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Intentionality v. Fidelity to Curriculum
18 Plays2 years ago
Join Rafa and Emily as they talk about curriculum, what it is, what fidelity often means in education, and what intentionality can mean.
As always, e-mail us at pedagogyofthedistressed@gmail.com!
Abrazos,
Emily y Rafa
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Transcript
Introduction and Feedback
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, Emily.
00:00:02
Speaker
Hi, Rafa.
00:00:03
Speaker
How are you?
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm doing well.
00:00:06
Speaker
It's Saturday, January 7th, and I'm happy to be chatting with you again.
00:00:11
Speaker
I think it's been almost a month since we last spoke.
00:00:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:15
Speaker
How are you?
00:00:18
Speaker
I will say that I was very excited about that we got our first podcast out.
00:00:22
Speaker
I think we got a lot of good feedback from our first podcast.
00:00:27
Speaker
podcast, we wanted to start kind of unpacking some of our reflections in the month since we recorded.
Challenges in Public School Teaching
00:00:37
Speaker
Inevitably, people like my mom and my husband both listened to it.
00:00:41
Speaker
I think at least two people listened to it.
00:00:45
Speaker
And
00:00:46
Speaker
More than two people listen to it according to the metric.
00:00:49
Speaker
That's true.
00:00:50
Speaker
That's true.
00:00:51
Speaker
And we did get some good thoughts and I continued just like thinking about, you know, what, especially for people who might not be familiar with what it's like to be a classroom teacher in a public school, some things that like we could elaborate on and do more of.
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:11
Speaker
one of those things that came out was kind of talking about what it was like to teach a canned curriculum period or a curriculum period.
Fidelity to Curriculum: Concepts and Critiques
00:01:24
Speaker
A lot of like what I was reflecting on after was like,
00:01:28
Speaker
you know, maybe a lot of ed reporters just aren't as aware or don't know what it's like to be a classroom teacher in a public school where these curriculum companies and professional development companies really prey on these schools and sell solutions.
00:01:45
Speaker
It feels very predatory.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's very predatory.
00:01:47
Speaker
It feels very predatory, at least from my perspective from being in public schools as well.
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, and what Rafa pointed out was that a key aspect of this that really traps a lot of teachers and becomes a self-fulfilling kind of prophecy of failure, if you...
00:02:03
Speaker
don't adhere exactly as the curriculum says you should teach.
00:02:10
Speaker
There's this idea of fidelity that a lot of teachers are held to when they're teaching a curriculum that they're handed.
00:02:16
Speaker
And we're going to unpack that idea of fidelity and what it means to be fidelitous.
00:02:22
Speaker
I never know.
00:02:23
Speaker
I've had the hardest time.
00:02:24
Speaker
What do you say?
00:02:26
Speaker
Faithful.
00:02:26
Speaker
It's faithful.
00:02:27
Speaker
Faithful?
00:02:28
Speaker
You went to CCD.
00:02:34
Speaker
With me.
00:02:36
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah, we did.
00:02:40
Speaker
We did.
00:02:40
Speaker
We did go to CCD together.
00:02:42
Speaker
We learned a lot about faith and fidelity there.
00:02:46
Speaker
Chastity and all the virtues.
00:02:49
Speaker
Oh, girl.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker
Now we're bad Catholics.
00:02:53
Speaker
Bad, bad.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
I have complex feelings about that as well, which we may or may not get into.
00:03:00
Speaker
But yeah, I was thinking that
Critical Thinking and Diverse Teaching Methods
00:03:03
Speaker
I would love to model what we would like to see more in schools, which is reflection on practice, on thinking, and then turning that into extension into changed thinking or practice.
00:03:16
Speaker
So, I mean, even as you listen to this person listening, beautiful person listening, you know, why are you listening to this?
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:25
Speaker
And if you haven't listened to the first episode, feel free to.
00:03:27
Speaker
We talked a lot about science of reading and all that jazz.
00:03:31
Speaker
And, um, I do have some more thoughts and reflection on the last episode on that, especially just being clear about there's, there are so many ways to teach and what we really want to dig into is, uh,
00:03:47
Speaker
how might teachers and schools and systems be structured in such a way that people can be allowed to think critically about whatever they're working with and to have that time to pause and reflect.
00:04:01
Speaker
Because often we go from action to doing, action to doing, and not really deeper reflection of like,
00:04:09
Speaker
what's the purpose of education and how does that connect to the practice in my classroom?
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:13
Speaker
Which is really what I feel is needed and what's important to our practice.
Intentionality vs. Fidelity in Education
00:04:18
Speaker
So yeah, a little reflection, I guess, on the last episode.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:23
Speaker
And do you have any other reflections you want to talk about?
00:04:25
Speaker
No, just that like, you know, I...
00:04:29
Speaker
I was worried after it came out.
00:04:30
Speaker
I don't want to be coming down too hard on science of reading and shaming anyone or acting like I have that answer.
00:04:39
Speaker
I think the point that we want, like you were saying, to make is that there is no answer.
00:04:45
Speaker
There's no best solution for how to teach all children.
00:04:51
Speaker
Sometimes a really direct, explicit phonics approach is best for early readers and other times...
00:04:57
Speaker
different approach like teaching whole word recognition works for kids.
00:05:00
Speaker
And I've, you know, I think that's what nuance gets lost when we talk about a lot of ed reporting that we want to speak to in our podcast.
00:05:09
Speaker
So I'm excited today to unpack further.
00:05:12
Speaker
And I think
00:05:13
Speaker
when we're talking about our topic for today, we'll touch back on things that came up in the first episode and, um, yeah.
00:05:20
Speaker
Um, and we think the most useful thing can really be to speak from our practice and give examples to the listener of like what we're talking about.
00:05:27
Speaker
So we're going to unpack two terms today.
00:05:30
Speaker
Um, one that's kind of an antidote to the other, um,
00:05:35
Speaker
starting with talking about this idea of fidelity and what that means in the classroom, specifically with curriculum.
00:05:42
Speaker
And then we're going to move into a discussion about what Rafa posed.
00:05:45
Speaker
He came up with this beautiful idea of rather than fidelity, thinking about intentionality as a teacher.
00:05:50
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:05:52
Speaker
So Rafa, I thought we could start because I talked at you a lot last time and I'll still talk, let's be real, but.
00:05:59
Speaker
I can't wait.
00:06:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:03
Speaker
But I would love to hear this idea of fidelity is something I really heard about from you more in my ed journey early on because I wasn't in public school classrooms initially.
00:06:15
Speaker
I was in community-based spaces where I was writing my own curriculum.
00:06:19
Speaker
We weren't really using like a box curriculum that I had to follow with really strict adherence.
00:06:25
Speaker
So I would love to know what is fidelity to you?
00:06:29
Speaker
How has it shown up to you in your practice?
00:06:31
Speaker
Can you speak a little to that?
00:06:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:34
Speaker
Well, I want to talk a little bit about the word.
00:06:38
Speaker
So as I previously mentioned, Emily and I both went to CCD together, which for those who don't know is like, what does it stand for?
00:06:45
Speaker
Catholic Christian.
00:06:46
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:06:46
Speaker
Is there catechism in there?
00:06:47
Speaker
I don't know.
00:06:48
Speaker
Catechism.
00:06:49
Speaker
Catechism.
00:06:50
Speaker
Basically I grew up Mexican Roman Catholic.
00:06:53
Speaker
I don't know.
00:06:55
Speaker
And they wanted us to learn more about Catholicism and all that.
00:06:58
Speaker
And so we went to CCD all through our childhood.
00:07:02
Speaker
And yes, this idea of, I guess fidelity is a word that has a very religious connotation to me.
00:07:09
Speaker
So it's very interesting.
00:07:10
Speaker
That's interesting.
00:07:10
Speaker
That it's used so often.
00:07:14
Speaker
And has been used so often when talking about curriculum and
00:07:18
Speaker
I have thoughts about that.
00:07:20
Speaker
I think one thought I have is, I think there's this idea of you're not faithful.
00:07:25
Speaker
The analogous thing would be like you're sinning or in a sense, you're not doing the right thing, period.
00:07:30
Speaker
So it really removes a lot of ambiguity and you're bad and you're bad.
00:07:35
Speaker
Exactly.
00:07:36
Speaker
And so I really think that that word charges a lot of the conversation when it comes to teaching curriculum and
00:07:45
Speaker
uh i think on the surface it makes sense just do the curriculum in order but it gets really messy when you know what is the line between you know the lesson says to teach math this way with this graphic organizer called a number bond which is basically three circles sometimes i mean this is one version of a number bond three circles let's say there's a 10 on top and it's connected with a five and a five showing there's two parts in the 10 right
00:08:10
Speaker
But what if that's a little too abstract right now, right?
00:08:13
Speaker
And the lesson doesn't call for using more concrete materials, but you want to.
00:08:18
Speaker
Are you being unfaithful to the curriculum?
00:08:22
Speaker
And I think how it's shown up for me is I've been told when I'm struggling in the past with, I don't know, my data doesn't come out as well for how the kids are doing on a test while you're faithful to the curriculum.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:39
Speaker
And it's like, well, I did this, but I changed this for this reason.
00:08:41
Speaker
And so it's like, oh, you weren't faithful enough.
00:08:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:44
Speaker
You don't get better scores again.
00:08:47
Speaker
It's like, were you faithful to curriculum?
00:08:48
Speaker
Yes.
00:08:49
Speaker
Oh, well, you didn't really modify to meet the needs of your kids.
00:08:52
Speaker
So both ways, it's all about you and not about
00:08:57
Speaker
The bigger issue, which is this whole idea of kids learn and people learning linearly, like denying the ambiguity that is learning.
00:09:05
Speaker
I think that's a huge thing with it denies that learning is ambiguous.
00:09:10
Speaker
How it happens is nonlinear.
00:09:12
Speaker
you know, thoughts that you, you seed months ago or seeded a new month ago, sprout months later.
00:09:18
Speaker
So yeah, I think this idea of fidelity is really controlling and does not come from a place of genuine curiosity or wanting to understand context.
00:09:29
Speaker
It comes, it's just a convenient way to sell products, frankly.
00:09:33
Speaker
Because yeah,
00:09:37
Speaker
that's the selling point, right?
00:09:39
Speaker
And if, again, if a curriculum is implemented and the data doesn't do that well and it's blamed on fidelity or lack of fidelity, it makes it really hard to critique curriculum, right?
00:09:55
Speaker
So that's in summary a little bit of my journey
Curriculum Misconceptions and Commercialization
00:09:59
Speaker
with it.
00:09:59
Speaker
I'm going to wind it back a little bit because I'm thinking some people in the audience, like for me,
00:10:05
Speaker
Before I really, I don't know, before I started teaching, I didn't really even understand what curriculum was, you know?
00:10:13
Speaker
And maybe we can just wind back and just give a quick definition of curriculum and just so people know what we're talking about because –
00:10:21
Speaker
It's one of those things we don't define.
00:10:22
Speaker
And I was surprised when... I understood curriculum when I started teaching just to be a general course of study.
00:10:29
Speaker
It doesn't have to be a book.
00:10:30
Speaker
It doesn't have to be something you buy.
00:10:32
Speaker
It's just something... Your course of study, basically.
00:10:35
Speaker
Like how you're going to end up with the objectives for your learning course.
00:10:39
Speaker
So for me as an ESL teacher, I taught adult ESOL.
00:10:43
Speaker
That was one of my first early jobs.
00:10:46
Speaker
Our curriculum was just like...
00:10:48
Speaker
We had different thematic units that kind of had different language learning goals that were in the purpose of teaching people who didn't know English, English.
00:10:58
Speaker
And yeah, in curriculum rather than like daily lesson plans, it's like the arc of your learning, right?
00:11:04
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:06
Speaker
And so I'm thinking that – one of the biggest shocks to me was when I got to public school, teachers thought curricula was synonymous with something that was handed to them.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to say that tends to be –
00:11:22
Speaker
and they would bemoan like some people were like we didn't even have a curriculum last year and we didn't you know it's like so many teachers are so disempowered um that they even in though in a lot of teacher ed programs you're taught how to build your own curriculum you're taught how to make your own lesson plans not from a framework even you're expected to come up scratch and that's part of the art of teaching um and maybe you use standards to guide you right the common core state standards are meant to guide
00:11:50
Speaker
curriculum development theoretically so that people can create their own curriculum but have some general guide that everyone's working toward.
00:11:59
Speaker
But the Common Core doesn't stipulate how you arrive at those standards.
00:12:02
Speaker
It's just that you should
00:12:05
Speaker
all students should meet the grade standards by like the end of their grade.
00:12:10
Speaker
Right.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:11
Speaker
Anyway, so that's just curriculum.
00:12:13
Speaker
So it gets confused.
00:12:14
Speaker
It's not necessarily a boxed pre-made thing.
00:12:18
Speaker
A lot of teachers historically have made their own curricula.
00:12:20
Speaker
Some just like in Providence where I taught teachers used to like district level would get together and make a curriculum for students.
00:12:27
Speaker
you know, English, math, and they might use books and research as guides, but it wasn't always, it's not necessary that you depend on an outside source to provide that for you.
00:12:42
Speaker
And in recent years, what was touched on in the science of reading curriculum, or sorry, science of reading podcast is that there are a lot of people, professors, professors,
00:12:53
Speaker
independent scholars who develop curriculum and sell them to schools.
00:12:59
Speaker
And so what Rafa was talking about, what I heard you talk about was it sounds like you were handed a lot of curriculum.
00:13:05
Speaker
Were you handed a lot of curricula or were you being accused of not being faithful to curriculum you made?
00:13:15
Speaker
What was the situation?
00:13:17
Speaker
Not following the sequence of a curriculum that I was given.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:22
Speaker
I think you brought up a lot of interesting points.
00:13:29
Speaker
I liked your phrasing of an arc of learning as a very general idea of curriculum.
00:13:34
Speaker
I mean, even the team at Mi Casita co-create curriculum with kids, and we call it a community emergent pedagogy.
00:13:45
Speaker
So curriculum, you're right, can mean many different things.
00:13:47
Speaker
So yeah, when I think of fidelity to curriculum, I'm thinking of this idea of being following to the T a curriculum that you were handed.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:13:59
Speaker
And told to follow.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:01
Speaker
And I think what you were touching on is something, if I talk concretely about my experience too, when I first encountered Fidelity, it was when I started teaching in a public school after years of working in community spaces, again, where I had a lot of control over my own development of my curriculum and
00:14:21
Speaker
we evaluated our effectiveness of the curriculum as a team.
00:14:25
Speaker
You know, we didn't really even use, and a lot of spaces I didn't use a formal test or like standardized tests to measure student learning.
00:14:32
Speaker
We just did holistic assessment, which is looking at holistic assessments.
00:14:37
Speaker
When you look at all student work and you look at their progression of learning over time and are they meeting the goals that they set out for themselves that we set out for them.
00:14:46
Speaker
Right.
00:14:47
Speaker
Um,
00:14:48
Speaker
And that's very different from how public schools assess themselves and develop curriculum.
00:14:55
Speaker
Because most public schools, I don't know, I shouldn't say most public schools because I don't have a statistic for this, but a lot of public schools and a lot of charters, I mean, charters are public, but a lot of schools, I'll just say, buy curriculum.
00:15:08
Speaker
They're sold by these scholars that I mentioned and sometimes not even scholars, sometimes just people who boxed a curriculum, made a curriculum and are really good at selling it.
00:15:17
Speaker
A lot of these people are business people before they're frankly scholars and they're more interested in getting out this curriculum to as many schools as possible to make the most money.
00:15:27
Speaker
That's the kind of down of it.
00:15:30
Speaker
And what Ralph was getting at, that like self-eating snake kind of thing of like where fidelity comes in, is they always say you have to follow, not always, I should say like the strictest, most canned programs.
00:15:43
Speaker
You have to follow exactly what they do.
Impact of Strict Curriculum Adherence
00:15:46
Speaker
Some curricula that are sold and marketed are frameworks and they're not meant to be giving daily lesson plans with scripts.
00:15:54
Speaker
But a lot of public schools do buy these scripted.
00:15:57
Speaker
Make them.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:59
Speaker
And.
00:16:00
Speaker
Well, they make them into that many times.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:03
Speaker
I can't tell you the numbers.
00:16:05
Speaker
I know.
00:16:06
Speaker
That was where I came up with it.
00:16:07
Speaker
It was really interesting.
00:16:08
Speaker
They implemented a new curriculum.
00:16:10
Speaker
The first year I started teaching middle school in Providence and this curriculum was
00:16:15
Speaker
To me, I had gone and got my PhD in what in other places is curriculum and instruction at my school.
00:16:20
Speaker
It wasn't.
00:16:21
Speaker
It was reading, writing, literacy.
00:16:23
Speaker
And I just like come fresh out of this like PhD program.
00:16:26
Speaker
You know, I did the backwards thing for some reason, going back to teaching school with your PhD.
00:16:30
Speaker
A girl knows what she's doing.
00:16:31
Speaker
Yeah, I do.
00:16:32
Speaker
But nobody cared.
00:16:33
Speaker
Not at that school.
00:16:35
Speaker
Wait, I do and nobody care.
00:16:39
Speaker
That happens so often to me as well.
00:16:41
Speaker
Anyway, I just felt bad statement.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, okay, I guess I don't know.
00:16:45
Speaker
But when I was getting... Never mind.
00:16:48
Speaker
Another thing that comes with these pre-made curricula is lots of training that is very expensive because...
00:17:26
Speaker
God, you're hot on this Catholicism parallel.
00:17:29
Speaker
I love it.
00:17:30
Speaker
Sorry, sorry.
00:17:31
Speaker
No, just briefly, I have very complex feelings.
00:17:34
Speaker
I think it's actually very beautiful things.
00:17:35
Speaker
It's another story with my family's embracing of it.
00:17:40
Speaker
But anyway, continue.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah, sorry.
00:17:44
Speaker
I said I wouldn't talk as much and here I go.
00:17:47
Speaker
No, it's fascinating.
00:17:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:49
Speaker
So when I started teaching in Providence, they're rolling out a new curriculum.
00:17:52
Speaker
We had a whole week, I want to say, of training, like half-day trainings or at least multiple four-hour trainings before we even started school that we were paid for, which you might not get paid for in a charter or other schools.
00:18:04
Speaker
But thankfully, I was in a unionized district and we got paid for it.
00:18:10
Speaker
But basically, your training was just getting familiar with these planned units of study.
00:18:16
Speaker
There's always like a philosophy, kind of like an arch arch anchoring main guiding light.
00:18:24
Speaker
And this was what I got trained in was I was an ELA teacher.
00:18:28
Speaker
So it was, you know, basically high volume reading makes for students who are better readers.
00:18:35
Speaker
And so.
00:18:36
Speaker
There was also a very complex leveling system where I had to level every one of my kids.
00:18:42
Speaker
And when you teach middle school, you have four or five sections.
00:18:45
Speaker
And I had, I want to say I had five sections of like 25 kids each that I had to like level, which is like over a hundred kids.
00:18:51
Speaker
And, um, which is crazy in the first like month of school, you have to give them, you have to give them a reading level, but it's not just a test they can take themselves.
00:18:59
Speaker
You have to sit with kids individually.
00:19:01
Speaker
The way you should assess a reader level, you shouldn't just rely on a test.
00:19:05
Speaker
But I found it, for me, being the whole language lady I was, I found it really specific.
00:19:11
Speaker
Whole language lady.
00:19:12
Speaker
And I found it even too narrow the way they assessed students' reading level, but that's beside the point.
00:19:17
Speaker
Anyway, so I just spent this whole training being like, this is so bizarre because in the front matter of these training books, they were taught
00:19:27
Speaker
says it's a framework it says it said it wasn't meant to be treated as something that this is what you should do day one this is what you do day two this is what you do day three you should use certain aspects of the curriculum but they didn't require that you follow every day to the team yeah so for me fidelity didn't even come from the curriculum producers what happened was interesting
00:19:51
Speaker
When it got, when it got implemented in my school, there was a suggested daily act.
00:19:57
Speaker
You know, it's like, this is what you could do on day one down to a script of this is what you could say when you introduce this, blah, blah, blah.
00:20:04
Speaker
Right.
00:20:04
Speaker
And so because there was so much material you had to cover, um,
00:20:09
Speaker
A lot of teachers naturally gravitated towards using that plan.
00:20:12
Speaker
And we also happen to have a very oppressive principal at our school who was very bent on us following this curriculum to a T because it was implemented as a turnaround initiative.
00:20:26
Speaker
It was meant to give all Providence schools the same curriculum.
00:20:31
Speaker
So that if a kid switched from one school to another school, which happened a lot in Providence, because kids moved, they would have the same curriculum.
00:20:40
Speaker
Okay, fine.
00:20:41
Speaker
Because of that, the district was telling us we need to follow the suggested daily plans to a T. And it needs to be followed with fidelity.
00:20:50
Speaker
So it was coming from the district, more almost so than the curriculum people.
00:20:55
Speaker
And when the curriculum people would come through, they would be like, you don't have to teach exactly how it is.
00:20:59
Speaker
And I was like, thank you.
00:21:00
Speaker
I know.
00:21:00
Speaker
Because it doesn't work for everyone.
00:21:02
Speaker
It's like the script isn't going to work for all of you.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:06
Speaker
I was teaching.
00:21:06
Speaker
This was the fall of 2020.
00:21:07
Speaker
So kids, like we were having half.
00:21:10
Speaker
It was half the kids were in class.
00:21:12
Speaker
You know, like total chaos, total chaos, total.
00:21:16
Speaker
So much trauma, so much chaos anyway.
00:21:19
Speaker
But because.
00:21:21
Speaker
And our principal, I should say, was scared that I think on some level, even though she didn't really show this because she was had a very tough exterior, she was scared that if we didn't teach to fidelity, the district who really wanted us to teach fidelity would be upset and we would get in trouble.
00:21:36
Speaker
Even though I know a lot of other middle school principals didn't make their students their teachers.
00:21:40
Speaker
But that's like, I don't need to get that even with my administrator.
00:21:42
Speaker
Just to say that fidelity can be used as a tool of control.
Religious Comparisons and Educational Oppression
00:21:48
Speaker
And that when she went through and saw, it never happened to me.
00:21:52
Speaker
It happened to my colleagues.
00:21:54
Speaker
But the feedback that she often gave people when she would do walkthroughs in their classroom was,
00:22:00
Speaker
It wasn't about are the kids engaged?
00:22:02
Speaker
Sometimes it was.
00:22:04
Speaker
Mostly it was about are you following the curriculum?
00:22:06
Speaker
Are you not?
00:22:07
Speaker
Even if the kids were engaged, if they were having fun, if they weren't doing exactly what they should be doing on the day that it said in the curriculum book, you were a bad teacher.
00:22:17
Speaker
And she wouldn't say that, but that's what it came to do.
00:22:21
Speaker
That's it.
00:22:22
Speaker
You just described it so perfectly.
00:22:24
Speaker
And I like how you describe the structures at play, the district level, and with the principal, and with the walkthroughs, and the control aspect, right?
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
I joke a little bit about the parallels to the institution of the Catholic Church that I grew up in.
00:22:43
Speaker
Again, I want to differentiate that from some beautiful beliefs that are there.
00:22:48
Speaker
But it's inextricable from capitalism and settler colonialism in that sense.
00:22:54
Speaker
Because this idea of fidelity, well, this idea of being faithful to something, not doing it, being shamed, it's almost like being sinning.
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:04
Speaker
And then in a way you could be excommunicated, aka fired.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:09
Speaker
Or shut down.
00:23:10
Speaker
It's arguably the same structure at play with a different name.
00:23:18
Speaker
And it's kind of banana pants, honestly.
00:23:20
Speaker
That is our modern education system.
00:23:22
Speaker
And so...
00:23:23
Speaker
And what's banana pants to me is a lot of pushes for change.
00:23:27
Speaker
Don't want to change that framework at all.
00:23:30
Speaker
No, they want to change things within the framework, more technology, more this, but like, yeah, the framework itself is super oppressive and archaic.
00:23:37
Speaker
So that's what needs to change.
00:23:38
Speaker
But that's what's, that's where the nitty gritty gets in.
00:23:42
Speaker
And I realized that, you know, we're, we're thinking a lot and we're taking a lot and,
00:23:49
Speaker
one thing I wanted to say in name is that we're going to land more in practice, right?
00:23:54
Speaker
You and I don't, don't talk a lot before we record.
00:23:57
Speaker
So this is kind of our processing that we also wanted to make visible.
00:24:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
So, but I, we are very interested in,
00:24:04
Speaker
I'll continue talking practice.
00:24:05
Speaker
I can briefly say, I think we need to go much more into the direction of emergent co-created curriculum.
00:24:10
Speaker
Can't wait to talk about that.
00:24:11
Speaker
Well, it's going to be a good point, a good place to turn.
00:24:14
Speaker
And I think we wanted to talk about intentionality.
00:24:17
Speaker
And so I would love to hear when Rafa posed this idea for a discussion for a podcast, this idea of fidelity versus intentionality.
00:24:28
Speaker
I was really struck by it because I hadn't thought of it.
00:24:31
Speaker
And I was very deep because I recently left that job in the oppressive middle school.
00:24:36
Speaker
I hadn't thought about what would be better because I was so bogged down with the pain, the pain and really frustration and disappointment about having taught through the last two years.
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:48
Speaker
So I was really, that made me really hopeful.
00:24:51
Speaker
And it's something we could hang.
00:24:53
Speaker
We could, we could like provide as I was thinking, like hang up like a picture, but like we could, you know,
00:25:00
Speaker
use as an anecdote or it's not an anecdote oh my god i'm sounding so dumb um we could use as like um emily sorry sorry i sound like your growth mindset even though there's problematic parts to that too but that is just to say you are actively processing something in the moment and i think that's beautiful even if it's messy
00:25:22
Speaker
Thank you.
00:25:22
Speaker
Thank you.
00:25:23
Speaker
Well, I would just love to hear more about what did you mean when you post that intentionality?
00:25:28
Speaker
How has that worked for you in your practice now?
00:25:32
Speaker
It's clear that I think initially you felt a lot of pressure to be faithful to someone else's curriculum.
00:25:38
Speaker
And that was how your worth as a teacher was measured in a lot of ways.
00:25:42
Speaker
And I think you've done a lot to heal and come out of that because it was so formative.
00:25:46
Speaker
You know, again, we will talk a lot about this, but just like how inverse our experiences were.
00:25:51
Speaker
I started in really free spaces and ended up in very oppressive spaces as a teacher.
00:25:55
Speaker
And you started in very, not like necessarily your first job, but definitely in your earlier career.
00:25:59
Speaker
No, my first job was actually really amazing.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:02
Speaker
Shout out to Quinnipiac Elementary in New Haven.
00:26:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:06
Speaker
Your second job was notably not.
00:26:07
Speaker
Your second job was notably not.
00:26:11
Speaker
We won't talk about that now, but yeah.
00:26:13
Speaker
You definitely had some very oppressive places where you were expected to be faithful to curriculum.
00:26:18
Speaker
That was all that you were judged on in your success as a teacher.
00:26:21
Speaker
And you've developed, to me, I've watched you blossom really with this new, especially in Mi Casita, like talking about watching how you build your curriculum is so beautiful.
00:26:32
Speaker
And I would love to hear more about intentionality for you and what that means.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm gonna try to keep this as simple as I can.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:42
Speaker
I think the essence of intentional teaching or intentional anything is setting an intention, planning to execute it, do it, and then reflect on whether or not your intention matched the impact.
00:26:59
Speaker
And then learn from that space.
00:27:00
Speaker
What did you learn about yourself as an educator?
00:27:03
Speaker
What did you learn about your children or your community that you're learning with, your adults you were learning with?
00:27:08
Speaker
And then iterate and then reflect again and make a hypothesis of like, hmm, I think this might be happening because of X, Y, Z. So, for example, with the whole reading thing, maybe I'm reading with a child and I'm assuming they've showed interest already in reading, which is another prerequisite, right?
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:27:27
Speaker
And they're looking at the book and they really want to read the word in a struggling way.
00:27:32
Speaker
Maybe my hypothesis is actually like, wait, can you even hear the first sound in words?
00:27:36
Speaker
Let's close the book for a second.
00:27:38
Speaker
What's the first sound in cat?
00:27:42
Speaker
And if they can do that, like, okay, if they can't do that, okay, my hypothesis is correct.
00:27:47
Speaker
And so I'm going to change what I'm going to do with this person right now, right?
00:27:51
Speaker
And then I'm going to implement something else.
00:27:52
Speaker
Maybe I'll do some more.
00:27:54
Speaker
singing and music and mixed with dance and other things.
00:27:58
Speaker
And then of course we'll revisit the letters again.
00:28:02
Speaker
So maybe they are able to now better hear the first sound than words.
00:28:06
Speaker
So we lean more into
00:28:09
Speaker
Okay, so what if, so you see the word cat again and they're struggling to read, but they struggle to see that the C has the K sound.
00:28:18
Speaker
So maybe they need a little more support.
00:28:20
Speaker
My hypothesis there is, oh, they need a little more explicit help maybe connecting the sound that they're able to make, I know, to the letter.
00:28:30
Speaker
Okay, so what are fun games we can do around that?
00:28:32
Speaker
And this is assuming that's my goal, right?
00:28:34
Speaker
I really want to learn the letters.
00:28:37
Speaker
And so, but again, those activities, whatever I decide to do, that's my creativity.
00:28:42
Speaker
I might pull from things, I might pull from my, right?
00:28:44
Speaker
But like, but the thinking is what's very important there more than anything else.
00:28:49
Speaker
So when I work with Mi Casita, I'm really working on like asking a lot more questions, giving a lot less, this is what I would do.
00:28:57
Speaker
And when a teacher is getting stuck with something, I give a little mini homework assignment.
00:29:03
Speaker
I joke it's a homework assignment.
00:29:04
Speaker
Basically, I'll be like... What do you mean when a teacher is getting stuck with something?
00:29:08
Speaker
What do you mean by that?
00:29:09
Speaker
Maybe they're going to be stuck on like...
Empowering Teachers through Intentionality
00:29:14
Speaker
They keep building the same things in blocks and I'm having trouble seeing how they might extend it.
00:29:19
Speaker
And they're having trouble just brainstorming ideas, period, for whatever reason.
00:29:24
Speaker
So I'm like, you know what?
00:29:25
Speaker
Tomorrow...
00:29:28
Speaker
if they make it again, bring the kids around what they made and ask the kids.
00:29:33
Speaker
And ask the kids a question.
00:29:35
Speaker
I'm not going to tell you what question to ask, but ask the kids a question and then come back to me and tell me how that turned out.
00:29:41
Speaker
and so that way the the teacher still has to think you know about the question and and they're still engaging with the process of inquiry of like what might be at play and starting to embrace again the ambiguity like you don't know that's fine and so what's the how are we going to learn more about what we know and don't know and then and then it's cycles and cycles and cycles of that basically
00:30:06
Speaker
I love that.
00:30:07
Speaker
And I, what I'm hearing and what makes it different, I was thinking in my mind to illustrate further again for people who aren't teachers necessarily, there's two things I really want to hit on and would say them now and elaborate later.
00:30:19
Speaker
So don't forget.
00:30:20
Speaker
First is, um,
00:30:23
Speaker
what it would look like if you were in a situation where you were asked to be faithful to a pre-planned curriculum.
00:30:31
Speaker
So I thought a lot about that, what it would look like in a classroom that was more focused on fidelity over intentionality.
00:30:37
Speaker
And the second thing I was thinking of was your approach.
00:30:41
Speaker
You are, I'm not sure if this is clear from our other podcasts, but you're a leader in your school and you're, are you educational director?
00:30:47
Speaker
Is that your title?
00:30:49
Speaker
We are all leaders at Mika Sita.
00:30:51
Speaker
You're all leaders.
00:30:51
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:54
Speaker
No, I actually mean that very sincerely.
00:30:57
Speaker
Like everybody there.
00:30:58
Speaker
I believe you.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:31:00
Speaker
But yes, I'm technically the education director.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yes, I'm technically the director of this.
00:31:05
Speaker
Analyze to a principal, I guess.
00:31:07
Speaker
Right.
00:31:08
Speaker
You mentor a lot of teachers.
00:31:10
Speaker
And that's part of your role in addition to being an educator still now.
00:31:17
Speaker
The other thing that struck me about this was the difference in approach to how you approach your teachers that you work with in more of like a mentorship capacity than principals in other schools might approach their teachers.
00:31:29
Speaker
And I'm going to unpack what I mean in a second.
00:31:33
Speaker
So first, I was just thinking of what would this look like in a fidelity versus intentionality situation?
00:31:38
Speaker
I can see...
00:31:40
Speaker
you reading with a kid and seeing them not following, like, let's say it was prescribed.
00:31:46
Speaker
You have to read this book on this day and they have, you have to ask questions like, and do these activities.
00:31:51
Speaker
If a kid wasn't able to engage with the activities instead of pausing and questioning like you did and like redirecting, I shouldn't say redirecting, re asking, learning, asking and designing a new activity as a result.
00:32:09
Speaker
Right.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:12
Speaker
You would probably like a lot of teachers feel like, oh my God, this kid can't do this.
00:32:16
Speaker
Like they're behind.
00:32:17
Speaker
I need to.
00:32:17
Speaker
Yes.
00:32:19
Speaker
Yes.
00:32:19
Speaker
There's something wrong with the kid.
00:32:20
Speaker
Remediate.
00:32:21
Speaker
Right.
00:32:21
Speaker
Remediate.
00:32:22
Speaker
Right.
00:32:23
Speaker
Right.
00:32:23
Speaker
They need special help.
00:32:25
Speaker
You know, it's like a remediation book in the curriculum.
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:32:29
Speaker
So that's like the first point.
00:32:30
Speaker
The second thing was I was so struck by how you approached in that scenario, talking about how you would support the teacher who was stuck in trying to think about what direction to go.
00:32:40
Speaker
Because I think that's what makes a lot of teachers feel like
00:32:44
Speaker
they can't design curriculum.
00:32:45
Speaker
A lot of teachers doubt their own ability to design.
00:32:48
Speaker
You're not prepared that way.
00:32:49
Speaker
Teaching programs a lot don't prepare you.
00:32:53
Speaker
Well, it is just scary.
00:32:54
Speaker
It's scary to be on the hook, even if you're prepared.
00:32:56
Speaker
Cause I know in a lot of teacher ed programs, that's true.
00:33:00
Speaker
It's different when you're, when you're,
00:33:03
Speaker
sure tasked with teaching kids in for example in preschool like really early literacy skills that they don't leave preschool and the skills needed to be successful in kindergarten which emergent readers you know it's like that could be you feel like a a large onus right and uh a big responsibility and so anyway so i thought that way you empowered teachers to feel like i i
00:33:28
Speaker
I feel weird about the word empowered, but it's the only word I can think of to use right now.
00:33:31
Speaker
But like the way that you made teachers just realize, like find that light again in themselves, you know, that they're not, they're, they're knowledgeable and they're intellectuals.
00:33:39
Speaker
And that's the biggest problem.
De-Skilling and Teacher Empowerment
00:33:41
Speaker
And that's one thing we haven't talked about, but is very key.
00:33:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:47
Speaker
to a school functioning with the canned curriculum that they value above a teacher's decision making.
00:33:55
Speaker
And that is the de-skilling of teachers.
00:33:57
Speaker
And in my school and in schools where there are these canned curriculum, teachers are not seen as experts.
00:34:03
Speaker
They're seen as warm bodies in a classroom to control children and teach them.
00:34:11
Speaker
Yes, that's what they say.
00:34:13
Speaker
But ultimately, like, it's not clear to me that teachers are valued as having perspective on their kids.
00:34:20
Speaker
And in a way, you're also devaluing students because students don't have impact on the curriculum at all in these situations.
00:34:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:28
Speaker
And so they don't get to shape the direction of their learning.
00:34:30
Speaker
And so it's like...
00:34:32
Speaker
By devaluing, it's like people always act like standing up for teachers is selfish on behalf of the teachers.
00:34:38
Speaker
But if you don't stand up for teachers, you're not standing up for kids.
00:34:41
Speaker
Because at the end of the day, those are the kids are with the teachers in a K through 12 classroom setting the most over any other person in a school, right?
00:34:51
Speaker
And if they don't feel, if teachers don't feel empowered to speak up for their kids, to get to know their kids and tailor the learning to their kids, they're not going to do it.
00:34:59
Speaker
And they won't do it in a place where you're only judged on teaching with fidelity to curriculum.
00:35:04
Speaker
That's also pay way better, please.
00:35:08
Speaker
I know because you need money.
00:35:09
Speaker
It's a lot of fricking time to actually design.
00:35:11
Speaker
I've done like internet curricula.
00:35:13
Speaker
Like you're doing it.
00:35:13
Speaker
It's a lot of really a lot of time.
00:35:16
Speaker
Just to, you know, I'm thinking of New York city where I live.
00:35:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:19
Speaker
Just to like, not worry about meeting your basic needs.
00:35:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:22
Speaker
You know?
00:35:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:25
Speaker
Wow.
00:35:26
Speaker
Um,
00:35:27
Speaker
But that idea of intentionality is really, I think, helpful.
00:35:30
Speaker
And if any administrators are listening, please think about this.
00:35:34
Speaker
If any people who write curriculum think about this and we need to- Reach out.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:39
Speaker
I'd love to chat.
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah, we'd love to.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah, we'd love to.
00:35:46
Speaker
I'm in the room with an administrator right now.
00:35:48
Speaker
What am I talking about?
00:35:51
Speaker
wait with Larry with me I was like hey wait the virtual room yeah yeah well the man now I'm just kidding I'm glad I mean it's a weird place to be kind yeah I'm teasing you are the only person I would ever want to be my principal just FYI
00:36:11
Speaker
We can talk about the organization of Mi Casita another time, perhaps.
00:36:15
Speaker
But I appreciate you saw the mentor part.
00:36:17
Speaker
I mean, one thing I'm trying, this idea of a pedagogical companion.
00:36:20
Speaker
I've been reading from Teaching the Thinking, I think it's called, by, I'm going to get the names wrong.
00:36:27
Speaker
and pillow and margie carter highly recommend if you want to go in this direction especially if you have a leadership role or power in uh school and yeah they used the term pedagogical companion and that's really my aim when i'm with yeah the rest of the team right and and there's lots of nuance to that and like what do you do when someone's really not meeting expectations like we can talk about that another time but um that's all that's all a part of it
00:36:54
Speaker
But what really strikes me is this idea of just asking lots of good questions.
00:36:57
Speaker
And that's a skill that I'm trying to develop myself.
00:36:59
Speaker
That's my growing edge as well.
00:37:03
Speaker
And knowing when to give the, I'm jokingly calling the homework assignment, but the assignment.
00:37:09
Speaker
I feel like sometimes if you struggle with the reflection, it may be because you don't have a mirror, so to speak.
00:37:16
Speaker
You don't have a set of questions even to reflect on.
00:37:20
Speaker
Right.
00:37:21
Speaker
If you're not taught, I mean, a lot of schools don't teach, they discourage questioning because a lot of schools are reliant on a top-down model.
00:37:30
Speaker
Can I tell you a quick story about that?
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah, please.
00:37:33
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:37:34
Speaker
I love it.
00:37:34
Speaker
Story time.
00:37:36
Speaker
I got my blanket.
00:37:38
Speaker
I was in my second school that you mentioned that I was not a great fit for.
00:37:45
Speaker
And for many reasons.
00:37:46
Speaker
I remember we were having a grade level team meeting.
00:37:48
Speaker
I taught second grade at that time.
00:37:51
Speaker
and they were giving these huge homework packets to the kids.
00:37:55
Speaker
And one of my teammates brought up- How old were these kids?
00:37:59
Speaker
In second grade?
00:38:00
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:38:00
Speaker
I think you're like seven, eight, maybe.
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:04
Speaker
Just like picture that seven and eight-year-olds with fat homework.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:38:08
Speaker
And so it's about to be the winter break.
00:38:10
Speaker
And our grade-level chair is talking about how we need to have these packets.
00:38:15
Speaker
And one of my teammates was like, you know, I just learned there's like no research that shows this actually helps.
00:38:21
Speaker
Like it's actually better to rest.
00:38:23
Speaker
And again, most of us are white in the room or white passing.
00:38:26
Speaker
I'm Latinx, but I pass as white many times.
00:38:30
Speaker
And we're teaching basically all Black children, right?
00:38:37
Speaker
And so there's that...
00:38:38
Speaker
dynamic that really bothered me too and within that dynamic the grade level chair said well I don't disagree with you but this is what we have to do because that's what's best for kids like it was and it was like that level of non-criticality if I were to give that a label yeah
00:38:57
Speaker
And not, and really discouraging questioning.
00:38:59
Speaker
Like, why are you, why would you ask a question or question something if that's going to be, that's going to be the answer.
00:39:05
Speaker
Right.
00:39:06
Speaker
So anyway, that's what that reminded me of.
Systemic Issues and Education Reform
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker
Wow.
00:39:11
Speaker
I mean, that's like, that's, but that's prevalent.
00:39:13
Speaker
That's prevalent in our system.
00:39:17
Speaker
And it ties in.
00:39:19
Speaker
Fidelity faith over.
00:39:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:22
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:39:23
Speaker
Criticism.
00:39:24
Speaker
Criticism.
00:39:26
Speaker
And is that the kind of system you want?
00:39:29
Speaker
Right?
00:39:30
Speaker
Like, it's not the one I want.
00:39:32
Speaker
It's not the one many people say they want.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:36
Speaker
So what are we doing?
00:39:38
Speaker
I love also, you are one of these, you have a really nice way of being critical without tearing things down.
00:39:46
Speaker
I think there's a thing in what I see happening in the world, what I've seen happen in school districts.
00:39:55
Speaker
We're talking about reform.
00:39:57
Speaker
It's like,
00:39:58
Speaker
We have to burn it all down or tear it all out.
00:40:01
Speaker
If the curriculum doesn't work in three years, it's not going to work.
00:40:04
Speaker
You know, we have to start new again.
00:40:07
Speaker
And it's tied into capitalism.
00:40:09
Speaker
It's tied into, you know, a lot of things.
00:40:14
Speaker
Very systemic forms of oppression in our society.
00:40:17
Speaker
And I love how you...
00:40:21
Speaker
think about asking questions.
00:40:24
Speaker
So as to prompt self-reflection and like kind of not self-correction, but like growth, you do that and you're able to hold like a lot of complex things with people.
00:40:35
Speaker
It's like, you're not a kind of person that throws away relationships because you disagree with someone about something.
00:40:39
Speaker
It's like, you're very like, even in the way you react, interact with other people in the way, even like the way you talk about the Catholic church, it's not like you're like throwing out the whole thing.
00:40:46
Speaker
There's like aspects of it.
00:40:47
Speaker
You alluded to that you find,
00:40:51
Speaker
you know that you connect with and it's like we need to think that way I think also when we're talking about ed reform and think about and one thing that has come up in reflecting on our science of reading podcast and all this it's like I want to move beyond just like I think there are some things that probably should be totally like burned down and started over but like
00:41:14
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:41:14
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:41:15
Speaker
It also happens every time in education.
00:41:17
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:41:18
Speaker
It's like, like there's also like, we're not tearing down or burning down the right things.
00:41:23
Speaker
We're, we're, and we're, we're just like alien.
00:41:27
Speaker
In my experience, it's just burning out teachers basically by replacing curricula every three years, which happens in a lot of districts.
00:41:34
Speaker
Um,
00:41:36
Speaker
especially underfunded districts where there's high teacher turnover and it just kind of perpetuates this.
00:41:41
Speaker
Like, I think we need to find a way to invite more of that kind of like healthy criticality, you know, I don't know.
00:41:48
Speaker
Healthy critical.
00:41:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:49
Speaker
That's a whole other topic.
00:41:51
Speaker
Ooh, we can go in so many directions after this episode.
00:41:53
Speaker
Future episodes.
00:41:54
Speaker
So many possibilities.
Summary and Final Thoughts
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
I mean, should we start talking about school reform?
00:41:59
Speaker
I think for some people to the history of it,
00:42:01
Speaker
People act like there hasn't been school reform ever since it started.
00:42:06
Speaker
And it's like so many things, so many things have been tried.
00:42:11
Speaker
Hot Mass Express.
00:42:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:14
Speaker
The what Express?
00:42:16
Speaker
The Hot Mass Express.
00:42:17
Speaker
Come join us.
00:42:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:19
Speaker
It's true.
00:42:20
Speaker
I guess we're on that too.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
Well, we're getting closer to 45 minutes.
00:42:26
Speaker
I'm wondering if now, I guess just to summarize this time together, like Emily and I wanted to talk a little bit about fidelity of curriculum.
00:42:34
Speaker
One, to give an eye for people who are not teachers into what that means.
00:42:38
Speaker
And also to talk a little bit about the bigger picture and some implications.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:42
Speaker
And we hope you found this interesting.
00:42:43
Speaker
And if you want to connect with us, you can email us at our Gmail, which is in the description.
00:42:50
Speaker
Pedagogyofthedistressed at gmail.com.
00:42:52
Speaker
I just checked it.
00:42:53
Speaker
We have nothing.
00:42:54
Speaker
We have something in spam saying that we had a $15 million inheritance waiting for us.
00:43:00
Speaker
Oh, Rafa, that sounds real to me.
00:43:01
Speaker
I want to look into it.
00:43:04
Speaker
I'm looking to a fast solution to my... There you go.
00:43:08
Speaker
Fast solutions for the win, right?
00:43:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:12
Speaker
And yeah, please connect.
00:43:13
Speaker
We don't have an Instagram or anything yet, but who knows?
00:43:15
Speaker
Little by little.
00:43:17
Speaker
We should probably have an Instagram.
00:43:21
Speaker
are you thinking yeah yeah yeah i don't know it sounds like more work but i but uh yeah who knows yeah maybe one day we'll share our instagrams but yeah i'm not sure until then you can email i'm also not hard to find yes you can email us yeah at
00:43:41
Speaker
Oh, pedagogy of this dress at gmail.com.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yay.
00:43:46
Speaker
In the description.
00:43:47
Speaker
Yay.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:49
Speaker
Anything else before we sign off?
00:43:54
Speaker
No, I don't think so.
00:43:56
Speaker
This is just really, I just always love talking to you and your brain is so beautiful and your kids are lucky to have you.
00:44:04
Speaker
Thank you, Emily.
00:44:06
Speaker
Your teacher candidates are so lucky to have you.
00:44:09
Speaker
I loved talking to them.
00:44:11
Speaker
I got to talk to Emily's class.
00:44:13
Speaker
And that was really fun.
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah, they loved talking about it, unsurprisingly.
00:44:18
Speaker
I also just got to note that Larry spilled baby oil.
00:44:21
Speaker
He was giving the baby a bath and spilled baby oil all over the place.
00:44:24
Speaker
Is everything okay?
00:44:25
Speaker
Do you have to go now?
00:44:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, he's fine, but I just have to probably go help him clean that up.
00:44:31
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:44:33
Speaker
Okay, well, with that.
00:44:34
Speaker
I'm going to go slide around on my bathroom floor.
00:44:38
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:44:39
Speaker
Stay safe.
00:44:41
Speaker
I will.
00:44:42
Speaker
Love you.
00:44:42
Speaker
Love everybody listening.
00:44:44
Speaker
And, yes, take care.
00:44:46
Speaker
Happy New Year.
00:44:47
Speaker
Yeah, Happy New Year.
00:44:48
Speaker
Ciao.
00:44:49
Speaker
Bye.