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151: Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations w/ Nawal Qarooni
11 Plays11 months ago
Today we are joined by Nawal Qarooni. Nawal is an educator, writer, and adjunct professor based in Jersey City, who founded and operates NQC Literacy, a consultancy firm serving PreK-8 school leaders and teachers in holistic literacy instruction, equity-driven practice, and family engagement. She also serves on several committees, including the National Council for Teachers of English Committee Against Racism and Bias, evaluates manuscripts for Reese Witherspoon's LitUp program, and advises the Library of Congress Literacy Awards Advisory Board. Her recent book, Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations: Elevating Home Experiences and Classroom Practices for Collective Care is a deep dive into how educators can celebrate and elevate students’ families, while encouraging shared reflections and connections to what’s happening in schools.
We talk about building a collective culture of care that invites in families to build a better education system that supports all learners. We're combining the lens of progressive education lens of the classroom to the greater support structures that raise children toward a better future.
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Transcript
Introduction and Acknowledgments
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of our podcast.
00:00:13
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt and I'm part of the progressive education nonprofit Human Restoration Project.
00:00:18
Speaker
Before we get started, I want to let you know that this is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Kevin Gannon, Anna Wetlandt, and Daniel Holman.
00:00:26
Speaker
Thank you for your ongoing support.
00:00:27
Speaker
You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, or find us on social media and YouTube.
Naval Karuni's Work and Book Overview
00:00:34
Speaker
Today, we are joined by Naval Karuni.
00:00:37
Speaker
Naval is an educator, writer, and adjunct professor based in Jersey City who founded and operates NQC Literacy, a consultancy firm serving pre-K through eight school leaders and teachers in holistic literacy instruction, equity-driven practice, and family engagement.
00:00:52
Speaker
She also serves on several committees, including the National Council for Teachers of English Committee Against Racism and Bias, evaluates manuscripts for Reese Witherspoon's Lit Up program, and advises the Library of Congress Literacy Awards Advisory Board.
00:01:07
Speaker
Her recent book, Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations, Elevating Home Experiences and Classroom Practices for Collective Care,
00:01:14
Speaker
is a deep dive into how educators can celebrate and elevate students' families while encouraging shared reflections and connections to what's happening in schools.
00:01:22
Speaker
So thank you for joining us today, of all.
00:01:24
Speaker
I am so thankful to be here with you today.
00:01:27
Speaker
All right, so let's dive into this thing.
00:01:29
Speaker
I'm really excited to talk to you about the book because I think that family collaboration is something that many educators, including myself when I was teaching, really struggle with.
00:01:38
Speaker
It can be kind of a difficult process.
00:01:40
Speaker
It's something that a lot of folks aren't trained in.
00:01:43
Speaker
At first, at least for me, it's just very awkward to have to call home and talk to folks and invite people in and learn more about their backgrounds as well.
00:01:52
Speaker
So I really appreciated how this book
00:01:54
Speaker
is very reflective and interactive.
00:01:56
Speaker
There's a lot of activities for thinking critically about students, families and bring in that perspective.
Challenges in Family Collaboration and 'Kilims' Metaphor
00:02:03
Speaker
So I want to open up by talking about Killeen, which is the metaphor that you use throughout the book.
00:02:09
Speaker
It's at the beginning of every single chapter.
00:02:12
Speaker
What is that?
00:02:12
Speaker
How does that relate?
00:02:14
Speaker
How does this just kind of structure the work?
00:02:17
Speaker
Well, when I was thinking about myself and what holds me and what grounds me, I do often think about objects because my family didn't have much from their past because they're immigrants and they didn't bring much.
00:02:32
Speaker
They came before the 1979 Iranian revolution and then didn't know that they were going to stay because then the revolution happened and they never created back.
00:02:42
Speaker
We're not one of those families that has tons of family heirlooms, but what we do have, especially because my father's side of the family, most of their items were lost in the Iran-Iraq war that was subsequent to the revolution in the 80s.
00:02:56
Speaker
And so what we do have are few, but really important to me, kilims.
00:03:03
Speaker
And these kilims are super wonky and irregular and handmade and often vegetable dyed.
00:03:09
Speaker
And each of these kilims tell a story.
00:03:12
Speaker
And the person who created those games may have looked out of the windows and and seen a cow or might be, you know, telling a love story that they are thinking about while they are doing the weaving.
00:03:24
Speaker
And so you see these random objects or these kind of telltale signs of different storytelling in the rug that holds you and grounds you.
00:03:34
Speaker
And I thought to myself, you know, this is how education should go.
00:03:39
Speaker
It should be grounding.
00:03:41
Speaker
and natural and personal and also flexible and nimble and, you know, not packaged and from a factory, but tailored to the person who was creating it and for the people who are right.
00:03:56
Speaker
So, and that they're meaningful.
00:03:57
Speaker
And so that is how I kind of anchor my teaching pedagogy in a way.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense as the book is very much nuanced.
00:04:09
Speaker
There are a lot of different things in this world.
00:04:12
Speaker
I keep reaching for it.
00:04:13
Speaker
I was going to grab it.
00:04:14
Speaker
Because I just have to have something in my hands.
00:04:17
Speaker
So there's just so many different parts of this work that really dive into ways that we can think about classroom practice differently when it comes to literacy, but also family engagement.
00:04:29
Speaker
But I really appreciate how in the work, if you're listening on the podcast, I'm holding up, there's a table.
00:04:34
Speaker
There's a bunch of different tables and reflective activities.
00:04:38
Speaker
It's very visual.
00:04:40
Speaker
And something that I was kind of taking away is that the design of the book itself is reflecting that Kaleem kind of aesthetic, I guess, or vibe.
00:04:49
Speaker
I think was it your cousin that designed this?
00:04:52
Speaker
It's beautiful.
00:04:53
Speaker
I love how like colorful it is and easy to read.
00:04:56
Speaker
I hate like boring looking books.
00:04:59
Speaker
So this is this is exciting.
00:05:01
Speaker
Thank you.
00:05:01
Speaker
That was also important to me.
00:05:02
Speaker
I think so much of how we learn is visual or for some people, you know, it is important to digest better.
00:05:10
Speaker
And she did an incredible job of just, you know, mirroring that experience.
Exalting Families and Redefining Engagement
00:05:15
Speaker
So with that said, let's talk a little bit about just some overall themes and topics that you discuss within the work.
00:05:23
Speaker
So one thing that I noticed is that the framework of each chapter is essentially divided into a bunch of different, I suppose, like keywords or verbs.
00:05:31
Speaker
So reflecting, honoring, connecting.
00:05:34
Speaker
And as I was reading through those different verbs, the one word that really stuck out to me was the word exalting.
00:05:40
Speaker
which is a word I don't typically associate with education, let alone families, at least in this context.
00:05:46
Speaker
So could you provide a little more detail on what it means to exalt a family?
00:05:51
Speaker
I really love that you identified that because it's one of my favorite words, especially to use with families.
00:05:57
Speaker
because I hold families on a pedestal.
00:05:59
Speaker
I put families higher than anything when it comes to what's the most important for us in terms of how we get to know our students as educators, when it comes to why things matter, because a family
00:06:16
Speaker
determines that and shapes and crafts that for their child based on their own experiences often with education formally and informally.
00:06:26
Speaker
And so if you have a family that has typically
00:06:32
Speaker
you know, excelled in formal education, they will operate differently than a family who has felt alienated from the traditional school system.
00:06:40
Speaker
And they will operate differently from a family who had a totally different system in a different country.
00:06:45
Speaker
And they will operate totally differently if they don't feel part of the fabric of the community that their child is in, right?
00:06:52
Speaker
All of this is determined based on the caregivers, but we don't recognize that, nor do we like typically think about that when we're approaching and getting to know just the child, right?
00:07:01
Speaker
though it like makes up so much of the child and exalting because, you know, all families have been teaching their children strong literacy skills and learning skills, regardless of the formal education.
00:07:16
Speaker
So much of this work is around, you know, debunking the myth that education is synonymous with classroom teaching.
00:07:25
Speaker
And what is authentic literacy practice versus schooled literacy practice?
00:07:33
Speaker
If I think on a continuum, schooled literacy practice being like worksheets and or isolated words on a class list,
00:07:41
Speaker
weekly versus authentic literacy, like knowing the word defenestrate because you are a Dungeons and Dragons or a Magic the Gathering fan, because that's like an authentic practice.
00:07:51
Speaker
And so that comes directly from my son, right?
00:07:55
Speaker
And so I think, you know, families naturally and authentically do this.
00:08:00
Speaker
And during the pandemic, I really recognized that because I was privy to so many family experiences on Zooms and watching families interact and
00:08:09
Speaker
I realized that children, you know, families were educating their kids the same way that teachers were trying to educate their kids and that we were doing the exact same things that caregiving and educating is actually synonymous.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:23
Speaker
And in terms of debunking those myths too, I think it helps demystify the idea that sadly, it's starting to take like a dark twist with this, but a lot of folks consider families to perhaps not be involved with education at all.
00:08:36
Speaker
And as a result,
00:08:38
Speaker
folks don't reach out to families about what's going on in the classroom.
00:08:42
Speaker
It just creates this almost cyclical doom loop where I perhaps was not that involved in the classroom because I feel like I shouldn't be involved because no one was reaching out to me.
00:08:52
Speaker
And then the educator says, well, I'm not going to reach out to them because they're not involved in the classroom.
00:08:56
Speaker
That's totally true.
00:08:56
Speaker
And we have so many preconceived notions and biases around families and their engagement levels when really the truth is that we should redefine what engagement is because it's not what we deem as educators to be involved.
00:09:10
Speaker
If a family is attending something, that doesn't make them an involved and engaged parent.
00:09:14
Speaker
If a family doesn't engage some, you know, doesn't attend a report card pickup, it might be because they have four kids and they travel for work or it might be because they're juggling multiple jobs and they have a sick parent at home as well.
00:09:24
Speaker
but we don't know and see every single one of those nuances.
00:09:27
Speaker
Instead, typically, accidentally, inadvertently, we write off families and we say, you know, that's a really, no, that family doesn't, that family, right?
00:09:37
Speaker
And so we kind of label them.
00:09:40
Speaker
And so a lot of the beginning of the book, you know, it goes through thinking about your biases and thinking about your own stereotypic, you know, stereotypical kind of like thinking frames around how
00:09:51
Speaker
family should look sound or act and whether or not you have that in your mind, what you imagine a family who's very engaged looks like.
00:09:59
Speaker
And just like break that down completely.
00:10:01
Speaker
Just drop it.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's probably just good advice in general for
Types and Impact of Family Engagement
00:10:06
Speaker
everything.
00:10:06
Speaker
It reminds me a lot of like, like Frarian style thinking of like, what are the like, what's the cultural capital who's being policed in the classroom from like a student level, let alone at a family level.
00:10:18
Speaker
Speaking of, I think it's a pretty good segue to talking about that you describe them as wars that families engage with school.
00:10:26
Speaker
You talk about it in a variety of different lenses.
00:10:28
Speaker
I really liked the labeling of these.
00:10:31
Speaker
Fearful, tentative, compliant, transactional, and toxic engagement.
00:10:36
Speaker
I don't even know where to really frame this question at, but I just wonder if you could talk more about what that looks like and what does that mean?
00:10:43
Speaker
Well, in all of my interactions with schools and families across the country, I realized that, like you said, this work is so nuanced because no two populations are the same, nor is the teacher body and the population the same, right?
00:10:57
Speaker
And so this all was determined and based on how that shook out.
00:11:01
Speaker
If the teaching body was super different than the, you know, different than the families, like how their relationships melded together was very based on, you know, whether or not there was similarities, differences and understanding and empathy around the family situation.
00:11:20
Speaker
And so a toxic, you know, sort of engagement is one where families might demand things.
00:11:28
Speaker
and or families feel that they have, they can overstep in agency, right?
00:11:34
Speaker
They can overstep in a variety of ways because they know best.
00:11:37
Speaker
This might be because they are paying customers in a private school.
00:11:41
Speaker
This might mean because they know the systems differently than other families.
00:11:48
Speaker
And so they're able to make demands.
00:11:50
Speaker
This could be in the climate of book banning.
00:11:53
Speaker
This can be in a variety of places, but
00:11:56
Speaker
There's a really kind of toxic back and forth between, you know, some school bodies and the families.
00:12:05
Speaker
But then think about the families who just don't know.
00:12:08
Speaker
Like think on the other end of the spectrum.
00:12:09
Speaker
They don't know what kinds of questions to ask.
00:12:11
Speaker
They don't know where they have the agency.
00:12:13
Speaker
They don't even potentially, families might not even realize that they can ask like, what services are my child entitled to?
00:12:20
Speaker
which is why I give a whole bunch of questions to give to families around agency, around process, around individuality, so that they know what kinds of questions to ask other than like, how's my kid doing?
00:12:33
Speaker
And we just don't want the transactional kinds of engagement because we know that relationship building is like the core of all good teaching and that
00:12:40
Speaker
that extends to families.
00:12:41
Speaker
And so those labels are meant to have teachers and districts, admin, think about all the ways that families might engage and where, where you want to fall on the spectrum.
00:12:52
Speaker
You know, where do you want your families to fall?
00:12:56
Speaker
And I think,
00:12:57
Speaker
The heart of it all is constantly remembering that we want the same things for children.
00:13:02
Speaker
Like we want the same things for like our goals are the same, but somehow these barriers are up and the barriers might be up for a variety of reasons, whether that's because they feel the families feel at a deficit or the families feel very entitled.
00:13:15
Speaker
And so how can we bring down the barriers?
00:13:18
Speaker
When I was interviewing in Chicago for the like the original podcast,
00:13:22
Speaker
point of this project was that I was, you know, piloting this program in Chicago Public Schools with funding and during the pandemic, there were adults like families who told me, I don't want to sit in chairs that are too small for me and have the teacher stand above me and talk to me and give me the expectations for my first grader.
00:13:38
Speaker
Because I'm a big talking man, I'm not interested in sitting in a very teeny tiny chair.
00:13:42
Speaker
And even that dynamic
00:13:44
Speaker
was like it created an environment that changed the way that those families wanted to engage in the schools, you know?
00:13:52
Speaker
And so it's just meant for us to think.
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's fascinating that you bring that up because it's very similar to the work that we're seeing on the
Empathy Interviews and Family Lab Sites
00:14:05
Speaker
ground.
00:14:05
Speaker
So HRP, the way that we conduct a lot of our work is through empathy interviews.
00:14:10
Speaker
And part of that process is going into schools and having community focus groups or community empathy interviews.
00:14:15
Speaker
We'll bring in caregivers, family members, community members, et cetera.
00:14:19
Speaker
and talk to them about the future of education, how they feel about schools, et cetera.
00:14:23
Speaker
And what we find is exactly what you're saying, that first off, everyone wants what's best for their kid.
00:14:30
Speaker
Like no one's coming in and saying that they want everything to be the way that it is.
00:14:38
Speaker
They want to see more engaging classrooms.
00:14:40
Speaker
They want to see more hands-on learning.
00:14:42
Speaker
They want to see a lot of things that I think a lot of folks consider to be common sense.
00:14:45
Speaker
But what's most shocking to me is that we work in a lot of
00:14:49
Speaker
I suppose, very conservative areas.
00:14:50
Speaker
We work in a lot of very small rural schools.
00:14:53
Speaker
And I'm always nervous as all get out.
00:14:56
Speaker
both looking the way that I do, very nerdy, kind of liberal coded guy, but also bringing up things like social justice work, DEI work, because it's part of what we do.
00:15:07
Speaker
And I'm always nervous as all get out that I'm going to mention this and I'm just going to be run out of town and that we're going to start talking about critical race theory or something random.
00:15:14
Speaker
That's never been the case, fingers crossed.
00:15:17
Speaker
Every single time, families will tell us, no, that's what I want for my kid.
00:15:21
Speaker
And then they'll get into like the nuances of maybe why they harbor some problematic beliefs.
00:15:25
Speaker
But it's nothing that we can't work with in order to help their kids really have a worldwide lens, diverse lens, folks that engage with empathy and kindness and more.
00:15:38
Speaker
I love that empathy interviews is definitely part of all of this.
00:15:41
Speaker
I love that.
00:15:42
Speaker
I think we don't do maybe enough as as educators to just ask to ask to ask to ask it or and
00:15:51
Speaker
There's not the space like there's often not space across the daytime calendar year.
00:15:56
Speaker
And so it's important to think about when are the times where we can invite families in.
00:16:01
Speaker
I really encourage schools to not have the first parent teacher conference be parent teacher conference, but more it to be.
00:16:09
Speaker
like a caregiver collaboration session where we're co-creating something we're learning about the families we're like, because those grades in quotes from the beginning of that session, like is very snapshot and
00:16:23
Speaker
not useful, not as useful as knowing the families, knowing what their dreams are for their children, knowing what their cultural background is and what they can contribute and what they do as a family and what literacy practices they already are engaging in as a community.
00:16:36
Speaker
That will teach you and tell you so much more about the child that will then be able to, you know.
00:16:41
Speaker
So yeah, I love that.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, as you said, it moves away from being transactional, which kind of leads you into writing a book that almost feels insurmountable, which is about how do we connect with human beings, which is one of the most complicated tasks potentially that exists.
00:17:00
Speaker
And that's a task that is partially trained.
00:17:05
Speaker
I mean, you can read about it, but also something that you learn by doing because it does involve a lot of
00:17:10
Speaker
failure, I suppose.
00:17:13
Speaker
I'm glad that you brought that up because I do, you know, family lab sites where I'm inviting families into schools and classrooms and then, you know, the teachers who I work with continue this.
00:17:23
Speaker
And every single time teachers will say like, but what if a family says something that like breaks my heart, makes me cry, or I feel uncomfortable addressing, you know, we'll do things like draw neighborhood maps with our families or draw like, you know, special place
00:17:38
Speaker
because, you know, draw a special place with your kid, you fill this page that then becomes part of the brainstorming.
00:17:42
Speaker
So the kids, so families know then what the writing brainstorming looks like.
00:17:46
Speaker
No kid has a paper that's, you know, empty because they're sitting there with their family members and, or they're like going down memory lane.
00:17:51
Speaker
Right.
00:17:52
Speaker
And there's always something that's like kind of emotional and there's, there's failure in that.
00:17:55
Speaker
And, or there's like discomfort in it.
00:17:58
Speaker
Um, and every time the answer is just like, okay, then you sit
00:18:03
Speaker
Like then you sit and you reflect.
00:18:05
Speaker
I mean, there's not, there's not much more to do beyond when you connect with humans, there's like discomfort in it and there's going to be, but there, you know, if there's like a safe place for it and there's a place for families to come and say and do their, the reward will be reaped much bigger than maybe potentially the like mini discomforts around, like we didn't have a bed.
00:18:24
Speaker
We don't, you know, there were, there were a lot of things around that, that the teachers felt discomfort around, but it, it wasn't uncomfortable for the families potentially to share.
00:18:33
Speaker
It was just like sharing the reality.
00:18:34
Speaker
And then, you know, so it's just, it's eyeopening, nuanced, important, emotional, of course, because when you're dealing with families, it's like always emotional, I think.
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:45
Speaker
I would imagine that the co-creation of those activities as well and framing it around
00:18:51
Speaker
kind of learning by doing or experiential learning, whatever you want to call it, opens up the door for a more caring conversation.
00:18:58
Speaker
Because when it is transactional, and like, for example, you're calling home and saying, you know, so-and-so has an F in the class, whatever that might be, you're
00:19:06
Speaker
you're really much creating like a dichotomy where it's teacher assigning kid label, as opposed to it just being, oh, here, we're engaging in dialogue together.
00:19:16
Speaker
There's no purpose of this beyond just the connection.
00:19:20
Speaker
And I would imagine that would lessen the chances that you would have kind of an adverse or kind of toxic relationship that develops early on.
00:19:29
Speaker
It's kind of like an evolution of the idea of
00:19:32
Speaker
call home and say something nice about the kid at the first week of school toward let's have an event and actually like bring people in and really engage with them.
00:19:39
Speaker
Totally.
00:19:39
Speaker
And they're really low stakes and they're really kind of there.
00:19:42
Speaker
I say at the beginning, there's no right or wrong answers.
00:19:44
Speaker
This is just joyful.
00:19:46
Speaker
It's just to have fun.
00:19:47
Speaker
You see palpably like everybody's shoulders go down because the families think that they're like on test for what they're supposed to like learn or create or do.
00:19:54
Speaker
And it's like, not that it's actually just like a joyful creation of something.
00:19:58
Speaker
So
00:19:59
Speaker
I brainstorm all these ideas with teachers, we're like, what are the Family Lab site co-creation, like little opportunities across the calendar year that we can look at your curriculum, look at what you're going to be teaching and or craft these little experiences in addition to the other things that we do typically and traditionally.
00:20:15
Speaker
We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
00:20:17
Speaker
It really is kind of a collectivist approach of all these different things because you'll catch different families in
Progressive Education and Family Involvement
00:20:22
Speaker
different ways.
00:20:22
Speaker
You'll meet different families in different ways, just like we meet the needs of all of our students in different ways.
00:20:27
Speaker
And the coolest thing to see is people on the internet running with these family lab sites after I work with those teams.
00:20:34
Speaker
I mean, it is so fun.
00:20:35
Speaker
It makes me want to cry.
00:20:38
Speaker
It really makes me want to cry.
00:20:40
Speaker
I mean, I feel like it really meets people in the moment.
00:20:42
Speaker
I mean, I would imagine just practically that a lot of especially younger families are not using their phone.
00:20:49
Speaker
Like they're not calling in.
00:20:52
Speaker
I can count like on one hand how many phone calls I make in any given like three to six month period.
00:20:57
Speaker
Right.
00:20:58
Speaker
We're connecting and like online, obviously, but also.
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:02
Speaker
like through text and apps and just a variety of other means and I would imagine that having those family lab sites helps just really make more transparent what's going on at school because like we know that the vast majority of families think that their public school is amazing but they think that other public schools maybe aren't so great
00:21:24
Speaker
That's just the general opinion.
00:21:26
Speaker
But it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt to have folks come in and see what are the practices of the classroom because you are very much talking a lot about what I would describe as progressive education.
00:21:36
Speaker
Like you're talking about moving away from one and done grades.
00:21:39
Speaker
You're talking about moving by like through a process where kids iterate on assignments.
00:21:44
Speaker
A lot of those assignments are more hands-on.
00:21:46
Speaker
So it's the caregiver connection isn't just
00:21:52
Speaker
So parents are involved, which is important, but it's also that we can change some pedagogy and invite families along in that process.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:01
Speaker
It's like a layered sneak, sneak, sneaky to say, these are also really important values in education.
00:22:09
Speaker
And those values, by the way, are often lived out in families and family experiences by walking down the street and looking at a mural and noticing lots of different things and asking questions.
00:22:18
Speaker
And if they're not, it's super easy to ramp that up and support our work as progressive and, you know, you know, kind of like thoughtful educators.
00:22:27
Speaker
Well, you know, someone who has no time, someone who only has like the commute to school with their children.
00:22:34
Speaker
What are the things like when I do these part of this has been really interesting because now I do a lot of family facing work that's not educator facing.
00:22:41
Speaker
But now I'm like meeting with families and libraries and different kind of refugee organizations and like
00:22:46
Speaker
I'm working with families in a bunch of different ways.
00:22:49
Speaker
And so families will say things like, but my kid is stuck to their phone.
00:22:52
Speaker
How can I communicate with them then?
00:22:53
Speaker
And how can I build communication during a time when my kid is constantly on TikTok?
00:22:57
Speaker
And so we think about
00:22:58
Speaker
What are the literacy practices that that kid is learning in those moments?
00:23:02
Speaker
And what are the ways that a family can engage with their kid in that way that is boosting learning still?
00:23:08
Speaker
And so I love to just engage in the practice of a really simple T-chart.
00:23:12
Speaker
Like what do families do all the time with their kids or what do interactions look like?
00:23:16
Speaker
And on the right hand side, what learning is happening?
00:23:19
Speaker
or what learning could be happening.
00:23:21
Speaker
And you can name it down to like the standard for schools and districts that need to go there.
00:23:25
Speaker
But you can also do just like, this is nonfiction learning.
00:23:28
Speaker
This is fiction learning.
00:23:29
Speaker
This is conflict resolution.
00:23:30
Speaker
This is empathy building.
00:23:31
Speaker
Like families who go to a sporting event with their kid, families who are going to a soccer or a play, right?
00:23:36
Speaker
Like what are the things that happen in those moments that then can translate into really awesome writing in the classroom?
00:23:42
Speaker
Really awesome thinking, right?
00:23:43
Speaker
Like there are,
00:23:46
Speaker
families need that confidence boost and that validation and teachers need to know that all families are doing that even if it's like dysregulation even if it's emotional dysregulation or your perceived um you know family dysfunction like if you because i don't want that to get in the way either and it seems like at least in my experience once you crack that code
00:24:08
Speaker
You have more family involvement in your classroom than you really know what to do with, which helps from a systemic level when it comes to things like projects.
00:24:18
Speaker
Like, for example, I would all the time have folks come in and talk about the work that they do.
00:24:23
Speaker
They would help work on projects with kids.
00:24:25
Speaker
They would volunteer many hours of their time, often more than really I needed to come in and work with us, which was really beneficial to me as a teacher because
00:24:36
Speaker
just pragmatically, you'll never have more well-behaved kids because kids don't mess around with other kids' parents usually.
00:24:44
Speaker
But also, they learn a whole lot because it makes it more real world.
00:24:48
Speaker
This is a person who's not an educator, typically.
00:24:51
Speaker
There's someone who just
00:24:52
Speaker
lives in the quote unquote real world.
00:24:54
Speaker
And they're explaining a very similar concept to hopefully what I was talking about the day before.
00:24:59
Speaker
And it just adds a lot of legitimacy and credibility in addition to having that family connection, which is so important.
00:25:05
Speaker
I think that so much of it is looking at your calendar across the year, looking at your units, looking at all the things, and then figuring out when you can have families and figuring out when you can invite
00:25:15
Speaker
And so like when you can invite families in a very kind of low level ask that feels like little, like here's a little invitation or a bigger one, like, are you going to have them involved in a project or an activity in the building?
00:25:24
Speaker
Are you going to like think across your year so that there are lots of different opportunities in different levels and like amounts to really like tap into the expertise of like the whole adult community?
00:25:36
Speaker
Because then every teacher says to me, it's wild.
00:25:38
Speaker
There are more like collaborative partners.
00:25:40
Speaker
It's like I have all these other teachers because then
00:25:43
Speaker
that call that you're making to the parent is not in isolation when you say like, by the way, this wasn't turned in and or it's been becoming a pattern because you know that parent pretty well.
00:25:52
Speaker
You know all the things that are happening with that parent, right?
00:25:56
Speaker
I always give the example of when we moved from Chicago to Jersey City, we had kids in different
Personal Experiences and School Culture Integration
00:26:00
Speaker
schools.
00:26:00
Speaker
So I experienced the transition to a new school in a bunch of different ways.
00:26:05
Speaker
And I had an experience where my daughter was like being, I had to drag her down the
00:26:10
Speaker
sidewalk to get her to school and she didn't have the right tights and she was super upset that she didn't have her uniform and the teacher did not even know that like we were living out of bags for several months as we were like transitioning between houses and for like a place to live with our family of six right um
00:26:26
Speaker
And there wasn't even like a conversation.
00:26:29
Speaker
It wasn't even like, what is your living arrangement?
00:26:31
Speaker
How are you living?
00:26:32
Speaker
What is it?
00:26:32
Speaker
How does that affect this child?
00:26:33
Speaker
Is she like an only child?
00:26:35
Speaker
Is she one of four?
00:26:35
Speaker
Oh, she squeezed in the middle.
00:26:36
Speaker
Like these are all things that like you need to know about your kid.
00:26:39
Speaker
And or, right, like versus another school where it was like,
00:26:43
Speaker
There was an entire conversation.
00:26:45
Speaker
There were forums.
00:26:46
Speaker
There were like, you know, Google Forms.
00:26:48
Speaker
There were all these like, how can we create a sense of belonging?
00:26:51
Speaker
Like there was a lot of.
00:26:53
Speaker
And so this is completely up to you.
00:26:54
Speaker
This is like within the locus of control of your classroom, you know.
00:26:59
Speaker
So, yeah, it can look a lot of different ways and it makes for a very different experience for the child.
00:27:05
Speaker
Speaking to that, this is probably a very loaded and complicated question, but I would imagine that part of what makes this work easier is when it scales into the culture of the building as opposed to it feeling like all of that weight of involving families rests on one teacher's shoulders.
00:27:22
Speaker
How do you help schools slash how do you feel like this book?
00:27:26
Speaker
can assist educators in bringing more people into that conversation so it can be a shared task as opposed to it just being like, you're my thing that we're doing.
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question.
00:27:37
Speaker
It's not super loaded because now I've been doing it for long enough to know where it takes off and where traction happens.
00:27:44
Speaker
It happens when there's an excited cohort of teachers with a supportive administration behind them because they need time to think alongside each other
00:27:55
Speaker
about different invitations that can exist, and then they have to try it out.
00:28:00
Speaker
They have to spend some time thinking about the systems that exist and if it's working or not, and maybe tweak it.
00:28:05
Speaker
They need to think about the language that they use in the classroom.
00:28:08
Speaker
So like caregiver conferences or guest reader, we're not saying anymore.
00:28:12
Speaker
Instead, we're saying guest storyteller, because how might you inadvertently be alienating someone who thinks that the word reading sends up red flags, right?
00:28:22
Speaker
which has like happened in my spaces.
00:28:24
Speaker
And so, and so they need time.
00:28:27
Speaker
And so you need administration to like be on board and to say like, this is a project that we are, is part of where weaving into the fabric of our school.
00:28:34
Speaker
But I have found that year after year, if you have a small cohort of teachers doing it together, potentially like reading the book or thinking about it together, at least, you know, doing some, then you,
00:28:45
Speaker
the showcases make it so that their colleagues are interested in joining.
00:28:49
Speaker
Because what we do is of course showcase this across the year in so many different ways.
00:28:54
Speaker
There's been like really, really cool collaborative projects with families that then lead to like little QR coded conversations that you can scan as you're walking by so you can hear the families
00:29:03
Speaker
interacting with their kiddos and you see the actual like, you know, labor come, come out visually in like totally interesting ways that people are excited about latching onto.
00:29:15
Speaker
And so after three years, there tends to be like full school shift if you start with a tiny cohort that's dedicated.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yeah, the coalition of the willing is a very strong group.
00:29:27
Speaker
And it also helps, too, with a sustainability of the impact, right?
00:29:30
Speaker
Because as you invite more people into the fold, if one of those folks retires or leaves to join another school or whatever that might be, all of those practices don't go with them, because that is always the fear of any kind of
00:29:43
Speaker
cultural shift, especially, I mean, obviously like these huge positive systemic shifts that because they all rest on one person that then disappears.
00:29:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah.
Envisioning Future Family Engagement
00:29:53
Speaker
So with that said, I'm curious about like, what's the, what's the big picture?
00:29:59
Speaker
So you've written the book, you're working with all these different schools.
00:30:03
Speaker
Like what's your, what's your why of doing this?
00:30:05
Speaker
Where do you hope this goes in 10 years, 20 years?
00:30:08
Speaker
Like what's the big picture aspirational question that you're hoping to, um,
00:30:12
Speaker
remedy or solve.
00:30:13
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:30:14
Speaker
That's such a good question.
00:30:15
Speaker
Was that on the list?
00:30:18
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:30:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:23
Speaker
What I really hope is just for schools, it would be amazing to me if all pre-service teachers read this so that number one, it was part of the way that we learn to teach.
00:30:35
Speaker
My why is very much families should not be disconnected from knowing the children.
00:30:40
Speaker
And they are part of the collective care framework that we need to collectively grow strong, critical thinkers and amazing humans, right?
00:30:53
Speaker
And so families are part of that work.
00:30:56
Speaker
I think that it would be a win to me if family engagement was redefined completely so that no school in the country believed that family engagement was attendance
00:31:08
Speaker
And no school in the country believed that family engagement was picking up, you know, a report card or because when the definition is defined from the school.
00:31:22
Speaker
That is incorrect.
00:31:24
Speaker
I want I want the strength to always be an unapologetic reverence and an unapologetic positive regard for families, recognizing their cultural capital and the funds of knowledge that they're bringing.
00:31:37
Speaker
figuring out how to better teach the students as a result, the children as a result, because we know them so deeply, and then it being a cycle of care.
00:31:47
Speaker
Like that is my hope.
00:31:48
Speaker
I don't know in practical terms, I think at the very minimum, we all need to shift language and we all need to shift, you know, our invitations.
00:31:58
Speaker
We all need to check our biases around families.
00:32:02
Speaker
Like we need to look at our texts to make sure they're representing all kinds of families and family structures.
00:32:08
Speaker
Like these are all things that feed into the work.
00:32:12
Speaker
But I want it to start from from from pre-service.
00:32:15
Speaker
I want all teachers to know this because it's it's harder when we're doing so much already.
00:32:20
Speaker
And then we're also saying and don't forget families that it's not an afterthought.
00:32:26
Speaker
It's not something to tack on at the end.
00:32:28
Speaker
It's not a checklist.
00:32:29
Speaker
And that was like part of the publication of this book.
00:32:32
Speaker
There were companies that wanted it to be publication companies that wanted it to be publishing houses.
00:32:37
Speaker
a checklist like a this is how you engage with families but it's just not it's just not the work the work is nuanced it's very journalistic it's very um it's it's like heart driven um and i'm like speaking as a mother of four young kids who have like experienced so many different school situations um and like what do you want for your own children all children are our children and speaking to pre-service teachers i think
00:33:06
Speaker
I don't know how far down we want to go down this path, but what's interesting about what you're saying is that, I mean, a really common critique of teacher preparation programs is that they are not, I guess, realistic enough or grounded in reality.
Critique of Pre-service Teacher Education
00:33:20
Speaker
Like they're all theory based, but at the exact same time,
00:33:25
Speaker
Part of my personal fear of that is that the way that you would shift back to a more pragmatic style of teaching and learning in pre-service is not typically towards what you're saying.
00:33:34
Speaker
It's toward the more transactional, like,
00:33:37
Speaker
if a kid, you know, starts speaking too loudly in class, how do you get them to stop as opposed to how do you learn more about them?
00:33:46
Speaker
Right.
00:33:47
Speaker
Because that it is not a checklist, but yet so much of education is formulated in checklists.
00:33:53
Speaker
And that behaviorist mindset is so intertwined into how school systems operate, especially pre-service kind of like disciplinary policies.
00:34:02
Speaker
One of the most
00:34:03
Speaker
Horrifying things I've ever done is I I went back and got my career technical education certification So I was teaching for about 10 years.
00:34:10
Speaker
I went back and got a digital design certification and as part of that process I had to go back to school and I was in courses with folks who were all transitioning on a more traditional careers to become educators and
00:34:25
Speaker
The way that those classes were taught made me lose a lot of faith in how pre-service education was working because it was all rooted in how do I control this space?
00:34:37
Speaker
I mean, we were, there were, I have to share this one tangent example.
00:34:43
Speaker
We watched this YouTube video where this guy unironically was saying that you should squirt kids with water bottles when they sleep in your class because it will be funny and the kids will laugh at them.
00:34:54
Speaker
And yeah, my eyes were the same way.
00:34:56
Speaker
I was like, I'm sorry.
00:34:57
Speaker
Like, like, what are we doing here?
00:35:00
Speaker
Um, and it, that like kind of like adultist style, like, Oh, like we have all the power.
00:35:05
Speaker
They don't, it's funny.
00:35:07
Speaker
It's silly.
00:35:09
Speaker
Uh, let's like control kids and find interesting ways to control kids is very, very, very different than this idea of like love and care and humanity.
00:35:19
Speaker
Um, um,
00:35:20
Speaker
I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's just, I mean, I think where you're going with this is, you know, the center of all of the work that we do as educators should be caregiving.
Advocating for Collective Care in Literacy
00:35:33
Speaker
I mean, even in pre-service, like that's a shift that needs to happen.
00:35:37
Speaker
It should like caregiving and educating is the same because if you list the things that families do and you list the things that we hope to achieve in the literacy classrooms, they are the same.
00:35:49
Speaker
Like they are the same.
00:35:50
Speaker
And that is like something that I think we are like completely missing.
00:35:55
Speaker
If you get this book, if anybody gets this book, it does not need to be, does not need to be read all the way through it.
00:36:01
Speaker
You can try the ideas in one chapter.
00:36:04
Speaker
Other than that, I would just say that I have, um, a ton of conversations with kid lit authors whose books I recommend, um, that families have been using with fidelity, like just having, listening to these conversations.
00:36:20
Speaker
I have had families reach out to me and say it was so interesting for me and my kid to co-read a book and then listen to the author.
00:36:27
Speaker
Because I think really thinking about the round reach of all the different individuals who support growth of children's literacy skills is so critically important.
00:36:38
Speaker
And so I don't know, just I would just say like my last thing is
00:36:44
Speaker
don't disregard any adult in a child's literacy experience.
00:36:48
Speaker
When we think about collective care, it can be the bodega owner, it can be the spiritual community leader, it can be anyone who is there to debrief with the child, to talk through emotional literacy conversations, to all of those people contribute to the child and are valuable for then springboarding the same kind of learning that we're doing in the classroom.
00:37:09
Speaker
So I don't know, I really do believe in the collective.
00:37:12
Speaker
There is an entire chapter in the book on that.
00:37:15
Speaker
And so I thank you for interviewing me because you are part of my collective.
00:37:21
Speaker
And that's it.
00:37:25
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project.
00:37:28
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change.
00:37:32
Speaker
If you enjoyed listening, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player.
00:37:36
Speaker
Plus, find a whole host of free resources, writings, and other podcasts all for free at our website, humanrestorationproject.org.
00:37:42
Speaker
Thank you.