Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Star Saxton and Crystal Frommer.
Speaker: In each episode, we bring you an authentic conversation with educators, both in and out of the classroom that will hopefully encourage you to try something new. This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner centered spaces for their students, schools and districts or education at large.
Speaker: The learner centered spaces podcast is a member of the teach better podcast network. Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest.
Speaker: We are very excited to have Mark Erlenwine on the show today. He is a principal of Staten Island Technical High School. Formerly, he was the physical therapy professor at CUNY College of Staten Island, chemistry and STEAM teacher at Staten Island Tech, assistant principal, and now principal.
Speaker: We asked Mark what is his sentence that he would say on passion and purpose, and he says, he is a passionate advocate for students of all abilities using his innovative quote, talk-nology curriculum and commitment to education technology to help all learners, gifted, twice gifted, and neurodiverse alike, build confidence, find their voice, and develop the social and communication skills they need to thrive.
Speaker: For fun, Mark likes to perform and design magic tricks. He is a fan of Star Wars, technology, writing and recording music, and even some pro wrestling.
Speaker: Mark loves spending time with his wife Stacy and son Mark, and is so proud and inspired by their accomplishments, talents, creativity, and grateful for their never-ending unconditional support.
Speaker: We are so glad to have Mark on the show today.
Speaker: It's so awesome always to connect with you, Mark, as over the years, you have been ah touchstone in my work in New York and even just our work together. So I'm excited to learn where you are in your journey right now. Can you tell us can you tell us about a defining moment or something something new and fresh?
Speaker: Oh, surely. Star and Crystal, I want to thank you for having me on today. and the answer to question number a one does involve you, Star. You're you're a part of... that that moment, that defining moment in my education journey that was really a turning point.
Speaker: And I guess the short of it was um being a eternally recovering perfectionist myself in my third month as principal. I landed myself in the cardiac unit at the hospital on Staten Island, ah trying to be the best principal, trying to be a husband, the father a friend, a brother,
Speaker: um a colleague, all that the above at the ultimate highest level. And I ended up in the cardiac unit at the Staten Island University Hospital.
Speaker: As I always tell the story, I woke up the next morning, i had my glasses off, I saw this blur of white and blue jackets surrounding my my bed, put my glasses on, and I started recognizing the faces.
Speaker: started looking at their name tags, started recognizing the names. And then i realized that everyone who was surrounding my bed in the cardiac unit was my former students.
Speaker: And as I was looking at them, I remembered vividly because I had close relationships with them, all the unhealthy and risk taking types of things that they did to achieve their dream of becoming a healthcare clinician.
Speaker: Yet here I was 39 years old the time, 38, 39, still suffering and not thirty eight thirty nine ah still suffering and not doing well to deal with this thing called perfectionism that was driving me into a very unhealthy lifestyle and compromised my health.
Speaker: So it was literally at that point that I said, this has got to stop because I knew what these young men and ladies did to achieve becoming a nurse, becoming a doctor, becoming whatever clinical professional they were in the hospital at that time.
Speaker: So that's when I decided that I have to find a better way that our students can identify success beyond grades and identify themselves as someone other than just this very smart student that does well on tests.
Speaker: And you Star, that's when I met you at um If you remember the Pupil Path Expo, forgetting the overarching name of it.
Speaker: But um and Crystal, the funny part of the story is, is this was a learning management system that's all about grading. And the one presentation that caught my attention the most was a presentation by Star titled Going Gradeless.
Speaker: I'm like, and that is exactly what I was looking for at that moment. I was looking for what is the answer? How can I shift the culture of my school, which is a specialized high school in New York is selective admissions. These are the top 5% students in the country.
Speaker: And yes, perfectionism is our greatest and largest addiction and challenge as a school. And i desperately wanted to disrupt this, this perpetual, um,
Speaker: happening in this perpetual go-to cultural default of coexisting and thinking that the only way was to do all-nighters was to be totally an academic.
Speaker: And after meeting Star, I saw that there was a way. Star had a system. She had a book. She had... the personal experience as also a perfectionist. We call ourselves recovering perfectionists constantly.
Speaker: And that was a turning point in my educational and my professional career in finding somebody who was singing the songs I needed to hear and speaking the language and actually had a roadmap for how to do this. So kudos to you, Star.
Speaker: I always tell this story because it's literally at the point where everything changed. in my school and for me personally, where on paper, we were at the very, very tippity top of where any school leader would want to be.
Speaker: But I knew behind the scenes, it was a disaster. The suicidal ideations, the mental health deficits, the risks students were willing to take and were taking ah to excel and be successful just had to come to an end.
Speaker: You know, Mark, I've known you a long time and I never knew that the year we met was your first year or that you were in the hospital zerough ah like a cardiac situation at such a young age. But knowing the pressure of what was happening at Staten Island Tech when we met and also knowing the pressure that all of us recovering um perfectionists are kind of you know, what we do to ourselves to just be the best at everything.
Speaker: i i kind of want to lean into this a little bit. It's not a topic we've ever really talked about on here about how these learner-centered spaces could reduce this perfectionism and help balance the social-emotional aspects of what's going on in the learning experience.
Speaker: So would you mind sharing a little more at first how Like how you started to make that shift and what your community's response to it was.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, um the first step was to lean into the nexus for our relationship and meeting each other, Star, was that learning management system, PupilPath.
Speaker: and One of the things that PupilPath allowed me to do, because I had to prove that this was really an issue. And PupilPath allowed me to quantify their big pitch and their big ah perk for that system was data.
Speaker: So I was able to actually show the whole school community transparently. And I always use the the metaphor of we are now a school made of glass. I am going to show you how it is, what is going on and what is happening.
Speaker: And we were able to uncover that if there were 75 teachers, there were 75 academic policies. There were 75 different ways students were being asked to do things.
Speaker: ah The students had gamed us. um It was all about point chasing. ah There was an unhealthy amount of work being administered. So it was just kind of first lifting a mirror to ourselves and acknowledging um what this was. and And the way I did that with a little help from Apple, because I was working with Apple at the time, and they suggested spend a day in the life of your students, film it, take photos, and then show the faculty that.
Speaker: So I did that. I spent a day in the life of a student. I turned it into a nice five and a half minute video. I played it at the... I played it at my faculty conference in October october and I got a range of emotions.
Speaker: I filmed it and I produced it in such a way that it would show this is period zero. This is what happened. This is period one. Look what happened. And the range of emotions from our faculty, some were happy, some were prideful, some were horrified, some were in tears.
Speaker: Someone was just in disbelief that this is what we ask our kids to do each day. So that was the onset of first uncovering what was the issue and then just systematically one step at a time, we just addressed all the nuances of what would cause unnatural stress. For example, why in the world and at this moment when we have access to phones and grades 24 seven, do we have six marking periods a year?
Speaker: Why are we stopping to calculate a marking period grade? Because as you know, when you do that, you create stress, like unnatural stress, an unnatural amount of extra tests. We've got to squeeze in this last test before the marking period ends.
Speaker: Why isn't ah grading point average dynamic and just year long? So we got rid of that. We went to one marking period in the fall and one in the spring. And we eliminated all that extra nonsense and stress.
Speaker: We created a testing schedule. So only two classes ah per day could have full period exams by department. So we got rid of that. We changed our fire drill schedule. Remember when you were a kid and you had a test period too, but there was a fire drill and the teacher didn't know that there was a fire drill. So you got gypped out of 15 minutes, but you still had to take all 45 questions.
Speaker: So we advertise our fire drills and we have a special schedule that carves out 10 minutes in between periods. So all the periods remain the same. So little things like that made homework optional.
Speaker: um we We were the first high school to bring a comfort dog slash therapy dog. And then, of course, we went to letter grades. um We started to figure out how to go grade-less. And this was the true transforming moment where Starr was integral in guiding us.
Speaker: ah We couldn't go completely grade-less, but we went to letter grades and through PupilPath, Students and teachers were only allowed to communicate with one another via a letter grade.
Speaker: So there was no point chasing. You were clumped into one of 12 different scores, A plus, A, A minus, so forth. And that was the big game changer.
Speaker: And we were only to do that for two years because the software eventually became a bit corrupt and started allowing numbers to be visible. But in the two years that we just had pure letter grades is the only way to communicate.
Speaker: There was bliss. Kids did not communicate. fuss about point chasing. um It was just this complete transformation and reformation of what school started to feel like.
Speaker: so So that was the early onset of that shift and that change is by just operationalizing the things that made the most sense. um No homework over the midwinter recess, the winter recess, spring break.
Speaker: You know, we put some, you know, full on, I guess you can say, policies um around these different ideas that students were telling us would be the difference between making life in a school doable or not.
Speaker: Because that my opinion has always been that schools have been designed in favor of the adults, not the kids. And we need to really rethink and just kind of rehash that.
Speaker: And, uh, you STAR has been kind of familiar ah most recently, the things that center around all of this in a more current stance. The onset of artificial intelligence, I'm just absolutely thrilled with it because it's finally going to be the thing that forces schools to reboot and rethink.
Speaker: um If AI can work and create a work product instantaneously, finally, maybe we can start focusing on process. I'm presenting in Las Vegas next next Saturday on artificial intelligence. And the last third of my keynote focuses on what are the instructional shifts you have to make in order to successfully successfully prepare your school to do this sort of thing.
Speaker: And moving away from product-based or just problem-based learning to process-based learning and assessment, I keep on sharing with the teachers, move the carrot to the middle of the stick where process and learning takes place.
Speaker: Don't give a grade on the paper, the end product. Give a grade on the drafts working towards the end product because authenticity seems to be the challenge and the concern of artificial intelligence.
Speaker: and There's too many different ways where students can get over us or on us or around us to do the actual work. So it just makes more sense. It's made the most sense to me to triple and double down on emphasizing the process.
Speaker: So and so that to answer the other part of the question, what I but what i have been most... mostly working on lately is just kind of being the citywide leader on teaching principals and school administrators how to use artificial intelligence effectively.
Speaker: And then pushing the idea of just getting away from traditional assessments, one and done processes for one and some processes.
Speaker: ah practicing something I like to call art restorative assessment, which we have multiple systems for our in our school, and just really start to rethink and reboot how education in school feels and operates.
Speaker: So I'm so intrigued about what you're saying about AI because I agree with you. It's coming and we can't deny it and it it is going to change things. And so I'm curious how you're guiding your your faculty at your school on how to authentically, you said the word authentically, see their work. How are you ah guiding your teachers and authentically assessing students with their writing or other tasks?
Speaker: Sure. So first and foremost, our ninth grade writing curriculum. So students in the ninth grade at Staten Island Tech take a half a year of writing intensive ah before they jump into the traditional literature curriculum.
Speaker: And the focus and intention of that is to teach ah three different types of writing, expository writing, narrative writing, and then argumentative writing.
Speaker: And While doing that, we have cashed in and refunded quantity of quality over quantity. So instead of six major essays or papers,
Speaker: three papers without much of a focus on caring about what the grade of the final paper is and holding students accountable for the process. so the And what's really neat about it is by the time we get to the argumentative paper, which is the last one, it is deeply rooted in the process of how we run our school leadership team and amplify student voice in our school.
Speaker: So when a student is writing their argumentative essay slash paper, it has to be on, we title the project, the next big thing. And the next big thing is what is the next big thing we have to do as a school to improve the quality of life in our school?
Speaker: And during the the brainstorming ah portion of that process, ah the teacher invites the school administrators into the room so we can make sure the students really get good ideas and don't hypothesize ideas or create ideas that are really untenable you know and unreachable.
Speaker: So the quality of the ideas are good, quite excellent. And as they're writing and working on the process of this, and our our teachers have an aligned, very specific, ah progressive way of charting their process.
Speaker: And with the advent of ai there is a product that I'm wild about, ah Conmigo Writing Coach. It's probably one of the, well, it's free and it does one of the best jobs of allowing a teacher to assign an essay or a prompt and hold the students accountable for every step of the way, um giving the students feedback.
Speaker: And I say good feedback because the AI bot in Kahnemigo really expertly and guides the student well through the writing process. But what it does, it keeps the teacher informed when the student did use AI to write something that's not in their own language or captured a segment or chunk of text that's not their own. It just knows. it's Smart enough to know.
Speaker: And imagine having a digital video recorder capture every keystroke of your writing process and analyze it and report back to the yeah the the teacher or the professor.
Speaker: That's kind of what this does. And what it's done, i've and I've seen this in its process, is capture the process and hold students responsible to not skipping any steps steps of the revisionary process. Because as you know, a lot of our students just, they go right for the final, I'm going to write this in one swoop.
Speaker: I don't need four drafts. Now, well you don't have a choice. You have to do that through this system. So that's been one way from a leveraging at the ninth grade using this technology and on on other upper, the upper grades and upperclassmen.
Speaker: Once again, just encouraging, know, being a principal who can look directly in the eyes of my, my humanities teachers and say, assign less and engage more.
Speaker: Don't, grade the n end product, maybe that's worth 20% of the grade, and the 80% is the time you spent evaluating their work and focusing on process.
Speaker: So you're authentically seeing the students conduct the work. I know that is the biggest, that is out of all the teachers I met with this past ah June that I have to do an exit interview at the end of the year.
Speaker: That's their biggest concern. And I don't want teachers going completely analog again, back to a Mead notebook. because that's going to kind of take away all the advancements that we've benefited from using technology. So I think it has to be a balance.
Speaker: And I build efficacy around that first by training teachers how to steal time back into their life using like chat GPT to to help assist with some of the mundane tasks that they do.
Speaker: And when it comes to in the classroom, yeah as the tools becoming more refined and ah allow for, i guess, productivity the where where it should be centered and appropriate.
Speaker: We try to use those with our students. But and this is a new space. I'm an early adopter, but I'm very, very cautious right now.
Speaker: that's That's so exciting because I just started using AI as an assistant. I just learned that recently. So I don't have an assistant at work. And so I just made ChatGPT my little assistant.
Speaker: so and So far, it's saved me a lot of time. Yeah. Is it interesting though? Like I, my opening two minutes for the keynote I'm doing in Vegas is a video snapshot of me driving to work, my six minute drive to work and a conversation between me and chat GPT and and what amount of work gets done in that six minutes is incredible.
Speaker: It is amazing. So if our listeners want to know more about you and your work, where, where could they connect with you online or find out more? Yeah, so um part of my life, even though so much of it has been stemmed in the science and STEM, I am a writer.
Speaker: um Most of my graduate and undergraduate work went into English rhetoric. So MarkErlenwein.com. So my full first and last name brings you to my website where I write a lot about these practices I was talking about today.
Speaker: um That's where they can immediately find me. i am on social media. Instagram, I'm Merlin Wine. So M-E-R-L-E-N-W-E-I-N. I'm on Twitter still as Erlin Wine.
Speaker: So pretty easy to find and pretty easy to get in touch with. And I'll always respond to somebody who reaches out to me. And can you just give us some shout outs, Mark? who Who are folks that you follow that other people should follow to help get to where you are right now in your journey? Like, who are the people we need to be watching?
Speaker: Wow. Well, I mean, from an education standpoint, i think Sal Khan from Khan Academy. It's kind of crazy. I it...
Speaker: He's definitely going in a direction that's going to be a formidable choice for schools to make in terms of using that technology for an from an AI standpoint.
Speaker: um ah and Unfortunately, in this world right now, I have to, I'm finding I have to look in stranger and deeper and different places for inspiration.
Speaker: So I ah just kind of look at it from those, who are those people who are being the most disruptive or really completely thinking differently about how to approach education. So I'm sorry, Star, but I have a very short list of who those people are.
Speaker: And you you kind of you're kind of on the top of that list in terms of when someone asks me, Who can I start to talk with to do any of the things that I've been thinking about? that You're the first name that always comes up.
Speaker: Because from an education, from an AI standpoint, it's too new. It's too new. It's too new of a ah technology. I don't want to make the same mistake I made with technology.
Speaker: with screens and devices going 13 years back. ah Not that I made a mistake, but I think a lot of us made a misjudgment in terms of not knowing how detrimental screens were going to be to our children.
Speaker: So I'm an early adopter of AI, but I'm cautiously adopting the technology. But, um, The good old fashioned analog skills and the people like you, Star, who challenge us to think differently.
Speaker: ah Those are the people who I look up to and continue to look towards for inspiration. Oh, that's fantastic. I agree. um That's how I got to know Star, but through the ungrading efforts and movement and inspirational, really inspirational.
Speaker: So thank you so much, Mark, for being on our show. We have learned a ton and we appreciate your time. ah It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Crystal. And thank you, Star.
Speaker: Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio.com.
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