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The Joy of Teaching: Miriam Plotinsky's Passion for Literacy and Learning
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Join us as we chat with Miriam Plotinsky, a seasoned educator, author, and instructional specialist with a unique path to the classroom. Miriam shares her unexpected transition from aspiring opera singer to literacy champion, highlighting the key moments and experiences that shaped her teaching philosophy. Discover how National Board Certification empowered her growth, the challenges and rewards of her current role, and the inspiration behind her numerous books on education. Tune in for practical advice, inspiring stories, and a shoulder tap for a deserving teacher.
- Teach More, Hover Less: How to Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom
- Lead Like a Teacher: How to Elevate Expertise in Your School
- Writing Their Future Selves: Instructional Strategies to Affirm Student Identity
- Small but Mighty: How Everyday Habits Add Up to More Manageable and Confident Teaching
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Miriam Plotinsky
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to National Board Conversations. I'm your host, Edward Santiago. And today, we welcome Miriam Plotinsky to the show. Miriam is an instructional specialist with Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland and a National Board Certified Teacher.
Empowering Teachers and Students
00:00:13
Speaker
She's also a prolific author with the titles like Small and Mighty, Teach More, Hover Less, Lead Like a Teacher, and Write in Their Future Selves Already Published, with two more books in the works, including Not Just Talk.
00:00:25
Speaker
It's about elevating student participation across the domains of language. She's passionate about empowering teachers and helping students reach their full potential. We're excited to explore her insights on teaching, leadership, and the power of student identity.
00:00:38
Speaker
I won't hold you much longer. Here's my conversation with Miriam Plotinsky.
Miriam's Role and Personal Interests
00:00:45
Speaker
Miriam Plotinsky, thank you for joining me on the podcast. How are you doing today? doing great. Thanks so much for having me. All right, so if won't take too long, we'll get right into it. So can you give us a brief intro to yourself? What's your current role? And now I've got three questions to get to know you a little bit more personally.
00:00:59
Speaker
All right, well, currently I am in almost my 25th year with Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. early I'm a what's called an instructional specialist in secondary English language arts and literacy.
00:01:11
Speaker
And I'm also the author of four books that are out, two coming up, and lots of articles and shorter pieces. whole lot of books. I was like, that's a, that's fill my library what you got.
00:01:23
Speaker
and So ah what are your three favorite foods? Okay, steak, which I only have once a year. Once a year? Once a year. I love it.
00:01:34
Speaker
It's a really good steak. Okay, understand. And sushi, which I have many, many times a year. And then chocolate. It was hard to kind of figure out where to put the favorite foods with a chocolate ice cream is kind of a subset of that.
00:01:47
Speaker
Anything with peanut butter. I'm going beyond three. Sorry. No, you're good. Like, I'm here for talking all the food. If we could talk more food on here, I would. I mean, peanut butter and chocolate to me is kind of the best thing that was ever invented.
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's like the elite mixture, right? Like, who hates Reese's? Like, man, these are like, it's, man. My mom got me hooked on that growing up and it's never lost, never left me. Exactly. right. So one sports team that has your heart. And if you're not really a sports person, the movie you can recite long for long.
00:02:14
Speaker
So the sports team that has my heart, if not my head, is the Indianapolis Colts. okay I grew up in Indianapolis. They weren't that fantastic when I was growing up, but I loved them.
00:02:26
Speaker
And, you know, they went through a good, good period with the Manning years and they've they've been up and down, but I will love them no matter what. Yeah, they had a strong run there. Listen, I'm a Patriots fan, so I'm going to have to rub it in for you a little bit. I don't know can talk or be friends anymore.
00:02:43
Speaker
it's all right. We're going to keep it cordial for this conversation. We're have a good time. All right.
Journey to Teaching
00:02:48
Speaker
So what inspired you to become an educator and what key moments or experiences shaped your teacher philosophy? ah To be honest, I decided to become a teacher in a time when I wasn't really sure what I wanted to be. I had been going to school for voice performance. I wanted to be an opera singer. And then for whatever reason, i was starting to kind of cool off from that idea. And I walked by a flyer on campus at the University of Maryland for the College of Education. they were having an orientation.
00:03:15
Speaker
And in that moment, I thought, hey, that could be that could be cool, which was strange because I'd never thought about it before. But as soon as I started the program, everything just started to click into place.
Early Feedback and Teaching Philosophy
00:03:24
Speaker
I walked into a classroom as a student teacher, it felt like home and it's sort of been that way ever since.
00:03:29
Speaker
But I think what the way I taught in those first few years, and I think a lot of teachers probably feel that way Who I am as a teacher was shaped by what happened after that, you know, um and very often by what I call very lovely and polite students telling me that I was doing things wrong.
00:03:45
Speaker
I really appreciate all of those moments because even though they were humbling, they helped me become better.
00:03:52
Speaker
So. To that point, what were you like as a student? did it help shape? ah Honestly, until high school, I was not the most fantastic student in the world. i had a lot of negative experiences with my teachers. I think it had to do with the fact that until high school, i went to a very small private school and I had overachieving siblings who were older than I was.
00:04:14
Speaker
And I got to the classes and I was more creative. I like to look out of windows and think about things. And I got yelled at a lot. um And people had this perception that I wasn't as smart. So I kind of lowered my ability during that time to meet the expectation. And then the first time I ever had a good teacher was really in high school. And I thought, oh, wow.
00:04:36
Speaker
it's ah It's amazing what power somebody has to change the way that we behave. and And that's really when I started to think about how a lot of people become teachers because they've had great teachers, but a lot of people become teachers because they've had not so great teachers.
00:04:52
Speaker
And it really, it's how it's how you decide you want to serve kids as you as you move forward. Yeah, like everybody has a different motivator, right? And different experiences motivate people differently, right? Like a bad teacher or a bad experience can motivate you to want to do good. It's like, never want that to happen to anybody again.
00:05:08
Speaker
Right. And a similar way where like a good teacher can put you in a position to be like, I want to be able to replicate that for everybody that I'm able to come in contact with. And this it's interesting how different people are motivated by different things and different experiences.
Certification and Student Impact
00:05:26
Speaker
So while you were in the classroom, you achieved national board certification. What was your journey like and did you achieve on your first try I did achieve on my first try, which i'm still I'm still very proud of myself. This was back in 2011 and I was actually pregnant with my second child. I have three children.
00:05:41
Speaker
And so i don't I remember filming all the videos and and trying to figure out, because this was back in the day when National Board, you packed a box. Oh, you got the box too? I packed the box with the paper clips in the exact right spot.
00:05:53
Speaker
And it was this huge undertaking and I got it all right. And I was very proud of myself. And it was just, it really changed my lens because one thing we had um in in district coaches who could look through your materials and tell you if you're on the right track. And I remember my coach kept telling me, look for student impact, look for student impact.
00:06:12
Speaker
And it really helped me think more about not what I was doing as a teacher, but how kids were reacting and how they were growing as a result. And that was a huge shift in perspective for me.
00:06:24
Speaker
And I always said, you know, National Board was probably the most meaningful up to that point professional development experience I'd ever had for that reason.
Supporting Teachers and Literacy Challenges
00:06:34
Speaker
So you've transitioned a classroom teacher to an instructional specialist. Yeah. Can you discuss the transition and the challenges and rewards of your current role? Absolutely. It's a very different vantage point. I i have never stopped missing and will never stop missing the children.
00:06:50
Speaker
But I think it's really important to help support teachers. And that's really what I spend most of my day doing. making sure they have the materials they need so that students can be successful. Especially right now, for example, I think I mentioned earlier, I'm in secondary English language arts and literacy.
00:07:06
Speaker
Our national report card shows that kids are not progressing in literacy, our eighth graders. And a lot of people want to give up on older kids and say that, you know, maybe maybe we just should just focus on the younger ones because these older kids, they're harder to teach. and What I do is I help teachers assess students, look at their fluency, look at how they're reading, look at how they're writing, because it doesn't matter how old a kid is.
00:07:30
Speaker
I believe they can all um make progress. And so that's a huge part of what I do. And so being an instructional specialist means I get to work with many different schools and many different teachers and help them problem solve some of the challenges around literacy right now.
Becoming an Author and Sharing Strategies
00:07:45
Speaker
So you've also written several books on education. we've talked we've You discussed it a little bit earlier. What motivated you to become an author and how has the writing and influenced your work as an educator?
00:07:56
Speaker
So I'll be honest, I kind of became an author by accident also, the same way I became a teacher. I was really angry one day, like back in 2019, and I wrote an article. And it's weird because it was an article about how students need to have more ownership over their learning. And it wasn't the anger wasn't directed at kids. I seem to remember I was frustrated at something.
00:08:13
Speaker
And I sent it to Edutopia just on a whim. I'd never sent them anything before and they published it. um And if I look back at the article now, it's not an angry article. So I still don't know why I was angry.
00:08:25
Speaker
Where was his anger at? yeah I don't know. It was like all all ah all in my head. but I started writing more and more articles for different different publications like Education Week and ASCD. And then two months into the pandemic, I got an email from a publisher asking if I'd ever thought about writing a book. And they had read the first article that I ever wrote on student ownership. And that became my first book, which was Teach More, Hover Less.
00:08:48
Speaker
which is going to come out in the second edition in the next year or two. um So that was the beginning of the journey. And I think the whole goal behind becoming an author was I've done things that work.
00:08:59
Speaker
I want to, first of all, share those things because teaching is about sharing, about sharing what works. And that's actually why I love Edutopia, because I think that's their motto, know, we share what works. um But the other thing that I really wanted to do was hear what other teachers were doing that were so every single one of my books more and more with each one.
00:09:16
Speaker
I'm talking to teachers and interviewing them about their strategies and their approaches to things because it just widens my lens as well as the scope of what any book can do in terms of making sure that we focus on practice over theory. I'm not saying that theory and research aren't important, but i really like to have that practical approach to to what I write.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, and I feel like theory can only take you so far before you got to start executing things. Yeah, and a friend said something to me like that. They were like, when I wrote my first book, they said, you know, no offense. And when people say that, you're about to be offended. But they said, no offense, but I've never read an education book that actually helped me do anything in my classroom.
00:09:54
Speaker
And I took that as a challenge. I was like, okay, all right, let's see what we can do. Let's see if we can write a book that will help you do something in your classroom. There we go, your own personal motivator.
Reflecting on Classroom Impact
00:10:03
Speaker
Tell me I can't.
00:10:05
Speaker
There we go. how has the National Abortion Replication process impacted your professional growth and development? It really has allowed me to continue to be reflective about why we are doing what we're doing.
00:10:19
Speaker
Every time I've had to make a difficult decision, especially since I work with adults, about you know what's best for kids, I always have that lens of what is this doing in the classroom for children? What is the result?
00:10:33
Speaker
Because sometimes things can be deceiving, looks can be deceiving. You can go into a classroom and see what looks like a great lesson with a ton of bells and whistles, but what are the kids actually learning? And so National Board really helped me continue that scope. And I actually recertified, re-earned, renewed. pay Thank you. What's the what's the term? In 2021.
00:10:53
Speaker
And when I did that, that was my first year as being an instructional specialist. And that let me go back into a classroom and teach kids again. and see that lens. So it's always challenging my perspective and also allowing me to help other teachers who are working on achieving right now, because they sometimes come to me and say, Hey, I'm taking this step and what would, what would you do? And can you look at this and can you help? And so it gives me that, that benefit as well of of seeing what they're doing.
00:11:21
Speaker
so what was the experience like being out of the classroom and then going back to teaching for while you to maintain? I loved it. I wanted to take over the class completely that's that's the problem. I mean, kids are funny and they are flexible and they have, they're still growing in a way that is is so appealing all the way through high school. I don't work with kids older than high school.
00:11:44
Speaker
So I really liked trying things out on them. It was hard though, because I wasn't their actual real teacher. So I had to, and well, but that was meaningful too, though, because I worked with their teacher so that we were making sure that we weren't stepping on one of those toes. I was helping her with her progression and maybe it was good. They got to see a different style as well. I don't know. don't know how they felt about it in the end, but it was, it was a good experience for me.
00:12:08
Speaker
Yeah. So you spend time like building a little bit of rapport with the students? I did. Absolutely. And well, the, another thing that was great about this was this was a year after, this was my first year, not classroom based. I was classroom based for about 20 years.
00:12:20
Speaker
So um I did this in the school that I had just left. Oh, wow. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So I got so some of kids in the classroom knew me. They're like, what? It was a good experience. um And that's the hard part is as you become more and more disconnected.
00:12:33
Speaker
i don't think that a lot of people want to talk about that because that's an uncomfortable topic. But when you're not in the classroom, you're not in the classroom. And so we don't necessarily, even if I have all kinds of perspective from where I am right now, I don't have that immediate application. and And teaching is changing almost every second in a way that it didn't used to.
00:12:53
Speaker
So there's a whole lot of knowledge that I'm always trying to get. And I'm always listening to teachers because they have much more relevant knowledge for me. Oh, that's amazing. So what advice would you give teachers considering pursuing National Board Certification?
Encouraging Teacher Reflection
00:13:04
Speaker
I would say it is well worth it. um I think some teachers... like to do it earlier in their careers. And so one thing I always caution is just make sure you have a few years of experience under your belt because you know those first few years, they're there so we can make some mistakes and they're there so we can learn about what kind of teacher we are and really submit our style. But once once they've got that,
00:13:26
Speaker
um i I also like to tell them, use this opportunity to reflect. This is not a box to be checked. This is not something to do because you can do it. This is really an opportunity for you to dig into your instruction. And also one thing I really love about the national board process to focus on specific kids.
00:13:42
Speaker
Because when you do those components, you have to really focus on um student A or student B and what they're going through. So lean into that and use what you learn to make better connections with kids and not just the kids that you're focusing on, but all the kids you work with. Make that part of your practice.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's something that comes up a lot is ah involving your students ah in the process that make can make it very helpful and almost um an excitable process for them, too. Exactly.
00:14:12
Speaker
So let's get into your books a little bit. Your book, Lead Like a Teacher, focuses on elevating the expertise in schools. Can you share how National Board Certification fits into elevating the expertise of educators? Absolutely. Teachers are, I think, the greatest untapped professional development or learning resource that we have in a school.
00:14:30
Speaker
And that is because they are always on the cutting edge, especially, you know, and I also think that new teachers are this huge untapped resource because they have this technological savvy and this also willingness to experiment that maybe some veteran teachers are not doing as much anymore, although generalization. it really It really depends on the on the individual.
00:14:52
Speaker
So Lead Like a Teacher is about how do we elevate the role of teachers to conduct professional learning in our buildings? And National Board gives you that really important experience of thinking deeply about all the components of teaching and learning, which can help you develop that in others.
00:15:12
Speaker
And, you know, it can be National Board specific. The coach I mentioned earlier who helped me with my own National Board, she was in the building and she had done National Board and she was helping others. And that was incredible. But also on other related topics, like if I'm focusing on a specific area within one of my components, I might be able to conduct that professional learning.
00:15:30
Speaker
So I think it's really important for administrators to be aware of what teachers are doing and what's happening with instruction so that we can leverage all those assets. Because even though I come into buildings as an outsider very much, one thing I always want to know is are teachers...
00:15:44
Speaker
Sitting with you at the conference table or at the whatever table you're at planning the learning and planning how we are going to go ahead and and focus on any kind of training any kind of needs that are in the school.
00:16:00
Speaker
So how can instructional leaders effectively support mentor teachers, particularly early in their careers and those facing challenges? They can listen to them. And I think it sounds so simple, but it's so not simple, the listening thing.
00:16:16
Speaker
um i can't tell you how many times instructional leaders have told me as a teacher or I see them telling teachers what they need to learn. And they're not necessarily wrong, but also have they asked people what they would like to learn or what they feel they need to learn? or are they truly listening to voices outside their own?
00:16:37
Speaker
You know, I do a lot of, I've written a lot about listening and how we naturally tune out people in excess because we have our own agendas to push.
00:16:47
Speaker
So I think the most important thing an instructional leader can do is try to really focus actively on what a teacher is telling them they need and go from there. Yeah, and active listening is definitely a different skill than a just listening. It's like listening, you're going to take some notes and try to give real-time feedback almost.
00:17:07
Speaker
So in your book, Writing Their Future Sales, you explore instructional strategies for affirming student identity.
Affirming Student Identity
00:17:13
Speaker
Why is it important and how did going through the National board process help you affirm student identity?
00:17:18
Speaker
So Affirmative Student Identity is is really about validating what kids are thinking and bringing to the table and making sure that they have a place in the classroom to express their voices and know that whatever they say is going to be considered a contribution of some way. So it's identifying as not just learners, but as scholars, as thinkers, and having a teacher really, really do that. And again, that that process of of zeroing in on a kid, and what is this kid's experience like in my classroom that that National Board really does emphasize?
00:17:55
Speaker
You know, that quiet kid who doesn't say much, you might not pick that kid for your your national award component because maybe you're not getting that much from them. But I encourage you to pick exactly that kid because there are things going on inside their heads.
00:18:09
Speaker
I want to advocate for this quote unquote shy, quiet kid here. Quiet one. Exactly. They're not really quiet. I mean, follow them home. I promise you they're not quiet. It's just that for whatever reason, they have not found a way to feel safe expressing themselves in your class.
00:18:24
Speaker
So if you can create that intentional focus on them, it will get us that much closer to them feeling like, hey, I have good things to say and I have good things to contribute. And this teacher, if I'm wrong, if I make a mistake, we celebrate that because that's a pathway to learning.
00:18:43
Speaker
So how can teachers create a classroom environment where all students feel valued and respected? It really is about that. It's about the idea that We're not here to find the right answer. We're not here to echo what I'm thinking. we're not my my My class is not a game or a puzzle to be figured out. I'm a big believer in the no secrets classroom, letting kids know exactly what the expectations are, making the learning goals very transparent. And then again, when they're saying something,
00:19:14
Speaker
If suppose a teacher asks a question and a kid answers and the teacher says, okay, and then calls on the next kid, they're sending this unconscious message that what the kid said was not what they wanted to hear.
00:19:26
Speaker
So they're waiting for a kid to say what they're thinking. So we really have to avoid falling into those traps because we think that was an innocuous moment, but that kid might never raise their hand again because they're getting a different message. And so that's what I mean when I say validating, really focusing on, okay,
00:19:44
Speaker
That is a really interesting answer. Explain to me what your thinking is. And then if you're not hearing what you want to hear, maybe you have everyone say, okay, what else can we come up with? We're going to turn and talk to somebody. we're going to There are other ways of doing that than just moving on.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yes. like and Like you said, encouraging them to express themselves early on can help them will help them later on down the line. like It's very encouraging. Yeah. Being very encouraging.
Importance of Student Choice
00:20:12
Speaker
So ah Read Across America is Read Across America week. And Read Across America is more than just reading. Literacy is very important as well. So what creative ways can teachers use this event to foster love of reading and engage students in meaningful ways?
00:20:28
Speaker
So I'm not sure if this really counts as a creative way, but I can talk about maybe consistency over creativity. For sure. Because i think I think most teachers agree that student choice in text is incredibly important.
00:20:41
Speaker
So when you want to engage kids in reading, you really give them a lot of choice for what they're reading. And I'm i'm not saying they don't read assigned stuff, assigned texts for school, but they also have some some options as to what they can read. I will say this.
00:20:54
Speaker
um One of the mantras of my office is eyes on text every day. So every single day kids are reading. And research shows that even 15 minutes a day,
00:21:10
Speaker
If you're reading, you become a better reader. If you write, you become better writer. So just that 15 minutes, and that can be done in a variety of ways. um i actually saw this personally, and again, it wasn't very creative, but during the first year of the shutdown, because I'm a teacher, my kids still complain about it to this day.
00:21:27
Speaker
and made them do Every morning we had a half hour of reading. I had like a little school set up at our dining room table and their literacy gains shot up that year, as opposed to a lot of other kids in the country went down. Now their mom is a literacy specialist. So that makes sense. But I didn't do anything magical.
00:21:46
Speaker
I just asked them to read. So I think that that's a big part of it. I will say one thing that a lot of ah people do that I would not recommend is reading logs or tracking reading because that can be the opposite of creativity and that can really turn reading into a chore, something that's arduous. And we're trying to maintain the joy however we can.
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah, like it doesn't have to be, not everything has to be measured, right? That's something like we're just reading 15 minutes a day, whatever you want to read. Yeah, and there other assessments we can do, but let's let's separate the reading we do and making it joyful. And I will also say that when I talk creative writing, so maybe this is the creative part, um one of our projects was that students, and these were high schoolers, wrote children's books.
00:22:33
Speaker
Oh, wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah, it was it was actually, was my favorite. and then Were there any fun ones that came up? I mean, they there were some really interesting ones. And some of them, like I had to say, we can't read this to actual children because one of them was like, this is a magic credit card and it buys whatever you want.
00:22:49
Speaker
and so But that's like a high schooler's dark sense of humor that I so much appreciate. But we had like a little child development wing in our school and they would take their books down and read them to the kids. Oh, wow. And so talk about, you know, you have a 17 year old reading to a three year old and it made everything very real. And it was just a marvelous annual experience. And probably one of the things I miss the most about being in the classroom.
00:23:11
Speaker
Oh, man, that's really cool. All right. So we're to get into some teacher recruitment here. ah So if you were look, if you could give somebody your elevator pitch in one to two minutes for someone looking to get into the teaching profession, what would you tell them?
Joy and Realities of Teaching
00:23:26
Speaker
I would tell them that the there are so many benefits to being a teacher. And i'm goingnna I'm going to start with the selfish ones.
00:23:38
Speaker
So you laugh every single day, honestly. and you know whether you're laughing, you're not laughing laughing at anybody, you're laughing with them. But there is there is so much potential for for for that kind of, I'm going to use the word again, joy.
00:23:52
Speaker
um It's also very fulfilling. haven't woken up one morning in my entire career in education thinking, maybe I'm not doing anything to help anybody today. You know, it's it's not that kind of work. It's it's very purposeful work. You know what your impact it is, especially when you're in the classroom with kids, you see your impact.
00:24:10
Speaker
And a kid said this to me once and I cannot ever forget it. um I was watching kids do a fishbowl and kid said to me, she turned around and said, you know, you teachers, you have a lot more influence than you think.
00:24:26
Speaker
this was not a kid that I knew. I don't know why she said that to me in this moment, because it was like a district wide kind of professional learning thing. But I've never forgotten that we have so much influence. And I and then I started to see it when my own kids would come home and talk about their teachers like their celebrities and what the teacher did today. And let's hope it's like a good celebrity story and not like a scandalous celebrity story usually is an awesome celebrity story.
00:24:47
Speaker
So we really have this this. very important impact and it's a great responsibility, obviously, but the work we do is meaningful and we do have the power to positively and productively change the lives of kids of all ages.
00:25:05
Speaker
So that, that is definitely my pitch. Of course, I always say pete to people, if you want to become a teacher, make sure you, you know, you understand, talk to teachers,
00:25:16
Speaker
get to know some, talk to them about the reality of the job, make sure you're okay never using the bathroom, that kind of thing. okay But it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful and every day is different also. so if you crave unpredictability, teaching is for you.
00:25:32
Speaker
all right. We love it All right. Last one. have a feature on the podcast called the shoulder tap. It's when you tap someone on the shoulder and let them know they're ready to become national board certified. So Mary Plotinsky, who are you shoulder tapping?
00:25:46
Speaker
I am shoulder tapping a teacher named Michelle, who I work with. um Amazing yeah ELA teacher, so creative, so full of wonderful ideas. And this is her first year of pursuing national board certification.
00:26:02
Speaker
And I want to encourage her because I think she's doing a great job and she is so dedicated and so passionate and I'm i'm behind her 100%. This exciting. This is exciting. it's exciting Michelle, we're rooting for you.
00:26:15
Speaker
Myron Plotensky, thank you for joining me on the podcast. Thank you for having me. It's been great. Thank you to Myron Plotensky for joining me on the podcast and sharing her insightful journey into education. Her passion for literacy and dedication to student success are truly commendable.
00:26:31
Speaker
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to National Board Conversations on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review. We appreciate the feedback. Remember to check out our show notes for links to Miriam's books and resources mentioned in the episode. Until next time, keep the joy in teaching and continue to inspire our next generation of learners.
00:26:49
Speaker
Thank for listening, and we'll see you next episode.