Afleveringen
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Naomi Oliver, a former Principal of a school that served children rescued from human trafficking. Currently, Naomi applies her expertise as an Instructional Designer for The Global British School, an online Christian institution. Here, she crafts curricula that seamlessly blend British educational standards with faith-based values, ensuring a well-rounded and meaningful learning experience for students worldwide. She reflects on the deep challenges educators face and the gritty optimism required to keep going. Through small, faithful acts of love and justice, Naomi reminds us that educators have the power to be a light in dark spaces, changing lives one student at a time.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Connect with us:Center for School Leadership at Baylor UniversityJon Eckert LinkedInBaylor MA in School Leadership
Jonathan Eckert:
All right. So Naomi, if you could just jump in with an easy question here based on our initial interaction in the United States, can you just briefly give us your thoughts on Italian sausages?
Naomi:
Let's just say Italian sausages will always have a special place in my story. They were my first American meal, thanks to you. And I remember thinking, if this is how America welcomes people, I'm staying for dinner.
Jonathan Eckert:
Nice. I love that. Love that. So no, it was great. I know you got it late-
Naomi:
But more than that, sorry Jon, but more than that, they marked the start of an unforgettable experience and conversation that I'll always treasure.
Jonathan Eckert:
Yes. Well, we got to be with Eric Ellefson, which is always a good start. And I know you got in late that night and you hadn't eaten, and it was almost lunchtime. I was like, "Well, let's go find something." And you landed on Italian sausage, which made Eric, who's a Chicagoan, and me, who lived there for 22 years, very happy. So thank you for that. But I think what people that are listening are going to be most interested in is the work that you did while you were in India and then the work that you're doing now. So could you tell us a little bit about the school you led in India?
Naomi:
Absolutely. As I've already told you, Jon, I had the privilege of leading a school that serves some of the most vulnerable children in our society. Many have been trafficked or are the children of sex workers. It's more than just a school. It's a place of refuge and restoration. We provide education, we provide boarding, but it's just not limited to that. We provide mentorship, internships and make sure they have the right pathway into employment. The vision has always been to break the cycle of exploitation and give these children dignity, hope, and a real future.
Well, I continue to serve as one of the directors, and I'm deeply invested in its ongoing mission. I have to say, attending your course on Just Teaching, which Eric led, made a profound impact on how I approached leadership. It helped me think more intentionally about justice in education and how to structure things with both compassion and integrity. So I'm really grateful for your book and the course that I could be a part of.
Jonathan Eckert:
Oh, well, I appreciate that. It feels like pales in comparison to the work you're doing. I think you had shared at the conference where we met that 80% of the kids that you were serving had either been trafficked or were children of mothers who were being trafficked themselves. And what I found so profound is the way that you stuck with them from education to internships, to trying to get them placed in jobs to get them out of this really vicious, vicious cycle. And I'm curious if you could tell us about a particular student who was maybe particularly memorable in the work that you've done.
Naomi:
Absolutely. I'd love to share. There's one girl I'll never forget. She came to us after being rescued from a brothel. She was only a child, but her eyes carried a weight no child should ever bear. I had mentioned this before when I was having a conversation with you that she had visible marks on her body, burns from cigarettes. She was initially violent and unresponsive. She couldn't speak our language, couldn't understand us. She did not trust anyone, and who could blame her? Honestly, I wouldn't have either if I had gone through what she had.
And I just want to share my background as well. I've studied child psychology and counseling, but nothing prepared me for how helpless I felt in those early days. I remember questioning myself, wondering if we were even making a difference. I felt like a failure many a times, but God was patient with me even when I wasn't patient with myself. And slowly with time, counseling, and relentless love from our team, things began to shift. A few years later, that same girl got up on the stage during chapel and prayed in front of all the students. She spoke with such quiet confidence that it brought tears to my eyes. All I could do was just thank the Lord and think this is the same girl who came to us with no hope. What happened in her life wasn't because of me. It was God. It was grace. And grace carried her. Grace carried all of us.
Jonathan Eckert:
I can't even imagine being in that chapel session and hearing her pray. It gives you chills when you think about what the Lord does in the lives of students and we get to walk alongside and be part of that, and that's a blessing for us. So we know this, there are 250 million school-aged children who do not have access to schools around the world. And so that's a pretty bleak number. And you've dealt with some kids with some pretty long odds where things are very, very challenging. So where do you find hope in our work as educators?
Naomi:
Well, it's a staggering number and it can feel overwhelming if you let it, but I've come to believe that hope is never found in the size of the problem. It is found in the impact of each small faithful act. I find hope in the ripple effect of education. When you invest in one child, you're not just changing their life, you're changing their family, their community, and potentially in the scenario I mentioned, generations to come. I've seen it happen firsthand, a child who once believed they were worthless starts to dream and they begin to work toward that dream. Their siblings watch, their parents begin to believe again. That kind of impact may start small, but it is contagious.
Jonathan Eckert:
And I think that's a really helpful reframe. It has to be at the individual level and that's what makes the work you're doing so powerful is you break that cycle with the school you were serving in India where you have kids who are living on campus, who you have been able to get out of a really dangerous context for themselves and get them into a place where they can grow and be challenged and understand truth and grace and love, and then move that one individual kid ahead.
Now, we are not going to be able to address all 250 million kids who don't have access to schools, but you were doing that for 250 kids in India and there are a lot of other amazing educators doing that around the world, we just need to expand those people that are impacting those individual lives. Because again, it makes life for us have more meaning. I always say educators, we never have to look around for the meaning in our work. We know with the work we get to do that that impact is real. It is overwhelming to think of 250 million kids not having access to schools, but there are kids that are within our sphere of influence that we can impact. And that's what I found so compelling about the work you were doing. And then I'd love to know more about the work you're doing now as you try to expand your impact and reach.
Naomi:
Absolutely. I'm currently working as an instructional designer for an online school, and my focus is on blending high academic standards with values-based learning. So that's students not only gain knowledge, but grow in character and purpose. This role is deeply personal for me as many children still living in brothels are struggling to break free. For them, online education is sometimes the only way they can access learning without leaving their current environment until they're able to.
In addition to this, I'm also one of the directors of Changing Destiny, an initiative dedicated to empowering girls from red light districts by ensuring they have clear, meaningful career pathways after school so they never have to return to that life. Education both online and in person is central to that transformation, Jon. And we work hard to make sure every girl has access to the tools and support she needs to build a different future. I do this work voluntarily as an honorary role without receiving a single dollar from Changing Destiny because my heart is to empower these women and children. Just recently I had a long counseling session with the very first batch of students graduating from our school. Some of them want to become writers. Others dream of becoming doctors and professors. Seeing their dreams take shape despite the darkness they've come from, reminds me why this work matters. Their lives are changing and so is their future.
Jonathan Eckert:
Well, that's a beautiful example and your career arc is a beautiful representation of doing work really up close with individual students in really close proximity to really challenging circumstances. And then you're saying, well, we can't reach each kid that's there and so we need this virtual option that can give them a values-based strong education that will then launch them into something more as they become more of who they're created to be. And so I love the balance that you in your own career represent of this deeply personal work that you're now trying to scale up in ways that make education accessible beyond what you were able to do, even with the amazing school you had serving 250 kids, we might get closer to that 250 million that we need to hit.
Naomi:
Absolutely.
Jonathan Eckert:
That's great. So what do you see as the greatest challenge for educators currently? Obviously you've seen some challenging circumstances, but if you think broadly for educators, what do you see as the greatest challenge?
Naomi:
Well, one of the greatest challenges today is navigating the tension between academic expectations and the emotional, mental, and even spiritual needs of our students. The world is changing rapidly, especially in the aftermath of COVID. We've seen a surge in anxiety, trauma and a deep sense of disconnection in children and young people. Many are coming into the classroom carrying invisible burdens, things they may not have words for, but that affect everything from their attention spans to their self-worth. Well, as educators, we are being called to do so much more than just teach. We are expected to be mentors, to be counselors, social workers, motivators, and sometimes even surrogate parents.
And most of us are doing it with very limited resources and support. It can be exhausting and emotionally draining, especially when we ourselves are navigating burnout or our own personal challenges. The hardest part is that the system often still prioritizes grades and outcomes over the child's holistic well-being. But the truth is no real learning happens when a child feels unsafe, unseen, or unheard. I think the challenge is learning to balance the pressure of performance with the calling to care. And that's something no training manual can fully prepare you for. It requires deep compassion, a lot of prayer, and a supportive community around you. If we don't acknowledge this challenge, we risk losing the heart of what education is meant to be.
Jonathan Eckert:
Well, I love that example because teaching is one of the most human things we do and it is absolutely contingent on relationship and that sense of belonging. And so it doesn't matter whether you're dealing with... In the US, we just completed a survey of some of the most elite private schools in the US compared to public school outcomes, compared to Christian school outcomes. And that sense of belonging is so integral to the adult outcomes. We were looking at people in ages 24 to 39, and actually right before we jumped on, I was working on a paper laying this out, and what you just said is so true, whether you're working with kids whose mothers are being trafficked or who have been trafficked, that sense of belonging is so acute and that goes across the whole human condition.
So given the fact that most of the people listening have not had the experiences of educating in some of the places you have, I think it's really powerful to hear the connection that we all have to that same challenge. So with that said, what do you see as the greatest opportunity for educators? If that's the greatest challenge, this need to create a sense of belonging and connection holistically, then what do you see as the greatest opportunity?
Naomi:
Well, Jon, I believe we are standing at a pivotal moment in education. Technology has opened doors that were once firmly shut, making learning more accessible, creative, and collaborative than ever before. Children in remote villages now have the potential to learn alongside peers from different countries. Educators can share ideas, resources, and innovations across borders. That alone is revolutionary. But beyond the tools and platforms, I think the greater opportunity lies in re-imagining what education should be. For too long, schooling has been about memorization and performance. Now we have the chance to center education on what truly matters, which is love, justice, and transformation. We can build spaces where children feel seen and valued, where their identities are affirmed and their voices are heard. And when faith becomes a part of that conversation, when students begin to understand that they are not accidents, but intentionally created, loved and called, then the transformation goes even deeper. It no longer is just about passing exams. It's also about discovering purpose. We have an opportunity to equip a generation, not just with knowledge, but with wisdom, empathy and courage and that kind of education can really change the world.
Jonathan Eckert:
Yeah, well said. So this is our lightning round. So these are just short sentence long answers if you can. But first one, we'll go back to food. I'm a big fan of food. What was your favorite food you had when you were in the us?
Naomi:
Well, I'm still dreaming about those Italian sausages. I may or may not have Googled how to ship them internationally.
Jonathan Eckert:
Love it. It all goes back to the Italian sausage. Very good. We need to figure out how to get you some over there. I think Eric is, Eric's our director of networks and improvement at the center. So I feel like that's something he needs to figure out his network to help us improve our enjoyment of food. How do we get Italian in sausages to the UK?
Naomi:
Perfect.
Jonathan Eckert:
Next one. What's the worst advice you've ever received?
Naomi:
Stay in your lane. Thankfully I didn't.
Jonathan Eckert:
That was well said. And thank you for not staying in your lane. I mean, yeah, educators need to step into the work they're called to and that a lot of times it's not the lane everybody thought we were going to be in when we started. So what's the best advice you've ever received?
Naomi:
Love them first, then teach. It never failed me.
Jonathan Eckert:
That's so good. That's so good. And then what makes you most hopeful for educators?
Naomi:
The fact that so many still show up every day with love in their hearts and a belief that every child matters.
Jonathan Eckert:
Yes, that is so true, and that's the blessing of the job that I have. I get to meet educators like you that have seen really hard things and remain hopeful, and they are hopeful because of what they've seen the Lord do in the lives of students. And so that moves past, we talk about this all the time, it moves past naive optimism. That belief that you have when you first start educating, like, hey, we can change the world, and this can all be amazing. And then you get hit with the reality of it and you realize it's harder than maybe you thought it was. But over time, you develop a gritty optimism because you've seen kids get out of really difficult circumstances. You've seen kids become the writers, the professors, the doctors, the parents that they want to be. And so that's the joy of being an educator, especially if you get to stay in it for decades, and that's the beauty of the work.
Well, Naomi, thank you for taking time to talk to us. Thank you especially for the work you do and the work that you allow the Lord to do through you. You have been a tremendous blessing to me and to the center and to the people that you are in network with through the initial interaction you had with us. But we know the Lord's going to continue to use you in powerful ways and we want to cheer you on and help any way we can, even if that's just sending you some Italian sausages.
Naomi:
Thank you, Jon. It really means a lot to have had this space to share. These stories are close to my heart and I'm grateful for the opportunity to shine a little light on the hope that's growing even in hard places. Thank you so much.
Jonathan Eckert:
Thank you, Naomi.
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This is a different type of episode for the Just Schools Podcast! This time Jon Eckert is interviewed by Beck Iselin. The conversation explores the role of joy in education and how it connects to feedback, engagement, and well-being (FEW). Jon shares how his research builds on past work, emphasizing that joy isn’t something artificially created—it comes from a deep understanding of our identity and purpose. He reflects on how students today often equate happiness with well-being and why educators must help them see joy as something deeper and more enduring. This conversation offers insight into how teachers can cultivate meaningful engagement and resilience in their classrooms.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:How to Know A Person by David BrooksReset by Dan HeathLincoln Versus Davis: The War of the Presidents by Nigel Hamilton Connect with us:Center for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcslBaylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInBCSL LinkedIn
Jon Eckert:
Welcome back to Just Schools. We have a treat for you today. We have a guest host in the studio all the way from Brisbane, Australia. We have Beck Iselin. She's a returning Just Schools podcast person, but the last time she was the person I got to interview along with her dad about the work that she does as a school teacher in Brisbane, and so she listens to Just Schools and we were discussing this over the weekend and she said, there's so many questions I would like to ask you as someone who listens, and she said, "Do you ever do the podcast where someone interviews you?" So I said, "Well, why don't you take that role?" So we have our first ever guest host, so take it away Beck, you get to be the interviewer.
Beck Iselin:
Thank you, Jon. I'm so grateful for the one and only Dr. Jon Eckert joining us on the other side of the podcast today. Yeah, I guess I wanted to really start off by asking you, I know that you're involved in a lot of current research at the moment, stemming out of your real passion for kids and for the educational leadership space. So can you speak to a little bit about what your current research looks like?
Jon Eckert:
No, I'd love to do that. So all of my research always builds on previous research. So the collective leadership work became the feedback, engagement, and wellbeing for each educator and each student work. That was what animated Just Teaching, and now what I've realized is our profession needs more joy and it can't be artificially cultivated. It comes from the deep joy that comes from our knowledge that we are created in the image of God and we're broken and flawed, and out of that brokenness comes joy and so when we think about FEW, feedback, engagement, wellbeing for each kid, we need to make sure they understand what joy is because I'm not sure kids do understand that right now. I think they think if they don't feel happy that they aren't well, and if they aren't well, then they don't feel like they should show up and our happiness is circumstantial.
Beck Iselin:
It's not contingent.
Jon Eckert:
Right, it's this self-focused thing where joy should effervesce through struggle and in the Bible you see this over and over again. Joy is always connected to adversity and suffering, and we don't wish adversity and suffering on people. We certainly don't wish trauma on people, but there is this idea that in a classroom, we have to be able to move through adversity with others and as we do that, that builds that gritty optimism that we can do more.
Beck Iselin:
That's where the joy is, some would say.
Jon Eckert:
That's it. That's where the joy is, well said. So that's what we're researching right now. We've gotten about 20,000 surveys in from around the world on what that looks like in classrooms and so that's the next book that we're working on, Joy Over Happiness and what that looks like.
Beck Iselin:
How fantastic. Yeah, great and so what are you then seeing in the schools, I guess challenges or trends or insights that you're noticing? You mentioned children not quite grasping that concept of joy. Is there any other things that you're noticing in the schools at the moment?
Jon Eckert:
So teachers that understand this and administrators that understand this are cultivating this in their students, and so students are doing amazing things all around the world and in contexts that you couldn't even imagine joy effervescing through. So we're going to have a couple of guests on in the next couple of months from around the world who are doing amazing things. So one educator I was speaking to last week at an international conference of Christian leaders from all over the world, she led a school of 250 students, 80% of whom had either been trafficked or were children of prostitutes, and they stick with those kids in a residential model all the way through internships and job placement.
Beck Iselin:
Wow.
Jon Eckert:
And that's joy to be able to step into that work. It's really hard and that is trauma, and we do not wish trauma on anyone, but to see God at work and that is amazing, and other woman shared the story of her sister who was six years old, it was her twin and she passed away when she was six and that educator didn't speak for five years, and so at 11, she began to speak again when she was reading aloud with a teacher, it just happened and now she fierce advocate for giving students' voice and she's the most eloquent, articulate, succinct speaker of profound truths, I think largely because she had five years where she just listened and watched.
Beck Iselin:
Something we could all gain a lot from, right?
Jon Eckert:
Right, and you don't wish that trauma on anyone and that adversity, even not speaking for five years, but somebody reminded me just today, Maya Angelou went through a long period of not speaking as well after trauma, and so there is this joy that comes from really horrible, hard things, not because of the hard thing, but because hey, we're made to be resilient and that brokenness leads us to be able to see others in different ways that I think is powerful and is a lot of the why behind what those leaders are doing. So I get really excited when I get to see that, and I always say I have the best job in the world because I just go around and find those things that are working even in really hard places through adversity in these really meaningful ways. So excited about that.
Beck Iselin:
Yeah, and I think what a blessing it is to be able to be in classrooms and school contexts that don't look like what you have previously taught in yourself. You would gain so much from the joy that you see in these countries like you said, India and overseas in the UK or back in Australia. There's so much to be gained from that, and so I think for me as a teacher, what I see in the research space is everything is at our fingertips these days, and so one article that you read can be completely contradictory to the next and book that you read, and so is there anything that I guess you've read recently or research that you've been looking into that you could recommend for teachers where we're just swarmed with everything at the moment?
Jon Eckert:
I love the way you frame that. And so here's the challenge with recommending books. Part of my job is to read, and that is a huge blessing, and I realize that and when you're in the hard work of meeting individual kids' needs every day, you don't have time and space for that. So take all this with a grain of salt and there are great ways to get summaries of these things.
Beck Iselin:
Yeah, podcasts.
Jon Eckert:
Right, yes, but what I'd say is always use the filter of your own experience for what is true. So when I talk to educators like you, when we were talking about your classroom and where joy is and where the hard things are and where it leads to joy and some of these breakthroughs you've seen in kids that struggle to read and write, but they know everybody in the classroom when you play the game where the missing student is out of the classroom and they have to figure out who's out of the classroom, and that's the kid who gets it. Each kid is uniquely created, and so when we read books, read articles, put that always through the lens of your lens as a teacher,
Beck Iselin:
Like the human-ness part of it.
Jon Eckert:
That's right, and so I think there's wisdom and this is your seventh year of teaching?
Beck Iselin:
Correct.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, so you've gained a lot of wisdom. So use everything through that filter. So three books. My favorite book of last year was How to Know A Person by David Brooks. It's how do you listen well, how do you ask questions? How do you elicit stories from people? And he does a beautiful job writing about that and I think it's really a beautiful book for being a better human being, not just a better teacher. So love that. Then the one I just finished was Reset by Dan Heath. It's how do we do meaningful work in better ways? And so some really good ideas about before you try to make a change, really dig in and look at the work. So it's great to read research, but they don't know your context.
Beck Iselin:
Correct.
Jon Eckert:
How do you get in and find the bright spots in what's happening and where are you finding resistance and how do you get through that resistance? And we want autonomy, but we want it within constraints. We don't want just full-blown, everybody does what's right in their own eyes. That's the time of the judges, we don't need that. It's like how do we do good work that we're suited for? And so I thought Reset was very helpful. The last book right before I read that was Lincoln Versus Davis. It's The War of the President. So it looked at the US civil war, and I've read a lot of civil war history, but what I liked about this, especially in our current time is looking at things from two leaders' perspectives that were on opposite sides and the hardest point in the history of the United States where Lincoln is coming into just horrific circumstances and he has to lead through that against another leader who is actively trying to break up the country.
And it was so hard to read and see the pain and the families that were spread apart and this fight over slavery, which is just one of the most horrific sins of our country, and to see the brokenness of that, but the encouragement was, as this is part of the reason why I read history. When I get depressed about where we're at as a nation now, I can't say, "Oh, I wish we could go back to that." It's like, "No, we've had flaws." I love our country. I think we have a great country, but we have things that have not been great and we haven't always treated marginalized populations well. We haven't always done things in a just way, but I do think there is great potential for things being better and not getting so down on how polarized our society is now.
Because certainly civil war when your families are polarized and you're literally fighting on other sides of this and killing each other, that would've felt horrific, but Lincoln led with hope through that even though he lost hope at points, but there was an undergirding. I think it was a God-given providential piece of hope. It's not like we need to hold onto that as leaders. So those are three books. Sorry, I can never just recommend one.
Beck Iselin:
No, it's fantastic. I love what you said, just touching back on that first book by David Brooks, How to Know a Person about this craft in storytelling, and I think that's so essential to us as teachers and educators. I remember I had a student a few years ago and he said to his mom one morning, I wonder what story Ms. Iselin is going to tell us today because there's vulnerability in telling a story, right? And I think that that then is going to build trust within your classroom communities and I guess that then brings me to your book, Jon, that you've written. Just feel free to humblebrag as much as you want to, Just Teaching, which is, let me get it up, feedback, engagement and Well-being for each student.
It was a bestseller for its publisher and something I really loved about reading your book was that it wasn't I guess a set of definitive strategies that are going to guarantee success with any student that you come across, and neither was it a book full of buzzwords that seemingly meaningless after five minutes in the classroom. So can you tell us about why you chose to write a book in the first place?
Jon Eckert:
So I felt like it was a book that we had to write because at the center, we'd been working with schools all around the world in response to COVID because we shifted school in a way that never have in the history of the world, but we still had to make sure kids were well, if they were engaged, if they were receiving feedback. So in 2020 that summer, we were helping schools figure out how they were going to roll out school, where they still maintain those three pieces, and so from 2020 to 2023, we were collecting evidence of how that was happening and so that formed the book.
So some of the things were things I had done when I taught and things I was doing with college students, but largely it was what's working around the world in these three categories, and so Just Teaching is kind of a tongue in cheek title that many teachers in the US refer to themselves as just a teacher. We should never do that because that disempowers us and if we are the profession that makes all others possible, there's no such thing as just a teacher, but how do you teach for justice and flourishing and what does that look like? Well, you do that by making sure that you've addressed well-being, engagement, and feedback. The acronym is a nice easy FEW. That's why we start with feedback. You do those few things, not for some kids or all kids, but for each kid. That's how God sees us, that's how we're called to see them, and that's what leads to justice and flourishing. It's a really fun book to write because I was just harvesting stories from the work we were doing with schools all over.
Beck Iselin:
Almost like a collection, right?
Jon Eckert:
And then the key is though, you have to make it so that it feels doable, because there's amazing educators doing things that it just can overwhelm people, and hey, it's only those three things. That's it. Now, doing that for each kid makes teaching infinitely interesting, but also hard, but that's what we're called to and that's why I taught some science labs 16 times. It's not about the lab, it's about the way each kid comes to the lab, and so every time you do that, you have to see it through his or her eyes, and that's fascinating. How a does a 13-year-old see that chemical reaction for the first time. What does that look like? And the same thing for college students and for graduate students, you're not teaching a book. You're teaching individuals how to better understand their context and be more of who they're created to be through a great resource. So that's the beauty of Just Teaching at whatever level you're at.
Beck Iselin:
And so where to next then for Author Dr. Jon Eckert, is there another book in the works? Can you tell us?
Jon Eckert:
So yeah, the next book is a Joy Over Happiness and it's for parents and educators this time because it's anybody that works with kids, and I had to find kids from anywhere from toddler to 21 years old because I couldn't find a better term, but how do we engage a more joyful generation? So it's joy over happiness, engaging a more joyful generation through gritty optimism. Now, we'll see, publishers may change that title, who knows? But that's the idea that everyone has a story. It's worth telling and we can do this in ways that build optimism through evidence and experience. So naive optimism is just the belief we can become more of who we're created to be. Gritty optimism is the belief we can become more of who we're created to be through evidence and experience.
So in order to do that, you got to do hard things with other people, and then you've got to be able to articulate them in your own story, and then great leaders elicit stories from others. So there's story seeking even more so than storytelling. How do you seek those stories and bring those and those in ways that privilege engagement over comfort and others over self and grittiness over naivete? Humility over arrogance.
Beck Iselin:
Or pride, yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Hospitality over service. What does that look like? So each chapter lays out how we get to joy through those vehicles, and so that's been a fun one. Again, gathering stories and evidence and data from all over and now it's just packaging it into okay, how do we get to joy?
Beck Iselin:
And I think parents are asking those same questions too, right? They're also inundated with voices that are telling them which way they should go and just hearing I think from lived experience from stories and that connect people from different nations and different contexts and different spaces, I think, yeah, there's something really special about that. I can't wait to read it.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and so I would be curious to hear from you because you are an educator right now. How are you seeing joy percolating in your classroom or in your school? What is that looking like in 2025?
Beck Iselin:
For me, I've just moved up to what is middle school. Life in the middle at my school, and I think joy in my classroom looks like kids becoming more independent and I think there's this joy in seeing, yeah, that thing of going, everything is new to them. Their uniforms are two sizes too big. They've got lockers and they've got to learn locker combinations for the first time. They've got to make sure they've got all their stationery and organization ready for each class. So there's a lot going on for their little brains and bodies, but to see just the sweetness of just a smile when they know, "Okay, I did it. It was really hard week one, but I finally got my locker combination." And it's funny, you see what would be our seniors, our year 12 students go, "Oh, I can do mine in five seconds."
And I see my little year six shoulders just shrink a little more, but it's celebrating the little wins and I think that's where the joy is for me at the moment in my classroom context I guess in particular in just celebrating little success, because I think as well as kids get older and into those teen years, we stopped doing that. A lot of the play is just pushed to the wayside. A lot of nurture is pushed to the wayside and it becomes a lot about conformity, and we've got to shape you so that you're following these rules, but I think that there's something to be said about little wins that are celebrated as a whole classroom community, and furthermore, a school community. That's what I'm loving.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's good. I think that's what we do as educators, fan those small successes into big flames, and that is joy, and that's gritty optimism and when you've seen that year after year, it's not this belief that isn't grounded in reality. It is reality and the more kids can see that and articulate that story for themselves, that's where they find joy, and we find our greatest joy when our students find joy.
Beck Iselin:
Correct.
Jon Eckert:
And that's real and I definitely have appreciated that about you.
Beck Iselin:
Yeah, Mr. Eckert, I think it is time for our lightning round, something we do at the end of every podcast, but we'll ask a few questions. This is one of my favorite parts of podcasts to listen, to be very honest. I feel like you can learn a lot about a person through some of these answers. So I'd love to start with my favorite one. What is the worst piece of advice you have ever been given?
Jon Eckert:
That's good. This really stinks that I'm on this side because I always say, I'm terrible at this part.
Beck Iselin:
At least you're prepared.
Jon Eckert:
I did have some sense of the questions this time, which is good. Don't go into teaching.
Beck Iselin:
Oh, really?
Jon Eckert:
Yes, you're too smart to go into teaching.
Beck Iselin:
And who told you this?
Jon Eckert:
Multiple people. When I was graduating from high school, when I was starting, I always say it was a huge blessing to me. I graduated from a small rural school in West Virginia, and so I got a federal scholarship because I looked like Appalachian poverty to go into teaching, and it required me to teach for two years every year I took the scholarship, and I took it for three years. So I had to teach six years.
Beck Iselin:
You were forced into it.
Jon Eckert:
And so it was so good for me because my pride and arrogance might have said that I don't think I want to be an education major because people look down on education majors.
Beck Iselin:
And do you think as a young male, you found that as well?
Jon Eckert:
Oh, absolutely. I am quite certain. There are many reasons why women would not have dated me in college, but being a teacher was not a strong endorsement of that's somebody I want to date, and even friends would openly mock that in ways that were kind of good-natured, but would also sting a little bit. So yeah, don't go into teaching. Worst piece of advice I've gotten.
Beck Iselin:
Which is so hard when you have a gift and no matter what context you're in, you're going to teach, whether it's called being a teacher and you've got an education major or not. Do you think that times have changed and that still would be the case for our young men that are looking at studying education?
Jon Eckert:
Well, 77% of educators in the US are female. So 23% are male, really don't go into elementary education, which I started in fifth grade. So love that. I had them all day, got to know them as a family, and it was just a beautiful thing, but yeah, I think it's still a problem. I actually think we've gotten worse. I think administrators have made administration look unappealing to teachers, so nobody wants to go into it.
Beck Iselin:
As a whole.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, then only go into administration, and then teachers have made teaching look pretty miserable to students and some of their best students I had don't do this go into something else. Even good teachers are telling students to do that. I know I've heard that multiple times that I don't want my child to go into this profession, and so we're cannibalizing a profession, and I understand where that comes from, but I don't think that's going to help our society.
Beck Iselin:
That's not the answer, right?
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's a tough place to be. So I just did a horrific job on the first lightning round question, Beck.
Beck Iselin:
Yeah, lightning, come on. Okay, best piece of advice you've ever been given.
Jon Eckert:
So it's on my wall in my office. It's Parker Palmer's quote, "Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique. Good teaching comes down to the identity and integrity of the teacher." And so that's either super encouraging to you or super like, "Oh, that's it." It can't just be a series of techniques, but that is the encouragement. It's who we are in Christ.
Beck Iselin:
It's about the heart.
Jon Eckert:
That is animating what we do. Now, techniques help. It can't be reduced to it, but it's the identity integrity of the teacher, which to me is like, "Oh yeah, that's what it is. I get to live life alongside these kids."
Beck Iselin:
Yeah, it's reassuring.
Jon Eckert:
Right.
Beck Iselin:
Great. A fun one, if you could invite two people over for dinner, dead or a life, who would it be and why?
Jon Eckert:
Well, thank you for not eliminating Jesus from that. I've done this multiple times.
Beck Iselin:
Always, it's assumed.
Jon Eckert:
But how could you not invite Jesus over to find out what that was like?
Beck Iselin:
Be unreal.
Jon Eckert:
To be God in human form on earth. That would be amazing, and then the other one, whenever people eliminate Bible characters if they do that, which I think is mean, it's Abraham Lincoln. I mentioned the book that I just read, but I find him to be one of the most fascinating leaders ever because of what he led through and the way he had to think through unbelievably hard things. So I think it would've been fascinating to hear what that experience was like.
Beck Iselin:
That's great, and do you have a word for this year? I feel like we're kind of in March now, aren't we? So I feel like it's past the time where all the New Year's resolutions, they're well and truly up and running or well and truly, completely faded away into the abyss, but do you have a word that you're holding onto for this year?
Jon Eckert:
Yes, so the word is joy and it's a word that obviously we've talked a lot about today that I journal every morning and I write five things every morning that I'm grateful for, and then I just pray like, "Hey, Lord, what's your word for me today?" And whether that's just my conscience, it's just on the mind or it's really a supernatural intervention, joy has been that word 95% of the mornings for the last six months. That's been what it is and I'm so grateful for that and then I jump into my Bible and read, and then I spend a little more time praying, but I want my life to be marked by joy. That doesn't mean life is easy, but that means that there's going to be joy through hard things because there are hard things. Teachers see this, administrators see this. If your eyes are open, you see hard things and meaningful work in front of you all the time.
Beck Iselin:
And so what would you say? Would you then say that one of the greatest challenges you are seeing in education is that lack of joy in that same way?
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, I think it's the lack of understanding of what joy is. I think we've lost sight of it. We think if there's adversity that there's not joy, and so to me, I want educators to grab onto joy because that's what we pursue is joy and recognize that yeah, this is a hard job, but it's meaningful, and I have all these friends who are worried about AI taking their jobs or the way their jobs are shifting, and they get paid a lot more money because they have to be paid a lot more money because their work a lot of times is hollow and doesn't feel very meaningful. We have meaningful work to do with human beings every day, and there's great joy in that, and so I think that is the biggest challenge I think for society right now, but I think for educators that there is great joy in this profession. We just have to see it.
Beck Iselin:
And your greatest hope then for education as well, looking into the future?
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, I think it's what I've seen through the center, we get to work with educators all over the world is the hope that comes from seeing people lead with each other through adversity. We certainly can celebrate the easy wins, but the hard wins when they come, and the successes that come when you see a kid become more of who they're created to be, or a leader more of who they're created to be. It's just huge blessing.
Beck Iselin:
Yeah, special. Well, thank you so much, Jon. It's been such a blessing to have this conversation with you today. I know so many people are going to gain so much from you. You're just a wealth of wisdom and I'm grateful for our time.
Jon Eckert:
Well, thank you for that kind overstatement at the end and for allowing me to talk to you and be on the other side of the microphone.
Beck Iselin:
Yeah, it's great, thank you.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Matthew Lee, research professor at Baylor University and co-leader of the Global Flourishing Study—a longitudinal project spanning 22 countries and nearly 200,000 people. They discuss what it means to flourish as whole human beings and how education can support not only academic success but spiritual, emotional, and relational well-being.Dr. Lee shares insights on how flourishing is not just about individual happiness or wellness, but about contributing to the greater good—what he describes as "ecosystem-wide flourishing." He and Eckert explore how love, hospitality, and compassion can shape the culture of schools, drawing from research and real-world examples, including organizations like Barry-Wehmiller that center care and community in their leadership.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Unreasonable Hospitality by Will GuidaraChristian Caregiving: A Way of Life by Kenneth HaugkConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Transcript:
Jon Eckert:All right. Today we get to welcome a good friend and colleague at Baylor University. So Matt Lee is here with us today, and his work all revolves around flourishing, which is the ultimate goal of all education and one of the most intrinsically human things that we think about. So Matt, if you just give us a quick intro as to why you're at Baylor and kind of the 30,000-foot view of what you do here at Baylor.Matt Lee:Well, thanks, Jon. I'm delighted to be here at Baylor, and I would say part of the reason that I'm here is that the Global Flourishing Study is a joint project of Baylor and Harvard, and this is a five year, 22 country survey to understand the forces that affect flourishing for about 200,000 people globally. And we've got nationally representative samples in each of these countries. So we're almost able to generalize to all humanity, which is unusual for a study. And to have this longitudinal approach enables us to follow up over time, look at changes. We've got the time ordering nailed down, we've got some statistical techniques to address robustness. We're almost able to make causal claims that generalize to all humanity. So that was one of the reasons.The other thing is I just really appreciate Baylor's mission and ability to combine really rigorous research with a Christian commitment. And so I think that is a special strength of Baylor University, not to go into a commercial for Baylor right now.Jon Eckert:Oh no, we're all for that. But it's one of the reasons why our work overlaps, because we work with education leaders in over 45 countries and all 50 states and the stated goal of education since Aristotle has been for the flourishing of human beings. And so there's obviously a school component of this. You're looking at all of humanity. Again, that's not probably something I'll ever be able to say as a researcher that I've able to generalize findings to all humanity.But I'm curious to hear how you all think about words like flourishing in love and operationalize those for educators. What does that look like in whatever school you're called to? Obviously, we're here at Baylor and we can have a faith component to what undergirds everything we do, but a lot of our educators that we serve are in public schools, and there's secular humanism there, and there's all different kinds of kids with all different kinds of backgrounds. So what does flourishing and love look like universally, in the way you would define it?Matt Lee:Well, I would frame it as a dialogue. And so we are contributing to a dialogue. And I remember there was a chaplain at Harvard who used to just observe that Harvard tends to treat students as though they are just a brain on a stick or maybe a neocortex on a stick. And of course, there's more to human beings than that.And so when we think about flourishing, we think about multiple domains. We're flourishing in terms of our physical health, we're flourishing in terms of our spiritual health, our emotional health. And so there's all of these different domains at the individual level, but it's sort of meaningless in a sense if we're not contributing to the greater good.And for most people, particularly in the United States, the greater good is going to be largely defined in terms of a sacred narrative. So if we're not honoring that need to serve the greater good in terms of a sacred narrative, then we are dehumanizing people by definition. And so if we care about the inherent dignity, the infinite value of every person, that we need to attend to all of the domains of flourishing across levels. So flourishing is different than well-being and happiness and wellness and some of these other constructs because it really is not just about the person, it's about the person in their context. And their context might include a sacred context.Their context certainly would include a political and economic context. It's knowing we have the skills in order to make a meaningful difference in this person's life. We're not trying to fix anything. We know that that doesn't necessarily work, but we can be present with loving awareness in a way that is itself healing, and then we can get people the help that they need if we can't provide it. But it's not one person's responsibility to do that.So oftentimes when we think of love or compassion, we think of one-on-one, but this is actually something that you find at the level of groups. And Brian Wellinghoff, my co-author on the one article about Barry-Wehmiller, he's a senior director at Barry-Wehmiller. He said in the article, what we've found over these couple of decades is that when love is present, it promotes the conditions that are required for flourishing.It's not just that love is present at the level of one-on-one interactions, it's that it's now that love is part of the culture. Love is part of the context, and that enables everything that they do. And they help encourage that by promoting skills like listening and the practice of gratitude and regularly celebrating people, not just employee of the month where you get a nice parking spot and everyone hates you for the month or whatever. But like a culture of celebration where it actually is joyful to celebrate the people that you care about and you want to do that and you appreciate it when they do it for you. And you know it's going to happen because you can see your love, make a difference on a daily basis. You know that you're contributing, you know that you're engaged.And I remember asking Bob Chapman, again, the CEO of that company, "What do you do about free riders?" When I went to Harvard, I thought, "I'll never see any free riders," and there's free riders everywhere, and how do you do that? And so he said, "Well, we want everyone to get on the bus, but they're not necessarily going to get on at the same stop, but we have faith and we're committed that eventually everyone's going to get on the bus."So there's some mercy and there's some grace. And then there's the tough conversation. There's the tough love. It's not just the warm hug, it's the powerful love that says, "Look, I'm going to speak truthfully to you about your contribution as a co-creator of this culture," he calls it a culture of caring, but I think we could also call it a culture of love and compassion.Jon Eckert:So couple of things that came to mind when you were talking about that. I like the term sacred hospitality, but the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara came out just a few years ago. He ran Eleven Madison, and they became the best restaurant in the world based on not their service, but on their hospitality. And he differentiates service from hospitality. And it's absolutely a culture that gets created. It can't just be one person. It's how the whole team views the experience they're creating for diners. And it's a remarkable book that it's hard to replicate in schools because that is an elite experience with lots of money behind it, and public schools aren't functioning in that world. But how do we have that kind of an attitude about how do we see whole human beings and reach out in a hospitable way, not just in a service way? So I wonder if you have any... Are you familiar with Unreasonable Hospitality at all?Matt Lee:I've not read it, no.Jon Eckert:Okay. But does that align with sacred hospitality as you're considering it?Matt Lee:Well, one conceptual resource that I found helpful is from a book called Christian Caregiving, and this is written by the founder of the Stephen Ministries. This is the laypeople in a congregation who provide care to others in the congregation. They're not trained as psychologists or counselors, but they've been given a set of skills and they know their boundaries. That's the most important skill is knowing what's yours and what's for a professional and what's for God. And so when you think about the critical distinction in that book, it's between servitude and servanthood.And so when we are living into our vocation, that's servanthood. And when we are forced to do something that we wouldn't want to do in a way we wouldn't want to do it, then we're talking about servitude. And so when we imagine education and we think about a system that is perfectly designed to get the result that it gets, what is our system getting? It's perfectly designed to get disengagement. That's what we see from the Gallup data. So as you progress through your journey, you start out highly engaged in kindergarten, and then you're less engaged in middle school, less engaged in high school, and it just continues. It's a nice linear downward trend.Jon Eckert:That's not a nice trend, Matt.Matt Lee:Well, it's not nice, but from a research standpoint-Jon Eckert:It's clean.Matt Lee:It's very clean. So what are we doing systematically there? Well, we start out in kindergarten, we're sitting in a circle with our friends holding hands, finger painting the alphabet, singing songs. The creative arts are infused into this container of friendship. And we're learning our core material in that kind of container. And then we systematically start pulling all that stuff out. No more recess, take art maybe once in four years in high school.Jon Eckert:Elementary school, on average now, get 27 minutes of recess a day in the United States.Matt Lee:Oh, so we're-Jon Eckert:It's devastating.Matt Lee:We're doing it even younger than when I was a kid.Jon Eckert:Yes. Yeah.Matt Lee:I started doing this UN class called Love and Action at the University of Akron, and I said, "Rather than reading about this, why don't we practice it and then come back in a community of friends and share what are we learning?" And it just felt more like kindergarten to me. Let's sit in a circle and let's sing some songs about what we're learning. And I remember saying, "Well, do we even need exams at some point in these UN classes? Maybe there's a different way to be in relationship where we don't need the exams." And some of my colleagues would say, "Well, that's dangerous. You're going to have all these free riders." I had so few free riders in that context, and it's sort of like Barry-Wehmiller company as well. There's so few free riders because you empower people to be what they were created to be.Jon Eckert:Seeing data coming out on what leads to flourishing and mental health and what doesn't. But we're always looking for the things, what's working. I don't have time to spend a lot of time on the things that aren't working. I do like Bob Chapman's belief that everybody will eventually get on the bus. I don't believe that is true. I believe some people need to find another bus. But I think eventually you need to get the people that need to be on the bus, on the bus, and they'll get there. And they may choose there's another bus route that's better for them, and that will lead more to their flourishing. And that's great. But with 12,000 people in that company, that's not going to be 12,000 people that are on the right bus all the time.Matt Lee:Well, and I think maybe it's not everyone, but you go after the lost sheep.Jon Eckert:That's right. Yeah, you do. You do. That is fair. That's fair. And teachers definitely do that. And you can run yourself ragged. This is the last part of the time, and this is always the hardest part for me. I would be terrible at this, but you have four questions, four sentences. So one sentence for each one. So in all of your flourishing work that you've done, what is the most obvious finding that you're like, "That's kind of a duh, we all knew that and now we have empirical evidence that says that's true."Matt Lee:Better to give than receive.Jon Eckert:Okay. Well, there you go. Some ancient wisdom. All right, second. What's the most surprising finding that really jumped out? Like, "Oh, didn't see that coming"?Matt Lee:Yeah, I don't know that it was really surprising. It was just surprising to see it so consistently that groups that so obviously prioritize financial material stability, have the lowest flourishing on all the other domains. At the country level, at the group level, even within particular organizations. So we find in a paper that I've just... This is more than one sentence, but I'll give you an example.Jon Eckert:That's all right.Matt Lee:So I'm co-leading a paper on showing love and care to another person, and this is using the global flourishing study data. We find a fairly strong negative correlation with GDP. Countries that have higher GDP have people who show lower levels of love and care.Jon Eckert:Wow, okay. And I'm not-Matt Lee:So I'm not totally surprised by that, but it's still kind of shocking to see it so reliably surfacing in all of this work.Jon Eckert:I'll keep this short, but my daughters went down to the Dominican Republic to do some work there with a lot of high school and college students this summer. And they had an amazing experience because of the joy of the people that they were with in the Dominican Republic. And so the joy that they exuded through... Some of them had very little, but the joy was there and it made a fundamental difference I think will mark my daughters for the rest of their lives because they recognize, "Oh, really, joy is not tied to what we have."Matt Lee:Yeah. I had a group from Spain consult me a couple of years ago, "We're going to this impoverished country and we're going to help them with their flourishing." And I said, "Oh, really? You might find that they help you with your flourishing."Jon Eckert:100%, right. So the last two questions. What's the biggest challenge you see globally or in the US, take your pick, that's inhibiting flourishing right now?Matt Lee:Yeah. I think that the way we understand flourishing or love or leadership is really just a small part of what those words represent. And so I think if we understood flourishing as ecosystem-wide flourishing, we would have the appropriate North Star. But if we keep doing it as, or understanding it as, a kind of subjective experience of wellbeing for an individual, I think we'll never get out of the crab bucket.Jon Eckert:That's good. And then what's your biggest hope for flourishing, globally or in the US?Matt Lee:My biggest hope would be that we would learn from the positive outliers who are already doing it everywhere in the world. And I think I remember some years ago... So I'm bad at one sentence.Jon Eckert:I know, I am too. This is a challenge.Matt Lee:I have to immediately support it with evidence.Jon Eckert:That's good.Matt Lee:So let me give you just one example of evidence. I was chair of the section on altruism, morality, and social solidarity of the American Sociological Associations. That's a lot to remember. But as part of my role as chair, I was also editing the newsletter, and I was approached by a member of the section who had done some research on concentration camps, Nazi Germany, and he found in his argument... I'll just cut to the chase. His argument was, most of the Holocaust museums focus on the narrative of victimhood. But what you saw in the camps was incredible heroism, incredible sharing under pain of death of your last crumbs and incredible, just inspiring altruism. The human spirit was soaring, even as the body was being destroyed by this evil regime. And so people who have never had their names in the history books have done incredible things. And Holocaust museums around the world could tell that story too. Not just the victim story and not to the exclusion of the victim story, but tell the story of empowerment.Jon Eckert:Wow. That's a great place to end. Thank you for taking the time, and thanks for the work you do, Matt.Matt Lee:Thank you.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Chris Mihealsick, the 2025 Texas Teacher of the Year from Westwood High School in Round Rock ISD. They discuss her passion for expanding access to high-level science education, the importance of mentorship for new teachers, and the challenges facing public education today.Mihealsick shares insights on supporting students new to AP coursework, fostering a collaborative classroom culture, and navigating the demands of teaching while avoiding burnout. The conversation also explores the impact of uncertified teachers and the role of teacher preparation programs. The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Armadillos to Ziziphus: A Naturalist in the Texas Hill Country by David HillisCourage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave by Ryan HolidayConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Jon Eckert:
All right. This week we have Chris Mihealsick, the 2025 Texas Teacher of the Year from Westwood High School. She is in Round Rock ISD, and so she's representing educators across the state of Texas and we're really excited to have her here today. So Chris, welcome in.
Chris Mihealsick:
Thank you so much. It's so good to be here.
Jon Eckert:
And just give us a little background about how you got into teaching in the first place. I always love teacher origin stories, so how did you get to doing what you're doing now?
Chris Mihealsick:
Well, both of my parents were in education and for a really long time I thought, "Nope, nope, not for me, not for me." When I started college, I was a bio major. I worked in a lab. I thought maybe that would be my path. I kind of thought I was going to switch to environmental engineering, but my freshman year, I tutored some at-risk kids in biology and chemistry and I just loved it. I loved seeing them grow. I loved them going from really struggling in biology to being able to get Bs on their tests and be excited about science. And even as hard as I pushed against the family business, I just couldn't deny that that was where I was meant to be. I really liked working with teenagers and helping them learn and grow.
Jon Eckert:
The kids are always the draw. That's always the thing. And I feel like other professions that don't get to work with kids and see the way they become more of who they were meant to be, they miss out on that joy. And so that's cool that that's what pulled you in even though you were fighting the family business. So we're glad that you broke through that barrier. So tell us a little bit about... You have a platform this year as the 2025 teacher of the year. What are you most passionate about as an educator?
Chris Mihealsick:
I am incredibly passionate about students having access and being able to do higher level science. I teach AP Environmental Science, and I really say, "My course is a course for anybody." I work really, really hard to build students up that have never taken an AP class before. I also oftentimes will have some of the top students at our school, and I work very, very hard to make my class engaging for all levels. So I really believe that every kid deserves to have a higher level science experience before they leave high school. And that's kind of my mission as an educator.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, that's such a gift. As a former middle school science teacher, I always loved being able to pass my kids along to science educators like you because kids are naturally curious about the world. Environmental science, what a great place to try to explore where we fit in the world and how is this made to work and how can we be better stewards of this earth? That's something that a great teacher, I think, can hook any kid into. And so I love this idea that any kid can access those higher level courses because for so long we've been tracked in ways that some kids never get access to that class. Do you have any examples where you've seen a kid who maybe would've not gotten that opportunity in another school or with another teacher where you've seen some incredible growth that gives you belief that this is the right thing for each kid?
Chris Mihealsick:
Yeah. Every year I get students that this is their first time taking it. For example, I have two students this year. I have a student that has never taken another AP class and she started out getting 30s or 40s on most of the quizzes, and she's worked really hard. She stuck with it. I checked with her a semester, "What support do you need?" She just needed some extra help with some of the writing props because we do essays. Which is sort of a little bit unusual, I guess, in a science class, you don't tend to think of science classes doing essays, but our AP tests, they take a multiple choice part and they have to write three pretty large robust essays. So we do a lot of lab report writing, but we also practice that skill a lot because that's where the kids that have never taken an AP class before really tend to struggle.
They can answer the multiple choice questions, okay, they're great in lab, they're fantastic in class, but they really struggle with that writing component. So really working with her this year and helping build her writing up as well as helping build her confidence up. She wasn't quite sure she fit in the class when we started this year, and she absolutely belongs there, I think every kid that comes to my door that's willing to take that chance, and that's a risk for kids, right? They've never taken a higher level of science before. Maybe they had a bad science experience before and they're jumping into this advanced class. So I want to honor that courage that those kids show, that decide, "I'm going to try this, I'm going to take this."
So just giving them enough support. And I think also building that culture where the kids really work on helping each other. I try to build up really tight lab groups and then we switch them and they have to build up tight lab groups with a whole new group of kids. So really working with their peers quite a bit is a big cornerstone of my class as well.
Jon Eckert:
That's one of the things I love about AP is that it forces the writing, because writing is where you really see how kids are thinking, and that's the power in that. It's not rote memorization. You have to be able to think. And as an educator, it's the closest thing we get to getting inside a kid's head. And so I love that that's where you started. And people that listen to this podcast will know I'm always talking about joy through struggle. And it's so true that that student who struggles at the beginning and then gets to the point where she gets a three, four or five on that AP exam in her first attempt at an AP class, she's going to experience so much more joy than the kid who's taking their eighth AP class and they're getting their eighth or ninth four or five. That's great, that's success, but you don't experience the same level of joy if you haven't had that struggle.
And so what I also love, the last thing you said really sticks with me, I've been pushing this for a while, that schools obviously have to be safe and psychological safety and physical safety all matter, but what you're celebrating and respecting is that struggle that kids do with others. And so it's not about being safe because those kids don't feel safe when they sign up for that first AP class. That feels like a risk. And so if kids feel like, "Feeling safe is not taking risks," that's a problem. And so what you've created is an environment in your classes where kids know, "Hey, this is a place where I can take risks," and then it's going to be celebrated and respected. And so I love that you're moving kids into that in tangible ways. What have been the benefits to other students in the class? Not the kids who are taking their first AP class, but to other AP students that are seeing a wider range of students in your class than, say, they might in another AP class. Have you seen any benefits to the classroom culture from that?
Chris Mihealsick:
I think students seeing anybody at our school attempting an AP class and being successful and being part of our group is really important. I think sometimes the highest flying kids at the school tend to think like, "I'm here and everybody else is not as academically robust as me." So really seeing, "Nope. You know what? A lot of people can succeed in a lot of different ways." Sometimes I have some of the kids that are the super high-flyer academic students that struggle with some of our lab work, and then other students are able to step in and be like, "Oh, nope, I got this. I can handle this procedure," or whatnot. And it just shows that there's huge value in everybody working together. There's huge value in everybody having access to these classes. And I think it opens everybody's eyes a little bit in terms of working with all kinds of different kids.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and again, going back to middle school science. In the lab, I felt like the lab was the grade equalizer because you had some high-flying students that never want to be wrong because that's identity threat to them. And so they don't want to take risks in labs because they don't want to look like they don't know what they're doing. And you can't fake your way through a lab very easily. And so I felt like getting kids partnered up of different abilities was gold because sometimes the kid that you thought would be leading in the lab is not. It's the kid who's like, "Oh, I'm willing to jump in and try this and we don't know what's going to happen and we're going to do this and we're going to track the procedure and we're going to do it safely." But I think that's a great point that I think science has some nice advantages when you have those labs because it's a vulnerable thing, especially for those high-flying kids that never want to be wrong.
And that's really problematic for learning if you're not willing to acknowledge, "Hey, I don't know how to do this." That's the whole reason why you're in class. So it's good. So love that you came up with that. I also like... We've talked earlier about how you see building the profession. So we've talked about students, but where are your passions for the profession? Because you don't get to be teacher of the year in a state like Texas if you're only focused on kids. I mean, that's always our primary focus, but what's your hope for other educators in Texas and beyond?
Chris Mihealsick:
So I really, really care about good teacher leadership. I want every teacher to work in a department or a learning team that has a really competent, caring teacher leader. I want everybody to have a department chair that's a competent, caring department chair. I want people to be able to be mentored. I've been mentored five different times in my career and I'm getting mentored right now by the 2024 Texas Teacher of the Year for my next role. And just that ability for somebody that's there with you in the trenches. We're still in the classroom. I'm still teaching full-time. Teacher leaders are still there. They know the struggle, but they also can help guide you in really great ways that help you grow. I would not be where I am right now without mentorship I got when I first started teaching AP I didn't know what I was doing, Holy cats. And I had two AP teachers that kind of took me under their wing.
They weren't even AP environmental science teachers at my school and really helped me learn what it was to help kids learn how to write for AP and how to do the more advanced lab skills. So I think teacher leadership is so important, especially right now when we're talking about, "How do we keep good teachers in the classroom?" Well, it's having people that support them that can help you grow to the next level. Really helping set that culture of your department is so important as well, that support system that... I am very, very fortunate I work for an amazing principal and I'm so grateful to have her support, but at the end of the day, there's one principal, right?
But there's 200 of us in our building, and having those teacher leaders in the departments or in the learning communities is just really, really important in smoothing over the day to day, when you have questions about different strategies for working with a kid or how do I teach this in a more engaging way? Those teacher leaders can grow the staff and there's a lot more job satisfaction and working with people that are invested in you staying.
Jon Eckert:
And I think what you're saying is more important now than ever that the session that I met you in, they had put up a slide... This is from Raise Your Hand Texas, that 56% of new teachers in 2024 were uncertified. So this need for mentoring has never been greater because you have... And there's some great people who have come into the profession without certification, but the only way they're going to succeed is with great coaching and mentoring from people that have done this before because those uncertified people, for the most part, will not have gone through a teacher training program, they won't have done student teaching, they won't have had all those pieces, and now they're in your building. And over half of new teachers in Texas, that's their story. Have you seen an increased need for mentoring, or is this just kind of more of the same?
Chris Mihealsick:
No, we've seen a huge increase in the need for mentoring. There's a huge difference in getting a pre-service teacher that's gone through student teaching and has had some courses and knows the lingo, right? 504, IEP, all the acronyms. And somebody that has a good heart for kids and knows the content, but knows none of the management skills. So mentoring has been hugely critical. I've noticed a huge uptick in the mentoring that we've done on our campus in the last two to three years, for sure.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and it feels kind of crazy that we will turn kids over to someone who has no certification to teach when... My favorite statistic on this, I think this is right. In Ohio, to become a barber, you need 1500 hours of supervision. And I'm grateful. I don't want somebody coming in and hacking my hair up. But if you're requiring 1500 hours to cut somebody's hair and then nothing to be responsible, to be the teacher of record for children who are only going to get one shot at environmental science, who are only going to get one shot in third grade to increase their reading or to become a better human in first grade, to be... No certification. In some states it's even worse than in Texas where we're now... In some states, we're not even requiring a bachelor's degree. It's like we're having college students come in and be teacher of record because we're hurting in the profession so much.
So my question for you... Obviously, when we have those teachers in our building, we're going to do everything we can to serve those teachers, but I do not want to burn out teachers like you who feel this burden not only for their students, but then for teachers who are coming in who are underprepared and who might be good in two or three years, but in those first couple of years, that's a lot of intensive work for you. What do we do to make sure we don't add more to plates that are already overflowing so that those teacher leaders don't burn out and leave?
Chris Mihealsick:
That is a really, really important question because I've seen that happen at our school where we've had good teachers leave because they've had two uncertified teachers they've needed to work with. And it's just overwhelming because you have all of your regular day-to-day responsibilities. You're maybe the team lead, so you're also working with your team, plus you also have to support the people that are working on training and getting into teaching. So it's really, really, really challenging. Our school tries to be really judicious about who we assign as mentors. So somebody isn't mentoring... Like for example, we had a biology teacher last year mentoring a brand brand new teacher, and this year we took her off mentoring. She's the team lead for our bio team, but we're like, "Nope, we're not going to have her mentor anybody else this year," because it was a lot last year. It was a lot. And you don't want to burn people that you know are effective and are doing good things for kids and really helping them grow. You don't want them leaving either.
Jon Eckert:
That's right. Well, I love that rotation idea, and that just means you have to develop a wide, wide range of teacher leaders because you have all different disciplines, especially in a comprehensive high school like you're in. You have all different disciplines. You have department chairs, but you just can't keep putting more on department chairs. Administrators, if they don't have background... If you've never been a science teacher, it's very difficult to give very specific feedback for how to get better if you've never run a lab. You can give general classroom management practices and think about student engagement, but you've got to have people with a lot of different kinds of expertise to give the mentoring just in time for people that are really needing that kind of feedback.
So as you look around Texas, are there any real bright spots you see where you're really encouraged by some of the things that you've come across, maybe through the teacher of the year process or just people that you've worked with? I'm sure you're in networks of educators, but is there anything that has been really encouraging to you as you step into this role as teacher of the year?
Chris Mihealsick:
So I was really fortunate to do two different kind of talks. I did one in late February at Weatherford College with the Jack Harvey Awardee teachers. And first of all, I love, love, love hearing the good work that teachers are doing across the state because it just fills my bucket to hear how much teachers around the state truly care about the kids that they're in charge of. And Weatherford College is a two-year college, but they have some four year degrees and they have a teaching program, and their teaching program is growing. So that was really exciting. They're in North Texas. And I am a University of Texas grad. I will always be proud that I'm a UTeach teaching program graduates. They are doing some really, really... They've done historically since 1998... '99 I think is when they started. And they do some really great work at teacher prep.
We consistently try to hire their graduates if we can because we know their graduates have the content knowledge, but also they've had a lot of field experience so they really know how to work with kids. So I think there's some really good stuff still happening all over the state in our teacher prep work. And that's something... Obviously, I want more people to join those programs. Lower enrollment is an issue that both of the schools have talked to me about, but I think that there's some really good work preparing some of our university students. And that's for sure. Besides all the great work from the teachers that I've just kind of talked to anecdotally as I've been kind of tootling about with my work is good.
Jon Eckert:
And I think why I love talking to educators like you is we have to stop cannibalizing our profession. So we have administrators making administration look so miserable that no teacher wants to step into it. And we have teachers making teaching sound so miserable that students don't want to step into it. And teachers told my own children, I've heard it said multiple times to their children, "Don't go into teaching right now." And what they don't understand is they're looking out for that person. They're saying it in love, but what they're doing is, is they're cannibalizing the profession. And if we don't have a strong teaching profession, we don't have other professions. And so that is really troubling to me. So I really respect what University of Texas does. Good to hear about Weatherford. When I came to Baylor six years ago and saw the program that they run for... I don't get to work in the pre-service teacher program, but they've done six different placements in a full year student teaching internship.
Now in many districts, it's a paid internship if they're in high need districts. That is amazing. That is blowing away what we were doing in Illinois with our teacher preparation program where they had a 12-week student teaching placement and they had four practicum placements. That experience is gold when you're in with good teachers like you, and they can see, "Here's how I set this lab up and here's what it looks like at the beginning of the year, and here's what it looks like at the end of the year. That is powerful. And I am not a big fan of bureaucratic requirements that are unnecessary, but I certainly want good preparation for my kids' teachers, which means I want it for every kid in the state of Texas. And so really grateful for the way you're representing education. So let's shift into our lightning round here. I usually have three or four kind of common questions that I go across, and these are just pretty brief answers, if you have them. So best and worst advice you've ever given or received, you can start with either best or worst, but let's start with those two.
Chris Mihealsick:
Okay. Worst advice for sure was, "Don't smile till Christmas." Who thinks that's a good idea? You don't build relationships with your students by being a jerk. So worst advice for sure. Best advice was from my mentor who helped me when I was first teaching AP, Joy [inaudible 00:20:00]. She said, "You only have so much life energy, so decide what you're really passionate about and what you feel really skilled at, and just work to be really, really great at that." And I thought that was amazing because you get asked to do so many things as an educator, I am not great at facilities. I probably shouldn't sit on the facilities committee. So focus on what you're really good at and use your energy and your passion to get better at that, to make a bigger difference.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's really, really helpful advice. So follow up on that, what is the most life-giving part of your job and what is the most soul sucking part of your job?
Chris Mihealsick:
For sure, working with the students. Even with all of amazing things I've gotten to do as Texas Teacher of the Year so far. And I love working with teachers. When I'm back in my classroom, which is most of the time, and just working with the teenagers and seeing them grow. I could teach for another 15, 20 years probably. We'll see how that all works out. But... Because I'm 23 years into my career, but for sure life-giving is just... I love working with the teenagers. Every single day is a little different. They'll say something funny or unique or they'll make a new discovery. Soul sucking, I would say probably paperwork. Not a fan. I'll do it because it's all the laws and all the things and I like my job. I'll do all the paperwork, but not my fave.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, there's always some component of the job that is the reason why you need to get paid for the job. And I say paperwork for most of us is there because that's always going to be part of it. But all right. Best book that you've read in the last year. This could be education-related or just a fun read. Anything that jumps out at you as a good book you've read. I'm always looking for recommendations.
Chris Mihealsick:
So I read a mix of science and historical fiction and kind of leadership books. So my favorite that I've read lately is Armadillo's to Ziziphus by David Hillis. He is a professor at UT in biology. He actually discovered the Barton Springs Salamander. And it's just a whole bunch of short essays about natural history in Central Texas. And I am currently in the middle of reading Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday. I like his work too. He's a stoic, so he kind of talks about when things happen in life, we can't control that, but we can always control how we react to things. And I think his book right now has a whole bunch of little anecdotes about historical figures and their courage in different things. And I think it's just really relevant right now. I think being a teacher takes courage always, but I think especially right now, it's good to hear about other people's struggles and things they've overcome to make the world a better place.
Jon Eckert:
No, it's beautiful. I love those two. I have not read either of them, so I've got them written down. So thank you for that. Last two questions. What do you think is the greatest obstacle facing teachers right now? And then the second, the follow-up is what gives you the most hope? As you look around the state of Texas, what gives you most hope about what's happening in education?
Chris Mihealsick:
So challenging... I'm just going to be honest. I think the budget situation is really challenging right now. I'm hoping that changes for us because I'd like to see smaller class sizes for all of my colleagues and me so that we could give students the more individual attention that they deserve. But what gives me hope is two things. First of all, the students that I work with... I just... Every single year, I think, "You guys are going to change the world. You're going to go out, you're going to do something amazing for Texas and it's going to be phenomenal." So just seeing the potential and the energy that... I love working with juniors and seniors, they're my jam.
Seeing them kind of grow and change and get ready to go off and then go off into the world and... That energy and that passion. Texas is in good hands with the teenagers that are continuing to graduate from our public schools. Yeah. Also hope the teachers that I've been meeting across the state... As a teacher in Central Texas, I'm a little bit insular and this is my world, but being able to get to travel a little bit and talk to people in other parts of the state has been really phenomenal. And I have a lot of hope for the kids of Texas because of the people I've been meeting. And I hope to meet a whole bunch more. So my hope for the next year is just to get to meet some more folks and to be able to start highlighting some of their good work as part of what I do.
Jon Eckert:
I love that. Well, Chris, thank you for what you do. And Round Rock, thank you for what you're going to do for the state of Texas. Thanks for your heart, for students and for educators. So grateful to be able to highlight your good work, and hope this year is amazing and we'll have to catch up with you at the end of your year. So thank you for joining us.
Chris Mihealsick:
Thank you so much for having me. This has been delightful.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews David Smith about his new book, Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom. Smith shares how the book was inspired by teachers who wanted practical guidance on integrating faith into their daily teaching practices.The conversation explores how a bottom-up approach helps educators create hospitable, faith-filled classrooms through intentional rhythms and practices. Smith discusses redesigning assignments to build relationships rather than just complete tasks and emphasizes the importance of shaping learning experiences that reflect who students are becoming.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom by David SmithEverydayChristianTeaching.comOnChristianTeaching.comJust Teaching by Jon EckertSolutions that Heal by Alan BandstraConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Jon Eckert:
All right, so welcome David. It's great to be able to talk to you about your new book, Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom. So I just got it yesterday, so appreciate that. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what brought you to writing this book. I mean, you've obviously written a lot of things.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
What brought you to this one right now?
David Smith:
Yeah. It was two experiences that really sparked the idea for this book. One, was just that the last book on Christian Teaching had circulated quite widely and a lot of schools had used it in professional development. And a couple of school leaders said to me, "Okay, we've read on Christian teaching, we believe you that this is a thing. We're on board, you've persuaded us. Now, how do we learn how to do this on a regular basis? We are kind of convinced of the concept, but how do we internalize this?"
And then I had a slightly more detailed version of the same conversation when I was doing like an online seminar for Trinity Western University for some of their faculty. And at the end of, I gave a presentation about some of the old Christian Teaching staff and some different ways of connecting faith and teaching. And one of the faculty said to me at the end, "I go to a church, have done for years and years and years. I teach at a Christian university, have done for years and years and years, and I would never have made the connections between the two that you just made. How do I learn to think like that?"
And I thought, it's another version of the same question. How do I learn to more instinctively think in a way that connects faith and teaching. Especially in a culture where so many of us have learned so deeply to keep those things apart, and that teaching is about tips and tricks and getting it done. And faith, it's about church and theology and so on, and it feels like we don't always have a great set of mental muscles for moving fluidly backwards and forwards between those two. So that just seemed like a great question, like how do you... Like don't try and persuade me of a philosophical position, but teach, like how do I learn to think about this on a regular basis? So that's what I was trying to address in the book, is-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
How to learn to think.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and the intro is, Invitation to Wisdom, which I love, especially right now as we look at everything that artificial intelligence can do, all the things that can be offloaded to different kinds of tools. We have more tools to help people learn than we've ever had. And it also feels like deep, meaningful learning grounded in something more than just tips and tricks is increasingly obfuscated. And so I love this very human invitation to wisdom. So talk about why you started there.
David Smith:
Well, it's partly Comenius' fault, 'cause he's my hero. For those who are new to Comenius, a 17th century major Christian education thinker, and he's got this textbook called The Orbis Pictus, the World in Pictures. And it's probably the most famous textbook in the history of schooling. It went through 250 editions, close to over a couple of hundred years. And the very first line of the book is, "Come child, learn wisdom." And I just thought that's a pretty interesting way to start a school textbook, that's not how most of our textbooks start these days, right. And so I sort of borrowed that as the start of this book. And his book starts with this image of a road that we're walking along as we learn wisdom and the Bible, wisdom's often spoken of in terms of a path or a way. It's something you walk in, wisdom's not just something you get by getting the diagram straight in your head, or getting the doctrines all lined up, or knowing the sentences in the right order.
Wisdom's something you have to learn how to walk in and walking is something that takes place over time and you kind of sway to the right and the left and it's got a rhythm to it. And again, that's sort of what I was going for with the book. So this book doesn't start with the philosophical concepts or the theology or the reasons why we need to do integration of faith and learning or that kind of top-down. It really starts with the rhythms of the classroom and how you start the class, what things you repeat, how you use silences, how you end the class, how you frame things. Those things that are happening to us every single day if we are educators, as we sort of walk through this life in the classroom.
And again, if we're going to learn to think in a way that habitually connects faith and learning, it has to happen in that context. It can't just be when we're sitting in the great lecture with some great Christian thinker who tells us how the world fits together. It's got to be while I'm in class, while I'm in motion, while I'm moving. So the Comenius image seemed to help me capture a little bit of that, that we are walking along a road, we're trying to learn wisdom, we're trying to walk better, we are not just trying to have better theories or better solutions or better fixes. We're trying to learn to walk in a way that's got a certain kind of rhythm to it, a certain cadence.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. And I love that you begin and end with wisdom. So when you get to the close, before you finish it out, you get back to the purpose. And throughout the book you have what looked like woodcuts from your hero and it's a cool through line throughout the book. So learning to be wise, that's really what we want from education, is how to learn to be wise and, so appreciate that.
And then, just the way you've broken the book down, it does really, and I think you said it even before we jumped on, it starts from the bottom up. Like what does this-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Look like in the classroom? And then where is the wisdom in that? Where is the humanness in that? Where do we see our creator in that process? So-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Can you talk a little bit how you came to that bottom up piece? Because I think a lot of times philosophers and people that are in the academy get accused of starting top down-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Like, "You should do it this way." But I think what you're saying is here, this is how it is done, and then-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Here's the wisdom in that. Can you speak a little bit about that?
David Smith:
Yeah. Oh, I could speak for hours about that, because there's something in this that's been kind of motivating everything I've done for 30 years, has been trying to push on that very thing, because. And I think a lot of it goes back to, I didn't grow up Christian, I became Christian as an adult. And then a couple of years after I became Christian, I became a teacher and then started figuring out how those two sort of connected with each other. So I started reading the Christian books and the philosophies and the theologies and going to conferences and listening to people. And I thrive on that stuff, I mean, I love a good philosophy book. I've got no objection to people writing great philosophy books.
But I also find that sometimes, as a classroom teacher and I was a language teacher, I wasn't like a religion teacher or even a history teacher where we could talk about big ideas in class. I was teaching languages, I was doing this very nuts and boltsy kind of thing. And I just found that sometime, even when I'd read the book on what a Christian vision of knowledge is or of the world or whatever, that there was still this gap of like, yeah, but what do I do on Tuesday morning with my twelve-year-olds?
And there's a moment I sometimes share with my students, and I remember, my very first semester in the classroom I was doing my student teaching and total newbie, no skills, and I made the rookie mistake of standing writing on the whiteboard for too long. I think it was a blackboard at the time, actually, writing on the blackboard for too long with my back turned to the class. And I turned around and a student in the front row had removed almost all of his clothes and was sitting there in his underwear, apparently just to see what I would do. And I just had this moment of like, they didn't tell me about this in teacher ed, just that the classroom is like the Wild West. The classroom is this place where very unpredictable, angular stuff happens and often the theory is, it's a thousand foot.
So I've always been fascinated in this middle space, of how do you avoid, either ending up reading a philosophy book that's at a thousand feet and it might be brilliant and it might be inspiring, but you're still not quite sure what to do on Tuesday morning. But I also don't want to end up in the other end of the scale, and there's lots of this out there, which is the, like, 50 tips and tricks to get you through your week in the classroom stuff which is... Sometimes you get some good ideas out of that, but it's also kind of brainless in terms of lacking like a coherent reason why we should choose these tips and tricks. It's just like this big bag full of stuff and you're just going to pick stuff out that looks like it works, but there's no coherence to it.
So for a long, long time I've been fascinated with how do we try to describe that middle space, where you want to do stuff that works, you want to actually live in the classroom, you want to actually teach, you want to actually help students. But you want to do it in a coherent way that's in touch with your beliefs and your values and your commitments and the way the world fits together. And that, it feels like a difficult but the most interesting space. And so much of our literature seems to drift off to one end or the other of that, like it's either philosophy of education, or else it's a hundred tips and tricks for teachers and how to rescue your classroom kind of stuff.
Jon Eckert:
Well, I want to go deeper into that idea and a couple things from the book, but you have to tell me, what did you do with the kid that's sitting there in his underwear?
David Smith:
It's actually one of those rare occasions where I think I probably did the right thing without having a lot of forethought.
Jon Eckert:
Okay.
David Smith:
I actually just laughed at him and invited him to go outside and put his clothes back on and then join us again and then carried on with the class.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
And therefore, I think deflated his attempt to-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Capture everybody's attention for the next 15 minutes and make me look really stupid, so. Which I think was probably the right response, I think he was kind of-
Jon Eckert:
Right.
David Smith:
Hoping that I would sort of go ballistic or something, but-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
I just sort of basically said, "That's really funny. Now go put your clothes back on."
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Well done. Well done.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
A novice win.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
So one of the things, I just was having a conversation with the head of school at a really great school and they're talking about how they integrate their academic success. They've been very successful based on test scores and everything, they've got great scores K through 12, and they're actually a school that's funded by vouchers, so it's an interesting model, in Milwaukee. And so they've been doing this for a long time. So they have a faith-based component to it, but they're also measured by state tests, so it's kind of-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
An interesting-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Place to look at. And they're like, "We know we've got to get better on our faith integrations, we want to work on our K through 12 Bible curriculum, that's one of our strands. And this other strand is on improving academics." And my response was, those two things have to go hand in hand.
David Smith:
Right, right.
Jon Eckert:
Because you've got to have that integration about why do we do this well? We do this as a reflection of what our creator's given. It's all got to be woven in there. Have you seen schools that do that well? And what is a hallmark of that? So you've laid out all these great ideas here.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Have you seen schools where that's happening really well right now?
David Smith:
Yeah, there are schools here and obviously there's a lot of schools I don't know, so I'm sure there are schools-
Jon Eckert:
Right.
David Smith:
Out there that are doing brilliantly, that are just not ones-
Jon Eckert:
Right.
David Smith:
I happened to have visited. But the schools that I've visited that seem to be doing really well at this, seem to more often be schools that have really set aside intentional time to think about it together. That's the one simple thing I would put my finger on, it's the schools that have got time set aside each week for a professional learning community, where they're actually talking about how to integrate their values with their teaching and they're not just doing admin things or curriculum things or whatever. So I think this is very dependent on being able to build a reflective community where you can talk to each other about how your values are infusing your teaching and learning choices.
Something I've been suggesting to schools for a while, is like why don't you take one of your professional development days each year and just cancel it and just tell your teachers to go to the park or whatever, but then say, and now you owe me six hours. And what you're going to do with that, is you're going to get together with three of your colleagues and for six months you're going to meet one hour a month at the local coffee shop with a nice pastry and a nice drink. And you're just going to talk about three things, what was the best thing that happened in my classroom in the last month where things really felt integrated? And what was the worst thing that happened in my classroom last month? And what's one thing I want to change in the next month? And just talk about those three things for an hour. And how much learning might you get out of that in terms of questioning your own practices and moving them forward?
So to me, it's less about getting the perfect model and more about, can you build the kind of community where you question what you're doing together and can then start to make adjustments? And you can be constantly asking, why do we do it this way? Is it just because we did it that way last year? And how does this actually reflect what we say we're about on the mission statement?
I mean, if I can throw in an example here, interrupt me if I talk for too long. But to throw in an example that's in the book, is a perfect example of this kind of, again, finding this middle space and questioning things. I was having breakfast a few years ago with some teachers at my daughter's school when she was in high school. And I was just venting, I wasn't even trying to be constructive, I was just complaining about the general state of the world.
And what I was complaining about was that I'd noticed that during the vacations we got our daughter back, that she was articulate and she shared her life with us and we talked about things. And as soon as the semester started, it was down to monosyllables, and it wasn't because we had a bad relationship, it's just because she was tired all the time. And because school was colonizing her every waking hour, she would get up at 6:30 in the morning, to be on a bus by 7:20, to be in school by quarter to eight. We get on another bus at something after three and get home by four-something, and then we'd have supper together at five. Wasn't always our most brilliant hour as a family because my daughter just had long tiring days, and then she'd have four hours of homework.
And what had struck me was that the homework was always designed to be done alone. And so she would disappear to her room with a pile of books and a laptop and the only role for me as a parent, was to either nag her to get it done or tell her to quit and go to bed. And after we had this conversation over breakfast, and I just complained about this, the teachers who'd been at that breakfast started surprising me. So a week later, she turned up in the family room one night at eight o'clock and she said, "Do you guys have some time, because I've got this weird homework from my religion teacher? I've got to talk to you for half an hour about whether you grew up Christian, or became Christian, or how you relate to all of that, because we're going to talk about it in religion class tomorrow, and you've got to sign this piece of paper to say that we talked about it for half an hour."
And then another teacher sent home a homework where we had to choose a TV show and watch it together and then discuss what its value system was, and whether we thought this was a fruitful way to spend our time and they were going to discuss this in the media studies class. And there was a whole string of these from different teachers.
But one of the things that struck me about this, was that this was a school whose official philosophy was that God has given primary responsibility for children to their parents, and the Christian school comes alongside parents to help them raise their children in a Godly way. And yet as a parent, the only role I was being given was to nag about homework and to sell food at sports games. And until this point, I wasn't being invited into the learning process, and what's more, the school was occupying, not only the whole day but the whole evening with tasks that the student was designed to do on their own. And as soon as we started asking this question, "Well, could you design homework activities that actually strengthen community and actually build relationships between people?" Suddenly you've got something that is a little more in tune with what the school says it's official philosophy is.
My daughter said she learned more from them from the standard fill out a worksheet kind of homeworks. So it was actually beneficial for learning.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
And it didn't necessarily involve throwing a Bible verse on all the worksheets. This is just more about trying to actually get the practices to line up with the values. So that's the kind of thing I'm sort of constantly fishing for, because we all think we know what homework is supposed to look like, so we all just keep doing what we think homework is. But maybe sometimes it doesn't look like that.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and I think that notion about homework is shifting significantly post-covid and what teachers actually assume students are doing on their own. Because I think the assumption is, that has been, that they're doing it on their own, I think that's a pretty false assumption now.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
That they would be doing anything on their own if you consider the tools that are available to them to get rote homework done. The thing I love about your example, is that homework assignment cannot be offloaded to ChatGPT, or if it was-
David Smith:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
It'd be, probably somewhat comical how ChatGPT might answer that question about how you came to faith and where your family, you know.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
So I think there is a benefit to that kind of homework and building community, because again, I think even with homework now, we need to lean into the humanness of what we do. Because there are a lot of other tools for getting assignments done and not always crediting the source of that assignment-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Whether that's a friend, Photomath or some type of artificial intelligence tool. So I think if we're not rethinking homework right now, we're really sticking our head in the sand.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Because I don't think students need four hours to do homework anymore, I think they're way more efficient.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Because they divide and conquer and offload to other things, so if you're not giving a meaningful homework assignment that is not able to just be done by something else, that's a problem. What I also loved about your example, and this is from page 76 in your book, it really gets into hospitality and what that looks like. And so it's asking students to be hospitable and then asking families to be hospitable. And you have this great separation here that, I'm just going to read this.
"The call to tolerance asked me to put up with your differences in exchange for you being willing to put up with mine. A Christian frame asks for more, extending the idea of love of neighbor to include strangers and even enemies." And so I do think as Christians, as educators, we have a really high call, that tolerance isn't even close to what Christ requires of us. And so-
David Smith:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
Welcoming students into that and helping them welcome others in it, that's a really high call. So can you talk a little about, this is from your framing sections, I thought that was a perfect place for it.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Can you talk some about that?
David Smith:
Yeah, I think there's more than one Christian idea that can become a framing device in education, and one that I've been thinking about for a long time is hospitality. There is this theme in scripture, from start to finish, about hospitality to strangers. And it appears in all the important places, it's in the law, it's in the gospels, it's in the prophets, it's in the epistles, it's everywhere. So there's also quite a long history of thinking about schools in terms of hospitality, so when you start thinking about that in curricular terms, what does a hospitable classroom look like? How do students experience the classroom?
So the way I started one of my classes this semester, and I talked about this in the book as well, is I actually started the class with us all sitting around in a big circle. And I asked each student to, I asked them to pair up and introduce themselves to each other and share two pieces of information that they were willing to be made public. And then I asked each person to introduce their partner to the group. And as we went around the group, we tried to memorize all the information, so we stopped after every second or third person and said, "And what was her name and what was her cat called?" right, and so on. So it's a real simple thing. And then I had students journal about it, and I've done this for a few years now.
And first, I think there's an interesting difference between coming to a classroom and having to introduce yourself and having somebody else introduce you-
Jon Eckert:
Right.
David Smith:
Having somebody speak up for you in the first five minutes of class. And then, rather than going around the class and doing the introductions and by the end you can't actually remember any of it, because 40 pieces of random information just went through your short-term memory. The fact that we're actually focusing on remembering things about each other, my students have written quite eloquently about, in fact, I was fascinated just reading the journals over the weekend. One of them said, "Teachers often say at the start of the semester, "We care about you, we are here to help you," but usually I don't believe them. I think it's just something teachers are supposed to say at the start of the semester. But this activity made me believe that you actually cared that we were there, because the information about ourselves actually mattered for the start of the learning."
And it's not like I think that's the way every class has to start, there are different disciplines and contexts and so on. But again, it's how do we find these moves that actually create a welcome within the classroom and you then push it further, how is the classroom welcoming to voices from beyond the classroom? So whose pictures do we show? Whose stories do we tell? And then how do we enable students to go out beyond the classroom? If I give my student a homework where they have to go to interview someone, how do I help them to be a good interviewer, to ask good questions, to not roll their eyes when the person says something they disagree with, to show in their body language that they're interested in what somebody has to say? Suddenly you're into a whole new set of skills that you don't get if the homework is fill out a worksheet.
So there's a whole continuum here in terms of, hospitality is a very rich way of thinking about lots of different facets of schooling, from just basic classroom relationships, to curriculum content, to what kind of skills we're trying to equip our students with. And tolerance is not nearly enough, tolerance just means I'm willing to not kill you.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great example. We do some similar things in the, I teach a leadership capstone class, it's the only class I get to teach to undergrads. And I just had lunch last week with one of my students from last semester, who has been through a lot, really tough life as an atheist. When you dig in, you realize where a lot of the hurt is. And so at the end of the semester, I give each kid a book and I inscribe something in the front to encourage them where I've seen them grow, what I hope for them, how I'm praying for them. And I'd given this class, All Prodigal God, by Tim Keller. And it was interesting, when we sat down, she read it over break, and so she wanted to gather and talk about it at lunch. And the book is the story of the Prodigal Son, but it's really, God is the center of the story is a reckless spendthrift, so that's why it's Prodigal God. And it's a beautiful story.
She actually said, in this way that I find having atheists in class to be unbelievably interesting to creating a different dynamic in the class. She was wise enough to identify herself as the elder brother in that, so not only was she not tolerating Christians on campus, she was looking down on them as being less than, because of how she felt like they made her feel and instead, she had become the older brother in it. And she articulated that at lunch, and I was like, the wisdom that she shared and the hospitality that she displayed by, A, reading a book that I gave her that's explicitly Christian.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
And then B, wanting to have lunch and talk about it. I mean, what a gift that is from a student to an educator to be able to have that, and then to have that all throughout the semester in class, 'cause we dealt with a lot of really hard things. And so I think that's a beautiful piece, and I love this, you say this on 113, which relates to, I think, both of those last two examples. It's about hopes and tasks, and I thought this was really good. "Instead of just giving a reading assignment, we could devote the same kind of reflection to tasks focused on other skills such as writing research or artistic creation, with the idea that we are trying to," this is the next sentence down a little bit. "A carefully articulated task becomes a chance to remind ourselves of who we are trying to become, as we read."
And so if we started thinking that way and curating our assignments that way, I think that would fundamentally shift how we assign work in class.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Is there another example that you have where that's been really successful for you?
David Smith:
Yeah, I mean, just yesterday in class, I got the most nods around the room that I've had in a while, from students just going, "Oh, yeah. When we started talking about how there's something about school that if you're not really, really careful, slowly teaches you that the point of doing the assignment is to get the assignment done. And that in the end, what the teacher really cares about is that you get the assignment done, because what you're going to be penalized for is not failing to grow, it's not turning it in at 3 P.M, and it's not having written 250 words, or not having got to page 27. So a lot of the messaging that we give to students when we give out assignments, it's often like the last two minutes of class and we're already in a hurry, and it's like, "Make sure you read chapter two by tomorrow," right.
So the strongest verbal message is, what I really care about is quantity, deadlines, getting it done, getting it turned in. And so I also find that what my students most often come and apologize to me about, is, "Oh, I didn't quite manage to get to the last three pages today," or, "I need to turn it in 30 minutes late, is that okay?" And a big part of me is going like, "Why would I care if you turn it in 30 minutes late? Like the world's not going to stop turning." So that means you're a good student being conscientious, the fact that you still want to get it in within 30 minutes. But what they're not coming to me and saying, is, "I started reading this and I didn't get through it because it was really challenging me and I had to go and think about it." Or, "I tried to get through it, but I didn't quite understand it. Can you help me figure out how to apply this?"
And so, again, this is a big mountain to climb, but how do you start to shift the message from, school is about getting stuff done, to school is about growing and learning. And I think a real simple way to run at that is by being explicit about assignments.
So if I give you something to read, is the message, "Read to page 27 by tomorrow?" Or is the message, "I'd like you to read to page 27, and when you get to page 22, you're going to find a paragraph there that's kind of a little dense, but it's a really core paragraph in this chapter, and we're going to need talk about it together tomorrow, because I've read this chapter eight times and I'm still trying to live out this paragraph and I'm not sure I'm there yet, so I need you to think about it with me. So when you get to that paragraph, stop, read it three times, then go find a friend and read it to them and see what they think. And if that means you only get to page 26, I can live with that, but this paragraph, right. And then see if you can think of some ways that you would live differently tomorrow if this were true."
And I'm just making this up as I go along-
Jon Eckert:
[inaudible 00:27:12].
David Smith:
But imagine that as a homework assignment, compared to the usual kind of, "Read to page 27, answer the first three questions, turn them in at 4:37 P.M. on Moodle." And it's all about messaging, and so if I could do that consistently, is there a chance that I could get more of my students believing that in the end, what I really care about is that something changed, that some learning happened. And not just that we all managed to click in the right place on the right day. Which, frankly, is the least of my worries, so.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Because even when you emphasize that, it doesn't happen anyway, so.
Jon Eckert:
Yes, no, I want to give that a giant amen. I mean, my classes are always designed, I take the best 25 authors, I've read their best article or their best chapter from their best book, and I have curated that as like, this is what we're going to focus on today. And I love that even focusing them further on the paragraph and going back to the example I just gave you from the student who I gave the book at the end of the semester. Like that's not an assignment, that's a, "Hey, I am grateful for you. This is my last, kind of bringing closure to class and here's this." And then it's, I may never see that student again, we may never have another conversation.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
But when you do, that's a much richer conversation, because it wasn't compulsory, it wasn't about compliance, it wasn't about getting something done, so I love that. I love that point. The last thing we always do, is we do a quick lightning round, and with all the years of experience you have, I got to imagine you've got some good answers. I just have four questions. The first one is, and you can do in whatever order you want, these first two. Best advice you've ever given or received as an educator and worst advice you've ever given or received as an educator? Start there.
David Smith:
Best advice, never talk to a child without eye contact.
Jon Eckert:
That's good.
David Smith:
That was the best piece of parenting advice I was ever given, actually.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. That's good.
David Smith:
I think it's really easy for adults to talk at young people-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Rather than, to young people. And something I said in, at least once in a previous book is, I think teaching is something you do with people, not something you do to people. My students are not objects that I'm trying to hit with something, and if I can't establish communication, that we're actually human beings looking at each other and we're trying to figure something out here, then it's probably not going to go as well as it could. If I just kind of broadcast over the top of the assembled heads, that's not going to go well.
Jon Eckert:
Just watch a great kindergarten teacher, they're always down on a knee-
David Smith:
That's good.
Jon Eckert:
Eye to eye with kids, yeah.
David Smith:
Right. Well, I often find, it's not just kindergarten, university, I often find myself down on a knee by a table, 'cause that's where you should be, right.
Jon Eckert:
You should be, you just see it far less. I totally agree.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
No, but yes.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
That is good.
David Smith:
So-
Jon Eckert:
Worst advice?
David Smith:
And then worst advice. Worst advice I've been given, don't smile till Christmas.
Jon Eckert:
Oh yeah. Classic.
David Smith:
It's one of our old chestnuts. Yeah, it's funny, when I first started teaching, my early teaching was in some urban environments and I found it very difficult. And I did not have great classroom management skills when I started and I struggled, I had some unruly classrooms. But one of the things I also learned about myself was that I couldn't do the Policeman act convincingly, it's just not in my personality to look mad-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
With students. Because I'm not actually very often mad with students, I just find classrooms fascinating.
Jon Eckert:
Even when they derobe. Yeah.
David Smith:
Yeah. And so, a few times early on, if I tried to pretend to be mad with students, then they just laughed at me, because it just wasn't convincing. So I had to gradually find other strategies, which had a lot to do with just investing lots of time in relationship building and trying to make the learning meaningful, and again, the one-on-one contact. And so the sort of be mean until they know you mean it thing, has just never ever worked for me.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Maybe there are people for whom it works, but even then, I'm just not convinced that an ethic of be unpleasant to people until they get on board is a great way to go.
Jon Eckert:
I'm pretty convinced that's not a great way, which I think you're being kinder than I am. I don't think that's an effective way to manage people, especially not in 2025. I don't think that's a-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Ethic that's going to work. Okay, next thing, best book you've read in the last year related to education?
David Smith:
Oh my, read so many books recently and some of them were really, really specialized.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Or pick one of your top five.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Best book that I've just read. Well, you know what, I'm going to do the really embarrassing thing here, I really enjoyed your book. I read your book just recently-
Jon Eckert:
Oh.
David Smith:
Just Teaching by Jon Eckert
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Is something that I've been getting ideas out of for my own classroom, and that's always a win. So that was a really great one. And another reason I have for picking that out is, at the moment I'm working up to a big research project on Comenius. So I'm reading a lot of-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Books about Comenius at the moment, and some of them are really great.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
But they're in German and they're really specialized, so.
Jon Eckert:
That is specialized.
David Smith:
But-
Jon Eckert:
That is specialized.
David Smith:
In terms of books that are just about the classroom, I did enjoy your book, Just Teaching.
Jon Eckert:
Okay.
David Smith:
And, yeah, another one I just read the other day, I just did a podcast the other day with Alan Bandstra, who's a teacher from Iowa, and he's got one called, Solutions That Heal-
Jon Eckert:
Okay.
David Smith:
Talk about infectious behavior in classrooms. And it's a self-published book, it's just a teacher who wanted to write about the things that are going on in his classroom, and I found it quite winsome.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's good.
David Smith:
[inaudible 00:32:43]. So, yeah.
Jon Eckert:
That's good. The funny thing is, whenever I ask that question about best book, I always have my pen ready to write it down. And as you're sharing that, I'm mindlessly, I literally wrote down, "Just Teaching," on my thing. I was like, okay.
David Smith:
so you can look it up later and see if it's any good, yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Right. I'll see, I'll check. But that's very kind. Last question, what makes you most hopeful as you look at schools right now?
David Smith:
It's funny, I don't draw hope from looking at institutions really, so it's not so much looking at schools. What always makes me hopeful is, like every student who is in my classroom right now is a human being who is spending a lot of money to learn how to help other people learn. And I just find my students are sometimes idealistic to a fault, there's some things that will get more complicated when they get into the classroom, but they are students who deeply want to do good for their learners. And I'm glad every semester, that I've just spent a semester with another 20, 30 young people who want to be teachers and who want to find a humane way of doing that and a faith informed way of doing that, in a way that does good in the world.
And that's among my students. But I'm going away on a retreat as part of a research project this weekend, with five teachers from area schools. Where we're actually going to talk about hope for the whole weekend and how we're going to address that in schools. And again, just seeing their eagerness to be part of that project and to want to give up their weekend to talk about how we teach for hope in schools. So all over, when I do professional development, I just keep running into teachers who haven't given up yet and who are trying to do right by their students, do right by their faith, find a more true and wholesome way of doing things. And as long as there's a good subset of people who are doing that, then there's still a chance that it can get better.
Jon Eckert:
That's good, that's good. Good place to find hope. Well, hey, thank you for your work, really appreciate Everyday Christian Teaching. Super helpful, good follow up on Christian Teaching-
David Smith:
Thank you.
Jon Eckert:
Also, super helpful. Oh, and excited for the platform you're building out, we didn't even talk about that. But there's a platform that's going to go with all of this. Do you want to just say something to wrap up-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
And give people a sense of where to find that?
David Smith:
Yeah. I'll try to say this quickly. Where to find it, there's a website, everydaychristianteaching.com. It already exists, if you go there right now, you'll find a description of what's coming, but there's no actual resources there yet. We are hoping to have the first resources up there by March, we are building it frantically right now. But what it's going to be is really an extension of the idea that this book is about, how do you learn how to do this regularly, not just how do you have this one blinding moment of revelation, but how do you make this part of a routine? So we're building professional development resources that help to create community conversations around this.
So there are some resources where you can just download everything you need to run a PD day. There's others where you can download everything you need to run a seven week or seven month whole school conversation around it. There's going to be self guided resources, so if there's just one of you or if there's a small group of you that want to do it at your own pace, there's going to be versions like that. And there's some graduate credit bearing options. And we're building these around specific topics like community or hospitality or Shalom, and we're sort of building out resources for each of those. Like I say, we're furiously working on finalizing details on some of these, and we've been piloting them out in schools and getting really good feedback. And so we hope to have the first ones available on there and we're trying to make it very affordable as well. First stuff should be up sometime in March at the latest, and yeah, go there and take a look and then keep coming back to see what we've added over time.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's great. Thank you for that. Appreciate your work. Thanks for being with us.
David Smith:
Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for the invite.
-
In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Joel Hazard, a longtime educator and leader passionate about unlocking untapped talent in students and educators. Hazard shares his journey from student-athlete to educator, reflecting on the mentors who saw potential in him when he couldn't see it himself.The conversation highlights the importance of creating environments where every individual’s gifts are recognized—especially those who don't see their own potential. Hazard shares how small moments of encouragement can spark confidence in both students and colleaguesThe Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Student Leadership Challenge by James M. Kouzes and Barry PosnerConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Jon Eckert:
Joel, it's great to have you in the podcast studio today. We just finished a great conference yesterday where you facilitated a panel. But you got to this point in your career through some interesting ways, because you're a great athlete... Weren't sure you were going to be an educator.
Joel:
Correct.
Jon Eckert:
I don't even know if that was ever on your radar. But talk to us about how you got where you're at today.
Joel:
Yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me. Greatly appreciate the time to sit and talk about these things. Well, in a nutshell, I did not see myself in education at all. I thought I was going to be a firefighter. I did not like school. I was a kid who stayed back in elementary school; very academically defeated. Didn't feel I had anything to give to education. But my parents being who they are, I was heavy in sports, they said, "Hey, you got to be in school if you're going to play sports. And if you're not going to do well in school, you're not playing sports." Long story short, I tolerated school for as long as I could because I really wanted to play sports.
And so long story short, by God's grace, was blessed enough to go earn a scholarship, play at Boston College where my dad went, my older brother went as well, and really sitting back and saying, "Hey, if I don't go pro, I'll go ahead and be a firefighter. It's one thing I don't really have to do additional school for, and I can serve my community." Always wanted to serve people in some capacity. Just leave my thumbprint on the world, somehow, some way.
As it were, it was one of those things I was thinking heavily about. The professional realms, that didn't work, and so I had to get a job quick. I was freshly married to my wife, and the only thing that made sense to me was education. It was either sports or education. I get into education at a Christian school early on and fell in love with the kids. I love kids. You ask me to this day, I love kids. I love just little kids that are just fresh, innocent, and just so full of life. Love that.
Jon Eckert:
What level did you get a job at?
Joel:
I was ninth grade.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. All right. Very good.
Joel:
Ninth graders are a different breed. They're knuckleheads, but funny kids. I learned so much about myself just interacting with them. And so next thing you know, my mentor at the time said, "Hey, listen, I just want to let you know most educators leave in three years. They're going to leave in three years, and I don't want that to be for you." And so my competitiveness kicked in and say, "I will not be that. I'll stay at least three years." Three years turned into five, five, 10, 10 to 14. And I was at that school for 14 years. And in that time, being surrounded by sports, I coached three sports, being around athletes, being around coaches, and being around teachers, that just poured into me, it was just something I was like, "Okay, I can do this long-term." And so here I am in leadership. I'm finishing up on my 20th year in education.
Jon Eckert:
Wow. Wow. Well, we're grateful that you have. You've been a great partner to the Center for School Leadership. I think I heard correctly too. Did you get invited to an NFL combine after your time at Boston College?
Joel:
I did. Long story short-
Jon Eckert:
It was a bit of a side note, but-
Joel:
Long story short, I was in the master's program at BC, Education department. And I was going through, and I'm like, "I don't know if I want to be a teacher. I want to go out," right?
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
Joel:
Make millions. And so long story short, agent comes back and says, "Listen, you're about 5'9 3/4s". The smaller you are, the faster you have to be." And so I said, "All right." I left grad school, left and trained for three months, trained for three months. And I did my pro day at BC and by God's grace hit the 44, 41-invert, the whole thing.
And so during that time, I was planning a wedding throughout that whole time. And so long story short, what ended up happening is a Canadian football league came down and said, "Hey, we're going to be trying out people too." And so I tried out for them. And they come back after the draft happens. I don't get drafted, whatever. And they said, "We want exclusive rights on him. We want him to come to Canada." My agent says, "Hey, you can go to the Patriots, try out with them, Seattle, Cincinnati, try out for them, or you can go the CFL route. They have exclusive rights on you." And so I'm about to get married. "I'm like, I need money now." I went the CFL route, and within a day, day and a half, I was like, "This is not what I want to do. This is not what I thought." And decided to step away, came back home, got into education. That's how it all happened.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. That's a great side story. Again, we've been talking before we jumped on about untapped talent and untapped potential, and so I'm so grateful that education has tapped some of your potential. Talk a little bit about some of the people that were integral in doing that, because as leaders, we want to help other people be that for kids. Can you talk a little bit about some of the people that were impactful for you that way?
Joel:
Oh, absolutely. First woman that comes to mind is Ms. Astrella, my resource teacher at the time. If you're a kid in the '80s, you know resource teachers, you get pulled out of the class. You got to take that walk of shame to the door. You can't really stay in the reading groups. You can't really stay in any of the other groups; you have to be sent out to a special room. And it was really at that time, I'm getting pulled out, I'm just academically defeated. I'm stupid, I'm worthless. I don't know what's going on. This is why I can't stand school. But Ms. Astrella, yeah, she's at my foundation. She brought me in. She loved on me. She believed in me outside of your parents, right?
Jon Eckert:
Mm-hmm.
Joel:
And there's a bit of you that says, "Hey, your parents got to love you. Your parents got to do this." And so when you're in that mindset, of discount what they say, how they love on you. My parents loved on me, supported me, but at the time you're thinking they have to. But Ms. Astrella was that foundation that came in, worked with me, held me accountable. She was not playing around. Held me accountable, believed in me. Made me do it over if I did it wrong. And so really helped me to get some of that academic confidence back. And then next thing you know, she becomes my second grade teacher.
And it was like I was back in resource class. She would hold me in from recess if I did it wrong. She would love on me. She would communicate with my parents. Oh man, my parents and her work on a constant communication thread at the time. And she was at my foundation, absolutely. And then as I started to become more academically confident, I had coaches that would pour into me. And those were the people, believe it or not, that were at my wedding. I had coaches and teachers at my wedding. Yes. And so those are the people that have meant the world to me because they believed in me at a time I didn't believe in myself.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and it's interesting that you didn't see yourself as an educator-
Joel:
No.
Jon Eckert:
... and that you had these people, these coaches and teachers pouring into you and it just took time. And going up to the CFL and saying, "Hey, this isn't for me, and then, no, firefighting for whatever reason isn't for me." And then you get in with the kids, and the kids are always what's sell-
Joel:
[inaudible 00:07:42] education.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. That's it. There's a lot of other interesting things about education, being a constant lifelong learner and being able to go deep into content and some other thing. There are things that are appealing, but if the kids don't sell you on education, you're in the wrong profession.
Joel:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
The paycheck's not going to do it, so it's got to be the kids. I love that. You got to ninth grade. And as a former middle school teacher, in my mind, those ninth graders are super mature kids. And we all know that your knucklehead characterization might be more accurate most of the time. But you went from there, ninth grade teacher, you moved up the ranks. I'm assuming, did you coach at all as well?
Joel:
Coach three sports. Football, basketball, track all the way up.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. You're living life with these kids, and you're doing this-
Joel:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
And now you're in the center working with us building out networks of leaders. Talk a little bit about how that's helped you and some of the other work you've done tap the potential of educators in the field, because I think there is a lot of talent in our field that goes unrecognized. Talk a little bit about how you've done that.
Joel:
Absolutely. It really comes from me having to live it out. I believe I was on tap talent and there were people that surrounded me and said, "Hey, you would be good at this. You'd be good at this." And I'm like, "Yeah." But you hear it multiple times. When you interact with those people, you start to believe it. And so by God's grace, I've been able to put in a lot of leadership roles is because I believe, trusted people and friends and other leaders that say, "I'm going to put you in this so you can lead."
And so what I've done is ever since getting into leadership, I have felt it's had to be my obligation to look at that untapped potential. And there's a lot. I believe in every school there's untapped potential. I've usually found it not in the obvious cases of those that are working on their degrees, it's mostly those are your quiet leaders, your working bees that are out there and are just wanting to do their best for the kids. That's the talent that I've been able to shine a light on and say, "Hey, you can do more in this."
Jon Eckert:
Well, in our master's program, we have a number of people that'll enter the program, it's a master's in school leadership, and they'll say, "I don't know if I'm really going to be a principal," or, "I don't know if I'm really a leader. I try to do really good work, and I have great colleagues." I'm like, "You're the exact person we want in this program." And so we've seen so much of that going on. And could you just share briefly the example you had on your panel that you were facilitating yesterday with the participant in the front who was a little reluctant?
Joel:
Yes.
Jon Eckert:
Can you take that away?
Joel:
Yes. She was actually the highlight of my panel. And so the panel, you're in there with leaders all throughout Texas. And you have the panel up front that is sharing their wisdom, their experience. And you can just tell, leaders, when they go to conferences, I believe they're the most vulnerable simply because they're there, and it's one of the most comfortable spaces to where any leader can say, "I don't know. And I'm just trying to connect with other people."
And so how I like to run panels is I don't like to give to get model. They're there to give, you're there to get, and then you move about your way. We're going to participate, we're going to support one another. And one of the ways in which I do that is I create a very uncomfortable environment in regards of I'm just going to call on you and you're meant to contribute. People don't like that.
And so there was a woman in the very front row. And I said, "All right, guys, here's your Q&A for the panel. If you don't ask questions, I'm just going to call on you and you're going to have to have a question." And so everyone has a heightened sense of I better have something ready. And so we had a couple of participants, and I saw this woman sitting in the front row all by herself. And I said, "Hey, I'm coming to you next." And she says, "Oh, gosh." And she just had this look of he's going to call on me; I got to have something ready. And you could tell she was nervous. I said, "Hey, don't worry about it. I'm not going to call on you now, but you're going to end our session with the last question." And you could tell she was sitting there, she was processing because all the pressure was on her.
And as the Lord would have it, she asked one of the most profound questions that the panel actually had to really sit back and really think and say, "That was a great question." That is untapped potential right there is because now that individual who didn't want to do it, at least somebody like me who, I didn't know her from Adam, but for me to say, "You're going to end our panel with your question," and for her to be validated in the question she asked, she left the conference with a smile. I was able to give her a hug afterwards. And hopefully she left more confident than what she came in.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and wasn't your panel on engagement?
Joel:
Engagement, yes.
Jon Eckert:
Again, future leaders.
Joel:
Yes.
Jon Eckert:
And so it's engagement over comfort. And sometimes comfort is the enemy of engagement. If you feel like, oh, I'm not going to get called on. I can just be back here and blend into the woodwork. And you didn't let her be that comfortable. And the whole group benefited from that engagement. And again, that's the point.
And so you do a lot of work with Black male educators through the center. And that's one of the things, we are trying to get more voices into the work we do because when you don't engage the body of Christ, you don't engage the world of students that you serve and you don't have a wide range of perspectives in there, it's not about representation so much, it's a we are impoverished when we miss those voices of that educator in the front who doesn't come in or we miss a whole population of people who don't have a voice because we're not in conversation, and we're not in community with them. How have you had some successes with bringing some different voices into conversations and spaces where they might not have typically been?
Joel:
Right. Well, when you look at the group Black male Christian educators, and it can be Christian educators or public educators as well, I really wanted to help create the group. I don't want anyone thinking that I spearheaded. I wanted to help create the group is because when you look across the demographics, Black males make up 2% out of those two-
Jon Eckert:
Of the teaching population.
Joel:
Of the teaching population. 2%. And me being a Black male, I'm saying, "Yeah, I have a heart for this. I need to keep more in." And so we create a space to where we can come to the table and we can talk about some of our general realities and then also be an encouragement to one another and really push ourselves to really think outside of our current position.
And so the group has been very great. We come together and we're extremely vulnerable. And we're saying, "Hey, how can we better our environments for all students?" But before we can do that, we have to feel encouraged like any teacher. We have to feel encouraged, we have to feel we can do the work, and we just have to feel we have a space and opportunity to go somewhere and just be unfiltered and just say what we got to say within its rawest state to really brainstorm what other people who we feel understand some of our general realities. And we all do that. We do it on a woman's level, men's level, principal level, head of school level. We all have these groups. The group is not to silo our thought process or silo our experience, but sometimes we just need to break away from the group to regroup and then come back in the group and participate.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. George Yancey is a sociologist on campus, and he comes in and speaks to my classes. And he tells our students of color, "Hey, if you just need to step away from these conversations that you're constantly having to represent your entire race or ethnicity, give yourself permission to step away because that conversation's going to be there." And so so many students can feel this, and certainly educators can where every time there's another committee on inclusion or mattering or belonging, it's like, "Oh, well, we got to make sure we get Joel on that committee." It can be exhausting.
Now, the impulse is right. We want to get the wisdom from Joel as an educator who's had this unique experience of coming through with a... I have to say you're the only person we've ever had on the podcast that runs a 44 40 and had a 41-inch vertical, so that's the real claim to fame. But we want Joel's perspective because of what he brings to it. And so that's a good impulse, but it can also be exhausting. How have you found a balance between retreating into community and then stepping out into places where it's going to be uncomfortable? But you have to be engaged because you care about each kid? How have you balanced that?
Joel:
You just said it. It's really thinking about the kids who will benefit from this. And so it's one of those things, you feed the teachers, they don't eat the kids when you think about it.
Jon Eckert:
That's good.
Joel:
And so I sit back and I say, "Hey, my voice is as equally important as everyone else's voice at the table." Can it be exhausting? I know it can be exhausting from a position level. I know principals are fatigued in their role, in their experience. I know heads of school are fatigued in their role. I know teachers are fatigued. I know women are fatigued. And so we're all fatigued. But given our experiences, it sets a unique fatigue, if that makes sense, for each group.
And so for me, what keeps me going is knowing that there is real fatigue, absolutely, but my voice is as equally important at that table. And it's one of the things of letting people know, especially as you look within the world we're in today, I'm not saying my voice and my experience needs to dominate the conversation, by no means. I'm an ingredient to this whole thing just like everyone else is. My experience is not meant to be worshiped or idolized, nor is it meant to be ignored. And so I just want that part of the conversation, not to dominate it, but it's a part of it so we can get a collective understanding of who's in the room. What are the unique experiences? And then how do we navigate those experiences as we move forward together to make sure all of our students are understood, heard, and valued. For me, I sponsor kids in my head. Sponsor kids are what kid out there or kids out there or groups out there would benefit from my experience at the table?
Jon Eckert:
Well, I would also say, because I totally agree with the unique levels of fatigue based on positionality, whatever that is, I also would say there's also a unique opportunity for joy and energy from that because as you bring that voice and you represent each kid in your mind, there's a different level of... It animates you differently. And so while I always want to acknowledge the hard work that educators do, it's also really meaningful. And our work is so much more interesting than so many other people who do work that earns more money, that adds value to society, that is... I don't ever want to prioritize one profession over another, but being in the profession that makes all others possible, we, as educators as a group, have this unique opportunity for energy and fatigue that are imbalanced. And so I'm willing to endure a little more fatigue because of the opportunity and the energy that comes when we get to do meaningful work together. Would you agree with that or am I being a little too-
Joel:
No, no, no.
Jon Eckert:
... toxically positive?
Joel:
I would agree. I think everyone knows nobody stays in education for the money. They don't. There has to be a high element of joy that you get, satisfaction that you get that you're imparting wisdom. And to be honest with you, that these kids are gracious enough to invite us in their journey. And so I think we stay for the relationship. I think we stay because we have something to impart to the next generation. Those that don't like kids or don't like that will fizzle out. They'll self-select out eventually. No, that joy is an important component of what we do.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Well, and you pointed fatigue out, and the other night we were talking at dinner and you mentioned how, as educators, we should follow a kid through the day to understand how exhausting it is. And I was recounting an administrator in Illinois who had done that. She got to third or fourth period, and she was just exhausted from the day. I do think we have to remember our students are also uniquely fatigued and also have unique opportunities for joy and energy, we just need to tap into that more. And sometimes it takes us stepping into their shoes to see, oh, yeah, I forgot what this was like. Yeah, I appreciated your point about that.
Joel:
And it was told to me early on, "A great administrator never forgets what it's like to be a teacher." You ever say that in front of a teacher, they will stand up, they will applaud, encore, whatever. The second part of that is, "A great teacher never forgets what it's like to be a student."
Jon Eckert:
That's right. That's right. In the good and the bad, the fatigue and the joy.
Joel:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
Lightning round. We always do a few questions at the end where we just get a sentence or two answer. I'm terrible at keeping my answers concise, but we'll see how well you do. You're fast, so let's see how well you can manage this. What's the worst piece of advice you've ever received as an educator or just in general? And then the best piece of advice. We'll take those in whatever order you want to take them.
Joel:
Yeah, the worst case, the worst advice, just get by. That's the worst. Just get by. Hey, I'm trying to really do this, or I'm trying to bring this to the classroom, something a little different. I'm still racking my brain over it. "Hey, just get by. Just do what you got to do."
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. That's what's exhausting.
Joel:
Worst advice.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. All right.
Joel:
Best advice, listen to the kids. As you're customizing things, as you're thinking about the kids, when was the last time you listened to the kids on what they want, how they listen, how they process? Best advice.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and we tried yesterday at our conference to bring in... And I think we did. We said we had expert consultants coming in at lunch. And then 15 minutes before lunch, 20 students come in and they're going to be expert consultants for people as they work on their problems of practice, how they're going to increase their gritty optimism and tell their leadership story. I really wanted to debrief with the students, but they had to go back to class before... I really wanted to get their take on what they were doing because I think about 10 of them had no idea what they were walking into, and they're standing at the back of the room being described as expert consultants on something that they don't know about. But that was our attempt, to listen and get leaders to listen. And I think we need to treat them in that way because they are, in fact, the partners in the learning process that so often get left out of the conversation when they're the whole focus of what we do.
Joel:
The whole focus. Absolutely. One of the things I've asked teachers over the years is, "Give me your hardest math problem. Give me the hardest concept in, whatever, science or whatever class. And I ask you, 'Can I find it on Google? ChatGPT. Can I look it up on ChatGPT?'" And chances are you can. And so what does that say? Is we've seen a shift in education, especially in the instruction. Now these kids are equipped with all the information they could possibly want, but they need guides. They need someone to help them sift through that information. And so as you look, it's like education has always been this. I'm here to be a reliable and trustable guide to get these kids through some of the obstacle courses and help jump these hurdles so that they'll be fully functioning, successful individuals in the world and impact the world for a greater good.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's good. They need wisdom is what they need. And that's what they need us for. And that's what I think greater educators do. Speaking of wisdom, best book you've read in the last year? It doesn't have to be education, but what's the best book you've read?
Joel:
I've read. Well, I would have to say The Student Leadership Challenge. I teach a leadership class, Go Lead. Shout out to Jason Beard over at Mount Paran Christian who designed the course. But The Student Leadership Challenge is a great book. It's able to put leadership on a student level. Things to think about: What is your commitment level? Why do you want to lead? How do you lead? And that student leadership challenge allows us to go deeper into why somebody would want to lead. But not only that, why would someone want to follow you?
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Love that. We'll wrap up with this. What gives you the most hope as you look forward to the time ahead we have in education?
Joel:
The most hope I see is people keep coming to conferences, number one. Students keep showing up. Parents. Despite where you are at in your education journey, but parents keep dropping their kids off to our schools.
And here's something we have to acknowledge. Parents drop them off at our schools, and we have seven hours with them. If they play sports, that's an additional two, two and a half, depending on their level, so they're with us for nine, nine and a half hours. Most active parts of the day. Parents continue to drop them off because there is some level of trust they have with us. That gives me some hope that parents are still looking to partner with educators. And we're looking to get that trifecta to where it's the parent, it's the teacher and the student involved in this process. That continues to give me hope.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's a great place to end. Joel, thanks for your time, thanks for your leadership. Appreciate all you do.
Joel:
Thank you for having me.
-
In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews James Blomfield from the International Forums of Inclusion Practitioners (IFIP). They discuss his work in inclusive education, the importance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and the global challenges and opportunities in creating truly inclusive schools.Blomfield shares insights from his visits to Texas schools, highlighting student engagement in career and technical education programs. The conversation also explores the role of artificial intelligence in education, the shift from inclusion to belonging, and the power of networks like IFIP in connecting educators worldwide.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to Coherence by Mary MyattHow Change Happens by Duncan GreenThe Name of the Rose by Umberto EcoConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Jon Eckert:All right, so we are blessed to have James in our podcast studio. He flew all the way from the United Kingdom to Waco, Texas, to be on this podcast.So James, tell us a little bit about what you've been doing here in central Texas these last couple of days.James:Yeah, I've been spoiled. I've just had the best cheese and ham roll, ever. I can tell you a lot about Texan food now. And brisket. But the quality of the experiences, the visiting the schools, meeting you at Baylor has been a terrific privilege. I'm very grateful.Yeah, today, this morning, in fact, we visited three schools in Waco Independent School District. We were shown around by the loveliest people, Adam, Caroline, and Christie. I think Adam and Caroline are on from your doctoral program.Jon Eckert:Yes.James:But they're like institutional coaches. I gather.We would call them improvement offices where I come from, but they had such a light touch. They knew everyone. They were so friendly with people, and I gather that they are also about compliance, but with the coaching aspects. So they were great.And the three schools we went to, we were Midway yesterday, which was amazing. And then this morning, Bells Hill Elementary, Cesar Chavez, and then GWAMA, Greater Waco Advanced Manufacturing Academy earlier. And yeah, what impressed me was speaking honestly as an English person, it is shocking to see police in a school. Very quickly, I was unaware of them. But we have our own issues in the UK with knives and all sorts.But the staff were, despite that, throughout just so calm, friendly, loving, and attentive to the students. Asking them, talking to them in front of us. And some wonderful experienced people, trauma informed. There was someone who was training to be a social worker this morning who just came out of her office and gave us a short speech without any preparation, speaking from the heart, talking about what she was doing, how much the children matter. If you've got people like that, then you are going to be doing the right stuff.So yeah, I was impressed. But also from the type of education, obviously Texas is massive. The school footprint, I've never been into such big schools, even the elementary and yesterday with Midway, that was the biggest school I've ever been in. It took us a long time to walk around. And all of the stuff, like this morning at GWAMA, we saw robotics, drones, they have the construction academy, welding, forklift truck driving.Yesterday we saw them building an airplane. When I was doing metalwork at school, it was for like a baked potato holder. They were building an airplane. And I would love that as a student. I would be inspired by that even if I was building a small part of the airplane. Rebuilding tractors yesterday. So that's practical. That's 21st century teaching, but visible, practical, hands-on.Jon Eckert:And then the engagement that you see that's possible there through starting a cafe restaurant through the airplanes. Just to be clear to the audience, the students are not doing this on their own. It's a two-seat airplane that would be like a Cessna, and they have engineers coming in to help build.I still am not going to be the first person that volunteers to fly in that, but it was impressive to see. And I do feel like in central Texas, there are a number of schools doing a lot to try to meet the needs of the community by educating kids in ways that engage them, use the skills that they've been given, help them become more of who they're created to be in a way that benefits the community.And even the principal yesterday, Allison Smith, was sharing about the new factory that's coming in that's got a gigantic footprint, and it's going to be a huge benefit to the tax base. Before they came, they met with the high school to see if there were ways that they could integrate some of the needs they have with what the high school's developing in their students.Because at Midway, about half the students go on to a post-secondary education. And so there have to be opportunities for kids to step into things that allow them to be gainfully employed and meaningfully use the skills that they have. And many of the kids were doing things that I couldn't even fathom doing. And they're just leaning into it and gaining expertise, which is for 16, 17, 18 year olds is truly remarkable.James:Isn't that also a bit like a UDL mindset? If the manufacturer comes in and has that intelligence to ask about what would you need? What would be helpful? And then you're designing the education from the ground up.Jon Eckert:That's it. And I'm glad you brought up Universal Design for Learning, because that's something that we haven't really gotten into. Why you're here and what you do in the United Kingdom, because we actually, Eric Ellison, met you a while ago. But you were the reason why we were at a UNESCO conference in Paris where we got to work with educators from six continents that were all interested in UDL and what it means to educate each kid around the world.And there's 250 million kids that don't have access to a school. And then we're in these amazing schools where the biggest schools you've been in that are offering all these different opportunities. And so we're getting to see it, but what does it really look like from your perspective, from your organization as it relates to UDL?James:Yeah. So interesting, I am a teacher, head teacher, classroom teacher from some 25 years. And for me, it's all about practical teaching and talking to parents, making things work. But at a very practical level. And one thing that drew me to my organization, which is the IFIP, International Forums of Inclusion Practitioners, was that when I met Daniel, who's a fabulous person to work for, it's much more practitioner based. It's all about pedagogies. I felt at home straight away.But also, how do we train teachers? How do we bring them on into inclusive practice? And the IFIP is all about the voice of teachers. Daniel would say inclusionistas, all manner and range of people, teachers, specialists, therapists, but parents as well, who are committed to a more equitable and enriching education.So the majority of what we do is training. We have things like our GITI program, which is a global inclusive teaching initiative. But we do events. And that's something that Daniel, one of his strengths, he speaks all over the world. He's written many books. We were so, so grateful to have the event at UNESCO in Paris. So we were co-hosting. Daniel had been talking about that for two years beforehand. And we didn't believe him. He made it a reality. He dreamt about it, and it happened. And the same more recently in Brazil. We went to the G-20 ministerial meeting. He was talking about that. So he sees things and it falls to me to follow behind him and try and make some of the practicalities work.But yeah, the inclusion piece covers so many flavors. And I think what you mentioned just now, we talk about inclusion. Well, if the 250 million aren't in school, well, that's a level of inclusion that puts lots of other schools into a completely different context. Where does the inclusion start?And even in some of the schools I visited, I've been very lucky to visit schools around the world who would say they're inclusive and they may have a sensory room, or they may have, but they aren't necessarily inclusive. But for me, one of my favorite schools I've visited was in Rome, [foreign language 00:08:28], Our Lady of Good Counsel. It was run by Silesia nuns. And they said in the words of their founder, Don Bosco, "Young people need not only to be loved, but they need to know that they're loved."And it's very reassuring as a practitioner, a teacher, former head teacher, to come here to Texas and you see that. You see that palpably going on. And I feel at home. The elementary school this morning, because I was a primary school teacher, it was just like, I know this. I understand this. I could probably take a lesson. But they had some great ideas. And teachers, I'm a teacher, you love stealing good ideas.Jon Eckert:Well, and I think this is the beautiful thing about the jobs that we get to do. We get to see all the amazing things that are happening in schools. So much of what's in the news and what gets publicized are the things that aren't working. And the tragedy that there are 250 million kids who don't have access to schools, that is tragic.But in schools, there are amazing things happening all over the world. And getting to see them is this encouraging, oh, it gives you hope. And I wish more people could see that. I do think there are challenges though, because when we think about inclusion, we've moved as a country toward inclusive education, the least restrictive environment for students, and bringing students into a place where they can flourish.But we really, as Erik Carter, who runs our Baylor Center for Developmental Disability, you met with him yesterday. He talks about moving from inclusion to belonging. And I think we even need to think about belonging to mattering. So you keep hearing more and more about what does it means to matter and seeing your gifts being used with others.And that's what we saw yesterday. It wasn't individual students. It was teams of students doing this and each member of the team had a different role, whether it was robotics or it was the plane or the cafe. And the educators needed to step in. So the principal was talking about, I need an educator who's willing to step up and do this so that this can happen.And that's the thing that I think people that haven't been in schools for a while don't see what it means to really help kids belong. They have a sense of what inclusion was, maybe when they were in school, where there was a class down the way that was a Sensory room, which is a nice room for just, here's where we're going to put a kid who's out of control that we can't manage in so many places.It's like, no, there's so many schools that are doing so much more than that. So what are some other hopeful things you've seen through IFIP?James:Well, I think, yeah, you see a lot and on social media, and you must have found this, there's so much many aphorisms about inclusion and metaphors about what inclusion is. It's a mosaic. It's a banquet with many tastes. It's symphony orchestra with many sounds. Inclusion is a garden. That's quite a good one actually, the metaphor. And that's something that Sir Ken Robinson from the UK has talked a lot about. And there's lots of analogies with growing and flourishing, which that's a word you've taught me in my visit here.But I do feel sometimes that it is all good to talk about that. I don't disagree. But there's some recently inclusion makes every day feel special. Yeah, it does. Inclusion is the antidote to the division in the world. It is. But will that help the early career teacher struggle with their class? Will that give them the practical steps that they need? So I think all of those things are true, and we must love the students. But I would say that's just comes a standard with being a decent human being. I would expect that from you, from anyone. You treat people with a respect.But for me, I feel more inclined to say, what are the practical professional steps? What's the pedagogy? What are the teaching principles that will help me to, as we were saying yesterday, maybe to hesitate before ask another question in class and listen. And listen. That's inclusion, isn't it? Wait for someone to answer and maybe then not say anything. It's actually stepping back.So for me, I'm very impressed by... I mean, I was brought up on quality first teaching, we would call it in the UK, which is about high quality, inclusive teaching for every child. So you mustn't differentiate in a way that you've got the low table. No one wants to be on the low table. You want to have high challenge on every table. And we used to say, you want your best teacher on the lowest table. It's not like you just put a teaching assistant or some volunteer on the lowest table. It's got to be focus lesson design, involvement, interaction, metacognition. So responsibility for your own teaching, for your own learning. Sorry.And I love the dialogic approach. Someone said yesterday, Socratic circle that I've picked up. But it's like you would encourage a child to talk about what they understand because very quickly then you assess what they actually know. Sometimes you'd be surprised by what they know.But for the same reason, UDL appeals to me, to my sensibility, because it offers very practical steps. And crucially at the design stage, it's not like I'm going to apply this assistive technology to a lesson I created a year ago and will do the best we can, and that child will now be able to do more than they could. But if I design the lesson, and one of our colleagues, Helena Wallberg from Sweden, who was a co-author on the Global Inclusive Teaching Initiative, she talks about lesson design. It's a far sexier way than lesson planning.So teachers are professionals, they're artists. They need to use their profession.Jon Eckert:So when you start thinking about design, I use Paideia seminars because Socratic seminars are great, but Socrates taught one-on-one. We don't usually get the luxury of doing that. So how do you bring in the gifts of each student, not so that you're doing something kind or helpful for that individual, but so that the whole group benefits from the collective wisdom in the classroom?And so the inclusive education is not to benefit one single individual, it's to benefit all of us because of what you draw out. And that's where design, I think, is more helpful than planning. And so when we think about this in this state that we're in right now, we've never been in a better time to educate. We have more tools than we've ever had. We know more about how people learn than we have in the history of the world.James:Yeah.Jon Eckert:And yet sometimes that can make things feel overwhelming. So that beginning teacher that you mentioned. The only thing that beginning teacher knows is no one in the room learns exactly the way she does. That's all you know.And so then how do you use tools... And we've talked a little bit about this artificial intelligence. Amazing tool for adapting reading levels, for adapting basic feedback, for giving an educator a helpful boost on lesson design because it can synthesize from large language models.It can do work that would've taken us hours in five seconds. But it can't replace the human being. And so how do you see tools like artificial intelligence feeding into UDL so that it becomes more human, not less?James:So where I am, there's a shortage of specialist teachers, for example, and therapists. And Daniel's been doing a lot of work in India and parts of Asia where there isn't the expertise. So I think maybe AI can help in those places.But even he would say that will not replace a specialist. You can never replace a specialist who has the intuitive and curiosity to see what an AI system can't. But it may empower parents who have no kind of training as a teacher might have for neurodiverse situations of how do I deal with my child when they're like this?And similar for teachers and who are looking for... They've tried everything. What do I try now? So we've been working on one on an AI system that's based on all of the research that Daniel's done. It's not released yet. We've got a working title of 360 Assessment, which doesn't really mean anything, but it was meant to be assessing the whole child.And he's, through his work in many schools over many years, many thousands of hours, he's put all of this stuff into the data for the AI system coupled with his books. So when you ask a question, it will do a quick spin round and come back with some suggestions. And it's quite fun to use, I think, as a tool to empower parents to signpost them. And for teachers, it's a useful tool.I don't think it's the panacea, but I think you have to use these technologies sensibly. But my daughter, who's a nursery nurse, and she tried to break it by saying, oh... We tried it, the computer. My child is two years old, but can't pronounce S. should I be worried? And it came back with the correct answer, said no, there's nothing to worry about. Up to four years old, some children won't be able to pronounce the sound S properly.And then it gave her the advice that she would give, because a manager of a nursery nurse, the advice you'd give to her staff. Now all of her team have just started that. None of them have any experience. So that, I could see, could be useful for training numbers, the ratio of good advice to people. That's the way I see it working in the short term.Jon Eckert:No, and I think that's great because it enhances the human's ability to meet the need of the human right in front of them. Because I will always believe that teaching is one of the most human things that we do.James:It is.Jon Eckert:And so any way that we can enhance that with any tool, whether it's a pencil or an artificial intelligence tool that allows you to give feedback and synthesize things and help with design. I also believe we just need to give credit where credit's due. I don't love it when we don't give credit for tools that we use.So if you're using UDL, they're a great people cast. We're about to have a call with them later today. They do great work. And so the same thing. If you have a digital tool, share that so that we know here's what we did and here's how we can spread that collective expertise to others.And so what role does IFIP play in bringing networks of people together to do that? Because in your convenings, that's one of the main things you do. So can you talk a little bit about that?James:Yeah. Well, in the title if you like, in our forums, one of the things that Daniel is very keen on is sustainable growth. So we want to introduce people to each other. And it's surprising with head teachers and principals who struggle. I've just come back from Brazil from a UNESCO GEM, which is a global education meeting, where the focus was on the quality of the leadership. And we need to give, empower our leaders.They're often working on their own. One of the roles of the IFIP is to join them together. So we're launching in January at the BET Show, which is the biggest technology show in the world, apparently, in London Excel Center, our Global School Principals Forum.So we have a forum for them. We have a forum for specialists, forum for pastoral leads. And we've also got regional forums of South America, North America, Asia, just to try to bring people together. Because when you share the experience, and I've been really grateful this morning for the opportunity to walk through and see some American schools that you share the ideas, you see the similarities. That's the power and that's so important.Jon Eckert:No, and that's been our experience. Whether we're just in the states or internationally, there's so much good work going on. We just need to have ways of connecting human beings who are doing it, so it doesn't feel like it's another thing to do, but it's a better way to do what we're already doing.And so I feel like that's what UDL does. I feel like that's what IFIP is about. And that the most meaningful part of our time in Paris at UNESCO was not in the panels, it was in the conversations that happened over lunch, in the hallways. The panel may have sparked a conversation, but it's hey, what are you doing here? And what are you doing there? And I walked away with multiple connections of people that we'll continue to talk to because, again, there's so much good work going on.Yeah, go ahead.James:My memory of the... Because it was a very stale affair, wasn't it? And the bureaucratic approach, UNESCO, because you feel like you're a United Nations and lots of people talking were sat down for hours and hours, was when you lifted your hand and actually ask a few questions. That's inclusion, isn't it?Eric was saying that people who were leaving the room walked back in to listen because that was interesting and someone was asking them how they feel and bringing it back into reality. That's so important. But I also think inclusion, there is an interesting power dynamic with inclusion.A guy called Michael Young who's a professor of education at UCL, talks about the right for all children and young people to be taught powerful knowledge. What knowledge are we giving them? How are we empowering them? So I think inclusion is all about discovering your power within, if you like. That's so important so that they begin to see.And some of the teachers are saying this morning, kids know what they see, what they've experienced. And if you introduce new ways of dealing with anger or with pain, they don't have to fight. They don't have to resort to what they've necessarily seen. Then give them new strategies. That's empowering those children.Jon Eckert:Well, and Adam and Caroline who were taking you around, they're behavioral interventionists. And they are always busy because there are kids that are struggling with how to manage the feelings that they have. And if they don't have people giving them those strategies, how do they grow? And again, that's very human teaching, and Adam and Caroline are great models of that.James:They were wonderful. So good, and it was the light touch that impressed me. Because I've worked with, as I say, school improvement offices. And the trick is not to push people down. It's to make them think twice about what they've done or how they could ask a question better.And their observations of the displays on the walls and just the language teachers and teaching assistants use has a profound effect. I do believe that inclusion is about the students look at the way their teachers behave. It's nothing to do with this pedagogy or the post. It's about how did they respond to me? How did they respond to the other person in the class? What's important to them? How do they talk?That's the inclusion that you teach. Empowering them to make the similar choices when they're older.Jon Eckert:That's well said. So our lightning round, I usually ask four or five questions that have relatively short answers.So first one, what's the worst advice you've ever received as an educator?James:Oh, as an educator? Worst advice.Jon Eckert:Oh, it could be as a human being if you want.James:Well, when I was young, my dad had many qualities and taught me many good things. But one of the worst things he said to me was, "Don't use your money, use theirs."So he would borrow money. And that got me off to a terrible start in life. And I learned through my own experience that it was better to use... Well, I was always using my own money.Jon Eckert:Yes. Yes, okay.James:But I could use it better. But bless him because he's no longer with us. But that was one piece.Jon Eckert:No, that's a tough start.James:Yeah.Jon Eckert:Thank you for that. What's the best advice you've received?James:The best advice, I think, was to go back to university.Jon Eckert:Okay.James:I dropped out of school to get engaged, because that's what you do when you're 19. And I was going to get married, but it didn't happen. And then I went to do a summer job, which lasted for 10 years.Jon Eckert:That's a long summer.James:But my blessed teacher, Michael Brampton, who gave me a love for painting, history of art, he kept on pestering me go back to university. I went back as a mature student and loved it. I think people should start degrees when they're near in the thirties because you appreciate it so much more.Jon Eckert:Yes.James:So that advice he gave me led to such a change in my life.Jon Eckert:Yes. Well, and then you went on to get a degree in art history, philosophy, then a master's in computer science. So you went all in.James:Yes. And that took me into education. And the time I went in, there weren't many teachers that were doing anything with computers.Jon Eckert:So as you get to see all this around the world, what's the biggest challenge that you see schools facing that you work with?James:I think it's manpower.Jon Eckert:Okay.James:I think there's a real manpower issue and belief that school can make a difference. I think one of the things that we believe in IFIP is that positive change is possible. And sometimes it's shocking going to schools. And if you do make people see that the positive change is possible, it transforms them.So advocacy, shared vision. And one of your colleagues was saying this morning, just changing the mantra can make a profound difference.Jon Eckert:Yeah. So what makes you the most optimistic as you get to see all the schools all around the world?James:Yeah. Well, I've just come back from Stockholm in Sweden, and I was really, really impressed by the school there. It was one of the best schools in Stockholm. It was a school that had in their entrance hall, you'd expect it to be very austere and you don't want to see any bad stuff in your entrance hall. But they had a table tennis table set up and they had a piece of found art or hanging above. And it was the whole sense of the school's about children started there, about young people.But in Sweden, it's all about sustainability. Everyone is expected to clear up after themselves, be mindful of other people, respectful. Even in the hotel where I stayed, I had to sort my rubbish in my room. It's that approach that starts from not just in school, across the board.Jon Eckert:Yeah.James:So that impressed me.Jon Eckert:Yeah, that's a beautiful example. One of my favorite schools outside of Nashville, Tennessee, they don't have custodians that clean up the building. They have 20 minutes at the end of the day where the students do all of the cleaning, including the bathrooms. Which you start to take care of stuff better when you're the one who has to clean it up. And the peer pressure to take care of it shifts a little bit.So it's a great word. All right, one other thing. Oh, best book that you've read last.James:Can I give you two books?Jon Eckert:Absolutely.James:I mean, I've got into fiction in a big way recently. So I use Audible, the app.Jon Eckert:Oh, yes.James:And I've been working through all kinds of classics that I never read properly. Just reread The Hobbit and Tom Sawyer. But I've gone through... The Name of the Rose stuck with me recently. I so enjoyed reading it. And I've just got into Robert Harris. He's written Conclave, which has just come out as a feature film. And a series of books called Imperium about Cicero and Oratory and how the Roman Empire was lost. But they aren't the books.Jon Eckert:I love that. Go ahead.James:But the two books, one is by an English specialist called Mary Myatt. And one of the really practical books that she wrote was The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to coherence. Gallimaufry is a word, I'm not sure if it's Gaelic, but it means a mess. So going from a mess to coherence. And that book is all about how it's important that children struggle. That learning only happens. We try to protect kids all the time that way. No, they should struggle. You imagine if everything's easy. And then she says this, if everything's easy, it's hard to learn. There's nothing to hold onto. There's no scratch marks. You need some of that.So Mary Myatt, that's a brilliant book. The other book is by Duncan Green called How Change Happens. And that's all about this idea of power. And he talks about power within, that's your self-confidence power with when you've got solidarity with people. Power to change things and then power over people.But it strikes me that as he shows in his book, where you've got instances where you've got the 'I Can' campaign in South Asia, all about women who were being violently treated by men, reclaiming their self-worth. It's like invisible power. Where does it come from? The change. You can't see any difference, but inside they've changed dramatically to stand up collectively against something. And that's what we need to do with students. Build that self-power inside.Jon Eckert:Great recommendations. And we talk a lot about struggling well and where that fuel comes from. And so, love that book by Mary Myatt. I'll have to get the spelling of that from you when we get off. My also favorite thing about that is I asked for one book recommendation and I wrote down at least seven. So, well done James.All right, well hey. We really appreciate you coming over. We look forward to potentially doing a convening where we get to bring great people together who want to work on serving each kid well in this way that benefits all of us. So hopefully that will happen sometime in the coming year.But really grateful for your partnership and a chance to go visit schools and have you on the podcast.James:Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Paul Putz, director of the Faith & Sports Institute at Baylor University, where he helps to lead and develop online programming and curriculum as well as assisting with communications and strategic planning.They discuss his journey from high school teacher and coach to historian, diving into insights from his new book, The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports. Putz reflects on the role of sports in K-12 education and the importance of of resilience, collaboration, and integrating faith into leadership in both education and sports.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.The Center for School Leadership and Faith & Sports Institute are partnering together for a summer professional event! Join us for the FIT (faith-integration-transformation) Sports Leadership Summit! We will gather at Baylor to empower and equip Christian sports leaders in K-12 schools to lead, serve, and educate well as they pursue competitive excellence.Be encouraged.Mentioned:The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports by Paul PutzPath Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss.Faith & Sports Institute Youth Sports Summit Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl Jon Eckert:All right, so we've got Paul Putz here in the podcast studio and we get to talk about a new book. We get to talk about coaching, we get to talk about teaching. So Paul, it's a huge blessing to have you here today. Can you just give us a little bit of your background about how you got to this office today, where you came through as a student and professionally?Paul Putz:Yeah. Well, I started, we'll start with I'm a teacher at heart and was a teacher, a high school teacher. So I grew up in small town Nebraska and playing all the sports thinking that I'm going to become a coach. So I went off and played small college basketball and then wanted to hang around sports. And so I got my secondary ed degree, was a social studies teacher. And as I started teaching in Omaha, Nebraska, I had a sense of how important sports were to me in terms of forming me. I was a pretty good student too, but sports mattered to me on a deeper level. And so I was really intrigued about learning more about sports. As I'm teaching social studies classes, I'm thinking about, man, how historically did we get to a place where sports are part of a school curriculum where sports are actually seen as educational or sports are seen as formative?I was just so curious about that. So instead of becoming a coach as a high school teacher, I get my master's in history and I start exploring these questions about the history of sports and as connections with Christianity. So those sort of questions I was wrestling with as a high school teacher lead me to applying to Baylor, coming to Baylor to get a PhD teaching at Messiah University for a year, and then coming back to Truett Seminary where I lead the Faith & Sports Institute and have been involved with FSI for the past five years.Jon Eckert:So love the work you do. I also understand from guys who still are able to play basketball with you, I have not been able to, as my knee no longer allows it, but you have a nice mid-range game still.Paul Putz:Old school. We keep it old school. Yeah.Jon Eckert:That's great. That makes Nebraska and Indiana boys proud. So love that. And I love the journey that you took. You go into education thinking you're going to coach and you're going to teach, and then you go down this history path, which then leads you to leading a Faith & Sports Institute. So it's kind of funny the way the Lord weaves us through these paths. And then to this book that's been published by Oxford University Press, really nice book by the way.Paul Putz:Thank you.Jon Eckert:Much nicer production than I typically get in the books that I write. So I'm impressed with what Oxford's done with it. The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports. It says it's this fascinating look at the overlap and the way Christianity and major college sports and professional sports have been woven together starting in the 1920s. So tell us how you got to this book from that journey you just described.Paul Putz:Yeah, I think so many authors say their book is in some sense autobiographical. You have a question that you want to think about and in the process of exploring your own questions, you kind of realize, hey, other people might be asking these questions too. So that's how it started for me. I mentioned I'm growing up in Nebraska, I was a pastor's kid, I was also loving sports. And so this idea of being a Christian and being an athlete were so central to how I saw myself. And so when I did pursue the PhD and became a historian exploring sports in Christianity, it was my desire to figure out where did I come from? How was my high school basketball coach, Joel Heeser, who's a friend of mine now still coaching high school basketball? How did he learn what it means to be a Christian athlete, a Christian coach? And so out of that kind of sense of curiosity and a sense of where's my own place in this story, I went and do what historians do.So we go back to the archives and we try to look at the origins and we look at the cultural context and we try to figure out cause and change over time and how did this happen and how did it influence culture and how did culture influence what was going on? And so that's what I got to spend five years doing. It started as a PhD doctoral project. I'm going to archives across the US and I'm looking at memos and documents, and going to the libraries and just trying to tease out how this space to bring together sports and faith developed and then how it evolved and advanced to the place where it shaped my life and shaped the lives of so many others in America.Jon Eckert:That's well said and a great setup to the book. And one of the things that kind of blew my mind, and it's just in the introduction to your book, you have this comment here, "Compared with 100 years ago, there are far more athletes and coaches today willing to publicly champion Christianity as a formative influence in their lives." So I think sometimes in the US we feel like we're in this post-Christian world. And in some ways it's a very different world, especially when you hear athletes as soon as they're interviewed after a game, immediately giving credit to God and giving glory to God and the Steph Currys of the world and any number of football players. And you see this over and over and over again. And that wasn't the case a hundred years ago, probably because sports weren't as, they didn't have the platform that they do now. But as you've written the book, what do you attribute that to the most? I know that's the point of the whole book, but can you distill that down to two or three points for the people listening and why you think that's the case?Paul Putz:Yeah, what I try to suggest in the book is the blending of sports and Christianity kind of happens in two phases. And so I start in the 1920s, but there's this era before the 1920s, we'll say goes from after the Civil War until the 1920s. And it's during this era there's a movement called, muscular Christianity. And what muscular Christianity does is it helps Christians see the value of the body, the value of physical activity to moral formation. And it's out of muscular Christianity, which is a movement that starts in England and then it comes to the United States. It's out of muscular Christianity that a lot of these ideas about character formation in sports are developed. And it's why sports become connected to schools and education because people and school leaders are trying to figure out how do we channel this interest that our students have in athletic activity into productive ways so we can use it to form and shape them as good citizens.So muscular Christianity is kind of the first stage, which again connects sports to Christian mission with this character building way. And it has a profound effect. I mean, some of the sports we play today are products of muscular Christianity. And the classic example is basketball, 1891, James Naismith enrolls at a Christian college in Springfield, part of the YMCA. And when he enrolls at the school, he said his desire was to win men for the master through the gym. So he has a Christian purpose, a Christian mission at a Christian school, and he creates basketball to advance these muscular Christian ideas.Jon Eckert:And I didn't realize this, but in the book you highlight, Naismith is the only coach in Kansas history that has a losing record.Paul Putz:Only coach with a losing record.Jon Eckert:Because he didn't care.Paul Putz:He didn't... And this is such an important point because in that first era there were some real idealistic people like Naysmith who thought sport legitimately as first and foremost for moral formation, it's about developing people. Win or lose doesn't matter. So that's the first era. 1920s comes along and it's pretty clear that sports has developed into something else. Sports is connected to commercialization, winning comes first. Even at colleges it was supposed to be educational, but it's clear that at the college level, if you're a coach, you might be a great molder of young men, but if you don't win games, you're getting fired.Jon Eckert:Right.Paul Putz:So there's this sense in the 1920s, this reality sets in that sport is now commercialized. It's big time. And even though it's still connected to say college, at the big time level, that muscular Christian mission isn't there. So what my book tries to do is say, okay, when muscular Christianity is sort of on the back burner because we now have this big time sports structure in the 1920s where it's all commercialized, it's all celebrity, how do Christians still engage in that? How do they wrestle with that tension of a, when at all cost atmosphere, a space where Christians don't determine the culture of sports they're guests in this culture and how do they create a space to still cultivate and nurture Christian athletes and coaches there? And that's where we see in the 1920s, very few Christians able to navigate that. There's just a handful of them who can be in major league baseball or can be in big time college athletics and still feel strong about their Christian commitments.But a hundred years later, we now see all sorts of Christian athletes and coaches who are comfortable in those spaces. And you kind of asked what drove that. What I would say drives that is the formation of a community that was embedded within sports institutions, that creates a sense of shared mission, shared purpose, and that over generations continue to invite more people in, continue to develop and just kind of under the radar, ministry of presence was just there and available to help athletes and coaches identify as Christians in that space. So it really comes down to the creation of these networks and organizations like the Fellowship of Christian athletes, like athletes in action, like Pro Athletes Outreach, like Baseball Chapel, people starting something new and then sustaining it over time and seeing the ripple effects years later.Jon Eckert:The beautiful example and what I had just finished this summer, this, Path Lit by Lightning, it's the Jim Thorpe book. Have you read this?Paul Putz:Yes, I have. Fantastic book.Jon Eckert:Such a fascinating read, because it's in this, leading up to the 1920s, his career is this amateur versus professional, which he gets caught and just treated so poorly and Pop Warner, the king of amateur child sports that we have Pop Warner leagues all over, kind of a horrific human being in the way they exploited people and they did it through sports. But he started his career at the Carlisle Indian School, which was one of the horrific experiments in US history when we took students off from their families off of reservations to try to quote, unquote civilize them into these things. And sports were a major part of it. So in our conversation, I'd love to pivot a little bit, well maybe not even pivot, but integrate sports into what K-12 education has been because still most places other than maybe Friday night lights in Texas football, most K-12 sports are not big time sports yet that most of the athletes playing sports there.You would make the case that the extracurricular there is to support the moral development. It's not a huge money sport until you get into the AAU stuff and some of those things where you have revenue, but K-12 systems, it's still more about that and it's been used for a lot of good things. And then in some cases, in Jim Thorpe's example, it was good kind of. So could you integrate those a little bit and how you see K-12 sports still having an influence and where Christian coaches and Christian athletes have a spot in that?Paul Putz:Yeah, yeah, you're right. There is a difference. And that muscular Christian ideal still continues in some ways, certainly even at the big time sports level. There's elements of it, but especially I think when we get into K-12 or if we get into division three small colleges.Jon Eckert:Yes.Paul Putz:There's a better chance to I think fully integrate the sports experience with the mission of the school. And at the same time, I would say the trends that we see at the highest levels of sports, your professional leagues, those do filter down because kids are looking to athletes as celebrities and heroes. So they're emulating them in some ways. So even though at the K-12 level and the small college level, there's a difference structurally and financially, you still have people who are formed and shaped by what they're seeing in these images in this culture. Now at the same time, I do think in terms of the growth of sports in what we've seen, I think we saw really a century from the 1920s until the last 10 years of continual development of sports as a central part of education in the United States. And this was done intentionally through organizations and networks like coaches associations, high school athletic associations.These develop in the 1920s and after the 1940s and 1950s, they sort of take on this professional identity. There was a period in time where to be a coach at a high school, you were seen as like, well, you're not really part of what's going on at the school. And so it took time for coaches to establish a professional identity linking it with education. And that evolved over the course of, again, a hundred years from the 1920s into the present. But these coaches and athletic directors, I have a quote in my book where I mentioned this, they intentionally had this vision for cultivating in young people a love of sports, because they thought through sports we can instill good values for American citizens or if you're at a Christian school you can instill Christian values. And so at the K-12 level, sports were always connected with some sort of vision beyond just the game.It was more than a game. It was about who you're becoming as a person. It was about learning life lessons and it sounds like a platitude. We've all heard this and we've also, I'm sure seen hypocrisy where we know of a coach who says this, but it doesn't seem like it plays out that way. But there's also some deep truth to that. I think anyone listening to this, if you've played a sport at the high school level that formed and shaped you, maybe in some bad ways, but in some good ways too. And so I think there is a power to sports that continues to have relevance and resonance today. I will say in more recent years we're seeing some really big shifts with K-12 school. With club sports, with travel sports. And there's some ways that that sense of community identity that was tied into the school level, it doesn't exist everywhere.There's pockets where it does. But in some places, some of the best athletes are now not connected to their school. And so for the future, I worry about what will it look like in 40, 50, 60 years where sports could be such an important part of a community and neighborhood identity at a school level. Will that go away as more and more athletes maybe turn to different models to pursue their dreams and goals? Some people in education might say that's healthy. They might say we need to separate education from sports. For me, and maybe I'm naive, but I think there's something important and beautiful about linking sports to education. But we do have to have guard rails and we do have to have people fighting to do it the right way.Jon Eckert:I completely agree. I want to see sports, I want to see all extracurriculars integrated well into what's going on in the classroom. I think that provides more holistic place for kids to learn is where kids can be more engaged and kids can flourish in areas where they may not flourish in one classroom, but they might flourish with an instrument they might flourish in a club or with sports. And I think sports are a powerful place for that. I do know with some states moving to NIL deals for high school athletes, that completely changes the dynamic and is really disconcerting for me because in that case, unlike colleges where that athlete is generating revenue for the school, it's hard to argue that the gate attendance at the high school game is really that much impacted by an individual athlete. But that's coming and that is the world we're living in.And that's some of that trickle-down effect that you described. I never want to be the sky is falling person. I'm thrilled that we have a 12 team playoff system in college football. I'm also not ignorant of the fact that, that completely changes the dynamics of the economics of the sport. So what I'd like to say is Christian leaders, because our set in the Interfaith Sports Institute and the Center, we overlap in some really good ways. What I'd like to see is what you described about the athletes in the twenties and thirties, creating these associations and these communities that fly under the radar of just inviting people in because I think that's what as Christians we should be doing in whatever we're called to. So do you see overlap for Christian administrators and teachers for how we can represent Christ well in the platforms big or small that we have? Do you see any lessons that we can take away as educators from what you found from your athletes in the book?Paul Putz:I think so. I think probably one of the most important, or I guess if I were to highlight two things. One is I would say there's lots of different ways to do it.Jon Eckert:Yes.Paul Putz:I think sometimes a certain person or a certain organization, they come up with a way that works really well for them and then they hold fast to that as if this is the way, this is the biblical way, this is the Christian way. And what I would want to say is it's a part of a conversation. Different contexts need different resources, different methods. And the way God made us as a community talks about the diversity of strengths we have in giftings and callings. And so I think one thing to learn is you can learn from other people who have methods and approaches when it comes to integrating faith in sports. And you probably also have something to offer to that conversation too.So if we can hold what we do loosely, but also not in a way that shies away from the calling to step up as Christian leaders and to say there is a way to engage in sports that reflects my convictions, but then also in a way where there's a sense of humility that I can learn from others. I don't have it all figured out. A bunch of Christians before me have messed up as they're trying to do this, but they've also done some good stuff along the way. And I think that can give us freedom to try, probably to fail, but to maybe advance the conversation forward. So that's one piece. And the other piece is I think it's simply expect tension, expect that there's not an easy overlap between the culture of sports and Christianity. I think there are certain elements to sports that I'm really drawn to. I'm competitive. I love the competitiveness of sports. I want to have the winner. For me, there's a drive for all of that.Jon Eckert:You're not James Naismith, is that what you're saying?Paul Putz:I'm not. I love James Naismith, but for me, boy, I want to, I'm kind of like, I want to win.Jon Eckert:You can be John Wooden. He wanted win too.Paul Putz:There you go. That's right. He did it. The quiet winner. But biblically, there are all sorts of messages, passages, commands from Jesus that tell us that his kingdom is upside down. It's different than the way the world works. And sports culture so often has a certain way where we prioritize the winner. We maybe give our attention to the star athlete. And that type of culture, it's really difficult to fully, fully integrate that into this full-fledged view of Christian faith. And especially because sports is also a pluralistic space where you're going to have people of all different faith, traditions, race, ethnicity, backgrounds, which is beautiful.But it also means let's just have some realistic expectations for what we can accomplish in sports, realizing tension's going to exist. It's the already not yet tension. We live after Jesus's life, death and resurrection before he comes to make it fully complete. And so in the midst of that, we can witness to Christ's way right now and point to glimpses of his coming kingdom. But let's not have this sense of maybe an idealistic perfectionist bent that insists or expects that we're going to round out all the sharp edges of sports. There's going to be tension there.Jon Eckert:And so as educators, the beautiful thing, I got to teach coach for years and what I loved about it was I love basketball, but it wasn't going over the same play for the fourth year in a row. And the 50th practice that I've done it was seeing how individuals came to that and what skills you had and how you could put them in place to be successful. And so when I taught a science lab the 16th time I taught the science lab, I knew what was going to happen with the chemical reaction, but it was fun to see through the eyes of the kids that were there. So the more diverse and pluralistic the classroom of the team is, the more interesting it is to see that through all those different perspectives.And I think that's really how God sees us anyway. And so there's beauty in that and it's not a challenge to be overcome. It's the beauty of being in the world that every person is made in the image of God, whether they're the guy on the end of the bench or the best player on the team, or the kid that struggles in the science lab and flourishes in the art classroom. That kid is fascinating. And then you can't give up on that kid. And so the great coaches don't give up on players. It's why I'm super curious to see how Bill Belichick does at University of North Carolina, having been a pro coach for so many years where it is like, yeah, you've got to recruit well, but you also have to build a culture where your team, and that's harder to do now than ever because of what's going on in the transfer portal.And I don't like this, so I'm going to leave. And at least in the classroom, for the most part, we get a kid for the year and we get to be with them. We get to walk alongside them for a time and help them become more of who they're created to be and then pass them off to the next person. So I know in the Faith and Sports Institute, this is a lot of what you're trying to do through sports and how you integrate faith well. So talk a little bit about any events you have coming up or what you hope to do through that.Paul Putz:Yeah, well one thing we are excited about is the stuff we get to do with you, the Center for School Leadership. I think just over the past couple of years we've connected and collaborated. We've hung out and [inaudible 00:22:43]Jon Eckert:Board, you're on our advisory board board.Paul Putz:I often tell people, CSL think is one of the best things Baylor has going for it. And that's because I was a high school teacher and I see the sort of leaders that are developed through CSL. And so I immediately wanted to get connected and to see some overlap. I also knew sports is so central to education, and I know you have many coaches and athletic directors who come through your degree programs. And so it's been fun just to explore together some of the ways we can partner. So we do have, in June, we're actually going to be putting on at Baylor in conjunction with Baylor Athletics Center for School Leadership, faith and Sports Institute. We're going to have a little Christian Leadership Summit event. We're going to gather people together who are interested in these questions of faith and sport integration and how do you compete with excellence, but with Christian values and perspective.And so we're real excited about that. We have other events that we're doing in February, we're hosting a youth sports event, thinking about how the church navigates youth sports issues. And that's going to be February 7th and eighth here at Truett Seminary in Waco. And then in next summer, July, late July, we're hosting the Global Congress on Sport and Christianity. This is more of an academic gathering. We're bringing in scholars who do research on sports and Christianity, but we're also bringing in some thoughtful practitioners, some chaplains, some coaches, some athletic directors, people who have thought deeply about sports and faith. And it's a shared conversation. So a lot of what we try to do with the Faith and Sports Institute, convene people, have conversations, collaborate, bring people together. And we do have some grad programs and online certificate programs. So we have some educational pieces that are foundational to what we do, but also we have these just public facing programs and collaboration opportunities that I'm real excited about.Jon Eckert:Love that. And I love being at a place like Baylor where there's so many good things going on. As a center, we get to partner with you, we get to partner with Baylor Athletics. Anything Coach Drew does, I will happily support.Paul Putz:100%.Jon Eckert:So we have so many great people like that. So that's a blessing. And I know we're almost out of time, so I'm going to do our lightning round because we really need to do the lightning round. But I want to start with this. What's the biggest challenge you see facing Christian coaches and educators right now?Paul Putz:I think it's margin and time, and the demands of the job. It seems there's more and more responsibility, and for good reasons. It's because there's these issues. It's mental health. We want to care for the kids. And there's all these challenges kids face now you need to figure that out, because if you're going to teach the kid, you better know what you're doing. And it just seems like I was last a high school teacher 11 years ago. I don't know that that world exists now 10 years later. It's totally different when I hear what educators are going through. I think for coaches as well, you've talked about it with NIL, it feels so new. I would just say some margin, some grace, some space, some sense of community. And then through that, maybe we can figure out some healthier rhythms because it's unsustainable with the way it is now. So that's one thing I see just with the people I've been around, and I know we've talked a little bit about this too, it's something... We need each other. At the end of the day, we need each other for this.Jon Eckert:Yeah. Best advice you've ever received?Paul Putz:I would say, I'm going to, boy, here's what I'll go with. John Wilson said this, "Let a thousand flowers bloom," was what he said. And he was talking about in the context of academics who kind of try to claim their territory, their space, and kind of own it. And his perspective was, let's encourage it all. Let's let it all grow. Don't try to cultivate your little space, a little thousand flowers bloom. It's going to look more beautiful and let's encourage one another along the way. And so that's the first thing that to mind. If I were to think more, I might have something else, but that's something I've been continually reminded of is how much we need each other and how much we need to encourage one another. And how much there is when we look out from ourselves and see the other work that's being accomplished. There's so much to support and encourage.Jon Eckert:That's good. I always like what comes to mind first. So that's good. Worst advice you've ever received?Paul Putz:Worst advice...Jon Eckert:Or given?Paul Putz:Or given? I've probably given some bad advice. I cannot think of... There's nothing specific that's coming to mind. That's for worst advice probably because sort of just went in one ear and out the other.Jon Eckert:That's good.Paul Putz:Gosh, I've run a total blank. You stumped me. [inaudible 00:27:39] Yeah. I'll circle back. I'm going to email you, if I can think of one after.Jon Eckert:You have to have gotten bad advice from a coach or from about coaching. That's where some of the worst advice I've ever received about coaching.Paul Putz:Well, I'll tell you. So this isn't necessarily advice, but I have heard a coach say, and this is about being a Christian, basically it was, "Hey, when you're a Christian, when you step onto that field, you're someone else. You're totally someone else. You can become whatever you want to be there." So there you go. That's some bad advice.Jon Eckert:Yeah. That's good.Paul Putz:As Christians, sports are part of life. So we don't separate who we are as Christians, we don't compartmentalize. So there you go. Worst advice is that you can separate who you are in the field to play.Jon Eckert:So if you had to distill down into a sentence your one takeaway piece of advice for somebody who wants to write a book, I talk to a lot of educators who run to write a book, you've now written a book. Any nugget that as an encouragement or as a discouragement, like, "Hey, think about this." What would you say?Paul Putz:I would say you got to write it for yourself. You got to care about it. And it's got to be important for you that you put this out because there's a ton of great books out there. You're not going to get rich off writing books. It's got to be because you're passionate about it. For yourself, not in the sense of to glorify yourself, for yourself in the sense that I have these words that I think could be helpful if I get it out. And the other thing is resilience. You got to be willing to sit down in that chair and write when you don't feel like it. Get that draft out, edit, revise. So it's resilience. And it's also a real calling that these words need to be out there.Jon Eckert:Yeah. Well, you said you were not going to make money on this. I've heard you refer to yourself as the John Grisham of sports historians.Paul Putz:There's only... Yeah, of sports and Christianity in America. Historians. There's like two of us.Jon Eckert:That's good. No, no, that's good. It's so true about the books and not getting rich, and you do have to have something that you feel so deeply that you need to get out there that it's going to drive you on those days you don't want to do it. So that's good advice. Last question, what makes you most hopeful as you look ahead, as an educator, as somebody who's interested in sports, what makes you most encouraged?Paul Putz:I think it's being around people who we're in this with, it's about the people we're in it with. There's a lot that I can get discouraged about when I see the news and it feels like there's so much that's changing. But then I'm around people who are saying, "You know what? This is a time we lived in. We didn't choose this time, but here we are, and what are we going to give up? We're going to say, oh, it's hopeless." No, it's the people. It's looking for people who want to find solutions and who realize young people are growing up. They're being shaped and formed right now. And if we're not in that work, what are we doing to shape the future? So that's more than anything. It's just being around people who are willing to put in the work, even in the face of the struggles.Jon Eckert:Well, until wrap up, I'm grateful that you decided not to take your talents to the NBA, but you brought them into academia and you brought those loves together. So I really appreciate your partnership and you being here today.Paul Putz:Thanks so much. Really appreciate you and the work you do.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Stephen Carter, founder of the Seed Tree Group and director of the entrepreneurial program at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy. They explore how constraints breed creativity and how fostering an entrepreneurial mindset transforms education.Carter works with schools across the country to help them start similar entrepreneurship programs that focus on transforming student and teacher engagement rather than just adding new programs or tools.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:Teaching the Entrepreneurial Mindset: Innovative Education for K-12 Schools by Stephen CarterThe Seed Tree: Money Management and Wealth Building Lessons for Teens by Stephen CarterThe Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Jon Eckert:
All right, Stephen, welcome to the Just Schools podcast. Really excited to have you on. We've been wanting to have you on for quite a while as I think you're leading some of the most interesting work in schools right now. So tell us a little bit about your background and what got you to the point that you're at right now in your career.
Stephen Carter:
Jon, thank you. I'm pleased to be on this podcast, and love following your work and what you're doing as well.
Really, the journey was a journey through Christian education. I started in 10th grade in Christian education, graduated from a Christian school, went to a Christian college, started teaching at a Christian school, landed at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy in Cincinnati, Ohio when I was 24 years old. So that means they took on a teacher who had no idea what he was doing, and they took a risk, right? And I cut my teeth on those early years as an English teacher. And I made a discovery early on, which was if you say yes to things, you will get a lot of awesome opportunities.
I should also point out, Jon, you'll get some not so awesome opportunities, i.e., let's start a debate team at the school. Let's coach cross country. Let's get involved with the fine arts, different aspects of writing, critical reviews for plays. I said yes to everything. And that meant that 11 years ago when Dean Nicholas, who at the time was our principal, came to me and said, "Stephen, we've got this idea for this coffee shop for students. You should help run it," of course my answer was yes, never mind the fact that we are about to welcome our second child and we had all kinds of irons in the fire. The answer was yes.
What I didn't know, Jon, is that would completely change my life. I talk a lot about transformation. That was the defining moment of transformation, when it was here's an English teacher who in my mind had no business starting an entrepreneurship program, stepping into this space, discovering a passion that came alive through student engagement, and now 11 years later, just to borrow one of your favorite words, flourishing, a flourishing program that has now enabled me to help impact schools around the nation as they start programs that enable students to thrive and then flourish through just meaningful engagement. So it's been a journey of discovering what it means to truly engage students around the entrepreneurial mindset.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and I'm curious, and I've never asked you this but did you have an entrepreneurial bent prior to taking this on? It feels like to just jump into what you've done and saying yes as a form of being somewhat entrepreneurial, but did you have that in your background at all?
Stephen Carter:
Well, Jon, I did, but I had repressed it because I thought you had to repress that to be a teacher, right?
Jon Eckert:
Oh, right, yeah.
Stephen Carter:
Because if you're a teacher, you're the academic. You're the person who contains the knowledge. You can't have an entrepreneurial bent. I had a lawn mowing business when I was in school, a babysitting business. I would go door to door passing out flyers to do anything around a house to get some money. I even sold my lawn mowing business when I went to college, not for much money, but the point was I had just repressed it. And when I stepped into this space, it just all came flooding back and it took me on a journey of discovery into what does a renewed mindset really mean? I talk a lot about Romans 12:2 when Paul says, "Don't conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." I experienced it that first year starting an entrepreneurship program in real-time, and then I saw students do that as well and it's just been a journey ever since.
Jon Eckert:
Well, I think it's fascinating and maybe a sad commentary on our profession that it feels like you have to set aside that entrepreneurial mindset to be a teacher. And so I've worked with a group that was the Center for Teaching Quality, now it's Mira Education, but they wrote a book a number of years ago called Teacherpreneurs, and how do we get educators to think more in a more entrepreneurial way about this really human task that we do with students. And so I think that's why I've had such an affinity for your work. You're literally working on entrepreneurship with kids.
But I think even just in the way you've built out what you've done at CHCA and now working with schools all over the country, I've seen that mindset in you as I know you've had to overcome some challenges. So what were some of the biggest hurdles for you getting to where you're at now? Because I think there are a lot of schools out there looking at entrepreneurial programs, and obviously there are going to be different challenges, but I would imagine there would be some similar obstacles people might have to get over. So what were two or three of the biggest challenges you had getting this going?
Stephen Carter:
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. I can look back on it and say they were formative, and I would almost call them constraints more than challenges. And the principle that I now realize I operate out of is that constraints breed creativity. So now I seek them out, Jon. I'm like, "Yes, give me a constraint."
So for me, there were a couple big ones. Budget was huge. I'm remembering this. I document this in the book. I went to Dean Nicholas early on. This was a motif in the story. I go asking for money and I leave with very little money or none. That's a constraint. Here's what I've told him multiple times. "If I had gotten the money for the program that I asked for, it wouldn't have grown like it did." The constraint was budget.
Another constraint, time. Time is the number one thing. You talk to school leaders all the time. Time is the biggest constraint. Our teachers are strapped. There's no bandwidth. There's no time. And I would just say the beauty of this is it helps us understand how to better manage our time so that we begin investing it.
And I think the third, this is one I don't talk about a lot, but it was getting over the sense of being almost hypocritical in a space where I didn't have an MBA. I wasn't an entrepreneur technically at the time, and I felt like an imposter. And I'm in a school, like many schools listening, of business leaders where the parents own businesses and they have MBAs and they have these degrees. And I just decided in that moment, I would own it and ask for advice and ask for help and what should I be reading? Who should I be talking to? And it opened up more doors than I ever possibly imagined.
Jon Eckert:
So you mentioned the book, and it's a great book teaching the entrepreneurial mindset, innovative education for K-12 schools. I love it that you built... Because the SeedTree Group is your... That's your group, right? So you've published it that way. Again, it's a great blueprint for it. But I have to have you share a little bit, I don't know if I have the name quite right, but was it the Leaning Eagle Coffee Cart? Wasn't that-
Stephen Carter:
The Leaning Eagle Coffee Bar.
Jon Eckert:
Can you give a... That story just makes me laugh every time I hear it. Can you just give us a little bit-
Stephen Carter:
Oh, my goodness. Well, so we're-
Jon Eckert:
... the genesis of the... Yeah, go ahead.
Stephen Carter:
So Jon, you're referencing our flagship business. And when we launched this whole program in Cincinnati, we started with a rolling coffee cart and three little rolling carts and we're not... This was Jason Oden was a teacher at the time who was instrumental in this. And we built the permanent location and we were going through some naming pieces. Well, the school was going through one of these big rebranding campaigns and had hired all the consultants and all the things. And they had just released this big idea, and it was, "Hey, at CHCA, students lean in."
And so I remember, I'm sitting there as a teacher, we're in the big assembly room, and every teacher turns and you just get this look of like, "Oh, here we go. Where are we going to have to implement this? Oh, another one of these branding campaigns." So I remember the discussion then went into the naming of the coffee bar, and our mascot is the eagle. So it was this tongue in cheek approach of, "Hey, we're the Leaning Eagle because we lean in and take a sip at the coffee bar." And it was really funny for the first two or three years, then the school changes its branding campaign. So now it's like, "Why is the Eagle leaning?" So we have the old school people who remember the why, and it's rooted in that.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Well, and speaking of constraints breeding creativity, didn't your cart get shut down due to health concerns? Wasn't that-
Stephen Carter:
Oh, Jon, you're getting-
Jon Eckert:
That right?
Stephen Carter:
... all of our dirty laundry out there. And yeah, you're absolutely right. Oh my gosh, those early years, it's so much funny. That's why I tell schools when I work with them. I'm like, "Look, we've been doing this 11 years. I can start you at year seven because you're going to overcome a lot of what we learned the hard way." And I'm telling, this is embarrassing, Jon, but I guess we'll just put it out there. We didn't know we needed a health license. No one told us. We're just selling coffee. We didn't know.
And so we've got the student there and he's serving coffee. Well, here comes the health inspector, walks up to him and says, "Hey, where do you wash hands?" And this is probably not the best kid to answer that question. Let's face it, Jon, this is the one kid where you're like, "Please don't ask him anything." So this kid says, "Why would we need to wash hands?" And it's like, "Are you kidding me right now?" I'm teaching an English class and I get called down and it's like, "Why is this conversation even happening? Couldn't you have had a better answer than why do we need to wash hands?" We did not get shut down. But I will tell you this, we had a hand sink in no time, a license at a record pace, and we learned a lot of lessons along the way.
Jon Eckert:
So I love it. Page 188 and 189, they have people saying, you walk into CHCA now, we should talk a little bit about where you're at now with the teaching kitchen and the greenhouse and all those pieces, and people are like, "Well, we don't have that. We don't have the resources for that. But you can do this with $150 and an innovative idea. And I think that's what the Leaning Eagle was. And then that blew up into these things. And then you've had a number of businesses. I remember the... Was it a smoothie business that you're like, "Hey, we didn't have it placed right. We didn't..." And the kids learn so much from that failure about what does work and what doesn't work. And so you want some of that because as an entrepreneur, you have to try things. And the benefit of risk-taking isn't that you're going to be successful. It's learning from that. And so I feel like you have built that in well.
And I want to know how you have built what you've built at CHCA, but then give schools what they need where they have the constraints that are going to be real, but they learn the lessons that you learned in those first seven years because I feel like those are super valuable for you and for the students that you've been leading with. So talk a little bit about what you've built and some of the ways you've built it, even how you got the pizza ovens. I think that's an amazing story where you found state money that allowed you to buy pizza ovens. So I would love to hear a little bit about the current state at CHCA.
Stephen Carter:
So currently when you step into our school on our campus where we are PK-12, over a thousand students, right around 1,200, several campuses, you're going to see a fully fledged program, six full-time faculty members running it, six on-campus businesses, 15 elective courses, a certificate track. It's fully baked, but you're seeing the product of what we learned along the way. Because I will tell you this, as we've already illustrated, when we started, we were living that entrepreneurial mindset. And by that, I mean that famous saying of we had jumped off the cliff and we were building the plane on our way down in real-time with students.
And that's the beauty of it, is the students were experiencing all of these different aspects and having an awesome time. We now have to seek out failure. I hate to say it that way because early on, failure is easy. Now, we have to create it because learning from that is so pivotal. It's one of our four attributes we teach. We built these businesses and then we discovered we needed curriculum and we needed learnings. And so all of this was built along the way as we were going. And we discovered there's four attributes that truly embody the entrepreneurial mindset. And that is truly understanding a directed growth mindset, tethered to mission, vision and values, understanding the why and the purpose and the compass of direction, then developing grit. And that's the goal-setting piece that's been instrumental in all of our business.
I'll give you a little anecdote here. You mentioned our pizza oven business. That started because we had a goal. We wanted to build this teaching kitchen. We had no money. And I'll second your point, Jon. People walk in our campus and they say, "Wow." Well, you should have seen it when we were building these things. It was nothing, okay? So we're building this, we don't even have enough money for the drywall. So we were going to build it without drywall. It was going to be an extra $20,000. And we had a senior at the time who now is at a three Michelin star restaurant who said, "No, we're going to do that drywall, Mr. Carter." And I'm like, "Oh, really?" He's like, "We're going to start a business using that pizza oven and we're going to sell pizzas until we have enough money to finish building that drywall." And that's how it started. It was a goal. And that pizza business is still an operation. And so it's teaching these attributes through the experience of these hands-on businesses.
And I'll end this point on this note. What we discovered in hindsight is it's not a business as much as it is a laboratory, and it's a laboratory to experience in real-time problem-solving via systems. Hey, we're out of cups at the coffee bar. That's an awesome problem. Why? Because it means something failed in our system, which means we need to address that failure, which means we need a better system so that we can replicate the success in the future. That's the learning. You're going to have kids graduating with this program. I don't care if they start a coffee bar. Frankly, I don't think they should. You lose a lot of money unless you open 15 of them. Don't start a coffee bar, listeners, okay? At your school, it's fine. But you've got kids leaving who know how to solve problems and create systems to prevent future problems, I guarantee you every business owner in the country would hire that kid on the spot.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's well said. I think sometimes we get caught up in the product and where we get to and we miss the whole point of it, which is the learning that goes on and the problem solving, which is so key. And so you having to seek out opportunities for failure, that's a great place to be in. But I do think it's important that we don't miss that, that kids need a chance to try some things that as adults, we're like, "Ugh." And you have been doing it for 12 years. That's probably not going to work but at some level, you need to let them learn that lesson or better yet, prove you wrong. Because that's what entrepreneurs do. They see something, they see a hole, they figure out a way to solve the problem. And then in doing that, they're solving all kinds of problems. So I love the mindset that you're teaching because I think that's what's so integral.
What opportunities do you have do you see for schools who want to partner with you? I know you're with 25 schools now. You want to get to 50 schools in fairly short order. What opportunities do you see for that? Because I think there's been a huge interest as I've heard people talk about you and to you about the opportunities they have.
Stephen Carter:
So when I talk to heads of school, typically I hear problems. I used to hear problems around enrollment and things have changed to where there's not a lot of that anymore but engagement is huge. And it's teacher engagement, student engagement, and parent engagement. And here's what I'm really seeing as a massive opportunity. Parents are now coming to school saying, "We want this. We want this. We want this." But they don't exactly know what they want, just that they want this. And the same often at schools. And schools have the problem of we've got a lot of programs, a lot of great programs, and often you can get program fatigue. It's like, well, we're going to launch this other program. Well, does it have a long shelf life? Is it just going to be another maker space idea that turns into a storage room?
So for me, the opportunity is transformation over tools, or I could even put it as skills over content. We are at a defining point in education when it comes to shifting to meaningful real-world skill building for our students. Think about what Malcolm Gladwell said last summer on stage at an event. He said that collaboration is the skill of the 21st century. We've been doing collaboration in schools for as long as we can remember, but when you collaborate with a group of students to build a brand new venture on the campus that is still going to be there 10 years later, you're collaborating around a legacy. You're collaborating in real-time to learn leadership skills, effective communication, all these core skills, even emotional intelligence.
So I'll answer your question like this. The opportunity is parents want this kind of programming. Students are engaged by this kind of programming. And here's something really cool. Donors come alive with this programming. When I work with private, I mostly work with private Christian K-12 schools around the nation, and here's what I'll tell them. 60% of our program here in Cincinnati, Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, 60% is funded by donors who are alumni parents that had stopped giving to the school. That to me, we're not talking about robbing, giving to other programs. We're talking about new interest. So the opportunity is low barrier to entry with massive ROI around engagement and true transformation.
One of the big areas of this business, it's not just starting a program. It's training teachers to then engage the students through the program toward a certificate that demonstrates key learnings in the entrepreneurial mindset. So it's student-facing and teacher-facing with the mindset to transform the entire school culture. So Jon, I am pumped.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, and I feel that for you. I should say full disclosure here, I'm on the Cincinnati Hills board because I love what Dean Nicholas is doing as head, and I love the entrepreneurial program. And we went and studied your school as part of a book project we were doing several years ago. I walked away thinking this was some of the most interesting work that I've seen in schools, particularly because of the engagement piece. And I think your point about donors getting excited about it and people seeing the value in it, it's when you see kids truly engaged and doing meaningful work together in this collaborative way, not this cheesy artificial collaboration that happens in schools where we give kid, "Now, this is your role and this is your role," and you lead the discussion. It's like this is real money and you now have six businesses that are flourishing. That's really powerful.
I wanted to circle back and then we'll do our lightning round. I wanted to circle back to this initial thing, you saying yes to so many things. We have a lot of people who are educators, and some of them are in their first four or five years of teaching. And I'm always citing this David Brooks quote, "A life of commitment requires saying thousands of no's for the sake of a few precious yeses." And I really worry about people saying yes too often. I'm a people pleaser. I say yes too often all the time, and I don't treat my yeses as precious enough. But I wonder, your comment, constraints breed creativity, is there a way to balance those yeses with that constraints breeding creativity mindset? Do you see any through line there? Because I think you cannot be saying yes to everything anymore-
Stephen Carter:
Right, right.
Jon Eckert:
... because I know you can't manage that. So how do you see those two things in tension, constraints breeding creativity and saying yes to cool opportunities?
Stephen Carter:
Oh my goodness, this is the best question I've heard this month. This is awesome, and I'll answer it with a little bit of Greek mythology. There's a character in Greek mythology who's considered the god of opportunity, and his defining characteristic is he has a lock of hair in the front of his head and the rest of his head is bald. And the idea is he's got winged feet, he comes running by, and if you want to grab onto opportunity, you got to be ready to grab that lock of hair or all you get is the bald back of his head.
So for me, it's not just about like, "Oh, when opportunity comes, I'm going to get up off my seat and open the door and I'll begrudgingly... I'll put my coffee cup down and go." No, I'm already outside the door and I'm going to see him running down the street. And in that moment, I'm going to decide if that is an opportunity that is within my why and my vision and my mission. And to me, that's why we always start with a directed growth mindset.
If you come into our greenhouse, you're going to see these tomato plants, Jon, that are 20, 30 feet tall. You don't get to be a 25-foot tall tomato plant unless you do some pruning, and you've got to prune those leaves and you've got to prune those suckers. And that means you have to know where you're going and why. So I would answer your question by saying I would never chase opportunity until I knew where I was going and why, and that is what we're teaching to our students in real-time.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. That's so needed for all of us, not just our K-12 students. So we always wrap up with a lightning round just to get quick, short burst answers. These are the ones I'm the worst at always. But what would be the best advice you've ever received as an entrepreneur, as an educator, or just as a human being?
Stephen Carter:
Kaizen, the Japanese word for continuous improvement. Never stop learning or improving. Best advice I ever got. In fact, I even have temporary tattoos I pass out that say kaizen on them.
Jon Eckert:
I love that. Love that. What's the worst advice you've ever received as a teacher or entrepreneur?
Stephen Carter:
Probably I would say every single idea has validity for you. And that led into chasing opportunities I shouldn't have chased.
Jon Eckert:
Yes, good bit of wisdom there. Best book you've read in the last year? This could be education-related, business-related, or just being a human being.
Stephen Carter:
I read 52 books a year, and there's one of those that I reread every single year, every year. And that is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. I'm telling you, this book has changed every part of my life.
Jon Eckert:
All right, that's been popular for quite a while, so...
Stephen Carter:
Yes, it has.
Jon Eckert:
It's good.
Stephen Carter:
It's old-school.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. But hey, when there's wisdom, there's wisdom. So that's great. All right. And then what would you say your greatest hope? If you were to distill down your greatest hope for what's ahead in education into a sentence, what would you say it is?
Stephen Carter:
This is the time for education to experience true transformation, and we as educators get to be part of that leading toward impact. And to me, impact is refusing to stay in the same place but committing to the same path.
Jon Eckert:
That's well said. That's a great place to wrap things up. So if you're interested in knowing more about Stephen, his work is out there. He's part of the SeedTree Group, and he has written the book Teaching the Entrepreneurial Mindset. He's put out a number of other pieces. I've heard him speak. He's great. You can always hear the energy and the passion in what he's sharing. But it's a blessing to have you on, and I'm so grateful for the work you're doing in schools at Cincinnati Hills and now all over the place. So thanks for being with us.
Stephen Carter:
Thank you, Jon. Appreciate what you're doing and appreciate the opportunity.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Max Silverman from the Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) at the University of Washington. Silverman shares his journey from a high school principal to leading CEL, where he supports district and school leaders nationwide.A key takeaway is the power of student voice in creating meaningful change, emphasizing the importance of listening, fostering belonging, and staying collaborative as leaders.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves by Shawn GinwrightConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Dr. Jon Eckert:
All right. Welcome back to [Jeff 00:00:05] Schools. Today we're here with Max Silverman from the University of Washington. He has been doing work that we really aspire to do in so many ways, in supporting school leaders and education leaders in all different kinds of places through the Center for Educational Leadership. So Max, if you would share a little bit about, what brought you into this work? Maybe we'll start there and then just take the conversation from there.
Max Silverman:
It's a funny story, I was a high school principal ... I was a high school assistant principal here in Washington State, at a school that, however you would characterize a school or measure a school, it was struggling. I think the students would tell you that, the staff, and I got the opportunity to be the principal. I quickly found out that as a former high school basketball coach and former social studies teacher, I was actually pretty good at getting people coalesced around a vision of what could be. I was pretty good at working with folks and us agreeing that the kids were fine, that we were the problem, and then we hit a wall. We actually didn't know how to improve the quality of teaching and student experience. That beyond our really wonderful intentions towards our students, that we needed to drastically change what teaching looked like, what school culture and environment looked like. And my school district, just by chance and luck for me, contracted with the Center for Educational Leadership. This is about 2004 maybe, 2005, and I immediately went through the most rigorous program around how to be an instructional leader. I went from saying really stupid things to teachers like, "Oh, I was just in your classroom, and I noticed you called on more girls than boys. Maybe that's something you want to work on."
So knowing how to talk to a teacher and ask questions around, "Tell me a little bit more about what you're working on in your practice. What was your intent for student engagement today?" I just learned how to be in language arts classes and math classes and not be a waste of time to the teachers, to actually be a value add. So that started my journey with CEL, and I was a client of CEL for probably five years and then in 2009 had the opportunity to join the CEL team, begin to build out our work with central office leaders.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Yes. I love the confident humility that you just led into with that, the example that you gave on the who's being called on. My other favorite thing that principals always like to point out is, "Oh, I didn't see a learning target on the board." I didn't see ... It's like, okay, if you're a really bad teacher, then having that learning target on the board might give the kids some idea of what the teacher is trying to do. But for any average educator that learning target is not doing a whole lot for kids, but that's always a go-to one.
Max Silverman:
It's pretty funny to watch a group of leaders walk into a classroom, see a learning target, check the box on their checklist and not think about, oh, is it standard space, is it rigorous? Is that actually what the teacher is doing that day?
Dr. Jon Eckert:
That's right. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into learning targets and I'm like, I feel like that learning target may have been up for the last four or five days because whatever is happening here seems completely unrelated to that. But hey, it's on there, that checks the box, complete compliance exercise. So I do love that research out there that the people who benefit the most from evaluations are the people doing the evaluating, because you're the one getting all the expertise as you see all these different contexts. So I appreciate the humility that you had saying, hey, I could do a lot of the things a leader needs to do, but when we actually wanted to move the needle, I needed this expertise from CEL to figure that out. So I'm curious, the program that you went into, was it a degree program? Was it a support? Was it a part of a cohort? What did that look like?
Max Silverman:
No. So when CEL started ... and more formally, when the Center for Educational Leadership University of Washington, but CEL, we are very unique in that we are a fee-for-service center from a tier-one research university. So we contract with school systems across the country to provide leader professional learning. Even back then, my school district hired CEL and instead of going to a district-led leader professional development, CEL led it. They brought in the most brilliant people from District Two in New York City, from San Diego Unified School District. We had whole group professional development. But even then, Jon, it was fascinating, they would model for us by bringing a whole elementary classroom to our professional development. We'd see a model lesson and then learn how to give feedback to the teacher right there. And then I got coaching in my school, so it was both really good professional development as well as embedded coaching.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
I love that, and I love that an R1 is doing that. Because so often we leave that behind for the research, so then we don't actually apply any of the good research that we're finding, so that feels like a great relationship. How many districts do you all currently work with at CEL? What's the scope of the work? So let's talk about breadth and then we'll talk a little bit more about depth.
Max Silverman:
Yeah. We have a fascinating scope, in that we work with approximately 40 school systems a year as large as Chicago Public Schools and Metro National Public schools, and then as small as Nooksack, Washington. We tend to be in urban districts and rural districts. For many years we lead or facilitate the South Central Washington Superintendents' Network. We've done that for about 15 plus years, and that's out in the Yakima Valley of Washington. Once a month we're in classrooms with superintendents, so we have a pretty wide, pretty good breadth. We also lead the National Principal Supervisor Academy for AASA.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Okay. So with that breadth ... I love the urban/rural because those challenges are different because of different contexts, but there are commonalities. I'm interested, as you've been able to see that and you've gone deeper with these districts, what are some of the commonalities you find across districts, particularly post-COVID? Because my sense of COVID is, it exposed a lot of issues that were already there,, it just exacerbated them. So I'm curious to see if that's been your experience and then, what's been common across these pretty diverse contexts you've been? Because that's a pretty unique perspective that you all have.
Max Silverman:
Yeah. I think it was, Rand just put out a study of superintendents and they compared where large district and small district superintendents spend their time. They're a little bit different, but what was striking to me is how little time they spend on the quality of teaching and learning. That really I think confirmed for me something that we're seeing is ... and leader surveys bear this out, school leaders and district leaders are spending a lot of time now particularly on mental health, both for students and staff. They're dealing with staff shortages, certificated, leader and classified staff. I think they're still putting things back together from COVID, so we find again and again that the bandwidth isn't there yet for leaders at scale. We still find plenty of leaders who can focus really intently, but the bandwidth of individual leaders in school systems isn't quite there yet to really focus on what's happening in classrooms, how do people get better?
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Well, and we were talking about this briefly before we jumped on the conversation, the conversation with Pixel out of the United Kingdom and the work they're doing. The two books they've written are Time to Think and Time to Think 2. I love that because so many educators I talk to, whatever role they're in, they don't have space to think. Or at least they don't feel like they do because the urgency of what they have to deal with and the mental health issues that are exacerbated by learning loss. So that's what I see. You had this learning loss happen over COVID, depending on how long you were out of in-person school because we know the online delivery just didn't work as well for so many kids. So you have these gaps and those gaps then feed the lack of worthiness, the lack of mattering, the lack of belonging, that then exacerbates the mental health, which then exacerbates the learning loss. So it's this thing. And then when you have staff shortages and you might actually get an adult, a human being in a classroom but they're not really trained, their background is not in the area they're teaching, that then exacerbates the mental health of that teacher. That exacerbates the mental health of the kids.
And then the other veteran faculty who know what needs to be done, they're then carrying a larger burden, because they're trying to help these new people that are coming in with good intentions but they're under-prepared for what they're going to do. So I wonder with all of that, that feels like a pretty bleak picture, where are you seeing some signs of hope in some of the districts that you're working with?
Max Silverman:
Yeah, thanks. We're lucky, we get to see hope all the time. The hope we see is that actually when we are with leaders, they want to dig in. They want to learn and get better, and they believe that getting better is a way to improving what happens for students. In most of our work we bring students into the learning in different ways. When leaders get to hear from students about what they want and need, it instigates their learning in a different way. It's really fascinating, the difference between a group of school leaders or district leaders looking at student climate survey data ... even if they do the most elegant analysis, it's still all intellectual. If we can bring in a student panel and have students talk about, how do they know they matter at school, what's a good day at school, what's a bad day? All of a sudden that instigates leader learning in a different way, because there's real kids right there in front of them. So that always makes me hopeful. The other space, I work primarily with central office leaders, and we've been working on this idea that students will have no more of something than adults in the system have.
So if we want students to be seen and heard, they actually won't be unless teachers and principals are. If we want students to have a sense of belonging, they won't unless teachers and principals have that as well. I've been really amazed at the willingness of central office leaders across the country, their willingness to slow down and go out and even interview principals about principal experience and use that as actual data. They all have to put in an Excel for it to become data to them. The willingness of people to really change their epistemology on what is true and knowledge, I do see a shift in that when people are afforded the time or make the time, and that's really hopeful.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Yes. I love that, and people that are still in education right now obviously have to have some element of gritty optimism. So that's the next book I'm working on, where do you get that optimism that's born out of experience, where you've seen kids become more of who they were created to be over and over and over again? What I love about what you said is the way you bring students into it. This is one of the challenges we've been dealing with in our center. So we have a leadership conference, it's a one-day thing in February. One of the things we're working on right now is having the leaders go through using a tool all day for what they're going to do differently, and then they check in over the next three months to make sure that's happening. But before they can actually finalize what that plan is have a student consulting panel where they're meeting with them and running their idea by a panel of students ... who are not at their school but are at the grade level they serve, who can give them feedback on yeah, that would work, no, that wouldn't work. Or here's what I think about that, so that they're the advisory board to the leaders.
Because we've done a lot of student panels and I think you're totally right, they get lost in the data. But when they hear the voices and they hear the lived experiences of the kids, that's different. So now we're trying to do this advisory board piece. I don't know, we've never tried it, it could completely blow up on us. I love that because I agree, if we miss the fact that students need to be leading with us ... I think that's a powerful insight that you all have had. Any advice for us as leaders as we try to bring students in? Any cautions or any, just based on that idea I just shared with you, bad idea, good idea, try something else?
Max Silverman:
Well, so what we keep coming up against is how hard it is for people to listen. So one thing, my colleague Jen McDermott had a project, really which started a lot of our student-centered work, where she interviewed students and met with students and just asked them, "What's a good day at school? What's a bad day at school?" They actually wrote stories or drew pictures, and she made this brilliant move of having them analyze the stories. So it was their data, they kept the data and they came to some conclusions about what they saw. Basically they told us, well, it looks like school's a place that we want to be happy and proud. But the other thing that they then helped us develop was a tool that helps leaders listen. I think my big takeaway, it's called the Student Experience Story Guide, and your listeners can get on our website. It's pretty cool because students came up with the use of the metaphor of heroes and villains. So leaders might ask, "Tell me about, who are the heroes in your school day, who are the villains?"
And one thing as I make sense of this, I think why that works for students is because what they hear is, tell me a story. As opposed to, "When are you most engaged," or "What part of the school day is most rigorous?" Students know that's for us, but tell me a story and then prove to me you're listening by asking really curious, thoughtful questions. So I don't know if I have any cautionary tales for you, but just keep thinking about, how would students ask each other's questions, or they talk to each other about school?
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Yeah. I think that's a super helpful idea and clear that you all listen to kids a lot, because I think we lose sight of that in academia. We lose sight of that in administration. One interesting thing, I had a conversation last year with Jon Hattie, he's from the Kiwi, from New ... But we were sitting and talking and he said, "Equity is a good example. Everybody, we care about equity. That's an important concept and that really matters. But kids don't think about equity, they think about fairness. So how do they talk about what's fair and how do you ask questions they understand?" I love the heroes and villains piece because that's thinking about things in the form of story, the way kids think about stuff. Because kids will all talk about teachers who are fair and who are not fair, they're not necessarily talking about those who are equitable and inequitable. But in their minds those are the same things. I'm sure philosophically you could find some nuances between them.
But at the end of the day, what matters most for kids is what matters most for kids, and therefore, what matters most for educators. So I think that's a good reminder.
Max Silverman:
That square [inaudible 00:18:41]? So that Superintendent's' Network I mentioned that I facilitate in the Yakima Valley and Washington, we were at an elementary school getting ready to observe classrooms. We brought students in, and one of the questions is, "How do you know you matter at school," or "How would you know you matter?" A young girl, I think a fourth grader said, "Oh, that's easy. All those walls in the halls wouldn't be white and there would be rainbows at my eye level."
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Wow.
Max Silverman:
What happened was, the superintendents decided as they were walking around, they saw the school differently. They hypothesized the question, they asked the question of what they saw, who is this school for? The bulletin boards looked, they saw all these beautiful bulletin boards. Oh, a teacher made that for other teachers or for parents. And by bringing student voice in like that, it just changed-
Dr. Jon Eckert:
That's beautiful.
Max Silverman:
... both their focus and their analysis.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Oh, beautiful example. So I always like to ask before we wrap up ... You've been in education a long time. You're actually looking at the end of your time at CEL, and you have this time to look back. But I'm curious, best advice you've ever either given or received and worst advice you've either given or received. You can take it in whatever order you want.
Max Silverman:
Oh, that's a good question because I've given lots of bad advice, so we don't have to go there.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
So have I.
Max Silverman:
I think the best advice that I've most recently been given is by my colleague Casey Warden, who reminded me about moving at the speed of trust.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's good.
Max Silverman:
I use that with central office leaders all the time now and you can just see their heads, the nods across a room. It just helps us all because we all have this sense of urgency. So moving at the speed of trust, it's tricky, but that's probably the best advice. I use that in my internal leadership itself and in my external work. I think some bad advice that I've given in my own leadership at times, when I have a sense of urgency and a sense of, there's certain things we have to get done, in and of itself that behavior is bad advice. I think when I ... and my colleagues will probably affirm this, those moments when I lose my curiosity about the ideas they have and fall back on either things like, "Oh, that's not how we do it," or "We've tried that in the past." So it's not necessarily bad advice, but it's very unleaderly behavior on my part that I really try to pay attention to now.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
No, that's good. That's helpful. All right, last two questions. What's a good book you've read in the last year that you would recommend? It can be education related or otherwise. I always find books to be ... I enjoy books so this may be a selfish question, but what would you say?
Max Silverman:
I think a book I'm just about done with, The Four Pivots by Sean Ginwright. It's The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves. It's a fabulous book about how to be transformational rather than transactional with ourselves and then in our work.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Okay, that sounds like-
Max Silverman:
I highly recommend it, highly.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Love it. I've not read it. I've got it written down though, so that's great.
Max Silverman:
Yeah, and Dr. Ginwright is a wonderful writer.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
That always helps. That always helps. Some people have great ideas, they just don't always know how to get them out there. So when they can do both, that's a gift. Last question, what makes you most hopeful as you wrap up your time at CEL? You already gave us, you've seen some hopeful things even in challenging contexts. But if you had to say, this is what makes me most hopeful, what would that be?
Max Silverman:
I think that I get to, because of the work I do with central office leaders around belonging and inclusion, I think there's a real, once we get beyond the ... and it's funny, we're talking on election day. It's easy to see partisan divide. Underneath that, it's hard to find somebody who doesn't want to make sure all kids have a sense of belonging. I find that across the country, across the political spectrum, it's hard to find people who in practice want to deny other people's humanity. The pessimistic side of it is, we all get them caught up in these policy and other debates that ultimately do that. But there are a lot, there's probably hundreds if not more spaces in the country today where educators are talking about very real issues of humanness and humanity for the people they serve. Again, I find that across geography, across district size, across partisan divides.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
What a great place to wrap that up. And I have to say, I appreciate your conversation because we started our time, before we jumped on officially, talking about Gonzaga absolutely dump trucking Baylor by 38 points last night. You did it in such a kind way. We broke down where some of the breakdowns were for Baylor, that was kind. And then the other piece ... and I fly to Vancouver tomorrow, so I get to go to Canada and try to explain whatever has happened in our election process.
Max Silverman:
Oh, good luck.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
So yes, I'm going to be seeking belonging and mattering in some good ways.
Max Silverman:
I think the Canadians are more nervous about what's going to happen than ...
Dr. Jon Eckert:
I was just in Toronto the week before this, and I would absolutely affirm that. But I wanted to say, one of the worst pieces of advice I received is that leadership is lonely. I find these kinds of conversations to be super helpful because leaders do make lonely decisions. But I think we have to stop that narrative that leadership is lonely because then nobody wants to step into it. Ultimately there are lonely decisions, there's no way around that. But by having colleagues and what you described with your experience with CEL ... how you got brought into it, and then for you to then step into that role and then provide that for leaders all across the country, that's a tremendous gift. So thanks for what you do.
Max Silverman:
Yeah, thanks for having me.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Patti Goforth, principal at Robinson Elementary. Goforth shares insights from her journey as an educator, including the importance of building connections with students and fostering a culture where every child is seen and valued. The conversation also highlights the impact of collaboration through improvement communities and the transformative work being done to enhance student engagement and well-being.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Ron Clark Academy Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcslJoin us at Catalyze (formerly Just Schools Academy) July 28-30 at the Hurd Welcome Center at Baylor University, where your team of teachers and administrators will have the opportunity to address a problem of practice related to your campus improvement plan focusing on feedback, engagement, or well-being. This is not a conference. This is a retreat that offers your team a collaborative environment where you’ll work alongside a network of educators and the BCSL team to develop a plan of action using our improvement science tools. With ongoing monthly support from our team, you will be equipped with strategies to catalyze lasting improvement in what we like to call “catalytic improvement communities” that will benefit your school. You will improve an aspect of your campus improvement plan, develop leaders, and enhance collective teacher efficacy. Gather a team of 2-10 teachers and administrators because we do this work best together.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dustin Benac, co-founder of Baylor's Program for the Future Church. They discuss the connection between schools, churches, and communities in fostering flourishing environments. Benac shares insights on leadership that moves at the speed of trust, the power of belonging, and the importance of taking strategic risks. The conversation also highlights how collaboration and shared language can drive meaningful connections and create spaces where individuals and institutions thrive together.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:Adaptive Church by Dustin D. BenacBelonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides by Geoffrey L. CohenMan's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. FranklConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl Transcript:
Jon:
Welcome back to the Just Schools podcast. Today we are here with Dustin Benac. Excited to have him here. He's a little different kind of guest than we usually have, so we're going to start with Dustin telling us a little bit what he does here at Baylor, and then we'll get into how it connects to what we do as educators. Dustin, welcome in.
Dustin Benac:
Thanks Jon. Thrilled to be here. Love what you guys do in the School of Ed.
Jon:
Can you tell us a little bit about what you do here at Baylor? We overlap some because we're interested in leadership, we're interested in education and institutions, but can you talk a little bit about what you do here?
Dustin Benac:
Absolutely. I am the director and co-founder of the Program for the Future Church. We are a research, resource and relationship hub that's devoted to engaging the complex and emerging challenges between current and emerging Christian leaders. We do that through curriculum. We do that through convenings or gatherings, and we do that through contextual research. And one of the things that we're seeing is that even as the church and our communities are changing in incredible and dramatic ways, there is a remarkable future and we're committed to supporting that and pursuing that together.
Jon:
Love that. My question for you, obviously we care deeply about the church. That's one of the primary institutions that really supports what goes on in our country and around the world. And we have the global flourishing study that's a partnership of Harvard and Baylor, looking at what flourishing looks like, and certainly churches and faith are a big part of that, but another big part of it is schools. Where do you see K-12 schools fitting into the work that you're doing?
Dustin Benac:
I think they are an essential aspect of the flourishing of our communities and the flourishing of churches. Because one of the things we see is that the faith formation of people who inhabit churches, particularly inhabit churches over their life course emerges in those first 10 to 12 years. That certainly happens in families, but that also happens in spaces well beyond families. Sunday school classrooms, camps, schools, after school programs, baseball fields, athletic fields, gyms, art rooms, all of those are spaces where people are being formed. And a flourishing church, particularly a flourishing future church requires flourishing generations. And then secondly, it requires connections across different communities of faith. We think about our work happening at the level of the system or the ecology where we think communities need thriving congregations. They also need thriving schools, they need thriving nonprofit sectors, they need thriving entrepreneurs and the health of those realities, those sectors will only contribute to the thriving of the local church.
Jon:
A lot of that focus on community because we don't do any of these things in isolation. And so as educators, we have this great role of walking alongside people as they become more of who they're created to be as we become more of who we're created to be in the work that we do as we are formed. My question for you especially is your vantage point largely focused on the church, but also then looking at the ecology, as you use your term, which I love that term as well. What does a healthy school look like in your opinion, either currently or in the future, or maybe those are the same thing, but what's it look like to you?
Dustin Benac:
I think there are several markers of a healthy school. One, I think healthy schools require healthy leadership, and that's one of the reasons I appreciate the work you and your colleagues do is you all are equipping, resourcing and engaging healthy leaders and supporting healthy leaders across the country. That's the first thing. I think the second thing is a connection to and commitment to place. One of the things I love about education is it's one of the increasingly few institutions that still have a geographic designation. We have ISDs that are connected to particular places. And schools are places that bring people from their surrounding community to a shared gathering. Third, I think healthy schools require a healthy balance of diversity and similarity.
You have to have something that you have in common, which I think is the education of our children. And you also have to have environments where people gather around and from the various differences and particularities that they bring to these spaces. Third, you've got to have matters of trust, justice, equity. Schools are only as strong as the virtues that carry them, and our leaders are only as strong as the virtues that they possess, so you've got to have schools that are marked by integrity. And fifth and finally, I think a healthy school requires a hopeful vision for the future. We can't have a hopeful vision for our children if the leaders and the communities don't have a hopeful vision for the future.
Jon:
The country right now is somewhat polarized as we're in an election year and you hear a lot of things about separation of church and state. And a lot of times that comes into play in schools where what's allowed, what isn't allowed? In Oklahoma right now, there's mandated Bible teaching going on in public schools with a hope that that will lead to better virtue development. And that's getting a lot of push back and possibly not really being implemented because that's not been traditionally what's gone on in public schools in Oklahoma at least over the last several decades.
I'm curious to have you talk a little bit about the way you think churches and schools can work together effectively, because we also have the model of churches coming in and reading with kids and providing tutoring with kids and afterschool programs and this kind of ecology that we're all in this together and that both schools and churches serve the community. Do you have any sense of what that might look like? Not in the church state, separation wars that are out there, but in we're all part of a community, leadership as service. How do we lead in a way that serves each member of the community well?
Dustin Benac:
Yep. I love that question. I think that's part of one of the things that gets me really hopeful about the future schools and the future of churches because I think there's opportunities for real partnership here. Just a quick anecdote, I found my way into this work after doing several years of research in the Pacific Northwest. And the Pacific Northwest is a context where there's a marginal position for religious organizations. They're on the edges of society, but there's also a real history of religious entrepreneurship, that people of faith are doing new things.
Entrepreneurship is the water they swim in. And one of the things I saw there is that people of faith and churches in the Pacific Northwest, they found a way to exist on the margins of society in ways that are not anxious. They're not trying to reclaim power, they're just trying to be faithfully present. And I think that's the first step to find this meaningful partnership, is churches and people of faith can pursue meaningful partnerships with schools, public or private, not trying to control the content or control the outcome or set the table, but simply show up and be a good partner and be present. Second, that takes a lot of time.
Jon:
You're right.
Dustin Benac:
You can't just parachute in a community and expect change to happen. You've got to keep showing up. Go to the football games, go to the band concerts, show up, show up over and over and over again. And when you do that, you begin to, one, see the needs of the community and they might be different than what you think. And then secondly, you begin to earn trust. The third thing I say is be prepared to be surprised by the encounter. When I've shown up in spaces, when I've tried to be relationally, faithfully present, I go in expecting knowingly or unknowingly something from that connection. And I'm always surprised. And as a person of faith, I like to think that surprise is part of the gift of God.
Jon:
That's beautifully put. I would say I think it overlaps with our view of leadership in general, but I would go all the way back to teaching middle school students. You can't just hit middle school kids over the head with truth if you don't do it with love because they're not listening until they know that you love them and you show them that you love them by spending time with them when you're not contractually obligated to spend that time with them. And so it is that showing up. And I think that's true with adults that we lead and we work with the educators we serve all over the world. It does coming alongside listening first, being surprised by what we might learn, not coming in with solutions for people. We don't know the context.
We come in with processes. We come in with ideas for improvement. We come in with networks of people that we connect. That's Eric Ellison's main job at the Center of School Leadership. He does that even on Baylor's campus for us. And so how do we do that better? Because ultimately in the time we're in now, I don't think anybody can be that superhero solo leader. We write a lot about collective leadership at the center and what that looks like to do the work that moves towards shared goals. You do a lot of work on collaborative leadership. What kind of leadership do you see working at Baylor in churches in the ecologies? What kind of leadership do you see working? What are some attributes of that that you're encouraged by as we move forward?
Dustin Benac:
There's several different attributes. One is it's leadership that moves at the speed of trust. Collective collaborative leadership is leadership that it can't be engineered, it can't be manufactured. It takes time and it moves at the speed of trust. The second thing is this type of leadership is leadership that's carried by shared language. And I think that's one of the values of a place like Baylor or a place like the Center for School Leadership is I think one of the things you all offer are some shared language. And that allows people to partner around shared work by using the shared language because we can't assume that we mean the same thing when we talk about community or education or formation or faith.
You have to have shared language because that's the point of contact where the shared work begins. The third thing that I think is required is an ability to recognize and celebrate a diversity of leadership expressions. Leadership, particularly collaborative leadership, is carried by teams. In order to have a strong team, you need to have people who lead in different ways. In my book, Adaptive Church, I talk about this across six different modes of leading, leading as the caretaker, leading as the catalyst, leading as the connector convener, leading as the surveyor, leading as the champion, leading as the guide. An effective collaboration requires people and teams who have the diversity, the dexterity, and the variety of gifts to lead in different ways in order to respond the needs of their community.
Jon:
You talk about diversity, dexterity, and variety, and a lot of people will hear that, and say it sounds messy.
Dustin Benac:
It is.
Jon:
And my argument is leadership's always going to be messy. It's whether it's going to be messy on the front end or the back end. I'd much rather it be hashed out with diverse thinkers that bring this variety to what we do so that we better represent the communities we serve. If you're thinking in ecologies, you certainly can't, as a single person know what's going to work best for everyone in that ecosystem. That is just not going to be possible. But it takes time, which you already mentioned about relationships, but it also takes time to process things. But then at the back end, you have something that actually might work as opposed to you implementing something which churches do this all the time, "Oh, we got to grow attendance, we got to grow the budget. We got to do..." And so it just becomes this hamster wheel we jump on and then we're spinning off crazy. And in churches, you are burning human beings who get run over by that hamster wheel.
Dustin Benac:
That's exactly right. And I think it's important to make a difference between the messiness of shared and collaborative leadership and sloppiness because-
Jon:
Yes. That's a good point.
Dustin Benac:
... we don't have an excuse for being sloppy. The responsibility of leadership requires that we do it as well as we can. And part of not being sloppy is having shared language, knowing your lane, and also having good and effective strategy. It's going to be messy, it's going to be improvisational. It's not going to turn out like you thought or hoped it would, but you can be purposeful, you can be intentional, you can be strategic, you can be patient. And when those ingredients are there, the outcome is oftentimes far better than we could ever hope or imagine.
Jon:
The sloppy piece is such a great point. I think in schools, we have oversold the idea of failing forward. We've taken this Silicon Valley idea that fail fast, fail forward. No one wants to fail. And so you don't take haphazard risks, that's sloppy. You take strategic risks and Chip and Dan Heath write that the promise of risk taking is not, I don't have the exact quote, but the promise of risk taking is not success. It's learning. All right. If success were always promised for taking risks, it wouldn't be a risk. And so ultimately, how do we take the right risks? How do we take them with the right people?
How do we take them in the way that we're actually going to learn from them and then revise and improve? I've certainly taken many risks in my career where I'm like, "I'm never doing that again." That was just a flat mistake. But most of the time, whatever it is, I figure out ways that we can improve and do better the next time. And then that's where leadership is fun because you're constantly iterating and you know don't have to have it right the first time ever because we probably aren't. But it's like all we got to do is get better. And so I've quit talking about solutions because solutions sound too neat, sound too prepackaged. It's not about solutions. It's about improving, so if you are leading a dumpster fire, just put the fire out. You don't have to build the Taj Mahal yet. Get the dumpster fire out first.
Dustin Benac:
I love it.
Jon:
As we think about that, what's your greatest fear as you look ahead to churches and schools? What's the greatest fear you have right now? I know there are many fears out there. What would you say is the thing that keeps you up at night about churches and schools?
Dustin Benac:
You actually teed this up so well, Jon, because I think my greatest fear is that we wouldn't take the risk. I think we are in a moment of significant and dramatic change. The world is changing, the church is changing, how we gather is changing, what education looks like and feels like is changing. And that can be a moment of real anxiety and uncertainty. It can also be a real moment of opportunity. And my hope is that in this moment of incredible change, we will do the thoughtful, the strategic, maybe even the prayerful work of considering what are the risks that are ours to take and take them with other people. We don't have to take these risks alone, but I do think we are in a unique moment of time where there's things that we can do together that are going to build the structures, the schools, the churches that our children inhabit for a generation. And if we don't do that, I think we've missed an opportunity.
Jon:
That's well said. Before we jumped on, you mentioned a couple of books that you were reading, which I think tie into this fear and also to the hope that we can have. Would you mind sharing a couple of books? I always like for our listeners to get a couple of recommendations that might be useful that may or may not be part of a typical educator's reading list. But do you have a couple for us?
Dustin Benac:
Yeah. One of the very best books I read in the last year is a book by a Stanford psychologist, Geoffrey Cohen's Belonging, a brilliant book about the structure of connection and how to understand the need for belonging and also the strategies that can help us build cultures of belonging. Brilliant work, data-driven, translatable across cultures and across contexts, so, that's the first one. The second one is a book by Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning that is about his experience surviving a concentration camp and also his theory of purpose that emerged out of his work there as a clinical psychologist. And one of the things Frankl says is that those who survived, survived because they found purpose, even purpose in suffering. And it's precisely this purpose that gave them meaning and ultimately gave them a future hope that they could imagine. Even if the circumstances were such, that it was very unlikely that they would live to see that future hope, the purpose carried them forward and gave them a reason to live.
Jon:
Well, I like the way those two books fit together in that if we're going to belong, we have to have a purpose.
Dustin Benac:
Yes.
Jon:
And that's part of what we do. And when we have a purpose, we are willing to struggle well with each other. And ultimately that's where joy is found. It's not the freedom from the struggle, it's the fuel to struggle well. And our joy comes from something deeper than our circumstances because that's where happiness lies and certainly Viktor Frankl is not talking about happiness. He's talking about where purpose can lead to joy because there's a life of meaning. And we don't have wellbeing if we don't have a purpose. And so I think the belonging piece doesn't happen unless we can do that with others because we serve a relational God and we reflect that in the ways that we interact with each other. We don't thrive by ourselves. That just doesn't happen. Love those two books. You shared your greatest fear, not taking risks, so what's your greatest hope as you look ahead for schools and churches?
Dustin Benac:
That new connections will form? I think the future of schools, the future of the church is carried by the work we do together. And one of the things that gives me great hope is that in a time of isolation, in a time of polarization, in a time where so many people do not feel like they belong, new connections are being formed every day. And that gives me great hope. That gives me great hope for the work that we do in the program where people come through our events, come through our courses, come through our programs, and they come out saying, "I'm more connected with other people." That's my hope about Baylor, is we have incredible students who come through our classes, and they certainly leave with a degree, but they also leave with a lot of connections. And that's my hope for churches, is that churches are finding a way to be faithfully present right where they are that is simply holding out the space for connection. Connection with others, connections with themselves, and connection with God.
Jon:
And that's why it's such a blessing to be part of Christian Research One University where we can convene these things, create those connections across communities, study them, and try to amplify the good work that schools and churches are doing, because there's a lot of great work going on out there. We just don't always hear about it. And so how do we accelerate that? Well, let's bring people together. Let's do it together in a way that creates connection and joy and then amplify it.
Dustin Benac:
That's right.
Jon:
And so that's the blessing. Well, thank you for all you do at Baylor through this, the program for the Future Church. Thanks for being with us and always love allies like you at Baylor, so thanks for taking the time.
Dustin Benac:
Thanks, Jon. Thrilled to be here.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Lindsay Jones from CAST to discuss her work in inclusive education and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Jones shares insights into how UDL transforms learning environments by focusing on student agency and creating flexible, supportive spaces for all learners. The conversation covers practical examples of UDL in action. Jones also reflects on the opportunities and challenges for UDL globally and her optimism about its impact on education.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:Radical Inclusion by Ori BrafmanConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Transcript:
Jon Eckert:
All right, today we're here with Lindsay Jones from CAST. She is one of the more interesting people I've met in the last couple of years, and so I wanted to just jump in. First of all, welcome, Lindsay.
Lindsay Jones:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Jon Eckert:
I want to start with a new question that I've never asked anybody, and I'm going to kick it off here, but I always think it's interesting since most of our listeners are educators to ground who you are in your first, last, best, worst experience in schools. So you spend a lot of time in schools and supporting schools. So what's your first memory, your last memory, your best memory, and your worst memory. So we'll do that by way of introduction. Take it away, Lindsay.
Lindsay Jones:
Wow. Okay, so you may have to help remind me of that order.
Jon Eckert:
Sure.
Lindsay Jones:
My first memory and a lot of my memories are going to center around my mom, who was an educator, a special educator for many, many years, special ed director. My first memory was when she came in and started... I was in a public school in Avon Lake, Ohio. I was in second grade, and she came in and started helping and teaching some extra content. And so it was a huge memory for me because she was there and it felt so special and I felt very special that my mom was there and I felt like I got a little viewpoint in the behind the scenes and that was exciting. So that was first.
Best was eighth grade. I had a phenomenal history teacher, and I can still remember the project that I wrote, and it makes me now think of Universal Design for Learning. I had a lot of choice in the project. I wrote it on the history of vigilantism in the United States. It was part of American history and going west, and it's amazing to me. I remember so vividly. So many parts of that I don't remember, but I remember the paper. I remember some of the materials that we did and seeing a play about it and all of the ways that that teacher really brought it to life. So let's see, first, best, worst, and that, and last?
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Yeah, that's what you have left, worst and last.
Lindsay Jones:
Okay. Worst, I'll say two things. Being bored a lot. Not engaging, that's worst. Just feeling like I'm just going through the paces. But a really formative worst one for me is my mother, when I was in third through fifth grade, also living in Ohio, she was teaching in Lakewood, Ohio, and I was going to school near there and she was teaching in a self-contained preschool special ed program in a public school. And I can remember I would go there before school every day after school every day. I met all the students in that room. I was probably in third grade when I started going there. There were different multi-ages. And I then went, I had a day off at my school and like many other kids, my mom let me hang around her school that day. And with a teacher in regular ed at that time, general ed. This would've been a long time ago, the early '80s.
And I can remember hanging around in a regular ed third grade classroom for the whole day and never seeing my mom's students, never seeing my mom, never seeing anyone with a disability. And that really struck me. Where are they? They are not here. They were not a part of that community. And I think that was a really formative experience that drives why I do the work I do today focused on inclusion. So that's probably also my worst because it wasn't ideal. It wasn't the way it should be, but it really, really formed me. So in some ways it's my best in many ways too, I guess. And then my last is law school. I went to law school. That was my last.
Jon Eckert:
That puts an imprint on you.
Lindsay Jones:
I practiced as an attorney for many years in Arizona. And my last schooling experience personally was law school. And it was a shock. It was like being dropped into an ice bath. But I loved it. Actually, I really learned a lot. It was such an interesting... The Socratic method itself has interesting parts to it. It can be really very engaging, but it's a challenging setting.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Well, and I think one of the things that law school does that I've always admired is it teaches you how to think. And so I think there's some value in that. Now, the process of learning that can be pretty painful and you can get some tough professors who are maybe not that skilled at how to teach or how to make it accessible, but if you navigate through it, you come out with a set of skills that are pretty valuable. So it's pretty great. Well, hey, I actually enjoyed that because there's a lot of jumping off points there for what you do now. So you've already hit on what is normally my next question is what brought you to this work? So talk a little bit about what you do now, why you got out of the legal profession and into the work you're doing now based on some of the things that you experienced with your mother in schools and some of the other pieces that you've already discussed.
Lindsay Jones:
Yeah, so my mom, who, as I said, special ed teacher, local special ed director, all the things, special ed member of the Council for Exceptional Children, spoke, ended up working as a independent consultant, expert on ADHD, writing books and said to me always, "Don't become a teacher. Don't do it. Be a lawyer." And thinking now back on that, I think that was largely because she was a real activist as a person for inclusion, a real activist for social justice around disability and felt powerless sometimes with the limitations put on her position. So loved educators, was a model in my mind, a wonderful educator, a teacher's teacher, but just really felt like there were limits and she wanted to make a bigger difference.
So I actually ultimately, did go to law school and thought, "I'm never getting into education. I'm staying out of the family business. What in the world?" But when I got my first job at a law firm, I happened to join a firm in Phoenix, Arizona that represented most of the school districts in the state. And I had sat my uncle and my aunt, also special educators, lifelong. I'd sat at so many tables listening to like IEP, behavior implementation plan, all of it, that I knew it. I knew those things. I don't even know how I knew those things. I never took an education law class. So I started though, being drawn into that work. I represented public school districts and I focused a lot on special education matters. I took lots of cases all the way, and I've been in three day IEP meetings and that was a challenging... I did the first 504 due process hearing in the state of Arizona because they just didn't really have those before the 2000s.
And then I saw lots of the same problems over and over, and I thought, "Boy, I'd really like to work on these from a national level." And that drew me to go to work for the Council for Exceptional Children in DC where I live now. That is the organization of the professional learning association of special educators across the US. And that was a phenomenal experience. I worked there for four years. And then I decided to move to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, also working with parents and families, again, from a national role on legislation.
And then I was so excited to be able to join CAST where I work today, a nonprofit organization that invented something called Universal Design for Learning, UDL. And it's a way for me to influence policy and try to make a difference in the way our laws are created, but also to, in a more real, tangible way, we work with educators in classrooms around the world. And we work with authors to push the field forward, and we have research that we're conducting. So it's just a deeper way to be able to work on inclusion and those issues.
Jon Eckert:
Such a great introduction. And I do have to say the three-day IEP meeting, I don't think I've been in a three-hour one. And those are painful. So the individualized education plan, great idea, but when they get down on paper or try to get them to paper, it's tough. I also have to say that what you do with UDL is so transformative all around the world. And so I know we were at an international convening where they were discussing the 250 million kids worldwide that don't have access to schools and how many people knew UDL and knew you in so many different countries. It was pretty powerful to see the people coming up and talking to you about how that we do this well because at the Center, we're all about supporting education leaders so that they can serve each student well. And that feels like the whole mission of UDL.
How do we reach each kid? Not all kids, but each kid, because each kid comes to the learning differently. And that's the beauty of education I've been in for 29 years. I did not avoid education, but I didn't have a parent who was an educator. So who knows what would've happened if that would've been the... And I would say our work is infinitely interesting and always challenging because the only thing we know when we're standing in a classroom with a bunch of students is we're the only one that learns the way we do. And so that's where UDL is so powerful because it gives you principles for how to think through it. And you're vigilante project that you did in eighth grade had so many of the hallmarks of UDL. So I'd love for you to just dig a little bit deeper into some of the opportunities and challenges you see right now for UDL around the world and maybe particularly the United States as well, if you want to dive down there.
Lindsay Jones:
Sure. I would say around the world, the number one challenge really is some basic access, as you would know better than I do, Jon, but in terms of at the core of UDL is assistive technology that's started by nine Harvard neuroscientists, working with nine students with really significant cognitive disabilities and saying, "Maybe tech and being flexible... Maybe the person isn't broken, maybe it's the system." And in fact, they proved that's right. And now that system and some of the drawbacks of the system for people in different places around the world is probably the biggest challenge. The biggest opportunity though, I think especially in the United States right now is EdTech is throughout schools. It's overwhelming. It's almost too much in schools, but it does that same principle of it gives us more of an inherent understanding that we all use it differently. The way I use my iPhone or whatever my device is, is probably different than yours, and you don't judge me for that. I don't judge you. I don't even know how... And so that is a freeing thing that I think is a big opportunity.
And UDL, it's a design thinking framework. It just helps you think, "How can I find barriers to leaning that I don't see?" And I think that tech is a way to help us make environments more flexible. It's not the only way, we don't need it, but it can make that environment more flexible and it can also reduce the stigma of difference. The stigma that I saw when I felt my mother's class was down a dark hall. They weren't included. They were very separate. Tech, we're all using it. And that's, I think, a great opportunity for us to think about universal design for learning and how we can create those environments that are flexible and dynamic and individualized.
Jon Eckert:
And I love the connection to design thinking because at the end of the day, that's using technology to humanize interaction. It's not replacing the human, it's accentuating the human connection we can make through it as we design solutions that move us all further forward. And that has to be individualized. So I still think, and I think this is potentially something that's really prevalent in US schools, people believe that struggle is a sign of weakness where in fact, struggle is part of learning. And learning is productive struggle. So everybody needs different tools to help them struggle well. And so I think particularly coming out of Covid, we've had this shift in that well-being is freedom from struggle, and that can't be the case. And what I love about UDL is it gets kids into that zone of proximal development where, here's what I can do on my own, here's what I can do with some assistive technology, here's what I can do with some choice, here's what I can do with a more advanced peer.
There's all these places where there are these supports that come in that humanize the interaction. So that's where I'm most hopeful about UDL and where I see things going because we have more tools than we ever have. Now, if we just use those tools in this cast a wide net, throw at every kid, hopefully we catch every kid and you know kids are going to fall through the net, that's a problem. But where we have educators who are deployed with these tools to meet kids' needs, who are then allowing kids' choice, allowing kids opportunities to collaborate and making sure each kid is able to contribute, that's where I see things being hopeful. Do you have any of those kinds of stories where you're like, "Yeah, here I've seen UDL really make a difference in the lives of kids." Is there anything that jumps to mind?
Lindsay Jones:
Absolutely, and that's exactly what it is. So we just updated our guideline. Guidelines are a tool we use to help people implement it. There's just things to prompt your thinking about as design your environment. We updated them and the focus now is agency, learner agency. It's always been about what you just described. We know the kids are leaving school. And right now today, you and I probably are having to learn more about artificial intelligence than we ever... Maybe you knew a lot. I know nothing. So now I'm completely learning about it and I'm relying on all the ways I learned how to learn. And that is what we're trying to make sure those kids are learning so that when they leave, they know, "Oh, I feel confident. I may not know it. I'm going to struggle, but here's what I can do to learn it." That's the goal. That's learner agency.
And so what I would say, there's a lot of great examples of that around, but one of the ones that I think really just resonates for me, there's a school here in the District of Columbia that we've been working with. They have a model UDL demonstration classroom, which they're showing to others, and they're bringing UDL throughout that school and hopefully through the other schools in the District of Columbia schools. And when you go in, there's a part of you, I think... I'm a parent. I'm not a teacher, as you know, I'm a parent though. And there's a part of me that I will say, I was like, "We're just going to let fifth graders make choices about what they want? I've had a fifth grader. That seems scary to me. I'm not sure. What is this going to look like?"
And I went into this fifth grade classroom, and it is so interesting to see what and how that's really intentionally designed by those educators. Several different areas are happening in the room. And one of the things that stood out to me, Jon, is those kids in that room know if they're asked a question... I watched an interaction between a teacher and a student where the teacher asked the student a question about the material, and the student kept trying to answer it and was struggling. The teacher was not giving the answer. And then finally the student said, "Oh, I'm going to go to my resources. I'm going to go get... And they walked over to several different resources they had available, got the answer, came back so proud, so confident.
And it was so painful for those moments of watching that child struggle, that teachers maybe call it "wait time." It is painful to sit there and watch that. You want to just say, "Lincoln, it's Abe Lincoln." But my God, when I saw that student be really actualized, find something, come back. And that is a very micro way of talking about what was a really complex interaction with some really skilled educators and just incredible kids, but it wasn't out of the norm, and it did more than one thing at once. It taught the student the answer, and it made that student engaged in a way of like, "I am proud. I did this." And that's good. We need that because it won't always be easy, so you got to draw on something. So yeah, I think there's a lot of examples like that that are exciting and empowering.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's great. I love that example. And I love the idea that it's in a model classroom because I think for educators, they need to be able to see it happening. And we need educators who are doing this well to be able to spread their expertise. And so in our research, we find one of the most powerful predictors of how a school will improve is whether or not a lot of peer observation's happening. It's not evaluation or judgment, but it's learning from other educators who are doing this hard work and letting kids, requiring kids, giving them the opportunity to struggle because there's so much more joy in finding out it's Abraham Lincoln when you go with your own agency and find those in the sources than having someone else just tell you the answer. And that just breeds learned helplessness. Just like, "Hey, somebody's going to tell me anyway, so why would I have any agency in the first place?"
The other thing I wanted to say, I teach a class in a half an hour. And so anytime I go in, even to my undergrad or grad classes that I'm teaching, when I am the least well prepared, I lecture. When I am the best prepared, it's this interactive engagement where student agency is part of it, and there's meaning. And I always pull in student responses from the night before. I always read the responses that come in by 10:00 PM and I put those in and I let that direct the class. But that takes a lot of time. And so it's just, if somehow that time hasn't been set aside, the class just isn't as good. I can manage it. I can control it. I did this as a fifth grade teacher, as a seventh grade science teacher. You can control it, but that's sometimes by boring kids into submission, which is what you mentioned. I mean, just because a class is quiet doesn't mean any learning's happening. And so that's not the goal.
Now, obviously a class that's in chaos where kids aren't safe and all that, but those baselines have to be set up. But in that model classroom, I'm sure so much work has gone into how to help students make good choices, that I would 100% trust those kids to make good choices. And when they're not, you just say, "Hey, we're outside the parameters we set. Now, move back in". Is that an accurate read of that classroom or other model classrooms you see?
Lindsay Jones:
Yes. And I think your critical point is it's not about vertigo of possibility to students. It's about scaffolding. You start to make choices. You have a smaller number. What are they? You're learning about them, you're reflecting on them. I think that's really critical. You said that and you talked about it, and I just wanted to pull it out because yeah, that's right. That's right.
Jon Eckert:
I love that.
Lindsay Jones:
That classroom was fun. It was amazing. Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. I love that. I never heard that. I've never heard that phrase vertigo of possibility. But yes, that sounds like anarchy, what we want. And I think kids feel safer where they know where the boundaries are, and then they know how to move, and then they scaffold and they build, and then they can do amazing stuff. And that's when teaching gets really fun because it's not about the teacher anymore, it's about the learner. And we're all learning together. So I always like to end with a lightning round. So I know you're super busy, so if you've taken time to read a book that you would recommend, it's got to be pretty good because busy people don't just read beach reads all the time. So is there a great book that you would recommend? It could be education related or not, but is there anything you've read in the last year that you would recommend to those listening?
Lindsay Jones:
It is. And it's called Radical Inclusion. And yeah, have you read it?
Jon Eckert:
I've heard of it. I have not read it yet, but it's been recommended to me already, but go ahead.
Lindsay Jones:
It's so interesting, and I'm so sorry, I have to follow up with the name of the author. He's an education minister in Sierra Leone.
Jon Eckert:
Wow.
Lindsay Jones:
And it is phenomenal. It is super interesting. It is well written. It's thought provoking. Yeah, he spoke actually, we saw-
Jon Eckert:
I was going to say he was at the convening. Yeah, he was on a panel. Yeah, so his name is Ori Brafman.
Lindsay Jones:
Thank you, yes.
Jon Eckert:
And it's What the Post-9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership. It came out in 2018. Is that it?
Lindsay Jones:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah?
Lindsay Jones:
Radical Inclusion. And it's about the way they're reframing in Sierra Leone, including individual... They're starting with everything in terms of radical inclusion, voting, everything.
Jon Eckert:
I love that.
Lindsay Jones:
People with disabilities and a barrier-free environments.
Jon Eckert:
Wow. That's beautiful. All right, so then what is the worst piece of advice you've ever given or received in your work?
Lindsay Jones:
Oh, my God, so many.
Jon Eckert:
I'm sorry.
Lindsay Jones:
I know, it's terrible. But I actually think one of the worst pieces of advice that I was ever given was that you could not be a parent and a full-time attorney.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, wow.
Lindsay Jones:
Or a full-time anything.
Jon Eckert:
Wow.
Lindsay Jones:
And that has not proven to be true. And it was a really bad piece of advice because it made me worry for years. And it was silly that I did that, so.
Jon Eckert:
Wow. All right, that's helpful. That's a helpful reframe of bad advice. What's the best piece of advice you've either given or received?
Lindsay Jones:
A wonderful attorney I worked with, the best piece of advice was, "Be bold." This amazing guy, Dick Siegel. And then my other favorite one is a Matisse quote, Henry Matisse the painter. I have it on my board over here. "Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while working."
Jon Eckert:
Well said. I love that. I did not know that Matisse quote, but that's a great add and obviously, you got to be bold to do the work, so those two reminders go well together. All right, so as we wrap up, what's your most hopeful perspective on where we're heading in education makes you most optimistic?
Lindsay Jones:
I am incredibly optimistic about inclusive education. I meet people every single day who want to make that happen. And they see, when they use Universal Design for Learning or whatever method they're using to make learning more inclusive, they get to something you just referred to, which I call the magic moments. They come up to me and tell me, "Oh, my God, this happened. I saw learning. I remembered why I went into teaching." That experience of watching someone really learn, learning with them, that I am so lucky because so many people share those types of things with me. And it just means I feel like I'm so hopeful I want to tell everyone about this and help them to be using it.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, what a beautiful example. I think it's what gets educators up every morning. It's not the paycheck. It's going to be those magic moments. And once you've had a couple, they're addictive. You keep coming back for more. And that's a beautiful way to wrap up. Well, Lindsay, thank you for the great work you do at CAST, for UDL, for your leadership and just taking the time to be with us.
Lindsay Jones:
Yeah, thank you so much.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Rachel Johnson, the CEO of PiXL in the UK. They discuss PiXL's mission to improve student outcomes by supporting leaders in schools and highlight key challenges faced by school leaders today. Johnson shares insights into overcoming people-pleasing tendencies, setting boundaries, and creating ownership. The conversation covers practical tools for healthy communication and empowering leaders to think deeply and make transformative changes in their schools.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us for Just Leadership on February 3rd at Baylor University, a one-day professional learning event for school administrators – from instructional coaches to superintendents – that focuses on catalyzing change as a leadership team.Register Now!Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Jon Eckert:
Today we are here with Rachel Johnson, a friend that we've made through mutual friends in the UK who's doing amazing work. And I just want to jump right in to what you're learning and then we'll back into more of what you do. So what are you learning through PiXL? So you can give us a quick introduction to what PiXL is and then what you're learning from the leaders that you're supporting.
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah. So PiXL stands for Partners in Excellence. We work with two and a half thousand schools across the UK. And what we're learning is how important leadership is in the conversation in school improvement. So we believe in improving life chances and outcomes for every young person irrespective of background or status or finance.
But behind all of that is the ability for brilliant people in schools to lead well. And that's the conversation people want to have now more and more than perhaps they ever have because people are fascinated with how they can be better, how they can thrive, what's stopping them thrive. And that is the attention that I've been giving a lot of my work recently around that issue.
Jon Eckert:
So love that mission. We always push at the center for moving from some students to all students and now to each student, what does it mean to do that for each student so that thriving for each student is powerful. In order to have those thriving students, you have to have thriving leaders. So what are some of the things, I think you mentioned you have 3,200 people in leadership courses, what are some of those takeaways that are keeping people from thriving that you're finding?
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah, we're finding a lot of very common things. And actually it doesn't matter what level they are in school leadership, it's the same issues. So things like people pleasing, which is getting in the way of leadership and decision-making, not being able to hold a boundary, sometimes not having a boundary. So there is no difference between work and life. There is no stopping. We just carry on going. I think that's a real issue.
We're finding people not really knowing are structured to have difficult conversations or as I like to call them, crucial conversations. They shouldn't be difficult, but the lack of confidence in having those conversations. And then I think other things like how to create buy-in, how to get momentum, how to have that very delicate balance as Jim Collins calls it, between the brutal facts and the unwavering hope.
So what does that actually look like on the ground? How can I do both at the same time without going for hopium where you're drugging people on things that can't actually happen or being so honest and brutal that nobody wants to follow you because it sounds so depressing? So what does the reality of that look like in school leadership? And what we are finding is across nearly three and a half thousand people on our leadership courses, they're all struggling with those kind of issues.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's powerful. I think one of the questions that I'm always asking leaders because it's a hard one is, and I think it comes from Patrick Lencioni, but I'm not sure. It could be from another theorist, they all start to run together a bit. I don't think it's John Maxwell, I don't think it's Jim Collins, but is for who are you willing to make enemies? What ideas are you willing to make enemies over? So what are those things that like, "Hey, this is a non-negotiable for me."
And I think a lot of educators don't think about that because we have a people pleasing sense of what we want to do. And so that's a really hard conversation to have because I agree, we tend to lean toward hopium. I think that's a great term for what we do. And so how do you get people into those crucial conversations? I like that reframe as well. But how do you get them into that when you know that there's kind of a natural resistance among a lot of educators to those kinds of conversations?
Rachel Johnson:
It is really difficult, but not having the conversation doesn't make the issue go away. And I think as soon as people realize, "It's actually making me miserable. My department is underperforming, therefore young people are underperforming all because I'm not courageous enough to have the conversation." And what we find using Susan Scott's model of fierce conversations is when you give them that seven-part model of how to have the conversation in one minute where you say your peace but you stay in adult, as Transactional Analysis would call it.
So you're not giving it a kind of sly interpretation. You're not giving a mean tone to your voice. You're being absolutely clear and absolutely kind, but absolutely straight, then people respond usually really well. But I think one of the things that is most disconcerting for leaders and educators is you have to listen to what the other person says. It isn't just about us delivering our truth and how we perceive things.
It's about being quiet long enough to hear what they're saying and maybe more importantly what they're not saying. And so it's fascinating to me that what is stopping us sometimes is the courage. But this is really affecting our schools. And certainly in the UK, in a recent survey that one of our big agencies did called Teacher Tapp, 64% of teachers said they had worked or did work in a toxic environment in school. That's a lot of people calling their environment where we should be seeing young people thrive, and our leaders and our teachers are saying it's toxic.
So something's going wrong somewhere. And what stops us dealing with this I think is the lack of courage and the lack of tools to be able to know how to approach it, which is why that's where we put our weight in the practical tools that can help people unlock this. And people say things like, "We feel liberated, transformed. It's like a weight off and we feel like we can do it." And that is the kind of feedback we get regularly. And I think that is really very, very important that people are helped to do these difficult things.
Jon Eckert:
Really, really good stuff there. It reminded me of two things in what you said because you've shared a lot. And I love how much we've into right here off the bat. The book High Conflict by Amanda Ripley. I don't know if you've seen that book. It came out in 2021, so it's been out for a while. She introduces this concept, which I think is what you're getting at in that one minute conversation a little bit in the way we listen.
So it's not her idea again, but this is where I came to the idea. It's the idea of looping, that when you're in conflict with someone, the key is when you're receiving the feedback from the person where they're telling you how they feel, where they're upset, where they're disagreeing with you, you have to listen, then you have to distill what's being said.
Then you have to check for understanding and then question, "Did I get it right?" So that you're repeating back. Because I think sometimes, at least in the United States, some of the conflict is due to poor communication, and that looping provides an opportunity to correct that communication error and it's a form of empathy because it's taking on that perspective, did I hear you right?
Now, just active listening, you can really alienate people with active listening skills without being genuinely curious. So that's one of the things when you're doing that, you can't do it in a formulaic way that feels like you're just jumping through hoops because that's really alienating to the person doing it. Does that square with what you found or am I thinking about something differently than you are?
Rachel Johnson:
I think what's fascinating is that, and this is what I do really for my job now, is I take lots of different things like that from High Conflict from Chris Voss and his hostage negotiation techniques, crisis communication that we have over here with a fierce conversation and I kind of mush it all together in one model.
And so what all of these people are saying, including Nancy Kline who's written brilliant work on listening and thinking is we mustn't overdo it when we talk to people. We mustn't kind of interpret what they're saying and then tell them what they're thinking. We have to ask great questions. We have to be comfortable with silence and let the silence do the heavy lifting. Most of us are not comfortable with that. We have to summarize like you've said and say at the end, "Is that right?"
And if the person says, "No, that's not right," that's the opening of the conversation, not the end of it. That's when we say, "Okay, great. What did I not summarize well? What have I not understood? Tell me?" We've got to be more curious and less judgmental. But because I think educators are so used to making judgments, because that's literally our job a lot of the time is making judgments on grades, on behavior, on progress, to not make judgments on fellow adults, it's sometimes really hard.
Jon Eckert:
I always say educators are way more gracious with students than they are with each other. And-
Rachel Johnson:
Or themselves.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Oh. And typically that lack of graciousness to others is because of the lack of graciousness to self. I think one of the key points you said, and you mentioned earlier in tone when you asked that question, "What did I not get right?" You can say, "What did I not get right?" In a very curious way. Or, "What did I not get right?" With the eye roll.
And then you've either closed off the conversation or you've opened it. And I think the tone and the facial expression goes a long way to that, which is why I think we have to have this interpersonal connection. If you're doing this over text or you're doing it over email, it's pretty doomed to fail. I don't know. Would you agree with that, that this has to be kind of face-to-face as much as possible?
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah. I think a lot happens on Zoom these days or on Teams, which is difficult. And I think that is manageable if you get your tone right, if you get your eye contact right. I think one of the most damaging things in communication with anybody is the not listening, as you've mentioned, and the tone. So making it sound like a judgment. But the other thing I think is really difficult is when we speak in ulterior transactions. So the conversation we're having is not the conversation we're thinking. And people can smell it a mile off, can't they?
I think of all kinds of situations at home where I say to my children like, "Oh, did you not have time to tidy your bedroom?" And what I'm actually saying is, "You're absolute slobs. You round here making a mess of my house." And they can hear the criticism and then they say, "Are you having a go at me mum?" And then I go, "No, I don't know what you're talking about." And that's dishonest. And I think we fall into that a few times when we are not courageous enough to have the real conversation. So I think that's another trap we can fall into.
Jon Eckert:
Right. I think I had a couple of those conversations with a daughter and a wife this weekend potentially, so that I need to go back and do some correcting. So thank you for that. One other thing you mentioned earlier was, and I think it's a chapter in, I think it's in your first book, about getting buy-in. One of the things that I've been pushing on here, and I'm curious to hear if there's a cultural difference here potentially.
I found Gen Zs and millennials in the US, they do not want to buy-in to things because it sounds like an idea is being sold that they're just supposed to get on board with. And they don't do that. And I almost say that to their credit because they want to co-own what they're doing. And so buy-in is not something that they're interested in. They want to own it with you sometimes in ways that make it way better if we do that. Do you find that in the UK that there's less interest in buying in and more of an interest in kind of co-owning the work? Or is that still something that works relatively well in the UK, trying to get buy-in?
Rachel Johnson:
I think you're absolutely right, and I think this new generation are very different and I think they don't want to do it the way we did it. We wore tiredness and exhaustion like a trophy, like a medal. "Look how knackered I am, look how late I was up doing all my work." They look at that and go, "I don't want that. I want to have a sabbatical. I want to have a life. I want to go to the gym. I want to do what I want to do." So I think the way we are talking about buy-in needs to change. But I also think the way we get buy-in needs to change.
We, I think have thought buy-in means, "Here's my idea, here's what we are doing, join me in what I'm doing." And that isn't really genuine buy-in. Buy-in is saying, "What is the problem we're trying to solve? Let's get people around the table, listen to really healthy conflict within a boundary where we feel safe to be able to disagree." All that psychological safety stuff by Amy Edmondson, it's crucial. It's not easy, but it's crucial. And then I think people do buy-in when they're heard. I think all these things we're talking about are linked. If I'm ignored, I'm not going to buy-in whether it's a great idea or not, because you're not hearing me. So I think we have to create more time to be heard and to hear.
But I think one of the issues we have in leadership, particularly in education is we're always in such a rush. That hurry-up driver like, "Let's get everything done yesterday driver," can stop us really engaging and listening. And so where we can go fast, we sometimes do, and I think we lose a lot in that, especially this new generation who want to be heard, want to think things through, want to be well-researched. Great, that can really benefit us, but we have to give it time.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and again, leadership's always going to be messy and it can either be messy on the front end where you all own, where you're going together or it's going to be messy on the back end. So I'd much rather have it be messy on the front end.
That just takes some patience and some ability to avoid falling victim to the tyranny of the urgent where we constantly throw one change after another at people in a way that doesn't actually produce what we want because we're too impatient to see it happen.
So I'm curious how you got to this work. So this amazing work that you're doing through PiXL, which we can get more into PiXL in a little bit, but you personally, how did you end up writing these books, doing the podcasts, building out being a catalyst at PiXL to do this kind of work with leaders, but where did that come from?
Rachel Johnson:
So I think it started fairly young really when I was, my dad led a church and he was a leader in schools and so was my mom. So I watched all of that all of my life. But I was kind of old before my age really, and I always wanted to lead something. So I did Sunday school when I was 10, teaching three-year olds. I always took on more responsibility. And so what I wanted when I was 13 and 14 was to work out what does leadership look like? How can I be a better version of me?
How can I make change happen? And apart from reading people that you've mentioned, like John Maxwell, there wasn't an awful lot for people my age. And so I never had anything age appropriate. So I read all the adult stuff. And I was looking back at my old journals actually yesterday. I was clearing out the loft and I look in my journals at me at 13 and go, "There she is, there's the person I am now.
There, I can see her so clearly when I look." But it wasn't usual back then. And so I was a bit different and did different things, but I was absolutely committed to leadership. And so from that point on really, wherever I was I wanted to lead. And it wasn't that I was bothered about promotion or position or title or money. I'm not bothered about any of those things.
I want to go where I can be to make the biggest difference. And so for me, leadership is where you make the biggest difference, where you could have the agency to make the difference. And for me, that has become the driving force really to try and do good in the world, to try and help people create their own change. So yes, that's where it started, very young.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. And so now at PiXL, what do you try to do organizationally? You gave us a little bit of what PiXL stands for, but how are you doing that and what different avenues in different countries? I know you have a number of ways you're trying to serve leaders who want to become the kind of leaders you wanted to become as a young person.
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah. So we do conferences, we did big conferences in the UK and those are hugely attended. We work with different types of leaders. We have two podcasts, PiXL Pearls, which are just 10 minutes leadership reflection. So not heavy, but just a moment of reflection to think about our own leadership. And then we have the PiXL leadership book club where we take non-educational school books because that's another really important thing of mine, to look outside of education, not always within.
And so I interviewed two school leaders about a non-educational leadership book and how they've applied those messages into their context. And that's the kind of thing I'm interested in. I'm interested in looking at what other people in the world are doing and how we can take that from marketing or that from branding or that from hostage negotiation and how we can turn our schools around based on the lessons that've been learned elsewhere.
So that's become a really big thing. Now I write all kinds of things on that. The books which I wrote that two have come out already, the chapters in those are all of the things that I asked our leaders, "What do you struggle with?" And that's what they said. And so I wrote the chapters for them really to try and help us all get a little bit more unstuck. Because we all get stuck and sometimes it's too difficult to find a great big book and read all the way through it when you haven't got time.
So it's really short, bite-sized chunks to help get us unstuck. And so with that and working and with how we have resources and strategies, a whole range of things to help school leaders get the support they need. But I think one of the most important things we've just started doing is named after the book, we have something called Time to Think where leaders are able to book time with my team to just think a few ideas.
We're not going to talk, they're going to book 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes. And that time is for them to talk through their ideas, for us to ask questions to help them get clarity, but for them to leave more empowered than they came in. And what school leaders are telling us is they don't have enough time to think.
It happens on holidays, in the mornings, in the middle of the night. And it shouldn't happen then, it should happen in working hours too. But sometimes people need a bit of a helping hand to get there. So that's one of the most exciting things we're doing at the minute, creating that time to think and walking with people as they do that.
Jon Eckert:
I love that. I tell people when they start masters or doctoral programs at Baylor that the biggest gift we're giving you is time to think through what you're doing with the kinds of books that you're talking about. I totally agree, we need to look at education, but we need to look beyond education. So I love that conversation you're having with school leaders about books.
Everything you described from the PiXL Pearls to everything else is trying to give people this catalyzing force to spend more time thinking and just carving out that space is a huge gift. So I think you mentioned that you primarily work in the UK, but that you have some connection into 46 different countries. Are there things you're seeing that feel like they work cross-culturally, like, "Hey, everyone is dealing with this." Because I know most of our listeners are in the United States and we can spend way too much time navel-gazing at our challenges and opportunities here.
I'm wondering those conversations that you've had where they identify challenges that leaders have, are there any things there that you're like, "Hey, this feels like a common challenge. It does not matter where it is. This is..." Maybe it's the Time to Think, but if it's something other than that as well. What are some of those challenges you're seeing that cut across contexts?
Rachel Johnson:
Well, how I would kind of evidence that really is it's the podcasts that have gone all over the world in different countries. And we haven't really pushed those out. We've had them in the UK and they've gone everywhere through Apple or Spotify. But the ones that are most listened to, that's what's really fascinating. The biggest episodes are Dare to Lead with Brené Brown. So clearly if that's our leading episode, it's because people don't have courage like we've touched upon.
The other one that is massive is the People Pleasing one, which is based on a book by Emma Reid Terrell called Please Yourself and is around the real problems of people pleasing. That's been another massive hitter. And then the third one, which has been a really big hitter, is based on Cal Newport's work on Deep Work and Time To Think.
So if that's the three places where people are going across all of the people who listen to our podcasts. And I think in total there's about 195,000 downloads now maybe. I think that says something about where people's attention is, that's what they're craving. And I think we should listen to that because I think these things are quite deep-rooted and I think people don't find solutions to how to handle those three things either.
Jon Eckert:
Well, I love Brené Brown, I love Cal Newport. I need to read the people pleasing book, so.
Rachel Johnson:
Wonderful.
Jon Eckert:
I'm getting good recommendations. Yeah. The Slow Productivity by Cal Newport that just came out is kind of the latest manifestation. I still think Deep Work is his best book, but Slow Productivity I've worked into some of my classes because I do think this idea and his premise there is that we do less things, work at a natural pace and obsess over quality.
That's how we provide the human value that is going to become increasingly value as AI and other things automate other pieces. It's what are we uniquely suited to build and do? And that's really to me, the extension of deep work. That's the critical component. And you have to have time to think because-
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah, you have to have time to think. And then you kind of think, why are we not doing deep work? Why are we overstretched? And I think it comes down to what I would call now toxic productivity. I think when you have a profession full of people who love to be efficient and love to-do lists and tick things off and feel great about themselves, the danger is we become addicted to productivity.
We can't rest, we can't stop, we can't switch off. We have to be doing something productive. We even monetize our hobbies for goodness's sake because we can't do them for free, because that's a waste of time. It is quite astonishing. And we are obsessed with adding things, not taking things away. So I don't speak to many leaders who say, "We're reducing our efforts by half because we don't think it's working. So these five things are going and these five things will replace them." They should add more things. No wonder we're all frazzled, so.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and social media has turned us into the product. So our attention is what is demanded and that is what is being sold. And that's new and I think devastating for especially adolescents who are coming into leadership, those 13-year-olds that dreamed about leading the way you do. "Oh, I can do that through my followership on this as I sell products for someone else." And so you become a conduit for other corporations to grab other people through you.
It's not real leadership. And so I worry about, I do not want this to happen, but my email box, I worry that I will be getting AI-generated emails into the box. I will then have AI-generating responses, and I'll just be a spectator watching AI talk to AI which by definition, Darren Speaksma says this all the time. AI is consensus because all it is scraping from large language models.
It is not wisdom. To get wisdom, you need the human. And that's the point of deep work. How do we pursue joy through truth and love? How do we do this and this? And AI just, that's not what AI is designed to do. It can summarize, it can collect, it can scrape. But that's the part that I'm like, "Oh." And that's the life-giving work.
And so Greg McCown, UK guy, Essentialism, that was the book. And then it became how do I? I've reduced all the small rocks out of the jar and I've just got big rocks and now the rocks are too much. And I feel like that's where we're at. So I love his work as well. So based on all that, those common challenges that we see, where do you see hope? Where are you most hopeful?
Rachel Johnson:
I'm hopeful that people want the conversation. I'm hopeful that in a room of thousands of leaders, I can say, "Put your hand up if you're a people pleaser." I've been a recovering people pleaser since 2020. I often say to people, I went into recovery in March 2020 when I read that book, Please Yourself by Emma Reid Terrell. And thought, "Oh my goodness, I don't want to be that." She says, you can either be an authentic person or a people pleaser.
You cannot be both. And I was really convicted by it because I thought, I want to be the best kind of leader, but if I'm people pleasing, I can't be. This has got to change. And I am with roomfuls of people now virtually and in person who are embracing this, who say, "I want to go in recovery too. Enough. I realize it's holding me back." And wherever there are people who are willing to change and are up for the work and up for the debate about it all, I think there's always hope.
And when we face our own brutal facts and we believe we can change, then I think there's always hope. And that is the kind of message we want to talk about in education in the UK and further afield, that we are not stuck. We don't have to be stuck. Human connection, human understanding, human wisdom, as you mentioned, these things that we can learn to be better and overcome our stuckness can change our lives first and foremost before we change anybody else's, but then help other people to change.
And I think there is a great deal of hope. I think sometimes we have to look hard for it because social media and the news don't talk hope, they talk despair. And so we have to be very open and vocal about the hope. But that's one of the things that I hope to always be, the voice of hope. Not ignoring the brutal facts. We mustn't do that, but always saying, "We'll find a way if we think about this. If we invest, we will find a way." Because I believe we will.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. The next book I'm working on right now is "Gritty Optimism: Catalyzing Joy in Just Schools." How do we build on what we know can change in schools and what they can be? Because there's so many great stories out there and there's so many ways to do it. So this conversation has been super encouraging that way.
So I'm just going to end us with a quick lightning round here. You've already given me at least one book recommendation I need to read. I'm just curious, in the last year, what's a book that you've read from any field? It doesn't have to be from education, that you would recommend to me and to us?
Rachel Johnson:
I'll give you two, Ruthlessly Caring by Amy Walters Cohen about the paradoxes in leadership and the Friction Project by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. So I have been reading pieces of the Friction Project, remarkable. Have not read Ruthlessly Caring, so I've got to get on that. Thank you. All right. What is the worst advice you've received or given as a leader? And then follow that up with the best advice you've either given or received.
Rachel Johnson:
The worst advice I've ever been given is that humility is putting yourself last. Because it's not true.
Jon Eckert:
That's good.
Rachel Johnson:
That's a very blunt and terrible definition. The worst advice that I've probably given would be in my early years of leadership when I was first new and basically said to people, "Maybe don't cause a fuss about that." Because I was a people pleaser, I didn't want to make a fuss. And so sometimes I told other people not to make a fuss and that was a mistake.
Jon Eckert:
That's good. So if you were, oh, so I had a quick break on the connection. So our connection broke there a minute. So don't make a fuss, that's also bad advice. Correct? Yeah.
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
So what's the good advice that you've received or given, what's the best advice you've either given or received?
Rachel Johnson:
The best advice I think I would give is make sure when you have any interaction that you are okay and you're seeing the other person as okay. And what I mean by that is that we're not coming with an attitude of judgment or superiority or anything that someone can sniff, which is going to put their back against the wall immediately. So be an adult, be in control of yourself. And if you're not in control of yourself, be vulnerable, but don't do it and create a mess in front of somebody else when it's going to damage them. I think that is unfair.
Jon Eckert:
That's great advice. Love that. What is one word, if you had to describe the schools you work with right now, what would be one word you'd use to describe the schools or the leaders of the schools that you serve?
Rachel Johnson:
Resilient.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. Love that. No, that's right. If we're still in education right now, we're resilient people, so good word. And then what would be one word you would hope would describe the next year in the schools that you serve?
Rachel Johnson:
I'd hope, it's a dramatic word, but I'd say transformational. Because I think if people can grasp this stuff, if they can make the time to think, if they can put themselves on their thinking tank first, I honestly believe we'll overcome challenges that we didn't think were possible. And I hope that in turn doesn't transform PiXL. It's not about that. It's about transforming them first and then transforming the way that they lead because that, I believe, unlocks everything else.
Jon Eckert:
That's a great word to end on. Well, Rachel, this conversation has been great for me. Huge encouragement. Thank you for the work you're doing and thanks for spending the time with us.
Rachel Johnson:
Thank you so much. I have loved speaking to you.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. George Yancey, a Baylor University professor. Hear them discus his collaborative conversations model for addressing racial issues. He proposes goal-oriented dialogues that prioritize listening, empathy, and building on others' ideas. Yancey believes these conversations can foster deeper understanding and more productive solutions to racial and societal conflicts.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us for Just Leadership on February 3rd at Baylor University, a one-day professional learning event for school administrators – from instructional coaches to superintendents – that focuses on catalyzing change as a leadership team.Register Now!Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Abby Andrietsch, CEO of St. Augustine Preparatory Academy, in Milwaukee. They discuss the school's rapid growth since its founding in 2017 and its mission to serve a diverse student body with excellence. Andrietsch shares insights into how Aug Prep has become one of the top-rated schools in the state and the transformative impact it has had on the surrounding community, including a 43% reduction in crime.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl Transcript:
Jon:
So today we have Abby with us. She is one of my favorite school leaders from one of my favorite schools in the country, St. Augustine Prep in Milwaukee. And so I want to start, before we jump into how you came to this, just tell the audience about Aug Prep, how it started and where it's at right now.
Abby:
Awesome. Thanks, Jon. So Aug Prep is not necessarily the typical story. We actually just started, we launched in 2017. So in a lot of ways we are a baby as an organization, but we have grown a lot since we launched. We serve today 2200 students on Milwaukee's South Side. We have the privilege of serving about 86% of our students would be considered low income, more than 95% students of color. And they just have all the potential in the world, same potential as my own kids who are actually also students here.
But we started in 2017 with a vision of being part of bigger, something bigger in Milwaukee to serve students with excellence. Milwaukee does have a voucher program, which created a lot of opportunity for us and we chose, our founders chose as we launched to start as a Christian school very intentionally knowing we'd get about a thousand dollars less per people. But that Jesus being at the core of everything we do was really essential.
And we started with four pillars, faith, family, excellence in academics, and athletics and arts. And I think a lot of schools do one or two of those really well, some even three. But it's rare that you see the four pieces coming together with excellence. And for us, I would say that's really the critical part of the fabric of who we are is serving our students with excellence, but serving the whole child with excellence.
Jon:
No, and I get to visit there and Erik Ellefsen, our Director of Networks and Improvement Communities has been talking about Aug Prep for years. I finally got to visit this past summer and it is a truly remarkable place. If I remember correctly, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, when your school started in the neighborhood that you were in, there was a dramatic reduction in crime in the neighborhood, literally transformed the neighborhood. In my mind it's like 42%. What's the actual number? Do you remember the actual number Abby?
Abby:
I do. It's 43, so you're really close We opened our doors, crime in our neighborhoods gone down by about 43%.
Jon:
Yeah, that's amazing. And that's what we want. We don't want just schools that are isolated things. We want schools that really serve their communities well and the communities that serve the school well. And so love that statistical evidence that this really has made a difference.
Now you just purchased a college campus on the North Side of Milwaukee. So talk about that and where you're headed because again, that's a big play to make right now, especially with some of the buildings that I know may not even be usable. I don't even know all the details, but where are you at in that process, Abby?
Abby:
So I have a business background, we'll get to that later, but we weren't planning this. The candor is it was an opportunity that God created that we kind of jumped in fully for. On the North Side of Milwaukee, there is a college, it was Cardinal Stritch that closed about three months before our founders were there for an event. It was the first time they had been there and they walked around thinking this place was meant to be a school.
And really long story short, the school was purchased. We are launching a second campus on Milwaukee's North Side. What I'm most excited about is actually the school is located in a place that bridges a lot of communities in Milwaukee from more affluent, whiter suburbs to some of the toughest zip codes in Milwaukee. And it's a really unique location. And actually the college that was there before, their history includes a deep history of faith and a deep history of diversity. And our vision for this campus is to create a campus that reflects the world we live in, where our kids are part of our diverse socioeconomic, cultural, racial student body, all grounded and unified and being in Christ, but seeing and valuing the differences in each other and learning and growing with each other through that.
Jon:
Love that vision, love the opportunity that wasn't even being sought out. I mean, it's so much of what Aug Prep's story is that you've just had your work multiplied in so many ways, which has been really meaningful. And now just another thing that stuck in my head. You're one of the, if not the top-rated school in Milwaukee. In what measure? How is that determined, Abby?
Abby:
So I mentioned earlier we're part of a voucher system in the state as such, and I'm a big believer in parent choice. And as we get public funds, being accountable to serving kids well. So I lead with the and academic excellence and serving the whole child Jesus, intertwined and grounding every piece of that. We are per the state's report card in the top 2% of growth of any schools in the state. We are the number one K to 12 school in Milwaukee, the number two in the state. We've gone back and forth between one and two. And that for me is a number. But numbers matter. I look at those numbers as necessary but not sufficient measures of, "Are we serving our students and our families well?"
Jon:
Love that example of excellence. And anytime you can measure growth and not just status proficiency, which can be based on the demographics of your school or the location and the educational attainment of parents, you actually are saying, "Here's where they come in and here's where they grow." And I love the point that it's necessary but not sufficient. And so in this conversation about choice and what that looks like, certainly in Texas, that's a really polarizing conversation right now.
At the center, we want to serve leaders who are doing great work to serve each kid wherever they're called to serve. And so that's how we came across you. So tell us how you got into this role of CEO of this startup school that now was purchased a college campus. How do you get into that? You have a fairly non-traditional journey. So would you mind sharing that?
Abby:
I do have a non-traditional journey. My training and education is a lot more on the business side. It was actually when I was in graduate school that I stepped from a room full of business leaders talking about what I thought I wanted to go into totally disheartened because I realized it wasn't what I wanted to do and I stepped into a room with people with business backgrounds working in education, and it was a light moment for me, a light bulb moment.
That in and of itself led me down working with some different national foundations. Gone back and forth in the corporate world a little bit, but I had the chance in Milwaukee almost 15 years ago to co-found an organization that worked with leaders from our local public schools, charter schools, and also private schools. And Aug Prep didn't exist at that point in time. And it was a group of leaders that came together around kids and quality and not politics of the adults really in the city.
And I spent about eight years getting to work with that organization, helping great schools grow, schools that wanted to get better, get better. We had a whole team of coaches that walked and worked with school leaders. I actually personally stepped away from that after eight years, wanting a little bit more time with my kids and to be the mom that I wanted to be. I just realized that the balance, it was a stage in life where I needed to step back. And about a year later I found myself in the interim role at Aug Prep, vehemently planning to be interim. And five and a half years later, I couldn't be happier to be here. Both of my kids are here. That was actually part of the decision to go from interim to full-time was my family made a decision to move closer to the school and to have our kids here. And it has just been God's, I think, biggest blessing for us in the last five and a half years through it all.
Jon:
Well, great example of the fact that I don't really think work-life balance exists. I think it's something that we always strive to attain. I've yet to meet anyone who's achieved it. And so I think there's work-life rhythm. So knowing when your family needs more of you. And then if you can get healthy work-life integration, which I think is what you've done, that's a win. That's a win.
Abby:
I think of it as harmony. So I like your rhythm, but I don't believe in work-life balance. But I do think there's a harmony that comes together and it looks different at different times.
Jon:
Well, and to be clear, so I give attribution, I think it's Adam Grant's work-life rhythm he talks about. I really like that. I think that's useful. So when you think about the challenges ahead for Aug Prep specifically, you're in a particular context. I mean Milwaukee is a gigantic voucher experiment that's been going on for decades. So it's in a different kind of context than a lot of people.
But what do you see as the biggest challenges to really being what you aspire to be at Aug Prep? That's one of the things I was impressed by this summer, you might be the number one or number two school in the state of Wisconsin for growth, but there definitely wasn't a sense that you had it all figured out. It felt like you all knew that there's places where you could get better and we're striving to do that. And that was what our work was together and how we do that joyfully. But in that joy there are challenges. And that joy doesn't mean it's the freedom from struggle. Joy is actually the fuel to struggle well, so when we lay these challenges out, that's not to depress the audience, but it's to be honest about, "Here are the challenges you see." So if you were to identify one, two, or three challenges ahead for Aug Prep, especially as you expand, what would you identify?
Abby:
Yeah. Well we've been a mixed expansion really since we started. In some ways we've added the equivalent of an additional school almost every year since we've opened. If I go big picture, I think the biggest challenge that we have as a community, but I would say this as a country as well, I just see it much more intensely as a community would be a lack of belief and a lack of hope.
So for our kids, especially in certain parts of Milwaukee, we have far too many kids that are 12, 13, 14 years old that are being told that they're never going to live to be 18, 19, 20. So just do what you want. Our kids need to be believed in and they need a sense of hope. And what I love about what I get to do is that hope gets to be Jesus grounded every day. In my last role, I didn't get to. Who I was as a leader, was deeply grounded in faith, but it wasn't an overt part of my job.
But as we think about the work we do that hope is eternal and earthly, but I think we have generations that have been failed, especially in our cities by our education system. And so how do we create a sense of hope where they don't see it from their past? And that's a big part. But along with that is a sense of belief in what's possible.
And I would argue that any of the kids that walk through our doors here at Aug Prep are just as capable as my own kids. They're just as capable as kids from our suburbs. And there are far too many adults that see the challenges, which are real, that they step in and through our doors with and don't believe that they can succeed at high levels. And I think the difference in what we do here is we do believe in what's possible. We set the bar high for them, equip them with tools to fly. But that lack of hope is I think one of our biggest challenges because it's mindset change, not just for our kids but for our community.
If I get tactical, we've been growing a lot and so we've always got to think about how do we hire great people? We're very intentional. We have a super rigorous process that people don't love going through, but when they're on the team, they love what it creates. Thinking about the growth that we've had in the last two years, we've hired more than 75 new staff each of the last two years. We've had more than 600 new students each of the last two years. That's a big deal. Both hiring enough great people, I would argue even more important is creating, keeping, and protecting the culture that we've worked so hard to build.
And so being really intentional about finding, developing, onboarding really great team members and even more, how do we be really intentional as new kids, as new staff come onboard? Having that culture that isn't created by lack of intention, but instead is there from the get-go. And actually it's gotten stronger each of the last couple of years as a result.
Jon:
Well, two things on that. You certainly will be a case study in the next book that I'm working on, which is Gritty Optimism: Catalyzing Joy in Just Schools. Because I think you're doing this in this powerful way where that optimism you have is grounded in the experience of what you've seen since 2017. You've seen kids become more of who they're created to be, and that becomes this virtuous cycle of improvement where you're not basing it on naive optimism where it's like, "I hope they'll be better or I think they could be better." You know they can be more of who they're created to be because you've seen it over and over again and then that becomes part of the culture.
The second part of that I wanted to ask is could you just briefly run through what your interview process is because that scale of hiring is remarkable in schools and trying to maintain culture and even improve culture doing that, that's a tremendous feat. So can you just describe what your interview process is?
Abby:
Yeah, that could be its own podcast.
Jon:
I'm sure. Yeah.
Abby:
And you can ask more. A couple of key pieces are part of it. A few years ago as a senior team, we took time to step back and say, "What are the most important characteristics of any team member at Aug Prep?" Could be a teacher, it could be administrator, could be one of our facilities, team members, security guard. And we identified three key pieces.
And for us, the first and foremost is an active and living faith walk with Jesus. The second is growth mindset and coachability. If you're an educator that's been in the work for 30 years, you don't think you have anything to grow and you want to coast, we're not the place to come. There are great places for educators that are there to go, but it's just not the right culture for us. And the third is actually belief and belief in our kids and our community and what's possible.
Those three things are built into every step of the process. From phone interview to essays, we ask people to write as part of the process to in-person. In addition to the core capabilities of any role, it's how are we really intentional? And we have a really diverse staff. I mean just even racially and ethnically, about 45% of our staff is diverse and we're working to make sure that that's throughout our organization and everybody is unified in certain places, Jesus being first and foremost and a desire to grow and learn. And so that in and of itself creates a place that staff members want to be and stay. So our goal is every year to have at least 90% of our staff stay. We've been between 85 and 90% for the last several years, 85 and 95% for the last several years. Our best source of new staff is our current team.
And so when people want to tell, we just had a team member whose sister and brother-in-law moved across the country from California. They were looking at Ohio and at Aug Prep. And when you have team members that love what they do and where they work every day, it's the best way for us to recruit new staff. And it's been a really big part of how we do what we do.
At the end of the day, we try to make sure every decision we make is around kids first. We are not a place that makes adult first decisions, and we recognize that in order to best serve our kids, we have to have a strong and healthy team. So there's a tension and balance that goes there, but I also think it means that we recruit team members with a really high bar for themselves with belief for kids, and that want to be in a place that strives to serve kids well. And that in and of itself creates that culture I talked about.
Jon:
I've been able to see that. Again, I need to be at Aug Prep when there are kids there because that's when it's fun.
Abby:
Yeah, you do.
Jon:
But in the team that you have, we have four of them that are in our master's program at Baylor. So Aug Prep has becomes some kind of a strange pipeline for Milwaukee to Waco Texas. But I see that in your team, they are building other leaders all the time. We always say leaders are always building leaders. And so they're encouraging the next group of people from Aug Prep. And I hope that we always have a nice conduit work. With your growth, you're going to need to continue growing leadership hopefully indefinitely, and you need partners to do that. We want to be that kind of catalytic partner for you where we can connect Aug Prep leaders with other schools because so many times, especially in the Christian school world, there's a lot of navel-gazing about, "These are our problems and nobody else's and nobody understands our context and nobody understands these challenges."
And what I've loved about the leaders that you've sent to us at Baylor is they're always looking to get more information and understand other contexts and figure out what they can take back to Aug Prep and then share out what is and isn't working at Aug Prep. And so that is a way to not only build culture, but actually accelerate that culture development. So really encouraged there. So we talked about the challenges, but you already kind of jumped into the opportunities you see, but what would be the thing you're most excited about for the year ahead for Aug Prep? And then we'll jump into a lightning round, but what are you most excited about for the year ahead and the opportunities you see?
Abby:
I'm most excited about, so this year ahead, we graduate our first group of college graduates. So I'm starting to see, I'll have finished my sixth year at the end of this school year. I'm just getting to see the ripple effects and I already see them. One of our graduates from just this last year is at Marquette. He's going on a service trip over Christmas this fall. He's talking about coming back and talking to our young men and women in chapel. And so just seeing the ripple effect of the leadership that's leaving. And he's actually a young man that would self-identify as lucky he didn't get kicked out in middle school, got in a lot of trouble. We do a lot around restorative practices. I know one of our fellows is doing a lot within the Baylor program around that. And it's so cool to watch our kids go from really struggling with themselves as much as it is with others and often with faith underneath to really flourishing and shining as young adults. And I can't wait to see what happens in the community.
So big picture, I'm probably most excited about watching some of our first class of graduates stepping into that next step of the journey. I think sometimes, and Jon, we've got four fellows at Baylor. You didn't ask me to do this, but we're a learning organization. There's a lot of things we're doing well. There's a lot of things we're still learning how to do. We want to share what we're doing, but how do we learn from others? And our fellows are down at Baylor because they're in a place that seeks to do that too. I've watched you and I've watched the Baylor school leadership, the Center for School leadership. It's not about faith or academic excellence, faith or serving the whole child. You all lead with that and that I talked about being really important and you create space for our leaders to learn.
And I think I often run into folks that say, "Well, you all are different. We can't do what Aug Prep is doing." I don't actually think we've done anything that's remarkably special or different. What we've done is pulled best practices from a lot of places and continued every year to think about how we get better, who do we need to learn from or what do we need to do differently? And we've been able to get bigger and better at the same time. We haven't arrived. I hope we never do because I think part of the culture of who we are is actually that constant mindset of what do we need to keep doing better to serve our kids and community?
Jon:
Love that attitude. Thank you. Thank you for that encouragement. And we just want to find more partners like you because they're out there. How do we connect other Aug Preps to this Aug Prep? People with a similar kind of mission and view and where can we learn together? And that's, I think as a Christian R1 University, that's our call is to help connect those pieces. So I'm grateful for the hard work you do or the work that the Lord does through you in the community because that's the evidence that it actually matters. Because we can talk about these things in platitudes all the time and sit down here at a university and say, "Hey, here's what we think people should do." What we need to see is what people are doing and where that's making a difference for kids.
So let's jump to the lightning round. So I know you have pulled from a lot of great ideas, so I'm curious if in the last year there's a really good book you might recommend to me and to us that you're like, "This was a super helpful book", whether it's in education or not, just a good book that you've read the last year. Or listened to. It's fine. Audible counts too.
Abby:
I do listen to a lot of books. I love to read, but I often find myself falling asleep when I sit down or lie down to read a little bit. You know what? I am a big believer in reading a lot of different things and pulling the pieces that apply most to your circumstances. So you talked about Adam Grant. I love reading his books. Anything Patrick Lencioni, I've read multiple times. We've pulled pieces from Jim Collins, Good to Great and Built to Last. And so I would say any of those pieces.
We read as a leadership group last year, Fierce Conversations, there's several takes of that, Radical Candor being one of them. But my probably biggest encouragement is be a reader. And for me it's been, those are all more leadership organizational books. When I'm really wrestling with a topic, I try to read the full spectrum of perspectives on it to then figure out where I'm at and finding those books. Just Teaching is one that I did just pick up in the last year, so I hadn't had a chance to see it before then, but it was one that I picked up and I'm not a teacher and so that's not my skill set, but there are pieces to learn and to then share with other people.
Jon:
Yeah, I love that. And it's really common, Abby, I hope you know that I am typically mentioned Lencioni, Adam Grant, Jim Collins, Jon Eckert. That's kind of the normal group that I'm mentioned. So that's comforting to know that.
Abby:
You know what actually what ties all of those people together, Jon, is you don't just think in theory. So when you write, you're not just thinking in theory. And I will own that that can be my struggle with higher ed is sometimes just being caught up in the theory. It's all of those leaders who are also authors think about how you take the theory and apply it in practice and how do you break it down in a way that is easy to digest. And so Lencioni writes in fables, Adam Grant tells his stuff in a lot of stories as well. And so that's, at least for me, usually I capture lessons learned by seeing things either I'm struggling with or trying to figure out how to put words into in stories that other people are talking about.
Jon:
Yeah. Well, and I love all those same authors for the same reason. And then is this Fierce Conversation because this the one by Susan Scott, is that who you?
Abby:
Yeah.
Jon:
So I have not read that one. It looks like another one I should read. So thank you for that. So let's start with this. Worst piece of advice you've ever given or received?
Abby:
Worst piece of advice?
Jon:
It could be a leadership piece.
Abby:
I had somebody tell me that I was taking somebody else's spot in business school because I wasn't sure if at some point I'd want some time to stop and be a mom. And so that was probably the worst piece of advice and my encouragement for anyone listening is that I think there's different phases of life. I also think that any education we get can be applied to lots of aspects of what we do.
Jon:
Yeah, no, that's good. I'm assuming that was because that was your degree at Stanford when you were getting question on that, right? I can't imagine.
Abby:
Right. And that was an awesome degree, but I actually had a whole conversation. It was someone in a generation that fought so that people like I can make the decisions that are best for me. But I think they fought for the choice, not for the decision themselves. And I appreciate being able to make it myself.
Jon:
That's well said. That's another podcast that we could do on how those choices get made. And so really grateful for that background you have because I think your curiosity and your ability to synthesize theory and apply it, I mean that comes great degree programs will do that. And obviously Stanford knows something about educating people, so that's good. Then best piece of advice you've ever given or received?
Abby:
Not to seek perfection, but always to strive to keep getting better. I think we get caught up in trying to be perfect and miss the opportunity to keep getting better.
Jon:
That's our favorite quote we use with our improvement communities. That your plan is possibly wrong and is definitely incomplete. So that should be empowering. There's places to grow. Then if you could in a word or a phrase, describe what Aug Prep will be in the next year, what would it be? So word or phrase for Aug Prep that would describe it in the next year?
Abby:
My hope is that it is a light on the hill. How do we be a light for the community, not just the kids in our building, but the whole community outside our building as well?
Jon:
Love that, beautiful sentiment. Well, Abby, thank you for being with us. Thanks for the work you do at Aug Prep. It's great to have partners like you because you make us all better.
Abby:
Thanks, Jon. Appreciate it.
-
In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Matt Northrop, the Associate Head of School at Oaks Christian School in Southern California. They discuss the school's decision to eliminate cell phone use during the school day and the positive effects this has had on student engagement and community building. Northrop shares insights into the implementation process and how students and parents have responded. The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
Transcription:
Jon:
Today, we're here with Matt Northrop, amazing leader in Southern California at Oaks Christian School. This conversation really started through a text exchange where I was asking how the year was going, and I got this great response from Matt. First of all, give us a little bit of a window into how the year started at Oaks and what you're doing is a little bit different than what you've done in the past.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Jon, have the utmost respect for you and the show and all the things that you all are doing, but yeah, this year we, so a little bit about Oaks Christian. We are about 1,700 students, a little over 1,100 on the high school side. This year we made the jump in after reading Anxious Generation made the decision with leadership that we wanted to walk away from our students being able to use cell phones while on campus. We've had a number of different iterations with cell phones. We've used them in the classrooms, we've kind of jumped in on the tech side and really believing that that could be a tool. I think a lot of schools have gone that direction. We just really felt as we not only read it, but also as we saw a lot of the same conclusions that he was coming up with, we really felt like we needed to do something drastic on the phones.
We had pretty early on made sure that our teachers were involved in this decision and that they were aware of it and communicated at the beginning of the summer for all of our students and parents. What we've done is we've made it where you can't have a cell phone on or in your possession throughout the school day from, and we start our first classes at 8:30, so 8:30 until 3:15. What we have found, and this is what we were texting back and forth, is it has absolutely ... Not that our culture wasn't for us. I think the culture was always there. What the cell phone was doing was interrupting what the culture had the potential of being. As we took away cell phones in these first few weeks of school, the noise level in the hallways has multiplied probably two or three fold in good ways.
Kids are laughing, kids are playing games, they actually have board games in our spiritual life office that they're playing. Kids are in circles and they're having conversations. They're sharing stories where you might find the first few weeks when there were cell phones, and kids sitting on a couch or a chair somewhere just kind of minding their own business on the phone. I don't see kids by themselves anymore. Whether that's them having the courage of just wanting to go out and start talking with friends or meet new friends, or if that's people, kids on our campus who are seeing somebody who's all by themselves and sitting down and having that conversation. It has been a huge boost to our community, to the connection that takes place on campus. We've really look back at the teachers are saying, this is a game-changer for the school.
Jon:
It's powerful. We're hearing this, I mean, some states are banning phones, there are districts moving to this, they're public schools, independent schools. I'm curious to hear how your parents received this. You mentioned teachers starting to communicate this I think early in the summer. How did you go about communicating this shift and moved away from, this is something that I think sometimes kids feel like it's a punitive measure, like you're taking away something to, oh no, we're offering you something better. We've had an engaging culture in the past, we think this will be even better. How did you roll that out? Then what was the response that you got maybe initially versus where you're at right now?
Matt Northrop:
Sure. What was interesting is we communicated this via email to parents at the beginning of summer. We kept waiting, honestly, as administrators waiting for an angry mob to approach us. We did not receive a single email from a parent that was upset about this policy. In fact, at our new parent orientation a week before school started, it got a huge ovation, the fact that we were making this decision. This is one of those decisions for us that it has had the support of our parents from the get-go.
Part of that is I think parents are starting to see this, and then part of that was probably the way that we communicated this out as far as, again, we're not trying to make their kids miserable. We're not trying to keep them from connecting to their kids. What we are trying to do is have academic conversations, increase community, allow their kids to be able to see each other face-to-face and develop empathy and develop courage and develop curiosity and all of those things that can be difficult to do with a cell phone on their hand. What's interesting too, Jon, is I've had a few kids walk up and they look to their left and they look to their right, make sure no friends are listening and they say, "Thank you, Dr. Northrup, for taking the cell phones away. Even the kids, to some degree, not all of them are happy about this for sure, but to some degree I believe that they're starting to see the difference on campus to have that connection.
Jon:
Did you get resistance from students at the beginning that's now reduced or did you have any of that pushback from them?
Matt Northrop:
Nothing serious. Kind of the adolescent eye roll, probably collective eye roll, but again, even as reminders on campus, the reminder is not, we don't have big cell phones with a red circle and red lines through it. We have the reason why, so we're emphasizing community. We're emphasizing contribution, and we're emphasizing celebration. If your head's not up and your eyes aren't open, you can't do any of those things, and so be available. See those things that you can celebrate on campus, find ways in which you can contribute and then be a part of this community.
Jon:
Love that, love the three Cs there, and it's a positive, not a negative. I think that's remarkable. I think more schools can lean into that in ways that I think would be increasingly life-giving. I was going to say, your school. I've been able to be on your campus several times, and it's one of the more engaging campuses I've ever been on because you have these institutes that connect kids, and you're now fifth through 12th grade or have, you've gone down to fourth?
Matt Northrop:
Fourth through 12th.
Jon:
Fourth through 12th. Fourth through 12th grade, you have this deeply engaged campus where you're moving all over, it feels like a college campus, and kids are entering into these different spaces and doing the work of professionals and they're connected to professionals. You're obviously in a talent-rich environment that you tap into well, so talk a little bit about the way you all think about engagement anyway, even removed from the smartphone conversation. How do you think about that in meaningful ways?
Because I think, let me back that up with one other piece of context, because what you said earlier resonated from what Jonathan Haidt said about the students. He asks about the way technology interferes with their engagement. He asked them his classes, "Is anybody here upset that Netflix is a thing that they're streaming on Netflix?" Everybody's like, "Yeah," Netflix, they love Netflix. Netflix is a win. Then he's asked them, "Does anybody wish that we could go back from social media?" About half of them say they would like that to go away, which I think speaks to kind of the invasive nature of some of the technology where Netflix wants you to give it your attention because it wants you to be on, but it's not this constant clawing at you that I think we all feel even as adults.
When we talk about kids not being able to handle phones, and I would argue most adults can't handle their phones either because it's a multi-billion dollar industry to try to keep our attention. I think you all have acknowledged that, have seen that, but I think better than most schools, you have already built a culture of engagement that already was focused on community, contribution, celebration. Talk a little bit about where you've built that culture and then maybe how this has added to it.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. There's a couple things that come to mind as I think through community. One is we've, from the very get-go, been very Socratic, especially in our humanities. A normal thing is to walk to campus and you'll see the Socratic circles with a novel out, with scripture out, with a document that they're reading together, asking great questions. I think that has lended itself where the teacher is not the center of the classroom. The discussion is, or an idea is versus the teacher. The teacher typically will sit down with the students in a posture of learning together. I think from the very beginning, Oaks has been a place where scholarly conversation, it's a normal thing for kids who engage in that scholarly conversation.
Jon:
Let me interject there. I did get to see a conversation at your school where they were discussing the things they carry, and there were about 12 students gathered around with a teacher. It was really hard to tell where the teacher was and where the students were, but the conversation was one of my favorite conversations I've ever been able to listen into, so absolutely agree. That was now maybe four years ago?
Matt Northrop:
Five years ago, yeah.
Jon:
Yeah, four or five years. Amazing, so yeah, I can second that. That's a powerful thing that you all do at Oaks.
Matt Northrop:
A special part for sure. Then I think on the other side of things, we also genuinely believe that our students can be contributors to society, to culture now. They don't need to wait until they're 35. with these, we've started five institutes. These are institutes for students. We have about 25% of our kids that are part of one of these. It's for students who are thinking that they may want to be an engineer or they want to be a filmmaker. We have our Institute for Arts Innovation, Institute for Global Leadership, which is Finance and Law, Institute of Engineering, which has our idea lab. We just added Health Sciences Institute and a Bible and Discipleship Institute for kids who want to go deeper into those areas.
It really becomes a highly engaging elective set of offerings. I think one of the things that I love, so maybe just as a story that might help bring this out as far as the engagement is concerned, we had an assignment that was given probably three years ago now to students, and it was just an open-ended develop a, and this was in our engineering institute, develop a water filtration device for an area, geographic area in the world that doesn't have readily access to clean water.
That was the topic, and so they began to work on it, ended up putting together things that I don't completely understand as a history major, but ozone, sand filtration, heat, and there's one more element that they put together into one unit and then found out later that nobody had ever developed a filtration device like this. The next year, they wrote a journal article on it, they began to continue to test it. It was found to be 99.9% effective. That was the second year. Third year is they began to link arms with some of our other institutes of trying to find a way, how do we bring this now to an area of the world that would need this? We're sending a team in October to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where we are bringing some of our global leadership students who are looking to come alongside young businesses that are happening there in ways that we can help and support that they're bringing the water device as well to be able to figure out what we can do there.
Then all of it is being collected for a documentary for social change designed to help bring awareness to both, both to schools as far as things that we can do to help engage our students beyond just book knowledge, but practical knowledge as well. Also, to be able to showcase what kids can do today that can benefit the world when they're 17 years old versus when they're 37 years old. Something to help inspire this generation to be difference makers. It's an example of probably an abnormal one on our campus, but a normal conversation that's happening on our campus on a regular basis.
Jon:
No, and two things that that made me think of from what I've seen on campus, your idea lab, your innovation lab is in a former dog food factory. You've converted into this amazing space where the first time I was there, Jet Propulsion Labs had just been there the day before because they partner with you. I think at the time you were the only high school in the country they would partner with. They typically only partner with universities. There was a conversation going on in that lab about getting water to different parts of the world that were not getting water. It wasn't a filtration thing, it was just how to do a water project. They were white boarding all these things and generating ideas and these really creative problem solving ways with a teacher there that was super animated in what he was doing.
It was also tied into, I think he was going over there some rocketry and telemetry things on one of the boards that I did not understand. Then we walked over to a machine that you have that you had a teacher and a student go get trained on it. It was like a four or five-day training, and he was going to Stanford, I think he was the head of your debate team, and he was trained on this. He talked us through, in detail, this unbelievably complex machine that you had invested time in him so that he could then invest time in students totally a transformational space on so many levels because of the human beings. It wasn't about the tools, it was the way the humans were using the tools. It was amazing. Then I think the next day they were filming a feature length film.
There was a fight scene that was about to happen on campus that the booms were ...
Matt Northrop:
[inaudible 00:15:02].
Jon:
Yes, then it was all staged. It wasn't a real fight but ...
Matt Northrop:
[inaudible 00:15:06].
Jon:
... It's just seeing all that come together in the documentary and the leadership pieces and in the lab and then taking it and using it globally. I mean, again, you don't want smartphones to get in the way and distract from that kind of deeper problem solving that changes students at your school as they seek to serve the world in ways that, I think, most high school students don't have a vision for what that could be because they don't necessarily have those same opportunities to think that way, because the institutes you've built bring in the kind of outside expertise that feeds Oaks and then Oaks can feed back out. Which, I mean, that's pretty powerful. I wish everybody had a chance to just walk around your campus and just see, because I was just there on random days, the times I've been there, it wasn't like anything special was going on that day, it was just, this is just what happens on campus, which was amazing.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. I do think one of the elements there too is, and you've alluded to it, but finding people in your area, whether it's parents or community members that can help take the kids to the next level in those areas as well. We have advisory councils around each one have been kind of that Wayne Gretzky quote, "You don't just want to skate to where the puck is, but where it's going," and so looking at engineering of where is engineering going? Where is computer science going? Where's leadership going and preparing our kids for that?
Jon:
I love that, and any community can do that. Obviously, you're in a fairly unique place with some of the resources you have in your community, but every community has those resources and it doesn't really have to cost the school anything extra. In fact, it can bring resources with it where people get invested and they see what these high school kids are doing and they're like, "Oh yeah, here's some." I'm sure you have many examples of that. As the community engages your school, both sides benefit.
A couple of questions. These are typically, I do like a lightning round or shorter answer questions, which I'm terrible at answering. I always like to see how well you can do this. Have there been any books that you've read in the last year that you're like, "Yeah, absolutely." Other educators, Anxious Generation, 100%, and you're like, "Yes, everybody needs to read that if you're a parent, educator." We had both of our two oldest children, we had them read it because we're like, "Hey, this is talking about you all," and it was super impactful for them. Any other books you've read that you would recommend to the people listening?
Matt Northrop:
I have loved, we've been walking through with one of our groups, the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by Jon Mark Comer, The Importance of Solitude and Silence and Sabbath and Slowing Down. I think for all of us, that was challenging then one that I've always loved that we're reading as well as The Power of Moments by Dan or Chip and Dan Heath, that one's an eye-opener and so applicable to so many areas of school.
Jon:
Love both of those books. I also just read Jon Mark Comer's Practicing the Way this year. Super helpful. Good follow up to it. At least this one, he's not just taking Dallas Willard's quote and making it his book title, so that's a win. The Power Moments, the idea of the peak end rule, the idea that the promise of risk-taking is learning. It's not success. How do you do that? How do you build that into your system? Power Moments has been one of my favorite books since that came out in 2017, so hey, I would second both of those. As you look ahead at schools in general, what do you see as the biggest challenge to engaging kids? You've removed smartphones, that's key. You've got these things going on, but what do you see as the biggest challenge to engaging kids?
Matt Northrop:
That's a good question. I'd say one of the things that I am starting to see, and I guess it surrounds the AI conversation, and I think we're all trying to figure out as educators, where does AI fit? We've been taking a look at it as well. I think one of the things that we're trying to do is making sure that that is exaggerating the humanness of relationship and community where AI is. There was just that recent article of a UK school that is now teacherless and completely driven by AI.
We're certainly not a school that runs away from technology, but I think that has a profound impact on education, on making sure that we're engaging our students. I hope we're not walking away from humanness altogether. I think as we look at AI to remember the impact that a teacher has in a classroom of kids of that face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, wrestling with big ideas, having those conversations that are all unique to each class period and not getting to the point where we're letting AI teach our kids. I think that's a dangerous spot. Nor do I really think that that really engages young people either.
Jon:
Everything you've talked about so far on this podcast could be potentially aided by artificial intelligence, but it could not be done with artificial intelligence. I love that exaggerating the humanness of school. If you've read any of Cal Newport's stuff, he wrote Deep Work and then he just came out with a book, Slow Productivity, his claim, and he's a computer science MIT grad professor at Georgetown. He makes a living in the world of artificial intelligence and computers. He said, "What will become increasingly valuable in the decades ahead, wherever the world goes, is the more human our contribution is, because that's where our value is in our humanness. What are you uniquely capable of offering the world if you're able to articulate that and obsess over quality, doing less things at a natural pace?" Ruthless Elimination of Hurry ties in nicely there. That's the value you have. How do we help kids see what they've been created to be and what they contribute?
Obviously, tools can help with that, but they will not replace that because AI, I always say this, this is from Darren Speaksma, it's consensus. That's all it is. It's scraping large language models. It's consensus. It is not wisdom and it can't be wisdom. There are things like if you're writing a paper, there are things where AI is super helpful for checking and fixing, but if it's generating, I don't want to read something generated by AI. One of my worst nightmares is that AI-generated emails will begin to fill up my email box to the point where I feel like I need AI-generated responses and it's just AI talking to AI, and I'm just this third party looking on at this nightmare. To me, how do we keep, I totally agree on exaggerating the humanness of what we do because that's the joy in schools. All right, so then what do you see as your biggest hope for engaging students well? I mean, I think you all are doing a lot of this really well. What would you say your biggest hope is?
Matt Northrop:
I think my largest hope is in the things that I'm seeing, and I know you're seeing in different Christian schools and different schools around the world, I think that we're getting to a place, as I look around, there's just so much hope in so many schools with amazing educators and leaders that are doing phenomenal things. Both with the hand in who we have been and who we've been as teachers and mentors for centuries. Yet also ,a hand in where is the world going and how do we continue to prepare our kids for a future that we don't know? I think I'm hopeful for these types of conversations. I'm hopeful for us as schools to become less siloed, maybe less competitive at times, and to be able to learn from one another and those unique things that we all bring to a conversation. There's still yet a school to visit where I haven't learned something from that school that I can pretty much immediately take back to Oaks. I think that's where the hope is, I guess, collaboration with one another and learning from one another.
Jon:
That's the whole reason why the Baylor Center for School Leadership exists. We try to bring schools together to do this work of improvement because we can always get better and it's a lot more fun to get better with each other. If you get a chance to visit Oaks Christian, you have to do it. The good thing is we have nothing to be afraid of in the future because we serve a sovereign God and He's not worried about the future and that victory is already done. When your eternity is all set, what happens between now and when we get to heaven, that's all just an adventure that we get to enjoy and create powers of moments and ruthlessly eliminate hurry and practice following Christ in ways that make us more like Him. It's a pretty good work that we get to do. Matt, thanks for all you do. Thanks for being on today.
Matt Northrop:
Thanks, Jon.
-
In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Janet Gibson, an experienced educator and leader at Baylor University. They discuss the importance of conflict resolution in education and how to equip leaders with the tools needed to navigate challenges effectively. Dr. Gibson shares insights from her extensive background in school administration and her current role in directing Baylor’s executive EdD program. The conversation also highlights the significance of maintaining a student-centered approach and the power of cultivating hope within school communities.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/ Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl Transcript:
Jon Eckert:
Welcome back to the Just Schools podcast. Today we are here with Dr. Janet Gibson, who is an amazing educator and is a great colleague here at Baylor. We've been able to work together full-time for the last year. I've learned a ton from Dr. Gibson, so I'm excited for her to be here today. So Dr. Gibson, when you decided to come to Baylor, you had a lot of experience that brought you to that point. So can you give us a quick, here's where I've been and this is why I'm now here at Baylor?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, sure. Well, first off, thanks for having me. But yeah, so my background just started out as an educator in special education, and then quickly went into administration. And so I spent probably about, I would say 15 plus years in administration where I was a middle school assistant principal, elementary principal, high school principal, and then I went into central administration. And all of that experience was kind of in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in various sizes of school districts. And I was an assistant superintendent, not that exact title, but that was the role, in a very large district right outside of the Dallas area. Spent several years doing that. And then my last experience was in a suburban district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where I was assistant superintendent.
And in those roles I had lots of experience covering curriculum instruction, supervising principals, and all of those experiences have led me to Baylor, led me to that opportunity. Obviously when you are a principal or you're an assistant superintendent, and even in one of the districts, I was an interim superintendent, that gave me lots of opportunities for... What word would I use here? Opportunities, I guess would just be the best word to describe it, to have different experiences, whether it's with students, whether it's with teachers, parents, other educators. Just different opportunities that I think right now in what we do here at Baylor just lends itself well to be that practitioner that is giving those types of things back to our students. So when I left public ed after 27 years in public ed, I spent a year working for Engaged to Learn.
Jon Eckert:
That's great.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
And I coached educators around the United States, not just in Texas, so around the United States, and worked mainly with central office educators, in coaching them. And that experience, even just getting out of Texas really lends itself well to what we do here at Baylor and coaching those that are coming up in education, those that are going to be leading districts. And so that really just lends itself well to what we were doing here at Baylor. And what brought me to Baylor was just I think the Lord's blessing me in that because I never really thought I would have that opportunity to be at Baylor. And so I really just feel like it's just been a great blessing to be here and have those experiences from my past in the various different roles that have just really blessed me to be here at Baylor.
Jon Eckert:
Well, what I love about the role you're in now is the director of our executive EDD program is you started off as a special ed teacher, and I feel like those people are gold because you know how to see each student. Because that's what you're trained to do as a special ed teacher, and that never goes away. And so you then had all these other lenses to look at education from school level to district level, then coaching across the country and out here at Baylor, but you never lose sight of that individual student. And you do that for our doctoral students. I know they reach out to you when they have personal needs, they have other things because you see the whole human being. And so I think that's unbelievable preparation and the people listening won't know. But I was on three different search committees, I think in the year we eventually hired you, and I wanted to hire you for all three positions.
So I was like, "Which one of these is the best fit?" And I think the Lord knew the best fit. And so in our doctoral program, you teach a conflict resolution class, and you've now done that for a few years, because even before we'd hired you full-time you were doing that. And you've had obviously in 27 years in K through 12 and then coaching administrators all over the country, you have plenty of opportunities to engage in conflict. And there's a lot of growth that happens through conflict, but most of us want to avoid it. And I feel like I've gotten to sit in on some of your training when we've had educators in, and I've heard about your classes. But if you were to say, "Hey, here are two or three takeaways for those people listening, whether they're teachers or administrators, here are some things, always lean into this." What would you share with them?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Gosh, that's a great question. Well, conflict is inevitable. We can't get away from conflict. And so it's really just ensuring you have a tool kit available to you when you are dealing with conflict. And so throughout my class, I really try to give them different lenses to look at the conflict and different ways to handle that conflict. And so I bring in different guest speakers where they can hear how they have handled conflict throughout the years. And you mentioned my experiences with conflict. One of the districts that I was in dealt with a tremendous amount of conflict in that district.
And I bring some of those stories to my class not to expose, but to share and so that the students can learn from those experiences. And so the other thing is the Bible is the best learning tool. And so we really talk a lot about the different stories in the Bible where there was so much conflict, but yet this is where you can lean into the answers for how to solve conflict. And so I hope throughout what my answer here, that I gave you the three answers there is that it doesn't go away. It's inevitable. Have your toolkit available. And the best places to find those answers is the Bible. And so those are the things that I try to share with the students.
Jon Eckert:
So you just encapsulated to me the beauty of an executive EDD program at a place like Baylor. So you have the theory behind what it is. You certainly have read a lot. You can apply theoretical approaches, which you would get in a PhD program. You have the applied experience of here's what I've been through and here's, I'm sure, what you're going through. And it's not, here's what I did, now you should do this. It's grounded in biblical wisdom. That is this ancient understanding of how human beings work.
And being able to do that at a place like Baylor, that's the blessing of being at a research one university where you can be explicit about that. Because you and I spent most of our careers before higher ed, all of our careers in public schools where you could do all that implicitly, but you couldn't come out and say, "And here's why." And so that to me is the value of being in a place like Baylor because they get that experience, they get that theory, but then they also can get this explicit grounding in why we do what we do. And there's great hope in that.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
So that really gets to the next question. Talk a little bit about what we get to do at Baylor and the kinds of students that we get to serve, because that's why we're here. They're doing the hard work, we're coming alongside and trying to give them tools, questions, processes to do that work better. But talk a little bit about what you've found in this year doing this full-time now.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, so one of the best things we get to do is we get to recruit highly, highly qualified educators to come and be a part of our program. And so we get to do that and recruit a new cohort every year to come in. And then once they're here, we really get to... and the cohort model is the key, is that they move throughout our three-year program. And we try to have for us in the EDD and also for the master's program, it's a cohort model as well. But we move them through in that cohort model, through the program. And we have full-time professors and we have adjunct professors that are practitioners. So they've been in the seats that our students are in, but then also are the researchers as well.
And so they have the best, most highly qualified professors in front of them that are giving them, just like you described, the theory, all of those things, the practical things as well. But we have that biblical experience that we can talk to them about, but they get to engage in so many practical activities and lessons. They get to go on field trips and see different districts and how different districts are engaging in the different topics that we're discussing in our classes. And I believe just this cohort model and being in-person, and that's the other key to our program, is that it's in-person. I think that lends itself to being so important because they're engaged with each other, they're engaged with their professors. And I think that's what makes our program special. And because it's smaller numbers as well, we know our students, not just who they are as a student, but who they are as a person.
I mean, we know if they're going through trials at home, if they're going through trials at work, we know what is going on. And I think that's important where sometimes in larger cohorts or organizations and things like that, or even online, you don't know. You don't have as much of that personal touch. And I think we have that, and I think that's what makes our program special. So as our students move through, they get to engage in that. And then of course we have our clinical experience that I think is outstanding where our students get to go through a mentorship with myself as their clinical leader here at Baylor, but a mentor back at their home district where they can really engage in some very thoughtful, practical experiences that can benefit them as they increase their leadership experience.
Jon Eckert:
Well, in the last year that you've been here, I don't know how many coffees, breakfast, prayer times, crying times that you've engaged with our students, but it's been such a huge blessing to our students. They talk about it all the time, and so huge asset there. And I think the size of the cohort matters because if you get stretched too thin, you can't do it. And one of our former colleagues, Bradley Carpenter, would always recruit the 12. And so we would always shoot for 12 in our cohorts. And I was always like, "It sounds like we're picking disciples here." I was like, "No, we're not doing that. We're all following Christ, we're not trying to." But there is something about that. And now with the master's program and the EDD, our master's program, we bring in about 35 to 40 master's students a year.
Now, a third of this cohort eight in the EDD are from the master's program. And that's beautiful because we get 18 months to try to orient them to what improvement science looks like. And so we're going to ask them to do a lot of work in the EDD program. They're going to do a dissertation. But what I always say is, while it's a lot of work, it's better work, and it's all grounded in what they're doing in their schools anyway, so that when they finish the program and they finish that dissertation, it doesn't just go sit on a shelf. They use that in their next job interview. They use that to say, "Hey, here's the work that is different because of what the Lord's done through me in the lives of kids." And if they're doing that in public school, it's just like, "Hey, look how much growth has happened here among teachers, among administrators, among kids."
And that's the beautiful thing about the way the EDD is set up. It's not trying to fill a hole in the literature. It's not some really esoteric, narrow thing that allows you to go into academia and write papers that five people read. It actually makes a difference in the lives of kids. And we get to see that. And especially you get to see that in the clinical piece. So you go out and see our students there. What have been some of the more hopeful things that you seen out when you've been out doing clinical visits? Where have you seen like, "Oh wow, that's amazing. These are the students that we see." Can you think of anything off the top of your head? Anything specific or general?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
I can. So in particular this year, one of our students worked with a smaller district near here, and she created a product through the clinical experience for this district. That without that mentorship, without that partnership and that clinical experience, the district would've never come out with that product. And it was an MTSS handbook.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
MTSS is a requirement for our students to have experiences with in the public schools and have exposure to. And that district just didn't have the capacity to create that. And she created that for them. And in her observation, the last observation that I was there for, that district had shared it with other surrounding districts that they are a part of because they're, again, a smaller district. And about six other districts are going to be modeling their handbook after that. And so that wasn't just the one little district, that spread out too. And so you think about the exponential touch that just that one product had for... That's going to be impacting students because MTSS is that tiered model, that leveled model of support for students. And it just started with one student and one superintendent in one district, and now it's impacting several other districts.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's the definition of a catalyst. An agent that provokes or speeds up change without being used up. So that work that she did, hard work, created this product that then made other people's work easier to better serve the needs of each kid. I was just out last week with Christina Flores, I didn't know this, she's known as C-Flow, so in Riesel. And she had done several days of professional development with all of her campus leaders, and I got to do kind of the wrap-up piece of it. But it was so amazing to see the work they were doing in a small district in central Texas, but really good work in her dissertation was going to be amazing work. I get to be her dissertation chair. So when we get to chair these dissertations, you walk alongside this person for a couple years and you get to see from the idea to the implementation to the evidence what difference it makes. And so it's pretty cool to see that. And then when you see it going beyond that one district to other districts, it makes what we do feel like it's worthwhile.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, for sure.
Jon Eckert:
So that's good. So if you were to, in three or four sentences, describe what you see in Texas, in education, Texas or in the country, how would you describe what you're seeing as a leader in education going on in public schools, private schools, whatever you've seen?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
I see right now a shift happening. As I exited public ed, there was a shift happening as well, but it was kind of a negative shift happening. There was a lot of political, just a lot of divisiveness happening in schools around the country, those kinds of things that were happening. And right now, I really honestly see this uptick, this positive shift happening, and it gives me a lot of hope. And what I'm seeing with our students, and I know you said three to four sentences and I'm saying a whole lot more.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's all right. I'm terrible at this as well. So that's just a try.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Okay, thanks. I see students that are wanting to be our next leaders that have so much passion in what they do and what they believe in in what is happening in our schools, that it just gives me so much hope in this shift of just this next generation of leaders. And so I do, I just see this uptick in this positivity of what's happening in public ed in particular.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. So in one sentence, the year ahead, what do you hope this year will look like? If you can put it can be a run-on sentence if you want it to be.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Good. Thank you.
Jon Eckert:
But go for it.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
And so I'm going to focus on our students. I hope our students are able to let their passion shine in their schools because I think, and this is where my run-on is going to be, because I think they've tried to hide and been afraid because of that turmoil that had been happening, have been afraid to let that passion shine. And so my hope is that they let their lights shine this year and their passion shine.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. Love that. I think I know what this might be, but if you had to use one word to describe the next year, what would be the word that you believe would best represent the next year?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Hopeful.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. And it sounds like given your answer, you see evidence of that. That's not a naive optimism that that hope's back. And that is one of the blessings of being in the position we're in. We get to see districts and schools and leaders all over the place. So when you're in your own district or in your own school or you're in your own classroom, sometimes you get myopic and you only see... and you see amazing things up close, but then you don't see the landscape. And I do think you're right. I think we have hit a transition point where there is more hope, now that's fragile.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
We can crush it really quickly and we're going to have conflict.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
For sure.
Jon Eckert:
Again, hope doesn't mean freedom from conflict. We're going to have it. It's going to be there. So I'm really grateful for the work that you do and the work that we get to support together, because again, our jobs are only meaningful if the people we serve are doing meaningful work with real kids. So thanks for all you do, and thanks for being here.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Well, I'm blessed to be here. Thank you for having me.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Tami Dean. They discuss the importance of restorative practices in schools and how these practices can create a more inclusive and supportive environment for students and staff. Dr. Dean shares insights from her experience in implementing these practices and highlights the significance of building strong relationships within the school community. The conversation also touches on strategies for overcoming challenges when introducing restorative practices and emphasizes the impact of these approaches on school culture.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education (Race, Education, and Democracy) by Christopher EmdinThe Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg JaySupercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection by Charles DuhiggHow to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David BrooksConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl Transcription:
Jon Eckert:
Welcome back to the Just Schools podcast. Today we are here with Dr. Tami Dean, who is a new friend to me, but she is friends with Dr. Gabrielle Wallace, who is one of Baylor's finest doctoral students and graduates. She was the connection here. So, anybody that Gabrielle recommends, we all should get to know. So, you run Dragonfly Rising LLC. So, I'm really curious about the name and why you started this organization.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, yeah, I know because Dragonfly Rising has nothing to do with equity, and that's exactly what Dragonfly Rising does. It support equity and education. How I came to do Dragonfly Rising? Well, that's a huge backstory, but essentially my entire educational career has been focused on social justice and equity and education. I hit a crossroads in my career, and I also lost my sister shortly before I started this company. So, it was just one of those things where the life just all happens and here it was born. So, I debated for a long time about the name, whether to go with this, and I had actually some divine intervention from an unknown party, and I actually feel like this is how God speaks to me all the time. He sends someone to say something to me. So, I was talking to someone, I was totally unexpected, and I had been playing with the word Dragonfly and Rising because they really speak to me, so hence the name.
So, Dragonfly actually connects with colon cancer. My sister was 42, she passed away from colon cancer, and the Dragonfly is a symbol of your loved one just being around and still with you, even though they've left, they're still here and they make their presence known. So, the Dragonfly is for her and honoring her because she would be very proud and super excited about this. Then Rising connects to my own personal, just life, overcome lots of challenges. "Still I rise," Maya Angelou, who's my mantra, if you want to call it that. So, hence the name Dragonfly Rising, coming together. So, even the colors, right? Yellow is my favorite, green's my sister's, and blue is the colon cancer. So, even our logo brings all of us together, and I really actually feel equities about relationships and getting to know people and what a better name? I can always explain it. It's a great story. I believe in the power of narrative, so...
Jon Eckert:
No, that's great. So, what's the primary focus of your work at Dragonfly Rising? I love the name, by the way.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Thank you. Our primary role is to support educators, educational leaders with implementing social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, really looking, examining those systems, building in resources for how to support teachers. So, I do coaching, consulting, and speaking around those topics to just help support an equitable learning environment for all students.
Jon Eckert:
So, right now, in the current culture we're in, things get super polarized over things. Even a lot of the words that you just said, you said 'belonging' originally, and even that word I've heard people say, "Oh, well, 'belonging', what is this?" I went recently to a UNESCO conference on inclusive education because 250 million kids worldwide are school age and not in school. So, it's about literally trying to educate each kid, it's so that they have the access to education. When I told someone I was going to a UNESCO conference on inclusive education, somebody was like, "Well, that sounds pretty left to me." I was like, "No, it's trying to educate each kid." He's like, "Oh, okay. So, it's not that DEI, I in DEI." So, what boggles my mind is, as educators, our whole goal is to create a culture and climate of belonging for each student.
Why is that controversial? That's always been a little bit of a rub for me. So, how do you cut through some of that noise to get to the relational piece you mentioned that is at the heart of teaching, that it's seeing and knowing and helping a child become all that he or she was created to be in this powerful way, without getting hung up in all the politics of that?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Wow, that's a huge question.
Jon Eckert:
Yes, yes.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think one of the most important things you said was the relational piece, because really, inclusivity and belonging is about taking the time and the opportunity to really listen and understand and value each person as an individual. So, what that moves away from is stereotypes, implicit biases. So, even the idea of this idea like, "Oh, that's very leftist." You've already made a judgment around what this means. I agree, it's super polarized, it's super political, and it really shouldn't be because, to me, diversity, equity, and inclusion is about humanity and being a conscientious and thoughtful human to the other humans with which I'm engaging. None of us respond well when people make negative assumptions about us. So, I guess the way I break through the noise is by really listening to people and having an open dialogue and conversation. Versus it's not about chastising. It's not about, "You're wrong, I'm right."
It's really about how do we listen and come together as humans to value the individuality of each and every one of us. That includes our students and seeing them and recognizing that actually seeing people and listening to them for who they are is actually really essential and key and important.
Jon Eckert:
Right. So, it's an innate human desire to be seen, known, and loved, and we communicate love through seeing and knowing, and it's why teaching is infinitely interesting and also really hard because in a room of 30 learners, if you're the teacher in that room, the only thing for sure is no one in that room learns exactly the way you do. So, that makes it so that it's challenging, but also really, it never gets boring. We always have meaningful work to do as educators.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Yes.
Jon Eckert:
So, that's the blessing and challenge of what we do. So, as you've done this work, or some of your previous work in schools, what's the most hopeful insight you've had as we move forward? We already highlighted some of the polarizing and the othering that goes on and not seeing other, and trying to separate ourselves, but what's the most hopeful insight you've had?
Dr. Tami Dean:
I think what's most hopeful for me is I see that people want to do better. They want to know more. They want to engage differently. They're wanting to be reflective of their own self. So, I'm hopeful, because there are people, despite some of the challenges, still trying to find ways to move through and do this very important work and connect with students and build culturally responsive learning environments, and they're doing all these things and they're using their voices. Because there's power in the collective of us all saying, "This is what's great for students. This is what is great for teachers." If you're an administrator, you need to set up that environment for your educators too.
Jon Eckert:
Right. So, many administrators will say, "We need to see each student. We need to serve each student," but then we're not seeing and serving each educator. If you don't have flourishing adults in a building, you're not going to have a flourishing community of learners. So, how do you bring those things together? Again, that's the beauty of leadership is seeing and knowing and loving and encouraging and catalyzing the people in your organization. So, that includes educators and students. So, I think sometimes we can have blind spots where we see certain students or we see certain educators, we don't see others, or we see students and we don't see educators, or we see educators and we don't see students, when in fact we are called to see each person. Again, that's the beauty of the relational piece that you're talking about. So, as you think about that, that's the most hopeful insight you have. What's the biggest challenge you see to doing that? Because I think that's at the heart of what we do as educators. So, what's the biggest challenge to doing that?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think the biggest challenge, honestly, is we have a whole bunch of people that aren't educators trying to tell educators how to educate.
Jon Eckert:
That is a nice succinct statement. So, I can say having been at the US department of Ed in two different administrations, that that was a frustration many times in the book that I just wrote last year starts off with this story about a leader in one of the administrations, which will not be named. I was in a Democratic and Republican administration. So, I'm not throwing anyone under the bus here.
Dr. Tami Dean:
You're not throwing any shade?
Jon Eckert:
No, no. But she talked about how we needed to de-complexify things for educators, and that's not a word. I said, "Do you mean simplify?" She said, "Well, yeah." So, this federal bureaucrat, I tell this story all the time and I've told it on this podcast. She said, "Well, we just need to de-complexify these things." So, she had complicated the word for simplify in a condescending way for educators, and that's the thing that drives educators crazy. Now, certainly, we get very myopic. We see the classroom that we have, the kids that we have, we see those needs. We don't see the 30,000-foot view, but you can't get the 30,000-foot view if you don't also have that classroom view, if you don't see each kid. So, you don't want to miss the forest for the trees, but you also don't want to miss the trees for the forest.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
So, the way you do that is through relationship. So, how do we do a better job building relationships? This is a societal challenge right now, but how do we do a better job building relationships between educators, researchers, policy makers, community members, students, and educators working together? How do we do that better? Do you have, what's your best recommendation or two or three ideas, how we could do a better job of that?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I just really wonder when are we really listening, and I'm going to come back to listening. When are we really listening to the different perspectives from all of those parties and bringing them together to talk about the nuance of what happens? Because we tend to work in silos and think we're doing great things. At one point, I was a professor working in academia, and the biggest people say, "Oh, you're in a silo and you're never in schools." But the research that's happening in higher ed institutions is really important and informs, or should inform what's happening in schools, but they can't happen in isolation. Then you listen to business owners and they're saying, "We need people that can be creative and think and find answers and solve problems." But then you have another layer saying, "We're going to have all these standardized tests that don't actually have people doing that," and then we have these tech prep.
So, there's not a vision for, what is it that makes a great education in the United States? So, if we come together and... We need a vision statement, we need a strategic plan really for education in a way that aligns and listens to all of these perspectives. Now, I don't think that's easy, but I do think that's what we need, because all of those perspectives are valid and bring in a different perspective to get us to a better whole picture, because what we're doing right now isn't working.
Jon Eckert:
Right, right. No, that's well said. I do think I've read two books in the last six months that were super helpful on listening, and I'm curious if you've come across them, but 'How to Know a Person' by David Brooks, and he says, the whole point of knowing someone is through conversation. You can have nonverbal communication and you can do things with people, but we really know someone by listening well. Then the second book, which is more on the neuroscience side of it, less on the relational soulful side, which is where David Brooks, there would be more of a metaphysical piece to it, as well is Charles Duhigg's book, 'The Super Communicators', and it's the people that do this well that are amazing at matching other people's conversational style, being able to elicit stories, share stories.
Christopher Emden writes about it 'For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... And the Rest of Y'all Too', where he talks about barbers who are so good at eliciting stories, and he has his pre-service teachers learn from barbers about how you elicit stories. So, I'm curious to know if you're seeing any research out there that really helps educators, because the three books, one of those was for educators, the other two is just for general population folks, thinking about how you just get to know people better, relationally. How do you think educators can listen better to each other and their students? Do you have any quick practical tips that you've seen work, other than just really be genuinely curious, which is hard to force someone to do, how do we do that?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think number one, you need to check your assumption and your bias.
Jon Eckert:
Okay.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Because unintentionally, and I actually talk about this a lot, I think teachers come with the best intention, based on my historical knowledge as an educator in students that I've had and can make assumptions about a certain student's story and whether that student looks like me or not, or comes from a similar background than me. We make assumptions. So, checking that bias and coming with a clean slate of really paying attention, noticing and naming what the student's doing and listening to what he or she has to say and allowing them opportunities to have voice in your classroom. Because if you're the only one speaking, if you're the only one asking questions, then you're really not getting to the heart of being able to get to know the students in your room.
Jon Eckert:
No, it's so well said. I think the best teachers are the ones who are genuinely curious and really know that the classroom is not about them. It's about what their students are doing. So, I do think there are some inherent pieces that some people come to more naturally, but if you're not naturally curious about someone, you need to find things to become curious about. So, how can you not be curious about middle school kids and what's going on in their heads? How can you not?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, they're the best. I always think they get a bad rap. I taught middle school for a while, but if you don't know, take a tool, find a resource, do an identity web, what do they say about themselves? But I will say part of this is you have to be a little bit vulnerable and share a little bit of yourself, as well, because students know when you're being authentic or not just like any other person, I say this all the time, right? Students are just smaller humans. They're just younger. They enjoy and want the same things we do as adults. They're still figuring it out. I mean, shoot, adults are still figuring it out, to be honest, but...
Jon Eckert:
True.
Dr. Tami Dean:
A hundred percent right? But be a little bit vulnerable and share a little bit about yourself. Don't got to tell them your whole life story, but if you share a little bit, you're building trust.
Jon Eckert:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Tami Dean:
So, trust is an important piece of this equation because it builds an opportunity for honesty and bring your humanity. I always say, "Bring into your classroom and bring the joy," because no one wants to be in a boring environment.
Jon Eckert:
Brown really punches me in the gut every time I read that, "I want to trust someone and then be vulnerable." But she makes it very clear, vulnerability comes before trust. You don't know if you can trust until you've been there. It's a very biblical principle. If we know that we hold this treasure in jars of clay, that we are broken individuals, then there is an obvious vulnerability to everyone else. So, why do we try so hard to try to hide it? So, when we have that appropriate self-disclosure, that then elicits it back, because people learn more from us through our mistakes and our weaknesses than they do from us trying to present some put together. We've got it all figured out because we all know, I'm old enough to know that that's a foolish narrative. So, really, really helpful wisdom there. So, I always wrap up with a lightning round where I ask three or four questions that we try to answer in a word, phrase, or sentence. So, what is something you think every educator should know?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think every educator should know that students want to learn and parents want their students to learn.
Jon Eckert:
So, you've already mentioned the loss of your sister. You've mentioned some of the challenges you've been through, but is, if you were just to give us a nugget, what's a challenge that you personally have overcome or at least have made significant progress on, if not fully overcome?
Dr. Tami Dean:
I think not taking people's responses to your authenticity, personally.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, that's impressive if you've gotten there, that's a tough one
Dr. Tami Dean:
That would be not all the time, I've just made some progress, but, yes.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. Okay. What are you most excited about in education right now?
Dr. Tami Dean:
I think I'm most excited about... Just there's always opportunity. There's always opportunity for change, for growth. I am excited about what I'm seeing, coming out of teenagers and how they think and are engaging just with the world and using their voice.
Jon Eckert:
Well, on that note, and I'm not supposed to add tangents, but I have to because I was just listening to Meg Jay talk 'Who Wrote the Defining Decades'. She writes about people in their twenties, and so right now, Gen Z. It was Millennials, Gen Z gets bashed for being Gen Z. She said, "It's not about the group that they're associated with. It's about that time period in life. In our 20s, we are much more egocentric, because nothing is certain for us. Everything's in flux. Even though your 20s are great, there's a low point on this happiness curve where the J-curve goes down. It starts going down in middle school and high school and doesn't start going back up until the end of your 20s where you start to have some certainty."
I think that's a really helpful reminder that we need to give people grace and know that, "Hey, life is not easy, and it's not about being entitled or these other things. It's just being in your 20s is hard. Being in middle school is hard." I was always amazed at how kids showed up for me in middle school, because I remember middle school as a kid, and I hated it. For eight years, I avoided teaching it My last four of what I call real teaching were in middle school, and they were amazing, and we need to give them credit. So, I too am excited about where things are headed with some of the ways kids are thinking about things now.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Yeah, that was actually my first teaching job, was in middle school, and I didn't want it at all, but it turned out to be amazing. So, teach middle school, y'all.
Jon Eckert:
That's it. That's it. That's it. So, other than that, what's the best advice you would either... You have two options here, the best advice you would give to our listeners or the best advice you've ever received? Or maybe it's one and the same?
Dr. Tami Dean:
Well, I think the best advice I would give is to show up as your authentic self, because there is only one you in the world, and the perspective and experience you bring is valuable. So, when you show up and bring that, great things happen.
Jon Eckert:
Such a good reminder. I would add only to that, don't try to be cool. You will fail miserably with your middle school kids. They will see right through it. But they do appreciate the authentic quirky weirdness. I was like, "Find your quirky." What's quirky about you? Because they be quirky, too. By you making sure that's okay, then they too can bring that. Life gets a lot more interesting that way.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Oh, definitely. I've embraced my nerdiness for sure.
Jon Eckert:
Love it. Well, that's why I appreciate talking to people like you. So, thank you so much for your time, Tami. We appreciate all you do.
Dr. Tami Dean:
Thank you for having me.
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In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Bobby Ott, superintendent of Temple ISD and 2022 Texas Superintendent of the Year. They discuss integrating mental health services, special education needs, and innovative teaching practices.Dr. Ott highlights the importance of developing a mental health services model in schools, addressing funding and expertise limitations. He also stresses retaining specialized teachers and improving preparatory models for special education and English language learner programsAdditionally, the conversation explores AI and technology's potential to transform education, advocating for proactive leadership to enhance personalized learning and prevent misuse.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:Brave New Words by Sal Khan1000 CEOs by Andrew DavidsonConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl Transcription:
Jon Eckert:
So today we're here with Bobby Ott, the superintendent of Temple ISD. He's the 2022 Superintendent of the Year for the state of Texas and a good friend of Baylor and our program. He always has a lot of wisdom to share. And so today we're going to talk a little bit about some of the challenges that he sees facing students in Temple and Texas in general and maybe just across the country because many of these issues transcend different places. Certainly they're context-specific, but broader issues. And Bobby has a pretty good handle on what's going on in Texas and has a wide network. So we're grateful to have Bobby here today. So Bobby, thanks for all you do. Just tell us a little bit about what you've been dealing with the last month or so. We'll roll in with that first and then jump into those bigger questions. But can you just update us on your world over the last month?
Bobby Ott:
Well, the last couple weeks for sure has been a little bit of a whirlwind, and I guess that's both figuratively and literally. But as you may know, we had three tornadoes in Temple touch down within about a 30-mile radius. And so the community really looked apocalyptic when you drove through it. Some places you couldn't drive because of debris. And of course we still had a week and a half of school left, so that caused some challenges at the 11th hour. But having a great team and a great community, number one, we were truly blessed to not have a single fatality in a natural disaster of that magnitude. So that was first and foremost. And as I shared earlier with others, to me that is certainly a divine hand being involved in that. I have never heard of a situation that had that type of catastrophe and not have a fatality.
But I did send a video out, kind of a peek behind the curtain of the things we had to plan for, and we were able to make it through the last week. We were able to meet the bureaucratic requirements, which in my mind are secondary compared to the human elements of graduation, kids being in a safe environment, staff feeling safe, displaced staff having a place to be and so forth. And so now we were able to make it through that. The stress level has gone way down. And at this point, I'm just dealing with insurance adjusters and trying to figure out how to close out a budget year with deductible payments that I didn't expect to have.
But anyway, we're working through it. The community is slowly getting back to normal and just blessed to have the partnerships that we do in the community and just the great hands and hearts that work together and pull together to get everybody through.
Jon Eckert:
No, and the video you shared was powerful because as we prepare superintendents and principals at Baylor, we try to help them anticipate every eventuality. You've taught in that. We have a number of sitting superintendents that teach in that. But until you've been through something like that, it's really hard to know what that looks like. And so I thought the video was helpful just as you went over the board and what's there.
As we talk today, I want to focus in on student-centered issues that you see. Obviously, your point about the divine providence that comes in and keeps people safe in a natural disaster, that's real. There are day in, day out challenges that our kids face and resilience that they have to display and community support that they need to be successful. And so you're talking to us as we launch Cohort 8 of our EDD that's preparing superintendents. And so they're going to do three years of research on a problem of practice that they care deeply about that matters in the context they're in.
And so what I'm interested in is hearing from superintendents about two or three of the biggest issues you see that need attention in the research, in data collection, but really in the practical day in and day out of how do we make life better for students? How do we do that in a way that's life-giving, that leads to flourishing, and makes sure that we're moving forward in useful ways when you're not dealing with insurance adjusters and all the budget pieces, which are real. And those have to be dealt with, otherwise you can't serve kids well.
But if you were to say, "Hey, these are the two or three things that I see." That as people think about what they might research and dedicate three years of their lives to research-wise, what would come to mind as you think about that right now?
Bobby Ott:
And this certainly isn't in rank order, but one would be a true model of integrating. And when I say model, something that's repeatable that you could replicate in any district size, but a true model for integrating mental health services in a school district.
I got to be honest with you, every year when we're sitting down as a group of superintendents, whether it's countywide or regionwide, there's always this discussion about how to truly integrate mental health services in a school system. And several districts have tried different things. They've tried some co-op services. They've tried to hire on regular counselors and get them trained in certain things and then they peel off.
But there's two limitations that we find ourselves in a lot of times, and one is expertise. Rightly or wrongly, school counselors a lot of times do not have that level of expertise that we're talking about. They maybe have a general background in how to work those issues, in particular social, but the mental health pieces we find some real limitations and expertise. And then of course funding because truth be told, people that have that level of expertise make more money outside of public schools and the private sector is far more attractive and pays a lot better.
So what we find ourselves doing is trying to find retirees from the private sector, people that only want to work part-time, people that really like the schedule of public schools. But people that are experts in that field could stand to make more money than the principal of the campus for sure. And so it just becomes very, very difficult.
There are some very specialized skills that are required to do those kinds of things. And counselors that come out of the traditional school education track they're really equipped only to a certain line and our students are needing beyond the line. And when they try to seek outside support, a lot of times the students that have those needs do not have the resources to secure the outside support, whether it's monetary or accessibility with parents being able to get them where they need to go and so forth.
So I think one, so what does that look like in terms of research? When you told me about this, I try to think about it in two lenses. One, what would be the problem? And maybe what is a approach in terms of resource or research? And I would say researching models to embed specialized counseling services, trauma-informed care, restorative practices, cognitive therapy into credentialing for counselors in their traditional track programs. Maybe therapy-specific coursework, maybe there's a way.
I think we're trying to address the problem after people are certified, but I wonder if there are models that can be done between a traditional public education track in grad school in partnership with the college of psychology or behavioral sciences or something like that. And I don't know the answer to that. That's a little bit outside of my expertise. But I think there's some different directions for students there. Cohort 8 could look at maybe a preparatory model or you could look at a service model in the school system. So that would be the first one.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's a powerful one. And we're working in Mississippi right now with five districts because there's high levels of opioid use and abuse. And the mental health piece is such a huge part of it because you're dealing with communities that are struggling with some of that and then that is bleeding into the kids and some of the trauma that comes with that. And trying to figure out ways to put universal interventions in place that get kids making better choices that lead to thriving communities so you're less likely to make those choices is hard.
But then when they've already made the choices, you need really specific interventions by highly trained people. And one of the things we've been doing in schools over the last few years is a lot of trying to fill in the gaps for people without training. And it gets really dangerous when you start trying to identify and diagnose and you have educators who are desperate for help and feel these urgent needs, but then they don't have the training. And so sometimes they can exacerbate the problem without that expertise. So I think that's tremendously insightful and needed.
So what would be the next one that you have? If you were to say, "Hey, tackle this," and you said not in order, but what would be something else you would say we should be tackling?
Bobby Ott:
Well, the other thing that we're seeing, and this really points to special program services in particular, English language learners and special education, but those numbers are going up across the state. And there's a couple of reasons for it. I mean, I think one is generational. We're seeing that more and more in the younger generations. You're seeing more students in kinder and first with not just disabilities, but language delay and also high needs, and I'll get into that piece in a second.
But the numbers go up and the funding has gone down. And so the ratios are a big problem in that mix because there are required ratios for very, very specialized programs. And when funding is going down, even the IDEA federal grant has reduced, what funds typically special education services. But the other piece is your qualifiers have expanded too. So for example, adding dyslexia to special ed has totally increased that number in every single school district. And so when those things happen, you start to pull apart the service in the program. It really starts to dilute. And so that's where we're at on that end.
The other piece is RFs or residential facilities. We are really struggling because one, there's not enough residential facilities in said communities, but two, they are very liberal about denying even if they have enough beds in long and short-term placement. It literally is one of the hardest things you can possibly do to get students to qualify for a residential facility. And so what happens is those students a lot of times in schools end up becoming what I call in and outs. They're in, and then the next episode they're out. And so they never really improve educationally or anything else because we are not equipped within the school system to appropriately deliver the services those students need.
And so when they're denied those services from the outside, even through referral processes, and there's a lot of complications with that, could be resources at home, it could be insurance, could be a lot of things. It could be that sometimes parents don't like to get them qualified because they'll lose some of their financial assistance. And I've run into that quite a bit too. So that's a real problem. That is a population in total that is growing, funding is not growing commensurate with the program, and specialized services are very selective for which students can be accepted and not accepted.
So what's the research angle there? I mean, that's a good question. And this sounds a little bit like maybe the first one, but maybe there are different models of partnerships that we can work with students that are denied residential. I mean, there's a zone of students that we don't know how to take care of appropriately and what do we do with those students? Are there transitory programs? Are there effective practices and how we can train people to work with higher ratios or to handle students that are episodic? We are so ill-equipped in that area. And when the students don't have anywhere else to go, the default is us. And at that point, we're really not doing them a justice. We're just not. And it's heartbreaking. It's really heartbreaking.
But that's something that I think would be very encouraging if there were some type of transitory model or something that can be put together. That's on the RF side. I think the other side of it, just regular special education and English language learner piece. What I find is that those are harder and harder to hire even if you do get the stipends up. I think there is an exodus of people leaving that were serving special education students.
And what I hear, or what's reported to me rather through exit interviews, documented exit interviews is a lot of times it's the paperwork piece that comes with it. And this is what I don't know. It almost appears like it's a surprise. And I don't know if in prep programs there's a lot of attention given to the detail of the paperwork piece that comes with teaching in a special program because there seems to be an element of surprise when teachers are leaving and they're explaining, "Well, I didn't realize I had to do all this for RDs, I had to do all this for IEPs, I had to do all this and computer systems," and this, that and the other. And it is heavy. I mean, certainly it does carry a different weight with regard to that piece than say the regular education teacher.
So that is something that I wonder at times. I don't know if that's something that's strong on the research side. I mean, obviously higher ed doesn't have the authority to minimize the bureaucratic requirements. But the time they spend with advocates, the time they spend in meetings and they walk, a lot of times they walk.
And so maybe a way that we can figure out how to help school districts put together very specific teacher retention programs for special education. What does that look like? Retaining a special education and bilingual teacher that's not like retaining a general ed teacher. What does that really look like? And what are some ideas that school districts could do with helping specialized teachers with higher ratios if it comes to that? And then how can we work with students that should be in a residential facility are denied or maybe there isn't bed space or they're in for a month and they're sent back when they should have been in longer? What can we do there?
So that'd be the second one. And that's probably not as succinct as the first one, but maybe there's enough directions you can go out of that.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's powerful and overlaps nicely with the first one. Obviously, mental health is going to weave through all of that. And so the mental health of special education teachers is also part of it. And I think you can tell people and you can prepare people say, "Hey, this is a lot of paperwork. Here's the way you're going to have to do this. These are legal contracts you're creating. This is not going to be a light lift." I think though the reality doesn't hit you until you're actually in it. Because I think most people drawn to special ed really care deeply about kids and that's what gets them... And I think it's true for teaching in general, but I think especially special ed. And then when you're hit with and you're going to have a lot more paperwork. And so you can say it, and then you live the reality and it feels different.
So if you have one other challenge that you see that could use some research, some deeper thought, do you have one more in mind or anything that builds off of these two? Otherwise, we can jump to a couple other questions.
Bobby Ott:
I think the other one would be the general idea of pacing. There is, and this has happened probably for the last 10 years, but there seems to be this growing amount of what needs to be taught in terms of standards and the level of intricacy, which whether it's multi-step problems, high-rigor written responses, you name it. I certainly agree with testing and rigor and depth, but I disagree with the idea that the timing that teachers have to truly get students to understand things at that level and then we're adding more and more standards. To me that starts to dilute the whole entire system of public education. It becomes kind of this mile wide, inch deep versus the inverse.
And so it really... I feel like as a system that we are heading toward a system of testing and minimal completion over true learning and engagement. And this is greatly because of the influence of a lot of the special interests that we're always trying to include in standards, bureaucratic systems, standard setting. And the kids really suffer greatly. And I don't know if teachers really get a handle on that piece of it because it continues to grow.
So research angle, innovative teaching practices that know how to maximize time engagement, content with a group of students that are on different parts of the continuum. I know that we have things like that in prep programs, but I just think that that's something we need more and more. And I do think that we probably ought to start really considering the use of technology in a way to minimize some of the basic steps in education. And that kind of gets to the question of what opportunities do you see for educators? And I can expand on that now or wait until you comment on the third area.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's great. We want to jump into opportunities. Where do you see some optimistic next steps? So certainly jump right into that and then we can expand on that a little bit.
Bobby Ott:
I think technology use. I know AI can be received in many different ways because I've seen it firsthand. Some people turn and walk. Some people think it's a great thing. But I would love to see AI used in a way that allows the teacher to be set up in a classroom in a more intimate way with instruction and allows them to go into depth. I'm wondering if AI in tandem with a classroom teacher could create an environment where the larger nominal content can be delivered in a way in masses and the teacher can become more of, I don't want to say tutor, but someone that goes in and can either provide the enrichment or remediation in smaller groups in a classroom.
I'd love to see AI shrink the classroom. And I think there's ways that that can be done. Now, I'm an administrator, so I wouldn't dare try to come up with ways without teachers being involved, but I think we almost have to get to that level. And I can't think of anything else cost-effective. I mean, you can always add more teachers in a classroom, but at some point in time that becomes a budget buster. I just wonder if there's a way to handle this through technology.
So I think there are opportunities with the development of AI. I think the main thing about it is we have to lead that. It can't be something done organically because if it is students will grab a hold of that and trust me they will lead it in their own way and sometimes in an abusive way that shortchanges learning. And if that happens, then they're going to be ill prepared, number one. And number two, we're going to be spending our time as administrators doing damage control.
So I think it's something we have to get ahead of. I'll tell you, we're looking as a district to have an AI conference, not this summer, but next summer, and invite school districts. We're really trying to do some things to lead the way in that. This summer is kind of a standup summer in terms of educating our staff and making sure that our network is set appropriately so we minimize abuse as much as possible. So we're doing that, but I don't see enough models out there that are something that are make take, you can grab a hold of and implement in a district. So I think there's probably some opportunity for educators there.
Jon Eckert:
Well, I just listened to a podcast, I haven't read the book yet, but Brave New Words by Sal Khan. He obviously with Khan Academy has influenced the learning of millions of kids, but he's super optimistic about what AI can do and creating this personalized and shrinking the classroom. And he certainly doesn't minimize the role of teachers, but it's fascinating. So I definitely need to read that. We hear about AI all the time, and you're right, you have this broad range of responses. And the challenge is going to be that is moving so rapidly that it's really hard to keep out in front. And I agree we have to.
But in a world where we have been doing mile wide, inch deep for forever, William Schmidt, I think he was at Michigan State, he coined that phrase about US curriculum 30, 40 years ago. And so we've been doing this because that's what I think we do a little bit in democracies. If you can't all agree, then just put it all in. Don't narrow, just add. And so you have your special interest groups, you have all these different people that are like, "Hey, this is important." And it is important, but it can't all be important. You have to figure out ways to master things. And maybe AI can be helpful there.
And I think being thoughtful about that and digging in what that means to really engage students well because Sal Khan says it, kids that are already motivated will learn really well with AI. It's the kids who are not. It's the kids with mental health issues. It's the fact that teaching is a very human endeavor. How do we make it even more human using tools? Because AI is just the newest range of tools. So it certainly doesn't replace the human being because ultimately large language models are just scraping what's on the internet. So it's consensus, not wisdom.
So you certainly can learn, but if you really want to become all of who you're created to be, that requires wisdom. And so that's where the humans are there. The problem is, to your point earlier, teachers are stretched so thin and so many demands are being placed on them it's really hard to have that one-on-one interaction. It's hard to really be seen, known, and loved in a system that's not set up for that. And so if AI can help with that, I certainly am excited to see where that goes. So love that you're thinking that way.
If you maybe have one other opportunity you see ahead for Temple specifically or for educators in general, what gives you some hope right now? Where do you see hopeful direction in what we're doing here in Texas?
Bobby Ott:
I am seeing more and more leaders leading authentically and with feeling. And I'm probably saying that in a odd way, but I see large district leaders, superintendents, and principals striking at being as personable as your smaller school. Ones are really, you don't have a choice because you're everywhere. But I see more of that and I see more of this, and I try to do it as much as... Just this shameless, this mobilizing of people to shamelessly remind others why they do it. They love children, they love staff.
And as bad as the political rhetoric has been against public ed generally, I think it's mobilized educators, in particular leaders, teachers have done this night and day, leaders to say, "Hey, that doesn't characterize the entire profession. We are human. We do love our children. This is what we do. This is why we do it." And I see more of that. I really see more of that. I hear more of that when I go to conferences, when I network with superintendents.
Yeah, our conversations could largely be dominated by budget and bonds and the newest innovative program and so forth. But I hear more of things like, "You know, you could get that done in your community if your community truly knows that you love their children, if your staff feels appreciated." And I think there are a lot of reasons for this effort. I think retaining people in the profession is one. But you can only go so far with money. You can only go so far with things. But positive culture, that is number one. I've always said people don't leave a job. They leave a boss because they're going to get the same job somewhere else.
So this idea of how you treat people and how you demonstrate appreciation and care, I think for me, I am seeing more and more of that. I'm seeing more and more of that in the people we hire in administrative positions. I'm seeing things like that on social media. Several years ago I'd see, "Hey, we graduated 653, congratulation to the graduates." And now I'm seeing videos of a student hugging their superintendent and lifting them up off the ground and the superintendent commenting saying, "This is what it's all about." I'm just seeing more of that, whether it's small or big. And I think there's been a void of that.
And I see this idea of when I get into administration, business and logistics taking over my life, that there's a real attempt to say, "It may take over my tasks, but I'm still going to put out in front my community, my students, my teachers, my school nutrition workers, and hold them up." And so that is giving me a lot of hope right now.
Jon Eckert:
That's great. And so these last two questions can be as short or as long as you need them to be, but on a daily basis now, given everything that you're managing, and you just highlighted a little of this, where do you find joy in the work you're doing on a daily basis? What do you go back to to maintain the joy that you seem to have in the midst of a lot of different pressures and challenges? And then the second one is is there a book that you've read in the last year that you're like, "Hey, every leader, every educator, this is a great book. This was helpful"? It doesn't even have to be in the last year. If it's something from earlier, that's great. But I always like to know those things. So where do you find your joy? What's a great book? And then we can wrap up.
Bobby Ott:
I find my joy in the idea that good people are still good people and they exist in the masses. So I try to make sure to connect people as much as possible to those situations. We do Mission Mondays. My entire central office every Monday is on a campus opening doors for kids that are going to school, walking in classrooms, helping to serve breakfast, do those kinds of things. I think that those kinds of things bring me joy because I see it bring them joy.
I see kids get excited when there's more than the same caring adult around them, but there's others that maybe they don't even know their names right away but they know that they're in the same system that they are. It brings me joy when I see people that are normally away from kids in their job reminded of why they got into this whole profession because we put together possibilities where they are around kids. I see teachers with smile on their faces because they see a genuine care from people that aren't doing their jobs but are asking to support them. We always support people behind the scenes in our various roles, but to do it right next to someone while they're real time and to see what they're actually doing. So those kinds of things bring me joy. Just watching great educators no matter where they're at in the system making the difference in each other's lives, in students lives. So that brings me joy.
And then a book that comes to my mind. I don't read a lot of educator books. I'm sorry, but I don't. I read a lot of... I do read leadership books. But there's a book called 1000s CEOs and it's by Andrew Davidson. And it really takes top CEOs and puts them in containers like visionaries, strategists, motivators, innovators, organizers, what have you. And these CEOs talk about their strategies in which the container that they're, I guess labeled in as being most effective. And so there's a lot of really good strategies in there. There was one called, a group called Startup Titans. And when we were going to implement blended learning for the first time, I wanted to hear some of the strategies of deployment from CEOs that startup companies because it was so brand new in our district.
So that for me was a really, really good book. I'll warn you, if it says 1000 anything, that means it's going to be a thick book because there's a lot of pages in it. But it could be a resource. You could look at a table of contents like I did and said, "Hey, we're going to start blended learning in Temple ISD, which container would make the most sense?" Well, innovator container would make sense, a visionary one, and maybe startup titans. So I would go and read some of the CEOs strategies in those areas and then try to formulate my thoughts around deployment and so forth. So that's a book that I read and am happy to pass on.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's super helpful. And I think sometimes in education, we get too caught up in naval gazing, just looking at what we can learn from education. And there's a lot of fields out there that have a lot of wisdom that we can glean. And especially in the role of a superintendent where you're a politician, you're a community organizer, you're a bureaucrat, you're a manager. There's so many different hats you wear, and a human being that finds joy in the good people that you work with and the community that you serve. That's super helpful because the CEO wears many of those hats. And so I think that's great wisdom.
Well, hey, Dr. Ott, thank you so much for the time. Thanks for all you do for us at Baylor, for students and staff in Temple, and then for everybody across the state of Texas. We're grateful to have you so close and your willingness to serve educators in this way. So thank you.
Bobby Ott:
You bet. Thank you. And I wish all the best to Cohort 8. You're entering a great program. And the one thing I would say, I don't know if this is going to them or not, but the one thing I would tell them is a lot of times when you start things like a program, people will start to ponder this idea of journey versus destination kind of thing. Which one's more important? Is it getting the doctorate? Do I try to enjoy it along the way? It's heavy, whatever it may be. And what I would pass on to you is this, anytime you find yourself being asked that question or contemplating it, the answer is neither. It should always be the company. The company is the most important thing. It's not the journey or the destination, it's the company. And so enjoy your professors, enjoy your cohort, get to know the people around you, and that will be the most important thing. And if you do that, I will tell you the journey and the destination will take care of itself.
Jon Eckert:
Such great advice. And that's true for everybody, not just people starting a doctoral cohort. But appreciate how you live that out, and I'm grateful that you're on the journey with us and you're part of the company that we get to keep. So thanks again.
Bobby Ott:
You bet. Take care.
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