Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
97: What *was* lost during the pandemic? Here's how we rebuild our classrooms.
13 Plays3 years ago
Today, Nick and I are continuing our dissection of learning loss via our Learning Loss Handbook. In part 1, we spoke about the myth surrounding "learning loss" and the dire implications it has on our practice in schools. If you haven't listened in yet, I highly recommend checking out that episode.
In this episode we discuss:
- What was lost during pandemic schooling?
- What actions can we take in order to counteract the problems resulted from an isolated, virtual year(s)?
- How can we take these actions even in districts that don't support progressive actions?
RESOURCES
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to episode 97 of our podcast at Human Restoration Project.
00:00:09
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt, and I'm a high school digital media instructor from Ohio.
00:00:13
Speaker
Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Jordan Bacca, Aubrey Holliman, and John White.
00:00:21
Speaker
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Debunking the Myth of Learning Loss
00:00:23
Speaker
You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, or find us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
00:00:44
Speaker
Today, Nick and I are continuing our dissection of learning loss via our learning loss handbook.
00:00:49
Speaker
In part one, we spoke about the myth surrounding learning loss and the dire implications it has of our practice in schools.
00:00:54
Speaker
And if you haven't listened in yet, I highly recommend checking out that episode.
00:00:59
Speaker
So we want to provide just a brief summary of what we spoke about.
00:01:03
Speaker
And ostensibly, it's a discussion about how learning loss is not real, at least not in the sense that we currently are interpreting.
00:01:10
Speaker
The data doesn't really add up.
00:01:12
Speaker
The test scores are barely down, if down at all.
00:01:15
Speaker
And our focus on those test scores can have dire implications for how we lead our classrooms.
00:01:21
Speaker
Nick, is there anything that stood out to you about that
Pandemic's True Impact Beyond Test Scores
00:01:23
Speaker
discussion?
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, I loved our discussion of the testing elements themselves, the questions, and really digging into that question itself, the deeper question of, are these things really worth measuring in the first place?
00:01:38
Speaker
And then are the tests worth responding to if, you know, the questions themselves, which the data shows maybe kids are scoring, I don't know, zero to two to three questions less on a standardized test.
00:01:52
Speaker
Is it worth, you know, redesigning our education systems to overcome or to recover that quote unquote lost learning?
Introducing the Learning Loss Handbook
00:02:00
Speaker
I thought that was fascinating.
00:02:02
Speaker
So today we're talking about, okay, what do we do now?
00:02:06
Speaker
What actually was lost in the pandemic?
00:02:09
Speaker
Because no one's claiming that a global pandemic did not cause problems in education.
00:02:12
Speaker
It's just not solely, nor should it be solely focused on standardized test scores.
00:02:18
Speaker
So we're going to break down what we can do instead in the classroom and talk about the how.
00:02:23
Speaker
So in our learning loss handbook, it's kind of divided into three sections that we'll break down here today.
00:02:28
Speaker
The first thing just deals with how do we break this apart?
00:02:31
Speaker
How do we tease apart what it is that we're talking about and have that discussion with students?
00:02:35
Speaker
Then we'll talk about what systematic change can we affect in our classrooms to counteract what was lost in the pandemic?
00:02:43
Speaker
And then finally, we'll wrap it up with a discussion about creative noncompliance and how you can do this if you are in a district that is focused on this myth of learning loss.
Alfie Cohn's Argument Against Learning Loss
00:02:53
Speaker
With that said, this section of our booklet kicks off with an article by Alfie Cohn, who graciously provided us with this text.
00:03:01
Speaker
And essentially, the whole article, to summarize it, is talking about how
00:03:06
Speaker
yes, standardized test scores went down, but learning was not lost.
00:03:12
Speaker
He summarizes a variety of different research that demonstrates that a diminution of learning cannot be summarized in standardized test scores.
00:03:19
Speaker
And when we study the concept specifically of a summer slide, that even though test scores are down, the concept of learning cannot go down.
00:03:29
Speaker
Like that doesn't equate to the exact same thing.
00:03:32
Speaker
And in fact, in many cases, I guess life skills or other things that you learn or just your general ability to learn new things goes up over time because you're getting older.
00:03:42
Speaker
And it tends to be up until a certain age.
00:03:43
Speaker
We get better and better at learning things.
00:03:46
Speaker
At some point, we're like a toddler or something, I guess.
00:03:49
Speaker
So it's a pretty good article.
00:03:50
Speaker
And it showcases a lot of very interesting things.
00:03:53
Speaker
And you should check
Challenging the Summer Slide Myth
00:03:54
Speaker
it out.
00:03:54
Speaker
But I don't think we're going to summarize that whole thing.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think one thing that is really interesting to go back to our first part is that slowly comes back to me, too.
00:04:02
Speaker
But one of the things that we talked about then was was kind of that notion of the summer slide as sort of one of the preceding myths before its current iteration as pandemic learning loss.
00:04:17
Speaker
And one of the things that comes out of this, which Alfie Cohn cites as the most widely cited source on the topic of summer slide, the effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores, which he points out not on learning, he says, but even given that narrow focus, it's noteworthy that the declines were mostly confined to, quote,
00:04:37
Speaker
factual and procedural knowledge, such as math, computation, and spelling skills.
00:04:42
Speaker
Now, these would be things I think that if they're purely academic or purely classroom things, we would expect a natural sort of decline.
00:04:52
Speaker
If you think about that learning and forgetting curve, that Ebbinghaus curve that Frank Smith makes famous in his
00:04:59
Speaker
The book of learning and forgetting.
00:05:02
Speaker
But those would be things that we would expect procedural kind of training rote memorizational aspects that you just lose over time, but that with a little bit of practice, you can recover pretty quickly, like, you know, getting on a bike, you're going to.
00:05:15
Speaker
relearn how to use a formula that you had previously learned and maybe hadn't used before.
00:05:20
Speaker
Just probably like any adults or you or me, Chris, might be able to help like kids with their math homework, but it takes you a minute to remember, oh yeah, that's what we're trying to accomplish here.
00:05:29
Speaker
And then you kind of get back on that computational bicycle again.
00:05:34
Speaker
So kind of just talking in reasonable terms about the panic over summer learning loss as it's applicable to this current context.
00:05:45
Speaker
Right.
00:05:45
Speaker
And I think that that's a perfect segue into one of our major recommendations on how to deal with this, which is bringing students into that conversation so you can hear directly from them what they feel like they have lost.
Incorporating Student Perspectives
00:06:00
Speaker
Usually the best solution, especially when it comes to like human centered or progressive pedagogy, is just talking with kids because they're the ones that are there.
00:06:09
Speaker
And at least in my experience, anecdotally, I've never had a student tell me that they are concerned about how low their test scores were last year.
00:06:18
Speaker
There have been many other things that they've been focused on that we'll get here in a second.
00:06:21
Speaker
We have, I believe, three different context building activities that we've included inside the handbook.
00:06:29
Speaker
And each of them is a graphic organizer of sorts, which is essentially a discussion talking about the exact same things we spoke about in part one of our podcast and what we're talking about right now.
00:06:39
Speaker
The first graphic organizer simply talks with students about what learning was lost.
00:06:46
Speaker
For example, one of the questions is, this school year there's been a prominent focus on the idea of learning loss.
00:06:51
Speaker
Learning loss is the belief that students are months behind in primarily math and reading.
00:06:55
Speaker
Due to missed instruction, given your experiences, do you believe that you lost out on learning last year?
00:07:00
Speaker
And then you'd like write that down.
00:07:02
Speaker
You ask them, hey, was what you lost primarily academic last year?
00:07:08
Speaker
Or was it something else?
00:07:09
Speaker
Like, was it social, emotional well-being?
00:07:11
Speaker
Was it something like with your friends?
00:07:13
Speaker
Was it being able to go out, et cetera, et cetera?
00:07:16
Speaker
Just brainstorming what they had lost.
00:07:19
Speaker
And then that builds into a question surrounding, is learning loss a self-fulfilling prophecy?
00:07:24
Speaker
And you'd probably need to break down what that term means.
00:07:27
Speaker
but it's kind of bringing students into the game of school.
00:07:31
Speaker
When it comes to anything, whether it be grading, standardized tests,
00:07:35
Speaker
curriculum building, no matter what it is, there's so much power in just pulling students behind the curtain and showing them your thought process and why you're doing the things that you're doing.
00:07:45
Speaker
Because one, it makes it more transparent and lessens that power gap.
00:07:48
Speaker
But two, I think kids find that kind of cool.
00:07:52
Speaker
They feel like they're like part of the process.
00:07:54
Speaker
It's kind of like revolutionary, I guess.
00:07:56
Speaker
I think it helps them decompress some of that energy they might have
00:08:00
Speaker
toward, I don't know, I'd say like authority.
00:08:03
Speaker
Like a lot of times when we're running our classrooms and you just kind of like going through these activities, you're still the one in charge.
00:08:08
Speaker
But the more opportunities you allow students to contextualize what you're going through and why you're doing the things that you're doing and why we do the things that we do in school, the more say they have and being able to change that narrative and frame your perspective on what's going on.
00:08:23
Speaker
I think I'm making sense.
00:08:24
Speaker
Nick, am I making sense?
00:08:25
Speaker
I think for the most part, yeah.
00:08:27
Speaker
What I think, you know, you could use a variety of tools as well.
00:08:30
Speaker
And I think we include in here the example of a Poll Everywhere, which is a tool that I use a lot in my class.
00:08:36
Speaker
And what's cool about that is Poll Everywhere has a built-in, I call it the rate your pain scale.
00:08:41
Speaker
So it kind of runs the gamut of, you know, positive to neutral to like really negative emotions.
00:08:46
Speaker
So you can just use that to get a quick feel for how students are thinking about a particular topic.
00:08:51
Speaker
You know, like, hey, rate your rate your learning on so far on this unit, but also right for maybe SEL check ins.
00:08:59
Speaker
And of course, for this question about like, how did you feel about what you did in school last year?
00:09:04
Speaker
Or you can talk to them about specific activities that you felt that hybrid or online classes and teachers that they had last year.
00:09:11
Speaker
Which might not have been you, but what activities in those contexts did they find most valuable or what did what did they think had had met them where they were at in their home rather than try to, again, replicate the structures of school.
00:09:26
Speaker
inside of kids' bedrooms.
00:09:28
Speaker
So I've actually gotten a lot of good feedback from kids on that about like, oh, hey, we did too many Pear Decks last year in this class.
00:09:35
Speaker
So I kind of have a PTSD about going through those Pear Decks.
00:09:39
Speaker
So it's like, okay, cool.
00:09:40
Speaker
I only have this one, but thanks for letting me know.
00:09:43
Speaker
Or even in my own course, I use quizzes a whole lot.
00:09:46
Speaker
And kids now, they tell me that a lot of teachers are using that after the pandemic.
00:09:51
Speaker
And
00:09:52
Speaker
And I say to that, I just say, hey, that's the tool I've got.
00:09:57
Speaker
I don't know what to say about that.
00:09:58
Speaker
But yeah, you can try to mix it up, talk to other teachers about what worked, certainly, but also just talk to kids about what they like to do in class.
Post-Pandemic Learning Dynamics
00:10:07
Speaker
I know, Chris, you've even had more recent success with GimKit as kind of a collaborative tool.
00:10:12
Speaker
Our school purchased GimKit for all the teachers without any of the teachers testing it out first, which I guess is not always the best thing.
00:10:20
Speaker
But I was one of the first ones on our team to attempt using it.
00:10:25
Speaker
And the kids loved it because I told them flat out like, hey, if you don't like this, we're never going to do it ever again.
00:10:31
Speaker
But we're just going to beta test this and see how it goes.
00:10:34
Speaker
And practically every single student said, hey, this is better than anything else that I've done.
00:10:40
Speaker
It lasts forever, too.
00:10:41
Speaker
It is a thing.
00:10:43
Speaker
There is a humans versus zombies team mode.
00:10:47
Speaker
There's a lot of cooperative games, which I really liked.
00:10:50
Speaker
It's not nearly as Jeopardy-like as Kahoot!
00:10:55
Speaker
is or something like that.
00:10:56
Speaker
I've always been really bothered by the super competitive, like, someone has to win...
00:11:02
Speaker
Also, someone has to lose.
00:11:03
Speaker
Someone who gets all the questions wrong feels like they're not contributing, like they can't catch up.
00:11:07
Speaker
And it's also very time-based.
00:11:09
Speaker
Most of, not all, but most of the GimKit games are cooperative, and most of them are work at your own pace.
00:11:15
Speaker
So it doesn't matter how quickly you can read the questions because it's all on your own device.
00:11:19
Speaker
So I like that a lot.
00:11:21
Speaker
So I think whether it's talking about, right, the experiences that kids have or even the tools that they found either repetitive or useful, I think it's important just to then kind of reflect on like, hey, what are some similarities that we all faced individually?
00:11:37
Speaker
in all of this?
00:11:38
Speaker
Or what were some of the differences?
00:11:40
Speaker
Again, because a lot of pandemic did not fall upon all communities and all families equally.
00:11:45
Speaker
So there might be more kids who need a little bit more time and effort and energy to become accustomed to
00:11:54
Speaker
whatever in-person, you can never say post-pandemic anymore, but what in-person learning looks like at this point in the pandemic.
00:12:02
Speaker
So just having some space then to reflect on those commonalities and give feedback on what they want this classroom space to be able to look like and
00:12:10
Speaker
In my own experience this year, in talk with you, Chris, and with colleagues, you know, at the beginning of the year, my students were very transactional in the way that they viewed their learning.
00:12:20
Speaker
And I think some of that comes from the way that we approached school last year, which, of course, was health.
00:12:25
Speaker
school as a checklist.
00:12:27
Speaker
You'd have a checklist posted on the Canvas or on your Google Classroom on Monday.
00:12:32
Speaker
And then like, okay, these assignments are due on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
00:12:36
Speaker
And I found that the way that I approach my AP Hero class in particular is a lot more open-ended.
00:12:44
Speaker
It's a lot more about being prepared for discussions or it's about reflecting on how, say, your experience and thoughts match those of the
00:12:54
Speaker
in the primary sources that we're experiencing, right, or evaluating conclusions.
00:12:58
Speaker
So kids, kids have gotten frustrated with me and seemingly, you know, some of my loosey-goosiness on it.
00:13:04
Speaker
I think it's really a reaction to sort of the rigidity and the, and sort of that, that transactional style that we had during online and hybrid learning in particular.
00:13:15
Speaker
And now that we're
00:13:17
Speaker
you know, more face to face and we can do more open ended kinds of activities.
00:13:21
Speaker
They really want to know what, what do I need to have done?
00:13:24
Speaker
What is this thing or is this or that thing rated or, or what am I supposed to be doing on this?
00:13:29
Speaker
And I just have to tell them all the time, Hey, it's going to be okay.
00:13:31
Speaker
Just, just read through this, record your thoughts on it, bring it back tomorrow and we'll talk.
00:13:36
Speaker
And yeah, I don't know if your experience has been the same, but that's kind of been mine so far this year.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:41
Speaker
For, for us, and maybe it's just because I teach,
00:13:45
Speaker
entirely freshman and I have for years now, the major thing that we've seen is there's definitely a bit of that, but it's primarily been built up social unrest.
00:13:57
Speaker
So like just not being able to like be around other people.
00:14:01
Speaker
So a lot of just like
00:14:03
Speaker
I don't know, middle school things like running around and jumping on each other and touching each other and those kinds of things that typically you don't want to happen inside.
00:14:15
Speaker
Like that's like an outdoor like gym type activity, but we don't have to do that.
00:14:18
Speaker
It's been trying to find ways that our students can move around and connect with each other during class where they're not just seated there.
00:14:29
Speaker
Because a lot of virtual learning was very much just like get through it, sit and get, and then it's over.
00:14:34
Speaker
And I think a lot of kids felt very isolated.
00:14:37
Speaker
And now that it's not isolated anymore, they can finally be with their friends again.
00:14:41
Speaker
And that's been a lot, even still in October.
00:14:44
Speaker
And I think that kind of just built into the point of the purpose of these context building activities is to have sort of a radical transparency with students.
00:14:55
Speaker
So students understand your thought process behind why you might be trying out new things, which we'll get to in the next section.
00:15:02
Speaker
Students are much more likely to go along with change in the classroom if they're part of your coalition.
00:15:09
Speaker
Jonathan Kozul talks about in his work a lot about building this coalition up between students and parents and families and community members who are all in your wheelhouse to understand why you're doing what you're doing and will back you up when it gets there.
00:15:24
Speaker
I think about early in my career when I started doing a lot of ungrading, I would have parents reach out heavily concerned about what was going on in my class because I never really informed them about
00:15:36
Speaker
what exactly was going on or why I was doing it.
00:15:39
Speaker
And I didn't do a very good job either of telling my students why I was doing it.
00:15:42
Speaker
So to them, it was like, well, this weird teacher is doing all this weird stuff and he's going to let me fail.
00:15:48
Speaker
Over time, I got much better at clearly communicating, like, this is the reason why I do it.
00:15:52
Speaker
Here's the research that supports it.
00:15:53
Speaker
Let's talk about grades and break them down.
00:15:56
Speaker
In the exact same way, where as now we're talking about learning loss, like this is the reason why class looks like this.
00:16:02
Speaker
This is the reason why I want to focus more on play and cooperation.
00:16:05
Speaker
How was your experience like in isolation?
00:16:07
Speaker
Here's how we can fix that together.
Rebuilding Relationships Post-Pandemic
00:16:09
Speaker
What ideas do you have to fix these things?
00:16:12
Speaker
And building that class together is a very powerful experience that is truly authentic relationship building.
00:16:18
Speaker
Instead of doing some, not to disparage against icebreakers, but like dumb icebreakers, which are just like
00:16:24
Speaker
usually a chore.
00:16:25
Speaker
We can instead make a systemic relationship builder where students actually do have power that they can influence your class.
00:16:34
Speaker
We basically then take that concept of building a class together through a variety of different discussions, taking down notes, et cetera, and have an activity where you and students kind of write this out, like they decipher it, where you write down things like, what did we lose?
00:16:52
Speaker
What do we miss out on?
00:16:53
Speaker
And what we'll do differently this year?
00:16:55
Speaker
And that can help us build forward back better.
00:16:59
Speaker
And
00:17:00
Speaker
That can happen at any time, whether you're listening to this podcast in October or maybe it's next year or maybe it's years from now.
00:17:06
Speaker
The ability to just take your class and say, hey, we're going to do something all new altogether because you don't like what we're doing right now, that's powerful.
00:17:15
Speaker
To kind of like wrap up this context building section, we do have some clips from folks when HRP did our 100 Days of Conversations about School with Redimension Education.
00:17:26
Speaker
we collected over 500 different folks who told us about reimagining education post-pandemic.
00:17:32
Speaker
And during those discussions, a lot of different folks shared exactly what did they lose out on?
00:17:39
Speaker
What were they thinking?
00:17:41
Speaker
What did they want to see changed?
00:17:42
Speaker
And here's a few of those voices right now.
00:17:46
Speaker
As another student, I would definitely agree with that and how important those connections are with education.
00:17:54
Speaker
you know, like friends and other classmates and even teachers because most of my teachers this year I have never met in person and I don't really know them and I think between students and teachers there is it is important to sort of have
00:18:16
Speaker
a connection of feeling like you know this person and that you feel like they can help you.
00:18:21
Speaker
And the same with classmates.
00:18:23
Speaker
I have some classmates that I've never really talked to or met before.
00:18:28
Speaker
And it's the same with that as it like
00:18:31
Speaker
Even if you don't always want to turn to your teachers for help, you can turn to people who are closer to your age or make connections with them.
00:18:41
Speaker
I just recently got my driver's license and it's... So before it was like, oh, I couldn't really drive to my friend's house or go to hang out.
00:18:53
Speaker
And now it's like, I do have that ability, but I still...
00:18:58
Speaker
you know, can't go and hang out with those people because where would you go?
00:19:01
Speaker
And like, how would you be able to actually hang out and keep that connection?
00:19:09
Speaker
Although it did help me, I guess, transportation wise, I'm a little far, you know, it would have been, it did, you know, make a lot of things convenient.
00:19:16
Speaker
But I guess just realizing that human interaction is so vital and just like the energy of people and just really like one thing I noticed I missed is eye contact because sometimes like when you like really are just like,
00:19:37
Speaker
digesting information and really are just like invested in the conversation, especially when you're being lectured, like just that eye contact really like solidifies like that, like everything right now is just so pure and like this is like a learning space.
00:19:53
Speaker
And in my class, I was, there was like 20 kids in this political science class.
00:19:57
Speaker
I'm literally the only one with my camera on.
00:19:59
Speaker
So it was a very different vibe.
00:20:02
Speaker
And it was awesome because I felt like it was like a catered class to myself.
00:20:06
Speaker
But I definitely was thinking, how does my professor feel sitting behind a screen with one face when really it used to be him getting to lecture in front of a classroom full of folks?
00:20:22
Speaker
even in the second semester of college for me, it's difficult with things being on screen because I do have a set circle of friends here who are very good and support me and we all get along very well.
00:20:32
Speaker
But there's a lack of like
00:20:35
Speaker
connection in each of your classes that I don't think I ever realized was so important before, even if it's just commiserating over how difficult that last test was or how much this professor kind of sucks because they don't give us good enough notes to work off of or whatever.
00:20:49
Speaker
Even like that casual socialization is like really important in
00:20:55
Speaker
and like thriving in school and feeling like you're heard and that other people understand what you're going through.
00:21:01
Speaker
And so it's difficult not having that.
00:21:05
Speaker
And I don't think I would have realized how important that was if it hadn't been taken away by COVID.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the takeaway from these conversations should really be about the need now for students to make that connection that they felt that they had lost during a time where social distancing, I was going to say, was more necessary, but maybe it was just taken more seriously.
00:21:32
Speaker
And schools were not the active hubs for not just academic education,
00:21:38
Speaker
activities in the classroom, but also for extracurriculars too that a lot of students
Actions for Systemic Change
00:21:43
Speaker
missed out on.
00:21:43
Speaker
So yeah, there is that need for community building, I think, to an extent that there hasn't been before.
00:21:50
Speaker
And in my own experience with this this year is seeing students that I had had last year online and then seeing them for the first time in class at the start of this year, there's still students that come in and talk to me because my
00:22:05
Speaker
their experience of the pandemic is linked to their experience of my class.
00:22:10
Speaker
And I'm not sure if they're doing the same with some of their other remote teachers too, but I think one of the ways that I approached my online class was to focus on that community piece
00:22:20
Speaker
Because I felt like it was the most vital part to focus on.
00:22:25
Speaker
Plus, you know, the limits that were kind of placed upon us in those situations made what I kind of thought at the time, the academic push a little bit of a futile effort without dehumanizing.
00:22:39
Speaker
kids and their experience of it.
00:22:40
Speaker
So I think, I think, you know, the way that we're feeling about this, Chris, like is corroborated by these student responses.
00:22:47
Speaker
So I think that there's also the value in this is just going with our gut feeling, perhaps to your point about GimKit, right?
00:22:54
Speaker
The kids are not going to have, think this is fun.
00:22:56
Speaker
I don't think this is great.
00:22:58
Speaker
And then they do it and they say they want some more of that and we can be responsive to that.
00:23:02
Speaker
So, so when in doubt, always listen to kids, right?
00:23:05
Speaker
Right, right.
00:23:05
Speaker
And it just kind of builds itself.
00:23:08
Speaker
And this builds into the three actions towards systemic change that we recommend that folks do, which are free play, community connections, and social emotional learning.
00:23:18
Speaker
So transforming our classes and the spaces that have more free play, that are more connected to the community, and focus on social emotional learning.
00:23:27
Speaker
So let's talk a second about free play and what that means.
00:23:31
Speaker
So free play is defined as having three elements, according to this Harvard study that we linked in here, which is really interesting.
00:23:41
Speaker
You should check out.
00:23:42
Speaker
So there's choice.
00:23:44
Speaker
So participants are the ones that are choosing the goals, rules, and period of play.
00:23:48
Speaker
There's wonder.
00:23:50
Speaker
So participants create, imagine, explore, and learn.
00:23:53
Speaker
And finally, there's delight.
00:23:55
Speaker
Participants are happy and they feel at ease.
00:23:59
Speaker
A lot of gamification doesn't really meet those three goals of choice, wonder, and delight.
00:24:06
Speaker
A lot of them are just kind of like disguised academics.
00:24:09
Speaker
You can do it well.
00:24:11
Speaker
Like when students play Genkit, even though there is an academic question component to that, most of them, not all, but most of them are heavily engaged.
00:24:19
Speaker
And for those folks that aren't engaged, then we need to find something else for them.
00:24:22
Speaker
It's not like they're just going to be left out.
00:24:24
Speaker
But finding ways to basically just play games with your class.
00:24:28
Speaker
And we asked some reflection questions here about, is there time for play in your class, even if it's not academic?
00:24:34
Speaker
I'm very fortunate.
00:24:35
Speaker
I teach in a computer lab.
00:24:37
Speaker
The kids play video games all the time.
00:24:39
Speaker
I don't stop them.
00:24:40
Speaker
I'll intentionally have lessons that are like 15 to 20 minutes long just to give the kids time to play games.
00:24:47
Speaker
I tell them like, yo, today we're just going to play video games together.
00:24:50
Speaker
I've been dominating some crunker.
00:24:53
Speaker
which apparently is like this really weird browser-based FPS game.
00:24:58
Speaker
But I play with the kids and I suck and the kids love it.
00:25:01
Speaker
That's fine.
00:25:03
Speaker
It's just something that you can do with your kids that's fun.
00:25:06
Speaker
We recommend things like you have a board game day.
00:25:10
Speaker
Maybe you play some smartphone games.
00:25:11
Speaker
Heads up.
00:25:13
Speaker
Even though, at least for my kids, it's become like really cringy, but among us, still a thing.
00:25:18
Speaker
You have like Jackbox games.
00:25:19
Speaker
My kids have always loved Jackbox games, even though they're maybe not for the younger kids.
00:25:25
Speaker
Even like outdoor stuff.
00:25:26
Speaker
Tag, hide and seek.
00:25:27
Speaker
Everyone needs time to play and decompress and just have fun.
00:25:31
Speaker
Adults included.
00:25:33
Speaker
And I think, too, I would hate for us to fall into the same trap of thinking that learning and play are somehow mutually exclusive things either, because there's a lot of research that actually supports that.
00:25:45
Speaker
You know, when kids are playing, it's a deeply cognitive task for them.
00:25:50
Speaker
And
00:25:51
Speaker
And, you know, kind of going back to, I don't know, no child left behind, which, especially in elementary schools and things put a lot of pressure to reduce that, that reduce free play time in exchange for like highly structured academic class time.
00:26:07
Speaker
And really, kind of then seeing the lack of value put into which for kids is a cognitively rigorous task, we actually, you know, by keeping them in more structured classroom spaces where they don't have access to
00:26:19
Speaker
Free play.
00:26:20
Speaker
We're limiting them cognitively at the same time.
00:26:23
Speaker
And then we wonder why when they get to middle school and high school, we have those conversations about executive skills.
00:26:29
Speaker
And then those things could maybe be nipped in the bud by letting them have some more choice play.
00:26:34
Speaker
But at the same time, Chris, I'm making connections, too, to self-determination here.
00:26:38
Speaker
And I just had read another link that Alfie Cohn had posted to this giant meta-analysis.
00:26:43
Speaker
I think it's something like over 400 studies they looked at with hundreds of thousands of students involved in the studies, like a tremendous amount of research into this.
00:26:55
Speaker
And the three key pillars of self-determination theory...
00:26:58
Speaker
Which is like a positive predictor of, you know, intrinsic motivation, which that obviously has positive connections to life and life and academic outcomes as well.
00:27:09
Speaker
But when I see choice, wonder and delight, it makes me think of the self-determination theories, competency, autonomy and relevance.
00:27:18
Speaker
or connectivity to that
Fostering Intrinsic Motivation in Classrooms
00:27:20
Speaker
as well.
00:27:20
Speaker
So it's really interesting that if you start to think we've almost come full circle in the sense of going from free play as an inherently good thing that we just value in kids, just because we see them being happier, healthier little humans as a result, to being
00:27:38
Speaker
Now, self-determination theory is like a mainstream, well-supported, research-backed practice that is almost completely absent from schools, in my experience.
00:27:50
Speaker
I had never heard anything about in any school-driven PD in my 10 years.
00:27:54
Speaker
But we're coming full, full, full circle back to choice, wonder and delight, right through kind of competence, autonomy, connectivity, relevance, all those kinds of things that actually create intrinsically motivated, happier kids.
00:28:08
Speaker
So, you know, a lot of times you could have a class that's structured where it doesn't look like free play, but essentially that's what kids are doing.
00:28:16
Speaker
If you have
00:28:17
Speaker
You know, a classroom that's set up to be intrinsically motivating or allow kids to have teacher supportive autonomy in those in those areas.
00:28:27
Speaker
in those ways, they'll, they'll exceed your expectations, you know, on any kind of task because it turns an academic, an otherwise academic task essentially into a self-driven, right, choice-based activity where they, they are in charge of, of their learning.
00:28:47
Speaker
And, and to an extent like that's, that, that could be on the free play radar too, you know.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
00:28:53
Speaker
And I think that it helps to kind of ease that feeling that you might have.
00:28:58
Speaker
I know for me, I sometimes get nervous having a class where there is no quote unquote academic attachment to what we're doing in class that day.
00:29:09
Speaker
Like I've had days where we just play Jackbox games the entire period.
00:29:12
Speaker
There is no...
00:29:14
Speaker
standard-based thing that I am doing at that point.
00:29:17
Speaker
But if you understand that research behind what you're doing, it can help give you a backup behind saying, this is my relationship builder.
00:29:25
Speaker
This is how kids learn.
00:29:27
Speaker
They are actually learning just as much doing this than they would have if I would have lectured all period.
00:29:33
Speaker
And it
00:29:34
Speaker
To me, like icebreakers shouldn't be left to the first week of school.
00:29:38
Speaker
The relationship building stuff has to happen throughout the entire course of the year.
00:29:42
Speaker
Some of my happiest and funniest moments I've ever seen are what kids do on Jackbox games like three months into school.
00:29:49
Speaker
It's some of the most fun I've ever had.
00:29:51
Speaker
So I highly encourage people just to play some games right now and then.
00:29:54
Speaker
Incorporate as much as possible.
00:29:56
Speaker
And I think in terms of what makes school like a safe environment, an intellectually, socially, like physically safe environment for kids, you have to meet those criteria for them to...
00:30:12
Speaker
perceive that this play is also safe.
00:30:15
Speaker
Does that make sense?
00:30:15
Speaker
Like they're not going to be themselves in that Jackbox environment and right.
00:30:20
Speaker
Build that relationship to right.
00:30:22
Speaker
As, as a classroom community, you know, unless you have those things in there as well.
00:30:27
Speaker
So it's kind of that symbiotic relationship in the sense that, well, the play and the games help make those spaces intellectually, socially, physically safe places.
00:30:37
Speaker
where they can, you know, learn sort of the social norms and rules of how we're all going to get along in those spaces, while at the same time, then like, then those spaces are safe to take other risks, you know, in maybe more academic ways, if when you need kids to do those later on as well.
00:30:55
Speaker
So, so I'm not saying it should be, you know, like, like leverage or a quid pro quo, but
00:31:02
Speaker
You know, we can't disregard those factors in terms of creating spaces that kids want to be involved in and want to protect as their own and to like make those social communities their own.
00:31:15
Speaker
And maybe, Chris, like this, this goes into our next topic as well, which is that taking action toward community involvement.
00:31:22
Speaker
Because it's not just about building those communities within your classroom, but actually building connections to outside those four walls.
00:31:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:33
Speaker
So I think the other part of that, again, I'm thinking about the self-determination theory.
00:31:38
Speaker
is that relevance and connectivity piece to that as well, which is not just kids seeing their work as, say, validated in an academic sense via grades or points or teacher praise or whatever, but actually seeing and being involved in
00:31:55
Speaker
a connection to like that adult world outside of school or what we might call like the real world, right?
00:32:00
Speaker
You know, reflecting with kids and getting them to think about what community connections did they miss out on.
00:32:06
Speaker
So whether that was school or whether that was at home as well, because I think a lot of families, if you're distant from the people, not necessarily in your nuclear family, but your extended family, you might not have seen them for a year at a time, you know, until, you
00:32:21
Speaker
the vaccines rolled out until things got a little bit better in the spring.
00:32:26
Speaker
And maybe now we'll be in a place where that might not be so safe to get together again for the holidays.
00:32:32
Speaker
Even I think of my own context and situation where my kids now have celebrated two pandemic birthdays, you know, each and each one of those has been really hard.
00:32:44
Speaker
You know, you make do, but you, you understand that there is like a loss that's there and,
00:32:50
Speaker
When we go back and look at those photo albums or talk about this time, that's going to be a really difficult time for me to process as a parent is just thinking about how much harder it made those kinds of celebrations that we took for granted in.
00:33:05
Speaker
And for some people, it was, you know, the last the last years with with, say, elderly elderly parents or grandparents.
00:33:13
Speaker
You know, I feel for for families who have had to delay celebrations of life and in funeral service services for for for covid reasons.
00:33:25
Speaker
So, right, it's about processing all of those, not to be a downer, processing all of those like negative emotions as well and trying to rebuild them, I think is the point, right?
00:33:36
Speaker
Which is to say, you know, how can we make schools a place where that is validated?
00:33:44
Speaker
And what can we do to connect students back to those spaces that, you know, need to be rebuilt?
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:50
Speaker
In terms of that connection piece, whether it's maybe you're going out to a park or a historical site, or maybe it's just some kind of local space, maybe it's a person, like a nonprofit or a change banker, a community of person, a government official.
00:34:08
Speaker
The more folks that people talk with that are not people that they see every single day in the building that are from their local community, the more attachment they feel to that space.
00:34:18
Speaker
And the more likely it is that they will try to make that space better.
00:34:22
Speaker
One of the most concerning notions to me is that many schools treat their space as a space to escape.
00:34:31
Speaker
As in, like, I want to get to a better place than where I'm at right now.
00:34:36
Speaker
instead of centering the idea of we need to make this space better.
00:34:41
Speaker
I teach in an area that historically is not so great socioeconomically.
00:34:46
Speaker
One of the activities we do every single year is we take kids on a walking tour of the community
00:34:52
Speaker
exist there because there are a lot of really awesome things and cool local businesses and really cool people and that's an eye-open experience for many of these kids who tell me they have literally never walked downtown in that space before which is mind-boggling to me because they live five miles away so the more we expose our students to those spaces and those people the more of a connection they feel both to the community and to their school
00:35:18
Speaker
One more note about the classroom connection piece.
00:35:21
Speaker
I think about the recent obsession with devious licks, which is kind of a meme, but it's a real thing.
00:35:29
Speaker
where kids are destroying spaces that they are in because they don't see themselves in those spaces.
00:35:34
Speaker
You don't see kids tearing up their own houses.
00:35:38
Speaker
They're tearing up a space that they do not value, that they don't care about for social media attention.
Impact of Social Media and School Spaces
00:35:44
Speaker
And I think that when we build spaces where people actually feel connected to it, it doesn't make any sense out of that context.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah, that is such an interesting connection because it does go to show kind of where that value center has shifted, perhaps necessarily as a result of the pandemic.
00:36:05
Speaker
You know, a lot of the feedback that I've gotten from kids was that, you know, they see in themselves that they spent a lot of time on social media and
00:36:16
Speaker
And that part of their social experience of the pandemic was kind of on necessary overdrive.
00:36:21
Speaker
It was the only way that they could connect with their friends.
00:36:24
Speaker
And so now that we've shifted back to like a physical space where schooling is happening, maybe that, I don't know what to call it, like that moral or that social center hasn't shifted with it.
00:36:37
Speaker
You know, usually schools are places of, I don't know, school spirit or some kind of, some kind of,
00:36:45
Speaker
center of responsible responsibility, right, of the community.
00:36:49
Speaker
So that is interesting to kind of see Devious Licks, perhaps as a, like an offshoot of which spaces are valued, right, getting getting the clout in that social media space, post, post pandemic, mid pandemic, versus right, valuing those physical spaces, at the same time there, and wondering just if there's some tension there.
00:37:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a good segue into our third action that we could take, which is towards social emotional learning.
00:37:15
Speaker
There was already a serious, serious, serious problem with socio emotional well being of adolescents and young people prior to the pandemic.
00:37:25
Speaker
And the pandemic has made everything worse.
00:37:29
Speaker
There was a survey, two-thirds of parents reported that their children experienced mental or emotional challenges in 2020.
00:37:34
Speaker
That ranges from social isolation to suicidal thoughts.
00:37:39
Speaker
A third said that these struggles were worse during the pandemic.
00:37:42
Speaker
Teenagers in general have higher increased stress levels than ever before, more so than adults in many cases.
00:37:49
Speaker
And school is a place where these students are spending time
00:37:54
Speaker
In many cases, the majority of their life at any given point because of they might work on it at home, they might think about it at home, they might have things that are coming up, they might be involved in extracurriculars or clubs.
00:38:05
Speaker
So
00:38:06
Speaker
Building a space that both connects to the community, has play, has transparency, where we focus on other progressive notions like humanized assessment pieces, et cetera, discipline, that has implications for how students see themselves, treat each other, and their stress levels.
00:38:23
Speaker
There's something very odd to me about the idea that you should be stressed out about school.
00:38:27
Speaker
I understand why you're stressed out about school.
00:38:30
Speaker
But it's odd to me that we've gotten to the point where it's a given and it's like a thing that everyone seems to be facing.
00:38:37
Speaker
We basically recommend that instead of exclusively focusing on mindfulness, which is a good idea in theory, things like giving students tools to decompress, teaching them about social emotional learning, even things like yoga and stuff like that, that's perfectly okay.
00:38:56
Speaker
But we also have to recognize what structures in school are
00:39:01
Speaker
to begin with.
00:39:02
Speaker
For example, high stakes assessment, homework, bullying, competition, grades, how the teacher treats their students, etc.
00:39:11
Speaker
We need to be focusing on the problems that cause these things and not solely offering this very faux style solution to the problem that we're creating.
Addressing Education's Structural Stressors
00:39:20
Speaker
It reminds me of what's going on right now in like corporate America, where you'll have like these conferences and super cheesy videos and
00:39:28
Speaker
things to make you feel good about working at a corporation that at the exact same time is underpaying you and treats you like crap.
00:39:34
Speaker
Like there are underlying problems that we're facing that need to be solved before we move into the mindfulness piece.
00:39:40
Speaker
Right.
00:39:41
Speaker
And what it does, too, is, I mean, it has adults abdicating responsibility for creating healthy spaces for children and then
00:39:48
Speaker
just puts the burden on children to, you know, yoga or mindfulness their way out of those situations, which that's not necessarily healthy either, because we want kids to be present and active and engaged.
00:40:02
Speaker
It shouldn't be the case then that if kids encounter a stressful environment that we just say, oh, hey, you know, practice your mindfulness techniques.
00:40:10
Speaker
We also want kids to be advocates too.
00:40:12
Speaker
When we partner with them to help create those healthy changes for our earlier conversation 10 minutes ago, those help create healthier spaces too, because kids know that their agency is being valued and the school and the classroom is going to be a safe environment for them.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah, certainly.
00:40:31
Speaker
Adults need mindfulness techniques, too, to overcome healthy amounts of stress and persevere.
00:40:37
Speaker
But schools should really take drastic results to diminish the need for those inside the walls of school.
00:40:46
Speaker
And we list off, this would include things like open note assessment, being able to retake any assessment as needed, considering to eliminate homework or at least extremely less than the amount that you give, establishing cooperative community norms that encourage team building and safe spaces.
00:41:03
Speaker
That one hits home for me.
00:41:05
Speaker
This year, more than ever, we've had many issues with political beliefs at school on both sides of the aisle and this kind of, I guess, tribalist style belief where folks are bringing in what they're hearing from their families, whether it's on the left or on the right.
00:41:20
Speaker
And it's causing social divisions at school, which is being we find that replicated throughout society right now.
00:41:27
Speaker
But it's
00:41:27
Speaker
It's a serious problem because people can't get along in the same classroom anymore.
00:41:32
Speaker
We need to find ways to make that a cooperative safe space.
00:41:36
Speaker
Also, things like eliminated grading altogether, as well as doing an equity survey, which we link one of those in there, where you just hear from students how safe do they actually feel.
00:41:45
Speaker
We need to both level with kids, be transparent with kids, and change things in our classes to help foster those connections and build a safe, caring space, even if that means that we need to set academics aside.
00:41:57
Speaker
And a point I want to make to highlight that is that this is all the exact opposite of what's being recommended.
00:42:06
Speaker
The learning loss crowd, the folks that are putting all this money into schools, do not want that to occur because they want or spending all their money on schools buying test prep software, which there is no way that you're going to be focused on increasing standardized test scores, taking more map assessments, figuring out someone's reading level.
00:42:26
Speaker
and still be able to foster those social connections because you need to focus less on academics typically to make that occur.
00:42:35
Speaker
And at least in my context, this year more than ever, we've had kids getting pulled out for doing like reading assessment.
00:42:41
Speaker
We've had kids getting pulled out for various different diagnostic things.
00:42:47
Speaker
We've taken additional like pre-prep
00:42:51
Speaker
testing, just like everything that could potentially disrupt the learning environment has occurred.
00:42:56
Speaker
Kids don't like those things.
00:42:57
Speaker
They do not like getting pulled out of class to do those things.
00:43:00
Speaker
I'm not saying that it's not important to figure out if a kid can't read very well and that you shouldn't help them, but the way that we do those things has to be changed so that it is a caring environment.
00:43:10
Speaker
Yeah, well, what the alternative is, is that schools become about feeding pigs and weighing them in regards to standardized assessment, right?
00:43:19
Speaker
So then schools just become the place where they go to get weighed, if that makes any sense.
00:43:25
Speaker
And yeah, I don't know, I don't know if the sort of the abattoir sort of metaphor is working real good there.
00:43:32
Speaker
But you can see how that would not make school a very pleasant place for kids to want to go to if it's just the place that they know that they're going to go to be
00:43:38
Speaker
measured, weighed, and evaluated in those measures, they're going to learn to find social and intellectual value, you know, elsewhere.
00:43:47
Speaker
So I think there is a certain portion, not just necessarily of learning loss proponents or whatever, but I think of the American public in general, who kind of disregards that 700,000 people have died more than in the 1918 flu pandemic.
00:44:07
Speaker
More than every word combined.
00:44:09
Speaker
Yes.
00:44:10
Speaker
But also that we're still in the midst of that and kids still can get sick.
00:44:14
Speaker
I've had five students in the last week who are out with COVID positive tests.
00:44:22
Speaker
My daughter has been exposed and
00:44:24
Speaker
And I was just telling Chris that I got off the phone with my family.
00:44:29
Speaker
And there's two positive tests in my extended family for people who are double and triple vaxxed and have otherwise been careful.
00:44:36
Speaker
So again, not that this is very relevant to the classroom side of this too, but the more recent data about this has even shown that 120,000 American children have lost a parent or a caregiver to COVID-19.
00:44:52
Speaker
So this rush to normalcy really just ignores the fact that, A, the pandemic is still ongoing and is impacting children and families in ways that are going to be probably more traumatic than a 3% drop in their math score for
Creative Noncompliance in Education
00:45:12
Speaker
third grade.
00:45:12
Speaker
So, yeah, it's hard not to get a little bit bitter and pessimistic for me.
00:45:17
Speaker
I don't know about you, Chris, but I do.
00:45:20
Speaker
I have that sense of resentment about,
00:45:22
Speaker
people who want to push us back into perhaps schools and structures that are unsafe, that want to have debates about whether masks are useful in environments where kids and adults are dropping like flies and testing positive.
00:45:39
Speaker
And then children have caregivers who are dying.
00:45:42
Speaker
So every day we're burying thousands of people in the United States.
00:45:47
Speaker
It's hard to kind of see where our value set lies.
00:45:50
Speaker
Is it in
00:45:50
Speaker
Is it in pursuing some amount of test scores or is it about actually valuing the lives and safety of children?
00:45:58
Speaker
And I think I think there's not a better case than for for the next page.
00:46:03
Speaker
I think it's page 45 in the in the Learning Loss Handbook, which deals with that topic of creative noncompliance.
00:46:10
Speaker
This is something that I think has been more vital than ever as the Department of Education and representatives in the current administration have doubled down on testing and of recovering learning loss.
00:46:23
Speaker
I think really the pathway towards healthy classrooms and classroom communication
00:46:27
Speaker
communities and schools is through grassroots teacher effort, which a lot of times is going to involve you going against the grain and not necessarily doing everything that you're told because, well, you know, they are chasing a certain set of metrics.
00:46:43
Speaker
If you're being responsive to students that are in front of you and you can bring the receipts to show how, you know, they are
00:46:52
Speaker
they feel safer, they feel more connected.
00:46:54
Speaker
And then obviously to support the student learning component in that too, I would really struggle with a system that would look at that and say, no, this, that, and the other thing is more important than keeping students safe and happy and healthy.
00:47:07
Speaker
So what we have on this page is sort of a, what's established kind of risk level, kind of going from low risk kinds of activities, say to high risk ones.
00:47:18
Speaker
And on the low risk side,
00:47:20
Speaker
I mean, there are there are things like what, Chris, what could be a low risk creative noncompliance activity for teachers?
00:47:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:29
Speaker
And before I even mentioned it, defining low risk is kind of like determining your relative context of being able to implement a drastic, quote unquote, action in your class.
00:47:41
Speaker
because if you're like a first year teacher or maybe an administrator has spoken to you a bunch about what you've been doing and you're kind of like on their radar, you probably don't want to be in a circumstance where you're going to get wet, like laid off.
00:47:55
Speaker
Although I think it's worth asking yourself like,
00:47:59
Speaker
Well, if it sucks this bad, is it worth just getting laid off and looking for another job?
00:48:03
Speaker
I think that's worth asking those questions.
00:48:05
Speaker
It's also worth recognizing that like not everyone can just quit their job.
00:48:09
Speaker
So in the meantime, a low risk action would be like maybe day to day.
00:48:15
Speaker
There is something that goes on that's so minuscule.
00:48:17
Speaker
I think about things like dress code.
00:48:19
Speaker
Is anyone really going to be able to trace back to you not enforcing a hoodie policy or a hat policy in your class?
00:48:25
Speaker
Maybe it's something really simple, like just listening to student concerns.
00:48:29
Speaker
Even if you know you can't act on them, at least you can be that person who knows that information.
00:48:35
Speaker
And you can tell kids flat out like, hey, I don't really have power to change this, but I just want to hear about what's going on.
00:48:40
Speaker
And you can be that outlet for them in a more oppressive space.
00:48:45
Speaker
And that kind of builds on the last one, just creating those safe spaces.
00:48:49
Speaker
It's establishing those community norms.
00:48:51
Speaker
It's about speaking with kids about how they're doing.
00:48:53
Speaker
It's about playing games and doing things day to day where students feel like they like your class and they're safe in your class.
00:49:00
Speaker
they might not like the subject at all.
00:49:02
Speaker
I get that all the time.
00:49:03
Speaker
Being someone who teaches things on computers, a lot of kids hate computers.
00:49:07
Speaker
They don't like computers.
00:49:08
Speaker
And even by the end of the class, they still don't like computers.
00:49:10
Speaker
So they tell me flat out, yo, I hate your class, but I like you.
00:49:14
Speaker
I hate your subject, I should say, but I like you and I like your classroom.
00:49:18
Speaker
That to me is what you can do.
00:49:20
Speaker
If you don't have a lot of power, you start by
00:49:24
Speaker
refraining from anything too drastic and you take those small steps to make things better.
00:49:29
Speaker
A couple more would be doing that research so you know that you can take on something a little bit more.
00:49:35
Speaker
It's not easy.
00:49:36
Speaker
You have to really know what you're talking about in order to make these changes.
00:49:39
Speaker
It can't just be you walk in and hope that it works.
00:49:42
Speaker
There's a lot of research to support the things that we're talking about.
00:49:45
Speaker
And you can find all, we did the legwork, you can find it on our website.
00:49:48
Speaker
We have a lot of that research there for you to check out and to read and there's a lot of amazing authors
00:49:53
Speaker
You can listen on this podcast for folks to listen to as well as many other places.
00:49:57
Speaker
And then finally, it would be finding ways to build up your social and political capital, whether it be by connecting with families or by connecting with students or by doing more things for the school.
00:50:10
Speaker
Make yourself so intertwined within the school system that they can't afford to lose you, even if you are a little bit kind of off your rocker with the ideas that you're pressing.
00:50:18
Speaker
The more clubs you do, the more committees you serve on, maybe you have a union, you're involved with them, et cetera, et cetera.
00:50:25
Speaker
The more things that you find yourself doing, the less that can really happen to you and the more you can get away with.
00:50:33
Speaker
Right.
00:50:33
Speaker
It's about evaluating and identifying your relative power and privilege inside your systemic context and then leveraging that to the extent that you can.
00:50:43
Speaker
So it could be as simple as something as, you know, if you're going to enter into an ungrading kind of scenario with kids and you have to report grades at the six and maybe 12 weeks, 18 weeks, you know, every quarter, whatever you have to do.
00:50:59
Speaker
communicate with kids and parents what that's going to look like, but then maybe only report grades as you're like systemically obligated to do so, you know, um, just so that way you're, you know, you're, you're not say breaking, uh, the, the policy that's gonna, that's gonna get you fired right off, right out the gate, but right.
00:51:15
Speaker
You're humanizing your classroom perhaps in a,
00:51:18
Speaker
in a small or significant way that's going to have better outcomes for kids, but might not fit into the letter or the spirit, perhaps, of the board policy or the rules and policies that you're trying to change.
00:51:32
Speaker
Exactly.
00:51:33
Speaker
And I think, too, it's worth questioning how much risk actually does exist on these things and how much is it just we feel like there's risk in doing these things.
00:51:43
Speaker
Like, is anyone really going to care if you walk into your class tomorrow
00:51:48
Speaker
and play board games.
00:51:49
Speaker
Because anyone actually going to say anything to you, I'm, for better or for worse, always shocked by the level of no oversight that exists in the classroom.
00:52:01
Speaker
And no one seems to ever notice or care.
00:52:03
Speaker
I don't know if that's the case just in my context, but from speaking with a lot of other educators that incorporate different disciplinary techniques, maybe they get real homework, maybe they
00:52:12
Speaker
focus a lot on students managing their social emotional well-being, which takes away from those traditional standards, etc.
00:52:19
Speaker
No one really ever gets much pushback.
00:52:22
Speaker
I think part of that is too, what's an administrator going to do?
00:52:25
Speaker
Are you going to get cited for saying that, hey, I want to focus more on cooperative learning, so we did cooperative learning techniques today?
00:52:34
Speaker
It seems ridiculous to me that that could even be written down.
00:52:37
Speaker
And if it did get written down, you could have a fight on your hands.
00:52:40
Speaker
I think most people would be in your wheelhouse, especially, again, if you communicate clearly to families about what you're trying to do.
00:52:46
Speaker
And that builds into what are the more high risk actions?
00:52:50
Speaker
Well, it's actually changing the system.
00:52:53
Speaker
It's like walking in one day and saying, hey, I don't really care too much about the standards in this unit.
00:52:59
Speaker
So tell me what you want to learn about.
00:53:01
Speaker
Here are some guidelines on things I know I might need to do, but it's kind of up to you if you think those things are important or not.
00:53:06
Speaker
Like that's a radical action.
00:53:08
Speaker
But there are districts that do that.
00:53:09
Speaker
There are teachers that take that step and they try it out.
00:53:12
Speaker
Or maybe you just say, maybe you have a PLC that requires you to give homework, like everyone has to give a certain amount of homework, and you're just like, hey, I'm not going to give homework anymore.
00:53:20
Speaker
And you just do it and then see what happens.
00:53:23
Speaker
Again, the more
00:53:25
Speaker
social and political capital you have, the more you could probably get away with that.
00:53:28
Speaker
There's always that one teacher in a building.
00:53:30
Speaker
No matter what school we go to, there is always that teacher who kind of does their own thing.
00:53:36
Speaker
And the goal is for that to be you, the person that just no one really messes with and they are just
00:53:41
Speaker
making
Making Systemic Changes Actionable
00:53:42
Speaker
it work.
00:53:42
Speaker
I think that's a cool place to be.
00:53:44
Speaker
So one of the last pages, like how can you make this actionable for you and for your building?
00:53:52
Speaker
How can you present those ideas to administrators?
00:53:55
Speaker
And so we just have some space in here for you to, so to be able to address these kinds of ideas within your own context, because there is going to be a lot of money and weight tied to these test scores.
00:54:07
Speaker
And I think bringing admin to the table or
00:54:10
Speaker
who particularly could be amenable to these ideas?
00:54:14
Speaker
What could you do instead of focusing on tests and how can this address some of the broader loss?
00:54:19
Speaker
How can you maybe start a parent forum where they can come and talk about how schools should be addressing things like social emotional learning in the classroom?
00:54:29
Speaker
And then how you can bring this learning loss handbook to bear in your PLC conversations.
00:54:35
Speaker
And how can you push back then band together what,
00:54:39
Speaker
rather to push back on how you can band together to push for positive change.
00:54:44
Speaker
There's too many in there.
00:54:47
Speaker
And then, of course, you know, it's probably not going to be feasible that we're going to be able to eliminate testing altogether.
00:54:53
Speaker
So, for example, I mean, I teach an AP class and part of the incentive of that class is, of course, taking an AP test in May.
00:55:02
Speaker
So it's really about sort of balancing out those those those various
00:55:07
Speaker
incentives in your classroom.
00:55:09
Speaker
I mean, kids want to do well on AP tests, but also recognizing at the same time that that's not going to get everyone to the place that they need to be emotionally, socially, in a community sense either.
00:55:23
Speaker
So
00:55:24
Speaker
Yeah, so that's what this last page is about is just a space for you to reflect on how you can use the ideas in this handbook to reframe that notion of learning loss for the people who have power influence in your building.
00:55:35
Speaker
And then if that's you, how can you wrangle the coalitions in your context to allow those things to happen.
00:55:42
Speaker
So
00:55:42
Speaker
Chris, you mentioned earlier, the goal is to kind of be the person who is off doing their own thing.
00:55:48
Speaker
And I think in my context, I'm fortunate enough to have the power and privilege to be kind of that person.
00:55:56
Speaker
And a lot of these experiments, even in my PLCs, have
00:56:00
Speaker
been initiated as a result of me requesting like a brief pilot program like hey can I pilot this for a semester for a year and you know I'll make some tweaks to those programs but it's never been the case that then I go back to doing the same old thing that was done before so
00:56:16
Speaker
You know, my practice has diverged a lot from what is more traditional kind of risk-averse PLC practice, just because I've asked, hey, can I try this out for a semester?
00:56:26
Speaker
And, or maybe make that the focus of your, you know, your teacher professional development goal or whatever kinds of goal-setting programs you have to do.
00:56:36
Speaker
I've made PBL my goal for that for the last several years, and that's allowed me to keep, you
00:56:41
Speaker
growing PBL in my standard kind of required content courses, which I think is pretty cool.
00:56:47
Speaker
So anywhere where you can use the existing structures to kind of support the changes that you want to make is probably for the better.
00:56:54
Speaker
And that kind of brings us to the final part, which is just recognizing that there are a lot of outlets for you to learn more about these things.
00:57:02
Speaker
But a word of note, the frustrating part of this, whenever we talk about the how of progressive education is there is not a step-by-step model
00:57:10
Speaker
anyone who is trying to sell you an acronym on how to do these things or like a step-by-step thing defeats the entire purpose behind progressive education in general.
00:57:19
Speaker
It can't be standardized.
00:57:21
Speaker
It's all entirely dependent on your context.
00:57:24
Speaker
So there is not going to be anything that's just like this works.
00:57:26
Speaker
If you walk into your class and say, hey, I learned on this podcast that you all want to play jackpots games, let's just do it.
00:57:31
Speaker
And then all the kids hate it.
00:57:32
Speaker
That's not saying that progressive education doesn't work.
00:57:35
Speaker
It's saying that that activity does not work with your kids and that's not what they want to do.
00:57:39
Speaker
Ultimately, the how is being transparent with kids, figuring out what they want to do, and then making those changes based off of that group, which means it also might change year to year.
00:57:49
Speaker
One of my biggest struggles as a teacher is recognizing that every single year, the kids want to do different things.
00:57:54
Speaker
And some of the things that I like doing go away.
00:57:58
Speaker
And that's perfectly okay.
00:58:00
Speaker
Some of the resources that we offer include a bunch of articles on learning loss.
00:58:05
Speaker
So getting back to our part one discussion that dive more into that, especially Kiel Bellow's work, I think is quintessential in understanding what this movement is.
00:58:14
Speaker
And then we offer resources surrounding free play, community connections, and social emotional learning that back up doing those practices, as well as give you some ideas on what kids might want to do.
00:58:24
Speaker
I've typically in the past just given students these resources and said, hey, here's what some cool folks are thinking about in education.
00:58:30
Speaker
What do you think about these things?
00:58:31
Speaker
Are these things that you would want to do?
00:58:33
Speaker
And then they say, it looks like too much and I don't want to do it.
00:58:36
Speaker
Or they'll say, hey, it looks pretty cool.
00:58:38
Speaker
We should try doing that.
00:58:38
Speaker
And then we develop that together and make that work.
00:58:41
Speaker
So I think that any way that we can just give kids these tools and say, hey, is this a good idea or bad idea, the better.
00:58:48
Speaker
And then finally, we offer a bunch of resources at HRP.
00:58:52
Speaker
We obviously have this learning loss handbook.
00:58:53
Speaker
We also have a bunch of things surrounding like ungrading, path of purpose finding, interviews and podcasts with all the folks that pretty much appear in this handbook and a ton of research that backs up doing these practices with your students so that way you don't feel lost.
Conclusion and Support for Educators
00:59:10
Speaker
And that kind of summarizes everything.
00:59:13
Speaker
My final thought would be that I think it's perfectly okay to recognize that this year is probably the hardest year yet when it comes to being a teacher.
00:59:25
Speaker
And taking the time to listen to a super long podcast or to dive into a handbook or try out new things with your students is a lot.
00:59:32
Speaker
You would be a certain kind of person that would do that.
00:59:35
Speaker
So recognize that we're here to help you as best as we can.
00:59:39
Speaker
You can always reach out to us.
00:59:40
Speaker
It's Chris at humanrestorationproject.org or Nick at humanrestorationproject.org or just reach out via our website.
00:59:46
Speaker
We're more than willing to help you do things in your class.
00:59:50
Speaker
And recognize too that we deal with the exact same stressors.
00:59:53
Speaker
We are in that exact same place, even though we try doing these things as well.
00:59:56
Speaker
It's hard.
00:59:57
Speaker
It's hard being a teacher.
00:59:59
Speaker
And there are some things that need to change on the teaching level as well to make doing this work more possible.
01:00:05
Speaker
So recognize we're all in this fight together and we will make it.
01:00:19
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to Human Restoration Project's podcast.
01:00:23
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
01:00:27
Speaker
You can learn more about progressive education, support our cause, and stay tuned to this podcast and other updates on our website at humanrestorationproject.org.