning. As a result, he was able to bring resources and ideas to the team in line with their goals and use his assignments in the course to further the project planning.
Tyler explained the connection impetus this way:
We felt that through the years of Covid, we’d strained the relationship between our parents, our community members, and the school. So much was Covid focused that we really wanted to try and open up what we did as a project. We wanted to bring our kids back into the community and bring the community back into our school.
In line with this reconnection goal, the team wanted the project to feel like a celebration of sorts. They were committed to asset-based approaches in their everyday teaching and through structures like Student Led Conferences.
Luckily, the Revamp the Ville process underway in their community was highly aligned with their goals. It was an asset-based, action oriented, inclusive community project. The team just needed to figure out how to bridge the gap so that the students could meaningfully participate while also learning what they needed to for school.
Interdisciplinary clarity and collaboration via the Transferable Skills
The team had big ideas of all the directions they could take the project. They wanted it to be vibrant and emergent in a way that would be impossible to completely preplan.
With this in mind, the team decided to use Transferable Skills (cross curricular proficiencies) to craft their learning objectives. More specifically, they chose one: self-direction.
“Less is more”, Tyler reflected later. Focusing on self-direction provided cohesion across content areas. The team created a scale for self-direction and then provided additional detail to students based on task. For example, the task sheet for planning and project management provided indicators at each proficiency level that could be used during work sessions. Over time the students developed an understanding of what self-direction looked like in different contexts so that they could self-assess, provide feedback to peers, and understand feedback they received from others.
By focusing on self-direction, the team could calibrate and collaborate effectively. Tyler explained “we tried to break it up as a team so that we didn’t have to assess every single student we had in front of us every single day. We had conversations about what are we seeing from different students so that it almost took on like a team based assessment kind of thing.”
Furthermore, this type of collaboration felt like something the team had long been striving for in their Professional Learning Community (PLC). Tyler observed that whereas it is hard to look at data together from different content areas, “this feels like a way to tackle a true PLC model. Are we really data driven? We can be if we are focusing on Transferable Skills.”
On a beautiful Monday morning at the beginning of May, the sixth grade team took a bus to downtown Lyndonville. In small teams led by one or two teachers, students walked around town snapping photos and taking notes. The scavenger hunt asked them to observe and record the pros and cons of their town in three areas: business and economy, recreation opportunities, and attractiveness.
Each group stopped by the Aubin Electric office, where owner CJ Aubin gave them a quick history lesson. Students were enthralled to hear that he remembers coming to the building as a kid when it was a train stop, where you could earn 10 cents a bag to help unload goods. After one group left, CJ waxed poetic about his enthusiasm for the project:
These kids just need to be pointed in the direction to see that their dreams and goals can benefit everybody around them where they live. It all comes down to their dreams – they can make it happen and it all starts now.
By the end of the day, students were already coming up with ideas for improvements to the town: more trashcans to reduce litter, more community events to bring people together, brighter crosswalks, and better food options. Before heading back to school for lunch, students and teachers played lawn games together on the town green.
Forming and brainstorming
Over the next few days, six community members visited the team to give students varied perspectives on the history, values, assets and needs of Lyndonville. The esteemed presenters included:
Eric Paris – A local dairy farmer and Vice President of the local historical society.
Joe Benning – A state representative and candidate for Lieutenant Governor (who eventually took the students on a field trip to the State House).
Beth Kanell – A historian and novelist.
CJ Aubin – A community member and business owner with multi-generational family connections to the community.
Ben Mirkin – Associate Professor of Outdoor Education, Leadership, and Tourism at Northern Vermont University.
Nicole Gratton – Director of Planning for the town of Lyndon. She brought an understanding of logistics, and connection to all of the research, zoning bylaws, and other relevant town information that had come up in the information-gathering phase.
It was a whirlwind week, but worth it, as noted by Tyler: “There was a lot to plan for the teachers a lot of logistical stuff but by the end of that week all of us, the kids and the teachers, were motivated and happy. Teachers were feeling like it was like one of the best weeks we had all year. After that we were like, okay, now, we have really started.”
By week two, students were ready to run with all sorts of ideas. Some students started to naturally group themselves into pairs for projects that they wanted to work on together. The team then clumped students into topic groups so that students could share resources across projects.
Let’s get organized
Before completely opening things up for students to chase their dreams, the team did some foundational learning together and established some structures.
First, students did some research about community improvement. A worksheet guided their exploration of resources organized on a padlet. The resources ranged from general ones about what makes thriving community to specific articles about Lyndonville, many of which were written by presenters from the previous week. Students contributed to a JamBoard as a centralized brainstorming spot.
Next, the team solidified the expectations and products that students would be asked to complete. Students participated in a Humanities workshop about the persuasive product that they would create and a science workshop about the model they would build. Students studied and unpacked the rubrics for these products that linked to the Transferable Skills of self-direction and communication. These experiences and tools made it clear how the products would serve as evidence of learning.
Along the way, students completed tasks to receive concrete feedback about self-direction (the main focus). For example, one day they created a business plan and logo that connected to their early ideas about improving the town. These tasks expanded students’ understanding of the expectations for self-direction and built skills that could be applied again later.
Finally, students created an initial project plan. They explained their project, made a case for working with a partner if this is something they wanted to do, and started costing out materials. Teachers conferenced with students to provide feedback and approve plans.
The foundations had been fully laid and it was time to get messy.
The messy phase
The third week of the project brought lots of work time. Teachers supported students in everything from making connections to their content areas to getting in touch with people and resources in the community.
Michelle Bechanan, math teacher, noted: “As a math teacher involved in this project it can get messy because the math each student might need can be very different, and this makes it both energizing and challenging trying to help all of the students with the different math they need.”
Yes, it’s messy, but it’s also a math teacher’s dream to have students asking to learn math to do something that they care about. This is the intrinsic motivation that is the holy grail of education, and one of the main reasons why PBL is such a powerful, research-based pedagogy.
As put by Temperance, a sixth grade student,
“This was the most engaging things we did all year. The reason that I am the most engaged in this project is because it means a lot to me.”
The momentum of meaningful learning carried students through this work period. Teachers arranged for some “stress test” moments along the way, where students would reflect and provide feedback to each other about how realistic their projects were.
Eventually, students learned that they would be presenting their ideas to mentors from the community. They did some warm up pitches in a Shark Tank-style activities, reflecting on how to create short persuasive presentations. Students tamed the messiness of the work week by condensing their project ideas into digestible pitches.
Mentor Day!
Before submitting their persuasive products and models, and a week before exhibition day, students shared their projects with mentors from the community and received feedback.
Tyler explained,
“We didn’t want students to just present finished projects to community members. Ou goal from the beginning was to have community members be a part of the projects and actually work alongside kids.”
Community mentors circulated to students, heard their ideas for improving the community, and offered verbal and written feedback. Comment cards encouraged mentors to be as specific as possible
Justin Smith, the Municipal Administrator for the town, focused his feedback on feasibility. “It was a great experience for both sides, an opportunity for understanding why things can be done and why can’t they be done.” He came away impressed by students and their ideas, with some good ideas injected into the town project: “These real life experiences are very important. It’s a give and take – I’m getting a lot of great ideas and they are getting some real life lessons about the expectations you can have for some of these projects”
The Final Exhibition
After incorporating feedback from Justin and other mentors into their products, students were ready to share. The team invited mentors, community presenters, families, and other teachers and students to learn and to celebrate.
And they didn’t disappoint. The library was abuzz as students showed off their models, made persuasive and informative pitches, and even modeled some real life shwag with logos that they had designed.
“These 6th graders have great ideas!” exclaimed Justin after the exhibition.
“They came up with unique things to do for our city and our town that us adults wouldn’t necessarily think of. It’s great to have kids throwing ideas at you … I can take these back and ponder: is there a grant for this? Is there a doable project here?”
After the excitement of the exhibition, students completed a self-assessment that asked them to reflect on their learning and to provide feedback to teachers about the project. Overwhelmingly, students expressed that Revamp the Ville had been the most important and fun part of the school year.
CJ Aubin, who had been involved since day one, was still floating after the exhibition had wound down. “There are some great ideas in the air. The dreaming is what I really like. To see them spend time on thinking up ways that can improve the lives of other people in the community that means so much to them.”
Take-aways
When asked to offer some tips and lessons learned, Tyler came up with six:
1. Depth over breadth for cross-curricular proficiencies
For cross-curricular learning objectives like the Transferable Skills, don’t worry about coverage or comprehensiveness. Pick one or two and provide students with multiple opportunities to unpack them. All of this practice will help students understand these complex expectations better and position them to self- and peer assess, gather relevant evidence, and meaningfully reflect.
2. Community connections pay big dividends
Bringing the community into school, getting students out into the community, and allowing students to work on improving community are all huge motivators and sources of learning. There are lots of examples for the power of community connections and it is always worth it.
3. Create a feedback rich environment
The sixth grade team set up many layers of feedback so that students could hear from peers, teachers, community members, exhibition attendees, etc. Feedback is crucial for proficiency-based learning generally, and in this case the team wanted students to understand that a crucial component of self-direction is the ability to incorporate feedback from others. There was also a helpful division of labor: teachers focused on self-direction and external mentors were looked at the products and ideas.
4. Set time aside to plan and collaborate
Making magic like this is not easy. The team gave themselves ample time to work together so that they could be responsive to student needs and to the emerging aspects of the project. Tyler put it this way:
“Try to be conscious of just enjoying the time you have with the kids and to not overplan.”
You can get a jump by looking at sample projects like this one and others.
5. Your students will love it!
Michelle, the math teacher on the team, had not used a project based learning approach before Revamp the Ville. She shared afterwards: “Through my experience with project based learning I have found that the students are more engaged with their learning. They take more ownership to their learning because they see a real life application to what they are doing. Making the project something that they feel like they can have some say in is powerful! … I would highly suggest teachers do at least one of these projects a year.”
Students echoed this sentiment. Let’s let them have the last words:
Arie – “It was actually fun, how we were interacting with the community in a way. It was cool how they involved us, because it is not only adults that should be able to make decisions.
Nevaeh – “Students like hands on things. Rather than just doing it on your computer. Because we can work with your friends.”
Jamion – “I hope we do more of this kind of project because it can help build community.”
Temperance – “In the future, I think we should do this literally every year. Because it teaches kids that not only are you helping the world, but you could help yourself.”
Many schools and classrooms across the country identify student skills for success. Ideally, those skills cut across content areas and are grouped within grade bands. They are communicated and prioritized within the learning community. While Vermont’s AOE has identified five Transferable Skills, some learning institutions choose different ones – sometimes also known as “21st century skills”.
Because these skills apply across content areas, they are high leverage opportunities for learning and teaching. Learning to communicate and collaborate effectively will serve students well across their learning and life. And, because these skills transcend specific disciplines or content areas, they are easy to apply to personally meaningful learning, increasing student engagement. Win-win.
A popular framework is the Essential Skills and Dispositions: Developmental Frameworks developed in 2015 by the National Center for Innovation in Education and the Educational Policy Improvement Center. This framework includes four essential skills – collaboration, communication, creativity, and self-direction in learning. We lovingly call them the “ES & D’s”
We have gathered some of our favorite resources to support you as your students work on developing these skills in this Essential Skills & Dispositions Toolkit. (You can also find it in its permanent location here).
When a learning community can focus on a few essential skills for students, powerful things can happen. It’s possible that students can chart their own growth, reflect on their development, and take ownership over learning. If other tools such as PLPs and Student-Led Conferences are used, students can demonstrate, share and report on their development of essential skills and dispositions.
Please connect with us and share your work with essential skills.
A positive and collaborative adult culture is essential to a positive and collaborative student culture.
As educators, we must attend to both.
We can’t expect our student culture to thrive if that quality is not present in our adult community. As adults, we set the tone. Schools should be places where everyone is a learner, where everyone collaborates, where all voices are heard, and where we share responsibility and power.
But how? Below we share our favorite resources on a few essential elements of a thriving adult culture: effective teaming, better meetings, culture-building and self-care.
Effective teaming
If you’ve been fortunate to work as part of an effective teaching team, we don’t need to convince you of the power and benefit of such deep collaboration (not to mention the moral support!). According to The Successful Middle School,
A signature component of middle schooling is the interdisciplinary team of two or more teachers working with a common group of students for a shared block of time, ideally in proximate space. Effective teams serve as the foundation for a strong learning community…They can provide young adolescents for the sense of belonging, social bonding, and connectedness. They can also lead to improved student achievement, improve family engagement, and other positive outcomes. (p. 51)
But the benefits of effective teaming require a strong foundation.
To achieve these benefits of teaching teams require daily common planning time. Educators need regular opportunities to discuss how – and how well – they are meeting learners’ needs. During common planning time, teachers plan how they will integrate curriculum and personalize learning. They analyze and reflect on assessment data and student work, discuss current research, and reflect on their team’s effectiveness. (p. 51)
Whether you’re just getting started or have been teaming for years, these resources can help you as you collaborate with your colleagues:
If you are an administrator looking to support your teaching teams, we are also fans of Elena Aguilar’s work, especially The Art of Coaching Teams.
Better meetings
Once you have your teaming structure established, and have carved out regular time for collaboration, it’s time to think about making the most of this time together.
Time is a precious resource, and we often feel like we don’t have enough if it. Collaboration works best face to face, yet if we spend out meetings reviewing logistics or getting sucked into fruitless discussions we might not be making the best use of the time we do get. This series of posts can help you and your team build a better container for collaboration so you can bring your vision to life.
We love the School Reform Initiative’s protocols so much, we even use them in our internal meetings. Don’t forget the debrief, it’s essential! Reflecting on how our meeting and discussion worked – or didn’t – gives us valuable insight we can apply to future meetings.
Culture-building
How we show up matters. A lot.
Are you showing up as a captive or a curious learner?
The energy we bring impacts the collective energy of the group. Think of someone whose presence always lifts your spirits. We need to decide, each day, each moment, how we are showing up, and to be aware of how our energy is impacting the collective.
It’s also important to play and laugh together. This is what humans – young and grown – often seek in their free time. Why not begin faculty meetings by teaching each other favorite advisory games? This serves double purpose: not only do we laugh together, but we’ll have new ideas to bring to our students.
It’s hard to give what we don’t have. You’ve heard it before, the thing about putting your own oxygen mask on first. Sleep. Movement. Nourishment. A good therapist. Care work is hard work. Take care of yourselves out there.
Our work as educators is undeniably challenging under the best circumstances, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. Especially when we feel connected to and supported by our colleagues.
Knowing each student well is essential to a year of flourishing for students and educators. It’s a prerequisite to ensuring equitable access to belonging and wellbeing, a culturally-responsive learning environment, and deep learning. And it enriches the relationships so central to a thriving school. Personal learning plans (PLPs) can drive a rich and sustained process of knowing each student well. Teachers, peers, parents and other important adults—and certainly the student—will appreciate the evolving insights PLPs can offer. And students’ learning experiences from the summer, team development activities to launch the school year, and identity units will help you use PLPs to know students well.
Implementing personal learning plans in literacy units
Use Google Tools for Personal Learning Plans (PLPs)
Fayston students share their PLP stories
Vermont's Race Against Racism
From PLPs to P.A.T.H.s: let students lead
The athlete, the artist & the PLP
Increasing student engagement in PLPs at Williston Central School
2016 Brainado Highlight reel
What do you like about Brainado and passion projects?
How can having a mentor help with Brainado?
How has Brainado changed the way you think about school?
The value of community mentors
Brainado trailer
Brainado 2018: passion projects spread across Vermont
The Crossett Brook Legacy Mural
Introducing Flood Brook's Passion Projects
The #everydaycourage of building a better go-cart
Fruit Guild of America
Tuttle Curiosity Projects 2019 Exhibition
How to make real, sustainable change in the Northeast Kingdom
Polaris Passion Projects are out of this world
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We’ve pulled together our favorite blog posts and other resources to help you launch or deepen your work with PLPs. You’ll find this and plenty more in our updated toolkit. Below you can get a taste of some of the highlights. Enjoy!
According to Vermont’s Agency of Education, “A PLP is a plan created by a student, with the support of parents/guardians, teachers/mentors and peers, that defines the scope and rigor of academic and experiential opportunities that will lead to secondary school completion, postsecondary readiness, and civic engagement. Creating Personalized Learning Plans provides students the opportunity to reflect upon their learning and shape their future, and enables the adults in their lives to better understand each student as a unique individual…. PLPs not only help articulate and clarify students’ goals and needs but also are a reflection of the importance of student agency in learning as they work to meet graduation proficiencies.”
Clarify Your Purpose
Clarifying your own purposes for PLPs is key to unlocking their power. In our book, Personalized Learning in the Middle Grades: A Guide for Classroom Teachers and School Leaders, we invite educators to begin their planning for PLPs by first asking themselves a number of questions. These questions are meant to invite thinking about critical gaps in current schooling, especially for students poorly served by current practices, that PLP work can help to fill.
What life opportunities do I hope my students will engage in when they launch into adulthood 8-10 years from now? As citizens, wage earners, and family members?
What kinds of learning would I like to see more of in my classroom or school?
What kinds of learning do I wish were valued more by the rest of my school system?
What kinds of evidence of learning and growth do these learning opportunities produce?
How can I welcome this evidence into a system of student record-keeping?
Who are the stakeholders in my educational community and what evidence or experiences do they need in order to support the learning I want for my students?
And remember, PLPs aren’t just for the teacher. Here are some ways we think PLPs can help various stakeholders. Notice the many ways stakeholders can use PLPs to know students well.
Consider these purposes and discover new ones as you explore the resources below. Start by hearing what students have to say about PLPs that work for them.
Center Personally Meaningful Learning
Foremost among the lessons we’ve learned from teachers and students, PLPs must center the learning students’ find most meaningful. That often means learning at the edges of or beyond regular school-based curriculum. Moreover, while most facets of schooling serve other stakeholder priorities, PLPs are meant to focus on learning that students value most.
Exploring personal and collective identity is a cornerstone of PLPs, essential for healthy adolescent development, and helps teachers know students well. It’s also deeply engaging for students.
Activities in which students explore and express their identities can be large or small, cross boundaries of curriculum and instruction, and help students pursue critically important questions about equity and justice.
The learner profile, a standard element in most PLP designs, is an invitation to engaging, multi-modal, and deeply personal learning experiences.
Build Powerful Opportunities into the Process
A robust PLP process is rich with depth, complexity and culture. In the following examples we see educators and students embrace that richness with processes that are collaborative, reflective, and iterative–the same traits we seek from each students’ PLP experience. PLPs to know students well yields benefits across the curriculum and the school community.
Regular reflection, goal-setting, documenting evidence of learning in multiple ways are foundational practices in their own right. They are also integral to PLPs.
Teacher Katie Bryant’s action research reveals the power of integrating PLPs and student-led conferences.
Borrow from Others
Growing a PLP program responsive to the needs and interests of students, educators, and families must be iterative. Fortunately, embracing iteration is easier now more than ever. You’ve got plenty of rich examples to draw upon. Some are fully formed systems honed over years. Others speak to creative approaches to critical elements.
A PLP program from Don Taylor of Main Street Middle School in Montpelier
A commitment to meaningful learning and student ownership of PLPs opens many avenues for scaffolding key skills students will need for PLPs and their lives ahead.
It is important (and helpful) to remember that PLPs make sense within a larger system meant to spur deeper and personally-meaningful learning. We’ve found that PLPs often falter without meaningful learning opportunities and authentic assessment that values them.
Around this time of year, many middle schools begin to prepare for a fall student-led conference. This conference serves as a valuable tool for getting to know your students and connecting with their families. It can be a truly memorable experience, but it takes work, too. We have gathered some of our most important resources to support you and your students. Enjoy this updated Student-Led Conferences Toolkit. (You can also find it in its permanent location here.)
Student-Led Conferences
A student-led conference (or SLC) can be a magical opportunity for teachers to engage deeply with a student and their family. It typically involves a middle schooler gathering some evidence of their learning, strengths and challenges, and possibly their goals and aspirations. They assemble that evidence along with reflections into some format; many use a slideshow or PLP, but there are many possible ways – even papers in a binder or journal! Then, the teacher helps facilitate a conversation and sharing process between student, family, and teacher. Many factors help determine its success. Here are some of our favorite resources to help you.
We teach a precious and somewhat precarious age group. Our middle grades students are in the throes of one of life’s most pivotal and seminal periods in human development. They are growing faster than at almost any other time in life, and are grappling with some of life’s most significant milestones which will come to shape how they see themselves, others and the world. These are the “turning point” years of life.
Growing up has always been hard work, but for today’s young adolescents, it is well…simply harder. We do not need volumes of research to convince us of this. The past two years of trials and challenges in managing the not-so-post pandemic school world offer plenty of evidence. Students need us more than ever to help them navigate the challenges of growing up well.
As middle grades educators we have long celebrated the importance of positive relationships and social and emotional learning in middle school. We know and research substantiates that when our young people feel well known, valued and included at school, they are more likely to be fully invested in learning, make better choices, and feel happier at school. (CDC, 2011). Moreover, for young adolescents, being connected to others is essential for healthy identity development. A productive search for self is inextricably linked with positive adult and peer relationships. And, since our age group is vulnerable to bullying, ridicule and exclusion, they depend on us to ensure school is a socially and emotionally safe place so they can take the risks needed to grow in such important ways.
The Advisory concept has long been celebrated as an essential program feature designed to safeguard our young adolescents. While there are many models of Advisory, the twin aims emphasize quality peer relationships and personalized adult support. The hope is that every child has one caring adult advocate, feels connected to a caring peer group, and is afforded the opportunity to develop social skills in a safe haven.
Over the past decade, educators have learned even more about the value and leverage of Advisory programs. Perhaps most significant, is the fact an Advisory program can transform a school’s culture creating a sense of connectedness; a key ingredient in school success. Connectedness takes shape when schools deliberately attend to quality relationships and make time to help students do the same. (See this resource from AMLE for more: Creating a Culture of Connectedness through Middle School Advisory Programs.)
Finally, there is no doubt we all aspire for a softer and kinder world. Living through the pandemic has made abundantly clear the need to help kids learn to care about themselves, others and their world. Advisory is one special opportunity to help us show young people how to be caring members of a community: to listen well to others, to understand others with empathy, to learn to be kind, and to learn about the value of a civil community.
Advisory Going Forward
So let’s say you are on board with all the possible benefits, but last year’s Advisory left a bad taste in your mouth. You felt like you were managing chaos most days and the occasional good days were not enough to bring you back into enthusiasm. You’re not alone.
The last school year will long be remembered as one of the toughest we have ever faced. And, it wasn’t only Advisory that lost ground. Advisory however is a unique beast. It’s too relational to be unstructured; too intimate to be unplanned. And, with a huge decline in student social skills and a rise in problematic student behavior, it’s no wonder many of us were wondering if Advisory was really worth it.
Here’s what some fellow middle grades teachers and students have learned that might help us recommit to our Advisory and keep it relevant and manageable:
Revisit your most positive Advisory memories. Sit with this. When did you witness growth? Can you recall faces of students who flourished over time? What were some moments of joy? Did your students discover emerging new friendships? When did things work well?
Establish routines and celebrations that will keep you sane all year. How do you hope students will enter and leave the Advisory time, gather in a face to face circle, behave during the share time or activities, take turns, act as co-leaders, set up and clean up messes? These routines are so important, that if you had a rough year, look back and consider what routines you had in place from the start. Then, consider how you might take steps to address this during the first month of the school year. Rituals and celebrations are also vital to keeping Advisory going. Could you plan one or two fun celebrations to hold the year together? Monthly special food sharing? Monthly cross Advisory play? Goofy days
Spend more time up front on building relationships and belonging. A few ‘getting to know you’ activities is not enough. Commit to a month of steady relationship building work. Take lots of pictures of the journey and share. And, keep in mind students are always growing and changing so ‘getting to know you’ activities can and should happen all year long
Engage students early as helpers and leaders of Advisory. Start with 3 simple roles needed to keep Advisory productive. Examples: News and Announcements, Check-ins or Greetings, and Set up/Clean-Up. Add on over time. Student voice matters in all our classes, but Advisory can fall apart without it
Balance and structure what you do in Advisory. Focus on blending structured discussions, with free flowing productive play. Use both as opportunities to teach social skills, as simple as manners, to good listening skills, and appropriate discussion skills.
Have a simple plan for every week. Don’t over-plan, but have a focus for the week’s Advisory with some talk time, activity time, play and reflection. If you find you are without a plan, ask a colleague to borrow an idea or check the Advisory calendar. Try using components that give Advisory more structure. Here’s one example: Morning Meeting Components – Cambridge Public Schools
Talk often about Advisory as a faculty. What we talk about is what matters to us. No less than once each 9 weeks, faculty should have a chance to share ideas, debrief what’s working or not, and learn one new thing. Even 10 minutes can yield ideas and inspiration. In between, try starting each faculty meeting with a different check-in. Without this needed talk time, and added modeling, we will risk losing momentum.
Focus on face to face. When in doubt, leave technology out. We live in a world where technology is ubiquitous. While there is no full escape, Advisory ought to hold sacred time for face to face relationships. Eye to eye, knee to knee will have a greater impact on student behavior in Advisory and throughout the day than any technology platform could achieve.
Last words
Every one of us joined the teaching profession to try to make a positive difference in the lives of our students. This has always been hard work. Today, however, it’s not only harder for students to grow up, it is harder for all of us to reach and teach every child. In these challenging times, we need every tool available if we are to make that difference. We need many ways into the hearts and minds of young adolescents. Advisory is one powerful way in.
We at the Tarrant Institute look forward to summer reading every year, but THIS year… this year we all deserve the BEST books, the BEST swimming holes, the BEST summer adventures, and the BEST time with friends and family. We’re sharing our book lists and our wishes for summer joy and relaxation with all of you. Enjoy!
Jeanie
Lately, I haven’t been reading like I usually do, friends. I’ve been distracted by work, the pandemic, and my doctoral studies. And I’ve missed it, so I’ve got big plans for this summer- plans that involve hammocks, beach chairs, and books – lots and lots of books! Here are a few on my list:
Summer books in my favorite summer reading spot.
My college-aged son read Caste by Isabel Wilkerson for a class this past semester. He loved it, the book and the class, and it made for many great dinner conversations. He passed his copy along to me and it is top of the list for this summer. Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns was such an amazing history of the Great Migration – I learned a ton! I’m sure this one will also be an education.
I adored Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – it swept me into the world of a Cuban American actress and her complicated relationships, with lovers but also with the public. Malibu Rising will be my second book by Jenkins Reid – and it will be perfect for the beach as it is about a family of famous surfers. Who knows, if I love it I’ll follow it up with Daisy Jones & the Six.
Two dear friends, Emily Hoyler and Jory Hearst, recommended Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. Turns out the author also goes by the name Vanessa Andreotti and I’ve read a ton of her scholarly work in my program and I am a HUGE fan! Her HEADS UP framework reminds me to be suspect of uncomplicated solutions, paternalism, ahistoricism, and other shortcuts to social justice. This book, written for a broader audience, asks us to be reflective as we address complex social issues and injustices.
Most years I reread a classic. This year it’s Kindred by Octavia Butler, but I’m listening to the audiobook on libro.fm. It was powerful in print when I read it thirty years ago, and it is already so good as a listen. (PS> libro.fm has a great audiobook listening copy program for educators – check it out!)
My summer reading list would not be complete without a few YA titles. I’m looking for recommendations – please send them my way!
Emily
Folks, I do a lot of reading. And since I’ve become a student again, things have only gotten more intense. It seems that my to-be-read pile grows faster than I can keep up. Honestly, it’s both a little exciting and a little overwhelming to have so many ideas lined up to engage with. This past winter I decided to carve time out for reading by rising early, so it’s up at 5am I go, coffee in hand, to settle into my armchair and dig into something. These somethings are almost always non-fiction. I guess that is my preferred genre. Huh.
Except that’s not the reading I want to talk about — or do — right now. I want to talk about summer reading: potato chip beach books. Easy fiction reads that I fall into so easily it feels effortless, almost like binge watching Netflix. Stories that sweep me away, pull me under, and lull me to stillness in the summer heat.
Unfortunately, I need some help here! What should I read? The decision fatigue is deep this year, and when it comes to books the struggle is real. I don’t have the stamina to wait for a book to pull me in. It needs to happen in the first 3 pages. I know that’s a lot to ask. But I also know it’s possible.
Luckily, my local librarians have a shelf for their picks, so my current read was plucked from that shelf: This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel, which is the story of a family with a secret that undoes them. It’s certainly pulled me right in, I’m halfway through already!
My daughter came home from the library the other day with a stack of books. At the top was The Best At It, by Malik Pancholy. I had heard a chapter read aloud during a session of the school-wide read at White River Valley Middle School and had been pining for it ever since. (Even more after reading Jeanie’s Twitter thread about the author visit!) I’ll be borrowing it as soon as my daughter is done.
I’m looking forward to delving into the many stories told in The Most Costly Journey: Stories of Migrant Farmworkers in Vermont Drawn by New England Cartoonists. It is the result of an amazing project where cartoonists were paired up with migrant farmworkers to provide visual representation of their powerful stories. The project was supported by some fabulous Vermont organizations and has been chosen as the Vermont Reads 2022 book by Vermont Humanities. I can’t wait to talk to others about it during a book group at the Middle Grades Institute next week.
I associate summer with pop music that makes me want to dance. Janelle Monae creates music that compels boogeying though it’s far too complex to classify as pop. I knew about her brilliant acting, too, but gave an audible squeal of delight when I came across her new book. The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer. It uses her concept album Dirty Computer (and emotion picture) as a launching point for a series of short stories, many of which she co-wrote with amazing people. This is going to be one to savor, preferably with Monae’s beats and melodies in my ears.
And finally, I have nearly 800 pages of pure bliss to enjoy in The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty. It is the third and final book of the Davaebad Trilogy, based on Islamic mythology and written with unparalleled richness and imagination. They are the type of books that I can get completely lost in. The type that get into my dreams and inspire djinn-filled daydreams. I can’t wait to return to this enchanted realm with the magic of summer reading.
Rachel
Like my colleagues, I read a lot. In fact, I am reading this post to take note of their reading lists, too.
To start, I am reading The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon. My daughter was reading Yoon’s books this spring, and she inspired me to read this one. Truth be told, I think that I have already read it, but I remember nothing. This time I’m slowing down, so that I can talk about the book with her. It’s a love story, but it’s also about complicated relationships with family, immigration in America, and so much more. I eat up this YA fiction like candy.
Next on my reading list for this summer is We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida. My mother caused me to read this after her own book group selected it. Though she didn’t expect to like it, I helped my mother find it in the bookstore thanks to kind staff. That scavenger hunt to find the book (without knowing its title), has endeared me it. Goodreads describes it as, “both a gripping mystery and a tribute to the wonders of youth, in all its beauty and confusion”. That (and it’s beautiful cover art) has me hooked.
Speaking of cover art, I am noticing the resemblance between We Run the Tides and another book on my list. What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster has a cover that looks really similar. Which makes me think that sometimes I do judge a book by its cover! This book came from my friend’s list of books to read. I love that it’s about mothers, the complicated choices they make for their children, and their fight for a better future for their kids.
Last but certainly not least, I can’t wait to read All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks. When hooks died at the end of last year, it made me regret not reading more of her work. Originally published in 2000, this piece of her writing strikes a resonant chord with me these days. She wonders….what if we view love as a verb, rather than a noun? I am so drawn to the way that hooks persuades us to change the way we think about love and one another. We need that kind of love now.
Readers, please enjoy this period of rest and rejuvenation. After this year, you deserve all of the BEST relaxation, the BEST adventures, and the BEST books.
The school year is almost over and this one may well be remembered as your toughest yet. If hardship makes us stronger, we’ve got that covered. And, we have learned lots about how to be, live, and teach in this challenging time. My first two posts nudge us to consider slowing down and rethinking what we teach. Here I want to remind us to stay “real”.
Lesson Three: Authenticity
One of the most refreshing aspects of the pandemic was that it helped to strip us of some pretense. We were all equally vulnerable. When virtual, we saw some of our children’s homes, their pets popped in, and there was something endearing about getting closer to our real selves. We were all afraid together, all trying to be safe, all feeling loss and grief. This is the kind of humanity we don’t want to lose.
This first flush of pandemic authenticity was short-lived and it has already faded. Being real in school is tough. Even during the peak pandemic lockdown, there were very few structured opportunities for teachers and students to talk about the pandemic. We discussed COVID facts and protocols but left the authentic at home: hopes, fears and feelings. With the zillion questions we all had about COVID and the pandemic, I don’t know a single school that engaged students or staff in an active exploration of the very thing that was consuming all our lives.
Of course, this was partly due to the sensitive nature of COVID. Moreover, we didn’t know how to talk about a pandemic. We’d never lived through one before. Finally, we avoided it because we were in survival mode. But this difficulty in being real along the way left us with greater wounds to heal right now.
“What is really going on in school now?
Middle schools today are still oozing with anxiety that has been accumulating since the start of the pandemic. Today, young adolescents are in school without masks. Like many of us some wonder, is this going to be okay and safe? Can I really relax? Is this really almost over?
Over the past fall, schools have reported significant behavior challenges they have never seen before. Students who once were engaged, have been observed checking out and refusing to do any work. One school in northern Vermont observed that work refusals have tripled in this school year. (VPR, Eric Heilman, March 9, 2022)
Likewise, many teachers report that some students who never struggled with behavior issues, struggle to care. When students do behave badly, many who would have once been eager to set things straight, fail to apologize. Some taken for granted manners have gone by the wayside. Teachers have observed that many students have lost the social skills needed to work with others and to be kind in social interactions. We have schools filled with both children and adults who have experienced trauma. That is the real deal.
We are all dancing as fast we can, using every possible resource to manage these challenges. The line at the door for comfort and help was too long before the pandemic; now it feels daunting. So exhaustion continues and anxiety is unabated. What can we do?
We might start by allowing ourselves to recognize where we are. And, we can make the social and emotional well being of every member of our school including ourselves, our top priority. This doesn’t mean we stop caring about academic learning, but we should worry less about students falling behind academically, and worry more about students falling behind emotionally and socially. Here are a few ideas:
Building Community With Student-Driven Conversations
Figure out ways to bring mindfulness, or relaxation or social and emotional checks into your classroom routines. Starting or ending a week with reflections can be a simple but powerful way to monitor the emotional pulse and open space for students to be real. This 60 second tool is worth checking out. As are these posts on bringing mindfulness into the classroom and 7 mindfulness activities for advisory.
One school found that by starting each faculty meeting with an Advisory-like activity, they were able to help teachers learn new Advisory protocols while building good feelings and trust across the faculty and school community. What if most meetings began with such authentic moments? Are we willing to find ways to fit this in? If we keep burying all the feelings and avoid authentic conversations, we will continue to find ourselves depleted and stuck. (Feltman, 2021, The thin book of trust)
Being Authentic in the Classroom
Being real of course has its greatest power when we are able to be real with students. Share yourself. Tell your own real stories. Middle school students are perennially curious about us, but more than ever before they need for us to be authentic and real, modeling how best to do that. Recall how delighted students were to see the background of a room in your home when we were all virtual. That window into your life was a gift. We want to hold onto that in the years ahead.
There is such a need for schools to become more authentic places where we all can be real, and where it is safe to share our true selves. Let’s use this pandemic to shift from peril to promise.
This is the second in a series of mini blogs with attention to priorities in the not-so post pandemic world. In the first blog post, Nancy Doda nudged us all to consider how we might slow down in all aspects of school life. This second post examines curriculum and how the pandemic invites us to rethink what we teach.
Lesson Two: Rethink What We Teach
All of a sudden, the pandemic challenged us to think about so many aspects of our lives in new ways. The world is no longer the predictable place we took for granted. This is an uncomfortable place to be. As Pema Chodron once notably said,
“Chaos can be extremely good news.”
It slams us up against old patterns that hold us back.
Before the pandemic, we were long overdue for a serious closet clean out when it comes to what we teach in our schools. One old pattern needing our attention is that of holding on to what we have always taught. In my decades of work with middle schools, no matter what city or state, we always seem to add more and delete almost nothing.
Even with the advent of 21st century skills, or what we call in Vermont, transferable skills, we have had a hard time letting go of our volumes of content. While we value the attention to transferrable skills, it turns out they still don’t rank above the books we have always taught, the units we love, and the archives we inherited.
After the Common Core declared it had cut back content load in math, I was hopeful. Yet little changed in the volume of middle school mathematics. We are all still buried in way too much to teach.
The Mile Wide and Inch Deep Curriculum
While teachers often share that they’d love to change this, they feel pressed to prepare students for the tests. One science teacher told me she had to cover 65 topics in 42 days. Speedy curriculum coverage was once translated into curriculum by mentioning, “I mentioned it, so I am moving on”, sustaining the yet untouched mile wide, inch deep United States curriculum.
Knowledge keeps growing, expanding and changing. The “Knowledge Doubling Curve”, as it’s now known, was created by Buckminster Fuller in 1982. Fifty years ago, we were told that we were witnessing a knowledge explosion. Human knowledge was doubling every 13 months.
Today, with the help of the Internet, we face the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours. To put it into context, in 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every 100 years. By the end of 1945, the rate was every 25 years. It’s 2022.
It’s been said that “facts are stubborn things,” but maybe not as stubborn as we think. New facts are replacing outdated ones at an accelerated rate as the tsunami of data continually yields new discoveries and information. It’s time to change.
Discernment, critical thinking, and relevance
COVID offers a superb example of the dramatically changing nature of knowledge as our collective understanding of the virus, the vaccines, the protective measures…. you name it, changed dramatically and fast. Achieving consensus about COVID truths often feels like ‘trying to nail Jello to a tree.’
We have been called to be nimble with ever changing information. We have witnessed the public’s struggle with deciphering truth: distinguishing fact from opinion, remaining open to new truth, and seeking to really understand.
Most importantly, we need a curriculum dominated by attention to lifelong learning skills and a hardy respect for the ever-changing nature of knowledge. Specifically, our students need our help learning to access and evaluate a wide array of knowledge and to decipher fact from opinion. Our students need abundant opportunities to put knowledge to work in real ways.
Decluttering the Curriculum
How can we Marie Kondo our curriculum— declutter by removing anything that doesn’t spark joy? If we asked that home organization expert, she’d likely advise us to cut our volume in half.
Imagine if we held curriculum conversations around units that we have always taught. What if we asked ourselves: Why do we hold on to them? Do they still seem essential for our students today? Do they inspire students to learn more? (Mehta and Peeples, 2020)
These are thorny questions. Aside from broad agreement about some of what is worth knowing, there’s considerable debate. Who decides what’s worth knowing? What knowledge will best support preparing students to live well and participate more fully in our world?
One sure way to move forward towards a more compelling curriculum that is not a mile wide and an inch deep, is to start with the voices of kids. As many advise, start local. Like the slow food movement, we need to localize and personalize our curriculum. We can only do that with the help of those we serve.
Engage Student Voice in Curriculum Decisions
We can find powerful guidance by helping students help us. I don’t mean just the kind of voice we often solicit from students in choosing writing topics, books to read, or research topics. I mean we need to know what concerns, wonders, questions our students have about their own lives and our world.
This is not only done to engage students more fully. It is done because in a democracy all citizens and all voices matter. We need to organize curriculum differently by using their questions and concerns to help us map a living and richer curriculum. Some of these instructional practices are shared and discussed in this blogpost on Negotiated Curriculum.
Maybe both teachers and students repeatedly ask questions about climate change, or about money, or about racism, or about happiness or health to name a few likely themes. It is not the individual curiosities here that matter as much as the shared questions regarding issues in our ever changing world.
Imagine then assessing the merit of our content focus in terms of how it can inform these shared questions? Like Marie Kondo, we can toss out what fails to have both personal and social significance to us and our students. After all, there are many roads to assessing standards. Or to quote Blake, “To see a world in a grain of sand…”
Why not?
Do we worry that building some of the curriculum around the concerns and questions of our students will derail rigor? To me, standard curriculum coverage might be the greatest roadblock to rigor. So much of what we teach lacks a context that is meaningful to students. Content without a meaningful cause is content lost.
Why are we learning this? What does this have to do with anything? How can I put this knowledge to work in real ways? As NELMS award recipient James Beane once observed:
“The rigor in a middle school curriculum lies not in painful abstraction but in its capacity to engage the intellectual curiosity and imagination of young adolescents.” (Beane, 1998).
Content without a meaningful cause is content lost.
Rooting into here and now
Therefore, let’s ask ourselves just how what we teach explicitly connects our shared questions about the world with our content standards. Instead of planning units around topics or standards, let’s consider planning units around vibrant questions drawn from the real local and world issues that baffle us all.
After that, we design the learning activities so students are called to draw upon a wide array of content to address these questions. When we approach the curriculum this way, it shows students that school knowledge is vital to addressing the compelling questions in our lives and world. Knowledge really matters.
Lastly, this on-going pandemic has me feeling like I live in a changed and ever changing world. What kind of curriculum will matter in reshaping the future world to ensure peace, sustainability, civil discourse, and health? What will our students most need to know and be able to do to lead us all towards a better, saner, more just world? As we craft lessons and units, let’s pause to consider the end in mind and rethink what it is we teach.
Sources:
Beane, J. (1993) The middle school curriculum: From rhetoric to reality. AMLE. Columbus, OH.
Feltman, C. (2021) The thin book of trust, 2nd ed. The book publishing, Bend, OR.
Roy, Arundhati. (2020) The pandemic is a portal.
Mehta, J. and Peeples, S. ( 2020). Marie Kondo the curriculum. In Shankar blog, June 25, 2020.
Sable, M. (1995) Maxims and various thoughts in The timetables of women’s history, p 174.
This is a the first in a series of blogs with attention to education priorities in the not-so post pandemic world.
The Crisis
I have been immersed in middle school education for decades. I have always been grateful to belong to such an amazing community of educators who share the same magnificent obsession. Because this community is passionate about the welfare and education of our young adolescents. And it’s committed to building a kinder and more just world. I am full of gratitude and admiration for my fellow educators who have managed to keep going, caring and persevering during this very challenging time. This has been tough. It still is.
To say that things are in good shape would be dishonest. Are any of us feeling like we are solid? Public education is facing a crisis unlike any I have seen in decades. This fall, when most schools resumed face to face, many educators began to realize that we and our students were in a rough place. I think we need to try to unpack what has happened and what most needs our attention as we move ahead.
Unpacking the pandemic’s impact
The pandemic has pressed our faces to the glass. We now see how fragile we were before COVID arrived. Over the past decades student needs have been mounting exponentially. Data on the mental health of our nation’s young adolescents has shown us that children are struggling in significant ways. Many teachers have shared with me their concerns about epidemic levels of self-centeredness accelerating in students. Likewise, many teachers and principals have been concerned about declining student engagement and investment in school learning. I hear from many that the true joys of teaching feel like a thing of the past. Teachers are buried under the mandates and prescriptive guidelines that were created to improve student engagement. Last, not least, the inequities in every system of our society have been on full display during this pandemic. Our America is not equally beautiful for everyone. Before COVID arrived, these were some of our unresolved challenges now magnified tenfold.
Educators by nature persevere. We don’t give up. But we all stand on shaky ground. Can we use the pandemic to help us see more clearly what we most need to honor in this not so post-pandemic world? As Arundhati Roy (2020) wrote:
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smokey skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
Adjusting the Lens
Recall that at the start of the pandemic, songs were written and sung, talks delivered, and articles poured forth. Art was created, and it all attempted to lift us up and help us manage the sadness, the loss, and the fear. Many of the efforts tried to cheer us up and give us hope. Some inspired us to think differently about how to live well. For a time, we lived life more slowly. Traffic came to a halt, animals came out of hiding, and we tried not to eat too much or snap at those we loved who we discovered were more challenging than we’d ever remembered. We felt united by our humanity. Everyone was searching for answers about the pandemic and the meaning of life. Beauty, nature, love, family and friends suddenly became more precious.
In schools, after some time in this quieter place, we were catapulted into craziness. Virtual teaching, hybrid teaching, masks, and we had to hold on as we rode the COVID protocol roller coaster. Exhaustion was commonplace, and burnout rampant. One gifted and always cheerful teacher I have admired could no longer smile at the start of year two. Another dedicated teacher told me she was thinking of quitting, but instead decided she just had to stop caring. It was all too much.
Today, as we find ourselves back in schools and the most dire COVID news lessening, can we begin to sort it all out? Can we rethink our priorities? Here is what I think matters most in our (almost) Post-Pandemic World.
Lesson One: Slow Down
One clear message from the early months of the pandemic was the realization that doing less and slowing down can bring us back in touch with many things that seem to matter a great deal. We were forced in our personal lives to be still as there was less doing and going —less going out to eat, less traffic, less driving kids to practice, less shopping in stores. People had more time: with those we love, time to play, time to really cook good food, time to listen well, time to care, time to revisit new and old hobbies, and time to think. Humans did as Thich Nhat Hanh once advised: “….unplug from the speed and complexity and noise of everyday life and … return to being in peace.” ( TNH)
That taste of slow was a good thing. Many of us noted an engendered calm. We noticed that less can be more, and that slow can be better: more productive, happier, and saner. Sure, at first we might have binge watched TV series, but soon most of us got busy and productive. Slow didn’t mean unproductive, but it meant we didn’t live at a crazed pace. How might we learn from that that calmer time and bring more slowness into our work?
Perhaps we finally reconsider our schedules and abandon the 45-minute period day, where we whiz students through 7 different subjects with 7 different teachers and move towards longer, more flexible blocks of learning time.
Maybe we have a daily Advisory time that is more responsive and less scripted, where students can talk more and we talk less.
Could be we have snack breaks in and outside.
Perhaps it means we make time for recess every day.
Maybe we don’t pursue multiple initiatives all at once.
Maybe it calls for us to have faculty meetings where teachers can really think and talk about what’s working and what’s not.
Could be we try to add a little mindfulness into our fast-paced school days.
Finally, perhaps we should try to declutter our curriculum – teaching less, not more.
I know principals and teachers would agree that school life would be significantly more satisfying for everyone if we could slow things down. Some teachers have decided they can no longer teach and are considering leaving the profession. Many are barely holding on trying to get through the days and recover what they once felt about this important work. We have a crisis in our schools that calls for bold thinking. As Roy said, we have a gateway.
Is there one way you might slow things down in your school? If you are a leader, can you find ways to shrink rather than expand the to-do lists for your schools and teachers? If you are a teacher, can you find steady ways to check the emotional pulse of your classroom? I urge you identify the places within our system and classrooms where we can slow down and focus on what matters.
This is the first education lesson from the pandemic.
Welcome, listeners, to another episode of vted Reads: talking about books by, for, and with Vermont educators. In this episode… we own an oversight.
On this show, we are dedicated to breaking down systems of inequity in education. We administer flying kicks to the forehead of intersectional oppression! But we haven’t yet talked about disability.
So in this episode, we fix that, as we chat with Dr. Winnie Looby, who coordinates the graduate certificate in disability studies at the University of Vermont. Dr. Looby also identifies as a person with a disability, which is important, listeners, because the rallying cry of disability advocacy has long been “Nothing about us, without us.”
So we’re here, we’re clear, and we’re talking about “Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice,” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Let’s limber up those kicking legs, folks, and talk about how disability too, is an equity issue.
I’m Jeanie Phillips, and this is Vermont Ed Reads. Let’s chat.
Jeanie: Hi, I’m Jeanie Phillips, and welcome to #vted Reads. We’re here to talk books for educators by educators and with educators. Today I’m with Dr. Winnie Looby. And we’ll be talking about Care Work, Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Thanks for joining me Winnie, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Jeanie: Right, so what I’m hearing from you, Dr. Looby, is that we need to be informed by others what they need and embrace that information, moving it from, I guess I have to ask you what you need to make this work from you, to like, I really need you to help me help you learn.
Winnie: Exactly.
Jeanie: And I think about K to 12 schools I can probably even place myself back when I was a school librarian and thinking, Oh, we’re going to go on this field trip, and then realizing it’s not going to be accessible to the kid who has mobility issues, say, and then instead of begrudgingly say, well, I guess I can’t do that field trip; finding ways to create this collective joy, and how do we make sure that everybody is able to have fun?
The Disability Rights Movement simultaneously invisiblized the lives of peoples who live at intersection junctures of oppression, disabled people of color, immigrants with disabilities, queers with disabilities, trans and gender-nonconforming people with disabilities, people with disabilities are who are houseless.
Jeanie: Yes, I love that section of the book. And what you’re making me think about, is for me, especially, but I think for a lot of people reading is a real act of empathy, and reading, #OwnVoices stories by people with disabilities is really helpful to building empathy and understanding about what the world’s like for someone who’s different than you. It creates what routines into what Bishop calls a window into somebody else’s experience or even a sliding glass door where you can really have under the answers step into their experience.
Jeanie: Some friends recently recommended a podcast that I listened to. And I’m not going to remember the person’s name, but I’ll put a link in the transcript. It was an On Being podcast and it was about asset framing. And the idea of asset framing really was what this person’s aspiration is? And what’s the obstacle to that? So instead of seeing them as the obstacle, what are the obstacles or them as the problem? What’s the thing they want to accomplish? And what’s the thing getting in the way of that? And so that removes the problem from the person to the environment, just like you’re saying, but there’s this other side of it, too, which is that there are things we can learn really big things we can learn from people with disabilities because of their experience of the world. So it’s not just that we don’t see them as a deficit, but also that we see their assets and their strengths and the things that they can teach us. Do you have examples? Do you have ways people might think about what they can learn the what the author calls the cultures and histories and skills and the ways that we might tap into that and open ourselves up to learning from people with disabilities?
Jeanie: I really appreciate that. I think for me, one of the tension points is–so I’m going to use Outright Vermont as an example. One of the programs that Outright Vermont offers in schools that I think is really powerful as they have queer kids come and sit on a panel and answer questions and talk about their experience in schools. They used to, I imagine they still do, but when I was in school, they, you know, we have in common it was really powerful for people. The tension for me is about like, it’s not really their job to educate me. And so how do we learn from and with without expecting people with disabilities or people of color queer folks to do the work for us? So, there’s a real tension for me about like being open and I think that’s why your suggestion earlier about seeking out personal narratives that people have written, seeking, seeking out books like this one is really helpful, right? Because that’s out there. And I’m not asking people to do additional labor. And so I guess I’m just wondering how do you grapple with that tension, the both and of like, I want to learn from you, and I don’t want you to have to do a ton of work for me to learn like I should be doing the work.
Jeanie: Yeah. But there’s a scholar I really love named Vanessa Andreotti, she’s from Canada. And she uses this thing called the Heads Up framework. I can’t tell you what each of them stands for, ‘H’ is hegemony. The one that always sticks with me the most is the easy solutions, right? And easy solutions, which I think we all want, because we want to solve the problem, right? Is actually a red herring, right? Like, they’re often a sign that we’re not actually dealing with a real problem. An easy solution is often not the is almost always not the answer. And as you alluded to earlier, and as we talk a lot, working towards justice is a messy, messy system. It’s a messy process because these aren’t simple problems that we’re solving, right. And they’re also not only systemic, but they’re also the way that the systems we live in have shaped who we are and how we show up how we are in the world. And I was listening recently to a Hidden Brain episode, I’ll link to in the transcript about what happens when change decision making from ethics, like our moral decision making to financial, to sort of this, which a lot of our decision making in our current capitalist world is really financial. And it shifts the part of the brain it works. And we make decisions that don’t help us make better decisions. And in fact, so often, the example they use is if an after-school program charges you, if you get paid, charges you a fine if you’re late picking up your kids, and they set for a lot of people, they’re just like more people were late because they felt like they could just pay the fine. So it had the opposite impact.
And I think a lot about the decisions we want kids to make at school, we turn to this sort of financial decision-making, right like through a token economy. And we say, well, you get a reward if you do this thing, or you’ll get a punishment. If you do this thing. Instead of saying this is the right thing to do. This is the way we take care of each other, let’s be our best selves. And so gosh, I just went on a long tangent, but my point was, I did have one doctor, maybe I did. I guess my point was that these easy solutions often shift us into our worst selves, right, and we want this quick way of fixing something wrong. Really what we need to do is grapple with whom do we want to be? How do we want to be in this world? What kind of moral-ethical person how do we want to show up? And I think you keep reminding me that there’s no single easy pass through all this injustice, we just have to wade in and get messy. Thank you for bearing with me and that nonsense I just spoke.
Jeanie: Dr. Looby, your book feels like one I really have to read and want to read and can’t wait to read. I hope that when it’s published, you’ll come back and talk to us about it on the podcast.
Winnie: Absolutely. Absolutely. I’m hoping to be done with it before another couple of years.
Jeanie: As you spoke, our listeners can’t see this because they’re listening, but you put air quotes around normal. Oh, yeah. I really appreciate that. Because I think what you’re reminding us is that with those air quotes, what I read from that, and I’ll ask you if I got it right, is that normal is a myth that normal doesn’t exist that normal. In many ways, I took the next leap and thought, well, normal is what we used to keep the status quo as it is, and the status quo doesn’t serve all people.
Winnie: Exactly. Exactly.
Jeanie: And I did a podcast with my friend Emily Gilmore about the End of Average which really describes why this norm reference to this norm normal really is, is related to averages, right? Doesn’t serve any of us, none of us are really normal, right? And so that this notion of normal, and this privileging of this notion of normal, is problematic just because it doesn’t exist, it’s reusing, right? It’s using statistics to describe people, and that just doesn’t work. There’s a fallacy. It’s very hard, it’s that.
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