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To celebrate Pride Month and to launch our blog series on school belonging, this month's post focuses on school belonging and connectedness for youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual, or identify their sexual orientation or gender identity in other ways (LGBTQIA+). Sexual and gender minority youth tend to be at higher risk for peer victimization and all forms of harassment, including experiences of stigma and discrimination. Yet there is one central factor that can help mitigate the harm LGBTQIA+ youth are more likely to experience in their school settings and it takes the entire school community to shift those harms. Yup, you have it right, it's school belonging.

What is school belonging?

Let's start with a simple definition of school belonging - experiencing supportive and caring relationships in the school social environment. Belongingness is a central concept in the field of psychology, helping to explain how connection in genuine relationships is a powerful motivator of behavior. It makes sense that belongingness worked its way into educational theory, where it helps to describe how and why students show different academic and psychosocial outcomes based on their connection to and experiences with teachers, staff, and peers. School belonging is complex and extends beyond 1:1 relationships and social connectedness. It also broadly speaks to a student's school engagement and perceptions of safety in the school and school-based supports.

The data on the importance of school belonging are compelling

Why does school belonging matter? Well, the data are compelling: school belonging, at all K-12 educational levels, has been documented time and again as a predictor of student academic success and psychosocial well-being. A recent review of the literature suggests that school belonging and connectedness could be preventative for many common mental health challenges in students, such as depression and anxiety. Importantly, the positive effects of belonging in and outside of school are lasting - they provide benefits for students beyond their time in a given school community.

School belonging strategies specific for LGBTQIA+ youth

But what is a positive and supportive school environment for LGBTQIA+ youth? Before diving into these specific strategies, it is important to recognize that systems-level action is necessary. A recent policy brief published by MDRC did just that by interviewing district leaders and summarizing district-level strategies to improve student belonging. Some of the most effective strategies included involving youth voices in addressing student needs and in identifying solutions; increasing multitiered support systems, which include universal supports delivered to all students; and using restorative or supportive (versus punitive) discipline practices. Finally, professional development training delivered at the district level to all teachers and staff, with a focus on inclusivity is another central component.

The U.S. Department of Education recently released a toolkit on the topic " Creating Inclusive and Nondiscriminatory School Environments for LGBTQI+ Students." The toolkit describes how schools can make steps toward improving the safety and belonging of LGBTQ+ students through four key strategies:

Gender and sexuality alliances

Safe spaces for LGBTQ+ students

Professional development training for staff on inclusivity

Anti-harassment policies

Gender and sexuality alliances. Gender and sexuality alliances, often referred to as GSAs, are student-led clubs that support students in building social networks with different sexual and gender identities. Meta-analytic research suggests that schools with GSAs tend to be reported by students as feeling safer and being more inclusive of gender and sexual diversity. GSAs often have to be approved at the district level.

Safe Spaces for LGBTQIA+ students. It's vital that students have safe spaces that are free of harassment and that allow both peer-to-peer and adult support from LGBTQIA+ knowledgeable staff. Dozens of examples of safe space programming for LGBTQ+ students exist. For example, here in Oregon, a notable example is TransPonder, an organization that provides local support, including behavioral health, resources, and education for the trans/gender diverse community and its allies.

Professional development training for staff on inclusivity. Schools that mandate teachers and staff receive training on creating safe and supportive school environments for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, promote better mental health and reduced victimization for all students, including LGBTQ+ students. Thus, ensuring that training on inclusivity extends to gender and sexual minority students can have a profound effect on the experience of the LGBTQIA+ student, from reducing the occurrence of homophobia or heteronormativity to increasing the self-efficacy of teachers and staff in supporting the specific needs of LGBTQIA+ students.

Anti-harassment policies. The bullying and harassment of sexual and gender minority youth in schools is pervasive and research documents that the way harassment is addressed matters. Specifically, supportive practices that establish both a zero-tolerance policy and offer supports may best address these harmful behaviors while also improving school connection for LGBTQIA+ youth. What are supportive practices? Although there isn't one definition, supportive practices commonly exist at the school level, through added support services like school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports.
- By Maria Schweer-Collins, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, HEDCO Institute for Evidence-Based Educational Practice HEDCO Institute Blog 2 - June 30, 2023

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School belonging for LGBTQIA+ youth: Creating positive and supportive school environments

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To celebrate Pride Month and to launch our blog series on school belonging, this month's post focuses on school belonging and connectedness for youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual, or identify their sexual orientation or gender identity in other ways (LGBTQIA+).

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"My only sin is my skin. What did I do, to be so black and blue?"

-Fats Waller, "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue?"

"Manhattan's streets I saunter'd, pondering."

-Walt Whitman, "Manhattan's Streets I Saunter'd, Pondering"

My love for walking started in childhood, out of necessity. No thanks to a stepfather with heavy hands, I found every reason to stay away from home and was usually out-at some friend's house or at a street party where no minor should be- until it was too late to get public transportation. So I walked. The streets of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1980s were often terrifying-you could, for instance, get killed if a political henchman thought you came from the wrong neighborhood, or even if you wore the wrong color. Wearing orange showed affiliation with one political party and green with the other, and if you were neutral or traveling far from home you chose your colors well. The wrong color in the wrong neighborhood could mean your last day. No wonder, then, that my friends and the rare nocturnal passerby declared me crazy for my long late-night treks that traversed warring political zones. (And sometimes I did pretend to be crazy, shouting non sequiturs when I passed through especially dangerous spots, such as the place where thieves hid on the banks of a storm drain. Predators would ignore or laugh at the kid in his school uniform speaking nonsense.)

I made friends with strangers and went from being a very shy and awkward kid to being an extroverted, awkward one. The beggar, the vendor, the poor laborer-those were experienced wanderers, and they became my nighttime instructors; they knew the streets and delivered lessons on how to navigate and enjoy them. I imagined myself as a Jamaican Tom Sawyer, one moment sauntering down the streets to pick low-hanging mangoes that I could reach from the sidewalk, another moment hanging outside a street party with battling sound systems, each armed with speakers piled to create skyscrapers of heavy bass. These streets weren't frightening. They were full of adventure when they weren't serene. There I'd join forces with a band of merry walkers, who'd miss the last bus by mere minutes, our feet still moving as we put out our thumbs to hitchhike to spots nearer home, making jokes as vehicle after vehicle raced past us. Or I'd get lost in Mittyesque moments, my young mind imagining alternate futures. The streets had their own safety: Unlike at home, there I could be myself without fear of bodily harm. Walking became so regular and familiar that the way home became home.

The streets had their rules, and I loved the challenge of trying to master them. I learned how to be alert to surrounding dangers and nearby delights, and prided myself on recognizing telling details that my peers missed. Kingston was a map of complex, and often bizarre, cultural and political and social activity, and I appointed myself its nighttime cartographer. I'd know how to navigate away from a predatory pace, and to speed up to chat when the cadence of a gait announced friendliness. It was almost always men I saw. A lone woman walking in the middle of the night was as common a sight as Sasquatch; moonlight pedestrianism was too dangerous for her. Sometimes at night as I made my way down from hills above Kingston, I'd have the impression that the city was set on "pause" or in extreme slow motion, as that as I descended I was cutting across Jamaica's deep social divisions. I'd make my way briskly past the mansions in the hills overlooking the city, now transformed into a carpet of dotted lights under a curtain of stars, saunter by middle-class subdivisions hidden behind high walls crowned with barbed wire, and zigzag through neighborhoods of zinc and wooden shacks crammed together and leaning like a tight-knit group of limbo dancers. With my descent came an increase in the vibrancy of street life-except when it didn't; some poor neighborhoods had both the violent gunfights and the eerily deserted streets of the cinematic Wild West. I knew well enough to avoid those even at high noon.

I'd begun hoofing it after dark when I was 10 years old. By 13 I was rarely home before midnight, and some nights found me racing against dawn. My mother would often complain, "Mek yuh love street suh? Yuh born a hospital; yuh neva born a street." ("Why do you love the streets so much? You were born in a hospital, not in the streets.")

* * * *

I left Jamaica in 1996 to attend college in New Orleans, a city I'd heard called "the northernmost Caribbean city." I wanted to discover-on foot, of course-what was Caribbean and what was American about it. Stately mansions on oak-lined streets with streetcars clanging by, and brightly colored houses that made entire blocks look festive; people in resplendent costumes dancing to funky brass bands in the middle of the street; cuisine-and aromas-that mashed up culinary traditions from Africa, Europe, Asia, and the American South; and a juxtaposition of worlds old and new, odd and familiar: Who wouldn't want to explore this?

On my first day in the city, I went walking for a few hours to get a feel for the place and to buy supplies to transform my dormitory room from a prison bunker into a welcoming space. When some university staff members found out what I'd been up to, they warned me to restrict my walking to the places recommended as safe to tourists and the parents of freshmen. They trotted out statistics about New Orleans's crime rate. But Kingston's crime rate dwarfed those numbers, and I decided to ignore these well-meant cautions. A city was waiting to be discovered, and I wouldn't let inconvenient facts get in the way. These American criminals are nothing on Kingston's, I thought. They're no real threat to me.

What no one had told me was that I was the one who would be considered a threat.

I wasn't prepared for any of this. I had come from a majority-black country in which no one was wary of me because of my skin color. Now I wasn't sure who was afraid of me.

Within days I noticed that many people on the street seemed apprehensive of me: Some gave me a circumspect glance as they approached, and then crossed the street; others, ahead, would glance behind, register my presence, and then speed up; older white women clutched their bags; young white men nervously greeted me, as if exchanging a salutation for their safety: "What's up, bro?" On one occasion, less than a month after my arrival, I tried to help a man whose wheelchair was stuck in the middle of a crosswalk; he threatened to shoot me in the face, then asked a white pedestrian for help.

I wasn't prepared for any of this. I had come from a majority-black country in which no one was wary of me because of my skin color. Now I wasn't sure who was afraid of me. I was especially unprepared for the cops. They regularly stopped and bullied me, asking questions that took my guilt for granted. I'd never received what many of my African American friends call "The Talk": No parents had told me how to behave when I was stopped by the police, how to be as polite and cooperative as possible, no matter what they said or did to me. So I had to cobble together my own rules of engagement. Thicken my Jamaican accent. Quickly mention my college. "Accidentally" pull out my college identification card when asked for my driver's license.

My survival tactics began well before I left my dorm. I got out of the shower with the police in my head, assembling a cop-proof wardrobe. Light-colored oxford shirt. V-neck sweater. Khaki pants. Chukkas. Sweatshirt or T-shirt with my university insignia. When I walked I regularly had my identity challenged, but I also found ways to assert it. (So I'd dress Ivy League style, but would, later on, add my Jamaican pedigree by wearing Clarks Desert Boots, the footwear of choice of Jamaican street culture.) Yet the all-American sartorial choice of white T-shirt and jeans, which many police officers see as the uniform of black troublemakers, was off limits to me-at least, if I wanted to have the freedom of movement I desired.

In this city of exuberant streets, walking became a complex and often oppressive negotiation. I would see a white woman walking toward me at night and cross the street to reassure her that she was safe. I would forget something at home but not immediately turn around if someone was behind me, because I discovered that a sudden backtrack could cause alarm. (I had a cardinal rule: Keep a wide perimeter from people who might consider me a danger. If not, danger might visit me.) New Orleans suddenly felt more dangerous than Jamaica. The sidewalk was a minefield, and every hesitation and self-censored compensation reduced my dignity. Despite my best efforts, the streets never felt comfortably safe. Even a simple salutation was suspect.

One night, returning to the house that, eight years after my arrival, I thought I'd earned the right to call my home, I waved to a cop driving by. Moments later, I was against his car in handcuffs. When I later asked him-sheepishly, of course; any other way would have asked for bruises-why he had detained me, he said my greeting had aroused his suspicion. "No one waves to the police," he explained. When I told friends of his response, it was my behavior, not his, that they saw as absurd. "Now why would you do a dumb thing like that?" said one. "You know better than to make nice with police."

* * * *

A few days after I left on a visit to Kingston, Hurricane Katrina slashed and pummeled New Orleans. I'd gone not because of the storm but because my adoptive grandmother, Pearl, was dying of cancer. I hadn't wandered those streets in eight years, since my last visit, and I returned to them now mostly at night, the time I found best for thinking, praying, crying. I walked to feel less alienated-from myself, struggling with the pain of seeing my grandmother terminally ill; from my home in New Orleans, underwater and seemingly abandoned; from my home country, which now, precisely because of its childhood familiarity, felt foreign to me. I was surprised by how familiar those streets felt. Here was the corner where the fragrance of jerk chicken greeted me, along with the warm tenor and peace-and-love message of Half Pint's "Greetings," broadcast from a small but powerful speaker to at least a half-mile radius. It was as if I had walked into 1986, down to the soundtrack. And there was the wall of the neighborhood shop, adorned with the Rastafarian colors red, gold, and green along with images of local and international heroes Bob Marley, Marcus Garvey, and Haile Selassie. The crew of boys leaning against it and joshing each other were recognizable; different faces, similar stories.

I was astonished at how safe the streets felt to me, once again one black body among many, no longer having to anticipate the many ways my presence might instill fear and how to offer some reassuring body language. Passing police cars were once again merely passing police cars. Jamaican police could be pretty brutal, but they didn't notice me the way American police did. I could be invisible in Jamaica in a way I can't be invisible in the United States. Walking had returned to me a greater set of possibilities.

And why walk, if not to create a new set of possibilities? Following serendipity, I added new routes to the mental maps I had made from constant walking in that city from childhood to young adulthood, traced variations on the old pathways. Serendipity, a mentor once told me, is a secular way of speaking of grace; it's unearned favor. Seen theologically, then, walking is an act of faith. Walking is, after all, interrupted falling. We see, we listen, we speak, and we trust that each step we take won't be our last, but will lead us into a richer understanding of the self and the world.

In Jamaica, I felt once again as if the only identity that mattered was my own, not the constricted one that others had constructed for me. I strolled into my better self. I said, along with Kierkegaard, "I have walked myself into my best thoughts."

* * * *

When I tried to return to New Orleans from Jamaica a month later, there were no flights. I thought about flying to Texas so I could make my way back to my neighborhood as soon as it opened for reoccupancy, but my adoptive aunt, Maxine, who hated the idea of me returning to a hurricane zone before the end of hurricane season, persuaded me to come to stay in New York City instead. (To strengthen her case she sent me an article about Texans who were buying up guns because they were afraid of the influx of black people from New Orleans.)

This wasn't a hard sell: I wanted to be in a place where I could travel by foot and, more crucially, continue to reap the solace of walking at night. And I was eager to follow in the steps of the essayists, poets, and novelists who'd wandered that great city before me-Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Alfred Kazin, Elizabeth Hardwick. I had visited the city before, but each trip had felt like a tour in a sports car. I welcomed the chance to stroll. I wanted to walk alongside Whitman's ghost and "descend to the pavements, merge with the crowd, and gaze with them." So I left Kingston, the popular Jamaican farewell echoing in my mind: "Walk good!" Be safe on your journey, in other words, and all the best in your endeavors.

* * * *

I arrived in New York City, ready to lose myself in Whitman's "Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus!" I marveled at what Jane Jacobs praised as "the ballet of the good city sidewalk" in her old neighborhood, the West Village. I walked up past midtown skyscrapers, releasing their energy as lively people onto the streets, and on into the Upper West Side, with its regal Beaux Arts apartment buildings, stylish residents, and buzzing streets. Onward into Washington Heights, the sidewalks spilled over with an ebullient mix of young and old Jewish and Dominican American residents, past leafy Inwood, with parks whose grades rose to reveal beautiful views of the Hudson River, up to my home in Kingsbridge in the Bronx, with its rows of brick bungalows and apartment buildings nearby Broadway's bustling sidewalks and the peaceful expanse of Van Cortlandt Park. I went to Jackson Heights in Queens to take in people socializing around garden courtyards in Urdu, Korean, Spanish, Russian, and Hindi. And when I wanted a taste of home, I headed to Brooklyn, in Crown Heights, for Jamaican food and music and humor mixed in with the flavor of New York City. The city was my playground.

I explored the city with friends, and then with a woman I'd begun dating. She walked around endlessly with me, taking in New York City's many pleasures. Coffee shops open until predawn; verdant parks with nooks aplenty; food and music from across the globe; quirky neighborhoods with quirkier residents. My impressions of the city took shape during my walks with her.

As with the relationship, those first few months of urban exploration were all romance. The city was beguiling, exhilarating, vibrant. But it wasn't long before reality reminded me I wasn't invulnerable, especially when I walked alone.

One night in the East Village, I was running to dinner when a white man in front of me turned and punched me in the chest with such force that I thought my ribs had braided around my spine. I assumed he was drunk or had mistaken me for an old enemy, but found out soon enough that he'd merely assumed I was a criminal because of my race. When he discovered I wasn't what he imagined, he went on to tell me that his assault was my own fault for running up behind him. I blew off this incident as an aberration, but the mutual distrust between me and the police was impossible to ignore. It felt elemental. They'd enter a subway platform; I'd notice them. (And I'd notice all the other black men registering their presence as well, while just about everyone else remained oblivious to them.) They'd glare. I'd get nervous and glance. They'd observe me steadily. I'd get uneasy. I'd observe them back, worrying that I looked suspicious. Their suspicions would increase. We'd continue the silent, uneasy dialogue until the subway arrived and separated us at last.

I returned to the old rules I'd set for myself in New Orleans, with elaboration. No running, especially at night; no sudden movements; no hoodies; no objects-especially shiny ones-in hand; no waiting for friends on street corners, lest I be mistaken for a drug dealer; no standing near a corner on the cell phone (same reason). As comfort set in, inevitably I began to break some of those rules, until a night encounter sent me zealously back to them, having learned that anything less than vigilance was carelessness.

After a sumptuous Italian dinner and drinks with friends, I was jogging to the subway at Columbus Circle-I was running late to meet another set of friends at a concert downtown. I heard someone shouting and I looked up to see a police officer approaching with his gun trained on me. "Against the car!" In no time, half a dozen cops were upon me, chucking me against the car and tightly handcuffing me. "Why were you running?" "Where are you going?" "Where are you coming from?" "I said, why were you running?!" Since I couldn't answer everyone at once, I decided to respond first to the one who looked most likely to hit me. I was surrounded by a swarm and tried to focus on just one without inadvertently aggravating the others.

For a black man, to assert your dignity before the police was to risk assault.

It didn't work. As I answered that one, the others got frustrated that I wasn't answering them fast enough and barked at me. One of them, digging through my already-emptied pockets, asked if I had any weapons, the question more an accusation. Another badgered me about where I was coming from, as if on the fifteenth round I'd decide to tell him the truth he imagined. Though I kept saying-calmly, of course, which meant trying to manage a tone that ignored my racing heart and their spittle-filled shouts in my face-that I had just left friends two blocks down the road, who were all still there and could vouch for me, to meet other friends whose text messages on my phone could verify that, yes, sir, yes, officer, of course, officer, it made no difference. For a black man, to assert your dignity before the police was to risk assault. In fact, the dignity of black people meant less to them, which was why I always felt safer being stopped in front of white witnesses than black witnesses. The cops had less regard for the witness and entreaties of black onlookers, whereas the concern of white witnesses usually registered on them. A black witness asking a question or politely raising an objection could quickly become a fellow detainee. Deference to the police, then, was sine qua non for a safe encounter.

The cops ignored my explanations and my suggestions and continued to snarl at me. All except one of them, a captain. He put his hand on my back, and said to no one in particular, "If he was running for a long time he would have been sweating." He then instructed that the cuffs be removed. He told me that a black man had stabbed someone earlier two or three blocks away and they were searching for him. I noted that I had no blood on me and had told his fellow officers where I'd been and how to check my alibi-unaware that it was even an alibi, as no one had told me why I was being held, and of course, I hadn't dared ask. From what I'd seen, anything beyond passivity would be interpreted as aggression.

The police captain said I could go. None of the cops who detained me thought an apology was necessary. Like the thug who punched me in the East Village, they seemed to think it was my own fault for running.

Humiliated, I tried not to make eye contact with the onlookers on the sidewalk, and I was reluctant to pass them to be on my way. The captain, maybe noticing my shame, offered to give me a ride to the subway station. When he dropped me off and I thanked him for his help, he said, "It's because you were polite that we let you go. If you were acting up it would have been different." I nodded and said nothing.

* * * *

I realized that what I least liked about walking in New York City wasn't merely having to learn new rules of navigation and socialization-every city has its own. It was the arbitrariness of the circumstances that required them, an arbitrariness that made me feel like a child again, that infantilized me. When we first learn to walk, the world around us threatens to crash into us. Every step is risky. We train ourselves to walk without crashing by being attentive to our movements, and extra-attentive to the world around us. As adults we walk without thinking, really. But as a black adult I am often returned to that moment in childhood when I'm just learning to walk. I am once again on high alert, vigilant. Some days, when I am fed up with being considered a troublemaker upon sight, I joke that the last time a cop was happy to see a black male walking was when that male was a baby taking his first steps.

On many walks, I ask white friends to accompany me, just to avoid being treated like a threat. Walks in New York City, that is; in New Orleans, a white woman in my company sometimes attracted more hostility. (And it is not lost on me that my woman friends are those who best understand my plight; they have developed their own vigilance in an environment where they are constantly treated as targets of sexual attention.) Much of my walking is as my friend Rebecca once described it: A pantomime undertaken to avoid the choreography of criminality.

* * * *

Walking while black restricts the experience of walking, renders inaccessible the classic Romantic experience of walking alone. It forces me to be in constant relationship with others, unable to join the New York flâneurs I had read about and hoped to join. Instead of meandering aimlessly in the footsteps of Whitman, Melville, Kazin, and Vivian Gornick, more often I felt that I was tiptoeing in Baldwin's-the Baldwin who wrote, way back in 1960, "Rare, indeed, is the Harlem citizen, from the most circumspect church member to the most shiftless adolescent, who does not have a long tale to tell of police incompetence, injustice, or brutality. I myself have witnessed and endured it more than once."

Walking as a black man has made me feel simultaneously more removed from the city, in my awareness that I am perceived as suspect, and more closely connected to it, in the full attentiveness demanded by my vigilance. It has made me walk more purposefully in the city, becoming part of its flow, rather than observing, standing apart.

* * * *

But it also means that I'm still trying to arrive in a city that isn't quite mine. One definition of home is that it's somewhere we can most be ourselves. And when are we more ourselves but when walking, that natural state in which we repeat one of the first actions we learned? Walking-the simple, monotonous act of placing one foot before the other to prevent falling-turns out not to be so simple if you're black. Walking alone has been anything but monotonous for me; monotony is a luxury.

A foot leaves, a foot lands, and our longing gives it momentum from rest to rest. We long to look, to think, to talk, to get away. But more than anything else, we long to be free. We want the freedom and pleasure of walking without fear-without others' fear-wherever we choose. I've lived in New York City for almost a decade and have not stopped walking its fascinating streets. And I have not stopped longing to find the solace that I found as a kid on the streets of Kingston. Much as coming to know New York City's streets has made it closer to home to me, the city also withholds itself from me via those very streets. I walk them, alternately invisible and too prominent. So I walk caught between memory and forgetting, between memory and forgiveness.

Garnette Cadogan's essay first appeared in issue one of Freeman's and is forthcoming in the The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race (Scribner), ed. Jesmyn Ward.
Featured image: "Damion," from Ruddy Roye's "When Living is Protest" series.

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"My only sin is my skin. What did I do, to be so black and blue?" -Fats Waller, "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue?" "Manhattan's streets I saunter'd, pondering." -Walt Whitman, "Manhattan's ...

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How do I set the stage for collaborative problem solving for the year? 

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How do I set the stage for collaborative problem solving for the year? 

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Explicitly teaching routines that become expectations. 

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Explicitly teaching routines that become expectations. 

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The Maker Movement Approach to Literacy for Early Learners

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The Maker Movement Approach to Literacy for Early Learners

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The Preschool Podcast: The Maker Movement Approach to Literacy for Early Learners

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What is Storymaking and how is it used for oral language development and learning? We sit down with Michelle Kay Compton and Robin Chappele Thompson authors of Storymaking: The Maker Movement Approach to Literacy for Early Learners to learn more about this practice.

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This short documentary--created as an introduction to the Documentation Studio at Wheelock College--is a conversation with several leaders of Reggio Children and the municipal infant-toddler and preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy about the practice of documentation and its role in teaching and learning.

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How to Give Effective Feedback to your Students (Excerpt)

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How to Give Effective Feedback to your Students (Excerpt)

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"My dad is thiiiiiis black!"

"Why does she wear that scarf on her head?"

"My mom makes me give toys I don't like to poor kids who don't have any."

"Only girls can be nurses."

These comments, while typical of young children, can stop a teacher in her tracks. How should teachers respond? Children's comments can sometimes fluster both new and experienced teachers-even those who support equity and diversity in schools. While teaching at the Eliot-Pearson Children's School at Tufts University, this article's authors explored what it means to embrace an anti-bias stance every day. They found that adopting an anti-bias perspective requires more than implementing a few well-meaning activities. Instead, doing so asks educators to think differently about their work, take personal and professional risks, and put new ideas and beliefs into practice. The teachers at Eliot-Pearson developed a framework to guide their anti-bias work and support their anti-bias planning and practice as they moved forward (Kuh et al. 2011).

What is anti-bias education?

Anti-bias education is a way of teaching that supports children and their families as they develop a sense of identity in a diverse society. It helps children learn to be proud of themselves and their families, respect a range of human differences, recognize unfairness and bias, and speak up for the rights of others (Derman-Sparks & Edwards 2010). Children tell us every day via their comments, play, and peer interactions that they notice social issues, are curious about differences, and want more information. So what do schools and teachers need to do?

In many ways, anti-bias education may not be so different from the kind of teaching that educators already do. For example, when children notice butterflies in the garden, teachers might notice and respond to children's curiosity as an opportunity for extending curriculum, and then provide books and other materials about life cycles. But when it comes to talking about race, class, gender, family structure, or ability, teachers might consciously, or even unconsciously, avoid elaborating on these topics.

Anti-bias curriculum topics often come from the children, families, and teachers, as well as from historical or current events. Anti-bias education happens in both planned curriculum and natural teachable moments based on children's conversations and play. Teachers have to balance planned anti-bias teaching experiences, such as mixing paint to match skin color, with seizing emergent opportunities to engage children by responding to their questions and observations. This can be challenging, and requires the ability to see anti-bias work as an opportunity to teach (as opposed to overcoming a problem). Embracing an anti-bias stance helps teachers to develop innovative practices tailored to the populations they serve. It might be difficult to know where to start, and there is not always an easy answer. It is important for teachers to find a balance between addressing children's needs and not upsetting families, and at the same time to take a stand that may be socially or politically charged. Does all this belong in the early education setting? Is it part of teaching?

A framework for anti-bias teaching

The Eliot-Pearson Children's School's long-standing commitment to anti-bias education is part of its core values and mission. However, being intentional about anti-bias education across classrooms wasn't always easy. One year, as a curriculum strategy, each classroom focused on a particular issue related to its group of children. The teachers shared documentation and questions about this focus at monthly professional development meetings, getting and giving feedback on curriculum and teaching practices. Topics included same-sex parents, skin color and racial identity, class and power, abilities and challenges, and cultural backgrounds.

To hold themselves accountable for anti-bias work, the program's teachers developed a tool for keeping anti-bias issues alive in the curriculum (see "Framework for Anti-Bias Teaching," p. 59). The work of three of this article's coauthors-Lisa (pre-K), Heidi (kindergarten), and Margaret (mixed-age first and second grade)-illustrates curriculum development prompted by the framework and support for anti-bias work for individual teachers and for the school as a whole. The framework has been modified further and discussed in more detail in Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change (Derman-Sparks, LeeKeenan, & Nimmo 2015).

Entry points

Entry points include identifying, provoking, or uncovering themes children are thinking about or demonstrating in their play. An entry point may be something a family brings to a teacher's attention or something a teacher knows about a family that a child brings to the setting. It may be a topic in the media-such as an election, a demonstration, or a film-that draws attention to a particular issue. In addition to recognizing entry points educators should understand that their responses to children's queries don't have to be instantaneous. They may not know right away how to respond-or whether they even want to explore a particular issue with a group-but the awareness of the topic is an important first step. Identification of entry points is at the beginning of the road map for curriculum planning. It takes place with the understanding that anti-bias issues raised are not problems to be eliminated, but rather opportunities for teaching and learning.

Margaret's First- and Second-Grade Class In this mixed-age inclusive class, teachers hear children saying things like "That's not fair! She gets an easier sheet than me!," "Why does he get to use a rocking chair at meeting? Can I?," and "I am bad at reading." Margaret knows that children's notions of fairness and their perceptions of themselves and others as learners provide entry points to rich conversations. Ability differences and similarities are part of a conversation that starts on the very first day of school.

Heidi's Kindergarten Class When Heidi hears kindergartners say, "This is my ramp. This is a private ramp," and "You can go up any ramp, if you have a lot of money. People with a lot of money can go in anywhere they want," she realizes that children are thinking about issues of ownership, resources, and power. This "a-ha" moment inspires her to pay close attention to the language and understandings children have about social class, wealth, and privilege. As the kindergartners play, she notes that the children's attempts to assert themselves often reference possession ("I got it first"), ownership ("That's mine"), status ("I am the boss"), and cultural capital ("If you don't know this movie, then you don't know how to play").

Lisa's Pre-K Class For sharing time, 4-year-old Julian, who is biracial, shows photographs of an experiment he did at home in which he added cream to his mother's coffee to try to match the color of his own skin. Later, 4-year-old Tywanna tells her lunch tablemates, "I'm lucky because my mom is light and my dad is dark and I am in the middle-a mix!" Hearing this, Lisa and her teaching team realize that children are grappling with racial identity. The teachers decide to work with the class to help children learn language to talk about race together.

For each potential entry point, it is important for educators to identify their feelings related to the anti-bias issue. Teachers may not necessarily know who to talk to about their feelings, and often this is where they get stuck. Their personal experiences may drive their responses, or they may experience discomfort and ignore the topic altogether. For example, Heidi felt overwhelmed and dismayed at the play she observed, based on her own class background. Teachers often change the subject when anti-bias topics come up or redirect children to distract them from the topic at hand. At Eliot-Pearson, the framework helps teachers address ambivalent feelings they have about a topic. Discussing their feelings about a topic with colleagues can help educators gain clarity about how to manage the curriculum.

Margaret's First- and Second-Grade Class Margaret is upset that the children in her classroom are using ability to gain social power. It bothers her that differentiating curriculum based on children's skill levels seems to be provoking competition between students, sometimes hindering their self-confidence and willingness to take academic risks. Margaret worries that by exploring and discussing abilities, children will feel singled out by their differences. Would asking students to admit that they are challenged by some assignments be comfortable or productive? Would a particular child with obvious physical differences be able to participate in the conversation, or would classmates see him as a mascot for inclusion rather than an equal member of the class?

Heidi's Kindergarten Class Heidi struggles with the connections she sees between kindergartners' play and issues of access, possession, and power present in our society. While she feels excited and nervous as the children explore social class concepts, she also worries about approaching a subject that seems taboo even in adult conversation. As she explores her own feelings, she wonders, "What role do teachers play that might be supporting and reinforcing ideas of ownership as power? How do our own class backgrounds affect perceptions of children, and how might our backgrounds equip us, or not, to support the children as they expand their understanding of these ideas?"

For each potential entry point, it is important for educators to identify their feelings related to the antibias issue.

Once the teachers at Eliot-Pearson considered entry points that identified areas of interest to the children and acknowledged their own feelings, they got down to the business of thinking about potential next steps. Documentation is crucial in inspiring teachers' thinking. The documentation process involves raising questions and closely documenting children's experiences. Teachers can take photographs, listen to and record conversations, and observe and videotape children's play. They can continue to bring questions to colleagues, using the documentation to ask questions such as "What are these children working on and why?" and "What can I do in my classroom to support children's exploration and understanding of this topic?"

Initially, the kindergarten teaching team was stuck-unsure about how to explore ideas of possession and power with children this young. Teachers shared their thinking with families and colleagues, learning about the values they thought were important. Teachers began to look at power as a way to consider acts of sharing and giving (rather than having and holding)-encouraging the children to "use their powers for good." They developed activities that asked children to think about times when they had used possession or ownership to assert power, and to generate possible solutions to fairly distributing and using classroom resources and materials

Lisa's Pre-K Class Lisa and the pre-K teaching team review Julian's coffee photographs and, with his parents' knowledge and permission, talk with him further to explore the motivation behind his experiment. He says that he is mulatto (a term that refers to someone of mixed race), but because that term has fallen out of favor in the United States, some teachers feel uncomfortable hearing and using it. Teachers begin keeping track of children's conversations about race and skin color at play, lunch, meeting, and outdoors. Children's comments reveal confusion about what White and Black really mean in relation to skin color. They point to each other's clothing, noting that someone has white pants or a black shirt. As a result, the teachers think about ways to broaden and clarify skin color vocabulary before starting any skin color paint mixing.

Responding

Much of the work up until this phase involved observing, reflecting, documenting, and questioning. In the responding phase, teachers plan and implement intentional, specific experiences. Teachers choose curriculum changes to implement in the moment and through long-term planning. Again, documentation plays a part, as analysis of children's conversations can help teachers choose what to respond to and how to respond. Teachers also offer children the skills and tools they need for specific learning experiences. In the butterfly example (from the opening page), teachers might give children opportunities to explore with magnifying glasses and clipboards before heading out into the garden. Providing children with initial materials and experiences can support their later engagement with deeper content. With anti-bias curriculum, these guided experiences might occur by simply mixing various colors of paint before beginning to explore skin colors.

Margaret's First- and Second-Grade Class Over the course of two months, Margaret invites visitors into the mixed-age classroom to teach and share information about many kinds of ability differences. They discuss a range of ability differences, including physical, sensory, social, emotional, communication, and cognitive. An assistive technology teacher shows the students how some children who are developing expressive language skills use computers to help them communicate their ideas. A local university student tells the children about her own reading challenges and shares a strategy she uses for tracking words on a page. A former student with vision impairment engages the children using humor by animating his voice as he tells a story. Margaret and the children create a classroom book documenting these conversations with visitors. As they revisit the book, they reflect on the idea that everyone has things they are great at and things they are working on. The children ultimately include pages about their own abilities and challenges. One child writes, "I am great at math problems. One thing that is challenging is waiting and raising my hand."

Heidi's Kindergarten Class During a planning session, the kindergarten teachers identify three phrases that are commonly used during the children's negotiation of play: "But I got that first. It's mine," "I have the [toy], so I have to be the boss," and "We should have a rule that the person who has a thing decides the rules for the thing." Heidi talks to the children about these phrases. Children and teachers spend two meetings telling stories about times when these phrases were used to assert power over others. Heidi then presents a provocation: "Should we use the words we talked about at meeting when we use the bikes?" The children immediately chorus, "No, no. Those rules are no good. They're not fair." Over the next three weeks, kindergartners debate and develop a plan for sharing the bikes and wagons, which includes having a sign-up sheet for sharing vehicles and considering the needs of preschoolers, who are often passengers.

Lisa's Pre-K Class Lisa and the preschool team (two White teachers and one Black teacher) spend weeks engaging with the children in sensory- and art-inspired paint-mixing activities. In doing so, the children move beyond the novelty of color mixing to focus on systematically producing a color close to their own skin. Children name their various skin color shades-bologna being the most notable! Children also dramatize the Rosa Parks story to talk about White and Black as terms attributed to whole groups of people who really aren't that exact color, and they discuss the exclusionary practices associated with those terms.

Sharing: Process and outcomes
Teachers at the Eliot-Pearson Children's School regularly use documentation to make learning visible to children, families, and school visitors (Rinaldi 2006). Teachers wanted to share what was happening with the anti-bias work and created documentation to show the scope and depth of the children's learning. The school year culminated in an anti-bias exhibition and gallery walk that was open to the public. Each classroom team made a documentation board that illustrated the different sections of the framework and shared key outcomes of the children's experiences. Visitors could share questions and comments and add their own ideas by responding to several interactive bulletin boards through writing messages on sticky notes.

Margaret's First- and Second-Grade Class Having documented classroom learning and shared the anti-bias work with families and school visitors, Margaret and her team now feel more comfortable discussing abilities and addressing unfair language in the classroom. Margaret notes the increase in children's use of the phrases "what he's [or she's] working on" and "just right" work to explain why different children have different assignments. Children share their diverse abilities with each other by writing comments on sticky notes in response to each other's pages in the classroom book. Margaret notes how children are able to take more academic risks and how she differentiates tasks in heterogeneous skill groups more flexibly, often referencing the classroom book when differences arise.

Heidi's Kindergarten Class The long-term planning time and subsequent use of the sign-up sheet enable kindergartners to plan for using classroom and school resources and to express and negotiate roles, story lines, and connections rather than arguing over who gets a turn and who gets to control the play. Teachers experiment with different ways to dismiss children at choice times, so that no one "got there first." Teachers' efforts to change some classroom structures, in tandem with the plans made for sharing bikes, support teamwork and problem solving in play.

Lisa's Pre-K Class The preschoolers share their learning by inviting families or children's caregivers who have come to school to mix paint to match their own skin colors. With the children as expert color mixers, the classroom visitors create their skin color, experiencing the expanded vocabulary about race that the children developed. On their gallery walk panel, Lisa presents information from research about race so families can see how it connects to the work in the classroom.

Conclusion

It is important to note that throughout this exploration of anti-bias topics, the teachers at the Eliot-Pearson Children's School had some key structures in place that were vital to their ability to sustain the hard work of reflective teaching, especially as related to potentially controversial topics. The following structures were included:

Make a commitment to anti-bias work. The school made anti-bias education a primary focus and was dedicated to trying out new ideas; integrating theory, research, and practice; and building a culture that allowed risk taking and making mistakes-essential components of anti-bias education. For some teachers-even those familiar with anti-bias work-their understandings of this approach broadened. One teacher reflected, "I initially thought anti-bias was about race, but I see that it can incorporate many different types of bias." Another teacher said, "I realized how frequently spontaneous teaching moments occur in the classroom. I became a better listener and was able to use everyday situations as prompts for future whole group discussions."

Use tools for staying on track. Having a tool such as the framework for anti-bias teaching supported educators as they learned to consider anti-bias issues in deeper, more holistic and intentional ways. It also held teachers accountable for keeping anti-bias education in the forefront of their teaching repertoire-implementing purposeful curriculum to move the work in the classroom forward. The framework became a filter through which teachers could discuss, plan, and gauge their work. A second teacher noted, "I feel it is important to be intentional about discussions of difference-that way children are given language and support and teachers are not caught unprepared." Additionally, the framework gave voice to new ways of thinking for teachers and children. One teacher reflected, "Children need language and experiences to broaden their understanding about diversity. The more experiences they have, the more easily they can take an anti-bias approach themselves."

Gain administrative support and dedicated meeting time for anti-bias education work. Making anti-bias education a priority for curriculum development and professional development means providing time, funds, and resources to this effort. Debbie LeeKeenan, the director of the school, made a conscious decision to dedicate staff meeting time to anti-bias work and, as a result, teachers were engaged in monthly professional development sharing and received regular feedback on anti-bias dilemmas. Teachers used a model of critical friendship and specific protocols to guide conversations and review dilemmas and students' work (School Reform Initiative 2012). Teachers then saw staff meetings as a place to "take our data and elicit feedback and reflection from colleagues, which influences our continued implementation of the curriculum." This kind of embedded professional development created trust among teachers and was an important venue for sharing entry points, feelings, thinking, and planning.

Working through the movements of the framework can bring up feelings of discomfort and move teachers to question which topics are introduced and how they are covered in their teaching practices. One teacher admitted, "It is still so hard to set priorities and decide what aspects of all the potential discussions get my attention, air time, group time, and curricular development." But teachers were adamant that the work was worth the effort. Another teacher expressed it this way: "I am a learner too. Curriculum should be about actively exploring a topic with each other. I learned that part of our job as teachers is to aid children and families in areas they may be struggling with. Though our ideas and beliefs may differ, it is still our job to negotiate through these."

Doing this work was not always easy, but it was rich, it shifted practice, and ultimately it was satisfying. Observing children as they have their own "a-ha!" moments-noticing an injustice, developing a new connection to a peer, or building an understanding of the world around them and their own role in making the world a more just place-is inspiring. It is equally satisfying to teachers to have taken a risk and stretched our own learning as a means to provide a deeper and more inclusive education for all.

References

Derman-Sparks, L., & J.O. Edwards. 2010. Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Derman-Sparks, L., D. LeeKeenan, & J. Nimmo. 2015. Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change. Early Childhood Education Series. New York: Teachers College Press; Washington, DC: NAEYC.

Kuh, L.P., D. LeeKeenan, H. Given, & M.R. Beneke. 2011. "Framework for Anti-Bias Teaching." Unpublished curriculum tool. Medford, MA: Eliot-Pearson Children's School, Tufts University.

Rinaldi, C. 2006. In Dialogue With Reggio Emilia: Listening, Researching, and Learning. Contesting Early Childhood series. New York: Rutledge. School Reform Initiative. 2012. Protocols. www.schoolreforminitiative.org.

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Moving Beyond Anti-Bias Activities: Supporting the Development of Anti-Bias Practices

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Anti-bias education is a way of teaching that supports children and their families as they develop a sense of identity in a diverse society.

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Brené with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist

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Ibram X. Kendi and I talk about racial disparities, policy, and equality, but we really focus on How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi's groundbreaking approach to understanding uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves.

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the random acts of kindness foundation curriculum

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the random acts of kindness foundation curriculum

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Listen to the interview with Alex Shevrin Venet (transcript):
Sponsored by EVERFI and Listenwise

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Among the many challenges teachers have faced since the onset of the pandemic, one that persists is this feeling that students have changed, that they are less motivated, more entitled, and more disrespectful than ever before. Even if a teacher can find plenty of evidence to support this perception, it can't be making things any better.

And while it does seem that the pandemic exacerbated this feeling among teachers, I saw it long before we ever heard the word Covid. In the late 90s and early 2000s, I worked with far too many teachers who held a pretty low opinion of many of our students. There was a lot of "These kids (insert negative generalization)" or "Well what do you expect from him, he (insert negative generalization)."

I think many of these attitudes come from a real, valid, and vulnerable place, from teachers who once had high hopes but felt disappointed and hurt when things went wrong, teachers who had good intentions and got their hearts broken a little bit every time students rejected their efforts, teachers who see behaviors from their students that shock and frighten them. But regardless of where they come from, these mindsets hurt our relationships with students, and that makes everything else worse, from behavior to academics to the culture of school as a whole.

So with all of this in mind, I was intrigued when I came across the phrase unconditional positive regard. It was in Alex Venet's book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education ( Amazon | Bookshop.org), where she names it as the most important guiding philosophy in her work. Venet explains that unconditional positive regard is a stance that communicates this message to students: "I care about you. You have value. You don't have to do anything to prove it to me, and nothing's going to change my mind." In her book, she asserts that taking this stance and putting it into practice builds the foundation on which our students can thrive. And the more I learned about it, the more I was sold on its value.

But I suspect that for most teachers, adopting this philosophy won't be an easy task, because the demands of the job are so intense and the challenging behaviors students bring to school are so overwhelming. For some, even the idea of this philosophy might be off-putting at first, because you might see it as just another version of teacher-blaming. But it's not. Unconditional positive regard doesn't take accountability away from students for their behavior; it just works on the lens teachers use to address it, and that lens can make a huge difference, not only in how you interact with students, but how you feel about the work you do every day.

Because I think unconditional positive regard is such an important, revolutionary philosophy, and because implementing it can be challenging, I wanted to lift it out of the book and give it special attention. I already did an interview with Venet about the larger concept of trauma-informed teaching, but she agreed to have a separate conversation just on unconditional positive regard. You can listen to our conversation in the player above, read the full transcript, or get a peek at some of the key points of our conversation below.

What is unconditional positive regard, and why is it such an important part of trauma-informed teaching?
"Unconditional positive regard means I care about you, you have value, you don't have to do anything to prove it to me, and nothing will change my mind," Venet says. "So it's really this idea of seeing somebody as a whole and complete and worthy person starting from a place where care doesn't have to be earned, it's just assumed. Everybody gets care. You're allowed to mess up. You're allowed to have struggles, but that is never going to invalidate your worth, and it's never going to invalidate my care for you."

The concept was introduced to psychotherapy by Carl Rogers in the 1960s and applied to education by Alfie Kohn in a 2005 essay called Unconditional Teaching. Venet sees this stance as foundational in her work in equity-centered trauma-informed teaching "because it starts from that place of students are worthy, valuable people."

What does unconditional positive regard look like in practice?
"One of the things that allows for unconditional positive regard is to just get to know students," Venet explains. "I mean it's pretty basic but to get to know what they care about that's not necessarily related to the content. If you only are looking at a kid and going, oh, you're good at writing, you're good at science, whatever, then your regard is going to be conditional because you've placed parameters around what types of strengths I'm going to see in you."

It's especially important to make this a priority for students with whom you don't have much in common. "If I meet a student who is really into cats and the same TV shows as me and we have a similar sense of humor, it's easy for me to like them, to care about them," Venet says. But with students who only wanted to talk about Roblox, for example, "It was a little hard for me to find okay, where's my connection point? If I reground myself in, okay, if I'm going to believe this student has value, I care about them, I need to just get inside a little bit. What makes them tick? So tell me about Roblox. What do you like about it? How do you feel when you're playing it? Who do you get to connect with when you play Roblox? Where did you first learn about it?" Taking deliberate steps to get to know students as they are, outside of the context of your classroom, can help you see them as whole people.

Along with getting to know students, teachers practicing unconditional positive regard also work to learn about factors in students' lives that make them behave in ways that bother the teacher.

"If a student seems to never pay attention when I'm talking," she explains, "I'm not going to go immediately to a place of, Well, they're not paying attention because they don't care. Instead, I'm going to get curious and go, maybe something's going on that's distracting. Maybe they just have a hard time paying attention. Maybe I'm being kind of boring." This stance of curiosity - both for getting to know the student and figuring out what things might be causing problems - is essential for building unconditional positive regard.
What about when students become especially difficult? What insights can you offer to teachers for those times?
Venet shares the story of a former student, "Julia," who refused to participate, kept her head down most of the time, and hurled verbal insults at Venet when she tried to connect with her. Had she not been supported by her colleagues to take a stance of unconditional positive regard, "I could have come up with some conclusions like she's disrespectful, she hates me, she hates school, she doesn't care about her education. But by holding this unconditional positive regard, which essentially says with no evidence, I'm still going to believe that she has value and I'm still going to care about her, with no evidence that would support that, I gave it time."

During this time, Venet made much more subtle bids for connection. "She wouldn't talk to me in class, but if I was standing next to her in the lunch line, then I could make a little comment to her, and she would sometimes respond to it. I started to talk to her other teachers and try to find out a little bit. Like, what does she like? What makes her tick? She was really good at drawing, and so I started to see her art. I started to find some connection points. So then the next time she comes in, in the half a second before she puts her headphones in, I could say, hey, I saw you drawing in your last class. Can I see what you drew? And maybe she leaves one earbud out to start to talk to me about it."

As this process unfolded, Venet began to understand that Julia's behavior came from past trauma. "She has been really harmed by people in her life before and she's protecting herself. She's protecting herself because the same way that I don't have evidence for her, she has no evidence for me. She doesn't know that I'm safe. She doesn't know that I think she can learn. She doesn't know any of that. Out of the two of us, one of us had to take a leap of faith, and she's the kid so it has to be me. I'm the teacher so it has to be me to do that. And so I stuck with it for her until we gained that trust and until we were able to build it up."

One quote that Venet keeps in mind in these difficult times comes from the book Trauma-Responsive Schooling ( Amazon | Bookshop.org). "There's a coach in that book who is coaching some of her peers, and this question that she asks of other teachers is, How would you respond differently if you knew the student's behavior wasn't a choice? If I look at Julia and I say, her behavior's a choice. She is choosing to be mean to me and be disrespectful. Then maybe the action that I'm going to take is to say well, I'm going to punish her for it. I'm going to withdraw my part of the relationship. I'm going to put up a wall if she's putting up a wall."

Unconditional positive regard takes things in a different direction. "If I look at her and I say, maybe this isn't a choice, but it is a protective reaction to try to not get hurt by another adult, then I'm going to respond how I did, which is I'm going to stick with it. I'm going to try to earn her trust while always holding this idea that I think we're going to get there one day."

Even if the behavior IS a choice, Venet says, taking this stance helps the teacher approach the situation in a healthier way.

You advise teachers to have regular "perspective-keeping" conversations with colleagues to help stay on track with unconditional positive regard. Why are these important and how do they help?
"The relationship between a student and a teacher is not equal," Venet begins. "If I was going to meet up with a friend, and my friend called me a really horrible word and put her headphones in, I could just go, well, I'm not going to tolerate that from my friend. I don't have to spend time with this person. That's not the same relationship we have with students; students are required to be there and you're required to teach them. But as the adult, we have more power. We have the ability to impose consequences that can have long-lasting impacts.

"And so if a student hurts my feelings, it's okay for my feelings to be hurt. It's okay for me to say, that felt really bad. I hated that. I don't want to tolerate that behavior from people around me. However, the student can never be responsible for making me feel better or be responsible for my emotions because the power differential is not equal. I can't make that student responsible for me because they're not. They're required to be in school. I'm required to teach them."

But teachers shouldn't feel like they are trapped with their feelings; they can get help from their colleagues. "I can go to my colleagues and talk about how I was hurt, and they can say, yeah, that sounds really hard. We can process it. And then they can help me reset and say, okay, how are you going to show up tomorrow given the fact that you're feeling really hurt? How can you continue to hold this regard for her even though she is harming you?"

And if the student really crosses a line? "For example, if the student was calling me a slur based on my identity," Venet offers, "then I need to have people around me who can say, yeah, you shouldn't go back in that room with her tomorrow but she still deserves a teacher, so we're going to tag out. Somebody else is going to work with her. We're going to work on educating her. We're going to solve this problem. It requires a team effort. And I think this is where people have a hard time when we talk about unconditional positive regard, because if you are the only person in your building who's trying to make this shift, it's really going to be difficult because our schools are not set up to foster this."
"If we commit to an ethic of care, building relationships and caring for our students aren't strategies in the name of increasing academic achievement but the actual goal itself." This is from page 100 of your book. Embracing this stance would be a huge paradigm shift for many U.S. educators. Why do you think it's worth considering?
"It's basically the opposite of what we do in schools right now," Venet says, "and schools right now are so toxic in a lot of ways. What would it look like if kids just felt safe and cared about as part of their school experience? There's all this competition in schools, whether it be sports or perfect attendance awards or grades and scholarships or whatever, and people justify this by saying, well that's society and what do you want? That every kid gets a trophy? Well, what I want to ask is, have you ever been in an environment where every kid actually did get a trophy and seen how beautiful it was?

"At the school where I taught, they used to do this end of the year ceremony that was for kids who were graduating but also every kid in the whole school, and it was a small school so this was doable. And we actually gave a personalized academic award to every single student. All the teachers who shared students would fill out these little sheets of paper and kind of reflect on what was some of the academic growth that you saw this year. And we would create an award for every single kid, and then at this ceremony give them out. And it was absolutely beautiful. The kids really didn't care that everybody else was getting an award because what their personal award said to them was my teachers saw and noticed this thing I worked really hard on. So every kid getting a trophy? I don't know. I think that's great.

"I think a big part of why our world is so traumatic right now is a feeling of scarcity and competition, that there's only limited resources, and we all have to claw at each other to get the resources, and if you're in the way of that then you're my enemy. What if, instead of replicating that in school by saying there's only three sports awards, there's only one senior award, what if we work from abundance and said there's enough for everyone? There's enough care for everyone. There's enough celebration for everyone. And actually celebrating you doesn't mean that I lose. It means that we all have won collectively. When we make small choices as teachers to work from a place of unconditional care, we're planting the seeds for those bigger changes."

You can find Alex Shevrin Venet's work at unconditionallearning.org.

Come back for more.
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Nothing's Going to Change My Mind: How Unconditional Positive Regard Transforms Classrooms

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What if students didn't have to do anything to earn our care?

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Mapp, a former deputy superintendent for family and community engagement in the Boston Public Schools, shared the following strategies for putting effective partnership into practice:
* Successful family engagement requires resources, infrastructure, and leadership.
Parent and community ties need to be an essential ingredient, not an add-on. "It's real when I see it on your budget sheets," Mapp explained in the webinar. Collaborate with your community to tap into outside resources as well.
* Educators need to be intentional about building relationships based on mutual respect and trust.
Schools have not valued all families, especially those in historically underserved communities that have experienced "generational disrespect." Listen to all parents and offer opportunities to them for leadership. Efforts should focus on students' learning and development. Effective family engagement is never weaponized.
* Educators must be trained and supported to work with families from all backgrounds.
"A lot of unlearning has to happen around family and community engagement," according to Mapp who said some educators have adopted "bad and ineffective strategies" shaped by systemic racism. Context matters and engagement initiatives need to be designed to work at the local level. Home visits may not be appropriate in some communities, for example.
* Begin reaching out to families when children are young.
Help families navigate the school system from the beginning and continue to engage with them up to college and career. Don't forget middle and high school parents who need help supporting their students as well, albeit in different ways than younger children.
* Communicate clearly and consistently.
Messages need to be accessible to everyone, including families who speak different languages.
* Don't forget equity.
Educators should be sensitive about the realities of busy family life, including parents' work demands and childcare concerns. Immigrant families can also face unique challenges.
* Show some love.
Student-centered schools focus on what is best for the children and the community, not just the educators. "This is love-work," explained Mapp. You must "love fully the families and the children and communities you serve."

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The Case for Strong Family and Community Engagement in Schools

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A roundup of the latest K-12 research reveals persuasive evidence

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Discusses the way executive skills undergird reading engagement and comprehension.

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To the Classroom: Conversations with Researchers & Educators

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Today’s guest is Dr. Kelly Cartwright. We’ll talk about her invaluable work around executive skills, and the ways that these important skills undergird reading engagement and comprehension. We’ll also discuss her 2021 paper with Dr. Nell Duke titled “The Science of Reading Progresses” about The Acti…

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EL Education - Leaders of Their Own Learning: Chapter 3: Using Data with Students

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Teachers and school leaders everywhere collect and analyze data to make informed decisions about instruction that will support all students in meeting standards. However, in many schools, the power of data to improve student achievement is not fully leveraged because students are left out of the pro…

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Listen to my interview with Tracy Enos or read the transcript here.

In our never-ending quest to find better ways to differentiate and personalize instruction for students, we have plenty of options. I covered a lot of the basics in my Differentiation Starter Kit. Then last year we learned how math teacher Natalie McCutchen manages a self-paced classroom. And for ESL students, there are the Can-Do Descriptors.

Now, Rhode Island teacher Tracy Enos shares her system for customizing instruction to meet the needs of every student. She calls it a playlist, an individualized digital assignment chart that students work through at their own pace.

First, consider what we usually do: When planning a typical unit of instruction, teachers map out a series of lessons to deliver, assignments for students to complete, and some kind of final assessment at the end. They might share this plan with students, but then the execution is done by the teacher: The teacher delivers the lessons, tells students when to do the assignments, and guides students toward the final assessment.

With playlists, the responsibility for executing the learning plan shifts: Students are given the unit plan, including access to all the lessons (in text or video form), ahead of time. With the learning plan in hand, students work through the lessons and assignments at their own pace. And because each student has her own digital copy of the playlist (delivered through a system like Google Classroom), the teacher can customize the list to meet each student's needs.

"A playlist is basically like a road map," Enos explains. "I started using them in my classroom when I looked at my room full of 26 students and I saw the variety in their abilities. I knew I needed something different so that I could meet the needs of each one of those kids. Instead of just saying, 'OK, everybody, we're going to work on this lesson today,' I needed to individualize it so that different kids are working on things that they needed."

The term playlist, by the way, was coined by one of Enos' colleagues, math teacher Jason Appel.

Here are screenshots of three sample playlists from Enos's class. If you click on each one, you'll be taken to the full version to view in Google Docs. Although these examples come from a language arts class, Enos feels strongly that the playlist concept could be used in any content area.

Argument Writing Playlist

The first playlist is for a unit on argument writing. What you see here is just the first few tasks; there are 19 on the full playlist.

In the first column, Enos simply names the task. The second column provides specific instructions for the task. The third column is set up for students to record any notes they have about the task, and the fourth is where students record the date they completed the task.

Although much of the playlist will be exactly the same for each student, especially for the first few tasks, individual tasks can be customized to meet individual needs. Because the playlist is stored in digital form, the teacher can go into each student's playlist at any time and make adjustments as needed.

In addition to adjusting certain tasks, Enos also builds space in each playlist for purely individualized tasks. If we look further down her playlist, we see that tasks #14 and #15 have been left open for individualized focus revision activities, to be determined after the student has written her draft:

Enos does place occasional hard deadlines into her playlists; item 13 above has a date assigned to it. Although students are allowed to complete the work before the deadline, having this task pinned to a specific date helps prevent students from getting too far off track from each other.

Parts of Speech Playlist

This next one is from a unit designed to review the parts of speech. Notice that some of the tasks are quite simple and quick: Students just need to log on to a certain platform, create an account, or join an online group. This makes the playlist a practical tool as well as a good instructional vehicle: One place to keep learning tasks AND the kinds of housekeeping items that accompany most units. And breaking units into smaller tasks gives students a feeling of accomplishment as they move through each item.

To see the full version of this playlist, click the image below:

Again, the "Directions" column allows for maximum flexibility. The teacher can add tech tips, reminders, or any other information that might help student complete the task more smoothly. And if this is done in digital form, the teacher can easily add tips, links, or other comments at any time, making the playlist a living document.

Book Club Playlist

The final example is a playlist created for a unit on dystopian fiction, in which students participated in book clubs.

Notice that the playlist also includes checkpoints, where students must touch base with their teacher before moving on. These can be built in at any point for any reason, such as making sure students have completed key housekeeping tasks (like in the example above) or having the teacher review a draft for quality.

Many of the tasks in the playlist will ultimately result in the student submitting work through Google Classroom, or they might require a paper submission in a class that hasn't gone quite so digital. In fact, the whole system could be done on paper-one look at how student learning is managed in a Montessori classroom and you'll see how that can work. What's key is that students work through the list on their own, which frees the teacher up to spend more time working one-on-one with students.

If students are truly working at their own pace, wouldn't that mean some are way ahead, even finished with a unit, while others drag way behind? Setting a few hard deadlines (as shown in the argument writing playlist) can help keep the pacing from spiraling too far out of whack, but if our goal is true individualization, then we shouldn't want everyone to be too closely aligned.

This can be managed on a day-to-day basis. Students who are taking longer to master key tasks will likely get more one-on-one assistance from the teacher or be placed in groups to help them. Those who finish the required material quickly can be given enrichment tasks that take the learning to more advanced levels.

Homework also takes on a different role in a class that uses playlists: Because students work through the playlists on their own, they decide whether they get homework or not. If a student is moving through a playlist quickly, they may not have a need to spend extra time on the work at home. Conversely, if a student finds he needs extra help in class, he may decide to catch up on a few videos at home.

For a more in-depth exploration of playlists, listen to my podcast interview with Tracy Enos using the player above or by listening on iTunes or Stitcher (for Android). If you have questions, ask them in the comments below and I'll have Tracy come over and answer them. And if you have used a system that's similar to playlists, please share your experiences in the comments so we can all learn together.♦

There's a lot more where this came from.
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Using Playlists to Differentiate Instruction

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Want better differentiation? Learn how to use this simple method for providing students with customized plans for working through a unit of study.

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Tips for meaningful feedback to students

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Tips for meaningful feedback to students

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SplashLearn Blog – Educational Resources for Parents, Teachers & Kids

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5 Best Tips for Meaningful Feedback to Students in 2023

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Explore the power of feedback to students. Learn how to provide meaningful feedback to students with practical tips and strategies for success.

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NEAL CONAN, host:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. Im Neal Conan in Washington.

Our social identities come from a lot of places: our race, our sex, our age, our political affiliations, our medical diagnoses, our high schools, colleges, our favorite baseball teams. And each of those identities comes along with a set of expectations or stereotypes.

We all know that women can't compete with men at higher math. We all know that white men can't jump. And then there's a curious fact: When confronted with those negative stereotypes, female math majors do perform worse on tests, and white jumpers fail to clear the usual bar. Take away the threat to their identity, and they'll do fine.

It's a phenomenon social psychologist Claude Steele calls the stereotype threat, and his new book looks at the many and surprising ways that these expectations affect our lives. He also lays out a plan to minimize the impact.

So call and tell us what situations you've had to deal with in which your social identity and the expectations that come along with it presented a challenge. How did you overcome it, if you did? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our Web site. Thats at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.

Later in the hour, actor, producer and now Broadway director Stanley Tucci joins us to talk about his new revival of the 1989 farce "Lend me a Tenor." But first, Claude Steele. His book is called "Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affects Us." He joins us from our bureau in New York City. Nice to have you on TALK OF THE NATION today.

Dr. CLAUDE STEELE (Author, "Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us"): Great to be here.

CONAN: And let me ask you to start with your realization of your own social identity, when you were a kid going to the swimming pool.

Dr. STEELE: Well, as I begin the book with the story of trying to remember when I first became aware I was African-American. And to the best of my ability, we psychologists know that memory is a construction. So you're always cautious, but to the best of my ability, it was one day, the last day of school, second or third grade, coming home with kids in the neighborhood. And the conversation came up that gee, we couldn't go to the swimming pool that was three or so blocks away, in a white neighborhood, and that we'd have to except on Wednesday afternoon. So if we were going to swim that summer in that pool, we would have to go only on Wednesday afternoons. And the reason for that became because we were black, because we were African-American.

And that was, in some ways, the first realization I had of being black and that the other kids I lived around were also black and that we had this contingency of identity, as I've been calling it, to deal with.

CONAN: The identity, being black, the contingency being you can't swim at that pool except on Wednesdays.

Dr. STEELE: Exactly.

CONAN: And you write later in the book that, in fact, had someone sat you down at that age and said son, let me tell you about discrimination, that you would have listened politely for a little while. But if they told you can only swim at the pool on Wednesdays, suddenly you were pretty interested in race.

Dr. STEELE: That's correct. I mean, it really the swimming pool restriction really affected how my life was going to be. The instruction from adults that this is important and you should think about it and understand it, those things are kind of abstract and may be interesting, but they wouldn't be nearly as compelling psychologically, and they sort of take over your thinking and functioning as much as a real restriction tied to an identity.

CONAN: And a lot of your book is, in fact, a result of your investigation as to why specifically African-American, but later minority students, seemed to do so poorly academically at big institutions like the University of Michigan, where you worked, or at Stanford University, where you also work. And indeed, what you found out was it was this social identity and the negative consequences of it.

Dr. STEELE: Yes, the prospect if you can imagine, you talked to - you had a woman at the beginning of the hour talking about her experience in math. You can imagine being a woman taking a difficult math course, let's say in her second or third year of college, and experiencing frustration at that.

That frustration in math occasions the relevance of the stereotype about women's math ability. And if she's invested in doing well at math, she could worry that oh my goodness, you know, I've invested so much in it, but here it is. Maybe what they say is true. And that could be upsetting and distracting and interfere with her functioning right there in the middle of that course or in the middle of taking that standardized test. And that has been what our research is focused on, is trying to test that idea, put it to test. I and my colleagues have done that over the last 20 years.

CONAN: And one of the fascinating findings is that, in fact: A, you do have to care about the outcome of this performance, and the more accomplished you are, the more this effect shows up.

Dr. STEELE: Yeah, yeah, you have more invested in it. So the if you really, if you don't care about if you're a woman, and you don't care about doing well with math, your life is on another path, then the prospect of confirming such a stereotype about your group's ability or - it isn't as upsetting to you because you're not invested in that area, but when you've really invested yourself, then the prospect of that stereotype being true or its being seen to be true and you being treated accordingly, that has considerable impact. It scares you, and that fear can directly interfere with your functioning.

CONAN: And you go on to prove this, as you mentioned, with white, female math majors, well, female math majors in general. There's a fascinating part of the test where, in fact, you somebody tests Asian female math majors to see whether both stereotypes will work: A, they're failing at math because they're female, or their expectation that they will succeed because they're Asian.

Dr. STEELE: Yes, yes. I didn't do that, but some other very clever researchers did, and they found that the performance follows whichever stereotype you make most salient in the situation, most obvious. If you remind them of their gender, then they underperform, being affected by that negative stereotype. If you remind them of their ethnicity, then they don't underperform in relation to men. So whichever stereotype is in the air seems to drive the direction of performance.

CONAN: And this goes to white sprinters, you also found out when they're posed against black sprinters - and let me read you a quote from later in the book: There exists no group on earth that is not negatively stereotyped in some way: the old, the young, Northerners, Southerners, WASPs, computer whiz kids, Californians and so forth. In other words, all of us, no matter who we are, somewhere there's a negative stereotype that we all bear.

Dr. STEELE: Indeed it's true.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. STEELE: I could never haven't yet found a group that doesn't have at least some negative stereotype about them.

CONAN: And does this help explain to you why we seem to live in a nation where there is no group that does not feel like an aggrieved minority?

Dr. STEELE: Well, it's probably part of it, that there is no group that doesn't have a negative stereotype, and when that if that stereotype is relevant to them in an important set of situations, like the classroom or the workplace or the basketball court or something that they care about, then they're going to feel this pressure.

I mean, the beauty, of course, is that from this analysis grows some convincing strategies for reducing this threat. And some people, of course, know these, learn these strategies on their own, but I think we've got a long way in kind of isolating some.

CONAN: Indeed, that experiment with the women Asian women math majors points to one. If you tell them a positive part of the stereotype, that'll help.

Dr. STEELE: That's right. That's right. Being reminded of positive role models can greatly reduce the otherwise damaging effects of the negative stereotype.

CONAN: Let's get some...

Dr. STEELE: That's one strategy.

CONAN: Let's get some callers in on the conversation. We'll get to some of the others a little bit later in the program.

Dr. STEELE: Great.

CONAN: Our guest is Claude Steele, author of "Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us." 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. When has stereotypes about your social identity affected your life? John(ph) is on the line from Manchester, New Hampshire.

JOHN (Caller): Hey, yeah. This is John. How are you guys doing?

CONAN: Good.

Dr. STEELE: Fine.

JOHN: Yeah, hey. I want to say something about the (unintelligible) goes beyond, like, gender or race or class like that, but I found that since I've graduated high school, and I've yet to go to college, but I'm in the U.S. Forest Service. And so I'll show up on the worksite, and right away, they'll have this instant stigma that since I've not attended college, that they have stereotyped that I am not as qualified or capable, but it turns out I'm able to par, if not excel past their expectations. So that's one stereotype, one that maybe you guys could address for me.

CONAN: Okay. As a fellow non-collegian, John, I hear you. But go ahead, Claude Steele.

JOHN: Yeah, thats, like, that's what I'm talking about. It goes beyond, like I've seen - so I've worked with females, blacks, whites, every race you can think of, every demographic, every background. And the thing is, is like it comes down to the end of the day, you're sitting around the fire after you've just worked really hard all day in the Park Service that it'll come down to the fact that, like, they'll look at you less respectively in the one fact that you don't have that piece of paper saying you know what you know, but all the while, I've had three or four years experience now past anything that these college graduates really have.

Like, they're all greenhorns compared to me, but since I don't have the piece of paper, there's instantly a stereotype that I don't know exactly the same, like, how to make a grade in the trail, or I don't know the same, like, the same...

CONAN: We hear you, John. And let me ask Claude Steele about this. In fact, this sort of comes up with an email you got from somebody who attended one of your lectures and said: Gee, you've listed all these things that have negative stereotypes. You didn't mention mental illness.

Dr. STEELE: Yeah, that's a good example, and it connects to the caller's concern that this was, I was going on and on about these other stereotypes and performance in math and athletics and the like, and the email reminded me that in her case, she was manic-depressive or bipolar and that in the audience, she felt reluctant to raise her hand and ask about that because she thought everybody would begin to see her that way and to see her as having a mental illness and that that might affect her employment options and how people related to her.

And she provided a perfect example of the vast array of forms of negative of stereotype threat that people can experience, just as the caller's experience does. That's one that I hadn't really thought of, but as he describes it, it's a very compelling experience. And it's precisely an example of stereotypes around in that there's something about him that, you know, authorizes this kind of stereotype, and he becomes aware of it, and that's the experience of the threat. And it affects his relationships with other people, his functioning at various times and so on.

CONAN: And let me ask you about the title of your book, "Whistling Vivaldi."

Dr. STEELE: Yes, that comes from a friend, Brent Staples who writes for the New York Times, and his autobiography called "Parallel Time," a great book I can plug. He describes being a graduate student, an African-American graduate student at the University of Chicago, walking down the street dressed as a student and realizing that his mere presence was making whites uncomfortable.

And they would avoid him or sort of cross the street to get away from him and so on. He realized from this kind of behavior that they were seeing him through the lens of a negative stereotype about African-Americans in that neighborhood, that perhaps as a young male, black male, he might be violent. And it was making his whole experience of the situation tense and awkward. He learned how to whistle Vivaldi to deflect that stereotype.

CONAN: When they heard the classical music being whistled, they said oh, this is a man of refinement.

Dr. STEELE: Exactly. And he relaxed, they relaxed, and the situation went on.

CONAN: Another cue, perhaps we'll get to it a bit later. We're talking with Claude Steele about his book "Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us." Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

(Soundbite of music)

CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. Im Neal Conan in Washington.

No one is immune from stereotype. Every one of us is part of some group affected by negative perceptions, and we know we may be judged by it. Claude Steele calls it stereotype threat, a topic he studied for many years. He writes about it in his latest book, "Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us."

So call and tell us what situations you've had to deal with in which your social identity and the expectations that come along with it presented a challenge. How did you overcome it if you did? 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our Web site. Thats at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.

And let's go next to Tonya(ph), Tonya with us from Madison.

TONYA (Caller): Hi, Neal.

CONAN: Good to talk with you.

TONYA: You, too. So I'm an engineer. When I was in K through 12, I had showed that I had a lot of apparently from that age - some good mathematical skills, and by my senior year, I was taking, like, honors calculus.

And then I went to a community college, a small college in Southern Michigan and was valedictorian with my associate's in engineering and had won the engineering department award. And I transferred to the University of Michigan, and suddenly I was in a very different place.

I was in a place that had people from all over the world, you know, predominately men. And I think that in retrospect now, listening to this, that it seems to make sense because when I would take an exam, I would get everything right that I would finish, but I almost feel like I was trying to be so meticulous because I was fearful that I wasn't going to perform how I was used to performing that I actually didn't perform as well as I was used to performing.

CONAN: And that seems like an accurate description of this effect, Claude Steele.

Mr. STEELE: Yes, that really is a perfect description of it. And it is at the University of Michigan, although all schools have this, many schools, especially stronger schools, have this kind of experience is rife - can be rife there.

That's a perfect description because somebody - it's not an effect that's tied to their real abilities. It's, in effect, it's almost like an intimidation factor, and the other critical thing in the caller's description is place.

In some places, it can be very powerful, where there are a lot of cues that make one aware of one's identity and the contingencies that can be tied to it. That can make the experience of stereotype threat much worse, whereas in other situations, where maybe there are more women, you know, you're in a high school, and the girls are just as good at math at the boys, and there isn't as much visibility of this stereotype to give it credibility, it isn't a powerful thing.

But as you move up the ladder, and there are fewer women in the classes and the like, the stereotype and the pressures of it become more intense.

CONAN: The examples you use in your book is Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman justice of the United States Supreme Court, felt intense pressure until she was joined on the court by another woman.

Mr. STEELE: That's right, Ginsburg.

CONAN: Indeed.

Mr. STEELE: Which she describes as the happiest day one of the happiest days in her life was when Ruth Bader Ginsburg showed up on the Supreme Court. That made it so that she wasn't the only woman, and everything she did wasn't interpreted in terms of her being a woman.

That put a lot of pressure and made all the stereotypes constantly irrelevant to her functioning and I'm sure must have made her miserable, as she describes. But then when another woman comes, her decision is not just a woman's decision. There are several women's decisions here, and it dissipates.

CONAN: And it raises again and Tonya, thank you very much for the call -raises another one of the solutions you suggest in your book. It's an idea called critical mass. If you have enough of a member of whichever minority it is, and again you use the example of women in a philharmonic orchestra.

Mr. STEELE: Yes, that sends a strong signal that that identity is not itself a source of disdain, or in the situation, that that identity can be valued there, and it's possible to be there and to function effectively. That kind of a message that critical mass sends, relaxes the sense in a person that they're under this kind of threat.

CONAN: And that number is a little hard to judge in each situation, two enough apparently for the Supreme Court, but 40 percent as it turns out for a philharmonic orchestra.

Mr. STEELE: Yeah.

CONAN: But anyway, let's go next to Chris(ph), and Chris with us from Rehoboth in Delaware.

CHRIS (Caller): Hi. I am a 53-year-old woman. So I grew up in the '50s and '60s, and I have to say that my personal response to anyone telling me you can't do that because you're a girl has consistently been in my life to say, well, yes I can. And I'm going to prove it to you, and I'll do it better than you do.

Mr. STEELE: Yes, it's important to realize that the causes of underperformance in our research are not from women giving up. They don't give up under that kind of pressure. They do try extra hard, but sometimes, that can not foster. That can interfere with, performance in its own right.

What's happening when you're doing that is that you're it affects the allocation of your cognitive resources. They're you're paying more attention to trying hard. You're paying more attention to thoughts that are kind of resisting thoughts that are disturbing and so on. And with that kind of activity going on in the background, there's less attention to be allocated to the task at hand, and that's how this kind of threat can interfere with performance.

CONAN: As you Claude Steele puts it in his book, you're not only doing the test or whatever it is, you're slaying a ghost.

Mr. STEELE: Yes, you're multitasking.

CHRIS: But that hasn't I haven't had the experience of ever underperforming in my field. I mean, I don't I understand what you're saying, and I think I probably agree with you.

CONAN: He's talking about generalized situations, not obviously, there are individuals individuals vary.

CHRIS: Right.

Mr. STEELE: Individuals vary, and situations vary. There are some situations where the stereotype about gender is more or less relevant. The relevance of the stereotype varies. It's very pointed in the area of math and quantitatively based fields.

CHRIS: Well, I'm a clergy person. So it's very pointed in my field, as well.

Mr. STEELE: Did you say clergy?

CONAN: Yes.

CHRIS: Yeah, clergy.

Mr. STEELE: Oh, well, I guess that's true.

(Soundbite of laughter)

CHRIS: Yeah, yeah. No, I just wonder if I mean, to me, it's not a threat, it's a challenge. It's an opportunity. It's an invitation. Is that just the personal part or is that...

Mr. STEELE: Well, I do think that's the most constructive way...

CHRIS: Huh?

Mr. STEELE: I do think that's the most constructive way to regard it. I really do. It's just that in certain situations where performance on a difficult task is the issue and is persistently the issue, one is at the frontier of their skills, moving through a math curriculum or a physics curriculum, or that's where this sort of daily pressure can begin to have more of a wearing effect.

CONAN: And indeed thank you very much, Chris indeed not just a wearing effect. You come across a phenomenon called John Henryism, which may help explain the shorter life spans, due to hypertension, of some African-Americans.

Mr. STEELE: Yes. This is again not my own research, but it's very relevant in the sense that it describes some of the costs of trying hard over a lifetime to resist a stereotype, that it can cause be a source of hypertension and other related diseases, the effort to if you're in a situation where you're consistently pushing against that and pushing against that, a tax is paid eventually, and some of that tax has to do with one's health.

CONAN: There are other implications to this, and you don't go into this in great depth, but you present some research, again not your own, about how easily we humans discriminate against each other, even when the categories we're divided in are seemingly meaningless: over-estimaters and under-estimaters, whatever that may mean.

And yet when placed in those categories, we will work on behalf of our own group, to individuals in our group to the detriment of people in other groups, and this helps explain, to some degree, this phenomenon seemingly we're hardwired with it why - this is interestingly presented in the context of a young man from Lebanon, who is well, he's got all kinds of stereotypes, but he writes about violence in the Middle East.

Mr. STEELE: Yeah, the first it turns out this is again a whole lot of social-psychological research, not mine but just the minimal divisions among us, if they're made salient, we can begin to identify with whichever side we're on. It's like identifying with something like our school.

It's not really rationally, from a distance, that great an identity, but we identify very quickly with it and feel those feelings very deeply. It's something fundamental about being a human being. It becomes part of our identity.

And so it the point there is that it just takes as kind of a minimal division of people for this whole apparatus of stereotype threat to get underway. We start to stereotype the other group. They stereotype us. We react to the stereotypes, and you have a situation of the sort we're describing.

CONAN: And then they are the other, and you can do terrible things.

Mr. STEELE: Yes, in the name of having one's group identity threatened, to protect a group: your country, your school. The argument is that people can do things, be more violent, than they would be sometimes even in defense of themselves.

CONAN: Let's get another caller in on the conversation. This is J.R., J.R. with us from Circleville in Ohio.

J.R. (Caller): Yes, I was born in southeast Ohio, and I think I first realized that I was being stereotyped as, you know, an Appalachian when I made it to grad school, and I was helping teach a class for high school teachers. I was one of the grad students who was TAing, and I had a teacher from northeast Ohio say well, you know, you're awful smart, or you know this very well or whatever she said, and where are you from?

And I said, well, I was from Southeast Ohio. And she said, well, you did very well for yourself.

CONAN: Hmm.

Dr. STEELE: Hmm.

J.R.: Get out from where you were. And now I'm a school teacher. I'm working back in Southeast Ohio. And now I think I've come to realize the stereotype (unintelligible). I didn't realize it as a student so much. But now I'm trying to teach students and I'm trying to help them overcome these stereotypes that they've become So...

CONAN: And what techniques do you use to do that?

J.R.: Well, I wish I could tell you I was very effective at it. I don't know how effective I am. I'm only three years into teaching now, so I'm developing these things. The real ideal is to hold them to the highest standards that I can and I make them realize, hopefully, eventually, sometimes I fail at this, but I try to hold them to the highest standards and let them know that they can succeed even when it's hard. And that it being hard doesn't mean that it's -you don't - you're not smart. It just means it's hard. It's hard for everybody. It's hard if you're from Southeast Ohio or if you're Brooklyn, New York, if you're from Boston, Massachusetts, this is hard for everybody to understand.

CONAN: Well, that's one technique, Claude Steele.

Dr. STEELE: Yes. I - you've - most of the solutions we've come up with people have found in their own lives, and this is a perfect example of that. One of the - to put - bring it to a sharp point, one of the things we found is that if you give - if you're very demanding in a classroom situation of that sort and, at the same time, you affirm the students' abilities to realize those high standards that you're setting, you - the combination of things is very effective at the reducing the effects - the negative effects of stereotype threat. It signals to the student that they're not being seen as having limited ability. They're not being seen through the lens of that stereotype. And then they can rise to the call of doing better and, you know, working hard in the -with the material.

CONAN: This was described in your book as something you stumble across by accident when, again, testing some of those female math majors and the expectation that they might do worse, you inadvertently reminded them that, well, you're from Stanford.

Dr. STEELE: Yes.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. STEELE: And with that frame in mind, they relaxed, they did a lot better. It made the stereotype about women's math abilities just less relevant to them. That's one of the sort of tricks of reducing this threat is to do something that makes the stereotype that would normally be relevant to them, not relevant in that situation. And that's one strategy we used, was to remind them of being that they were from Stanford.

But the gentlemen's strategy is another one. If - it tells his students he's not seeing them through the negative stereotype about their background. He's demanding a lot from them and he's affirming their ability to achieve it.

CONAN: J.R., good luck to you.

J.R.: Thank you very much, Neal.

CONAN: Appreciate the phone call.

Dr. STEELE: Yeah.

CONAN: We're talking with Claude Steele about his book, "Whistling Vivaldi," and other clues to how stereotypes affect us.

You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

And we have this email from Glen(ph) in Kansas City. My name is Glen. As a female filmmaker, it's been intimidating to get my projects noticed. One of the things that's helped me most is submitting to festivals so many times it's assumed Glen is a male, and ironically, this has helped me. Once when I checked in at a festival, they asked me if I was his assistant, withholding the badge until I explained I was Glen.

And it's interesting, that email came in and reminded of the story you tell about Anatole Broyard.

Dr. STEELE: Yes. Yes. This is a strategy used to avoid stereotype threat. And I think, in some ways, it's some of the more compelling evidence of the existence of stereotype threat in real life that a couple of strategies, both passing, where people change their names, or if they have the appearance to do it, shift from being black to being white; representing themselves as white to avoid the experience of being negatively stereotyped. Or another strategy is to expatriate...

CONAN: Mm-hmm.

Dr. STEELE: ...to move to another society where the stereotypes are different and one doesn't have to, therefore, experience the same kind of stereotyping.

CONAN: Oh.

Dr. STEELE: I think both of those strategies, passing and expatriation, are similar to the Glen strategy that she's using there where she's deflecting being seen and treated in terms of the stereotype by representing herself differently.

CONAN: Let's see if we can go next to John(ph). John with us from Flint, Michigan.

JOHN (Caller): Yes. I have a situation where my daughter is, not just (unintelligible), also my daughter is in grade school. We lived in an affluent neighborhood and went to a nice - very nice school. And she did great in math and all her subjects. We had to move to another neighborhood, but went to an intercity school. And immediately, all her grades dipped because they were treating her as with the other African-American students, as if their level of comprehension is at one level.

It's kind of funny, because at home, we would do her homework and she'd get everything right. But when she went to school, her teachers said she had a notable difficulty in solving problems. And then we - to solve to remedy the situation, we took her out of that school and put her into a private school. And lo and behold, she's almost like a math whiz of her grade.

So we're trying to figure out, you know, what was the situation with the one school. We have a before and after picture, but now we can see that, you know, maybe she was being stereotyped as far as, you know, what - relationship with everyone else.

Dr. STEELE: Yeah. It sounds like in the school where she did poorly, did worse than expected, she was under some low expectations on the part of her teachers and that maybe the whole climate there had that. I'm not sure that's all together stereotype threat, but it's nonetheless a powerful social psychological pressure to be seen in terms of - and treated in terms of low expectations that can undermine motivation and undermine interest, and all kinds of things that you're describing were evidenced by your daughter.

CONAN: And we wish her continued good luck, John, in pursuit of math.

And - but let me - we just have a minute left, but I wanted to ask you about the alternate theory, which is if you're looking at the situation, yes, there could be this psychological pressure that people are responding to. It can also be something inherent, that maybe women aren't as good as men at math, biologically, and something in their brains or that white men can't jump.

Dr. STEELE: Aha. You'll have to read the book for how we sort out these explanations.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Prof. STEELE: But we do, I think, definitively, over 20 years of research. And you do it by putting people in performance situations and showing that their performances can be equal when you get rid of this stereotype threat. Whereas the other theory - the different God made women and men different theory...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Dr. STEELE: ...to put it nicely, that theory would predict that nothing you did in the situation would change. If you give them difficult math, women are always going to under-perform. If you give difficult problems, African-American students are always going to under-perform. Well, they don't. When you do things in those situations to reduce stereotype threat and that is probably the principal evidence that - in behalf of this argument.

CONAN: Claude Steele, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it.

Dr. STEELE: Thank you. It's my pleasure.

CONAN: Claude Steele's book, "Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us." And he joined us from our bureau in New York.

Coming up, Oscar-nominated actor Stanley Tucci on his career, his Broadway directorial debut and the value of farce in tough times. If you'd like to join us to talk with Stanley Tucci, 800-989-8255. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

Copyright © 2010 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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'Whistling Vivaldi' And Beating Stereotypes

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Women taking a math test will perform worse when reminded that women aren't expected to do well in math. Social psychologist Claude Steele calls this an example of the "stereotype threat." In his book, Whistling Vivaldi, he lays out a plan to reshape those expectations.

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Helping Children Cope After a Traumatic Event 

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Helping Children Cope After a Traumatic Event 

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Helping Children Cope After a Traumatic Event

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Your comfort and support can help children cope with trauma. Advice from the Child Mind Institute on how to what to do and what to look out for.

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FOR ALL

FOR CLINICIANS

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Eliminating the School-to-Prison Pipeline

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A recording of Dr. Tia Lites & Dr. J. Stuart Ablon's presentation at SXSW EDU 2022 on the School-to-Prison Pipeline and how to eliminate it.

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Math Ted Talks for Teachers and Students

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TED Talks can be a helpful tool to strengthen your teaching practices. I've complied a list of my favorite math TED Talks for teachers and students.

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How It's Done

Sharing Data With Parents

Humboldt decided to send home the data that teachers were seeing so that parents could be informed about how their children were doing and the progress they were making. "Sometimes grades don't show progress," says Maureen Holt, Humboldt's Title I teacher and reading specialist, "but data shows even the little progress that is being made." The goal was to increase parental involvement, because informed and engaged parents have a better chance of helping their kids at home.

Creating a Data Folder

Data drives every area of instruction at Humboldt, so Holt has a wide range of tests and assessments that can be included when creating the student data reports. She shares every indicator and test given in the report, so that parents are seeing the same data as teachers, "because then everyone is on the same page." She breaks each test out into its own chart or graph, and always prints the first copy in color, helping parents easily see how their child is performing on each indicator.

Holt also gives parents a cheat sheet of teacher acronyms, with the complete assessment title spelled out and a short paragraph explaining the acronym in layman's terms. This not only helps parents understand the data report, but also aids in getting everyone speaking the same language around the child's learning.

The data folder also includes examples of what each assessment is testing and, when possible, a worksheet or handout that will allow parents to practice that skill at home with their kids. Holt also shares tips and tricks for using the worksheets, such as practicing reading in the car on the way to school or working on letter naming in the evenings. This way, parents know exactly what their children are being tested on and feel empowered because they now know how they can help.

Parent Data Night

Scheduling a Parent Data Night allows parents a chance to ask questions and understand the interventions being done to help their child. At the beginning of the year, Holt schedules a large group Data Night after the school completes its first DIBELS test. Parents whose children will be receiving Tier 2 or Tier 3 interventions are invited. This is a chance to explain to parents their students' scores relative to their peers nationwide. The meeting is scheduled after the end of most parents' workday, and Holt uses a projector to walk them through the data folder she created, explaining each piece of it.

After that initial Data Night, Holt holds smaller one-to-one data meetings throughout the year as needed or as requested. She sends home data every three weeks and usually meets with a few parents after those reports go home.

For parents that can't make it to the data night, Holt also makes herself available to do one-to-one meetings after school, and schedules her prep period to free up the first half hour of her day in case parents come in with questions about their child's data. She also shares the data report with teachers in a meeting where she explains the folders and graphs to the entire staff. That way, teachers can share the folder with parents who missed Parent Data Night, and they'll know how to field questions about the data. "When I send it home, then they'll start calling and they'll start coming in," Holt says.

Tips for Successful Parent Meetings

Holt says that she learned from her first attempts at a data night how the key to getting parents to come is to first make them feel comfortable in the school. Humboldt has Family Math, Reading, and Science nights throughout the year, where parents play games with their kids and learn about what they're studying, which helps parents feel more at ease with coming into the school and start seeing it as a happy place.

When meetings go wrong, Holt says, it's important to stay positive. She'll talk about a student's strengths and lay out clear steps for moving him or her forward. Setting expectations is also useful in helping parents understand that progress will come in baby steps and their child is not expected to completely turn around their performance in an unreasonable period of time. Holt also asks those parents what kind of communication they want, whether it's email, phone, sending notes home with their child, etc., so that parents are made to feel like collaborators and partners in helping their student improve.

Resources

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Humboldt decided to send home the data that teachers were seeing so that parents could be informed about how their children were doing and the progress they were making. "Sometimes grades don't show progress," says Maureen Holt, Humboldt's Title I teacher and reading specialist, "but data shows even the little progress that is being made."

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Listen to my interview with Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton (transcript):

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The population of English learners in our schools continues to grow every year; if you're a teacher reading this, you have probably taught at least a few students whose first language is not English. In many school systems, students who are newcomers are given lots of support through separate programs or classes with teachers who specialize in building language proficiency, but eventually they move out of these programs and attend regular classes with everyone else. At that point, they are assumed to have enough of a grasp on the English language to perform as well as peers who have spoken English since birth.

But in many cases, that assumption is incorrect. While these students - a group we're calling experienced multilinguals - are probably quite comfortable and fluent with speaking English socially, they may still be unfamiliar with the academic language used in science, social studies, math, and other content areas. There are specific strategies that can make a huge difference in how well these students perform.

Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton, two educators who have had decades of experience working with English learners, have written a new book called Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals ( Amazon | Bookshop.org). The book focuses squarely on this particular population, English learners who are well beyond newcomer status, but who still need some scaffolding to reach their true academic potential. On the podcast, they shared some of the strategies from the book - things you can start to do right away to help these learners thrive. You can listen to our full conversation or read the transcript linked above. Here's a summary of the strategies they shared.

These kids speak English now, so what's the problem?

An experienced multilingual student may present a conundrum to their teachers. In many ways, they appear to have developed all the necessary skills, including fluency in English, to do well in school.

"These students have been in this system for at least five years, so they have experience," Skelton explains. "We don't have to teach them how to open their locker or how to get to the cafeteria. They have friends. They are in the community. They have experience being a student."

Despite this ease in navigating school and their social lives, these students can hit a wall when it comes to certain academic tasks.

Huynh has personal experience with this. Having moved to the U.S. as a refugee at the age of 5, his only school experiences were in the U.S. "I went to the ESL program, and I exited in fifth grade," he says. And that's when his language support ended. "When you listen to me talk, you're like, okay, he's really fluent. We don't need to help him. And this is what happened all the way through middle school and high school."

When it came time to take the SAT, he was confident. "I was like, oh, this is going to be fine. My teachers are great. They really took care of me. I've had mostly A's and B's on most of my exams. I had almost a 4.0 by that time. I had every single award, distinguished, honor, this and that, dean's list, whatever, I got it. I'm going to be fine. And then I got my score back: 910. I was like, wait, you get a 600 just for putting your name on. How did I get a 910 and I have an almost 4.0 GPA?"

For other multilingual students, things like test scores aren't quite as surprising, because their school performance isn't as strong as Huynh's was. "They often aren't the award winners and the honor students," Skelton explains, "and so teachers start to see them as, well, they've been in our system since kindergarten or first grade. They've been learning English that long, and now you're in seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, and you're still classified as an English learner. There must be something wrong with you. They're still classified as English learners for all kinds of reasons. States require them to have a certain level on an English language proficiency test in order to exit as an English learner. And so when teachers see that, then often that deficit label comes with them."

With this deficit label, many students are subjected to more and more pull-out coursework to improve their English, which means missing out on electives, extracurriculars, and advanced courses.

"Imagine if a kid comes to school and all they love is just design," Huynh says. "All they love is just art. They come to school to be in drama. And they say, No no, because of your English scores, you're out. You're pulled out. " For a student who may have been born in the U.S. and isn't even fluent in their heritage language, this can be heartbreaking.

So what is the problem? If extra English classes aren't helping, what will?

Skelton and Huynh believe the answer lies in academic language. To succeed in all subjects, students need additional scaffolding to understand the unique vocabulary, phrasing, and conventions of those disciplines. When teachers intentionally design instruction and assessments with academic language supports in place, they unlock those worlds for students and give them the tools they need to thrive.

Planning Lessons for Multilingual Learners

If you teach science, math, history, health, technology, even literature - anything other than a class designed to teach a language - your course is built on content-specific standards. You already base your instructional objectives on these standards; Skelton and Huynh recommend adding academic language objectives to those content objectives. This ensures that all students not only get the content, but also the language used to describe and synthesize it.

Here is the process they describe in the book for integrating academic language into what you already teach.

Step 1: Create the Assessment, then Add Scaffolds

Following the backward design approach, start by creating summative assessment that will measure what students should know and be able to do by the end of a unit. Once the assessment is made, add scaffolding in places where the academic language might prevent students from understanding what's being asked of them.

Here's an example: If a test question asks students to hypothesize what would happen if the concentration of oxygen that was consumed inside the glass cylinder increased, they might have a good understanding of the science involved, but some of the terms in the question might throw them off.

"When students encounter a sentence like that," Huynh says, "it becomes not a science test, it becomes a reading test. If a kid doesn't understand the word hypothesize, that's a problem. If they don't know the word concentration and they Google that, that's going to be like, oh, focus? What does that mean? And the word consumed and glass cylinder and increase, all these words now add up to a reading test."

To give students the support they need to do their best on assessments, teachers can "engineer" them by adding these scaffolds:

synonyms: Near the terms that may be unfamiliar, add synonyms that will help define them. If the teacher has already explicitly taught the term, this may not be necessary. So for the example question, it might look like: "Hypothesize (make an educated guess) what would happen if the concentration (amount) of oxygen that was consumed (used) inside the glass cylinder (container) increased (got higher)."

sentence starters: Provide students with the academic language needed to construct quality responses in that discipline.

chunking: Rather than squeeze multiple steps into an essay-type question, break multi-part questions into separate, individual chunks with their own spaces to respond.

images: Add relevant images to questions to aid comprehension.

word banks: Provide banks of key vocabulary terms for the unit that students can access when writing responses.

sequencing: For assessments that require longer responses, provide visual frameworks to show students the sequence in which their response should be written.

While some teachers may feel this is too much hand-holding - for example, they may feel strongly about wanting students to practice reading all parts of a complex question - Huynh and Skelton emphasize that in content-area classes, the focus is on whether students are learning that content; giving multilingual students help with the reading and writing part doesn't take away from that.

"We haven't changed the rigor," Skelton says. "I haven't changed the expectation. I've simply chunked the question. When (teachers) see the difference in response patterns and that kids are able to show more about what they know, most teachers say, You know what? I'm going to do that for everybody. That's not just for my experienced multilinguals. This is a strategy that's probably going to be better for everyone in the class. "

Step 2: Write Daily Integrated Objectives

With a good, scaffolded end-of-unit assessment in place, teachers can then work backward to design the lessons that will lead to success at the end. As in any class, this requires daily learning objectives that can be assessed with a simple exit ticket. For multilingual learners, we can add a specific language piece to that objective.

Skelton describes a physics class she observed where students from many language backgrounds were doing a hands-on activity with focal points and convex lenses. At the end of class, the teacher prompted students with this: "Explain what you learned about finding the focal length."

When one student replied with "It gets bigger when it gets closer," the teacher was thrilled. He knew what the student meant and felt it adequately showed that he understood.

But when Skelton asked the teacher, "Does that sound like what you would want for a scientific response?" he realized that a real scientist would have used the terms focal point and convex lens. She then had the teacher write out his own response, something that would represent a good response to that question, and this gave him a much better idea of what he was looking for.

The revised prompt, integrating language objectives, looked like this: Explain what you learned about finding the focal length using precise vocabulary from the word bank. By adding this to the objectives, the teacher could then plan instruction that would give students practice in using that language throughout the lesson.

Here are a few more examples:

Before: Compare the social inequality in nineteenth-century France to the reality of the twenty-first century Western society.
After: Compare the social inequality in nineteenth-century France to the reality of the twenty-first century Western society using comparative language (both, just like, another similarity, etc.)

Before: Describe how the graph has been transformed.
After: Describe how the graph has been transformed using precise terms and the phrase by a factor of or by ___ units.

Before: Predict what will happen to the main character in the next chapter.
After: Predict what will happen to the main character in the next chapter using conditional language such as might or could.

Step 3: Teach for Comprehensible Input and Academic Output

When it comes time to teach the lessons themselves, use the daily objective as a guide to ensure that students understand the language that is being used to teach them - in other words, that the input is comprehensible to them - and that the students' output is framed in the language of the field being taught.

Huynh gives an example from a 9th grade science lesson on solubility. "Imagine a graph, XY graph, and then there's a line all the way through up. (The teacher) said, 'Above the line, we call that super saturated. It cannot melt anymore. Below this line, we can keep melting things. We call that unsaturated. That line is saturated. Anything on that line means everything can melt, but it can't melt anymore.' So the teacher just drew that, labeled it for kids. She color coded it and made it so comprehensible."

Next, she posed a few questions to make sure students understood how the graph worked. "She said, 'Okay. Let's look at 60 degrees. At what point would we go up, will 60 degrees hit that line of saturation? Let's look over to the left, oh. It's 120. That is the solubility.'"

Up to this point, her focus was on comprehensible input, making sure students understood the terms she was using to describe the graph. Next she shifted to the output, giving students practice using the terms themselves. "She said, 'Now I'm going to give you a question. I'm going to model for you the kind of language I want you to write. Don't just write the answer. Saturated, unsaturated, that's not enough. So this is what I want you to do. Always start your sentence with the word at, then give me the amount of grams. So At 110 grams of potassium nitrate... then give me the degrees, at 40 degrees, the solution is... then add is it saturated or unsaturated? And then say, because it is ... is it above the line of saturation, below the line of saturation, or on the line of saturation? That's it.'"

This kind of explicit modeling gives students guided practice in using this unfamiliar language correctly, integrating the content they are learning and the language needed to demonstrate that learning.

No More Doors Closed

By making these small shifts to help students build proficiency in discipline-specific language, we're helping them reach higher levels of learning. "Instead of lowering the expectations for these students," Huynh says, "we're saying, we're going to keep expectations high, but we're going to give you different paths to get to that mountaintop."

And when we do this, we eliminate the need for extra English classes. We put to rest the question of why students who seem to know English perfectly well still struggle in some classes. And we free up space for these students to pursue extracurriculars, electives, advanced coursework, and beyond.

For Huynh, seeing that shift would have personal significance, helping today's multilingual students reach that mountaintop without the setbacks he had to experience.

"No more doors closed," he says with resolve. "No more paths blocked."

Tan Huynh can be found online on his website at tankhuynh.com or on Twitter at @TanKHuynh. Beth Skelton can be found on her website at bethskelton.com or on Twitter at @easkelton.

To purchase Long-Term Success for Experienced Multilinguals directly from Corwin's website, click here and use the code SAVE20 at checkout for 20 percent off.

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Supporting Intermediate English Learners in Every Subject

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Students who have learned enough English to thrive socially may still need scaffolding to thrive academically. These strategies can help.

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How to Involve Early Elementary Students in Data Collection

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Involving students in the data collection process helps young children take ownership of their learning and achieve their goals.

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Listen to my interview with Natalie McCutchen (transcript)

With few exceptions, I would bet that most teachers feel they could be doing a better job of differentiating instruction. It's not that we don't want to do it-we know our students learn at different rates, that some need more help and others could be moving much more quickly than we let them. The problem for many of us is that we just can't figure out how to manage it. How do you run a classroom where each student is working on a different thing at a different speed?

The first time I ever saw a truly self-paced learning environment was on my visit to a Montessori Elementary School two years ago. And although I was completely enchanted by the student-centered environment there, the class size was small. I wondered whether that method could really be scaled up to class sizes at a typical public school.

So I was excited when, at a recent TeachMeet, I saw that there would be a session on self-paced learning. At the session, Franklin, KY, middle school math teacher Natalie McCutchen showed us how she has converted her pre-algebra class to a completely self-paced system, where students work on different skills at their own pace, and how she's gradually introducing self-paced learning in her other math classes as well. I found her system to be astonishingly simple, and I thought a lot of other teachers might like to try it for themselves, so I interviewed her for my latest podcast episode (see player below) and asked if I could share her methods here.

Here's a quick snapshot of how she does it: For each chapter in their math textbook, students take a pre-test to determine which skills they have already mastered and which ones they still need to learn. For the skills they still need to master, they work independently on lessons (either reading them in the textbook or watching them on videos) and do practice problems until they feel they've got the skill down. This is the true self-paced part: Students decide how many lessons they need. They decide how much practice to give themselves. "Maybe there are five videos that you could watch today," Natalie explains to her students. "You watch as many as you need. If you watch two videos and you understand it, then you move on to the practice. If you need all five, use all five." Rather than forcing students to follow the same path in lockstep with one another, practicing page after page of skills they already have down, this system gives them a chance to build the metacognitive muscle they'll need to become lifelong learners.

When a student feels he is ready, he takes a mini-assessment for a single learning target, usually made up of just a few questions. If he does well on that small assessment, he can move on to another skill. Once he has mastered all the skills in the chapter, he takes a whole-chapter assessment-this is the same test he was given as the pre-assessment. If he does well on that, he's ready to progress to the next chapter.

How do students know which lessons and practices to work on, and when?
Natalie creates a Chapter Guide for each chapter. It includes each learning target, the pre-test question or questions that align with that target, the lessons students should watch or read to learn about that target, the practice problems that match up with that target, and the assessment question or questions for that target.

Look at the example below. If this student missed question 2 on the pre-test, she should do Lesson 2.4 on pages 102-104 and may need to do Skills Practice 2.4 on pages 403-406 in preparation for the assessment for that learning target, which is item 2a on page 38. She might only need to read through the lesson and do one or two practice problems in order to do well on the assessment, or she might choose to do them all. Likewise, if she got question 6 correct on the pre-test, she doesn't need to do the lesson, the practice, or the assessment for that learning target at all-she'd just mark that as mastered on the chart.

Do students get the answer keys?
Students have access to the answers for all of the practice questions, so Natalie does not need to check these; it's up to the student to do the practice problems, then self-check them to see if they're getting the skill down. There's no real incentive to cheat here, because if a student doesn't teach herself the skill, it will show up in the mini-assessment for that target: The mini-assessment IS scored by the teacher, and students are not given an answer key for it.

hey keep the chapter guide in a composition notebook. We glue all their items in there. So they have that with them on their desk every day, and I'm able to go by and say Some kids may turn in two assessments per class period, depending on how hard they worked. Some kids may turn in one. Some kids, maybe they didn't get to an assessment that day." And because Natalie encourages collaboration between students, the room is What does class time look like?
"It's very much organized chaos," Natalie says. "T Okay, what have you done? Where are you today? And at the end of class, I can say, busy: "I really prefer them to work together on the lesson, especially with my pre-algebra students, because they are such good math thinkers, they understand and can talk math, I want them to work together. You know, two or three in a group seeing if you can figure it out on your own using the video." How much did you get done?" Because students are all working independently, the amount of work produced on any given day can vary. "

ometimes they have to come back to the pack," she explains. "I'll say What if some kids can't handle all that independence? What if they just fool around the whole time?
Natalie's solution to this problem was what really impressed me about her system: Not all students get to do self-paced; some have to work with her in a more traditional teacher-led setup. Self-paced learning is a privilege reserved only for kids who take it seriously and work hard. If you mess that up, you can lose the privilege, returning to a group that's working directly with the teacher. "S You know what, you really didn't work that hard yesterday. I'm not even sure what you got done, I don't see anything on here. Just come back with us today. " For some students, this is a step backward, but they get other chances to move ahead later. "They like being ahead. You know, they think it's kinda cool. Sometimes I'll let them go out in the hallway, sit at a little table. They like that, but I stress to them you still have to work."

Natalie McCutchen developed her system through some trial and error, and she's constantly refining it, so none of this is set in stone. But if you'd like to try and replicate her approach to self-paced learning, here are the steps to take:

Step 1: Select a Unit of Content
This can be a chapter in a textbook or a batch of skills or content you would typically teach as a unit over a couple of weeks. This unit should have clearly defined learning targets, which are likely dictated by whatever standards your school follows. If you've been teaching for a while, you probably already have this step taken care of. In Natalie's class, each chapter in her math textbook represents one unit.

Step 2: Create the Assessment
Decide what students should be able to do by the end of the unit and create an assessment that measures it. The simplest type is a test with clearly identified right and wrong answers, where each item (or small group of items) in this assessment is aligned with one learning target. For skills that require more teacher interpretation to measure, like writing, the assessment could be a writing task, such as an extended response question with a prompt and a rubric. Each skill listed in the rubric would align with a specific learning target.

Step 3: Create the Chapter Guide
Following the model shown above, set up a guide that shows which assessment question aligns with each learning target, then lists book or video lessons students can follow to learn each skill, exercises that will give students independent practice with the skill, and a brief assessment students can take to test their mastery.

Step 4: Give the Pre-Test
Use the assessment you created in Step 2 to pre-test students on the skills for this unit. Use the results to identify which learning targets each student has already mastered, and which ones they still need to learn. [Note: Natalie's school uses standards-based grading, but that's not a strict requirement for this system. You could still record mastery of learning targets in the standards-based style and convert those measurements to traditional grades. To learn how, see Matt Townsley's video on converting standards-based indicators to letter grades.]

Step 5: Help Students Identify Standards to Master
Giving each student a Chapter Guide, have them mark which standards they have already mastered-based on pre-test results-and which ones they still need to learn.

Step 6: Provide Time, Materials, and Supervision for Self-Paced Learning
From this point on, students will begin the process of moving through the lessons on their own. Your job is to make sure they have the materials they need to do the work: If you are sending students to videos, make sure they have devices to access them (and earbuds to keep the audio to themselves). Make sure students know where to look for answer keys, and where they can access the mini-assessment when they are ready to take it. Check in with students regularly to make sure they are making good use of their time.

Step 7: Iterate
Keep in mind that this system probably won't work perfectly the first time you try it. You may want to try it just once with a short unit, rather than attempt to convert your whole year to self-paced learning. You might want to offer it only to students who have the academic skills and maturity to handle it. You may need to tweak it, then tweak it some more. But speaking for the kids who would love a chance to see just how fast they can learn and how far they can go, I'd say it's worth a serious try. ♦
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Self-Paced Learning: How One Teacher Does It

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Most teachers feel they could be doing a better job of differentiating instruction, but many can't figure out how to manage it. How to run a classroom where each student is working on a different thing, at a different speed? See how one teacher does it.

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My study of feedback began in earnest on a sunny afternoon during my third year of teaching. I was living in California - much to the envy of my midwestern friends and family - but I was also harboring a secret, a secret that was troubling me that afternoon. The secret was that while my social media pictures showed me at the beach and hiking past redwoods, those excursions were rare, maybe once-a-quarter outings. Instead, the vast majority of my days were spent doing exactly what I was doing in that moment: responding to and grading papers.

For the better part of my first three years as a teacher, student papers acted as the chains that shackled me to my desk day after day. Like Tantalus, I could see the beach gleaming through a crack between the apartment buildings next to mine, but when I looked at the towers of student work in front of me, the sand and waves receded out of reach. Maybe tomorrow after I chop these essay stacks down I would tell myself once again.

That afternoon though, for reasons I don't fully understand, something inside me finally snapped and I admitted to myself what I'd long known unconsciously: I didn't want to live like this anymore. I was drowning, submerged under a never-ending torrent of student work in need of feedback and assessment. I didn't want to leave the classroom, but I also didn't want to stay if it meant that my next forty years would endlessly orbit stacks of student work in the way that my first three years did.

That night, in a last-ditch effort to stay a teacher, I began to read whatever I could find about responding faster and better to student work, and it didn't take long for me to realize that I was far from the first teacher to resent living a life with papers at its geographic center. In fact, the very first article of the very first volume of the The English Journal in 1912 begins with a simple question written in all caps: CAN GOOD COMPOSITION TEACHING BE DONE UNDER THE PRESENT CONDITIONS?

The answer given by the author, Dr. Edwin M. Hopkins? "No." There were simply too many students and papers to manage. By the way, it is worth noting that Dr. Hopkins had 100 students. I currently have 158.

And the problem is that Dr. Hopkins wasn't fully wrong, then or now. The issue largely comes down to feedback, which is an essential part of good teaching-not just for composition, but for any content area. Just like the conditions in Dr. Hopkins' time, our present conditions make providing quality feedback incredibly difficult. This is because effective feedback generally shares a handful of characteristics: It is given regularly, returned in a timely manner, and written in clear language. It also works best when students are in the midst of creation, as opposed to as a postscript on final drafts once they finish.

When one digs down, the logistics of providing regular, timely, and formative feedback are absurd when one has 158 or even 100 students. Take my classes: Each minute of feedback I provide to each of my 158 students takes a time investment of over two and a half hours. That means reading and responding to one essay or project or test in ten minutes-a blisteringly fast speed based on the teachers I've talked to-will take over 25 hours. Even if a teacher works 60 or 70 hours, sacrificing countless evenings and weekends to student work, there exists a hard cap on the amount of feedback a teacher can give if it's only given in big chunks on big assignments.

Of course more global feedback on larger assignments is important, and there are ways to get more efficient and effective with that feedback (I wrote a book largely on this subject, Flash Feedback: Responding to Student Writing Better and Faster-Without Burning Out, and this very site has excellent suggestions here, here, and here), but if teachers want to provide timely, regular, formative, and meaningful feedback, we need to diversify our practices.

Feedback, after all, is just a teacher's response to something, and we can meaningfully respond to different assignments in a multitude of ways, many of them only taking a minute or two. I call these practices Flash Feedback, and while they come in small packages, they can pack a serious educational punch.

Characteristics of Flash Feedback

Teachers can take countless approaches to Flash Feedback. The exact structures will depend on the discipline, students, and teacher, but the most efficient and effective Flash Feedback tends to share these four characteristics:

It focuses on one or two learning objectives. A long history of scholarship argues that feedback, even on large assignments, should generally focus only on a manageable number of topics, no more than a few. Covering too many topics tends to overload students, so they learn no lessons (or no lessons deeply) and it takes longer, making it the exact opposite of Flash Feedback.

Students do the heavy lifting. Teachers often fall into the trap of correcting work for students and doing more reflection on student work than they require the students to do. Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle call this Helicopter Teaching, and while it generally comes from a place of wanting to help, it often holds students back for two reasons: First, when students don't have to work for an answer, they are less likely to remember it. Second, the time it takes to correct student work and solve problems for the students severely limits how much feedback the teacher can give them. For Flash Feedback to work, students must be the primary ones finding answers, patterns, and approaches, as the teacher plays the role of the guide standing well off to the side.

It utilizes systems and technology. Feedback often has a lot of redundancies that can be mitigated with better systems or by using technology, and even little efficiencies add up. For me, each 15 second increase in efficiency saves me 40 minutes when taken on the scale of all of my students!

There is a spillover plan and time allotted for special cases. There will inevitably be times when a student's specific needs won't fit within the system and structure being used by the teacher. This is why having a clearly defined spillover plan/time will help to make sure that the needs of one or two individuals don't derail the plan for the rest of the class.

Three Ways to Do Flash Feedback

In my classes, and especially during the time when I'm writing this-an era of emergency distance learning when time is tight-there are three types of Flash Feedback that I find myself coming to again and again: Targeted Response, Micro-Conferences, and Wise Interventions.

1. Targeted Response

My students, like most people, tend to struggle with comma usage. My approach to helping them with commas used to be to circle and correct every comma error I found in every paper, but this never led to much progress and it took a tremendous amount of time.

Now I mainly use Targeted Response, which is where the teacher focuses an assignment and its feedback solely on 1 to 2 targeted learning goals. When it comes to commas, my students write a very short one-page paper about anything they want in any genre. It is called the Comma Paper, and its only criteria (and the only thing I give feedback to) is that they must include at least four correctly used examples of each type of comma we studied in class.

To speed my assessment of and response to these papers, I have students turn them in on Google Classroom. That enables me to use the Find Function (Command-F) to highlight all of the commas in the piece, so I can quickly scan for comma issues. It also allows me to pre-populate two comments in the comment bank (if you don't know how to do this, here is a quick tutorial). One is a short congratulatory note for students who had no comma errors. The other is a message where I tell students the number of comma errors and let them know that to get credit for the assignment, they must find the errors and fix them during the class time provided.

By keeping the scope of the paper and feedback focused and using the technology tools available, I can give specific, individual, and meaningful feedback in less than a minute per student, and the best part is that the deep focus on commas leads to more student growth in one short paper than a year of circling and correcting commas ever did!

2. Micro-Conferences

Conferencing is one of the most celebrated pedagogical tools, and there is good reason for that. It is a rare one-on-one opportunity to offer individualized instruction and feedback, fix misconceptions, build relationships, and give students the opportunity to be heard by a caring adult. Like written feedback though, the logistics of conferences can be daunting in most classes. My classes meet for 210 minutes each week and average 32 students. This means doing a five minute conference with each student takes over 75 percent of the class time that week.

While larger conferences are sometimes worth this time investment for me, I can only do so many if I want to cover everything else I need to do. Enter the Micro-Conference, which is a conference that is done in a fraction of the time (generally 1 to 2 minutes) by being focused and carefully structured.

One of my favorites is one I do around paraphrasing, which is another deeply important skill that students tend to struggle with. Here's how it works:

1. Students write a rough draft of a paper with paraphrasing, like a research paper, and bring it to class.

2. As a whole class, we read and discuss mentor texts with strong paraphrasing.

3. Students take out their own drafts, pick a page to work with, and then highlight each moment of paraphrasing they see.

4. They then rate their paraphrasing in their paper from 1 to 10, based on the mentor text we read, and write at least four sentences justifying their rating.

5. Once students have rated and reflected on their work, they call me over and we quickly conference. I generally start conferences by asking students to share their ratings and what they noticed when comparing their work to the example. We then use those thoughts to plan an actionable path forward together. My role in this is mainly that of the gadfly - asking questions and helping the student to orient in the right direction - and while I try to keep the conferences to no more than a minute, most generally wrap up naturally in that time without feeling rushed.

Like the Targeted Response, everything about these conferences is designed to maximize time efficiency. The students have already laid the groundwork and highlighted the paraphrased sections, allowing us to jump right in at a high level. Further, by focusing just on paraphrasing, a minute is not too short to go deep, answer questions, and figure out meaningful action steps forward for the student.

3. Wise Interventions

Wise Interventions is a practice that came out of Stanford and the University of Virginia, among others, and the idea behind it is that while shifting negative student mindsets, beliefs, and behaviors is often painstakingly slow, in the right circumstances it can also happen incredibly quickly. The key to these moments of rapid positive change is that if teachers can find the exact moments that fuel and perpetuate negative student beliefs/mindsets/behaviors and disrupt them, sometimes it can open students up to better alternatives in surprisingly little time.

Probably the most famous example of this was a study of Massachusetts middle schools that found that students did twice as much revision on an essay when they each received a sticky note on the top of their essays that read "I'm giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them," versus those who got a sticky note that read "I'm giving you these comments so that you'll have feedback on your paper."

The researchers theorized that the reason for why one sticky note-the product of no more than a few seconds work - would have such a large effect on student mindsets and behavior was that many students in the study might have felt the teachers didn't believe in them. Those narratives were disrupted by a note coming just at the moment they were preparing for teacher disappointment once again via the teacher comments, which in turn cleared the way for those students to put in more work.

I use a number of Wise Interventions in my classes, but my favorite with feedback is one called "I'm so sorry about the rain." It comes from Daniel Coyle's book The Culture Code, and the basic premise is that a study out of Harvard found that people were 422% more likely to let a stranger borrow their phone if the stranger prefaced asking for the phone by saying "I'm so sorry about the rain." The reason this rather banal comment about the weather led to a striking shift in behavior was likely that it was enough to signal a relationship, which changes nearly everything about how a brain responds to a request.

I have found that little personal things that take only a few seconds to write-like quickly referencing something a student said in class or an aspiration the student shared at some point-can often have the same effect on students, especially those who are wary of writing, and shift the attention and care they give to feedback on that paper and beyond.

By being focused and carefully structured, Flash Feedback allows us to make feedback a part of class that is as regular as the bells in the halls. It also allows us to teach many more personalized lessons each semester; gives us regular points of contact with students, which have been shown to improve performance and relationships; and best of all, can be done quickly, allowing teachers to break those shackles to student papers and take a day at the beach every once in a while.

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Flash Feedback: How to Provide More Meaningful Feedback in Less Time

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If we want to provide timely, regular, formative, and meaningful feedback, we need to diversify our practices. These three strategies pack a lot of punch in very little time.

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The Power of Brief Relational Interactions in Changing Our Brains and Behavior

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The Power of Brief Relational Interactions in Changing Our Brains and Behavior

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Dr. Bruce Perry chats with Think:Kids about the power of brief relational interactions in changing kids brains and behavior.

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Listen to the interview with Melanie Meehan (transcript):
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If we want our students to learn as much as they can, ideally they should be presented with learning tasks that are right at their level, or slightly above, so they have to reach a little bit, but they can get there. Making this happen as a teacher-what we refer to as differentiating instruction-is really challenging, because within any group of students you'll find a huge range of abilities, background knowledge, and interests. To do differentiation well, you need lots and lots of tools. A few we've offered here are playlists, self-paced learning, and Universal Design for Learning.

Today we have one more called backward chaining. It's an approach that allows a student who struggles with a task to skip some of the early steps in order to experience the later ones. The strategy was shared with us by Melanie Meehan, a Connecticut-based elementary writing and social studies coordinator who has written three books about teaching writing and contributes to the phenomenal collaborative blog Two Writing Teachers.

Melanie Meehan

Although Meehan uses backward chaining to help students with writing, it's a strategy that can be used in many, many subject areas, so even if you don't teach writing, stick around, because you will likely find some ideas here for how you can use it in your own classroom.

What is Backward Chaining?

Backward chaining is a specific kind of scaffolding that has the student begin a task closer to the end, rather than starting it from the beginning. Where the starting point is depends on the student's particular needs. "There's no telling where the gum in the straw might be for somebody getting stuck doing something," Meehan explains. So finding it will require assessment and experimentation.

For example, if you are teaching a child how to brush their teeth, and that child doesn't quite have the fine motor skills to put the toothpaste on the brush, you'd do that step for them and have them start with the brushing itself. Eventually, as they build confidence with brushing, you'd have them move backward and add on the skill of toothpaste application.

While this strategy is frequently used in situations like the above- teaching life skills to young children or students with disabilities-it can be applied to any educational task where a student needs extra scaffolding or support.

"It's another way to give kids access," Meehan says.

The reasons a student may need a strategy like backward chaining can vary. It may be that their current skill or ability level would hold them up at an early stage of the task, or it might be that executive functioning is slowing them down. "So many of the kids that you might be envisioning at this point are kids who don't always see things to completion," Meehan explains. "To give kids a sense of completing a task is kind of a big deal."

Examples of Backward Chaining

Writing: If a student struggles to come up with an idea for a narrative piece, supply them with an idea (even give them three pictures of a basic sequence of events) and have them write the story of those pictures. Later, they may be ready to try again with their own idea.

Research: If a student needs to create a presentation or write a paper based on research, and they don't yet have the skills to find resources or take notes, you could supply them with pre-selected resources and pre-written notes on the topic, then just have them write the summary of the research. In the future, they can work on the research or notes part of the process until they get to the point of being able to do the whole thing from beginning to end.

Math: For complex problems, have the first few steps done and have the student take over from there until they are ready to work backwards with fewer steps done for them.

Cooking: Many people may be familiar with meal kit services like HelloFresh or Blue Apron, which supply pre-measured ingredients for specific menus and tell you exactly how to cook them, which puts you a few steps into the process of making the meal.

Tips for Using Backward Chaining in Your Classroom

Start with a task analysis. If you know you have an assignment coming up that some students typically struggle with, think through all the steps involved from start to finish. Doing this will give you options for different entry points for students.

Include the student in the process. Meehan recommends that teachers be transparent with students about the options available and let them choose where to start. For the research example above, she'll tell them, "If you feel like you're ready to have a text set that you can research yourself and take notes on yourself, I have those. If you feel like you need the notes, I'll give you the notes so that you can get straight to writing. And if you're like, no, I want to do the whole thing myself, I want to decide on my topic and find my resources and get myself set up, you can do that. It's kind of like where in the process do you feel like you're ready to start?"

Gradually move the starting point back. Backward chaining is not a permanent solution; the idea is that the student will eventually be able to move back to where they can do the whole task from the beginning. "Scaffolds by definition should be temporary and there should be a plan to take them away," Meehan says. "So I am intentionally and purposefully doing work for kids, but with the idea that they are going to build their confidence, they are going to build their competence, they're going to build their curiosity around the whole process, and they're going to become more willing to go backward in the process to an earlier step."

LEARN MORE

You can find more from Meehan on her website, melaniemeehan.com. She goes more in-depth about the backward chaining strategy and lots of others in her 2019 book, Every Child Can Write ( Amazon | Bookshop.org).

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How to Use Backward Chaining to Differentiate Instruction

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Starting a student a few steps ahead can help them experience a sense of completion that might otherwise be out of reach.

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6 Min Read * Student Engagement

If you're a teacher, "having conversations with kids" is probably something you are an expert at doing. Personally, sometimes it's easier for me to chat with a 9-year-old than it is to converse with an adult, most likely because I spend 7 hours a day with the tween crowd. What if I told you that through these conversations, we could raise the rigor in our classrooms? Aside from designing challenging tasks for students, conferring is one of the main ways we can challenge students to think deeply while personalizing learning.

I know rigor is a buzzword that makes some of us cringe. This is the definition that I like: "Pushing yourself beyond what is easy." This is our goal as we teach our students. We know that growth is in the challenge, thanks to Carol Dweck's research in Growth Mindset. Our job is to create experiences for students that are challenging enough to push them, but not frustrate them to the point of shutdown. Conferring can take us beyond the chat to help students reach their potential.

What is conferring?

Conferring is what takes us beyond a "chat" with students and leaves them with something to chew on. It is an informal check-in with a student or group of students. Yet, in your "teacher-mind", it should be thought of as a slightly formal conversation. To me, it is different than conferencing with a student, which tends to be planned ahead of time by the teacher. When conferring, a teacher is determining the course of conversation based on observations combined with strategic questioning. When exploring this in educational articles, I learned that the two terms are used interchangeably in some resources.

The General Steps to Conferring with Students:

Step 1: "Research"

Approach student or group and get to their physical level. Observe what the student is trying to do. Try to determine what the student knows and what he is thinking. Say something general such as, "Tell me about what you are working on." (even if you already know) or ask "Can you tell me more about that?" While the student is sharing, silently select one thing, one method, or one strategy that would benefit this student to help move them forward.

Step 2: "Coach"

Acknowledge something skill-based that the student is already demonstrating. Ask a deeper, probing question to require the student to think deeply. These questions are not always at the tip of our tongues, which is why it is helpful to prepare some ahead of time. Utilizing question probes from Webb's Depth of Knowledge is a great place to start when preparing these questions. (There is nothing wrong with carrying them around on an index card while conferring as a reminder until they become part of your routine!) This printable resource from Erik M. Francis' book Now That's a Good Question! How to Promote Cognitive Rigor Through Classroom Questioning shows different levels of questions that could be helpful for this purpose:

This conversation should guide you to determine what this student needs. Nudge the learner forward by sharing one specific point of instruction. Discuss which tool or model might help students the most, and give them tips or encouragement to help them persevere. Resist the temptation to give answers or even direct students towards answers. Scaffold student independence as necessary, and whenever possible, ask questions to guide students to their own discoveries. Your goal is to leave them with something to think about or a new direction to explore, not to give answers. These question-stems make all the difference in increasing rigor versus just managing students.

This document is a great comparison of traditional "helping" and the idea of conferring. It comes from the book Minds on Mathematics by Wendy Ward Hoffer, which has an entire chapter devoted to conferring. Regardless of the subject you teach, the ideas presented in the chapter can easily cross disciplines, benefitting all who utilize the technique.

Step 3: "Reflect and Record"

Ask the student what she now understands as a result of your interaction. Briefly, document your conversation, and e xplain that you will check back next time to see how it went. The next time you circle around to that student or group, make sure to follow up. This not only holds students accountable, but it shows that you were actively listening and that you have a vested interest in their success.

Conferring Should Be Quick

When written out, conferring looks like a lengthy, laborious process. However, most of what is written is the teacher's thinking process. The actual conversation time with students is rather short. This allows you to continue to circulate, stopping briefly at certain students and diving in a little deeper with others. When you visit students where they are instead of calling them over to your desk or table, it keeps your proximity close to students, which indirectly helps with behavior management. It also allows other students or groups to eavesdrop on your conversation which in turn could move them forward in their thinking.

When Do You Confer with Students?

Once teachers assign students a task, whether it is independent work, group work, or partner work, we have a tendency to focus on behavior management. This may mean circulating to make sure everyone is on task or troubleshooting squabbles amongst peers. as soon as students are generally on task, seize the opportunity to confer with students or pull small groups. If everyone appears to be on task, some teachers take this opportunity to check email, grade papers, or do classroom tasks. I know there are situations when this is unavoidable (we've all been there!) but when students are present, the majority of our time should consist of maximizing every possible opportunity for instruction.

Conferring is Not Meant to Be a "Gotcha"

Students will look forward to your conversations if you make sure to approach them as a coach. Your goal is not to catch and point out what students are doing incorrectly, but instead to notice it and guide them in a different direction. It's important that you are coming across as a partner sharing knowledge. The phrase "teach the writer, not fix the writing," can remind us of our goal when conversing with students. I believe we can apply this to any subject. It's vital that you are providing specific, descriptive feedback of what the student has done well and guide him to realize what he may want to reconsider. As it is stated in the blog post " Conferencing During Math Workshop", It's not a tutoring session but more about giving students that little nudge to work at a higher level.

Resources:

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Using the Conferring Technique to Nudge Students to Success

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Classroom Management Using the Conferring Technique to Nudge Students to Success 6 Min Read * Student Engagement If you're a teacher, "having conversations with kids" is probably something you are an expert at doing. Personally, sometimes it's

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Use existing curriculum, or generate standards-aligned content with real, cited sources.

Choose a grade level and language, and watch Diffit create complete, differentiated resources. ✅

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Listen to my interview with Joe Hirsch (transcript):
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As teachers, we pretty much give feedback all day long. We tell students how they can improve on assignments, we praise them for things they're doing well, we correct their incorrect responses, and we redirect them when they behave in ways that aren't helpful to learning.

And that's just the students. We also give feedback to our colleagues, although in most cases, these exchanges don't happen as often or as freely as they probably should. We receive plenty of feedback as well, from our students, their parents, our administrators, and our peers. And we encourage our students to give feedback to each other, albeit with pretty uneven results. Really, the experience of school could be described as one long feedback session, where every day, people show up with the goal of improving, while other people tell them how to do it.

And it doesn't always go well. As we give and receive feedback, people get defensive. Feelings get hurt. Too often, the improvements we're going for don't happen, because the feedback isn't given in a way that the receiver can embrace.

It turns out there's a different way to give feedback that works a lot better, a way of flipping its focus from the past to the future. It's a concept called "feedforward," which was originally developed by a management expert named Marshall Goldsmith. As far as I can tell, not a lot of educators are familiar with the practice of feedforward, and I really think if we learned how to do it and started using it more consistently, it could make a huge difference in how our students grow and how we grow as professionals.

In this week's podcast, I interview Joe Hirsch, author of The Feedback Fix: Dump the Past, Embrace the Future, and Lead the Way to Change. ( Bookshop.org | Amazon). In the book, Joe digs deep into the practice of feedforward and shows us how and why it works. You can listen to our full conversation in the player above, read the full transcript, or stay right here-I'll give you a quick overview.

What's Wrong with the Way We Give Feedback?

When we give feedback to our students, or when our co-workers or administrators give feedback to us, the focus is on the past. "People can't control what they can't change, and we can't change the past," says Hirsch. "And that happens to be the focus of most of the feedback that we give or receive."

More specifically, backward-looking feedback doesn't often get good results for three reasons:

It shuts down our mental dashboards. "When we get negative feedback about something that we can't change or control," Hirsch says, "our brains flood with stress-inducing hormones, cortisol, that trigger our threat awareness and put us on the defensive. The parts that are responsible for executive function, for creativity, the parts that allow us to sort of set our agendas and make rational decisions, essentially we are in a state of mental paralysis."

It focuses primarily on ratings, not on development. Most of feedback's time and energy is spent on looking back and rating (or grading) performance that's already over, rather than focusing on what can be done from now on. "When feedback consists of an impersonal set of performance standards, we're overlooking the essential goal of feedback, and that's to create positive and lasting improvement."

It reinforces negative behaviors. "When we hear about flaws that we can't fix anymore-because they're in a past that we can't change-it creates a feeling of learned helplessness, the feeling that we are unable to do anything about our future. Instead of committing ourselves to improvement, which is what we would hope would happen, we hold onto this debilitating view of who we are instead of focusing on who we are becoming."

What is Feedforward?

When we give feedforward, instead of rating and judging a person's performance in the past, we focus on their development in the future.

Suppose my student is writing an essay. Instead of waiting until she is finished, then marking up all the errors and giving it a grade, I would read parts of the essay while she is writing it, point out things I'm noticing, and ask her questions to get her thinking about how she might improve it.

In his book, Hirsch takes this broad concept of feedforward and defines six components of it, six specific characteristics of feedforward that make it so effective. He refers to these by the acronym REPAIR (regenerates, expands, particular, authentic, impact, refines).

So let's take a look at each of these. If you want to implement feedforward well, it should have these attributes:

It REGENERATES talent.

The most effective kind of feedforward helps people see opportunities for growth-ways they could take on new opportunities and roles. "At the simplest level," Hirsch writes in his book, "it leads to the unmistakable feeling that we're moving forward in our professional and personal lives. Getting positive feedback about our performance may feel good, but it doesn't break new ground. It merely confirms what we already know about ourselves and our talents, essentially holding our growth in check. But when feedback gets us thinking about how to spread that talent to others, it has a multiplying effect."

So when we notice that a student is developing a strength or an interest in an area, instead of just pointing that out, we might give the student an opportunity to enter their work in some kind of competition, publish it in some way, or share it with others in a presentation, rather than simply keeping it to themselves. This helps students see themselves in a new light and gets them thinking about ways they could grow.

It EXPANDS possibilities.

Effective feedback starts with what is and helps add to it, expanding what's possible, rather than simply pointing out problems. In his book, Hirsch describes a concept used by Pixar studios called "plussing." When Pixar's creators get together to review a day's work, they are expected to give each other feedback to improve the work. What makes these sessions so effective is one important rule: Participants can't point out a problem without proposing an alternative, saying "What if?" to a problem.

This concept of "plussing" could work wonders in staff or committee meetings: When we are discussing possible solutions to an issue, rather than shooting down ideas that might not work, we could add to them by making small tweaks. "That's an interesting idea. What if we made this small change and tried that?" This technique would also work beautifully with project-based learning tasks, when students may need to come up with several ideas for solving a problem before arriving at the best solution.

It is PARTICULAR.

Far too often, feedback is given in an "information dump," with lots of criteria being measured and reported on at the same time. This can be a pretty ineffective way to help people grow. "There's a limit to how much we can absorb and operationalize in any given time," Hirsch says. "Feedforward is really about picking your battlegrounds strategically and selectively." He advises us to make feedback an ongoing process that is embedded in the day-to-day work, and to only focus on a few things at a time.

So rather than wait until an assignment is done to point out all the ways a student can improve, find ways to give them specific pointers while they work, and only one thing at a time, so students can process and act on it right away.

It is AUTHENTIC.

No one particularly likes giving criticism. "We see problems, we see pitfalls in other people, and we know it's a problem," Hirsch says, "but we don't want to be mean, right? We don't want to crush them. So the tendency is to either avoid giving feedback altogether or to disguise it as a praise sandwich, where we basically slip one piece of criticism in between two very, very surface level gauzy praises."

The problem with that approach, Hirsch explains, is what's called the recency effect: People remember most the thing they heard last. So when you tack on some praise after delivering constructive feedback, the person doesn't really absorb the critical part as well as they would if you'd just given it to them more directly.

Hirsch recommends a more direct approach: Describe what's happening, explain why it's a problem, then prompt the person for a solution. "When delivered this way," Hirsch explains, "it puts people at ease, it takes them off the defensive. It is clear, it is concise, it's locating the problem, it's looking for solutions together. People don't want a praise sandwich. People want the truth."

This approach could work with academic situations or classroom management problems: If you're dealing with a student who is disrupting class, describe the behavior you're seeing, explain why it's a problem, then ask the student for ideas on how to solve it. It sounds really simple, but if what you're doing right now isn't giving you the results you want, it's worth a try.

It has IMPACT.

One of the reasons people don't make progress after receiving feedback is that they don't necessarily know what to do with it. "If you want feedback to make an impact," Hirsch notes, "you have to put it in terms that people can operationalize." In his book, he cites studies showing that regular feedback doesn't typically result in a transfer of new skills or habits, but when that feedback is combined with coaching, the transfer skyrockets to 95 percent.

So if a student regularly forgets to bring materials to class, rather than simply telling him to change, help him make a specific plan for improvement. Ideally, that plan should have lots of small steps to make it achievable, and the student should take the lead in developing that plan.

It REFINES group dynamics.

"Feedback is a team sport," Hirsch says. "It is not just something that happens one to one. It happens in groups and across and within organizations. And when we dump that command and control nature of traditional feedback, we make room for something much more collaborative and shared."

So rather than give feedback in a top-down, hierarchical model, open up more pathways for people to get feedback from their peers, even those whose jobs might on the surface have little in common with our own. In his book, Hirsch borrows a term from management circles known as "creative abrasion," which is what happens when people with opposing views work on the same task together. Although it can result in more conflict, the contributions from different points of view usually produce a higher-quality product in the end.

This idea can play out in a lot of educational settings: Instead of just having our department head observe our teaching, why not get feedback from someone who teaches a completely different subject? When students go to the same peers for feedback on their work, have them seek out the opinion of someone new, or consider getting the input of a group of students from a different class or grade level entirely.

There's nothing simple or straightforward about telling people how to improve. So it's no surprise that we're still figuring it out and finding new ways to refine it. If the feedback you're giving to your students, your coworkers, and even the people at home isn't having quite the effect you intend, try shifting to a feedforward approach. Doing so can help us, as Hirsch says, stop seeing ourselves just as who we are, but who we are becoming. ♦

Learn more about Joe Hirsch on his website or visit his LinkedIn page. Teachers who read The Feedback Fix should also grab this free Discussion Guide for Teachers to help apply the book's principles to your own work.

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Instead of rating and judging a person's performance in the past, feedforward focuses on their development in the future.

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How to Use Children's Books to Talk About Race and Racism | Parenting Tips & Advice | PBS KIDS for Parents

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​Storytime opens up new worlds for our children. Here are seven ways Dr. Aisha White recommends using picture books (with questions and conversation starters!) to talk about race and racism.

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Skilled Teachers Create Connections and a Shared Purpose

After years of observing hundreds of classrooms, I came to understand that skilled teachers are like symphony conductors. With grace and mastery, these teachers lead instruction, manage transitions, and provide feedback to the class in a way that shows each student their important role in a classroom. Skilled teachers are able to unite a diverse collection of kids with different experiences, values, and goals into a cohesive orchestra. Students move with ease from lesson to lesson, signals are understood, directions are followed, and the classroom has the warm buzz of children learning.

These teachers have mastered the ability to . They are able to form connections with each child and they create environments and opportunities that help each child connect with their peers. In these divisive and isolated times, the ability to bring people together is more valuable than ever.

Relationships are best built on similarities and shared experiences. Wise teachers find the things they have in common with even their most oppositional and challenging students. This becomes the foundation of a strong student-teacher relationship. Beyond building connections with each student, skilled teachers also utilize group activities, transitions, and non-instructional time to create opportunities for students to build connections with classmates. By teaching students to focus on their similarities, teachers are able to minimize the cliques, rivalries, alienation, and bullying that so many students experience.

However, you don't get a skilled orchestra just by having people like you and the same is true in the classroom. A team is a collection of individuals with a shared purpose . An orchestra becomes magical when each individual performs their role to help the group achieve that shared purpose of performing a piece of music. Similarly, by cultivating a shared purpose for your class, students begin to understand their role, they are important to the whole group, and that they need their classmates.

When teachers are able to teach students to focus on their similarities and create a shared purpose for the classroom, the results can be extraordinary. These classrooms move with coordination, the transitions are smooth, the teacher is able to focus on instruction rather than responding to problem behavior, the words students use when they talk to each other are constructive, and students are engaged in learning.

Belonging Begins with Affirming Beliefs and Practices that Create Space for Students to Tell Us Who They Are
By Lauren Wells
The beginning of the school year is a time that brings a range of emotions with it. For some, there is excitement about having new teachers, starting a new grade or school, and seeing old friends or making new ones. For others, dread, worry, and fear about some of the very same things make the start of school an anxious time of year. But there is an innate desire in all students to experience belonging, purpose, pride, and joy in their learning. To kindle this spark, we must make learning affirming and relevant to our students and build connections between them.

The first few weeks of school offer principals, teachers, counselors, and other school staff the opportunity to focus on building a school culture where learning is situated in students' lived experiences in ways that will empower them to connect with each other.

Building this type of culture requires us to examine the beliefs and practices we are bringing back to school with us.

Consider, for example, the question, "What did you do this summer?" This question can marginalize students whose summer days aren't filled with an array of organized activities and vacations and center those students with access to extended educational, enrichment, and leisure activities. So, while the intention is to create community by having students share their summer experiences, the activity can become a barrier to belonging.

If we want to create classroom and school communities where students can be who they are and connect with each other and us, the simplest place to start is to create the space for them to tell us who they are. One activity I learned while training with the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA) is a variation of the Name Game, where students introduce themselves using a positive adjective that begins with the first letter of their first name. When students introduce themselves as "Kind Kadijah," "Masterful Michael," "Courageous Colin," or "Tenacious Teri" all kinds of questions and connections emerge among students that lead them to share the experiences and parts of themselves that are affirming to them. These questions, connections, and experiences become assets that can create a "multilane highway with numerous on and off-ramps that facilitate and support the inclusion and participation" of all students in ways that give them voice and demonstrate that who they are matters.

We can create welcoming environments where students feel a sense of belonging when we:

Make learning affirming and relevant to our students and build connections between them.

Examine the beliefs and practices we are bringing back to school with us.

Create the space for them to tell us who they are.

The Four Domains and Twelve Components of Identity Safe Classrooms
The following introduction to identity safety is excerpted from Belonging and Inclusion in Identity Safe Schools by Becki Cohn-Vargas, Alexandrea Creer Kahn, Amy Epstein, and Kathe Gogolewski. A more detailed exploration of these domains and components is available in this free download.
Identity safe schools stand firmly in the belief that students of all backgrounds deserve a welcoming school environment that both recognizes and invites them to participate as fully and equally valued members of the classroom and school. When their diverse social identities are respected, they feel connected to each other and their community. The sense of belonging that arises works to negate feelings of alienation, indifference and separation from others.

The four domains and 12 components of identity safety that serve as the framework for application of identity safe teaching in classrooms also serve as useful guidelines to transform all levels of school culture.

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author: Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Michael W. Smith, Hugh Kesson, and Deborah Appleman

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#CorwinTalks: Strategies to Ensure Students Feel a Sense of Belonging at School - Corwin Connect

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Families, parents, and caregivers possess essential knowledge about how to best support their children.

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Breathe. Count to 10. Take a walk. These strategies have long been advised to help you pause and rethink your reaction when you're seeing red and an inch away from exploding. Under normal circumstances - maybe a little stress at home or at work - those strategies can be useful. But you may find they're less effective in the pressure cooker we've been living in during recent years. What can you do to avoid reaching your boiling point?

For insight, I turned to psychologist Stuart Ablon, founder and director of Think:Kids in the department of psychiatry at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. Ablon is an expert at defusing explosive behavior among kids and teens with severe developmental delays in problem solving, flexibility, and tolerance to frustration - the skills that keep us from melting down.

Heightened stress blocks our coping abilities

Ablon says many adults are struggling with a lack of these skills right now - not because we haven't developed them, but because a ramp-up in stress is blocking them. This might be personal -- what's happening within your daily life -- or more global -- wildfires and extreme weather patterns, pandemic woes, inflation, and more.

"When we humans are chronically stressed, we lose access to the part of our brain that performs skills like flexibility and tolerance," Ablon says. Blocked skills can reduce our coping abilities to those of little children, like toddlers who scream when they don't get their way.

Practice empathy

Ablon says it's crucial to stay calm or "regulated" when you're feeling mad or upset, so you can access the skills needed to maintain control. And the best way to remain calm, Ablon says, is by practicing empathy - trying to sense another person's perspective or point of view.

"Empathy is the most powerful human regulator we have. It's been proven to de-escalate people in the most challenging of prison settings, and it can also work on an airplane or in line at Starbucks," Ablon says. "Think about it: when someone listens to you and tries to understand your point of view, it calms you. You can feel your heart rate drop."

How does empathy help you?

Calming others is great, but how does being empathetic keep you from exploding? It has a domino effect.

Trying to understand someone else's point of view may change your mind about how you want to react. It will also give you something important to do, which will keep you focused so you can remain calm.

Being calm enables you to access coping skills like problem solving, flexibility, and tolerance to frustration.

Accessing your coping skills strengthens your ability to keep your cool.

Because you're calm, you'll keep someone else from exploding, which in turn helps you continue to stay calm.

Four steps to help you stop seeing red

To practice empathy, Ablon recommends the following steps.

Adopt a mindset that people are doing the best they can. "We're all trying our best to handle what the world is throwing at us, with the skills we're able to access at that moment. None of us wants to be losing it," Ablon says. "Think to yourself, 'This person I'm interacting with isn't giving me what I want, but this person is doing the best they can right now.' If you can exude that, you will help regulate them. It's incredibly contagious - the same way a parent who stays calm can soothe a crying baby, or a kindergarten teacher with supreme calmness can regulate a whole class."

Be curious, not furious. Ablon recommends asking questions without jumping to conclusions, so you can find out where people are coming from. What are their circumstances? What's driven them to this moment? What do they need?

Practice active listening. "One of the most powerful things you can do to regulate someone is to repeat back to them what you're hearing from them in your own words. It makes them feel heard," Ablon says. "So ask questions, and when you get information, reflect back what you've heard. It's called active listening."

Offer reassurance. Remind the person you're talking to that you're trying to help. "Say, 'I'm just trying to understand. I know you must have an important reason and I want to hear more. I'm not trying to get you upset. I want to work things out.' That's very calming and regulating," Ablon says.

It may not be easy to remain empathetic during challenging times. But the more you practice this skill, the more empathetic you'll become. That can deliver significant results. "If you can stay calm and approach someone kindly and with understanding," Ablon says, "it will head things off at the pass for both of you."

About the Author

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Seeing red? 4 steps to try before responding - Harvard Health

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Simple coping strategies like counting to 10 are often useful to help you avoid an outburst. But as multiple challenges in recent years have amped up stress levels, those strategies may not be enough. So what steps can you take to avoid reaching your boiling point?

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I still remember the feeling I used to get when looking at the paperwork for my students who had ADHD, the forms listing the accommodations I would need to make for them-usually extended time on tests and maybe preferential seating.

The feeling could be best described as uncertain. I understood what these small changes looked like in practice-seat this student near the front of the room and give him more time to work on tests. But I knew almost nothing about the mechanics behind why the changes were supposed to make a difference. I signed the papers, returned them to the office, and made a mental note that if any of these students ever showed signs of struggle, it was probably because of the ADHD.

And they did struggle. The preferential seating and extra time wasn't often enough to help them turn in completed work on time, keep track of their things, and stay focused on class activities. Knowing as little as I did about ADHD, I figured that was the best we were going to get.

As uncomfortable as it makes me to say this, I will also admit that part of me wondered why these students couldn't just power through, find the motivation, try harder. Disorganization got the better of me sometimes too, and when that happened, I would just tidy things up, declutter, reset my priorities, and get back on track. It wasn't that hard. I also wondered whether parents were to blame, if a lack of structure, too much TV or video games, or some other oversight at home might be the true cause of students' difficulties.

Suffice it to say I really, REALLY didn't understand ADHD.

It turns out my lack of knowledge wasn't unique. A number of studies have shown that many teachers don't know enough to effectively meet the needs of students with ADHD (Alkahtani, 2013, Poznanski et al., 2018). While a growing number of teachers can recognize behaviors that might suggest ADHD in a child, knowledge drops off significantly when it comes to treatments and interventions that can help-the less training and knowledge a teacher has about ADHD, the less confident they feel about working with students who have it (Flanigan & Climie, 2018). This may explain the heartbreaking statistic that teachers tend to form fewer close relationships with students who have ADHD (Ewe, 2019).

Regardless of the subject area or age you teach, you're likely to have at least a few students with ADHD in your classroom every school year, so a good working knowledge of it should be part of any teacher's professional training. In the nine years I have been sharing resources on this website, I have only ever done one piece on ADHD, a 2017 interview with Seth Perler, who shared a great set of systems that help students who struggle with executive function. But that's it, so it's time to dig a little deeper.

A Solid Place to Start: Russell Barkley

Setting out to find good resources, I kept landing on the name Russell Barkley, an ADHD researcher who has been called a pioneer, a leading expert, and the gold standard in ADHD research. In all the places where his work appears-speaking on YouTube, as a guest on multiple podcasts, and as the author of many articles and books on ADHD-what is most striking are the number of comments from adults with ADHD who are relieved to finally find some validation, to hear clear explanations for why their brains work the way they do.

Although Barkley has been criticized for sounding negative and bleak when he speaks about the condition, using language that many would characterize as deficit thinking, his work has helped many people understand the workings of ADHD, how it affects those who have it, and how to best manage it. With that in mind, he seems like a good place to start; for suggestions on where to keep learning, I'll provide a list of resources at the end of this post.

Most of Barkley's work is directed at parents of children with ADHD and adults who also carry the diagnosis, but he has also written the highest-rated book for teachers on the subject, Managing ADHD in School: The Best Evidence-Based Methods for Teachers ( Bookshop.org | Amazon).

This slim book is not meant to be comprehensive or in-depth. Barkley states outright that he's not going to spend time on narrative prose and extensive research citations; his goal is to simply explain ADHD so that busy teachers can understand it, and tell them what they can do to help students who have it. His message is "Trust me, I know this stuff. Do this, not that." And while this obviously leaves him open to criticism, the book certainly delivers on its promises, and it's a great starting point for any teacher who wants a crash course on ADHD.

As Barkley is fully retired now, he declined to be interviewed here, so this is basically my own personal book report: I learned so many things from the book that would have helped immensely in my own work with students with ADHD, so I'm going to summarize what I think are the most important takeaways here. I strongly suggest you get a copy for yourself.

Although I'm doing my best to share this information accurately, there's a chance I'll get something wrong; if you see something that needs correcting, please let us know in the comments.

What do teachers need to understand about ADHD?

Before we get into classroom practices, I'm going to summarize a few key facts about ADHD that every teacher should know. Most of these happen to be things I personally didn't know-in fact, some are the exact opposite of beliefs I held-so I can only assume other teachers might also need this overview.

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition that impacts a person's executive function. This shows up as a difficulty with persisting toward goals and resisting distractions, holding information in working memory, and planning and problem solving. It also increases impulsivity, making immediate consequences more valuable than long-term ones, and interferes with inhibition, which results in quicker displays of emotion and other conduct that is generally discouraged in social settings. Unfortunately, all of these are often categorized as misbehavior or "poor choices" in the classroom, and if teachers don't understand how ADHD works, they can spend years responding in ways that will do little to address the underlying causes.

The cause of ADHD is largely genetic. In the book, Barkley asserts that "no compelling evidence indicates that social factors, such as parenting or educational environment, have been found to cause ADHD." Research has also ruled out diet, TV or media consumption, or videogame play as contributing factors (p. 15-16). With this information in mind, we can stop looking for outside factors to blame and get down to the business of helping these students do better in school. Knowing this should also put an end to attempts to "motivate" students with ADHD by giving them pep talks, angry reprimands, or guilt trips.

Roughly ten percent of your students are likely to have ADHD. Numbers for this are hard to pin down exactly: The National Institute of Mental Health puts the total number of children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD at about 11%, the CDC at 9.4%, and Barkley at 5 to 8%. Regardless of the source, the numbers continue to rise every year, and boys have a higher rate of diagnosis than girls. More important than an exact number is this: Every year, you should expect to have at least a few students in your classroom who have ADHD.

Rates of diagnosis do not necessarily reflect the actual number of students with ADHD. Barkley says diagnoses tend to occur more in communities with more resources, and overdiagnosis is more frequent "in upper income neighborhoods where a premium is placed on academic excellence or acceleration" (p. 8). By contrast, students may be underdiagnosed in communities with fewer resources for diagnosis and treatment. Apart from just being good general knowledge to have, this may inform the research and action you take depending on the community where you teach: Perhaps more of your students actually need to be referred for diagnosis and treatment; by contrast, you may be working with students who are receiving treatment for a misdiagnosis.

ADHD is linked to a host of serious problems. People with ADHD have a greater risk of relationship problems (including social problems in school and both personal and professional adult relationships), employment issues, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, addiction, auto accidents, and suicide. These statistics shocked me, and they underscore how important it is for educators, who work with these students for hours every day, to learn as much as we can about how to better support them in school.

Medication can help. Although public opinion on medication is mixed, much of the research shows that ADHD medication, when combined with interventions and supports like the ones listed below, has a high rate of success for improving academic performance. It has also been shown to lower other risk factors, like suicide (Liang et al., 2018), addiction (Sherman, 2022), and auto accidents (Chang et al., 2017).

Research continues to evolve. What was known about ADHD twenty or even ten years ago has been enriched by a growing body of research on diagnosis, causes, interventions, and medication. So when you come across information that doesn't quite fit with your current understanding of ADHD, keep an open mind.

8 Principles for Helping Students with ADHD Succeed in the Classroom

Barkley packs tons of strategies and advice into his book; here I've attempted to condense them into eight general principles. Just like with so many strategies designed to help specific populations, these are also likely to help many of your students be more successful, regardless of whether they have identified difficulties with executive function.

1. Be proactive (rather than reactive).

Throughout the book, Barkley urges teachers to plan ahead with systems and strategies that can solve common ADHD-related challenges. Instead of waiting for problems to arise and then dealing with them, which is more likely to be done under duress, it's far more effective to anticipate challenges and set up a plan for preventing them.

For example, students with ADHD often struggle with transitions, so one strategy is to always pause a few minutes before a transition to verbally remind students of the procedures and rules around the upcoming transition.

2. Make the internal external.

Because ADHD affects working memory, a person with ADHD has a harder time keeping things like instructions for a task in their mind. "Even if they try to hold such information in mind ... any distractions will disrupt and degrade this special type of memory. The mental chalkboard of working memory is wiped clean by the distraction. ...having gone 'off-task,' the child is far less likely to reengage the original and now uncompleted goal or task" (p. 3-4).

Working memory can be boosted when we make the internal external: taking information that might typically be a mental process (like remembering the steps for turning in an assignment) and making it visible. Here are some examples:

Color-coded folders help students keep materials organized and find what they need more easily.

Visual timers that students can easily see keep them aware of how much time is left for a task.

Written rules and instructions posted close to where a task is going to be completed (Barkley calls this the "point of performance") offer support right when students need it.

Daily behavior report cards can work well to remind students of expectations and get immediate feedback on how well they are meeting them.

Notetaking helps students record what they are learning to make it more concrete.

3. Break large tasks into smaller ones.

Because ADHD makes it harder for students to manage long, complex tasks, it helps if teachers can guide students in breaking these tasks into smaller steps.

4. Maximize the effectiveness of incentives.

Author's note: If you listen to the podcast version of this post, you'll notice that this item is somewhat different from that version. The original primarily used the term "consequences" and came across very punishment-heavy; this did not accurately represent Barkley's recommendations. The written version is the more updated one and is the best representation of this principle.

Internal motivation is harder to sustain for students with ADHD due to reduced working memory and increased impulsivity, so external incentives are a powerful tool for sustaining motivation. He recommends these guidelines:

Positive reinforcements must significantly outweigh negative ones. In fact, Barkley recommends that any program of reinforcements have only powerful, positive incentives for 1 to 2 weeks before ever introducing negative ones.

Incentives need to be delivered with more immediacy and frequency than for students without ADHD.

Incentives may need to be "richer" than what you might typically use for other students. If a consequence (positive or negative) doesn't seem to be motivating a student with ADHD, it's probably because it doesn't mean much to the student and should be replaced with something the student values more.

With the above in mind, incentives also need to be varied or rotated more often for students with ADHD, as they lose their potency more quickly over time.

In the book, Barkley regularly uses the word "punishment" to describe negative consequences for undesirable behavior. Although he doesn't advocate for anything harsh, the term is still troubling to me after the book so clearly establishes that the behavior of someone with ADHD is caused by the way their brain is wired, not bad choices. So I would advise teachers reading his book to extract the valuable information he shares about consequences, while keeping in mind that we are not trying to cause shame or pain to students for their behavior; the goal is to create a system of incentives and reinforcements that prompt students to refocus and make adjustments.

5. Prepare for restlessness.

To work with-rather than against-these students' greater need for movement, keep a supply of stress balls, fidget toys, balance balls, or wobble chairs for them to use. You can also provide standing desks and other seating options so that student can to choose what works best for them, and plan frequent physical exercise breaks to give all students a chance to stretch and burn off some energy between activities that require more stillness.

6. Alternate low-appeal with high-appeal activities.

"Too many boring topics or activities back to back can lead a child with ADHD to lose focus," Barkley says (p. 37). This loss of focus can lead to the student becoming distracted and possibly disruptive to the class, so mix the more engaging, high-interest activities in between those that require more effort to maintain focus.

7. Use technology as a support.

Technology has been shown to be especially effective for students who have ADHD. Barkley cites research showing that students with ADHD "pay more attention to computer software learning programs and learn more from the practice with them than they do when working on worksheets" (p. 36).

He also recommends teaching these students keyboarding skills as early as possible. "Students with ADHD have a high occurrence of fine motor coordination problems...give them alternative means of expressing themselves in print" (p. 38).

8. Monitor and modify interventions regularly.

"One common scenario," Barkley writes, "is that a student responds initially to a well-tailored program, but then over time, the response deteriorates" (p. 28). This doesn't mean the interventions didn't work; it might mean they need to be modified or the implementation needs to be checked for fidelity.

A Lingering Question: Public Accountability?

As much as I want to wholeheartedly recommend the book, one repeated suggestion concerned me. In a few places, Barkley advocates for "public accountability" for student behavior (p. 28, p. 61), but at other times offers more discreet methods of accountability for older students (p. 62).

Public behavior charts and systems have gotten a lot of pushback in the teaching world over the past 5 to 10 years, and I agree with the criticism: The shame these can cause is not worth any benefit they may offer. I worry that some readers will come away from this book thinking that public shaming is an effective strategy for supporting students with ADHD, even though Barkley doesn't necessarily advocate for this. My best guess is that the recommendation should be interpreted to mean that the accountability system should be visible to the student, but not necessarily on display for the whole class to see.

With this in mind, a good rule of thumb for any time you see a recommendation in an education book, or on a website like mine, that feels off in some way or seems to go against your better judgment, listen to your gut.

I'll end this piece as I began it, with an admission of bare minimum knowledge on the subject of ADHD. As much as I have tried to accurately represent the recommendations and knowledge Barkley shares, there's a very good chance I got some stuff wrong, and this book is just a starting point, but it would have been incredibly helpful to me as a teacher, so I hope it helps you as well. If you have personal experience with ADHD, professional expertise, or links to other good resources, I urge you to share these in the comments below so we can build on what's here.

Learn More

This piece only scratches the surface of what the medical and educational communities are learning about ADHD. It is meant to serve as a jumping-off point so that teachers can be equipped with strategies that will be the most helpful to students with ADHD. To continue learning, try the resources listed below:

CHADD.org, or Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, is an organization dedicated to improving the lives of people affected by ADHD. Their website houses loads of fantastic resources, plus an online teacher training course if you want to go in depth.

How to ADHD is a website and YouTube channel run by Jessica McCabe, full of high-energy, educational videos about ADHD. (Thank you for the recommendation, Charlotte!)

Want more from Russell Barkley? Listen to this recent interview from the Ologies podcast, where he provides an in-depth overview of ADHD and how it impacts those who have it.

The work of Edward Hallowell is worth considering for a more asset-based view of ADHD. Learn about his advocacy for replacing the term ADHD with the more neutral term VAST and this summary of his public "debate" with Russell Barkley. And for short bursts of learning, follow him on TikTok.

While you're on TikTok, also check out Sasha Hamdani, a psychiatrist and ADHD specialist whose following has grown exponentially in the last year for her helpful and humorous videos. You can also find her on Instagram.

One other resource, ADDitude magazine, was previously on this list, but a reader brought to our attention that it has received criticism in some ADHD forums and was given mixed reviews by the Media Bias/Fact Check website. Although readers can probably still find lots of value on the site, it would be wise to go in knowing what the criticisms are.

References

Barkley, R. (2016). Managing ADHD in School: The Best Evidence-Based Methods for Teachers . Pesi Publishing & Media.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, September 23). . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data and statistics about ADHD https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/data.html

National Institute of Mental Health. (n.d.). . Retrieved April 14, 2022, from NIMH" Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd

Sherman, C. (2022, March 31). . ADDitude. The Truth About ADHD and Addiction https://www.additudemag.com/the-truth-about-adhd-and-addiction/

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8 Principles for Supporting Students with ADHD

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There is so much to learn about ADHD. These broad guidelines from a leading expert are a good place to start.

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Student ownership of their learning journey is key for growth. Children need to understand what they are learning and why. They also need a clear path to follow and use to monitor their growth along the way.

Like I mentioned in "Goal-setting foundations for pre-K-2 teachers," even our youngest kids are ready to reap the benefits of goal setting. Don't let their age deter you! If you're an early learning educator, here are two types of goals that will surely help you empower your students.

1. Individual daily goals

To build student autonomy, students need choice. This includes choice during goal setting.

In my first-grade classroom, I used to place a sticky note on each student's desk every morning. They would write a goal (or draw a picture of their goal, if that was easier for them) that was personal to them. They would do this every single day, so while we would definitely set long-term goals, too, these stickies helped me ensure my students had a daily chance to practice setting and meeting goals.

Some students would choose a behavior goal and others would choose an academic goal. For example, a child could write that they wanted to remember to raise their hand every time they had something to say, instead of interrupting, as they were sometimes tempted to do. Or they could write that they wanted to get at least half of the day's math problems right the first time. The kids got to pick what was important to them to accomplish that day. They would then place their goal sticky on a chart. (There's a great example of what our sticky chart looked like on Pinterest.)

[M]y students had a daily chance to practice setting and meeting goals.

When a student met their goal, they would tell me right away. Sometimes this meant a pause in instruction, but for me it was always a worthwhile break. We would celebrate as a class using one of Dr. Jean's cheers.

At the end of the day, we would go through the goal stickies left on the chart, which would take about 10 minutes. We would celebrate the met goals a second time with one big cheer and discuss what we could change to meet the ones that weren't.

If a student did not meet their goal, the class worked as a team to problem solve on ways to improve the goal the next day. Sometimes a student would say they wanted to read 50 books in one day, for example. At the end of the day, they had maybe only read three. We would use this time to discuss how a more attainable goal could be to read five books instead of 50. This helped to build a culture of learners instead of a culture of competition.

2. Long-term, data-informed goals

Not every early childhood student may be ready for a deep dive into their assessment data, and that is okay. Just like with individual daily goals, students should have voice and choice in goals around data and even around how to use data. Guide students through the process of what data means and how it helps them grow as learners. Use multiple types of data to teach students this goal-setting process.

If you are a MAP® Growth™ user, the growth goals section in the Student Profile Report will provide one data set that can help you begin to work one-on-one with students to set goals. The report provides a clear visual for them that will help them see where they started their learning and how they've made progress over time. Talk to them about how if they grow as projected (see projected RIT and projected growth numbers in the Achievement Status and Growth Report), they will most likely keep moving in the same direction. Use kid-friendly language: "You're on the right track! Let's keep doing what you're doing."

If a kid is not on the right track, think about ways you can support them by providing more personalized instruction or talking with their families to explore options, like more social-emotional learning, homework, and tutoring. The culprit may also be something difficult going on at home, and communication can help you set goals that account for that student's reality outside of school.

If you do not use MAP Growth at your school, you can still support students in setting goals around assessment data. When I taught kindergarten, for example, I made bar graphs that I printed and put in data binders for each student. Together we would sit and color in the letters, sounds, and sight words they knew after an assessment. I would ask them how many more they wanted to know by the next time I tested them. We would then put a different-colored line on their bar graph to represent where they wanted to be. A long-term, data-informed goal!

Data-informed goal setting in [...] student-friendly ways helps children know where they are in their learning and where they need to go.

To ensure we were relying on more than one data source during goal setting, I would work with my students to determine at least one additional data point we could look to. We would often use student self-assessment, for example.

Data-informed goal setting in these kinds of student-friendly ways helps children know where they are in their learning and where they need to go. It helps them understand their own personal success criteria to grow as learners. It also helps students who are not meeting proficiency celebrate their growth. Be sure to share the data with your students and their families.

Ready, steady, goal

Goals build student efficacy. It is never too early to start involving students in goal-setting practices. By starting goal-setting work early with our learners, we pave the way for a motivating start on their educational journey.

You have the power to create students who love learning by letting them take ownership of their learning process. Use it!

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2 types of student goal setting that empower early learners

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Daily and data-informed student goal setting can help kids as young as kindergarten feel empowered and engaged in their learning.

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Another AI to support us with creating small groups

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Another AI to support us with creating small groups

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AI-powered lesson plans and classroom resources | Almanack

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Digital lesson planner and resource generator for teachers.

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Giving their classmates feedback on writing is a complex skill for students to master, but it can be taught with scaffolded modeling.

Bob Daemmrich / Alamy Stock Photo

When I first share with my ninth graders that peer review will be part of our writing process, the response is almost universally negative. Unfortunately, many of my writers have not had the best experience with this activity.

My stronger writers say that they almost never receive feedback that goes beyond basic conventions, while my emerging writers say they feel a lack of confidence in providing feedback beyond basic conventions. This frustration should be no surprise: As educators, we recognize that effective teaching is a complex skill that requires deliberate practice. Likewise, when we ask students to give each other feedback, this too is more complex than simply exchanging papers and locating errors.

To make peer feedback more focused and meaningful, I've found it helpful to define quality feedback, provide structured routines, and teach feedback as I would any other core skill.

Defining Effective Feedback

In my experience, few high school freshmen have mastered the conventions of writing well enough to function as reliable editors. For this reason, I direct my students to reflect upon each other's work-not correct it.

This is confusing because I cannot follow your topic.

I am confused about who "they" are in this sentence.

Explain a little more about why you chose this example from the text.

I like how you repeated key words from your hook here in your conclusion.

My students focus on idea development, clarity, and arrangement to make sense of the writer's text. Of course, scrambled grammar can impact a reader's experience, but rather than have them try to correct a peer's confounding syntax with editing marks, I ask students to write full sentences to one another:

Specific: Comments are linked to a discrete word, phrase, or sentence.

Prescriptive: Like a medical prescription that aims to solve an ailment, prescriptive feedback offers a solution or strategy to improve the work, including possible revisions or links to helpful resources or examples.

Actionable: When the feedback is read, it leaves the peer knowing what steps to take for improvement.

Referenced: The feedback directly references the task criteria, requirements, or target skills.

Kind: It's mandatory that all comments be framed in a kind, supportive way.

I also offer kids a specific acronym to remember what constitutes quality feedback: SPARK. For feedback to be useful to a writer, it should meet as many of these criteria as possible:

Some groups I've taught took to SPARK quickly, while others have needed more practice. For these groups, I create student-friendly versions of a consultancy protocol or tuning protocol to ensure focused discourse, allowing room for all voices.

I also set a guideline for a minimum number of quality comments, but I tell students that less is often more.

Modeling SPARK Feedback

As with any other skill I teach, I begin by modeling SPARK feedback on sample student writing. I interact with students, explaining my thought process as they help pinpoint what about a text is effective or ineffective, as well as how to offer quality SPARK-based comments. From there, as a class we examine other example feedback statements before evaluating their potential usefulness to a writer.

To also give students the chance to practice giving feedback independently, I distribute the same example paragraph. We use group and class discussions to share the variety of feedback offered.

When it's time for live peer review, I assess performance by giving students feedback on their feedback. After that, students share particularly useful examples. Before students leave class, they share on exit tickets what they feel was the best feedback they offered, as well as the best feedback they received.

In the end, good peer review should provide the writer with meaningful information for improvement, while developing the reviewer's ability to analyze a text's effectiveness.

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Giving their classmates feedback on writing is a complex skill for students to master, but it can be taught with scaffolded modeling.

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Talking to Young Children About Race and Racism

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Here are tips, books, and resources to help you have meaningful conversations with young children about race, racism, and anti-racist behavior.

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1. Find out what they know and how they feel

Choose a time and place when you can bring it up naturally and your child is more likely to feel comfortable talking freely, such as during a family meal. Try to avoid talking about the topic just before bedtime.

A good starting point is to ask your child what they know and how they are feeling. Some children might know little about what is happening and not be interested in talking about it, but others might be worrying in silence. With younger children, drawing, stories and other activities may help to open up a discussion.

Kids can discover the news in many ways, so it's important to check in on what they're seeing and hearing. It's an opportunity to reassure them and potentially correct any inaccurate information they might have come across whether online, on TV, at school or from friends.

A constant stream of upsetting images and headlines can make it feel like the crisis is all around us. Younger children may not distinguish between images on screen and their own personal reality and may believe they're in immediate danger, even if the conflict is happening far away. Older children might have seen worrying things on social media and be scared about how events might escalate.

It's important not to minimize or dismiss their concerns. If they ask a question that might seem extreme to you, such as "Are we all going to die?", reassure them that is not going to happen, but also try to find out what they have heard and why they are worried about that happening. If you can understand where the worry is coming from, you are more likely to be able to reassure them.

Be sure to acknowledge their feelings and assure them that whatever they are feeling is natural. Show that you're listening by giving them your full attention and remind them that they can talk to you or another trusted adult whenever they like.

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How to talk to your children about conflict and war

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8 tips to support and comfort your children

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Listen to this episode from Teachers Talk on Spotify. Taylor and Skylar discuss the growth mindset philosophy within and outside of the classroom.Mindset by: Carol Dweck: https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322Class Dojo: https://ideas.classdojo.com/b/growth-mindset

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Heejae Lim: The most powerful yet overlooked resource in schools

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"When teachers and families work together, everyone wins," says education technology entrepreneur and TED Fellow Heejae Lim. She shines a light on an underutilized resource in US public education -- a family's love for their children -- and shows that, with the right tools and tech, schools can remove language barriers, foster meaningful connections and help every student thrive.

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How to Spot Dyslexia, and What to Do Next | Cult of Pedagogy

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Learn the traits that might indicate dyslexia in students and what you can do inside and outside the classroom to better support these students.

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GoalBook is a tool BPS purchased to support us with setting specific learning goals and identifying strategies to support students

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If it's tailored to the individual student and clear-cut, feedback can be a formidable learning tool.

Feedback can be a powerful process that greatly impacts student learning when it affirms students' identities as learners, is clear and direct, and considers the individual attributes of each student.

Strength: You clearly state your claim, The women's rights movement began with the suffrage movement but it's not over yet, and provided a list of recent events, such as the Women's March of 2017 and the U.S. Women's Soccer Team's court case, to support your thinking.

Need: Include the counterclaim and how you would respond. What would someone say if they disagreed with you? Where would they find fault with your supporting evidence? What can you include to address these arguments?

Next step: Work with your writing partner to talk through the Claim, Support, Question protocol. Do some more research to address the questions that you and your partner generate, and add this information to your essay.

Here's an example. A student receives the following feedback from her teacher:

This feedback moves beyond what students often receive in response to their work-statements such as "Great job!" "Shows improvement." "Add evidence." The more comprehensive feedback can empower students because it's individualized to the student; leverages students' assets, interests, and learning preferences; and builds students' confidence in themselves. Let's unpack the above example to see how to accomplish this.

Providing Meaningful Feedback

Strengths: Identify what students can do in relation to the learning target, regardless of whether they've achieved mastery. The feedback in our example is based on the following learning target and success criteria for the student:

Stating a claim

Providing supporting reasons and relevant evidence

Addressing counterclaims

I can write an argument by doing the following:

When a teacher identifies what students can do, it communicates the belief that all students are learners and can achieve high expectations. Students know what to repeat in future assignments and, most important, develop confidence in themselves. Often by middle and high school, students who have repeatedly been told what they cannot do have accepted failure as a norm and need support in redeveloping their identity as a learner. Identifying what students can do helps rebuild this identity characteristic necessary for learning.

Needs: Identify where a student is in relationship to the learning target. The language the teacher uses in identifying needs can affect how students receive the feedback. In our feedback example, the teacher states the need- Include the counterclaim and how you would respond-and then provides some questions to prompt student thinking. Zaretta Hammond writes in Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain that direct and honest feedback helps students understand that feedback is affirmation that the student can reach the goal. When feedback is cushioned or vague, a student may interpret it to mean that the teacher doesn't believe in the student's capability.

Next steps: These directly correlate with the identified needs and provide suggestions on how students can move forward. Too often, students are given feedback but don't know how to address it. The teacher supports student independence and self-regulation by describing actions that the student can take on their own to strengthen their work. In our example of feedback, the teacher reminds the student to use a thinking routine that has been repeatedly used in class-to identify possible counterclaims and provide stronger evidence to support their reasoning.

Next steps should also consider the individual attributes of the student. For example, if the teacher knows a student is an artist, suggesting that the student use sketchnoting before writing might be a good next step. Students who use oral language to process information might benefit from peer discussion, as mentioned in the example, before writing. A linguistically diverse student might write in the language they are most comfortable with to organize and elaborate on their ideas.

The amount, timing, and format: These can influence how a student receives the feedback and their willingness to act on it. Some students need less feedback more often, while other students prefer to have the time to process and apply the feedback. Feedback can be verbal or written and offered privately or in small groups. The same process for providing feedback will not work for everyone. If a teacher is unsure as to what strategy might work best for the student, the teacher can conference with the student and discuss different strategies. This builds the trust that underlies the successful feedback relationship.

The feedback that students receive from their teachers serves as models for students to engage in peer feedback and self-assessment. When students use the same process with their peers and then apply it to themselves, they're truly empowered. Students, like their teachers, must have clearly articulated learning targets and a protocol, such as the strengths, needs, and next steps. They must also reflect on the feedback process. Questions such as "How did feedback from your classmate help you revise your work?" "What did you learn from examining your classmate's work that will help you in revising your own?" and "How did you revise your work after completing your self-assessment?" all help students see the value of the feedback process.

Empowering students through feedback begins with teacher feedback that identifies what the student can do, clearly states areas of needs, and considers the individual attributes of each student in providing next steps. When students receive quality feedback from their teachers, they are primed to engage in peer feedback and self-assessment, and empowered to be self-regulated, independent learners.

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If it's tailored to the individual student and clear-cut, feedback can be a formidable learning tool.

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I have a multiple-choice question for you.
Suppose you're standing at your classroom door, greeting students as they arrive. One of them-let's call him Gabe-comes through and sees that on the daily agenda, you've written "Choose topics for speeches." Right away, his shoulders slump.

"Oh man," he says to no one in particular, "I hate speeches!"

What do you say?

A. What? Speeches are awesome.

B. You talk all the time! You're gonna love it.

C. Shocker! Gabe has another complaint.

D. Gabe, we enter the room silently, please.

E. What do you hate about speeches, Gabe?

With options A through D, you're arguing with Gabe, dismissing his feelings, attacking him personally, or ignoring what he said altogether.

But with option E, you're reacting with curiosity. You're trying to learn more. With option E, you're already on your way to validating Gabe's point of view.

Validation is the act of recognizing and affirming the feelings or perspective of another person. It's acknowledging that these thoughts and feelings are true for that person. It's a very simple, astoundingly fast way to make progress in a conversation: It eases tension, builds trust, and gets you and the other person to a solution more quickly.

The only problem with validation is that at first, it's really hard to do. We're so used to defending our own position, to staying sort of clenched in our own stance, that shifting to a place where we try to see things from another point of view can feel unnatural, almost painful at first. But once you've given it a real try, you're going to see some of your most difficult conversations get a whole lot better.

Why Validation Works

People want to be understood. They want to feel heard.

When a person doesn't feel heard, she just clings more tightly to her own position. It really is that simple, and it's one of the reasons so many conflicts last so long and often escalate to ridiculous proportions. People on both sides of any conflict try and try to explain and defend themselves, to make the other person see something the way they see it.

And unfortunately, our typical responses usually make the situation worse:

Arguing with the other person's viewpoint, like saying that speeches are awesome in response to Gabe's statement, is a natural reaction, but it probably won't impact his opinion. He'll most likely want to come back with an argument about why speeches do suck, and you'll just go back and forth. Until he feels heard, Gabe will have a hard time considering your point of view.

Dismissing the other person's feelings, like pointing out to Gabe that he talks all the time and therefore couldn't possibly dislike speeches, will not only not change his mind, it will also make him feel misunderstood. His original negative emotion tied to speeches has now been joined by a feeling of frustration that you just don't get him. And depending on how serious the underlying problem is, your flippant dismissal could really hurt.

Ignoring the person's concern by focusing on something else, like we did when we merely addressed a rule about being quiet, can make a person feel like they just don't matter. Reminding Gabe to enter the room quietly doesn't actually change his mind about the speeches. It hasn't taken any of the negative feelings away. And by completely ignoring his concern, we are telling him that his feelings just aren't important.

Ad hominem attacks, like the snide comment about Gabe complaining all the time, are another way of dismissing and delegitimizing the other person's viewpoint. When our students voice a concern and we accuse them of being insubordinate, asking "silly questions," or trying to stall or waste time, we are attacking them personally while avoiding the content of what they're saying. This response can be the most destructive: Not only does the person still feel the way they felt before, but now they have added a layer of resentment toward you.

In all of these cases, the other person has not learned anything new, you have not come to any new understandings or solved any problems, and you have very likely created new negative feelings. Keep repeating this cycle and you have the makings of a problem relationship.

In schools, where our business requires constant interaction with other people, conflicts and misunderstandings are always available to us. And they cause all kinds of problems: They disrupt instructional time, interfere with student understanding, escalate into major power struggles that lead to serious disciplinary action, and that's just the students. Among the adults in the building, unresolved disagreements create all kinds of inter-staff drama, lead to poor job satisfaction, and can ultimately end in teachers leaving their jobs.

Things go differently with validation. When people practice validating each other's feelings and opinions at the first sign of trouble, conflicts rarely escalate. Instead, they become conversations. They become opportunities to learn from each other.

How to Validate in Three Steps

Step 1: Reflect the Content

The most important thing to do is simply paraphrase the main thing the person is saying to you to make sure you understand. Doing this lets them know you're listening, and if you remove all sarcasm and "attitude" from your voice, you'll sound interested and curious, not judgmental.

In some cases, like with Gabe, you might have to start with a question like "What do you hate about speeches?"

Assuming he gives you some kind of an answer, like "I don't like being in front of all those people," then you'd just restate that. You might say, "So it's all the people watching that you don't like."

If the person's explanation is longer or more complicated, you might use phrases like these:

What I hear you saying is ________. Is that right?

Let me see if I'm understanding you right...

In other words, _____

Step 2: Acknowledge the Emotion

The other person will really feel heard if you can label the emotion they are describing, or ask a question to clarify the emotion. Here are some examples:

That sounds frustrating.

It sounds like you're feeling worried.

So you felt confused?

How did you feel about that?

With Gabe, you could simply say, "Speaking in front of people makes you uncomfortable." This reflects both the content and the emotion in one fell swoop.

Step 3: Communicate Acceptance

An important part of validation is letting the person know that you accept their feelings as they are. You may not feel the same way, and their feelings might create problems for you, but they are what they are. Try some of these phrases:

I can see why you'd feel that way.

A lot of people feel that way.

That's understandable.

It can be (upsetting, frustrating, nerve-racking, scary) when that happens.

Now if you strongly disagree with something a person is saying and you just can't bring yourself to accept it, try looking for the part you DO agree with, the part you can relate to. When arguing about a proposed new academic policy in school, for example, you might really dislike the idea itself, but you can start by saying that you also care very much about student success and you agree that the current system needs fixing.

In some cases, you might even need to think back to a time when you felt or believed the same thing as the person you're talking to. Even if you feel differently now, you can affirm that this feeling or belief is understandable from a certain perspective.

And Then?

Once you've done these three things-reflected the content, acknowledged the emotion, and communicated acceptance-what comes next? Sometimes, nothing at all. You might just end the conversation there, with the other person returning to their thoughts, finally released from defending their point of view and ready to move on to a place of deeper contemplation.

Or the person might keep talking about this thing that's bothering them-probably in a much calmer, more productive way-and all you have to do is listen quietly. They may arrive at their own solution without much need for your help.

At other times, you might need to continue to ask open-ended questions like, "Can you tell me more about that?" so the person can keep talking, and you might get to a new place of understanding on the issue.

Another thing that's likely to happen is that the person will start to acknowledge your position without you even having to ask for it. This isn't something you should expect, and you might have to introduce it on your own by saying something like, "Can I tell you how I see it?" But in a lot of cases, you're going to be surprised by how quickly the validated person wants to return the favor.

The Pushback: Why We Resist Validating

Despite the incredible effectiveness of reflective listening and validation, you might still not want to do it. Here are some likely objections:

I don't agree with the person, so I can't validate their opinion.

This is tough, because you're probably still trying to get your own point across. How on earth can you shift over to acknowledging their feelings? Validating another person's point of view is not the same as agreeing with them. You're just letting the person know you hear them.

Of course, it's important to make sure your words reflect that: If a student says, "I suck at math," you don't say, "Yeah you do." Instead, you could just restate their words as a question: "You don't think you're good at math?" This will prompt them to tell you more.

But their position ISN'T VALID. Why would I want to encourage it?

Remember that you're not agreeing, just restating and clarifying their position. And keep in mind that by acknowledging the part of it that is true and by letting the person know you clearly understand their position, you will actually help them cling less tightly to it. In other words, they may be more likely to see your point of view because they feel like they're dealing with a rational person who has taken the time to understand theirs.

This is all touchy-feely B.S. It's not me.

Okay, validation doesn't have to look and sound like you're in a therapist's office. You can develop your own style. It can sound tough, it can be quick, and it doesn't have to come with hugs and cupcakes if that's not who you are.

One of my CrossFit coaches, Donna, validates us all the time, and believe me, no one wants to mess with her. One time I was doing this really difficult stretch called a facing wall stretch, and she came over to basically tell me I was doing it wrong, that I needed to go lower, and so naturally I was whining about it. And she let me whine for a few seconds, then nodded at me and shouted, "CrossFit's hard, Jennifer!"

That was basically validation. It cracked me up and it renewed my resolve to try harder.

I have more important things to do. Why do I have to waste time with this stuff?

Here's the thing: If you make reflective listening and validation a regular part of your way of dealing with people, you will ultimately save yourself a TON of time.

Picture each conversation as a fork in a road. One path is the one where you argue, dismiss, or mock the other person's position. It's a loooonng road, full of continued back-and-forths, anger, and problems that build up over time, turning into much bigger and thornier issues. The other path is surprisingly short: It starts with a few minutes of reflective listening and validation, the other person feels heard, emotions stay at a reasonable pitch, and life goes on.

The problem is, people think the first path is shorter: You can quickly shut a person down with a withering comeback or silence them completely by just being loud and aggressive. But that person's opinion hasn't changed one bit. You haven't had nearly the influence you think you've had; they just feel what they're feeling even more strongly, and on top of it, now they think you're a jerk, too. You've just made the problem worse.

The thing to remember is that validation is not necessary in all interactions, but if you find yourself in frequent conflict with other people, it's definitely worth a try.

Sample Scenarios

A Student Behavior Problem

It's Thursday morning and my students are supposed to be reading silently for 10 minutes. I notice that Kendra has her book face down and is doodling on the cover of her notebook instead.

Now what I could do is give her some kind of behavior mark, or scold her, or just tell her to get back to reading. Or I could go over, squat down by her desk, and just say, in a completely neutral voice, "You're not reading. What's going on?"

Kendra might say, "It's confusing."

From there, I can reflect the content back to her, acknowledge her feelings, and communicate acceptance. I might say, "You're confused, and that makes it hard to read. I've definitely had that experience."

Then I can start helping Kendra solve the problem by saying, "Can you show me a place that confuses you?" From there, we can figure out how to get her unstuck, or maybe choose a different book.

If Kendra's problem was not actually the book at all, but a more significant problem like something going on at home, me taking a few minutes to talk to her could be incredibly valuable in helping her deal with that. Either way, we have avoided a negative interaction that could have spiraled into a much larger behavior issue if Kendra or I were in the wrong kind of mood.

A Colleague Issue

Tracy, who teaches in the classroom next door to mine, makes this comment to a group at lunch one day: "Well I just couldn't get my students to settle down this morning with all the noise coming from other rooms."

I'm pretty sure the "other room" she's referring to is mine, because my students were doing a really active group project that morning.

Now this is one of those situations that could easily turn into a bigger issue: I could pretend not to hear Tracy, since she wasn't directly addressing me, and just resent her for being passive aggressive. Quite possibly, I would shut myself into another teacher's room later and talk about Tracy behind her back.

Or I could get defensive and confront Tracy right there at the table, saying I didn't think my class was that noisy and maybe if she quit forcing her kids to sit still for 45 minutes, she'd have an easier time settling them down.

Okay I definitely wouldn't say that. I'm too much of a wimp. But I would think it.

A healthier, more productive approach would be to validate Tracy's concern.

Like I said, this isn't easy, but man, it could really make some significant changes in my relationship with Tracy. And the thing is, the main reason it isn't easy is because I'm preoccupied with defending myself, with being right. But if I can step back for just a moment and put myself in Tracy's shoes, to acknowledge that she really was frustrated, that I would probably have been frustrated, too, and that even though I didn't do it intentionally, I was partly to blame for this frustration, I can accept that and do something to repair it.

I could start by clarifying the situation, "Was the noise coming from my room?"

Assuming she says yes, I could say, "I'm so sorry. It's frustrating to try to get your kids focused when there are distractions."

That's all I'd really need to do. Tracy might not respond, or she might back off a little and add more information, maybe letting me know that the work she had students doing that day was admittedly kind of boring, or something along those lines. Regardless of what happens next, I've taken a step toward a better relationship with her, and a better understanding of how my actions impact others.

The Strength in Softening

Conflict with the people in our lives is inevitable. We want different things, we've had different life experiences. We just aren't going to see things the same way. Unfortunately, our natural instinct is to respond to these differences with rigidity, by pushing harder, protecting our own egos, digging in our heels. Some part of our brain tells us that this is the strong response.

But there can be a real strength in softening, in loosening our grip for a few minutes to take in some new information, to look at someone else's truth squarely in the eye and just let it into the room. It takes a lot more courage and self-control and self-confidence to do that. And almost every time, it softens the other person, too, opening them up to understanding you better.

That's when the real progress can begin. ♦

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Listen to this post as a podcast: Sponsored by Kiddom and mysimpleshow I have a multiple-choice question for you. Suppose you're standing at your classroom door, greeting students as they arrive. One of them-let's call him Gabe-comes through and sees that on the daily agenda, you've written "Choose topics for speeches."

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Listen to the interview with Connie Hamilton:
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It's pretty well known in educational circles that cooperative learning is supported by research, but so many teachers still struggle with it, so when things don't work well, they give it up. In my observations of thousands of teachers, I've noticed that sometimes the smallest tweak in instructional approaches reaps the biggest impact, and group work is no exception.

I've gathered some of the most common efforts among teachers everywhere that aren't met with the same amount of effort and success from their students, and for each one, I offer a small tweak that can make big improvements. Sometimes the tweak is a shift in semantics, other times it might be a slight change in how information is presented, and in some cases, it focuses on how teachers react when students lean on them to "help" instead of doing the heavy lifting themselves.

The instructional methods are sorted into six categories: grouping structures, giving directions, assigning roles, support during student collaboration, the teacher's primary role, and the learning tasks. In each of these six categories, look for examples that describe how you approach or respond to group work, then consider these suggestions for elevating the effectiveness of student collaboration while limiting or reducing the energy you contribute.

Grouping Structures

When determining how students will tackle a task, our options are to have students work independently, with a partner, or in a group. Be more intentional with how you make this key decision by considering some of the thoughtful decisions around structuring student work.

Common approach #1: Inviting students to work with a partner if or when they like
Tweak: Select when, how, and why tasks are individual vs. partner work.
While the goal for allowing students to work with a partner any time they choose is intended to send the message that we can always get help from peers, it doesn't leave room for purposefully designing a task with collaboration in mind. The interactions between students is often not much more than a quick check to see if they got the same answer, rather than communicating their thinking along the way. So when you assign partner work, do it with intention.

Common approach #2: Choosing partners or groups randomly
Tweak: Optimize interest, level, connection, skill, personality, etc. to determine groups.
It's OK to have random groupings once in a while, especially when a quick engagement strategy is needed. However, if groups are primarily student choice or random, we miss the opportunity to mindfully align students with others based on a variety of factors.

Try using Clock Partners to organize multiple pairings. Here's how it works: Students make "appointments" with different peers at specific times. Then, when the teacher announces they should join their 3:00 partner, the pairings are already predetermined. Only you know that the 12 o'clock partner is a reading buddy, while the 6 o'clock partner considers how introverted or extraverted students are.

Common Approach #3: Assigning the same group size to all students
Tweak: Design groups of different sizes if warranted.
When flexibility is warranted, allow for a blend of solo, partner, and group structures. It can be effective to have groups of 4 or 5, a couple of partners, and a few students working alone. Depending on the task, you can offer varying levels of challenge based on their group structure.

Giving Directions

How students engage in active learning usually has steps or at a minimum some guidance. Students come to expect teachers to be the beacon of information when it comes to describing exactly - and I mean every minute detail - of what they are supposed to do.

Common Approach #4: Reading directions to students
Tweak: Give them time to independently read and repeat to peers.
Instead of reading directions, or even having a single student read them to the entire class, give your learners time to read independently, then repeat or paraphrase them to a partner. If your students often disregard the directions, this small tweak will not only give them two exposures (once when they read and once when their partner repeats), but it also gives you a point of reference. You can easily refer them back to the directions if they are going rogue in a way that jeopardizes learning.

Common Approach #5: Giving multiple steps in a row
Tweak: Post steps for students to revisit as needed.
Working or short-term memory is taxed when multi-step directions are expected to be retained for future reference. Instead of requiring students to remember all the steps of a complex task, provide a visual with them clearly stated.

Common Approach #6: Answering questions about the task
Tweak: Refer them to the resources provided or prompt them to problem-solve.
When you have provided an opportunity for students to review the directions and have made them accessible for reference as needed, there's no need for you to answer questions that they can clarify without asking you. Try to build independence and responsibility by encouraging students to access other sources to get the information they seek.

One way to accomplish this is to respond to their question with a question that prompts reflection or metacognition (see examples above). Answering questions with a question bounces the responsibility off of you and back on to them.

Of course, what you say is as important as how you say it. Cynical or sarcastic tones, when posing questions, can break down your relationship with students. Be sure your questions are delivered in a positive and productive way that strives to encourage students to activate their empowerment.

Assigning Roles

As adults who have ample opportunities to practice effective communication skills, it can be easy to overlook the fact that students do not always know how to balance partner or group tasks or communicate with peers. These are critical soft skills that can be fostered when collaborative tasks have structure and students understand the various roles group members or partners play when working and learning together.

Common Approach #7: Not differentiating between partners or group members

Tweak: Start with A/B partners.

The easiest way to elevate your intentionality and make student collaboration more effective is to assign names for your partners. A/B, red/gold, peanut butter/jelly, it doesn't matter. This simple detail assigns a speaker and a listener and structures the conversation to ensure the speaker is heard and the listener understands. It's the basics of the communication cycle where the sender (speaker) sends a message and the receiver (listener) provides feedback about the message.

Common Approach #8: Assigning roles without practice or models

Tweak: Plan mini-lessons on how to fulfill roles.

Don't get overwhelmed by this tweak. Just start with one skill at a time. Offer a mini-lesson that clearly explains how a quality summarizer, questioner, or detective would perform their role. Include models that students can critique or reflect on their effectiveness. In a small group, assign one person to execute that role, then rotate it to another group member or partner for the second part of the task.

Eventually, you will have a list of roles like the ones above that students understand how to apply in their collaborative groups. The goal is for all students to have all the skills and be able to apply these soft skills fluidly without the need to be assigned a specific role.

Common Approach #9: Giving only "housekeeping" roles to some students

Tweak: Assign academic or cognitive roles to everyone.

Jobs like "materials manager" or "time keeper" might be necessary to support groups in their journey to successful learning, but students should not have the sole role of making sure everyone has a ruler and a pencil. Every learner should be assigned a cognitive role that contributes to the learning of the group and each individual in it. Then, if you want to assign housekeeping tasks, they are add-ons to the academic roles. So for example, your summarizer might also be responsible for returning supplies at the end of the lesson.

Supporting Learning

Facilitating effective group tasks is no easy feat. It requires careful thought and intentional planning. When you have gone through the time and effort to coordinate a quality collaborative learning task, resist the natural tendency to slip into a teacher-directed mode every time a student seeks your help.

Common Approach #10: Chasing hands
Tweak: Provide tools and resources in advance so your help isn't needed.
During collaborative learning, the goal is for students to learn from and with one another - not you. Students already know you're the safety net. Ideally, we provide other options - such as appropriate tools, access to a text, sufficient or additional time, and opportunity to collaborate - that help them persevere through productive struggle before asking you for help. So for goodness sake, don't front load an invitation to seek you out at the first sign of difficulty by announcing, "If you need help, just raise your hand and I'll come over." Just think for a moment what this communicates and encourages.

Common Approach #11: Allowing individuals to ask the teacher questions
Tweak: Require students to access all resources, including other group members, before asking you.
When groups are truly working together, they tap into each other's expertise, knowledge, and thoughts. If an individual partner or group member has a question, do some investigation to make sure the other group members have been included in problem-solving before you were sought out. A simple question such as, "What have you tried so far?" will initiate conversation about potential options and could lead to an "aha" moment without your help.

Common Approach #12: Reteaching rather than systematically scaffolding
Tweak: Use prompting strategies to help learners help themselves.
During lessons, teachers are constantly checking for understanding through structured or casual formative assessments. When a red flag comes up indicating that learners have misconceptions, are struggling, or simply haven't met the target, it's natural to have an urge to support them. Rather than revisit a lesson to reinforce a concept or skill, trigger problem-solving by giving metacognitive prompts. Before repeating the key points of a lesson, try asking questions like What strategy might work?, Where have you seen a similar problem?, or How are you going to tackle this? These types of questions trigger students to think about the knowledge they already have, then apply it. When you jump to reteaching, you skip the opportunity for students to lead their own success.

Teacher's Primary Role

A collaborative learning structure positions students in the center of their learning. By design, the intent is for the teacher to take a passive role, seemingly invisible. It's often our nature to uncloak too soon and flip the lesson to be more teacher-centered during small chunks of time without even realizing it.

Common Approach #13: Spending your time answering questions and helping during group work
Tweak: Observe and gather anecdotal data while students are working.
Your primary role is to listen and watch as students build their learning. This is sometimes a mindshift that is hard to make and even more challenging to maintain. Carry a clipboard or tablet to document what students are grasping, what is challenging, and who has provided evidence of learning. Not only will your noticings be valuable assessment data, but you will be more aware of when you are pulled away from your task to assist students in doing theirs.

Common Approach #14: "Checking" in with groups
Tweak: Do not interrupt.
The gradual release of responsibility (GRR) is often referred to by its "I do, We Do, You Do" parts. Every time you approach a group and ask them how it's going, you effectively jolt them from the "You Do" part into the "We Do" phase of GRR. Unless you have a need to abruptly stop their learning progress and have them repeat what they've already done or learned, don't. Stay invisible by listening from a short distance to hear and observe how students are doing rather than interrupting them.

Learning Tasks

Learning targets, learning intentions, lesson objectives, or whatever you label as the purpose for the lesson, are almost always linked to content expectations. They communicate what students should know and be able to do in math, music, writing, and so on. When students have clarity on the learning target, it is much easier for them to work toward that goal. When teachers hold that level of clarity, instructional decisions during the lesson are intentional and therefore, more successful.

Common Approach #15: Grading a single project or assignment for all group members
Tweak: Learn collaboratively and assess individually.
I have been involved in countless conversations about group grading practices during collaborative learning. The research that supports collaborative learning applies to individual learners, not the group as a whole. The act of engaging with other learners while you're learning not only deepens the learning, but makes it more likely for students to remember it. However, group grades do not reflect how each student stacks up against the target. Activities that involve groups working together should be followed by individual assessment to gather accurate data about what each student took away from their group learning task.

Common Approach #16: Grouping students for simple tasks
Tweak: Design group work for complex tasks that require multiple thinkers.
Just because there is evidence that group work and student collaboration supports learning, doesn't mean it's always the best fit for every lesson and learning task. When a planned activity is simple and students are capable of completing it independently, you run the risk they will devalue working with their peers, regardless of the task, because they believe they don't need their peers. Select a collaborative structure when a variety of thoughts and ideas will benefit each individual's learning. Remember, group or partner work is more than just sharing the load to complete a task. Collaboration should offer a perspective or experience that single students would not have without their classmates.

Common Approach #17: Basing feedback solely on content
Tweak: Notice and assess speaking and listening skills.
Soft skills like problem solving, respectful listening, patience, articulating thinking, and many more are qualities educators and families expect students to exhibit. But too often, we don't necessarily give these skills attention unless they're exceptional or lacking. Instead of isolating your feedback solely on what students learn within your content area, pick a speaking and listening skill and include comments about how it is helping or hindering their group's effectiveness.

If you recognize one of these common approaches to group work in your own teaching style, give it a tweak and pay attention to the impact your subtle change makes on the effectiveness of group work.

Hacking Group Work is available on Amazon and Bookshop.org.

Come back for more.
Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined-come on in.

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17 Tweaks That Make a Big Difference in Group Work

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Cooperative learning can be a powerful learning strategy, but only if it works well. These small changes can make group work more effective in your classroom.

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Retrieval practice is a mental struggle ( a "desirable difficulty" for long-term learning), which means it can also be frustrating. Contrary to what your students might feel, there is always something they can retrieve. Here are 4 steps you can take to scaffold an in-class retrieval practice activity:

1. Remind students that we all need time to think. A reminder for you and your students: the mental struggle during retrieval practice is good for learning, whereas easy learning is easy forgetting. Telling students to "try harder" isn't going to help. Validate that retrieval is hard, remind them that taking a "mental moment" will boost their long-term learning, and don't skip the think step during think-pair-share.

2. Encourage students to sit with the struggle a little longer. We have the natural temptation to jump in and help students as soon as they struggle, but this is a disservice to them and their learning. Instead, give students a clear instruction to try for another minute, and use a clock or timer to make sure you give them the full minute. (I'm a fan of radial timers .)

3. Emphasize that silence is golden. It'll feel awkward for you and your students to sit in complete silence during step #2. We have an ingrained belief that students must be talking in order to be engaged. Quite the contrary! We think best and engage in learning when there aren't distractions (some of my students close their eyes to help them think). Plus, once your students experience a minute of silent retrieval practice, you'll be surprised by how quickly they get used to it and then ask for more silent time to retrieve.

4. Give your students a retrieval cue. A retrieval cue isn't necessarily a hint, but a reminder that might lead to that "ah ha!" feeling when something comes to mind. For example, I asked my students to retrieve what they learned when we discussed implicit bias a few weeks ago. If they draw a blank, a retrieval cue I provide is "reliability and validity." That "cues" their memory without giving them a direct hint (we discussed the implicit association test). In the same way, if you ask students to retrieve what they learned in class and they can't remember, give them a one-word or two-word cue. Avoid the temptation to give students the answer.

What should you do when some students retrieve more quickly than other students? Ask them to retrieve more! If you had your students retrieve , ask the students who finished first to add one or more new things to their list.

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What should you do when your students can't retrieve anything? - Retrieval Practice

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Do your students' minds go blank during an in-class retrieval practice activity? Here are 4 steps you can take to help your students retrieve something.

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With a tightly-packed teaching schedule, how do you find the time to address the needs of all students? In my time as an elementary teacher, I've found that small-group instruction is a surefire way to carve out time for individualized instruction in my classroom. Through small-group instruction, I'm able to address my students' needs through focused and targeted lessons that help them confidently master new concepts and skills.

In this article I'll explore the benefits of small-group instruction and focus on small-group instruction for the English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. I will also make note of strategies for grouping students, tips for classroom management, steps for implementation, and best practices for small group. I've even included a lesson plan template for small-group instruction to support you in implementing this powerful teaching approach in your classroom.

What Is Small-Group Instruction?

In small-group instruction, the classroom teacher pulls a small number of students aside to teach a particular skill or concept. The group size can range from two to six students. The teacher will bring students to an area in the class designated for small-group instruction. Typically, teachers will seat students at the teacher table, which may be a kidney-shaped table where the teacher sits at the center of the table while the students are seated around the table. In this area, the teacher might have manipulatives and instructional tools, like pointers or dry erase boards, readily accessible to use during a small-group lesson. The image below shows a possible small-group area set up.

As the teacher is leading the small-group instruction, the rest of the class is engaged in independent work or centers. A small-group lesson can be anywhere between 15-45 minutes long depending on grade level and students' needs. Small-group instruction usually takes place after whole-group instruction. A teacher can meet with multiple small groups in a day and have the small-group instruction be part of the daily center rotation. Small-group instruction can be implemented during the ELA block as well as during other subject areas, like math. In some instances, small-group instruction may serve as Tier 2 intervention in the RTI process.

Note, having students engage in group work is not the same as small-group instruction. During group work, students are working collaboratively while the teacher oversees the activity. Small-group instruction, however, is teacher led and directed.

How Does Small-Group Instruction Help Students and Teacher

The structure of a small group provides more opportunities for differentiated instruction, therefore offering numerous benefits to both students and teachers.

For students, small-group instruction can be a confidence booster. During a whole-group lesson, some students may feel intimated to share a thought or ask a question, especially if they aren't understanding the concept at hand. A small-group setting can make students feel more at ease to participate.

Small-group instruction allows teachers to observe and work with students more closely. Due to the smaller teacher-student ratio, teachers have more time to evaluate strengths and challenges and provide tailored lessons to meet students' needs. Additionally, small-group instruction makes it possible for teachers to pre-teach and reteach concepts or skills, plus provide extra practice to students who need it.

How to Group Students for Small-Group Instruction

When planning small-group instruction, you might be thinking "How should I group my students?" For grouping students in the ELA block, I use literacy assessments for phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, or reading comprehension to identify students' specific literacy needs. Form flexible and fluid small groups based on formative and summative assessment data, grouping students based on academic interest or needs. But allow students to move in and out of these groups using observational data from your lessons as well. Some students may be focused on word recognition skills like phonemic awareness or phonics, while others are working on becoming more fluent with these skills. Your more advanced readers may be working on vocabulary and reading comprehension.

When determining where to place students in small groups, identify what students need and create goals by thinking about how students progress in the following areas, which are ordered in the process of how students learn to read:

Tips for Classroom Management During Small-Group Instruction

Effective small-group instruction calls for effective classroom management. Consider the following classroom management tips when implementing small-group instruction in your class.

Set a Schedule

Create a schedule that supports differentiation in the classroom. You want to make time for both whole- and small-group instruction. Allocating time and resources for small-group instruction is an obstacle for many teachers, and by building a schedule with time built in for grade-level whole-group instruction, and opportunities for differentiated small-group instruction, you are setting yourself up for success. Generally, elementary ELA classrooms have anywhere between 90-120 minutes for ELA instruction. Below are sample schedules to use with HMH Into Reading that support ample time for whole-group and small-group instruction, as well as time for students to work independently and collaboratively. Remember that being flexible with timing is important as some days a specific instructional component may warrant more time and attention.

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How to Implement Small-Group Instruction in the Classroom

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An elementary educator and HMH Ambassador shares tips and resources on how to implement small-group instruction in the classroom, including a downloadable small-group lesson plan template.

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Let's begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time. Everyone in this room is in one way or another aware of that. We are in a revolutionary situation, no matter how unpopular that word has become in this country. The society in which we live is desperately menaced, not by Khrushchev, but from within. To any citizen of this country who figures himself as responsible - and particularly those of you who deal with the minds and hearts of young people - must be prepared to "go for broke." Or to put it another way, you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance. There is no point in pretending that this won't happen.

Since I am talking to schoolteachers and I am not a teacher myself, and in some ways am fairly easily intimidated, I beg you to let me leave that and go back to what I think to be the entire purpose of education in the first place. It would seem to me that when a child is born, if I'm the child's parent, it is my obligation and my high duty to civilize that child. Man is a social animal. He cannot exist without a society. A society, in turn, depends on certain things which everyone within that society takes for granted. Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of the Third Reich, became barbarians. The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it - at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change.

Now, if what I have tried to sketch has any validity, it becomes thoroughly clear, at least to me, that any Negro who is born in this country and undergoes the American educational system runs the risk of becoming schizophrenic. On the one hand he is born in the shadow of the stars and stripes and he is assured it represents a nation which has never lost a war. He pledges allegiance to that flag which guarantees "liberty and justice for all." He is part of a country in which anyone can become president, and so forth. But on the other hand he is also assured by his country and his countrymen that he has never contributed anything to civilization-that his past is nothing more than a record of humiliations gladly endured. He is assumed by the republic that he, his father, his mother, and his ancestors were happy, shiftless, watermelon-eating darkies who loved Mr. Charlie and Miss Ann, that the value he has as a black man is proven by one thing only - his devotion to white people. If you think I am exaggerating, examine the myths which proliferate in this country about Negroes.

All this enters the child's consciousness much sooner than we as adults would like to think it does. As adults, we are easily fooled because we are so anxious to be fooled. But children are very different. Children, not yet aware that it is dangerous to look too deeply at anything, look at everything, look at each other, and draw their own conclusions. They don't have the vocabulary to express what they see, and we, their elders, know how to intimidate them very easily and very soon. But a black child, looking at the world around him, though he cannot know quite what to make of it, is aware that there is a reason why his mother works so hard, why his father is always on edge. He is aware that there is some reason why, if he sits down in the front of the bus, his father or mother slaps him and drags him to the back of the bus. He is aware that there is some terrible weight on his parents' shoulders which menaces him. And it isn't long - in fact it begins when he is in school - before he discovers the shape of his oppression.

Let us say that the child is seven years old and I am his father, and I decide to take him to the zoo, or to Madison Square Garden, or to the U.N. Building, or to any of the tremendous monuments we find all over New York. We get into a bus and we go from where I live on 131st Street and Seventh Avenue downtown through the park and we get in New York City, which is not Harlem. Now, where the boy lives - even if it is a housing project - is in an undesirable neighborhood. If he lives in one of those housing projects of which everyone in New York is so proud, he has at the front door, if not closer, the pimps, the whores, the junkies - in a word, the danger of life in the ghetto. And the child knows this, though he doesn't know why.

I still remember my first sight of New York. It was really another city when I was born - where I was born. We looked down over the Park Avenue streetcar tracks. It was Park Avenue, but I didn't know what Park Avenue meant downtown. The Park Avenue I grew up on, which is still standing, is dark and dirty. No one would dream of opening a Tiffany's on that Park Avenue, and when you go downtown you discover that you are literally in the white world. It is rich - or at least it looks rich. It is clean - because they collect garbage downtown. There are doormen. People walk about as though they owned where they are - and indeed they do. And it's a great shock. It's very hard to relate yourself to this. You don't know what it means. You know - you know instinctively - that none of this is for you. You know this before you are told. And who is it for and who is paying for it? And why isn't it for you?

Later on when you become a grocery boy or messenger and you try to enter one of those buildings a man says, "Go to the back door." Still later, if you happen by some odd chance to have a friend in one of those buildings, the man says, "Where's your package?" Now this by no means is the core of the matter. What I'm trying to get at is that by the time the Negro child has had, effectively, almost all the doors of opportunity slammed in his face, and there are very few things he can do about it. He can more or less accept it with an absolutely inarticulate and dangerous rage inside - all the more dangerous because it is never expressed. It is precisely those silent people whom white people see every day of their lives - I mean your porter and your maid, who never say anything more than "Yes Sir" and "No, Ma'am." They will tell you it's raining if that is what you want to hear, and they will tell you the sun is shining if that is what you want to hear. They really hate you-really hate you because in their eyes (and they're right) you stand between them and life. I want to come back to that in a moment. It is the most sinister of the facts, I think, which we now face.

There is something else the Negro child can do, to. Every street boy - and I was a street boy, so I know - looking at the society which has produced him, looking at the standards of that society which are not honored by anybody, looking at your churches and the government and the politicians, understand that this structure is operated for someone else's benefit - not for his. And there's no reason in it for him. If he is really cunning, really ruthless, really strong - and many of us are - he becomes a kind of criminal. He becomes a kind of criminal because that's the only way he can live. Harlem and every ghetto in this city - every ghetto in this country - is full of people who live outside the law. They wouldn't dream of calling a policeman. They wouldn't, for a moment, listen to any of those professions of which we are so proud on the Fourth of July. They have turned away from this country forever and totally. They live by their wits and really long to see the day when the entire structure comes down.

The point of all this is that black men were brought here as a source of cheap labor. They were indispensable to the economy. In order to justify the fact that men were treated as though they were animals, the white republic had to brainwash itself into believing that they were, indeed, animals and deserved to be treated like animals. Therefor it is almost impossible for any Negro child to discover anything about his actual history. The reason is that this "animal," once he suspects his own worth, once he starts believing that he is a man, has begun to attack the entire power structure. This is why America has spent such a long time keeping the Negro in his place. What I am trying to suggest to you is that it was not an accident, it was not an act of God, it was not done by well-meaning people muddling into something which they didn't understand. It was a deliberate policy hammered into place in order to make money from black flesh. And now, in 1963, because we have never faced this fact, we are in intolerable trouble.

The Reconstruction, as I read the evidence, was a bargain between the North and South to this effect: "We've liberated them from the land - and delivered them to the bosses." When we left Mississippi to come North we did not come to freedom. We came to the bottom of the labor market, and we are still there. Even the Depression of the 1930s failed to make a dent in Negroes' relationship to white workers in the labor unions. Even today, so brainwashed is this republic that people seriously ask in what they suppose to be good faith, "What does the Negro want?" I've heard a great many asinine questions in my life, but that is perhaps the most asinine and perhaps the most insulting. But the point here is that people who ask that question, thinking that they ask it in good faith, are really the victims of this conspiracy to make Negroes believe they are less than human.

In order for me to live, I decided very early that some mistake had been made somewhere. I was not a "nigger" even though you called me one. But if I was a "nigger" in your eyes, there was something about you - there was something you needed. I had to realize when I was very young that I was none of those things I was told I was. I was not, for example, happy. I never touched a watermelon for all kinds of reasons that had been invented by white people, and I knew enough about life by this time to understand that whatever you invent, whatever you project, is you! So where we are now is that a whole country of people believe I'm a "nigger," and I don't, and the battle's on! Because if I am not what I've been told I am, then it means that you're not what you thought you were either! And that is the crisis.

It is not really a "Negro revolution" that is upsetting the country. What is upsetting the country is a sense of its own identity. If, for example, one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you'd be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history. And the reason is that if you are compelled to lie about one aspect of anybody's history, you must lie about it all. If you have to lie about my real role here, if you have to pretend that I hoed all that cotton just because I loved you, then you have done something to yourself. You are mad.

Now let's go back a minute. I talked earlier about those silent people - the porter and the maid - who, as I said, don't look up at the sky if you ask them if it is raining, but look into your face. My ancestors and I were very well-trained. We understood very early that this was not a Christian nation. It didn't matter what you said or how often you went to church. My father and my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother knew that Christians didn't act this way. It was a simple as that. And if that was so there was no point in dealing with white people in terms of their own moral professions, for they were not going to honor them. What one did was to turn away, smiling all the time, and tell white people what they wanted to hear. But people always accuse you of reckless talk when you say this.

All this means that there are in this country tremendous reservoirs of bitterness which have never been able to find an outlet, but may find an outlet soon. It means that well-meaning white liberals place themselves in great danger when they try to deal with Negroes as though they were missionaries. It means, in brief, that a great price is demanded to liberate all those silent people so that they can breathe for the first time and tell you what they think of you. And a price is demanded to liberate all those white children - some of them near forty - who have never grown up, and who never will grow up, because they have no sense of their identity.

What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people really appear to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn't stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. That's all. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts. Those who were making it in England, for example, did not get on the Mayflower. That's how the country was settled. Not by Gary Cooper. Yet we have a whole race of people, a whole republic, who believe the myths to the point where even today they select political representatives, as far as I can tell, by how closely they resemble Gary Cooper. Now this is dangerously infantile, and it shows in every level of national life. When I was living in Europe, for example, one of the worst revelations to me was the way Americans walked around Europe buying this and buying that and insulting everybody - not even out of malice, just because they didn't know any better. Well, that is the way they have always treated me. They weren't cruel; they just didn't know you were alive. They didn't know you had any feelings.

What I am trying to suggest here is that in the doing of all this for 100 years or more, it is the American white man who has long since lost his grip on reality. In some peculiar way, having created this myth about Negroes, and the myth about his own history, he created myths about the world so that, for example, he was astounded that some people could prefer Castro, astounded that there are people in the world who don't go into hiding when they hear the word "Communism," astounded that Communism is one of the realities of the twentieth century which we will not overcome by pretending that it does not exist. The political level in this country now, on the part of people who should know better, is abysmal.

The Bible says somewhere that where there is no vision the people perish. I don't think anyone can doubt that in this country today we are menaced - intolerably menaced - by a lack of vision.

It is inconceivable that a sovereign people should continue, as we do so abjectly, to say, "I can't do anything about it. It's the government." The government is the creation of the people. It is responsible to the people. And the people are responsible for it. No American has the right to allow the present government to say, when Negro children are being bombed and hosed and shot and beaten all over the Deep South, that there is nothing we can do about it. There must have been a day in this country's life when the bombing of the children in Sunday School would have created a public uproar and endangered the life of a Governor Wallace. It happened here and there was no public uproar.

I began by saying that one of the paradoxes of education was that precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person. And on the basis of the evidence - the moral and political evidence - one is compelled to say that this is a backward society. Now if I were a teacher in this school, or any Negro school, and I was dealing with Negro children, who were in my care only a few hours of every day and would then return to their homes and to the streets, children who have an apprehension of their future which with every hour grows grimmer and darker, I would try to teach them - I would try to make them know - that those streets, those houses, those dangers, those agonies by which they are surrounded, are criminal. I would try to make each child know that these things are the result of a criminal conspiracy to destroy him. I would teach him that if he intends to get to be a man, he must at once decide that his is stronger than this conspiracy and they he must never make his peace with it. And that one of his weapons for refusing to make his peace with it and for destroying it depends on what he decides he is worth. I would teach him that there are currently very few standards in this country which are worth a man's respect. That it is up to him to change these standards for the sake of the life and the health of the country. I would suggest to him that the popular culture - as represented, for example, on television and in comic books and in movies - is based on fantasies created by very ill people, and he must be aware that these are fantasies that have nothing to do with reality. I would teach him that the press he reads is not as free as it says it is - and that he can do something about that, too. I would try to make him know that just as American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it, so is the world larger, more daring, more beautiful and more terrible, but principally larger - and that it belongs to him. I would teach him that he doesn't have to be bound by the expediencies of any given administration, any given policy, any given morality; that he has the right and the necessity to examine everything. I would try to show him that one has not learned anything about Castro when one says, "He is a Communist." This is a way of his not learning something about Castro, something about Cuba, something, in time, about the world. I would suggest to him that his is living, at the moment, in an enormous province. America is not the world and if America is going to become a nation, she must find a way - and this child must help her to find a way to use the tremendous potential and tremendous energy which this child represents. If this country does not find a way to use that energy, it will be destroyed by that energy.

Delivered on October 16, 1963, as "The Negro Child-His Self-Image ", published in The Saturday Review, December 21, 1963, reprinted in The Price of the Ticket, Collected Non-Fiction 1948-1985, Saint Martins 1985.

James Baldwin (Aug. 2, 1924 - Dec. 1, 1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.

Born in Harlem, Baldwin was a "witness to the truth" about racism and homophobia through his novels, plays, essays, and poetry including Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Notes of a Native Son (1955), Giovanni's Room (1956), Nobody Knows My Name (1961), Another Country (1962), The Fire Next Time (1963), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), and The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985). Baldwin was active as a writer, speaker, and ally of the southern Civil Rights Movement. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Freedom Day in Selma in 1963, and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March.

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A Talk to Teachers - Zinn Education Project

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Article. By James Baldwin. October 16, 1963. Baldwin addresses the challenges of education to prepare children to grapple with the myths and realities of U.S. history.

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Unpacking Trauma-Informed Teaching | Cult of Pedagogy

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What does it look like in practice, how do some approaches miss the mark, and how can any teacher get started?

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Listen to my interview with Michael Linsin here or read a full transcript.

When I was a teacher, classroom management was not my strongest suit. I relied heavily on forming good relationships with my students, thereby preventing misbehavior. This worked about 90 percent of the time; I really didn't have a whole lot of behavior problems. Unfortunately, the way I dealt with that other 10 percent was rather haphazard: Far too often, I defaulted to the "Wait till there's a problem, then react" mode.

If I had known about Michael Linsin back then, if I'd had access to the stockpiles of advice he shares on his website, Smart Classroom Management , I would have done things differently.

For you, though, it's not too late. If you haven't already discovered Michael Linsin or Smart Classroom Management, this will be a good day for you. Because a few weeks ago, Michael and I spent close to an hour talking on Skype. I asked him to share his advice for teachers implementing a classroom management plan for the school year.

For those who want the quick version, I have pulled the four most important points he made-four keys to setting up and implementing a classroom management plan so that it really works-and summarized them here.

My biggest classroom management mistake was that "wait and see" mentality I mentioned before. I never really had a clear plan, and I don't remember ever giving more than a few minutes to explaining my rules and procedures to students. Honestly, I didn't want them to think I was mean, or boring, or lame. I wanted to talk about the good stuff on day 1, not bog students down with a bunch of negativity.

And year after year, that bit me in the butt. It's not that I had badly behaved students, but my lack of clear structure made my job way harder than it had to be. If I'd set up and communicated a clear behavior plan at the beginning of each year, I know I would have enjoyed teaching a lot more.

A classroom management plan should not be complicated. All you need are rules and consequences.

Classroom Rules

Linsin recommends creating a short, simple list of rules. "It's important just to think about how you can protect your students' right to learn and also protect your freedom to teach. You want to think about all those behaviors from your experience that are interfering with those two goals, and you create a set of rules as boundaries that protect that freedom."

In his basic classroom management plan , Linsin recommends including the following rules:

1. Listen and follow directions.

2. Raise your hand before speaking or leaving your seat.

3. Keep your hands and feet to yourself.

4. Respect your classmates and your teacher.

Now I'll tell you this: I have always had my doubts about simple lists like this, because I felt they were way too open to interpretation (and misinterpretation). Too much gray area. But that's because I didn't understand how to effectively implement a simple list of rules. Now I do, and I'm going to get into that in Key 2. But first, the consequences.

Classroom Consequences

To accompany the simple list of classroom rules, Linsin recommends a short sequence of consequences for breaking the rules:

1. Warning

2. Time-out

3. Letter home

Linsin acknowledges that these rules and consequences are pretty standard, and he does not insist that all teachers stick to his specific choices. "There is no magic in the rules and consequences themselves," he says. "It's how you present them and then how you fulfill them."

That's where the magic starts to happen.

This is not the same as "going over" the rules. That's just reading off a list and basically telling students what you expect. While that's better than nothing, it isn't enough. If you want students to really understand exactly how they should behave and exactly what will happen if they don't, you need to teach your behavior plan as you would any other piece of content. The bulk of this, Linsin says, can be accomplished through detailed modeling of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors.

"Model those rules so there are no misunderstandings about what they mean, and what behaviors they cover. You would model from your perspective as the teacher and as a student, so you may be sitting in a student's chair with the students surrounding you showing them precisely how to raise their hands."

Linsin urges teachers to be excruciatingly specific in this modeling. "The more detailed you are, even to a ridiculous degree," he says, "the more effective and powerful it is. I may show them the actual bend in the elbow of how to raise their hand, the finger placement..."

And after you model the behavior, have the students model it back for you. "You may have the whole class showing you how to raise their hand, how to get up to get a tissue. You may have one model, and then you'll have five model, and then you'll have them all model at the same time."

Although this kind of detailed teaching takes time at the beginning of the year, it ultimately saves you time and frustration later. And it may not be necessary to teach ALL the rules on the very first day. "Let's say you have time to only model one rule," Linsin says. "If you model it in a highly detailed way, it transfers. They begin to understand that you're going to expect that with everything. The first routine you teach of the year, you want to teach the heck out of it, to a remarkable, ridiculous level, because you're not so much teaching the routine, you're teaching how to do things the right way. You're teaching excellence. You're setting the tone of 'This is how we do it here. We do things the right way, and we pursue excellence in everything we do.'"

When it's time to enforce your rules and consequences, establish some professional distance between you and your students. Execute your plan without getting emotional about it. Linsin advises teachers to be "incredibly personable with the students, and build really close relationships, but when it comes to classroom management, you're an unfeeling robot almost. Or a referee on a football field. You call them like you see them."

For a lot of teachers, this is easier said than done. I know it was for me. When students misbehaved, I did kind of take it personally. My heart believed that if they respected me, if they cared about me, then they wouldn't talk when I was talking, they wouldn't fool around when they were supposed to be doing something else. It upset me, and I'm sure that showed on my face and in my voice. It added an extra layer of tension and compounded the problem, making the interaction more about the student and me than about the behavior.

It would be far more effective for teachers to train themselves to perceive misbehavior the way Linsin does.

"It's not me," he tells himself. "It's a choice they're making, and there's a consequence for that choice. I'm not going to take it personally. I'm not going to feel like that student is doing that because of me."

He urges teachers to treat infractions quickly and with no emotion. "I believe in never lecturing, scolding, any of that kind of stuff, because every time you do it, it just makes managing your classroom more difficult."

Although making sure students have razor-sharp clarity of your behavior plan is essential, it's just as important to make students want to be in your class.

"You have to sell your program," Linsin explains. "My number one goal is not that at the end of the day that they know the rules and consequences. It's that they're happy and excited to be part of the class. That they run home to their parents and say, 'Oh my gosh. I have the best teacher. I have this awesome class. We're going to do this and that this year. It's going to be great.' Because that's what's going to give you the leverage. The classroom management secret is to create a classroom that students love being a part of."

So spend lots of time that first day getting students excited about the year, about the learning they're going to do and the community they will create. "The idea of classroom management, of my website, is not just to get through the day," Linsin says. "It's to create an experience those students will remember for a lifetime ." ♦

Michael Linsin is the author of several books on Classroom Management: Dream Class , The Classroom Management Secret , and The Happy Teacher Habits *. His most recent publication is an e-book, The Smart Classroom Management Plan For High School Teachers .

* Some of these are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I get a small commission from Amazon at no extra cost to you.

There's a lot more where this came from.
Join the Cult of Pedagogy mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to my members-only library of free downloadable resources, including my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, which has helped thousands of teachers spend less time grading. If you are already a subscriber and want this resource, just check your most recent email for a link to the Members-Only Library-it's in there!

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Classroom Management: 4 Keys to Starting the Year off Right

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How to set up and implement a classroom behavior plan that really works, with advice from Smart Classroom Management's Michael Linsin.

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Effective small group instruction is a key component to student success, particularly in the early elementary years (ages 3-8). Research shows students are 66% more likely to participate in a small group setting, rather than whole group. So, why are many teachers unable to lead effective small group instruction on a daily basis?

Overwhelmed with Teaching Small Groups?

Running effective small groups can be so overwhelming! There are so many things teachers want to squeeze in, only to finish an activity or two and realize the time is up with that group of students. Sound familiar? You have the best laid plans for effective small group instruction but, as is a daily occurrence in teaching, nothing goes according to plan. Kids are interrupting you, the class needs help with an independent task, you're not sure where your whiteboard ended up...the roadblocks to effective small group instruction keep popping up. So, you just don't do it.

That's where I can help. It took me years to master small group instruction in my classroom. Long nights awake reading, weeks practicing different techniques. You name it, I tried it. Now, I have the data to prove my small group instruction is effective, and I'm here to share it with you.

What Is Small Group Instruction?

Many wonder what is small group instruction. Barbara Wasik defined small group instruction as any instruction where a teacher is working with 5 students are fewer. While it is important to keep the number of students in a single group in mind, it is important to look at other factors when creating your groups. To lead effective small group instruction, your groups should be based on the target skill, rather than any other criteria. If you have more than 5 students needing that skill, strongly consider adding a whole group lesson or activity to reteach that particular area.

Benefits of Small Group Instruction

The benefits of effective4 small group instruction are numerous. Meeting with small groups of students allows teachers to easily clear misunderstandings, gather accurate data, and improve the overall quality and accessibility of instruction - all while increasing student participation! Effective small group instruction targets singular skills while promoting discussion and exploration among students, both which are key components in content mastery.

Strategy 1: Keep Your Small Group Instruction Short

The biggest mistake teachers make when leading their small groups is trying to do too much and keep the kids for too long. The ideal length of a small group session for grades K to 2 is 10 to 15 minutes at the ideal time for grades 3 to 5 is no more than 30 minutes.

To have effective small group differentiated instruction, your lessons should be short and targeted. Planning before you meet with your small group goes a long way. Have your materials close by and a clear vision of what you want to accomplish.

Strategy 2: Target A Single Skill in your small groups

How do you pick which skill is most important? If you can't fit it all in you'll need to make some decisions. Let data drive these decisions. Before starting small group instruction, you can perform skill based assessments while collecting anecdotal evidence. Take some time to review what you've learned. What are your children struggling with? That should be the main focus of the instruction.

Remember: to have effective small group instruction, children should be based on target skill. It can be helpful to create a chart with each skill you've assessed and your students names. By highlighting or circling the skill they are struggling with you can easily see which students should be placed in a group together.

Strategy 3: Establish A Routine for Your Small Group instruction

To get the most out of your small group instruction it is important to plan ahead and follow a set routine. The most effective small group sessions have one main focus and generally three to four activities. The model of introduce/review, practice, assess is a great routine to follow.

Generally, the review should be quick (2-3 minutes) and tie into the main lesson. If you are teaching sight words, review words students previously have mastered or review letter sounds that will be featured in the words you are teaching. This is also a great time to collect some data!

The teach portion of your small group lesson should be the longest, to be the most effective. Generally, you should have the students practice the skills three ways: auditory, visually, and kinesthetically (movement). When working with a new sound, you can have your students identify when they hear the sound or see the sound, and finally have them write the sound.

To wrap up your small group instruction, you should do a quick data collection based on your target skill. Are your students able to identify the word? Write the word? Read it in a sentence? Be sure to determine what you will assess before you begin your small group. This will help ensure your small group instruction is as effective as possible.

To make your small group instruction effective it is important to: perform skill based assessments, plan no more than three activities, and follow a predictable routine day to day.

Strategy 4: Collect Data Often

A key strategy for effective small group instruction is to collect data. Data is king! Without data, you cannot plan for your small group instruction. With your data you will determine skills, grouping, and instruction.

What data to you need to collect? For the most effective small group instruction, you need to collect data for each subject area. Generally, these assessments are given towards the beginning of the year so you can determine the best skills to target in your small groups.

For each subject, you may want to start with an assessment that gives you a strong picture of skills students are expected to have at the beginning of the year. This may look like a phonics assessment, a number ID, or writing prompt depending on your grade level. After you have completed the beginning of year assessment, you can give one with end of year expectations. This will help you target your small group instruction for all students - regardless of where they are academically.

After you've started your small group instruction, you can ensure it is effective with constant data collection. Checklists, anecdotal notes - whatever works for you! Ensure your students are growing and learning with ongoing assessment. You may also want to give a more formal assessment every other week to get a better gauge on your students skills.

Strategy 5: Evaluate & Adapt

As with any good system, the last strategy for effective small group instruction is to be reflective on your systems. Are your students engaged? How can you tell? Are your students making progress? What data supports that? What is the best thing about your small group instruction? Where could you make improvements.

As you evaluate your current small group instruction, use this FREE guide as a way to think about how you could make your instruction even more effective.

What is your biggest challenge when creating and implementing effective small group instruction? Comment below!

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Effective Small Group Instruction - Simply B Teaching

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Learn strategies to improve your effective small group instruction! Simple and easy to implement, these tips will help your students achieve success!

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Nice White Parents is about attempts to integrate our public schools and how white parents who say they want integration and diversity often become obstacles to true racial equity. Joffe-Walt is a reporter and producer for This American Life.

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TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Hello again. This is the first time I've hosted our show since Labor Day while I've been tending to a family health crisis. I'm deeply grateful to my on-air partner Dave Davies for hosting the show while I've been gone, to our book interview producer Sam Briger, who also stepped up to record some great interviews and to everyone else on our team who has protected me from having to think about anything but family. And thanks to our listeners who have expressed concern and support. It will probably be a few more days before I'm back full time, but it's great to be back to work.

And now onto today's show - you probably know my guest Chana Joffe-Walt from her work as a producer and reporter on "This American Life." Now that protests against the police killings and beatings of Black men and women have led to a new chapter in the American conversation about racial justice and racial inequity, Joffe-Walt has a five-part podcast about why there's still so much racial inequity in our public school system. She says in previous reporting, she'd looked at some of the many programs and reforms we've tried to fix our schools - like standardized tests and charter schools, smaller classes, longer school days, stricter discipline, looser discipline. Her series focuses on the problems caused by white parents - white parents who say they want their kids to go to schools with diversity. That's why her series is called "Nice White Parents." It's the latest season of "Serial."

Along with Nikole Hannah-Jones, Joffe-Walt won a Peabody Award for their 2015 reporting on "This American Life" on education and school segregation. Her "This American Life" episode Five Women focused on one man accused of sexual harassment by examining his behavior from the point of view of five women. Her current podcast, "Nice White Parents," focuses on a middle and high school that was formerly known as the School for International Studies in the gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood Cobble Hill. Before gentrification, the students were Black and brown kids from poor and working-class families. When white parents started sending their kids to the school, Joffe-Walt found the school's priorities changed to suit the needs of the white kids from homes with more money. Some white parents and students thought that a bad school was being made better by their presence. It's a point Joffe-Walt makes in the first episode of "Nice White Parents" while she's taking us on a tour of the school.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "NICE WHITE PARENTS")

CHANA JOFFE-WALT: And down in the library, I met three sixth-grade boys - white boys new to SIS. They're sweaty from playing soccer and looking very small against their huge backpacks. These boys, even at 11 years old, they've absorbed the same messages - that SIS wasn't so good before. It was a bad school.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: And the kids wouldn't pay attention, and they had, like, zone out every little thing. And I bet they learned very little. And now this generation, with us, I think we're doing a lot better, and I think that we're learning at a much faster pace.

JOFFE-WALT: He and his friends, they've turned the school around. That's what he's learning.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: It's going to be one of, like, the top choices, like, already. And, like, the book - like, when you're applying to middle schools, you get, like, a book sort of, like on statuses and stuff. And I think this school is actually, like, really high up in the statuses.

JOFFE-WALT: Nobody calls it the book on statuses. They call it a directory of schools with info, like enrollment numbers for different schools, test scores and special programs. But I love that he calls it the book on statuses because this is what happened at SIS. The school had a bad reputation among white families, and then suddenly it was in demand. Its status had changed because of the white kids.

A powerful draw for white families into any school is other white families. When there are enough other white families in a school, you reach what one city calls a bliss point. This is a real thing researchers study - how many white kids are needed at a school to make other white families feel comfortable? That number, the bliss point, is 26%. That fall, white families were crowding the school tours at SIS not because the test scores had improved - the new scores hadn't even come out yet - but because the other white families made them feel blissfully comfortable.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: Chana Joffe-Walt, welcome to FRESH AIR, and congratulations on "Nice White Parents." We should start by acknowledging that a lot of students are doing remote learning now and the meaning of school has just kind of changed since the pandemic. So let's start by acknowledging that.

JOFFE-WALT: Yeah, my two are home.

GROSS: Yeah, right. Right. So what we just heard - is the bliss point something you heard reflected by other white parents?

JOFFE-WALT: Yeah. I mean, nobody used that term, but I think so much of the conversation that parents have about schools uses sort of proxy language when it comes to race in particular. I mean, the things that parents talk to one another about is test scores or programming or, like, is that school safe or the pedagogy, which obviously - and the school test scores, obviously all very important questions when you're looking at a school. But it's pretty rare that you'll hear parents talk about the race of the kids who are in a school when they're searching for a school to choose. I think that's especially true of white parents.

And even though we know that race influences parent choice in school - and you can see that in places where there is a lot of racial diversity, like the neighborhood around this school - the schools can still remain segregated. I think white parents are pretty savvy at evading the explicit conversation around race, although it's clearly shaping our thoughts about schools.

GROSS: You started reporting this story when you were figuring out where to send your kids. And you were living in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, the neighborhood in which this story is set - you know, in which the school that you're reporting on is in. What were your options, and what were your priorities in choosing a school?

JOFFE-WALT: I went in knowing a little bit about schools 'cause I had been reporting on schools, although I still think now that I was fairly naive in thinking about what I wanted from school and the way I thought about public school. I think I just sort of - I wanted my kids to go to the school nearby. I had a romantic idea about my kids walking to school with all the other kids in the neighborhood. And it was important to me that the school was racially diverse.

And I had - so I had the choice of my zoned school - where I live, you can go to your zoned school; you also have a lot of other options. So depending on how much research you do and how interested you are in exploring those other options, you can apply. You can have your child tested at 4 years old in New York City to be - to qualify for a gifted and talented track. And if you qualify for that track, there are schools that have those programs in them that are outside of your zone that you can go to. There are other kind of specialty programs like that - magnet programs, there was a dual-language program that we looked at. So I looked at a couple schools. I didn't go super deep into touring.

GROSS: What were the tours like of the schools, and how were white parents sold? How were they being kind of recruited to join the schools when you were shopping around for your kids?

JOFFE-WALT: I mean, one of the things that was really surprising, although probably should not have been surprising to me, was how much it really did feel like shopping - going on school tours. So I would show up in a school building - you'd look up on their website when they have a tour. You show up at, you know, 9 or 10 a.m. So that's already a fairly self-selected group of parents who are able to show up on a Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. to do a tour of the school. And very often, the schools that I was touring, the people who showed up for those tours were white parents and sometimes Asian parents. And the kids in the building were very often Black and Latino kids, a large majority of the students were. And so we'd sort of follow an administrator around the school as this, like, group of white parents following an administrator - very often a person of color - who was telling us about their school and really selling, like really talking about, we have a partnership with the Lincoln Center and we do yoga and we have a dance studio and you're going to be comfortable in this way - and parents asking, like, all sorts of questions that parents want to know about schools, about homework and the food that they have in the cafeteria.

I did not, on any of those tours, hear anybody mention the race - that the sort of race of the people in the group touring the school was completely different than the race of almost all the kids in the school. And that felt the most stark, and in particularly two schools that we looked at that had gifted and talented programs. So they have a track - a separate track for kids who are in the gifted program. And those kids are in separate classrooms. And so we would, as a group touring the school, peek into one of those classrooms. And you would notice, like, oh, here's where all of the white students are in this school - not entirely, but very, very noticeable - and also that nobody noted it.

GROSS: And that the gifted and talented program was, in a way, creating a new form of segregation within an ostensibly racially diverse school.

JOFFE-WALT: Yeah, yeah. The one school that I did ask about the gifted and talented program, I think I asked in a not very explicit way. But I think I said something like, do the kids - don't the kids talk about that they're in the gifted and talented program? And the person showing us to the school said, oh, no, no, no. Don't worry. They don't know. They can't - like, we never talk about it. We don't refer to them that way. The kids don't know.

And the school that my kids go to now has a gifted and talented program. And was - it was in first grade that my oldest son asked, why are all the other white kids (laughter) in the - he doesn't know it's called the gifted and talented program, but he knows it's a different class and that the white kids seem to all be in that class.

GROSS: Yeah. Well, your series examines, you know, this whole idea of diversity in the school from two different points of view - one, from the white parents looking for diversity for their schools, for their children, and the other from the parents of the, you know, Black and Latino children who were already attending the school and see this more as, like, gentrification; like the white, wealthier people are moving in and changing the priorities to suit their needs and not the needs of the children who were already here.

And also, in terms of the dual perspective on this, the white parents that you report on see, like, diversity as a real priority. For the Black parents and the parents of Latino kids, of Latinx kids, they just want better schools. And they think that the better schools shouldn't necessarily require the presence of white students and the activities of white parents. Eve Ewing, who has - she's a sociologist who writes about public schools in America. She asked you at one point, why are you so obsessed with the idea of integration? What did her question do for you in terms of making you think about what integration means?

JOFFE-WALT: It was a super helpful question. And I really remember the moment that she posed it because we were talking for, you know, several hours of kind of laying out the story for her. And the assumption that integration was a goal was sort of - shot through everything that we were talking about. And so I remember when she said, like, what is it that obsesses you? Why are you obsessed with integration?

It took me aback, I think, because I have taken as an assumption in my own life and also in my reporting that, you know, integration is good. And integration is good partially because segregation is anathema to the American promise, and that it's a part of the mission of public schools that schools be places where kids of different backgrounds come together and develop, you know, what Horace Mann called fellow feeling and connection to one another.

And I think Eve led me sort of down a path of really just trying to understand better what it - where integration comes from, where the push for integration comes from. The push for integration in almost all early integration cases come from a desire for equal resources and equal access and equal opportunity. And that doesn't have much to do with sitting next to white kids in a classroom or, you know, benefiting from the presence of white kids. It is really about - yeah - access to quality education. And it's a means to an end. It's not the goal in and of itself. And I think integration in my mind, and in the mind of, I think, a lot of progressive, white parents, has been turned into kind of a virtue in and of itself.

GROSS: Well, let's take a break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Chana Joffe-Walt. Her podcast "Nice White Parents" is the current season of "Serial." We'll talk more about school segregation and attempts to create racial equality in our public schools after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MATT MCGINLEY'S "INTO THE ARCHIVES")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Chana Joffe-Walt. Her five-part series "Nice White Parents" is the current season of the podcast "Serial." It's about how some white parents, even white parents who say they want integration and diversity, have ended up being obstacles to true equity in our public schools.

The school that you reported on, the School for International Studies, this wasn't the first time that white parents were interested in the school, in creating an integrated school in the neighborhood. You found a folder with letters from parents dating back to 1963, when the school was known as Intermediate School 293 and it was in the process of being built. And so what were some of the common themes in 1963 from the white parents who were writing letters to the city saying they wanted the school to be integrated?

JOFFE-WALT: The most familiar thing was the way white parents were talking about integration. And in the '60s, it was integration. And, I think, in 2015, the word was more diversity. But the letters - I mean, the letters felt to me really - I was really surprised to find them and felt sort of startling to imagine that there had been white parents in this neighborhood when the school was being planned who were surrounded by a civil rights movement and a kind of black-led movement for liberation and civil rights and had said, we want to be on the right side of history. We want to be part of this movement. We want to have an integrated school. And the new board of education - you're planning to build it in a place where it will inevitably be segregated. And you should put it closer to the middle of the two segregated neighborhoods so that it can be integrated, so that we can send our kids there and be part of integration.

I think in reading the letters, it wasn't as clear, but in talking to the parents, it was definitely clear that the ideas about integration then were very similar to the ideas about integration in 2015, that it was about a racial togetherness and harmony and that there was a sort of inherent virtue and value in just putting people in the same building with each other and that that itself was a worthy effort.

GROSS: One of the things that you found is - because you called a lot of the white parents who had written these letters. And the parents who you spoke to did not end up sending their kids to this school, even though they had pushed for the integrated school. Why didn't they send their children?

JOFFE-WALT: I heard a lot of different reasons about why people didn't send their kids. Some people left the city. And the school was being planned in the early 60s and opened in the late 60s. And so some of these parents had very young kids when they wrote these letters and joined the increasing number of people moving to the suburbs before their kids were old enough to have gone to a junior high school. And many parents who did stay in Brooklyn sent their kids to private schools.

GROSS: One of the things that you found is that the white parents back in 1963 who had advocated for integrated schools ended up not sending their children to the school that was integrated, but they ended up controlling where the school was going to be built, even though their children didn't end up going there. It was built in a location more convenient for the white children. Would you describe what happened?

JOFFE-WALT: Yeah, that still blows my mind. So this - I found this box of letters. And it's just letter after letter of parents from the white side of the neighborhood saying, we want integration. We believe in integration. We think the board of ed should follow through on its, like, empty rhetoric about believing in integrated schools and actually build the school in a fringe zone, which at the time was this idea of building fringe schools in strategically located places so that you could draw from two sides of segregated neighborhoods and integrate them that way. In New York City, that was possible in lots of neighborhoods. And they were arguing for the school to be a fringe school.

And in the pile of letters, there's this one letter from the tenants association for the Gowanus Houses, which is the public housing project that actually is the reason the school is being built. So there is this new, fairly new public housing project with more than a thousand families. And the board of ed recognized that it needed to increase school capacity in the neighborhood and so was planning this building because of that. And the white parents said, put the school in the fringe zone so that it can serve both communities. And the tenants association from the Gowanus Houses wrote to the board of ed to say, we actually want the school here. We want the school near where our families live so that it can serve the people who will actually go to the school and will provide desperately needed facilities. And we want the facilities.

So school, you know, is a place to get an education and is also often a place for people to gather and use the yard and use the basketball courts. And families from the Gowanus houses wanted that to be close by and wanted their kids to have a safe passage to be able to get to that school. But the school - but in the end, the board of ed built the school where the white parents were asking for it on the fringe, and then none of them sent their kids there.

GROSS: And the kids from the housing project had to walk several blocks further to get to school every day.

JOFFE-WALT: Right, yeah.

GROSS: Well, let's take a break here. And then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Chana Joffe-Walt, the reporter on the five part series Nice White Parents, which is the current season of the podcast Serial. After we take a short break, we'll talk more about the role of white parents in creating diversity in our schools and in being obstacles to racial equality in our schools. I'm Terry Gross. And this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF HERLIN RILEY'S "RUSH HOUR")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Chana Joffe-Walt. Her five part series, Nice White Parents, is the current season of the podcast Serial. Serial is now part of The New York Times. Nice White Parents is about attempts to integrate our public schools and how white parents who say they want integration and diversity often become obstacles to true racial equity. Joffe-Walt is a reporter and producer for This American Life.

You have a terrific example of the conflicting needs and desires of the two economic classes in the school that you report on and at the school that was formerly known as the School for International Studies, SIS, a middle school high school. And while white parents were being pitched and marketed to to send their kids to this school, somebody named Rob Hansen, who lives near this school, was considering sending his kid, suggested, well, how about a French dual-language program? He was able to sell the school on that idea. And then he's a professional fundraiser. He fundraises for nonprofits. So he started fundraising for a dual-language French program. I want to play a clip from Nice White Parents. And this is set at a PTA meeting, a meeting of the PTA executive board. The co-president of the PTA, Imee Hernandez, who's Puerto Rican and grew up in Brooklyn, is attending, as is the principal of the school. And in this meeting, the PTA executive board is talking about how Rob has raised a lot of money, thousands of dollars for the dual-language program. But most of the people at this executive PTA committee didn't even know that it was happening. So, Chana, you start this off narrating what's going on.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "NICE WHITE PARENTS")

JOFFE-WALT: There are about a dozen grown-ups sitting on small plastic chairs around a classroom table, the PTA executive board. Principal Juman is here, too. Imee's leading. And the principal jumps in. She says she wants a minute to share how much the new fundraising committee had raised so far. Imee looks confused. Principal Juman goes on to say the new fundraising committee has had a lot of success.

JILLIAN JUMAN: But total, they have raised, according to Rob, about $18,000 And then we just had a donation from a family a couple weeks ago who want to be anonymous that they're going to give either five to 10, 10 grand in December. So this is big money.

JOFFE-WALT: People seem unclear what to do with their faces. This is good news, right? But also, wait. What's the fundraising committee to pay for? Imee turns to her husband, Maurice, a retired cop. Maurice is also the treasurer of the PTA because when he retired, his wife told him he couldn't just sit around at home. Maurice shrugs at Imee, doesn't seem to know anything about this new money. Imee turns back to Principal Juman. So can we use that money?

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "NICE WHITE PARENTS")

IMEE HERNANDEZ: That was the question - if the PTA can have access to this money because I know already, like...

JUMAN: But what is the PTA? So that's also the question that keeps going around. So this $18,000 Rob has raised under the umbrella of PTA.

JOFFE-WALT: That's Principal Juman.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "NICE WHITE PARENTS")

HERNANDEZ: OK.

JUMAN: So - I think.

HERNANDEZ: But who's got it? Where's it going? Like, yeah, this PTA member don't know nothing about it, so...

(CROSSTALK)

MAURICE HERNANDEZ: So how can that be accessed for Mr. Negron...

JOFFE-WALT: Maurice asks, how can that money be accessed for Mr. Negron, who wants new gym uniforms, or Mr. Lowe to get his microscopes?

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "NICE WHITE PARENTS")

HERNANDEZ: I mean, God bless Rob. And more power to him.

JUMAN: Yeah.

HERNANDEZ: But he's not an official member.

JUMAN: Right.

HERNANDEZ: So I think that's what makes it confusing, at least for me. You know, he is a PTA member because he's a parent. But he's not part of the executive board. So I think that's what makes it...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: That's probably true.

HERNANDEZ: Yeah, it makes it tricky. I mean, and, again, I'm not...

(CROSSTALK)

GROSS: That's a clip from Chana Joffe-Walt's podcast series Nice White Parents, which is the latest season of Serial. So the fundraising that Rob Hansen was doing for the French dual-language program - that money was only for that program. That's the way a lot of, you know, grants and donations work - that it's assigned to one project. So what are some of the other needs in the school that were getting ignored? Because all of the money that he was bringing in was going for this French dual-language program.

JOFFE-WALT: It wasn't always clear that all of the money that the new families - Rob and other white parents - were raising was explicitly for the French program. It was clear that the people who were contributing money, including a connection to the French Embassy, that that was out of an interest in having a French program and expanding French language in public schools. But as you can hear in that meeting, like, the communication about it just wasn't super clear. In that meeting, people brought up stuff that they bring up in schools all the time - like, the gym teacher wants school uniforms, and we want to raise money for that. And the science teacher would like to have some new microscopes. And these are things that parents have heard from teachers that they want. There's nothing wrong with having, you know, a foreign language being taught in a school. It just wasn't done in a way that - it was sort of arbitrary that it ended up being French language because the parents who were coming in had asked for it. And I think the parents who are already there would've been, you know, fine with supporting that had they felt involved in the decision. I really think it was partly just that they had not been - they felt like they had not been considered.

GROSS: Was there a lot of resentment that, you know, the new white family or families were creating this priority without the participation or even knowledge in some cases of other members of the PTA and other parents in the school?

JOFFE-WALT: Yes. Yeah. I mean, there was mixed feelings, though not everybody - but there was definitely some skepticism that turned into resentment that turned - like, that kind of deepened over the course of the year when it became clear to parents like Imee that these conversations had been happening actually all the way earlier in the summer and that there had been a lot of coordination of the parents who came in.

The one big other discussion that was happening that year was about creating a foundation - so still about fundraising. But there was an interest among some of the new parents to create a foundation within the school, a school-based foundation - so a way to raise money that - where the school could go to larger donors and companies and get bigger money. And there was definitely tension around that, in part because in the same way that people had skepticism that the French Embassy was going to be really interested in what the needs and interests of everybody in the school was, when it started to be like, we're going to go to Microsoft, and we have a meeting with Apple, and we're talking to these different companies. There was concerned that the interests of those companies and whatever programs they were going to be interested in were going to drive the agenda at the school.

GROSS: Is it fair to say there was a sense of entitlement, too, that - like, the white parents had contacts. They could contact the French Embassy. They knew wealthy people who were willing - they knew Francophiles who were willing to, like, donate money to this as opposed to just, like, cupcake sales or something. So because of their contacts, because of the power that they had, they were creating the priorities and raising the money. And, again, it seems like - from a lot of the Black parents and Latinx parents, it seemed like a loss of control.

JOFFE-WALT: Right. Right. So it wasn't always an objection to whatever was being proposed. Like, you know, Microsoft is going to give us more computers - great. It was an objection to the sort of we're - we have access, we are the ones who are bringing in these resources and interest from outside of the school, and a fear that that meant that for the parents who were there, that they were going to lose power and voice in a school that they had chosen and, for many of them, really liked already.

GROSS: OK. Let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Chana Joffe-Walt. Her podcast "Nice White Parents" is the current season of "Serial." And "Serial" is now part of The New York Times. We'll talk more after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MATT MCGINLEY'S "THE BLISS POINT")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Chana Joffe-Walt. Her five-part series "Nice White Parents" is the current season of the podcast "Serial." It's about how some white parents, even white parents who say they want integration and diversity, have ended up being obstacles to true equity in our public schools.

The school that you reported on, this wasn't the first time that white parents were interested in creating an integrated school in the neighborhood. You found a folder with letters from parents dating back to 1963. I want to play a clip with one of the women who pushed for an integrated school and ended up not sending her child there. And she had been a public school teacher who taught in an integrated elementary school until she had her own children. Her name is Elaine Henchy (ph). And you spoke to her by phone. And here's what she had to say.

(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "NICE WHITE PARENTS")

ELAINE HENCHY: I mean, one of the problems is that many of the white kids had higher sort of academic skills. They could read better. They, I think - I mean, if - the white kids knew how to read in first grade. And I guess there were Black kids who also could. But it just seemed as if most of the Black kids, you know, didn't really learn to read. But...

JOFFE-WALT: But part of - I mean, part of the vocal complaints of Black parents at this period of time was that their kids were not learning how to read because schools were segregated. And their kids were kept in schools that were inferior. And that was part of the argument for integration...

HENCHY: Yes. Yes.

JOFFE-WALT: ...That their kids were not going to get the resources and quality teaching and good facilities unless they were in the same buildings with kids like yours.

HENCHY: Right. I don't know what to say to that. I just - I guess I just began to feel that things looked really difficult for these kids. Schools were not made for them. If the schools were made for them, with their background, what would they be like? I think there was - and that's another whole thing. I don't know about it. I think there was sort of anger in the Black community at the white community. A lot of the teachers were white. There were more white teachers, I suppose.

People said that that was racism. And, of course, it was racism. But maybe the kids were a little angry at the school. I wouldn't - I couldn't fault them for that. But on the other hand, then they don't get as much from the school. I don't know. I thought the problems were kind of enormous. And I guess I just - at one point, I decided that my kids should go on to Brooklyn Friends. And, I mean, we could afford to pay for it. (Laughter) It wasn't easy, I mean, you know? But...

JOFFE-WALT: Did your feelings about integration change? Like, did you believe in it less?

HENCHY: Maybe.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

HENCHY: I think I would have said no, theoretically. But maybe they did. But I guess I saw it as a more difficult project then. I sort of - I did back off from it. I didn't...

JOFFE-WALT: Yeah. It felt, when you guys wrote these letters, like this is - integration is this exciting ideal and we can be part of it, and it's going to be a meaningful project that's also going to be kind of easy?

HENCHY: I certainly didn't think it would be so difficult. But I was innocent, you know? I don't know. I still believe in it, I do.

GROSS: When she says there, I was innocent, you think she really meant, I was naive?

JOFFE-WALT: Yeah. Yeah. And I think she was. And I think a lot of progressive, white parents - nice, white parents - have - share this with her. I definitely recognized myself in what Elaine was describing as a sort of attachment to this ideal of racial togetherness and a desire for that to happen without it asking much of me or costing me much.

GROSS: What were some of the hardest things for you in getting people to talk honestly with you about race? I think, for a lot of people, it's really - and, maybe, particularly for white people, it's difficult to talk about race and racial inequity.

JOFFE-WALT: Yeah. I mean, it was so - it definitely was more difficult with white people. I did not have the same problem getting lots of people of color to talk to me, although there was, like, a question of what I was doing and who I was. But I think that there was much more comfort in those conversations.

I think partly, I had to work really hard on being direct. I mean, the conversation that you played with Elaine, who was the only person who wrote letters in the 1960s who actually looked at the school and seemed like she was truly committed to this - some idea of integration and wanted to send her kids there and didn't - you know, we spoke once, and I listened back and was like, whoa, I totally chickened out. Like, I was just a coward in that conversation and didn't ask her directly all these things that I was wondering.

And I, myself, didn't kind of have the comfort to have conversations with other white people about the choices that we make. I think I was much more practiced at the conversation about schools where you say, like, yeah, we wanted to go there, but it was just so chaotic and we couldn't. And you're like, oh, OK. Yeah, get it. And you move on. You know, you just sort of accept the ways in which we excuse ourselves from our commitments and obligations to schools so easily. So I think in part, I just had to really work on explicitly naming a lot of the thoughts that I was having in my head and questions that I was having in my head and feeling more comfortable asking them and following up when somebody said something that, like, kind of made sense but sort of felt like a little bit of a shield.

GROSS: Finally, Chana, what's it been like for you to have your children learning at home during the pandemic? I mean, you've been studying schools, reporting on schools for years. And now the school for your kids is your home, and the responsibility to help them learn long-distance is yours and your husband's. So tell us what that's been like for you.

JOFFE-WALT: I've learned that I forgot a lot of math.

GROSS: Yeah.

JOFFE-WALT: And...

GROSS: I relate.

JOFFE-WALT: I think it's just made me think about what schools are for. What do I want them to get from school? And you do have a very, like, close view of what they are actually learning in school.

And for me, I've just mostly, like, missed - I really value the - just the socialization of being in a school. And that is - though I think in terms of reading and writing and, you know, continuing to be curious and engaged - like, those are things I worry about, although I worry about them less than just their ability to learn how to be with other people and learn from other people who are not just us.

I think it's just miserable all around. I don't think anybody is like, remote learning is really awesome...

GROSS: Yeah.

JOFFE-WALT: ...And what I always wanted was for my kid to have, like, seven different passwords on Google products and sit in front of a computer all day. So I've heard a lot of stories about if you're able to work from home right now and your kids are doing remote school next to you, you're learning basically what they're going to be like as an officemate to somebody in the future.

GROSS: (Laughter).

JOFFE-WALT: And I have noticed that my older son hums the entire day, all day long. Like, Jacob (ph) is a person who kind of, like, quietly hums to himself, which I did not know before and is, you know, something that his future officemate will get to enjoy. So, yeah, you just kind of get to observe your kid in a new context.

GROSS: Well, thank you so much, Chana, for talking with us.

JOFFE-WALT: Thank you. It was fun.

GROSS: Chana Joffe-Walt is a producer for "This American Life." Her five-part series "Nice White Parents" is the latest season of the podcast "Serial," which is now part of The New York Times.

Copyright © 2020 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

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Podcast Examines How 'Nice White Parents' Become Obstacles In Integrated Schools

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Among the many challenges teachers have faced since the onset of the pandemic, one that persists is this feeling that students have changed, that they are less motivated, more entitled, and more disrespectful than ever before. Even if a teacher can find plenty of evidence to support this perception, it can't be making things any better.

And while it does seem that the pandemic exacerbated this feeling among teachers, I saw it long before we ever heard the word Covid. In the late 90s and early 2000s, I worked with far too many teachers who held a pretty low opinion of many of our students. There was a lot of "These kids (insert negative generalization)" or "Well what do you expect from him, he (insert negative generalization)."

I think many of these attitudes come from a real, valid, and vulnerable place, from teachers who once had high hopes but felt disappointed and hurt when things went wrong, teachers who had good intentions and got their hearts broken a little bit every time students rejected their efforts, teachers who see behaviors from their students that shock and frighten them. But regardless of where they come from, these mindsets hurt our relationships with students, and that makes everything else worse, from behavior to academics to the culture of school as a whole.

So with all of this in mind, I was intrigued when I came across the phrase unconditional positive regard. It was in Alex Venet's book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education ( Amazon | Bookshop.org), where she names it as the most important guiding philosophy in her work. Venet explains that unconditional positive regard is a stance that communicates this message to students: "I care about you. You have value. You don't have to do anything to prove it to me, and nothing's going to change my mind." In her book, she asserts that taking this stance and putting it into practice builds the foundation on which our students can thrive. And the more I learned about it, the more I was sold on its value.

But I suspect that for most teachers, adopting this philosophy won't be an easy task, because the demands of the job are so intense and the challenging behaviors students bring to school are so overwhelming. For some, even the idea of this philosophy might be off-putting at first, because you might see it as just another version of teacher-blaming. But it's not. Unconditional positive regard doesn't take accountability away from students for their behavior; it just works on the lens teachers use to address it, and that lens can make a huge difference, not only in how you interact with students, but how you feel about the work you do every day.

Because I think unconditional positive regard is such an important, revolutionary philosophy, and because implementing it can be challenging, I wanted to lift it out of the book and give it special attention. I already did an interview with Venet about the larger concept of trauma-informed teaching, but she agreed to have a separate conversation just on unconditional positive regard. You can listen to our conversation in the player above, read the full transcript, or get a peek at some of the key points of our conversation below.

What is unconditional positive regard, and why is it such an important part of trauma-informed teaching?
"Unconditional positive regard means I care about you, you have value, you don't have to do anything to prove it to me, and nothing will change my mind," Venet says. "So it's really this idea of seeing somebody as a whole and complete and worthy person starting from a place where care doesn't have to be earned, it's just assumed. Everybody gets care. You're allowed to mess up. You're allowed to have struggles, but that is never going to invalidate your worth, and it's never going to invalidate my care for you."

The concept was introduced to psychotherapy by Carl Rogers in the 1960s and applied to education by Alfie Kohn in a 2005 essay called Unconditional Teaching. Venet sees this stance as foundational in her work in equity-centered trauma-informed teaching "because it starts from that place of students are worthy, valuable people."

What does unconditional positive regard look like in practice?
"One of the things that allows for unconditional positive regard is to just get to know students," Venet explains. "I mean it's pretty basic but to get to know what they care about that's not necessarily related to the content. If you only are looking at a kid and going, oh, you're good at writing, you're good at science, whatever, then your regard is going to be conditional because you've placed parameters around what types of strengths I'm going to see in you."

It's especially important to make this a priority for students with whom you don't have much in common. "If I meet a student who is really into cats and the same TV shows as me and we have a similar sense of humor, it's easy for me to like them, to care about them," Venet says. But with students who only wanted to talk about Roblox, for example, "It was a little hard for me to find okay, where's my connection point? If I reground myself in, okay, if I'm going to believe this student has value, I care about them, I need to just get inside a little bit. What makes them tick? So tell me about Roblox. What do you like about it? How do you feel when you're playing it? Who do you get to connect with when you play Roblox? Where did you first learn about it?" Taking deliberate steps to get to know students as they are, outside of the context of your classroom, can help you see them as whole people.

Along with getting to know students, teachers practicing unconditional positive regard also work to learn about factors in students' lives that make them behave in ways that bother the teacher.

"If a student seems to never pay attention when I'm talking," she explains, "I'm not going to go immediately to a place of, Well, they're not paying attention because they don't care. Instead, I'm going to get curious and go, maybe something's going on that's distracting. Maybe they just have a hard time paying attention. Maybe I'm being kind of boring." This stance of curiosity - both for getting to know the student and figuring out what things might be causing problems - is essential for building unconditional positive regard.
What about when students become especially difficult? What insights can you offer to teachers for those times?
Venet shares the story of a former student, "Julia," who refused to participate, kept her head down most of the time, and hurled verbal insults at Venet when she tried to connect with her. Had she not been supported by her colleagues to take a stance of unconditional positive regard, "I could have come up with some conclusions like she's disrespectful, she hates me, she hates school, she doesn't care about her education. But by holding this unconditional positive regard, which essentially says with no evidence, I'm still going to believe that she has value and I'm still going to care about her, with no evidence that would support that, I gave it time."

During this time, Venet made much more subtle bids for connection. "She wouldn't talk to me in class, but if I was standing next to her in the lunch line, then I could make a little comment to her, and she would sometimes respond to it. I started to talk to her other teachers and try to find out a little bit. Like, what does she like? What makes her tick? She was really good at drawing, and so I started to see her art. I started to find some connection points. So then the next time she comes in, in the half a second before she puts her headphones in, I could say, hey, I saw you drawing in your last class. Can I see what you drew? And maybe she leaves one earbud out to start to talk to me about it."

As this process unfolded, Venet began to understand that Julia's behavior came from past trauma. "She has been really harmed by people in her life before and she's protecting herself. She's protecting herself because the same way that I don't have evidence for her, she has no evidence for me. She doesn't know that I'm safe. She doesn't know that I think she can learn. She doesn't know any of that. Out of the two of us, one of us had to take a leap of faith, and she's the kid so it has to be me. I'm the teacher so it has to be me to do that. And so I stuck with it for her until we gained that trust and until we were able to build it up."

One quote that Venet keeps in mind in these difficult times comes from the book Trauma-Responsive Schooling ( Amazon | Bookshop.org). "There's a coach in that book who is coaching some of her peers, and this question that she asks of other teachers is, How would you respond differently if you knew the student's behavior wasn't a choice? If I look at Julia and I say, her behavior's a choice. She is choosing to be mean to me and be disrespectful. Then maybe the action that I'm going to take is to say well, I'm going to punish her for it. I'm going to withdraw my part of the relationship. I'm going to put up a wall if she's putting up a wall."

Unconditional positive regard takes things in a different direction. "If I look at her and I say, maybe this isn't a choice, but it is a protective reaction to try to not get hurt by another adult, then I'm going to respond how I did, which is I'm going to stick with it. I'm going to try to earn her trust while always holding this idea that I think we're going to get there one day."

Even if the behavior IS a choice, Venet says, taking this stance helps the teacher approach the situation in a healthier way.

You advise teachers to have regular "perspective-keeping" conversations with colleagues to help stay on track with unconditional positive regard. Why are these important and how do they help?
"The relationship between a student and a teacher is not equal," Venet begins. "If I was going to meet up with a friend, and my friend called me a really horrible word and put her headphones in, I could just go, well, I'm not going to tolerate that from my friend. I don't have to spend time with this person. That's not the same relationship we have with students; students are required to be there and you're required to teach them. But as the adult, we have more power. We have the ability to impose consequences that can have long-lasting impacts.

"And so if a student hurts my feelings, it's okay for my feelings to be hurt. It's okay for me to say, that felt really bad. I hated that. I don't want to tolerate that behavior from people around me. However, the student can never be responsible for making me feel better or be responsible for my emotions because the power differential is not equal. I can't make that student responsible for me because they're not. They're required to be in school. I'm required to teach them."

But teachers shouldn't feel like they are trapped with their feelings; they can get help from their colleagues. "I can go to my colleagues and talk about how I was hurt, and they can say, yeah, that sounds really hard. We can process it. And then they can help me reset and say, okay, how are you going to show up tomorrow given the fact that you're feeling really hurt? How can you continue to hold this regard for her even though she is harming you?"

And if the student really crosses a line? "For example, if the student was calling me a slur based on my identity," Venet offers, "then I need to have people around me who can say, yeah, you shouldn't go back in that room with her tomorrow but she still deserves a teacher, so we're going to tag out. Somebody else is going to work with her. We're going to work on educating her. We're going to solve this problem. It requires a team effort. And I think this is where people have a hard time when we talk about unconditional positive regard, because if you are the only person in your building who's trying to make this shift, it's really going to be difficult because our schools are not set up to foster this."
"If we commit to an ethic of care, building relationships and caring for our students aren't strategies in the name of increasing academic achievement but the actual goal itself." This is from page 100 of your book. Embracing this stance would be a huge paradigm shift for many U.S. educators. Why do you think it's worth considering?
"It's basically the opposite of what we do in schools right now," Venet says, "and schools right now are so toxic in a lot of ways. What would it look like if kids just felt safe and cared about as part of their school experience? There's all this competition in schools, whether it be sports or perfect attendance awards or grades and scholarships or whatever, and people justify this by saying, well that's society and what do you want? That every kid gets a trophy? Well, what I want to ask is, have you ever been in an environment where every kid actually did get a trophy and seen how beautiful it was?

"At the school where I taught, they used to do this end of the year ceremony that was for kids who were graduating but also every kid in the whole school, and it was a small school so this was doable. And we actually gave a personalized academic award to every single student. All the teachers who shared students would fill out these little sheets of paper and kind of reflect on what was some of the academic growth that you saw this year. And we would create an award for every single kid, and then at this ceremony give them out. And it was absolutely beautiful. The kids really didn't care that everybody else was getting an award because what their personal award said to them was my teachers saw and noticed this thing I worked really hard on. So every kid getting a trophy? I don't know. I think that's great.

"I think a big part of why our world is so traumatic right now is a feeling of scarcity and competition, that there's only limited resources, and we all have to claw at each other to get the resources, and if you're in the way of that then you're my enemy. What if, instead of replicating that in school by saying there's only three sports awards, there's only one senior award, what if we work from abundance and said there's enough for everyone? There's enough care for everyone. There's enough celebration for everyone. And actually celebrating you doesn't mean that I lose. It means that we all have won collectively. When we make small choices as teachers to work from a place of unconditional care, we're planting the seeds for those bigger changes."

You can find Alex Shevrin Venet's work at unconditionallearning.org.

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Nothing's Going to Change My Mind: How Unconditional Positive Regard Transforms Classrooms

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If you struggle with classroom management no matter how many different strategies you try, there's a good chance you might be doing something to get in your own way. In this post I wrote for MiddleWeb, I explain how each one of these teacher mistakes can cause problems for you, and what you can do instead.

Read the full post HERE.

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Active Write Strategy: co-construct explanation

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Active Write Strategy: co-construct explanation

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When is a circle more than just a circle? Middle school students can memorize the formal definition of a circle: the set of all points equidistant from a single point. But what happens when that single point is my middle school, and I need to figure out how far I need to walk in each direction to find the closest healthy grocery store option? Or when I compare my circle to the circles for schools located in neighborhoods with different socioeconomic and racial demographics?

By framing the definition of a circle within the controversial but relatable issue of community food deserts, we enhance student opportunities for deeper learning. But reframing your existing curriculum can seem unrealistic for those days when overwhelmed, under-resourced educators feel even more overwhelmed and under-resourced than usual.

For the last 7 years of leading thinkLaw, my team has been obsessed with solving this problem - helping teachers embed culturally responsive critical thinking into their existing curriculum so it doesn't feel like one more thing. Through this journey, we've developed a toolbox of powerful but practical methods to leverage what we call the "funk" - the emotional, thought-provoking connection that comes from relating academic content to issues involving drama, controversy, surprise, humor and conflict - to generate more critical thinking in the classroom. It feels obvious that this type of construct can improve authentic connections for learners, deepen learning outcomes, and have all sorts of other achievement-based benefits in the classroom. The benefits of finding the funk beyond the classroom, however, are a little less obvious.

Any time we give students the opportunity to not just analyze the world as it is, but use their knowledge to grapple with how the world ought to be, we explicitly permit them to not just be problem solvers, but to embrace their identity as problem finders. This is the fundamental premise of my second book, Tangible Equity: A Guide for Leveraging Student Identity, Culture, and Power to Unlock Excellence In and Beyond the Classroom( Amazon | Bookshop.org). Student success must include the academic achievement necessary for accountability metrics, but that success means very little if students do not also have the tools to lead, innovate, and break what needs to be broken, and to use what they learn in the classroom to impact the world beyond the classroom.

But enough about the why, let's get to the how!

3 Strategies for Finding the Funk

You do not need to be the most creative or innovative educator to find the funk in your instruction, and it doesn't have to be one more thing added to your list of things to do. Instead, regularly integrate culturally responsive critical thinking into the content you're already teaching with the following three strategies. Use these strategies to create provocative essential questions to start a new unit, integrate powerful class discussions partway through a unit, wrap up a day's lesson, or help students review at the end of a unit, just to name a few.

Strategy 1: Making the Rules

Across disciplines, almost every new concept involves some set of rules, algorithms, procedures, or definitions. And when you introduce rules, you also introduce an opportunity for students to define that rule, break it, prove it wrong, extend it to the point of absurdity, evaluate it, or revise it.

Making a rule seems natural for patterns in math class. But how often do world language teachers allow students to create a rule for irregular verb conjugations based on those type of patterns? There is nothing stopping third graders from designing their own rubrics for what makes a good paragraph "good" based on their analysis of paragraphs written at various levels of quality. China recently banned children from playing video games during the week and drastically limited their access during the weekends. What might a rule need to look like in the United States to address the issue of video game addiction? Whether Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" is a country song depends on the rule for what makes a country song a country song. Similar lines of inquiry apply to the rules for what makes art or fossils part of a particular time period or what makes some words have long or short vowel sounds.

This is not limited to the learning happening in our schools. In the work thinkLaw leads to support families in nurturing and developing critical thinking at home, it has been awe-inspiring to watch parents lead students through our discussion cards to create potential rules for addressing the issue of pets who get petrified by 4 th of July fireworks or develop a rule in response to the real-life scenario of an aunt who charged her family $30 a person for attending her Thanksgiving dinner!

Rulemaking is an inherently funky process where the lesson goes far beyond developing the "right" rule. The true value comes from helping students hold a mirror up to themselves so they can see their own power to make sense of the world within and beyond the classroom. Just imagine your students in front of your mayor sharing a rule they developed for what they believe is the maximum justifiable radius for how far away a community's healthy grocery store can be.

Strategy 2: Breaking and Shaking the Rules

Breaking and shaking rules is equally - if not more - powerful. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use incomplete rules. A great example from Thinking Like a Lawyer: A Framework for Teaching Critical Thinking to All Students ( Amazon | Bookshop.org) involves an elementary school example of students learning the difference between prime and composite numbers. If I tell you 3, 5, 7, and 11 are prime numbers and asked students to define "prime," it seems likely they might say prime numbers are odd numbers. It does not take much to break and shake that initial rule by introducing 9, 15, 21 and 23, and informing students that 9, 15, and 21 are composite and 23 is prime. When they redefine this rule, they may now conclude that not all odd numbers are prime, but composite numbers are odd numbers that are divisible by three. When you add in 10, 18, 25, and 31, they again find themselves breaking and shaking their rules. They realize that even numbers can also be composite. They see that not all composite, odd numbers are divisible by 3. And just imagine the funk when we give them 0, 1 and 2 and tell them that 0 and 1 are neither prime nor composite and that 2 is actually prime!

Is there a more intuitive way to organize the periodic table of elements? Six Flags amusement parks had a decent set of rules for their unlimited meal plan until the arrival of ridiculous TikTok shenanigans. How could your students update these rules so that park guests do not abuse the all-you-can-eat option? You can do wonders in creating a classroom culture where students feel safe as advocates and leaders if you encourage students to suggest updates for classroom rules or improvements to the way you explain rules relating to academic content.

Throughout history, a lot of very bad things have happened because people were simply following orders. Breaking and shaking the rules helps students hone their ability to be disruptive on purpose and to be disruptive with a purpose.

Strategy 3: The Most, Least, Best or Worst

You see a social media post listing the definitive list of the top ten movies of all time. Why do you click on it? You know you won't agree with it, at least not with all of it. But every time you see lists like this, you cannot help but invoke your own beliefs, identity, values, experiences, education in school, and education outside of school.

This is why finding the funk with The Most, Least, Best or Worst is a highly practical tool for embedding culturally responsive critical thinking into your classroom. Reading a novel? Rich character analysis comes through so much more seamlessly if students need to rank the main characters from the most shady to the least shady. If my Algebra I students recently learned how to solve systems of equations by the substitution, elimination, and graphing methods, there's no need to do a played-out Jeopardy game for test review. Instead, I can have students work in groups as lobbyists for each method, competing for an exclusive contract for math teachers across the country to teach only their method and explaining in detail why their method is superior and why the other two fall short.

And as I wrote for this blog before, The Most, Least, Best or Worst can also be a powerful way to leverage the magic of mistakes. Even standardized test prep practice questions can be enhanced by having students go beyond "What is the right answer?" by asking "What is the MOST wrong answer?" (the one that is the most off-base from what the question was asking for) and "What is the BEST wrong answer?" (the one most students would likely select as the wrong answer).

A word of caution: asking students to rank the most significant dates of The Revolutionary War - or to use any of these subjective ranking activities discussed above - can sometimes be a huge challenge for students who are used to questions with clear right and wrong answers. You can make the funk less funky by intentionally hooking the funk to our students' world. Who is the most significant person in your household? In our school? What is the most significant location in your community? What date is the most significant date of your life? When students can use who they are and how they are to deepen their connection to learning, it builds their ability to make these connections as a habit.

We Need the Funk. Gotta Have the Funk.

Content mastery will always be important for educators. So will effective formative assessment, purposeful academic vocabulary integration and all the other tools of the trade. But finding the funk provides so much value to students in a wide range of achievement levels. Students who excel in traditional measures of academic achievement benefit from the nuance, depth, and complexity of integrated funk. Struggling learners often surprise their teachers with their ability to navigate these critical thinking challenges because their struggles built their often-overlooked expertise in learning how to learn. Engaging students who are academically behind their peers with rigorous critical thinking prompts is a much better strategy than drill-and-kill remediation and intervention.

Lastly, consider what instruction grounded in funk, drama, controversy and conflict does for students who frequently get the "behavior problem" label. This is personal, because I was one of those students. I was never student of the month. But I graduated top of my law school class because it turns out that a lifetime of telling my teachers some version of "well, what had happened was" whenever I got into trouble was an essential foundation for the critical thinking necessary for me to slay achievement in law school. We have the power to create classrooms where funk is so welcomed that asking lots of questions is not disrespectful but is instead expected for what it means to be curious and inquisitive. We have the power to create classrooms where students telling teachers "they shouldn't do it this way; they should do it that way" is not defiance but an exemplar for what it means to be a leader, an advocate, and a well-educated person. Finding the funk in your day-to-day instruction gives you a sustainable pathway to help students go beyond studying the world as it is to a place where they are frequently thinking critically about the world as it ought to be.

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When students behave in ways that are disruptive, when they do things that harm others, or when they otherwise make choices that go against established rules, schools often respond with punishment: removal from class, a phone call home, detention, suspension, even expulsion if the behavior is considered extreme enough.

It's been this way forever, at least in traditional western schools, and most of the time, these punishments don't really work. Sure, they remove the student from the situation, temporarily stopping the challenging behavior. And it could be argued that in general, many students choose to follow the rules because the threat of punishment acts as a deterrent; they don't want to get in trouble, so an acceptable level of order is maintained.

But punishments don't really do anything to address or correct the source of the misbehavior, and most of the time, they do nothing to fix any damage that may have been caused by it. On top of that, exclusionary punishments like suspensions create their own set of problems: When students are removed from class, they miss instruction, putting them behind their classmates and making them more likely to fail academically. This often leads to higher dropout rates and puts far too many students-especially students of color-on the path to prison.

After decades of using these ineffective practices, more schools are turning to restorative justice, an approach to student behavior that originated in the criminal justice system. In 2018, Victor Small, Jr and I did a broad overview of Restorative Justice to go over the basics.

Now I'm going to narrow the lens to one specific restorative practice called repairing harm. This is when, instead of simply being sent off to a punishment, a student who has misbehaved is tasked with figuring out how to repair whatever damage was caused by their behavior, and then to actually carry out that repair with everyone who was impacted by their actions.

To learn about this practice, I talked to Brad Weinstein and Nathan Maynard, authors of the book Hacking School Discipline: 9 Ways to Create a Culture of Empathy & Responsibility Using Restorative Justice. Weinstein is a former classroom teacher and administrator, and Maynard started his career in the juvenile justice system before going into teaching. Now they work together at Behavior Flip, a digital behavior management system built on the principles of restorative justice.

Brad Weinstein

Nathan Maynard

In their book, Brad and Nathan share the restorative justice strategies they've used successfully for years with students. In our conversation (which you can listen to above), they took me step-by-step through one of those strategies: the process of repairing harm after a misbehavior as an alternative to punishment.

How Repairing Harm Works

1. Identify the Harm and the Stakeholders

After an incident has occurred, the student meets with the administrator or other adult responsible for behavior management. In a private conference, the two work together to identify the harm caused by the behavior and all of the stakeholders who were impacted by it.

This list of stakeholders often turns out to be longer than the student first thought.

"A lot of times students don't understand that a behavior has a ripple effect," Maynard says. "Like throwing a rock into a pond, it affects a lot of different people. We have to show them what those ripples are and who those really are affecting, so when they're repairing the harm they need to think of each stakeholder individually. That's developing the empathy skills for each and every one of them."

2. Consider How the Behavior Affected Others

Once all stakeholders have been identified, it's time for the student to think deeply about how all of them were impacted by the behavior. This exercise in empathy will help the student come up with the right repair later.

Sometimes this process requires help from the adults. Maynard describes what this could look like, starting by saying something to the student along these lines: "When you throw something in a class, and let's say that hits someone else, how do you think their mother would feel if I called them up and said, hey their son just got hurt in class? Something like that that's going to drive the empathy and create that sense of, oh, another stakeholder is that kid's parent."

3. Create and Carry Out a Plan to Repair the Harm

Finally, the student- not the administrator -creates a plan to repair the harm with every stakeholder. The plan doesn't have to be anything elaborate; it can be as simple as an apology.

"Let's say a student was yelling at the class," Maynard says. "That affects the rest of the class. What can you do to repair it (with them)? Sometimes I've had students go in front of the class and just apologize. Something like that-owning that behavior-shows the rest of the class that it's not acceptable."

Although some might see this as getting off easy, consider the courage it takes to stand up in front of your peers and publicly admit wrongdoing. "I mean," Maynard says, "that's a lot more tough than sitting at home for three days."

There are times, though, when sorry isn't enough. "Prime example, student throws food across the cafeteria," Weinstein says. "They spill milk all over the floor, they cause a big mess. If they just say, I'm sorry, you just say, I'm glad that you apologized, but I think we're going to have to do something a little bit more, because you caused a mess. Who are the stakeholders? They might realize that there is somebody that has to clean up after them, and they're going to take away time from their job-as somebody who cleans the tables, I have to go home 20 minutes late now, because I'm cleaning your mess."

Weinstein says in cases like this, the solution "might look like cleaning all of the tables, mopping the floor, and working with the custodian to help clean, because when they cause harm to the environment, a good way to repair that harm is to make that environment clean. If I were to just put (the student) in detention or ISS for the rest of the day, that would teach that kid to not get caught next time. They wouldn't have any understanding of who they hurt, why what they did was a bad thing, and how they can repair that harm."

Questions About this Process

Won't this take extra time?

It depends on how you look at it. Punishment is definitely quicker than working with a student to consider the impact of behavior on stakeholders and develop a plan for repair. But because traditional punishment doesn't usually end the behavior, you're likely to spend more time on it later.

"An Edutopia article just recently came out that says classroom management takes about 144 minutes per week out of (instructional time)," Maynard says. "So if you think about 144 minutes per week, think about what can you do to integrate these proactive approaches and meet those kids' needs."

This idea is captured in the quote that starts the book's chapter on repairing harm, from author Pam Leo: "Either we spend time meeting children's emotional needs by filling their cup with love or we spend time dealing with the behaviors caused from their unmet needs. Either way we spend the time."

What if the student denies the behavior?

Sometimes a student will flat-out deny having done the thing they're being accused of doing. This can even happen when you, the teacher, were an eye witness.

When this happens, Maynard gives students two choices. "I say, okay. I believe this was you, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Let's deal with this situation now, fix it, move forward. Right now it's just between me and you. If I find out later that it's you, then there's just going to be an additional situation. Why not just deal with it right now and then if there's an additional situation that's showing that you're dishonest, (then) I have to deal with what happened and you being dishonest, instead of just what happened. You make the choice."

Afterwards, he always gives students time to process, to think about what they want to do. "Because immediately if I say something like that, they're still going to be oppositional," he explains. "So I give them some time to process what's going on. I back away, say okay, I'm going to give you a few minutes."

When he does this, Maynard says, students will often calm down and become more cooperative. "Giving them that time really does help out."

Shouldn't People Suffer at Least a Little Bit After Doing Something Wrong?

When someone misbehaves, our logic tells us that they should experience some kind of negative consequence; otherwise how will they learn not to do it again?

On top of that is the fact that we're all human. After a student has disrespected us or caused a problem for us, we might honestly start itching for a bit of revenge.

"Punishment makes us feel better sometimes," Maynard says. "You know, someone did something wrong, they harmed me, I want there to be some sort of harm. We've heard someone say before, you disrespected me, so now you need to suffer a little bit."

But underneath that feeling is a desire to have the student experience real regret, a regret that can be deeper and longer-lasting if it emerges in the student from a place of empathy.

"That statement shows that (teachers) do want to show the students how to be empathetic and realize how they felt." Maynard says. "Restorative practice is the way to do that, but it's just less traumatic. And it's a way more effective way to open up that child's eyes to how their behavior made us feel."

To learn more, follow Nathan on Twitter at @NmaynardEdu and Brad at @WeinsteinEdu, visit their website at hackingschooldiscipline.com, join their Hacking School Discipline Facebook group, and explore their app, BehaviorFlip, at behaviorflip.com.

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Repairing Harm: A Better Alternative to Punishment

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Exclusionary punishments don't really change behavior. Having students work to repair the harm done by their actions can be much more effective.

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Student ownership of their learning journey is key for growth. Children need to understand what they are learning and why. They also need a clear path to follow and use to monitor their growth along the way.

Like I mentioned in "Goal-setting foundations for pre-K-2 teachers," even our youngest kids are ready to reap the benefits of goal setting. Don't let their age deter you! If you're an early learning educator, here are two types of goals that will surely help you empower your students.

1. Individual daily goals

To build student autonomy, students need choice. This includes choice during goal setting.

In my first-grade classroom, I used to place a sticky note on each student's desk every morning. They would write a goal (or draw a picture of their goal, if that was easier for them) that was personal to them. They would do this every single day, so while we would definitely set long-term goals, too, these stickies helped me ensure my students had a daily chance to practice setting and meeting goals.

Some students would choose a behavior goal and others would choose an academic goal. For example, a child could write that they wanted to remember to raise their hand every time they had something to say, instead of interrupting, as they were sometimes tempted to do. Or they could write that they wanted to get at least half of the day's math problems right the first time. The kids got to pick what was important to them to accomplish that day. They would then place their goal sticky on a chart. (There's a great example of what our sticky chart looked like on Pinterest.)

[M]y students had a daily chance to practice setting and meeting goals.

When a student met their goal, they would tell me right away. Sometimes this meant a pause in instruction, but for me it was always a worthwhile break. We would celebrate as a class using one of Dr. Jean's cheers.

At the end of the day, we would go through the goal stickies left on the chart, which would take about 10 minutes. We would celebrate the met goals a second time with one big cheer and discuss what we could change to meet the ones that weren't.

If a student did not meet their goal, the class worked as a team to problem solve on ways to improve the goal the next day. Sometimes a student would say they wanted to read 50 books in one day, for example. At the end of the day, they had maybe only read three. We would use this time to discuss how a more attainable goal could be to read five books instead of 50. This helped to build a culture of learners instead of a culture of competition.

2. Long-term, data-informed goals

Not every early childhood student may be ready for a deep dive into their assessment data, and that is okay. Just like with individual daily goals, students should have voice and choice in goals around data and even around how to use data. Guide students through the process of what data means and how it helps them grow as learners. Use multiple types of data to teach students this goal-setting process.

If you are a MAP® Growth™ user, the growth goals section in the Student Profile Report will provide one data set that can help you begin to work one-on-one with students to set goals. The report provides a clear visual for them that will help them see where they started their learning and how they've made progress over time. Talk to them about how if they grow as projected (see projected RIT and projected growth numbers in the Achievement Status and Growth Report), they will most likely keep moving in the same direction. Use kid-friendly language: "You're on the right track! Let's keep doing what you're doing."

If a kid is not on the right track, think about ways you can support them by providing more personalized instruction or talking with their families to explore options, like more social-emotional learning, homework, and tutoring. The culprit may also be something difficult going on at home, and communication can help you set goals that account for that student's reality outside of school.

If you do not use MAP Growth at your school, you can still support students in setting goals around assessment data. When I taught kindergarten, for example, I made bar graphs that I printed and put in data binders for each student. Together we would sit and color in the letters, sounds, and sight words they knew after an assessment. I would ask them how many more they wanted to know by the next time I tested them. We would then put a different-colored line on their bar graph to represent where they wanted to be. A long-term, data-informed goal!

Data-informed goal setting in [...] student-friendly ways helps children know where they are in their learning and where they need to go.

To ensure we were relying on more than one data source during goal setting, I would work with my students to determine at least one additional data point we could look to. We would often use student self-assessment, for example.

Data-informed goal setting in these kinds of student-friendly ways helps children know where they are in their learning and where they need to go. It helps them understand their own personal success criteria to grow as learners. It also helps students who are not meeting proficiency celebrate their growth. Be sure to share the data with your students and their families.

Ready, steady, goal

Goals build student efficacy. It is never too early to start involving students in goal-setting practices. By starting goal-setting work early with our learners, we pave the way for a motivating start on their educational journey.

You have the power to create students who love learning by letting them take ownership of their learning process. Use it!

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2 types of student goal setting that empower early learners

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Daily and data-informed student goal setting can help kids as young as kindergarten feel empowered and engaged in their learning.

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Becoming a more inclusive educator means making shifts in our learning environments to engage all learners, especially those who may lack a strong sense of belonging in our school community. A big part of that shift is uncovering our biases, finding out who we think of as "us" and who we think of as "them."

In my book, Finding Your Blind Spots ( Amazon | Bookshop.org), I give teachers a framework to systematically discover their own way of "othering," so that they can course correct in order to give every student a sense of belonging. To help you with that reflection, I'm offering eight questions central to finding your implicit biases and areas you need to work on in order to become a more inclusive, culturally responsible educator.

If you tend to be more a doer than a thinker, this process may make you impatient; just keep in mind that starting with action before doing the necessary reflection often means actions are doomed from the start. For the doers, I will follow the reflection with some practical next steps, a roadmap that will get you where you need to be in order to better serve students, families and communities.

Part 1: The Questions

These questions don't need to be answered all at once, but when you do answer them, make sure you set aside time to consider the question, its meaning and how you might use the information to become a better practitioner. Further, make sure you have a no-judgment zone in which to complete this exercise. What you write down should not be judged by others and you should not harshly judge yourself. Your honest responses are the most important factor in this exercise and there are no right or wrong answers. We are all on a journey and the fact that you are here reading this means you are already being intentional about becoming a better educator to all your students.

How diverse is your personal circle and why does it look like it does? While not having a diverse circle doesn't mean you are racist, elitist or any other -ist, it probably does mean that you don't have much experience with people unlike you.

1. Who are the 'others' in your life? Make a list of 10 people you consider "us" and 10 people you consider "them." These could be family members, work colleagues, neighbors, students, or anyone with whom you have fairly regular contact. In what ways are the people on your "us" list different from you? How are they similar? What about your 'others'-how are they different? How are they the same? You can make lists, Venn diagrams, sketchnotes or any other representation to show differences and similarities.

2. How often do you use generalizations? Take a week and intentionally keep track of the times you use "they" to describe people of a certain color, culture, identity, gender, etc. One common campus generalization is "the Special Ed kids," as though students under this umbrella are homogenous. Another is the admin/central office "they." Teachers often see admin as others. Keep track of "harmless" generalizations as well-"the students," "the neighbors," "the football team," etc.

3. What is your initial perception when you talk to someone with an accent different from yours, for instance, a customer service rep, parent, or even a student?

4. Do you consider the integration of diverse historical perspectives best practice or divisive politics? One example of multiperspectivity is looking at different narratives between the European settlers and Indigenous people in the colonial U.S. For instance, the Thanksgiving story is usually told from the perspectives of the Pilgrims and mainly portrays their struggles for survival. Rarely do we hear of the hardships that the Wampanoag Indians endured or how they were holding feasts of thanks years before the Pilgrims even arrived. Another example of a lesser-known narrative is that of the Powhatan confederation, the Indigenous peoples who lost both land and life due to colonization in Virginia.

5. Who is on your "free pass" list? We tend to be more forgiving of those we like and are in agreement with. List five people-friends, students, public figures-whose failings you tend to excuse or write off. Explain also why you tend to "go easy" on them.

6. When do you tend most toward non-acceptance and judgment? Are your triggers cultural differences? Ideological and religious dissimilarity? In-group/out-group challenges?

7. How much cross-cultural literature, TV, and movies do you consume in order to familiarize yourself with what for some is an uncomfortable shift to a more diverse community?

Part 2: Reflecting on Your Results

As you wrote down your answers, you may have experienced a myriad of feelings, some positive, some more uncomfortable. Mostly, we all have more biases than we would like to think we do. We tend to put ourselves in categories: good people who treat everyone the same and bad people who don't treat everyone the same. Actually, if that was the case, none of us would be good people. While we try to treat everyone equitably, there are a million conscious and unconscious decisions that hinder us from treating everyone equitably. If you drove in to work without your morning coffee, you can likely think of at least three ways you were less than fair to someone who crossed your path.

Knowing that, I hope you won't spend time on feelings of guilt and shame. While guilt can be a motivator, helping us to seek moral change and justice, more often it causes us to feel defensive or worse, it paralyzes us and keeps us from making needed changes. We all think things and feel things we "shouldn't," but if you begin by judging yourself, you'll never get to a place where you don't judge others.

On the other side of guilt, however, is an awakening, a fiery desire for change. While this may sound like a recipe for forward motion, it can also wreak havoc on a community. Well-meaning calls to action may seem helpful, but an I-know-better-than-you urgency may be off-putting and cause people to throw up walls before they can even understand how crucially change is needed. Just because change is needed doesn't mean that people in your circle are ready to change when and how you want them to. Begin with things you can do on your own and if those go well, consider finding accountability partners, one or two people who can support you in any personal or classroom initiatives.

Part 3: Next Steps (and What Not to Do)

You have asked yourself some hard questions and dealt with your feelings about what you've found out about yourself. Now, here are six easily implementable strategies you can put into action, plus two important don'ts.

1. Broaden your circle. If you teach in a different community from where you live, make it a priority to go to restaurants or a fitness class in your school community, visit the playground with your children, or take part in an event hosted by the library or place of worship. If you teach in the same community where you live, make it a point to seek out more of these experiences. If you have a family, make it a family affair. The shift will birth new conversations at your dinner table and you will have the opportunity to cement your thoughts on empathy vs. othering with those you care most about. If you're White, you may at times feel like you're getting some "what are you doing here" looks, but that's a learning experience as well. Enriching your daily life with new experiences in different places with different people builds empathy and helps you better relate to people as a teacher and human being.

2. Practice empathy with the "others" already in your life, maybe even those who trigger you most. Remember the list of 10 "others" you made? Next time your brother comes over and stays all Sunday watching game after game and "keeping your husband from the family," think about what the experience might be giving him. Maybe being with his brother in a home with food and family provides a welcome respite to his single-life existence. And although your neighbor may talk incessantly about the latest labels and fashion trends, can you imagine why that topic is so dear to her? Maybe she came from a family without much money and this is her way of trying to fit in.

Similarly, be intentional about building relationships with students you have less of a connection with. Play This or That or Would You Rather to get to know them on a human level, then capitalize on the knowledge in order to strengthen your relationships: "Hey Johnny, I see you and I really have a lot in common when it comes to food and animals! How many pets would you have if you could?" Or "I see you and I both feel strongly about the ice cream we like. Tell me why I should eat more chocolate ice cream and less vanilla? Let's organize a tasting party for Fun Friday!" Again, especially if it's mid-year in middle school, you might get some suspicious looks, and that's ok. You won't see every seed bear fruit, but just keep planting.

3. Monitor your daily intake of media. Media companies and the 24-hour news cycle are money-making entities; opinions about actual news that keep you "in your feelings" are gold for them. If you are constantly angry at "others" you won't be able to fully embrace the children of those 'others' in your classroom. Further, it will be unlikely that you will teach your students to embrace others if you are all firmly planted on one side. In order to maintain a safe classroom space for all students, decide how much media consumption you personally need to be informed. Then spend time consuming media that calms and centers you. Better yet, take an extra walk around the block. We are most likely to act on our baser impulses when we are stressed. Anger-especially from the person designated as the person to manage classroom culture-disrupts neutrality and upends the emotional balance of the classroom. Biased perspectives also shade classroom interactions, adversely affecting relationships with and between students who have divergent opinions. Staying balanced and calm will give you the mental space you need to be reflective in your interactions with all your students, especially your "others."

1. Know the difference between communication barriers and content barriers. Communication can be a barrier to learning and that can play out in many different ways. We may assume, in error, that people with accents don't understand the concepts we are teaching, that students don't read or decode well, or that children come from a disadvantaged background and may be low-performing. The reality may be that students don't understand certain mathematical terminology, the colors and fonts on our slideshows may not be dyslexia-friendly, or that the "general knowledge" terms and situations used in word problems may only be general knowledge in upper middle class settings. So learn a second language, learn more about African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and its structure, and learn more about designing presentations for accessibility. Know your content AND how to bridge content so it is accessible for all learners.

2. Keep a log on whose behaviors you correct in class over two weeks. Look for patterns and allow no rationalizations. Let the pattern speak for itself. Then learn more about cognitive biases and be intentional about mitigating your own. Once you realize how many cognitive biases guide our thinking on a daily basis, you can be more intentional and less reactive. The more you practice, the better you'll get.

3. Understand that bias in classrooms is not confined to the biases of people in the classroom. Every bit of curricular material has been written by a person with perspectives and biases, whether intentional or unintentional. To learn more about biases in textbooks, look for exceedingly positive or negative portrayals of events and people. To unearth slants in media and current event portrayals, use tools like the non-partisan AllSides Media bias chart and fact checkers. Use language like, "according to this source" and "the authors of this textbook state...". Also, consider asking the question, "whose stories are missing, who else was there?" to teach students about the most important bias, silence.

And now for a couple of don'ts.

1. Don't assume that content knowledge is static. Everything evolves. We used to think the world was flat, exercise in pregnancy was bad, and everyone needed eight hours of sleep. As more artifacts and documents are unearthed, we can now round out truths. With the realization that history is someone's documentation of a set of events from a certain perspective, we are free to seek out diverse perspectives. Just as no one suggests bloodletting to cure cancer, let's be open to taking in new knowledge and helping our students become critical thinkers.

2. Don't get defensive. When a student or staff member tells you a comment or action has offended them, don't assume they are being too sensitive, too easily offended or "taking it wrong." When someone trusts you enough to tell you how an interaction has made them feel, apologize, then ask for clarification and an explanation of how they feel you could handle the interaction better in the future. Don't, under any circumstances, make excuses for why you did whatever it was.

A list of excuses that are not reasons in the eyes of the offended:
* I'm old, forgive me.
* I didn't grow up around (Mexicans, Asians, Black people, etc.).
* Well, y'all change it all the time.
* I don't believe in all that.
* You can't say anything anymore
* How am I supposed to know?
* I can't keep up.
* I didn't mean it like that/I didn't mean anything by it.

Bonus: Get to know current and evolving terminology. Chapter 3 of Finding Your Blind Spots is full of resources and explanations; here are two examples: 'Orientals' and 'Indians' are not appropriate terms for Asians and Native Americans; and using an article before the name of a cultural group ( the Blacks, the gays) is akin to saying those people.

Creating inclusive classrooms and campuses takes more than celebrating months and buying diverse materials and Colors of the World crayons. Being intentional about our cognitive processes as educators and as humans is central to understanding how we uphold and perpetuate biased structures and systems. Once we understand how often we value some and devalue others, we can do more than put a band-aid on the existing problem. We can begin to normalize diverse populations being a part of our school day, regardless of the population make-up of our school community.

It sounds like a heavy lift, something to add to an already overflowing plate. It sounds like there are a million ways that your intentions could be misread. They probably will be, but don't be afraid to get it wrong. Fail up!

I advocate working on becoming a more inclusive educator on my podcast, #SmallBites. How do you eat an elephant? One small bite at a time.

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Uncovering Your Implicit Biases: An Exercise for Teachers

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An essential step toward becoming an anti-racist educator is uncovering your own implicit biases. This exercise will get you started.

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I wish, in my early career, I understood why some students tried so hard to impress their friends. I recall the faces and circumstances of specific students throughout my career when students' actions just didn't make sense. Instead, I presumed they were simply exhibiting "attention-seeking behavior." My antidote was to shower them with positive attention when they did something good. My hope was that the recognition I provided fulfilled their need to be affirmed, elevated their status in my classroom, and would reduce their urge to blurt out unrelated and sometimes ridiculous comments just to get a laugh.

The problem was, I was only half correct with my amateur diagnosis of student behavior. I was on the right track to recognize it as an esteem issue. However, what I missed completely is how and why esteem needs cause students to act in ways that defy what they know as right, to ignore their own strengths and accomplishments, and to restrict their success as a learner.

Some educators blamed social media. When I taught middle school, it was often labeled a trait of the age group. It wasn't until recently, when I was revisiting Maslow's Hierarchy, that the lightbulb turned on. Not only did it click, I think it busted the glass with what I had overlooked for so many years. The need to meet the fourth tier in the hierarchy-esteem-is more significant than I had realized. If we can better understand how this tier works, we can help our students satisfy their esteem needs in healthy and beneficial ways.

Editor's note: Since the publication of this post, it has been brought to our attention that Maslow built his hierarchy with significant, but uncredited, influence from the Blackfoot Nation. While this fact does not negate anything written here, it is a history all educators should know. Learn more about the background and the significant differences between the two models in this collection.

How Maslow's Theory Impacts Learning

In order to motivate students to achieve and be willing to take risks, we have to understand the needs humans have that impact their ability to tap into that motivation. According to Maslow's original hierarchy, there are five tiers that make up a hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1987).

Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row.

Deficiency vs. Growth Needs

In the first four stages-physiological, safety, love and belonging, and esteem-Maslow says that we don't feel anything when these needs are met, but anxiety kicks in when they are not. For example, if you've had a good meal, there isn't a boost of motivation, but hunger can impede a person's ability to concentrate. He calls these deficiency needs. His theory is that when we are craving physiological, safety, belonging, and esteem needs, we become distressed. There is a negative impact when we are deprived of these needs, but no impact when they are met; we simply avoid unpleasant feelings or responses. (Maslow, 1962).

The top tier of Maslow's Pyramid is where behavior and motivation turn. The fifth stage is self-actualization. Self-actualization is the lone motivator that Maslow labels as a growth need. This means that the energy that is presented as anxiety when seeking fulfillment at the lower four levels converts to actions to improve oneself at the top level.

How the First Three Tiers Play Out in School
Tier 1: Physiological Needs
Without these biological and basic needs, the body can not function at its best. These foundational needs (air, food, clothing, warmth, sleep, etc) were determined by Maslow to be most important, causing the other stages to be secondary until these basic needs are met.

It is more important than ever to remember how powerful these physiological needs are. Students who are hungry and sleep-deprived are not cognitively open to learning. It's not that they choose not to learn; their brains and bodies simply make it extremely difficult to do so.
Tier 2: Safety Needs
Take a hard look at the list of examples that fall under the stage of safety. Protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear. This means predictability, control in their lives, emotional security, and social stability are all impacted in this area.

Family and schools are among the entities that fulfill these safety needs. When K-12 education-a major source of stability for students-is not consistent, predictable, and routine, it leaves students unfulfilled. For example, when schools are faced with a sudden need to change from in-person to virtual, it significantly disrupts the comfort a regimen provides. Established school and classroom routines play a role in students' feelings of safety at this level.
Tier 3: Love and Belonging Needs
Once the physiological and safety needs are met, the next stage concentrates on social interactions and a feeling of belonging. This is more about lack of exclusion and avoiding isolation than it is about status. (The level of clout is more directly connected to the 4th stage, esteem.)

Besides their families, students often experience feelings of belonging at school. Classroom families, friendship groups, clubs, and sports teams all offer the sense of being part of a group. Students who are missing love and belonging in their home lives can get some of these needs met in the educational and social settings. We accomplish this through seating arrangements, peer partner groups, an overall sense of caring and compassion, and taking interest in students outside their identity as a learner.

The Fourth Tier: The Truth About Esteem Needs

Here's where many of our assumptions about student motivation are debunked when Maslow's theory is applied. It is logical that warm clothes, a desire for stability, and even a sense of love and belonging are all deficiency needs. A common misconception is that esteem belongs with self-actualization in that they both drive improvement of oneself. While this is true for self-actualization, esteem is a deficit need. This means the motivation is triggered by negative feelings that lack of esteem generates.

Maslow identifies two categories within the esteem stage: (1) esteem for oneself or self-esteem, and (2) esteem from others (Maslow, 1987). It is the second type that includes reputation and respect from others that he claims is most important for children and adolescents. The desire for respect is established before true self-esteem is developed (McLeod, 2020).

The need to be respected by others plays a direct role in students' willingness to take risks in the classroom. If a student's status is vulnerable, they are less likely to engage in activities that will prevent their esteem needs from being met. However, students who have established reputations with their peers can bounce back from an event that could otherwise lower their social status.

We often recognize when students care more about what others think about them than their own success. This is the esteem stage we are noticing. Adults often try to divert children's attention from their need for respect from others to being content with themselves. The result is not overwhelmingly effective because the desire to be accepted by others precedes the self confidence kids have. This, according to Maslow, is not a chicken-egg scenario.

Here's the tricky part about meeting esteem needs: They can't be faked. False praise and inflated achievements don't contribute to a student's self-esteem or improve their reputation with others. Because esteem is aligned with the internal feelings people have about themselves, when participation trophies, for example, are given, the recipients have an underlying awareness that the trophy wasn't actually earned. So, while the positive attention is welcomed, it doesn't positively impact the confidence people have in themselves. It can actually work in the opposite way because it calls attention to a lack of true success which can lower people's beliefs that they're worthy or capable (Kay & Shipman, 2018).

When intentionally working to address the esteem needs of our students, we have to provide authentic experiences of knowledge, competence, independence, recognition, and confidence. Even though esteem is an internal quality, it relies on external experiences to reinforce or build it. In their book, The Confidence Code, authors Kay and Shipman explain that confidence-a close cousin to esteem-is grown by overcoming challenges. They share that failing fast, then using the lessons learned from those initial failures to eventually achieve success, is one of ways confidence is built. If success is not ultimately achieved, and in a genuine way, then the person is simply left with a feeling of failure and you can easily guess what that does to esteem. The formula is challenge + success (no matter how long it takes) = confidence increase (Kay & Shipman, 2018).

When success seems to be a stretch, then the teacher's focus should move to reducing the negative impact a classroom event has on damaging esteem. Strategies like "phone a friend" have that potential. If students are asked to provide a response and when invited to get help from a peer the question then transfers to the peer, the initial student sees the opportunity for a status boost handed off to a classmate. However, if the initial student asked was provided the choice to solicit a prompt or hint from that classmate, the original student maintains the feeling of success. One giant step to building esteem in our learning spaces would be to reduce the emphasis we place on right answers. It encourages cheating at every stage of the learning process. When students feel they should know the answers from the onset of a lesson, they engage in efforts that do not promote building their knowledge (an esteem booster) but rather, reinforce a feeling of incompetence (an esteem buster).

3 Esteem-Building Strategies to Try

In my observations of hundreds of lessons across the nation, the following strategies have an impact on the willingness students have to take risks when faced with a challenge and therefore, present the opportunity to truly pump up esteem. As Kay and Shipman point out, lack of trying guarantees confidence will not rise (2018).

1. Give students an "out" up front.

Offer students specific language that allows them to "under-commit" to responses or give them an opportunity to save face. It's much easier to shift or back away from an answer if it was prefaced with something like, "I might change my mind later, but right now I'm thinking..." versus "I think the answer is ..."

2. Listen for opportunities to elevate a student's status.

When you're intentionally trying to fulfill students' esteem needs and you're not seeing opportunities, create them. You can solicit affirmations from your students by calling attention to contributions they bring to the class. Then, when you recognize an example of one or more students impacted positively by something a peer said/did, narrate it to call attention to it. These two actions, soliciting opportunities and labeling make for a solid pairing. Solicit positive peer comments, then label them as such.

3. Support Positive Peer Interactions.

Classroom culture and structures can also be used to encourage ways to support positive peer interactions to fulfill esteem needs. Planning ways to fulfill the esteem needs of your students, the results will be quicker and stronger than if you wait for them to happen organically.

Moving to Tier 5: Self-Actualization Needs

Students in this stage seek opportunities to grow. Examples include creative thinking, contributing to a greater good, self assessment, and independent goal setting. The forces that feed self actualization, the only growth need on the hierarchy, come from within the individual. This is distinctly different from the deficiency needs that come from external forces. For students who appear to be self actualizing, they will thrive in environments that provide autonomy, self expression and creativity.

Attending to the hierarchical needs of our students will help us provide a safe learning environment. A place where their basic needs are met, they have a sense of safety, and they feel they belong is necessary. Attention to their esteem needs will create a classroom where students do not fear losing status or triggering their need to protect their own self esteem. These levels are deficiency needs; when they are not satisfied, students experience negative emotions that can drive their actions and impact behavior. Rather than addressing the behavior as if the student is trying to elevate their esteem, seek ways to satisfy their need to be valued and respected. You will have more luck making a long-lasting change and a positive impact on the young humans in your classroom.

References

Kay, K., & Shipman, C. (2018). The confidence code: the science and art of self-assurance- what women should know. HarperBusiness, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers.

Maslow, A. H. (1967). A Theory of Metamotivation : the Biological Rooting of the Value-Life. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 7(2), 93-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/002216786700700201

Maslow, A. H. (1987). Motivation and personality (3rd ed.). Harper & Row Publishers.

McLeod, S. (2020, December 29). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

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What we call "attention-seeking behavior" is a sign of a deficit need. How can we help students meet this need in a healthy way?

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Identify & Interpret: I2 Strategy to understand a graph

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Identify & Interpret: I2 Strategy to understand a graph

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Listen to the interview with Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan (transcript):
Sponsored by CommonLit and ISTE

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through these links,
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We're living in a time in history when awareness of educational inequality has risen to what seems like its highest point ever, and many good resources have emerged to help us attack the problem from multiple angles: anti-bias training, book studies, restorative practices, culturally responsive teaching, improving representation in our classroom materials, the list goes on. Unfortunately, many of these resources only chip away at the problem, and many are only being consumed by individual teachers or served up as one-off trainings whose impact ultimately fades after a period of time. These efforts, while well-intended, often don't make enough of a difference because we're trying to make them work inside a system that's a terrible fit for them.

What's been missing is a whole-school approach, something that completely shifts our focus and creates a path forward that is radically different from what we've done before.

Earlier this year, a book came out that I think fills that void. It's called Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation. Written by Dr. Shane Safir and Dr. Jamila Dugan, the book outlines an approach to school improvement that focuses on a completely different kind of data analysis. Instead of looking at grades and test scores, attendance and graduation rates, the Street Data method looks at data from the ground up, where educators and school leaders act as ethnographers to gather stories, artifacts, and observations from the margins: the families, students, and educators themselves. It is not a silver bullet. It is not a quick fix. The Street Data approach is messy, it's different for every school, and it is never "done." But in the 20-plus years that I have been teaching or teaching about teaching, I have never seen an approach that I thought was more promising.

On the podcast, I talked with Safir and Dugan about what schools have done historically to address equity gaps, why those efforts have largely failed, and why their approach is far more effective. Below is a summary of our conversation.

Why Most School Improvement Efforts Fall Short...

Since the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act, U.S. schools have tried desperately to improve the test scores of students whose performance fell below proficiency. Many of these efforts haven't succeeded-at least, not to the degree school leaders hoped. They also created a test-obsessed culture in schools that put instructional emphasis on drill-and-kill test prep, then punished teachers when all that prep didn't produce the desired results.

The problem, Safir and Dugan submit in their book, is that schools have been focusing on the wrong data- satellite data -the kinds of numbers we can only see from a distance, like test scores, graduation rates, and so on.

"The achievement gap itself is a mythology," Safir says. "It's a distortion. And it's rooted in a really narrow epistemology or sense of what it means to know."

In other words, we're measuring the wrong things, defining achievement through a lens that's way too limited. "Those measures are pretty disconnected from our day-to-day," Dugan says. "In this model, student work gets skipped over. I can't tell you the amount of times I go in a classroom going like, oh my gosh, you're not even looking at the work. You're just looking at the test."

...and Well-Meaning Equity Efforts Miss the Mark

At the same time schools have attempted to boost academic achievement via testing, they've also been taking action to improve equity through one-and-done professional development, new hires, or abrupt policy changes-a collection Dugan refers to as Equity Traps and Tropes. Unfortunately, these efforts often produce disappointing results, not because they aren't well-intended, but because they are treated as to-do items that ultimately don't change the larger system.

"It's not a destination," Dugan says. "Equity is much more a journey. It's dynamic. You don't just achieve equity at a moment. And if you did, you'd be shifting the next moment because it's a dynamic process. So I can't just say, All right. We know research says we need more staff of color. So I hire staff of color, then I'm done. Or We know we want to have a restorative justice lens. We want to have restorative practice. So we do a PD on that. Good, we're done. We do culturally responsive teaching. We're done. So now we're equitable."

All this hard work-the test prep, the data analysis, the equity trainings-has been done by people who really wanted to see all students achieve, be happy, live good, productive lives, and yet it hasn't made nearly the difference they hoped it would. If we want students to be successful, if we want to truly leave no child behind, we need a new definition of success.

That's where Street Data comes in.

How Street Data Is Different

The Street Data model is built around these key characteristics:

Data Collection is Holistic and Ground-Level

The model works from the ground up, assessing how a school is doing by going directly to the students, teachers, parents, and community members who are directly impacted. Through a process of deep listening, observation, and the study of artifacts (student work, videos, etc.), data is gathered, studied, and explored.

The authors define it this way in the book: "Street data are the qualitative and experiential data that emerges at eye level and on lower frequencies when we train our brains to discern it. These data are asset based, ... helping educators look for what's right in our students, schools, and communities instead of seeking out what's wrong " (p. 57).

With that data in hand, all stakeholders co-design a path forward, building something that meets the unique needs of their learning community with the unique assets of that community. This is what makes the Street Data approach so special: It's not a one-size-fits-all "program" that all schools can follow for improvement; it's a method for study and reflection that will give every school a customized solution, one that will keep evolving over time.

Agency Is the Goal

A thread that runs throughout the Street Data approach is agency, "the idea that people have the capacity to take action, craft and carry out plans, and make informed decisions based on a growing base of knowledge" (p. 229).

This idea plays out first in who is involved in the data collection process. Rather than it being a top-down approach, Street Data is practitioner-driven, giving teachers the role of researchers.

Agency also holds a central place in the pedagogy envisioned by the authors. "At the heart of this book is this guiding principle that equity work is first and foremost pedagogical," Safir explains, "that what it means to work toward equity begins and, in some ways, ends in the classroom."

Specifically, this is a pedagogy that gives students the tools "to become agents of their own learning and ultimately agents in the world." This means an emphasis on student voice, project-based and inquiry-based learning, portfolio development and defense, and assessment practices that value feedback and revision over grades.

Anti-Racism Is the Driver

Both authors are firm on this point: The driving force behind the Street Data approach is anti-racism, a commitment to taking direct and sustained action to uproot systemic racism and reduce racial inequality.

"This model is not neutral," Safir says. "We're not trying to play a game of neutrality or to say that the history of systemic racism isn't relevant here. We have to be explicitly anti-racist as we pursue this path of street data. And we have to be willing to disrupt the narratives and the practices and the biases that are continuing to marginalize students."

Our current system "has long promoted the myth that students of color 'need developing'-translated: Black, Indigenous, and brown students are broken and schooling will fix them. To walk the next-generation path of street data, we have to be vulnerable enough to reject this racist lie and stare down the parts of our own practice that need to be fixed" (p. 52).

This brief summary only scratches the surface of how Street Data works. For schools to adopt this model well, the starting point is to read the book, which goes into much more detail about how to implement it. To get support, professional development is available by contacting either author through their websites, which are listed below.

I can't count how many books have been written over the past few decades about school transformation, and many of them probably have some very good ideas, but I have never once reviewed any of these books here, because none of them had an overall approach that seemed as promising as this one. We all want our schools to do better; I think Street Data could very well be the best way to get there.

Learn More

Find Shane Safir at shanesafir.com or on Twitter at @shanesafir.
Find Jamila Dugan at jamiladugan.com or on Twitter at @jamiladugan.

Street Data is Now a Podcast!
Click here for listening info

The Street Data Video Series

In 2023, we released a video series documenting the work of educators from two schools as they followed the Street Data protocol. Learn more about the series here.

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Join our mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration that will make your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to our members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Over 50,000 teachers have already joined-come on in.

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Street Data: A Pathway Toward Equitable, Anti-Racist Schools

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So many equity initiatives fall short because our test-obsessed system doesn't support them. Street Data takes a completely different approach, and it may very well change everything.

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12 Ways to Help Students Identify Their Emotions

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A toolkit of teacher-tested ideas to help build students’ ability to understand and express their feelings.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching: 4 Misconceptions | Cult of Pedagogy

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In some cases, teachers think they’re practicing culturally responsive teaching, when in fact, they’re kind of not. Zaretta Hammond helps clear things up.

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When Someone You Love Is Upset, Ask This One Question

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Offering support can be tricky, but experts say this technique helps.

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Features of Classroom Culture That support Equitable Sensemaking

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Features of Classroom Culture That support Equitable Sensemaking

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There is great interest in the consumer world in AI systems that generate content, like ChatGPT - but in the hallowed halls of academia the response has been more cautious. In this episode, we explore the potential risks and rewards associated with using AI-assisted technology to help with teaching and learning in the classroom. Can AI actually increase the opportunities for creativity and imagination in our classrooms, for both teachers and learners?

Guests:

Dora Demszky, assistant professor in education data science, Stanford Graduate School of Education

Houman Harouni, lecturer on education, HGSE

Lakshya Jain, senior, King Phillip Regional High School, Wrentham, MA

Host:

Uche Amaechi, lecturer on education, HGSE

Key Takeaways:

Play with AI tools and don't be afraid to experiment and "geek out" with the technology.

Empower students and teachers to engage with the new technology.

AI has the potential to provide new opportunities for teacher professional learning and to improve interactions with students.

Resources:

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How teachers can find learning opportunities using AI-assisted technology

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Although there is a huge amount of interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the consumer world, particularly since the release of OpenAI's free ChatGPT program last November, in the hallowed halls of academia the response has been more wary. Concerns abound about academic integrity. There are also worries about how AI-generated content can be biased, inaccurate, and sometimes contain entirely false information, dubbed "hallucinations."

The cautious response is to be expected according to Houman Harouni, lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a former elementary and high school teacher. He has compassion for educators trying to grapple with a rapidly shifting world shaped by machine learning.

"Technology creates a shock," he explains. "This shock is sometimes of a magnitude that we cannot even understand it, in the same way that we still haven't absorbed the sharp shock of the mobile phone."

Harouni has long wrestled with the impact of cutting-edge technology on education, including experimenting in his own classroom, and is convinced that when it comes to teaching "the medium is part of the message." He believes that getting school students and those in higher ed to engage with virtual worlds is essential.

"Where we want to get to is a place where you're dancing with it, dancing with robots," he says.

If the idea of waltzing with a robot creates apprehension for educators, Harouni has some advice :
1) Stop pretending that it doesn't exist
Educators must "help the next generation face the reality of the world and develop instruments and ways of navigating this reality with integrity," Harouni says. Students are well aware that technologies such as ChatGPT exist and are already experimenting with them on their own, but they need guidance about how to use them responsibly.

Teacher education and professional development programs should not ignore generative artificial intelligence either.
2) Use AI alongside your students
Engage with generative AI tools with your students in person, when possible. Otherwise, share AI-generated responses to questions during class time and ask students to consider them or have students experiment with the technology at home, document their experiences, and share them with the class.
3) Teach students how to ask the ChatGPT tool questions
"The educator's job is to understand what opportunities are left open beside the technology," Harouni says.

Teach students to do what artificial intelligence cannot do. For example, unlike robots, we can ask ourselves questions and that is what students need to be trained in: to know how to ask questions and to learn how to critique their own questions, frameworks, and the answers generated by AI, he says.

Students can start with topics and questions that they are interested in and ask ChatGPT for answers, he suggests. The knack is then getting them excited about asking follow-up questions. Harouni uses a personal experience with his 10-year-old stepdaughter and his newborn baby to illustrate his point. When his stepdaughter asked him why he kept telling her to be careful with the baby, Harouni turned to ChatGPT to help her to get to the bottom of her question.

"My creativity as the teacher or the parent at that moment is to say, 'What is it that you're really trying to ask? What is it that you really want to know?'"

While ChatGPT churned out a "whole bunch of answers about the fragility of the baby," with some patience, Harouni helped his stepdaughter discover the question that she truly wanted to ask which was what she could safely do with the new baby. "At the moment that the exploration [with AI] ends with the answer, you know that your work as a teacher begins," he explains.
4) Use generative AI tools to spark the imagination
One frequent concern about generative artificial intelligence is that students will use it to cheat and avoid the hard work of thinking for themselves, but Harouni says that tools like ChatGPT should really challenge teachers and professors to reassess the assignments they give their students.

"You have to stop thinking that you can teach exactly the way you used to teach when the basic medium has changed," he explains. If students can turn to ChatGPT or other AI language models for quick and easy answers then there is a problem with the lesson, Harouni believes.

"We have to create assignments that push [students] to the point where they have to question what is the framework that is being used here and what would it mean for me to radically change this framework," he says.

Harouni recently wrote about how he used ChatGPT to spur higher-level thinking among his students at HGSE when he presented them with a challenging case study that had no easy solutions. The students' initial responses were no better than the chatbot's ideas. Instead "it was after ChatGPT reflected to the students their failure of imagination that they could begin to think of options that they, or any automatic language scrawler, would not have readily reached for," he explained in a co-authored article for Wired.

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Embracing Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom

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Generative AI tools can reflect our failure of imagination and that is when the real learning starts

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Consider a teenager, Jorge, who is caught possessing a large amount of marijuana by a school administrator and will be expelled if he's reported to his parole officer. If the administrator does not report him, they're breaking the law; if they do, they're condemning him to one of the worst schools in the city and likely recidivism.

This is a case study we presented to a class of 60 students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. We asked them to pretend to be a teacher or administrator at the school and design a course of action. One hour into their conversation, we presented them with ChatGPT's analysis of the study.

The program suggested several anodyne solutions: "We must initiate a review of [the school's] existing policies and procedures related to substance abuse, with the goal of ensuring they are consistent, transparent, and reflective of best practices ... The school should take a compassionate approach [but] also communicate clearly that drug abuse and related offenses will not be tolerated ... This approach should be taken while ensuring that the school is responsive to the unique needs of its students, particularly those from low-income and working-class backgrounds."

Our graduate students initially performed no better than this chatbot. They, too, were prone to regurgitating the same tired discourse around justice, equity, and education-discourse that seems appealing but lacks substance, failing to provide a concrete approach beyond what vague virtuous goals it should meet. As one student commented, "We were just saying formulaic, buzzworthy stuff, instead of talking about anything new like we said we wanted to when class started."

The students were also visibly taken aback at how closely ChatGPT's solutions mirrored their own. They spoke of how terrifying it was that these solutions sounded exactly like what a school would implement. Then they questioned themselves and their ability to come up with solutions that differed from what others had been recreating for so long. They expressed feeling stuck in a "loop." One student tried to ease the tension by dismissing ChatGPT's contribution as "not really saying anything." Another challenged him: "Did we really say anything?"

Yet it was after ChatGPT reflected to the students their failure of imagination that they could begin to think of options that they, or any automatic language scrawler, would not have readily reached for. They realized that the case was entirely focused on the perspective of administrators, and that their earlier discussion had had no room for action that involved teachers, students, and Jorge, too.

The students began questioning the logic and legitimacy of existing structures, such as schooling and juvenile justice, that shape their choices and outcomes, and began to propose new, more creative approaches to Jorge's case. One student joked that the teachers, en masse, should smoke weed with Jorge (that is, to make themselves into targets for law enforcement, instead of remain as innocent bystanders). Another spoke of abolishing schools. A third gave an example of grandmothers who destroyed public property in pursuit of environmental justice. These ideas may seem nonsensical-but then, anything that disrupts existing patterns of thinking is quite likely to sound, at least at first, like nonsense.

By the end of the discussion, students had not only explored their immediate, conscience-clearing responses in the context of Jorge's case, but also considered potential actions. Students began to realize that it is possible to both respect the law and to refuse it, if sufficient collective power has been established. For instance, they could turn Jorge in while simultaneously threatening to go on strike if he were expelled-neither acting as mere administrators nor mere saviors. Rather than abolishing schools altogether, shutting down this one school.

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ChatGPT Is Unoriginal-and Exactly What Humans Need

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The technology can help cut through buzzwordy "solutions" and serve as a shortcut for jumpstarting creativity.

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The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT and other large language models (LLM) has brought a flurry of headlines and concerns about its impact across a wide array of fields, including education.

While some have moved to embrace the breakthroughs of AI in the classroom, there remains necessary skepticism about its use and the potential pitfalls associated with its proliferation. As consumer interest in AI has grown, its users have found ways to make it write essays and answer questions based on its available data. But the writing and answers are far from perfect, and concerns about misinformation, data privacy, and AI "thinking" replacing human learning are top of mind for teachers and administrators.

For most educators, the response to AI's emergence must fall between an outright ban of its use and allowing its use across all areas of learning. Harvard Graduate School of Education released its own preliminary guidelines for dealing with AI in the classroom this summer, outlining potential pitfalls and offering suggestions to its faculty and students to help understand how best to use AI as a teaching tool.

"We didn't want to be so restrictive that we would prevent students from gaining experience using these tools, or not let them use them in ways that can enhance learning rather than detract from it," says Professor Martin West, academic dean at HGSE. "But we also wanted to convey to students that some uses of generative AI can undermine their learning. Particularly, when the tools are used to do the cognitive work of thinking for students rather than to support their learning."

Not every school district or company has guidelines in place ahead of the new school year. Best practices will continue to change as the technology - and its limits and uses - continues to evolve. As educators begin to think about guidelines for their schools and classrooms, experts have suggested some starting points for understanding what AI has already changed about educating, and how best to avoid problems to make AI an aid, not a hindrance, in the classroom.
Learn how AI actually works to demystify its impact and potential.
HGSE professor Chris Dede and postdoctoral fellow Lydia Cao, both of Project Zero's Next Level Lab, recently published Navigating A World Of Generative AI: Suggestions For Educators. In it, the writers noted that the product of AI is different from human thought, "lacking essential qualities such as comprehension, self-awareness, emotions, embodiment, ethics, values, and culture."

"As an analogy, we can think of AI as moonlight and human accomplishments as sunlight. As the moon reflects the radiance of the sun, AI reflects what humans are capable of - both truthful insights and biased misinformation," wrote Dede and Cao. "AI is trained using existing data from the worldwide web, which leads to the potential problem of 'garbage in, garbage out,' as well as pervasive issues of AI "hallucinations" where it generates responses that sound plausible but are factually incorrect, such as fabrication of citations of research articles that do not exist."
Create a curriculum that is process-oriented, not product-oriented.
AI should not be used to replace the "thinking" or ability to recall facts that product-oriented learning often asks of students. Rather, Dede and Cao suggest developing process-oriented learning approaches that encourage students to find answers with their own logic and reasoning.

"We need to equip students for a world full of uncertainties and challenges and prepare them to do the complex work of problem-solving," they write. "Embracing a messy process rather than becoming good at following "cognitive recipes."
Make the curriculum more resilient to AI's advances.
This could mean shifting back to more oral exams in the classroom or pivoting lessons to feature more in-class written work. But the researchers say teaching students the current limits of AI can also be an important lesson in both digital literacy and how learning actually works in humans. Understanding "hallucinations" and misinformation coming from AI can help them better use the technology as a learning tool and understand how they themselves learn.

"This provides an opportunity for learners to hone their critical thinking and judgment skills by evaluating AI-generated content through reflection and discussion," write Cao and Dede. "In this way, AI is not doing the thinking for the learners, but supporting them to think better."
Clarify policies and practice.
In the short term, institutions need to let teachers and students know what's allowed and what isn't when it comes to AI usage. Policies must keep in mind some major points like:

Whether using AI as part of coursework violates academic policies

How to cite AI usage in work, if allowed

Risks of incorrect information, "hallucinations" or biases in AI-generated work

Intellectual or copyright concerns

Risks of sharing sensitive information, which may be added to LLM databases

"Our first step was to provide guidelines that clarify what's appropriate in using these tools in academic work," said West of HGSE. "And at the center of that is, when in doubt, ask the instructor. Because uses will emerge uses we hadn't been able to contemplate when writing those guidelines."
Be malleable.
Education is driven by the needs of its students, who will need to understand how to use AI across a variety of sectors in the future, says West. So, educators need to focus on teaching students how to use it, what to avoid, and ultimately remind them what AI cannot yet replace.

"The more productive way forward is for educators to focus on demystifying AI, emphasizing the learning process over the final product, honoring learner agency, orchestrating multiple sources of motivation, cultivating skills that AI cannot easily replicate, and fostering intelligence augmentation (IA) through building human-AI partnerships," write Dede and Cao. "Through these approaches, educators can harness the benefits of AI while nurturing the unique abilities of humans to tackle big challenges in the 21st century."

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Academic Resilience in a World of Artificial Intelligence

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Guidance for educators as generative AI changes the classroom and the world at large

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Let Khan Academy and our partners-including Code.org, Common Sense Education, aiEDU, and Professors Ethan and Lilach Mollick-be your trusted partners as we navigate this exciting learning journey together! What is generative AI and how does it work? What are some best practices for teaching and learning with generative AI? This course-in-progress answers those questions and many more. Welcome!

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AI for education | Life skills | Khan Academy

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Khan Academy believes that AI and Large Language Models hold the potential to transform education. By providing teachers and students resources and tools to design joyful, personalized, interactive, engaging learning experiences that drive deep learning in the months and years ahead, we hope to become a trusted partner in this learning journey.