The Art of Coaching Teams Institute

Last year, I took on a new role at my school and in addition to be a 3rd grade teacher, I was also the Co-Teaching Facilitator. It was fun to be able to work with my colleagues in a new capacity and rewarding to find and provide resources to (hopefully) support them. As part of this role and some hopes for next year, I attended The Art of Coaching Teams Institute through Bright Morning. I had already read and worked with The Art of Coaching by Elena Aguilar and was excited to add The Art of Coaching Teams (also by Elena Aguilar) to my resources bank.

The workshop packed a lot into two days and I especially loved the opportunities to collaborate with others and make what we were learning and discussing relevant to our own work. There was so much to appreciate, but here are a few of my highlights:

• I loved the Cycle of an Emotion (in the photo above). It is so concrete and applies to everyone in almost every situation. We talked about it during the institute as a way to be mindful of our reactions and responses, but I see so many ways to use this graphic. I would love to use it with my third graders - we often talk about how we can’t control our feelings, but we can control what we do about them. It also provides a wonderfully concrete and tangible way of understanding someone else’s perspective when someone does something we don’t particularly appreciate. In a coaching or collaboration situation, I could see it being useful as a way to stop or limit a misunderstanding or conflict instead of lettings things spiral or build.

  • One really important point about the graphic above (Cycle of an Emotion) is that our interpretation is colored by our own unconscious biases and systemic forces in our society. We must acknowledge our own identities and the cultural contexts that influence our interpretations, physical responses, and actions. I really appreciated this lens as I find that I can’t genuinely work on team building without acknowledging (and hopefully challenging!) these forces as part of all of our interactions.

Another aspect of the institute I really appreciated was the focus on emotional intelligence and how developing the emotional intelligence of a team is crucial to effective collaboration. If you ignore emotions or tension in a group, so much energy will go toward avoiding or managing that tension. But if you have a group that excels at understanding and taking care of each other, they will be able to communicate well, have healthy conflict, and work well together. As the slide above reminds us, “when people feel good, they work at their best.” This is also a really important reminder to take care of yourself. You can’t be a good teacher (or friend, sibling, etc) if you aren’t in a good place. It takes so much emotional energy to be unhappy, frustrated, stressed, or upset. 

• One of the strategies for leading more inclusive teams was to encourage storytelling as it builds connections. I always love any reminders of the significance and transformative effects of storytelling. It is such a wonderful way for people to become more connected to each other and to find common threads in our stories to help us understand what we are working toward. Stories remind us of our shared humanity. Even though I don’t teach a full formal storytelling unit anymore, I use storytelling in my teaching all the time. When starting a new unit or sharing a new concept, ask for stories about this idea, emotion, or experience in people’s lives. They will be far more prepared to engage afterward and will feel more connected to anyone whose story they shared.

• And finally, always go back to purpose! This sounds basic, but it is so crucial. A clear purpose provides clarity and focus, increases motivation, and can help uphold the larger mission, goals, or vision of an organization, classroom, or community. When I share a purpose of what we are learning or working on with my students, they are more engaged. Even when someone might disagree with your purpose, sharing it is powerful.

I hope some of these reminders are helpful (and that you get a chance to check out some of Bright Morning’s resources!) What are some important reminders or must-do’s for you when working in or leading a team?

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Capital Area Progressive Schools!

Last month, I had the opportunity to present at the Capital Area Progressive Schools (CAPS) Conference! The theme of the conference was Responsive Practice: Diversity, Equity, and Differentiation. This conference takes place every two years and all CAPS members faculty and staff are invited to join. This year, my school had the day off for students so everyone could attend and it seemed like most other schools did so as well. It was so lovely that so many schools were able to do this so we had so many other teachers (and faculty and staff) to meet! Coming from a small school with only one class per grade, it’s always very exciting to have a chance to talk to other 3rd grade teachers.

My (new) co-teacher and I presented our What continent do you think they are from? drawing humans activity that Gabby and I designed as part of our 3rd grade geography curriculum. We use this activity to open our students’ eyes to the reality of the entire world out there (as opposed to only North America and maybe Europe) as well as their internalized biases (and of course, so much more!). We read a description of a human being, ask them to draw this human using only crayons, and then write down what continent they think this person is from.

This was only the second time I’ve done this activity with adults, and really enjoyed the discussion and questions from our audience. We had a smaller group than we anticipated so we were able to open up discussion as we went along and ask people to share out instead of only sharing in a small group. It was fascinating hearing about different thought processes and how, as adults, we become instantly aware of our implicit biases and what it felt like to try to challenge them.

We had a very interesting discussion about application or adaptation of this activity for pre-kindergarten aged students, interdisciplinary or subject specific use in middle school classrooms, and talked about Science applications and generally beginning the dismantling or challenging of stereotypes when starting a new unit of study. At our school, we’ve been fortunate to work closely with the Kindergarten and First Grade teachers who are engaging in social justice work in their classrooms as well, and were responsive to the needs we communicated based on the work we were doing in Fifth Grade, so we shared some of the activities they do as well.

One part of this activity that I really love is asking participants to write down what continent they think someone is from! Many of the adults at our workshop found that they were able to be mindful of their own first instincts around race or gender when drawing humans, but the continent twist surprised them and made them ask: why is it that we always think of Europeans and North Americans? What does this mean for our classrooms and the voices and faces we need to highlight?

Later in the day, I went to a roundtable discussion about continuing diversity, equity, and inclusion work a few years in and how to keep moving after the initial momentum from starting out (as an institution or as staff/faculty at an institution. It was helpful hearing about work at other schools and problems, reactions and possible solutions that have come up.

Some of my other takeaways and valuable reminders included:

• I love the idea of a cultural competency checklist as a place to start with all faculty and staff - it really underscores the idea that we all are commiting to this important work and all have something to bring or work on.

• One school had everyone fill out an inventory detailing who they spend most of their time with, who their friends are, and who they are comfortable with as a concrete way for people to understand why certain spaces might feel more or less natural or customary for them

• One share involved someone explaining that there was a wide disparity of how people were experiencing the school and different ways they tried to make people understand that

• Progressive schools are grounded in relationships so everyone’s experience matters!

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Presenting at NCTE

Late last month, I had the honor of participating on a panel presentation at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual convention. I was sharing details about our beloved storytelling unit on a panel about cultural relevancy, the arts, and student voice! I was lucky to be paired up with an excellent co-presenter (the panel ended up just being the two of us!) and loved sharing details about what still is one of my favorite units to teach.

I was originally slated to be on a panel with four other people, but as it worked out, only two of us were able to present. We were both able to share more details about our work and had more time for questions (which is often my favorite part). Not surprisingly, the highlight of my presentation really was the video of a student performance from our Final Stage show where every single one of our students performed a true story about their life.

Other things I loved presenting about: Anne Thomas, who was our guest speaker/storyteller and introduced the concept of storytelling as a performance with her story, Burden No More, how we used both Story District and StoryCorps as resources, the incredibly valuable tie in to social emotional learning as stories help us both understand ourselves and learn from each other, and how I wish Jacqueline Woodson’s amazing new picture book, The Day You Begin, existed when we were teaching this unit.

I truly loved seeing how the audience responded to my student’s story. I spoke about the bares bones of the unit, why it was transformative, student quotes, and resources and ideas, but the student video was far more powerful than anything I said! I also was asked many great questions about how to use storytelling with preservice teachers and adults in general. There was a lot of engagement with the idea of storytelling as validation of less prominent stories or voices, and connections to other cultures with oral history traditions (especially Native Americans and tribes fighting for state and/or federal recognition).

It was also amazing to be around so many teachers of English (and authors! And readers!)! I enjoyed all the nerdy, literary, and punny shirts and tote bags and just general love for books and authentic literacy opportunities. Thank you to my wonderful co-presenter, our audience, and all the other educators I was lucky enough to meet at NCTE!

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Creating Our Class Contract!

As we near the end of October and my school has its Fall round of conferences with families, I was recently pleased to notice how many of my students use the language of our class contract (rules for our class) in their reflections about how the year is going for them. Creating our contract was a multi-step process starting with a read aloud and ending with a signed contract and accompanying art projects (and of course a shared understanding about the kind of community we want to create).

We started with a read aloud (always a wonderful place to start!). Our first chapter book read aloud of the year is Save Me a Seat by Gita Varadarajan and Sarah Weeks. We read a few chapters and a day and do a variety of responses to our reading to help us empathize with the characters. The main characters’ negative experiences at school provide a contrast as we think about how we want to make each other feel at school.

However, to specifically start our conversation about our class contract (and community) we read The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael Lopez. (This is a new picture book and it is gorgeous! We highly encourage you to read it yourself.) After we read this book, we ask students what we should have on our contract to make sure everyone feels welcome to share their stories and be themselves in our class. We also remind students of their Hopes and Dreams (which we created a few days before) and think about what we need in our classroom to make these come true.

Next, students brainstormed in pairs about their ideas for the class contract. Then, they had time to work independently and wrote down a few of their ideas on a notecard. We reminded students to make positive statements (tell what we should do) and think about the most important things to include.

The next step is to filter the ideas down to bigger ideas so that everyone’s contribution is included, but we also don’t have a contract with 50 rules! We try to show students our process so it is transparent. We do this by listing the final statements we came up with in bold and sorting all of our students’ suggestions under the relevant statement. For example, don’t be territorial went under “know your place.”

The final version of our class contract!

We ended up with 5 statements. The final number of statements can be more or less depending on your students’ ages, but 5 statements are comprehensive enough to cover everything and brief enough to easily remember. We should also mention that this process is Responsive Classroom inspired!

Our final step was sharing our final contract. Everyone in our class signed it (in fancy metallic Sharpie!) to show their commitment to upholding it. When we say everyone, this includes other adults in the building! We also asked students to think about what the contract means to them and pick at least one component of our contract to exemplify through art. They could use foil, popsicle sticks, paper, glue, markers, crayons, and more (really anything we had in the room). Students worked hard to conceptualize something that was important to them from the contract, and we took photos of them with their finished products. Now, our contract and all of our artwork graces a wall in our classroom!

All year, we keep going back to the same language that is in our contract. We notice when we are following it, when we could follow it better, use it to redirect students, use it in our Morning Message, use it on our conference prep social emotional reflection, and more!

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NPS Diversity Institute!

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the National Presbyterian School Diversity Institute featuring Rosetta Lee. I first encountered Rosetta when we were both presenting (about microaggressions) at the Asian Educators Alliance in 2016, and have been a big fan ever since! I also loved attending a local conference and meeting many early childhood educators who also work in the DC Metro area.

There were so many things to love about this institute. I especially appreciated being able to attend a session for early childhood (PK-3rd) educators, as so many diversity or social justice workshops seem to be geared for middle school and up. There is nothing like being surrounded by early childhood social justice educators to make you feel vindicated for all the times you insisted that third graders (or even fifth graders) are most definitely NOT “too young for this work!”

I also was so grateful for flexible collaborative work time on the second day of the institute and the emphasis on teacher voices and practice. I often attend professional development opportunities and then struggle to find the time to apply what I learned to my own practice, but this institute gave us time and resources to do so by allowing us to work together on our own (or collaborative) projects, questions, or ideas.

Some things I am still thinking about:

• Rosetta’s explanation that we should talk about cultural competency as the ability to do your best work with people who are not you and how it has to start with your own cultural self awareness. I will absolutely use this with families and love how clear, simple, logical, and true it is!

• Jones Model of Cultural Competence: you will never “get there” because it is iterative! The question you should ask yourself is not “are you there yet?” but “are you moving?”

• 6 month olds demonstrate an awareness of race - it is developmentally appropriate to talk about race with young students and sharing counter messages to stereotypes is actually essential before they learn bias from the world around them.

• How wonderfully practical prompts, advice, and tips from the day were. I especially loved the discussion about how to partner with and support families as there were many concrete examples (also from the audience of educators!).

• This incredibly helpful Inclusive Classroom Practices resource Rosetta shared. I hope to use it all this year and ask questions like:

  • Are these in place in my classroom? In my school?

  • Are they in place for students and teachers?

  • What about non-teaching staff?

  • What (relatively) immediate changes can I make in my classroom to be more inclusive?

  • How can I counter my own biases?

I also had a wonderful discussion about thematic Social Studies and how instead of memorizing facts or studying ancient civilizations without any connection to today, we should look for the why in history and think critically about the world around us. I loved brainstorming with other teachers about why is Social Studies so tricky?! I especially appreciated this reminder as I am working on fine tuning our Geography curriculum this summer (and remembering it will always continue to change harkening back to the “are you moving?” question!).

Two last reminders of amazing resources (I hope you are already familiar with them, as I was, but it never hurts to remember how useful and important they are): Teaching Tolerance Anti Bias standards and GLSEN Resources for Educators.

Please comment below with any other resources you use to help you keep moving as an anti-bias educator  - we'd love to hear from you!

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Facilitating at the Asian Educators Alliance Conference

Last week, I was fortunate enough to facilitate a workshop at the Asian Educators Alliance (AsEA) Conference here in Washington, DC! I presented a workshop titled Rebranding Microaggressions: Otherizing and Marginalization at the AsEA Conference in Berkeley, CA in 2016, so it was wonderful to be back and connect with so many amazing educators on the other side of the country (and without even needing to fly anywhere)!

My workshop was titled What Continent Do You Think They Are From: Confronting & Challenging Internalized Stereotypes. I led participants through the drawing humans and guessing what continent they might be from activity that we created for our class as an example of one activity you could use to uncover racial, gender, geographic or other biases. I find that the activity highlights and counteracts internalized stereotypes, assumptions, and bias, and hoped it would provide an introductory point for addressing who is visible and heard in our classrooms and society. Then, I was excited to hear from participants about how the activity is relevant to our/their own experiences, and share ideas and resources for how we try to counteract one-dimensional or limited representation of Asian and Pacific Islander voices in our own communities.

As always, I really enjoyed the discussion as we went through the steps of the drawing humans activity. There were so many excellent questions about the design of the activity. For example, why do we use only crayons? And was the choice of colors of crayons deliberate? How might I have structured the activity differently for younger children? And so many more! It’s also always fascinating to see how differently we all approach the same activity - some people focus on drawing faces, others draw stick figures with props, others try to use the description to guess an actual person and then depict that person (and often write their name). This time around, one of the participants correctly guessed that I was describing Sadiq Khan!

My favorite part, however, is always hearing reflections and reactions. One participant described how she kept thinking of men even though four out of the five people I described were women. Another shared how she tried to think about who would have access to the positions and opportunities I described in different places. I shared how one of my 3rd graders asked, “Why do we only learn about people from North America?” after experiencing this activity and participants reflected on the curricula at their schools and changes they were making or would choose to make if they could.

The conference theme was mobilizing for equity, so I was thrilled to hear from others and garner ideas, inspiration, and support. It is always so enlightening to have time to talk with other teachers and I loved how attendees had traveled from all over the country, worked at many different kinds of schools, worked with students of all ages, and had a variety of roles at their schools, so we really had a variety of perspectives. One aspect of the conference I really appreciated was multiple workshops on leadership roles as representation in administration or positions of power is a key part of mobilizing for equity and advocating for change. I wasn’t able to attend one of those workshops this time around, but I loved the options and appreciate the reminder that representation matters!

Yet another highlight from the conference was reconnecting with Dr. Taharee A. Jackson, who coincidentally had visited our classroom a year ago. She was one of the keynote speakers and told us about her work as a professor of minority and urban education, specifically sharing the results of her research on teacher activists. While there is so much to learn from her (and I can’t wait to read her book that is coming out soon!), I especially took to heart the message that we need to support one another and finding a community of like-minded educators is absolutely ESSENTIAL to keep doing the work we try so hard to do.

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Northwest Teachers for Social Justice: Always Worth the Trip!

We are back in DC and reunited with our 3rd graders, a little wiped, but feeling very grateful. We just returned from the NWTSJ Conference (Northwest Teaching for Social Justice) in Seattle! We were graciously asked to return and do another presentation, and we couldn't pass it up. As we met participants along the way, we frequently got the question, "Wow, DC!? Why did you come all the way here?"  

The answer is simple. We love this conference. The energy is infectious, and we love checking out the hard work of largely West Coast public school educators. The conversations are dynamic and the passion seems neverending.

A few highlights beyond the Seattle fresh air and rain were:

• A workshop about how to teach about the not so distant, painful history of Japanese-American Incarceration. We have been looking for resources for how to make this history more visible and this definitely fueled our thinking.

• A workshop on how to keep Teachers of Color in the profession. Gabby especially enjoyed this workshop and it truly felt like a space to be vulnerable and heal. Longoria (one of the leaders of this workshop) is both brilliant and hilarious. There was a thoughtful conversation about what 'teacher of color' even means and the problems the label perpetuates. There was also a conversation about what 'teacher' means, who we sees as people of knowledge or 'valid' to share and educate our children (many of us receive our first education in our homes/communities/ within our own cultures that are not the dominant one).

• We ran into Bill Bigelow of Rethinking Schools. He was kind and personable and it was exciting to put a face to a name!

• Lunch was also fantastic-- this is just a sidenote, but the two of us really do love food. We were so impressed with how the food line (and entire conference) was run!

As always, we are grateful to the wonderful humans who joined us for a session as well. Participants in our session had many thoughts on their personal reactions to being placed in different groups (representing different amounts of wealth) in our beloved pom pom simulation. After our drawing activity that highlights  Participants also shared about internalized oppressions and where to take a conversation once we've made these stereotypes more tangible. We enjoyed all of the personalities in our group, and want to say another thank you to everyone for rallying with us at the end of a long, but productive day.

We left the conference feeling inspired. We are thinking about how to create this space and energy in DC as we know teachers doing great work here, but we don't have the organization quite yet. We are looking forward to pushing something like this forward with DC Area Educators for Social Justice with Teaching for Change, and potentially other avenues as well. Our brains are also rattling around with questions of what it looks like to organize private school teachers, and in what ways it would be most effective.

If we met you at some point on this quick trip to the West Coast -- thank you and keep on keeping on!

Presenting at the Private Schools for Public Purpose Conference

We had the pleasure of visiting GDS High School and attending the Private Schools for Public Purpose (PSPP) conference! We presented some experiential learning activities we do in our 5th grade classroom (two of our favorites, our drawing activity and pom pom simulation, and some new ones like our factory simulation in our Econ 101 unit!), along with how we talk about race and socio-economic status in our classroom. We were privileged to spend our workshop time with thoughtful, justice-oriented educators.

Unlike some other presentations we have done, this space was small and intimate, and we loved getting to hear from everyone and have a dynamic discussion. We heard all about affinity groups, equity work, and innovative programming at other schools.

Our trusty bin of workshop supplies: pom poms, crayons, handouts, and more!

This workshop with awesome, critical thinking educators has left us thinking about:

• How we can avoid students trying to have the “right” answer during our discussion our activity, but not transferring that to their actions outside of the classroom?

• Why do adults consistently ask if we are afraid the white kids will “feel bad”?

  • How do we continue to address the root of this question verbally and through the work we do with students, families, and fellow educators?

• What pushback do we expect from adults?

• The importance of sitting in the discomfort of honest investigation/realization- for example, one question brought up to us by a couple educators in the room was: What do we do with students repeatedly saying they feel "lucky" after an experiential activity or being "grateful" for their circumstances. What does that mean? How do we continue to push them to go beyond the idea of feeling lucky and think more about implications and the structures in place?

• The importance of teaching that race is a construct - in student’s words it means everything and nothing - it’s confusing! Ignoring it won’t make it go away!

Overall thoughts and feelings: It is empowering and rejuvenating to connect with fellow educators at conferences and discuss the complexities of social justice education. While our students were upset (and indignant!) that we would both be gone for the day, they were excited to hear we would be putting adults through some simulations and wanted to know if they get “just as mad” and "how would grown ups act doing the work we do?!" We assured them that adults have even stronger reactions and that adults also have to step up and do this work. They wholeheartedly agreed.

Sending gratitude to everyone we met at PSPP-- Onwards!

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Our workshop at the Capitol Area Progressive Schools Conference

On Friday, we were fortunate to be part of the contingent from our school attending the Capitol Area Progressive Schools (CAPS) conference! The conference was held at another area progressive school and teachers and staff from seven other progressive schools were in attendance. 

We were excited by the prospect of sharing our simulations and curriculum with local schools as the possibility of continued collaboration is so much higher when you are in the same city! Our workshop centered around the social justice work in our classroom, with participants actually experiencing two activities we created ourselves: our drawing activity that highlights internalized stereotypes and our pom pom simulation. 

As always, our participants brought their own unique perspectives, responses, and reactions to our activities. During the drawing simulation, multiple people mentioned they were consciously trying to "resist stereotypes," which is an illuminating exercise on its own.

Round 1: collecting pom poms (wealth and power)!

During the pom pom simulation, one participant interpreted her instructions for collecting pom poms her own way to make sure she was successful (and she did end up in Group 1!), while others noted how quickly they decided that one or two pom poms was "enough" to show that they made an effort. Group 1 (the wealthy and powerful) worked together creatively during Round 2 (making "baskets" of paper balls to increase your group's wealth) to put all of their paper in the basket, and then sat down to be out of the way so the two other groups could continue to try to gain more wealth. After a few seconds sitting down, one of them realized that by standing at their line they were blocking the other groups, so he stood up again to get in the other groups' way! One of his group members quickly joined him. They reflected afterward how as soon as one other person acts, it gives you the opportunity to follow without worrying what others will think of you.

Round 2: Earning more pom poms as a group! Group 1 is sitting down at this point..

While the group dynamics and self-realizations were (and always are) fascinating, we also had a productive discussion about how this is applied in our classroom and how it could be applied in other situations. One teacher asked about how to support students who are in the minority so they feel like part of the discussion, but not targets of the discussion. We talked about checking in with certain students before or afterward, and having everyone respond to prompts about their own experiences (and NOT their classmates'). Another participant asked about how to modify these activities for younger students, which is something I have always thought about as a former first and second grade teacher! My initial ideas were making the drawing activity into more of a story or narrative (without providing details related to gender, race, background) and asking the students what they imagined or "knew" about the character in the story or having the students illustrate the story and compare their illustrations. Simulations can be confusing or misleading for very young children, so the pom pom simulation would need to be rewritten and crafted in a less abstract way.

We also now have two potential visitors to our classroom! We are hoping to welcome them sometime this school year. They also invited us to visit their schools. We are excited to see them at work and hear more about the things they are trying out in their classrooms.

I also attended a workshop about incorporating debates into the classroom. Our students really synthesized their learning after our Columbus Day debates, so I loved the suggestions of using debate to analyze characters and engage with literature.  Stay tuned as we will be trying this out soon!

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Presenting at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference

We went to beautiful Portland, Oregon to present at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice conference (NWTSJ). This conference is unique in that it is organized BY teachers and mainly run by volunteers. It was our first time in Portland and at this conference, and we were loved both (the sun even came out specially for our visit)!

The keynote speaker, Kevin Kumashiro, Dean of the University of San Francisco School of Education, reminded us that education is a social movement and the purpose of a social movement is to change the status quo and the dominant or “common sense” way of thinking. His rhetoric around “common sense” resonated with us as we often tell our students that saying something is obvious or common is NOT an argument. Historically, it was “obvious” (to those in power) for a long time that white men were superior. It also speaks to the relevance of identity and position - once you locate yourself, it’s much more clear why something that is obvious to you does not seem to be “common sense” for others.

Our workshop was entitled: Classroom simulations to confront privilege and internalized stereotypes. We love simulations and were excited to introduce two that we created to other teachers!  The best way to do this, of course, was to have our workshop attendees experience the simulations themselves so they would know best how to adapt the activities for their classrooms and students.

Our first activity involved reading a description of a human and giving our attendees one minute to draw who they visualized in their mind upon hearing that description. We flew across the country with 40+ baggies of crayons so people could draw in color! Despite how unexpectedly heavy that many crayons can make a suitcase, we would do it again. People were forced to decide what skin color the person they were drawing would have instead of avoiding the issue by drawing in pencil or pen.

The reflections and discussion from this activity were fascinating. Someone asked how many people drew 3 or more women (out of 6 people total). Less than half of the room raised their hands. Many people reported trying to “fight” their impulses to immediately go to a dominant or stereotypical idea (for example, a basketball player is black and male), but were still aware of where their minds went first. This cognitive dissonance seems to be articulated more by adults as children usually just confidently forge ahead.

Next, we led participants through our beloved pompom simulation that we created to teach our students about privilege and systemic poverty and oppression. In this activity, pompoms simulate wealth and power and participants learn about and feel the effects of privilege as they go through three rounds of opportunities to earn and distribute “wealth” (pompoms). Since space was tight, we actually did Round 1 (collecting pompoms) in the hall! Attendees were given slips of paper with instructions ranging from “You can use your hands and move around in your normal fashion” to “You may only use your two pointer fingers behind your back.”

As you can see, participants jumped right in! A few people worked together, and - this was a first - one person even ended up in Group 1 (great wealth and power from many pompoms) because he said he wasn’t allowed to move his feet so everyone around him helped him! He later admitted he felt a little guilty for profiting from help to move into the exclusive Group 1 and in Round 2, helped the other two groups make “baskets” by having them pass their paper balls up so he could put them in the basket for them! He made the connection to tokenism and our conversation could have gone there for the rest of the session!

Our attendees level of helping each other and working together was something we have seen very little of when we’ve done this activity in the past (both with children and adults). One participant said she felt that she didn’t “earn” the pompoms when someone gave them to her so she felt that voting to redistribute them didn’t appeal to her as it would be less than satisfying. Members of Group 3 (least amount of pompoms) noted how quickly they felt marginalized and cast aside. One person said she immediately felt de-prioritized when I didn’t even write “Group 3” on the board, as it was just “everyone else.” Others noted how their behavior was influenced by knowing that they were at a social justice conference and not wanting to look “bad” by being too competitive! As always, it was wonderful to hear reactions and thoughts about the reflections and responses we hear from our students.

One important reminder that came out of our workshop was how fortunate we are to be teaching at an independent school where we have a lot of freedom over our curriculum and activities as well as the support of our administration. Many of our workshop participants were public school teachers with less autonomy over curriculum and teaching methods and it was inspiring to hear how they forge ahead anyway. We also received some great suggestions and ideas about how to extend our simulations and connect student experiences to learning in other ways.

We are feeling refreshed, energized, and enthusiastic about continuing this work and collaborating with other educators!  Some questions we were asked that we are still pondering include:

• How do we make sure that students understand these systems of oppression hurt all of us?

• How can this work be done different contexts (public schools or schools less flexible curriculum mandates)?

Please share your thoughts, comments, and questions below!  We want to hear from you.  Let's stay connected.

 

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Student-Led Conferences (and why we love them)

That's right! The kids are in charge!

We recently had two days of conferences with students and their families. Our favorite parts about student-led conferences are below. We share about these because while we know that not all schools have space for this type of set up with the official parent conferences, student-led conferences can also be done within your classroom as a way of checking in. They can confer with just you, or confer/present in small groups with you, as well. There are so many ways to utilize the format.

Here are some key takeaway pieces about student-led conferences that we love:

• While we provide (especially at the beginning of the year) support and graphic organizers etc.. students begin practicing the essential life and student skill of REFLECTION.

• Students also build off of this reflection (looking at their work, thinking about themselves as students) to build GOALS for themselves. These are written down, tangible, and something both the student and teacher (and families) can refer back to throughout the year.

• Students are reminded (especially in this day and age) that THEY are in charge. They are at school to learn, these conferences are for them, and the work they put into school and understanding themselves as learners.. Is for them! While this sounds straightforward we have repeatedly found this to be an important reminder for our students and our families. As wise as 5th graders are, we all need a reminder sometimes (even as teachers/employees) that we are in charge of a large portion of our experiences and we can decide accordingly how we want to navigate that adventure.

• Students get to shine. While we would love to be able to sit and chat with every student every day about their learning in great depth, we often don't have the time during regular class! This specific student-centered space gives us an opportunity to see each student for who they are as people, learners, and to hear what they are working on. In turn, they each get some solo stage time to receive positive attention and validation for their critical thinking and hard work! It also gives us the space to see how they are verbalizing what they have learned. It is another great form of assessment without having students take a test or quiz. We have learned a TON about our students in the past based off what they do and do not share.

• It's fun!

(If you're still not convinced on the fun-factor maybe you missed the awesome young person in the gif at the top. Here it is again in case you missed it).

Helpful Resources for getting started:

Edutopia: Student-Led Conferences: Empowerment and Ownership

Responsive Classroom: Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences Keep the Focus on the Child

How do you all set up spaces and spots for students to shine? What does conferring look like for you?

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