Building Community in Education: The Human Connection
Summary
The salient point of this podcast episode revolves around the imperative that education must be a humanizing, relational, and transformative endeavor, a principle we are privileged to explore in conversation with our esteemed guest, Rich Ognibene, a distinguished educator and recipient of numerous accolades. Rich's extensive experience as a teacher and mentor underscores the significance of fostering student voice, self-efficacy, and agency within the classroom, thereby elevating the educational experience from a transactional model to one characterized by collaboration and empowerment. Throughout our discussion, we delve into the essential role of creating safe and supportive environments where students feel valued and heard, which we believe is critical to their academic and personal growth. Rich's insights illuminate the challenges and rewards inherent in adopting such an approach, as he reflects on his own journey and the profound impact of relational teaching practices. As we engage with these themes, we invite you to consider how we, as educators, can collectively strive to ensure that every student encounters an educational landscape rich with opportunity and affirmation.
Additional Notes
The fifth installment of the tenth season features an enlightening conversation with Rich Ognibene, a distinguished educator and recipient of prestigious accolades including the New York State Teacher of the Year Award and induction into the National Teachers Hall of Fame. The episode unfolds against the backdrop of a broader dialogue among The Wheelhouse team, comprised of four dedicated educators who share a resolute commitment to redefining the educational landscape. The central theme revolves around the notion that the educational experience must transcend mere transactional interactions; it should be a profoundly humanizing, relational, and transformative endeavor. Rich Ognibene articulates this vision eloquently, emphasizing the importance of student voice, self-efficacy, and agency as foundational elements in fostering an environment where learners feel valued and empowered.
Rich reflects on his extensive career, sharing insights from over three decades of teaching chemistry and physics, and highlights the pivotal role of relationship-building in the educational process. He posits that the essence of effective teaching lies not in the content delivered, but in the connections established with students. This perspective aligns perfectly with the guiding principles espoused by the Wheelhouse team, which advocates for a shift from conventional pedagogical practices towards an inclusive approach that honors the individuality of each student. As the conversation progresses, Rich underscores the necessity for educators to cultivate spaces where students feel safe to express themselves, thereby facilitating a deeper engagement with the curriculum.
The episode culminates in a reflective discourse on the challenges educators face in implementing these transformative practices amid systemic constraints. Rich and The Wheelhouse team collectively ponder the societal dynamics that echo within school environments, asserting that genuine connections among educators and students are pivotal for fostering an atmosphere conducive to learning. This discussion not only offers valuable insights for current educators but also serves as a clarion call for a re-evaluation of the educational paradigms that govern our schools today.
Takeaways:
- The Wheelhouse emphasizes the importance of fostering a humanizing, relational, and transformational approach to education, asserting that all else is secondary to these principles.
- Rich Ognibene, the guest speaker, highlights the significance of recognizing each student's individuality and ensuring they feel valued and heard within the classroom environment.
- The discussion stresses that educators must create safe spaces for students to express themselves, which is crucial for their emotional and academic growth.
- The episode reinforces the notion that teachers must also have their voices heard and valued to effectively nurture student voices and foster a supportive educational atmosphere.
We hope you’ll join The Wheelhouse Company.
Are you a like-minded educator who's committed to open doors and unlimited possibilities for each student?
Follow Students Matter, LLC on Instagram or LinkedIn or any of the four of who are also on LinkedIn.
Subscribe to The Wheelhouse Chronicle on Substack. Michael’s waiting to hear your comments and we’re all excited to continue this conversation with you.
https://thewheelhouse.substack.com
Join the curated community The Wheelhouse Forum only available at Student’s Matter’s very own LearnHarbor.
The Wheelhouse is a production of Students Matter, LLC.
Transcript
It's episode 5 of season 10 and today's guest is Rich Anyabene, a New York State Teacher of the Year Award winner.
Speaker A:A new episode of the Wheelhouse begins right now.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to give us a listen.
Speaker A:Season 10 features a team of four like minded friends and colleagues.
Speaker A:Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Monroe, yours truly.
Speaker A:We've opened the conversation this season to think about empowering educators to cultivate open doors and unlimited possibilities for each student.
Speaker A:The Wheelhouse exists to create an inclusive community of empowered educators who believe that together we can disrupt this transactional herding nature of schooling to create districts, schools and classrooms where each student feels confident, optimistic, capable, well supported and emboldened to be and to become who they're meant to be.
Speaker A:Episodes of the Wheelhouse will explore bodies of knowledge and expertise that align to this vision and these guiding principles.
Speaker A:Our team and our guests are committed to this fundamental challenge to realize just exactly what we want for each student to experience in school.
Speaker A:In this episode, we're going to focus on another of our guiding principles.
Speaker A:We believe that educating our children should be a humanizing, relational and transformational endeavor.
Speaker A:All else is secondary.
Speaker A:Together, these three elements shift education from something that's done to students to something that's done with them.
Speaker A:A humanized educational experience honors student voice as essential wisdom builds self efficacy so students believe they matter and can achieve and fosters agency so students experience ownership and empowerment.
Speaker A: y's guest is rich Anyabene, a: Speaker A:Yes, my friends, he's educational royalty.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:Rich currently works at St. John Fisher University mentoring student teachers.
Speaker A:He taught chemistry and physics at Fairport high school for 34 years.
Speaker A:Besides teaching science, Rich was the leader of the Brotherhood Sisterhood Week, a district wide program to teach tolerance.
Speaker A:He was also a class advisor, a soccer coach, a mentor teacher, a Gay Straight alliance advisor, and a vice president for the Teachers Union.
Speaker A: Rich is a: Speaker A:And keep in mind at the end of the day that what we do for children is even bigger than cultivating hope or killing dreams.
Speaker A:It's a matter of life and death.
Speaker A:This was a great conversation between Rich and our team.
Speaker A:I hope you'll listen to the entire episode so you won't miss A single detail.
Speaker A:Together, let's ensure open doors and unlimited possibilities for each and every student.
Speaker A:And now, episode five and a great conversation with our special guest, Rich Anyabene and our team, Kathy mone, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Munro and me.
Speaker A:You're not going to want to miss it.
Speaker A:Take a listen.
Speaker A:Good morning and welcome back to the Wheelhouse for another great episode.
Speaker A:This is episode five.
Speaker A:I am with amazing educators today and colleagues Kathy Mone, Michael Pipa and Alicia Munro.
Speaker A:Good morning.
Speaker B:Good morning.
Speaker C:Look, everybody's here.
Speaker A:Everybody is back.
Speaker A:Although I do love the fact that we figured out how to record things when somebody's schedule is completely wonky, it's even better when we're all together in the wheelhouse.
Speaker A:So all four of us are here.
Speaker A:I'm super excited.
Speaker A:Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker B:It's good to be back.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:And today we are with educator royalty.
Speaker A:Educator royalty.
Speaker A:You can't see it, but we're all wearing crowns as a result, right?
Speaker A:We all are because we are with a member of the National Teachers hall of Fame, as I told you about in the introduction.
Speaker A:So I'm super excited and first thankful to Michael Pipa, who brought our guest to us today.
Speaker A:So thank you, sir.
Speaker A:But we are with Rich Anyabene from the great state of New York.
Speaker A:Welcome, sir.
Speaker D:Well, Grant and Alicia and Kathy and Michael, it is an honor to be here and thank you for that kind introduction and just one minute of reality check.
Speaker D:We don't want to commit the fundamental attribution error here that my royalty, my success as a teacher comes from the fact that I have landed in places with great colleagues and great leaders, administrators, board members, that my two parents were great teachers.
Speaker D:And we have a myth sometimes of the self made person.
Speaker D:My success is in the context of a lot of love and support with some very humanizing educators, people that the four of you would love.
Speaker D:And so I may have gotten the recognition, but that recognition reflects, quite frankly, all the people I worked with.
Speaker A:And that brief hello is exactly why.
Speaker D:You are here today.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Because we're going to really focus on one of our guiding principles.
Speaker A:You know, Last week with Dr. Chisholm, we talked a lot about the belief gap.
Speaker A:How we need to be courageous and brave to interrogate our mental models and make sure that we are not perpetuating a belief gap.
Speaker A:Because dignity for every single human being, every single student is a birthright.
Speaker A:And today we're going to jump to a different guiding principle, which I think is equally important.
Speaker A:And that is the guiding principle that we believe that educating our children should be humanizing, relational and a transformational endeavor, and that all else is secondary.
Speaker A:And when we think about making that shift right from something that is done to students, that transactional herding nature to something that is done with them, I think of three things.
Speaker A:I think of student voice, I think of cultivating student self efficacy and I think of fostering student agency, student voice, student self efficacy, student agency.
Speaker A:And we'll talk more about those, I'm sure in greater detail.
Speaker A:But that's why, that's why we've asked Rich Anyabene to be here today, because those are things that he has just done naturally throughout his entire career.
Speaker A:So I'm just going to open it up with one big question.
Speaker A:It seems from what I know about you, sir, that this is just the natural way that you operate, right?
Speaker A:Creating classrooms that are humanizing, that really focus on voice, self efficacy and agency.
Speaker A:And so my first question is, why is that so natural for you?
Speaker D:Well, I think part of growing as a teacher is knowing that we don't teach content, we teach students.
Speaker D:And I might use the content of chemistry and Mike might have used English when he started.
Speaker D:My friend Marcia uses art.
Speaker D:But we're human development specialists and we can't teach any content unless we know who our students are.
Speaker D:And we can't know who our students are unless we give them some voice.
Speaker D:We give them the option to share who they are and let them know we value who they are, we love them for who they are, even if they suck at the content that we teach.
Speaker D:And it's really important.
Speaker D:And my observations as an educator, teachers come into schools with invisible backpacks too.
Speaker D:Okay?
Speaker D:Teachers suffer from belief gaps that people above them look down.
Speaker D:Oh, she's only a first year teacher, what could she say?
Speaker D:Oh, he's just a gym teacher.
Speaker D:He couldn't have any comments on this.
Speaker D:And so if we want students to have voice, we need teachers to have voice.
Speaker D:And that's very easy to say theoretically.
Speaker D:The problem is I've shadowed principals for a day.
Speaker D:I've been a teacher for a day.
Speaker D:We're so swamped.
Speaker D:My Life is a 40 minute classroom that's really 30 minutes by time.
Speaker D:The phone stops ringing and they take attendance and the kids settle.
Speaker D:And I've got 25 or 30 kids and it is just not possible in a day with 150 kids to listen to every student intently.
Speaker D:Nor is it possible for a principal to listen to every teacher intently.
Speaker D:So we have to come up with mechanisms that allow that voice to emerge.
Speaker D:A couple that I've stolen from other teachers.
Speaker D:My friend Jim Nowak calls it dipsticking where you test the oil during the day.
Speaker D:He goes, you throw a writing prompt at the end of a quiz or a test.
Speaker D:Tell me one thing you liked about the unit.
Speaker D:One thing you didn't tell me, one thing good in your life, tell me one thing that's been a struggle.
Speaker D:And suddenly with that little writing prompt now as a teacher I can be aware of oh I'm going to have to talk to Alicia tomorrow because she said this and I want to congratulate Kathy because she said that.
Speaker D:And it's just being intentional Grant.
Speaker D:It's being thoughtful about letting kids communicate.
Speaker D:The other issue is what medium do we let the kids communicate?
Speaker D:Do we give them our email?
Speaker D:Do we give them our cell phone which it's the world they live in.
Speaker D:I give my parents and my students my cell number with permission to talk about school stuff.
Speaker D:And I found kids will digitally or in writing share things they would never say vocally or out loud.
Speaker D:And so giving people access to is really important to developing the voice and letting kids share with you what's important.
Speaker D:They will not many kids will not in a group of 25 peers share anything that's deep or personal or important.
Speaker D:And so we have to give them access to us in our very busy hairy days to share what's important in their life so we can be better teachers.
Speaker C:So Rich, if it's okay I want to go even deeper because access absolutely we have to have that.
Speaker C:But if I haven't made the connection with you if I don't I mean how that relational piece that humanizing So I have to know as a student that have the courage to know in the belief to know that you're gonna that it's a safe space that I can say that.
Speaker C:You know I'm not gonna put in a writing prompt, I'm not gonna put in a text message something and be vulnerable if you haven't first created that space.
Speaker D:So that space gets created on day one when I share with them amongst other things that I'm a gay man and I run the students gay Straight Alliance.
Speaker D:And when I had a partner I put a picture of my family up that included my partner.
Speaker D:That opens a lot of conversations because kids a 15 year old kid goes well if he can say that so that's you know I can share other stuff but the other thing and this kind of gets to efficacy of my first couple weeks are an lot awful all out assault with love.
Speaker D:I do interviews with kids we Wear name tags.
Speaker D:We do icebreakers.
Speaker D:I call parents.
Speaker D:It is a very intentional five week.
Speaker D:I want every kid to know that I'm aware they're on the volleyball team and I'm aware they're in the school play and I'm excited about the robotics competition and I go to those things and I cheer them on.
Speaker D:And if I want a kid to care about chemistry, they have to know, Kathy, as you just said, that I care about them.
Speaker D:And no matter what your content, they need to know that.
Speaker D:And it's not going to happen accidentally because we're too swamped with all the other things we do.
Speaker D:It has to be part of our intentional day to day operation of the classroom to create that space where kids then feel safe.
Speaker D:Even feeling safe going, you know, Mr. O, I didn't really understand yesterday's lesson.
Speaker D:Like even feeling safe enough to ask a question about basic content that we're doing, they've got to know that I'm not going to crap all over them in class and make them feel stupid.
Speaker D:Like, oh, Michael, how could you possibly.
Speaker D:My brilliant lesson, how could you have possibly missed that?
Speaker B:You know, I'm thinking about some work that I've been reading recently that involves Dr. Jean Clinton, who's a pediatric psychiatrist and neuroscientist.
Speaker B:And one of the things that she talks about is love being a brain builder and what happens neurologically to us when we feel seen and heard and cared about and a sense of belonging and how important those features are to learning.
Speaker B:I think about the letter that you write Rich, that you did each year and the time you carved out in a chemistry class for kids to write back to you.
Speaker B:And you know, Kath, you're absolutely right.
Speaker B:Why would I ever text Mr. O about anything that matters unless I knew he cared?
Speaker B:And you know, that's the old adage.
Speaker B:Students really aren't interested in what we know until they know we care.
Speaker D:That's absolutely right.
Speaker D:And I'm going to step back on student voice and be a little more literal.
Speaker D:As we age, we go backwards in Piaget.
Speaker D:So I'm back into sort of the concrete operational very quickly going to sensory motor.
Speaker D:We need to have students.
Speaker D:A skill we need to do now is actually teach them to speak to one another.
Speaker D:When Michael and I started teaching, my struggle, many young teachers struggle, was getting the class to quiet down sometimes because they were so exuberant and chatty.
Speaker D:And as a good teacher, as a young teacher, I didn't have the tools that I got later on to harness that energy.
Speaker D:Now I Watch young teachers and kids walk in, and there's this Zen like silence as everybody's looking at their device.
Speaker D:And they don't feel comfortable sometimes talking with each other in a new class, with a new teacher.
Speaker D:And so I work with my young teachers at St. John Fisher about.
Speaker D:We're going to do an icebreaker.
Speaker D:We're going to give them two interview questions.
Speaker D:You got to turn to the person on your left and on your right.
Speaker D:We're going to make them wear name tags the first day.
Speaker D:We're going to teach things that used to be just sort of a normal part of life that, when you're used to being filtered through a screen, now feel awkward.
Speaker D:And Derek Thompson often in his podcast, says, we don't really have an epidemic of loneliness.
Speaker D:Loneliness.
Speaker D:We have an epidemic of antisocial behavior.
Speaker D:The screens have made us antisocial and less willing to have those casual chats with other humans.
Speaker D:That's a big part of life and an even bigger part of education that we have to engage.
Speaker D:We're all better learners when we engage with the people around us.
Speaker D:We're all better teachers when we engage.
Speaker D:And that has to be intentional.
Speaker D:And it's a part of society now that we need better practice at, of actually speaking face to face and making it safe to do so.
Speaker D:I'm just always surprised when a teacher does a think pair share.
Speaker D:And I see kids very awkwardly.
Speaker D:You know, they don't.
Speaker D:They don't want to.
Speaker D:God.
Speaker D:I'm sitting next to Alicia, and I don't really know her from last year.
Speaker D:And Kathy's super, you know, super vocal.
Speaker D:And I feel quiet.
Speaker D:I don't want to do that.
Speaker D:So we have to create that safe space for people to use their voice.
Speaker D:And I would say administrators have to create that same space for teachers to use their voice and to share their opinions.
Speaker D:And it can't be in a faculty meeting in front of 50.
Speaker D:But if I want to tell Principal Pipa, you know that new program you're starting?
Speaker D:I have some questions.
Speaker D:I need to have a safe venue, because if Mike models that to me as a principle, then I can model that to Grant and Alicia and Kathy as my students.
Speaker D:But if Mike says, I don't want to hear it, it's my way or the highway, then unfortunately, sometimes this teacher is weak.
Speaker D:Carry that into our method of communication, too.
Speaker E:So If I'm in Mr. Rich's class, I would say because I feel like I matter.
Speaker E:So my name is Alicia, and let me tell you why it means so much to me that my Name is Alicia, because I am literally an Afro Latina, And Alicia represents 50% of who I am.
Speaker E:Right?
Speaker E:And I love the fact that I felt comfortable sharing that in this space, right, with Mr. Rich.
Speaker E:Or I love the fact that teachers get students get a chance to call you Mr. O.
Speaker E:That's what building community and classroom spaces is all about, right?
Speaker E:I hear belonging, and we talk a lot about belonging, but humanizing is at the whole different end of the spectrum.
Speaker E:Not only do I feel safe in the space, but I know Mr. O and Grant and Kathy and Michael that I matter.
Speaker E:That although I am the only minority of color sitting in this space, that I could uplift my voice and that I'm still loved.
Speaker E:And that's What I hear, Mr. Odess, going on in your classroom, right.
Speaker E:That there's some vulnerability, there's transparency, and that the teaching and learning process is reciprocal.
Speaker E:So let me give you an example, and I really like you to give me some feedback because I hear we're both secondary educators, right?
Speaker E:So hey, to the middle school, high school bunch, right?
Speaker E:Give a big shout out.
Speaker E:And then you sit in the high school principal space.
Speaker E:And then you're like, I don't know.
Speaker E:But anyway, when we're sitting in.
Speaker E:In these spaces, right, and you see these communication breakdowns, right?
Speaker E:So you're not talking to the top of the head.
Speaker E:You're actually speaking face to face, right?
Speaker E:How does that think pair share evolve?
Speaker E:And I can only expect you're saying that it may happen naturally because you spend so much of that great time in the first five or six weeks getting to know your students and them in turn getting to know you.
Speaker E:So you're no longer that sage on the stage, which is the traditional structure of teaching.
Speaker E:You truly become that facilitator of learning.
Speaker E:Tell us more, Rich.
Speaker D:Alicia, you just hit on like eight key points.
Speaker D:Mike is like going to go mic drop here because you always have the mic drop on the show.
Speaker D:So here are two parts that you hit on that I think are really important.
Speaker D:One, if you were in my classroom in Fairport, in a suburban district, more often than not, you might be the only person of color in the third grade class.
Speaker D:In the chemistry class, A kid who is Jewish or Muslim might be the only Jewish or Muslim kid in my class.
Speaker D:A kid who is non binary or transgender might be the only non binary.
Speaker D:And so finding out that about them and making people who are minorities feel safe, There are times as a gay man where I have not felt safe to speak in the all male jockey locker room milieu as a young teacher, making sure that we celebrate all of human differences and that we are aware if it's fall, if it's September and it's Rosh Hashanah, even though there's not a lot of Jewish kids in class on the smart board, as kids come in, you know, happy Rosh Hashanah.
Speaker D:Well, what's that, Mr. Rowe?
Speaker D:Oh, that's the Jewish New Year.
Speaker D:And if you have Jewish friends, you say Lashana Tovah and it means have a sweet new year.
Speaker D:And in.
Speaker D:And you know, in the spring when it's, when it's Eid al Fitr and you have happy Eid and you know, Eid Mubarak, you know, blessed festival.
Speaker D:Just those little like two minute recognitions when it's national, coming out month in October and you have the little pride flag, one minute at the start of class to reach a group of kids, a group of people who feel not always fully welcome.
Speaker D:It doesn't take 20 minutes of class.
Speaker D:It can literally.
Speaker D:Happy Rosh Hashanah takes one minute.
Speaker D:You know, Eid Mubarak takes one minute with a quick explanation to a bunch of kids who don't know what Eid or what Rosh Hashanah is.
Speaker D:Get small stuff, small stuff that we do.
Speaker D:But you also mentioned that moving from the sage on the stage, creating lessons in our content in chemistry or physics, where it's 15 minutes of direct instruction, but then 20 minutes of student engagement, where I as the teacher can walk around the classroom and I can help Michael with that chemistry problem and I can help Kathy with that physics problem, but I can also overhear the conversation that Kathy's having with her partners or that Mike's having with his lab partners.
Speaker D:And now I'm aware that there's something else going on in school today or something I need to address.
Speaker D:Or I can have the conversation with, you know, Mike, I saw you in the baseball game yesterday and that catch you made was fantastic.
Speaker D:And Kathy, I saw you were in the school play, and I just want to say in front of your peers, it was the best Romeo and Juliet ever.
Speaker D:And I gotta tell you, sometimes it's a gentle white lie because high school Romeo and Juliet's terrible.
Speaker D:They all die in the end.
Speaker D:And that's good enough.
Speaker D:But still, if you have to say, you have to say it was the best Romeo and Juliet ever.
Speaker D:I don't really care who won the JV baseball game, but I care about Mike.
Speaker D:And I might not want to see the play that particular night, but I care about Kathy and I really do care.
Speaker D:That's absolutely the event I might not care about, but the children, the humans in it, I love deeply.
Speaker D:And part of showing love is being there for each other and just modeling presence.
Speaker D:A lot of kids lack adult presence in their life and they value presence.
Speaker D:And if you are present for them in part of their life outside of class, they will be very present for us.
Speaker D:Whether they like chemistry or not, whether they like social studies or not, they will show up and they will give it their best because they know that you care.
Speaker B:Rich, I want to return to Alicia's point, and I want to speak from the perspective of students who represent the majority in your class.
Speaker B:What happens to the classroom environment when you take those few minutes at the opening of class to talk about whether it's Rosh Hashanah, whether it's coming out day or a day of silence?
Speaker B:What happens to that space for a kid like me?
Speaker D:I have found that that little piece will sometimes allow kids to come up weeks, months, years later and say, oh, now I'm dating someone who's from a faith tradition that I wasn't part of.
Speaker D:Or, gosh, my sister just told me yesterday that she'd prefer they, them pronouns.
Speaker D:And our family is dealing with the transition or in some way that my 15 year old eyes have been opened up and that I realized, at least in this class that we're gonna celebrate and honor everyone and that it's gonna be safe.
Speaker D:And this all sounds kind of like warm and fuzzy, but you get really good chemistry regents results or physics regents results when the kids feel safe.
Speaker D:Because I need Alicia might be the only person of color in my class.
Speaker D:She also might be the smartest one in physics class.
Speaker D:And I need Mike and Kathy to feel safe talking to Alicia because I can't teach 30 kids individually in 40 minutes.
Speaker D:I count on my students to help each other, but that's not going to happen unless everyone feels like they can turn their head and ask for help.
Speaker D:And there are days when Alicia is going to help Kathy, and there are days when Kathy is going to help Alicia.
Speaker D:But that only happens if we make it happen.
Speaker D:It's not going to happen spontaneously.
Speaker D:And so part of our lesson planning and designing our instruction has to be to foster those human interactions.
Speaker D:And if they're helping each other, students are way better.
Speaker D:There are days when I'm the worst teacher in the classroom because the students helping each other just have way more efficacy, where I just got to get out of there, get out of their way sometimes, and let the really smart People in front of me do their thing with my guidance.
Speaker D:And it's a really important part because it sounds like, oh, God.
Speaker D:One more thing we're asking people to do is get to, you know, be sensitive to all the diversity in front of us.
Speaker D:But that's the essence.
Speaker D:That's the essence of humanity, is being sensitive to all the diversity in front of us.
Speaker D:That's the essence of maslow and feeling safe and learning and growing and giving people confidence.
Speaker D:How do you let an Afro Latina woman in a school that's all white?
Speaker D:How do we give that student the confidence to say, I matter?
Speaker D:I want to share this opinion with you, Mr. O. I want to share this opinion with principal Pipa about this issue or that issue.
Speaker D:They got to know they're loved.
Speaker D:They have to know.
Speaker D:And if we want teachers to share their opinion, we have to know we're loved.
Speaker D:And we need administrators to say it's safe to talk to us about these things.
Speaker D:And we have to make time for it.
Speaker D:And it's hard because time is the thing that we have least of.
Speaker D:So we have to be intentional about it.
Speaker A:And yet time is what.
Speaker A:We have total control over how we use time, right?
Speaker A:We complain about it, but we have total control over how we use that time.
Speaker A:I want to shift and ask a difficult question first.
Speaker A:I think we're all.
Speaker A:As we.
Speaker A:As we sit here in this wheelhouse today, it becomes very obvious, very obvious why Rich Anya Bene is a member of the national teachers hall of Fame.
Speaker A:Okay, First, I'm just going to say that.
Speaker A:And what he talks about seems natural and easy.
Speaker A:And holy cow, why is that not the experience that every child would have in schools?
Speaker A:And you know where I'm going.
Speaker A:Because we know that for the vast majority of students, right?
Speaker A:If we study this over the last several decades, we know that for the vast majority of school, for the vast majority of students, school is not that welcoming space that we find in Mr. O's classroom, right?
Speaker A:Many times students feel alienated.
Speaker A:Many times students are wounded.
Speaker A:There are all sorts of negative.
Speaker A:We've talked about that in earlier episodes.
Speaker A:So my question for us all is, why is it so hard?
Speaker A:Why is humanizing and doing what you do?
Speaker A:And I'm gonna say you were pretty brave.
Speaker A:Cause you're my age.
Speaker A:You might be younger, but you're close to my age.
Speaker A:And so, you know, telling the world that you're a gay man teacher at my age.
Speaker A:And when we did that, that was not exactly easy.
Speaker A:It requires a little bit of courage, a little bit of courage, Right.
Speaker A:I wore orange pants.
Speaker A:You told everybody we did it in our own ways.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:But why is this humanizing approach that we've been talking about, why is it so difficult for some of our teachers?
Speaker D:I think Grant, schools are a microcosm of society and the problems we see in school are the problems we see in society.
Speaker D:And I would say we are not always as kind and humane in this, particularly now in this digital age where we don't speak face to face, we hide behind a screen, and we are all longing for human connection.
Speaker D:And yet we're making choices in our day to day life where we prefer not leaving the house to see a movie.
Speaker D:We stream, we don't go to church or synagogue or mosque.
Speaker D:We stream, we don't go to the restaurant, we get Uber eats.
Speaker D:And every time we make that decision, we became a little bit less connected to humanity.
Speaker D:On top of that, Covid made us fearful of others.
Speaker D:So not only are we disconnected, but now I see Mike walking down the street and I'm going to judge him because he's not wearing a mask or whatever and I jump off the sidewalk.
Speaker D:So now humans are not only unknown, now they're threatening to us.
Speaker D:And I feel like just as a society, we need more face to face, human to human connection and to find venues that we can understand each other.
Speaker D:I've learned with kids, I have learned watching sophomores, juniors, seniors in my classes when they become comfortable with themselves, when they accept who they are and all of our awkwardness and all of our nerdiness that we all carry, whatever our background is, we are all feeling awkward and nerdy through high school.
Speaker D:Once I can love me for me, then I can love Alicia and I can love Kathy and I can love Michael because I no longer have to pick on them for being different from me and vice versa.
Speaker D:And so I think we carry in school the challenge that outside of school as humans we are just less connected than we used to be.
Speaker D:I'm sure you've read Bowling Alone.
Speaker D:There's more research since that we need as humans to be more connected.
Speaker D:So I think teachers, again, no matter what our content, if we don't recognize that and say that I've got to build community, community that maybe used to exist more strongly, I'm going to have to invest in my classroom.
Speaker D:I have to invest.
Speaker D:When I was a young teacher, I got hired into a department that was a little Balkanized in terms of groups and stuff.
Speaker D:And I put a lot of professional energy and then others did into building that community.
Speaker D:When I was a union rep. Now I've got to build community amongst the entire school.
Speaker D:And, you know, the social studies teachers look at the math teachers a little sketchy.
Speaker D:And the math teachers think the English teachers are terrible human beings.
Speaker D:We're all so isolated.
Speaker D:And so I happened to work for a great principal, Dave Paddock, who was just so focused on building community, and a superintendent, Bill Kayla, who was so focused on making people feel safe.
Speaker D:Good leadership in the classroom can make kids feel safe.
Speaker D:Good leadership in the district can build community amongst the teachers and the staff.
Speaker D:And, yeah, we don't sing kumbaya and hug every morning, but we're pretty tight.
Speaker D:In my department, we're still a very tight group.
Speaker D:Even though I'm retired, we celebrate birthdays, we go out to dinner, we text.
Speaker D:We go to weddings and funerals to support each other presence, being there.
Speaker D:Having the courage to say I love you.
Speaker D:Having the courage to say I love you.
Speaker D:And as a teacher, you can say I love you by going to the school play, or you can say, I care about you deeply.
Speaker D:Or sometimes you can just say, I love you.
Speaker D:Kids, it's prom weekend.
Speaker D:Please be careful.
Speaker D:Having the courage to tell our colleagues, you know, Michael, we've been teachers for 20 years, and I love you a lot.
Speaker D:You're just a very important part of my life that can be humanizing.
Speaker D:And we have to model that.
Speaker D:We have to model overt love.
Speaker D:We have to model unconditional positive regard.
Speaker D:As Carl Rogers used to talk about, it still may be the most important thing in the classroom.
Speaker E:So not to be cliche, this work takes a village.
Speaker E:And in saying that, what happens where the norm is across the country, that systems are broken and fractured.
Speaker E:So courage, you know, I look at the courage on a meter, right?
Speaker E:So it may not take that much courage here because we're all on the same page.
Speaker E:We're authentically engaged.
Speaker E:We're moving towards a shared meaning.
Speaker E:Common language is.
Speaker E:Is our superpower.
Speaker E:You know, I could go on and on, but more often, not especially in this political climate, people have fear.
Speaker E:Systems are broken.
Speaker E:They're just trying to save themselves, right?
Speaker E:You know, sos they're setting up those smoke signals.
Speaker E:Everything is out, right?
Speaker E:They need a life jacket.
Speaker E:They need the lifesaver.
Speaker E:They don't even know where to go.
Speaker E:What happens when systems are broken?
Speaker E:And then on top of that, influenced by the climate that we're sitting in, how do we heal those wounds?
Speaker E:How do we make courage rise?
Speaker E:I'd like to talk about that a little bit.
Speaker D:Good question.
Speaker D:And honestly, I don't see any policy or bill or law that can mandate courage or love.
Speaker D:So I think we the old bumper sticker, think globally, act locally.
Speaker D:What I can control as a teacher starts in my classroom as a young teacher.
Speaker D:I can control that as I get to be an older teacher now.
Speaker D:I can maybe have influence on my department, maybe even on my school if I become a union rep or a teacher leader and I find my colleagues and boy, I had.
Speaker D:I had a colleague, Marsha, who paid for the college application fee of a student because a student was estranged from a parent.
Speaker D:I had a colleague that drove from Rochester to Albany and back to see a kid in Conifer park who was in rehab and just wanted to have lunch with that kid for a day.
Speaker D:I had a colleague who went to his mom's house to get a mattress to throw in the back of a truck to bring to a kid who was sleeping on the floor and couldn't stay awake in class.
Speaker D:I can go on and on.
Speaker D:You find your colleagues.
Speaker D:I have worked with so many humane colleagues and you start to be overt that this is a, you know, that this is what teachers do and we share the stories and we try to model this behavior and it's slow and it's inch by inch.
Speaker D:But I believe there are a lot of good humanizing people out there that sometimes even feel a little embarrassed about sharing the things that they're doing because you know, there's a certain ethos in the faculty or in the staff.
Speaker D:I don't want people to know and teachers are doing.
Speaker D:There's a lot of teachers doing great things and administrators and we just have to start micro and say I'm going to deal with the humans in front of me as a teacher, it's my class.
Speaker D:As a principal, I'm going to deal with my staff.
Speaker D:I can't change the world, but boy, I can change public school number 42 that I'm in charge of here and feel that we have the efficacy and one way back.
Speaker D:And this all circles back to student voice and teacher voice.
Speaker D:A great lesson that a student brought to me.
Speaker D:Student council president.
Speaker D:It's an activity called Voices where you let everybody in your classroom or everyone in your, if you're a principal, everyone in your building write a first person narrative about their experience.
Speaker D:I am the voice of a student of color.
Speaker D:I am the voice of a gay student.
Speaker D:I am the voice of a student of divorced parents.
Speaker D:I am the voice of a girl with body issues.
Speaker D:I am the voice of a math teacher.
Speaker D:I'm the voice of an English teacher.
Speaker D:And then what we do is they're written first person, but anonymously.
Speaker D:And then you have other people read.
Speaker D:So I might read your voice, and you might read Grant's voice.
Speaker D:The transformation that can happen when people are given the power to speak and I have to sit and listen.
Speaker D:I see a white person reading.
Speaker D:I'm the voice of a person of color.
Speaker D:I see an athlete saying, I'm the voice of a closeted transgender person.
Speaker D:That freedom, that knowledge, that humanity that comes from giving people voice again makes them more comfortable with themselves, which makes them love others more.
Speaker D:And I, I feel fortunate to have worked with just a lot of great people.
Speaker D:But systemically, it didn't happen in a day.
Speaker D:It doesn't happen in a week.
Speaker D:It's week after week, year after year, and normalizing it, getting it to the point where it's normal to be compassionate to the adults so the adults can be compassionate to the students.
Speaker D:It all trickles down and trickles back up, and it's hard work, and it doesn't happen everywhere, and it doesn't happen as quickly as we would like.
Speaker D:And, you know, from a kid's experience, you hope at the secondary level, if they've gotten, you know, eight teachers in a day, you hope they hit it big and they get, you know, three or four that are going to be really super, you know, engaged with them and involved.
Speaker D:You know, at the elementary level, it's more challenging because they're with one person all day long.
Speaker D:So trying to normalize that behavior to meet those needs of kids is challenging.
Speaker D:And likewise, our teachers carry our invisible backpacks, too.
Speaker D:Teachers who are loved will love their students in return.
Speaker D:And I know that Michael was exceptional about that.
Speaker D:I've spoken with people that he had supervisory powers over, and I know there are days as a principal, you want to pull your hair out and just, like, bop someone over the head and say, I can't believe you did that.
Speaker D:But most of the time, Michael is able to filter that, keep those internal thoughts, and say, rich, when you said in front of the students, you all suck at chemistry today, what you really meant to say was, I don't think you've grasped my lesson.
Speaker B:You know, Alicia, I, I love that you pushed Rich in this direction.
Speaker B:And I'm hearing Dr. Duane Chisholm again, where he's exhorting us that to pay attention to the power of one.
Speaker B:You know, don't wait for somebody to ride in and lead the way, you know?
Speaker B:You know, I, I, I think about Postman's teaching as a subversive activity because as educators, we're subversive on behalf of humanity.
Speaker B:And the drivers that exist in the world tend to distract us by inserting primary values that are not humane.
Speaker B:And I'm hearing that Rich, in, in your remark that it seems like when we do unpack our mental models of each other, are we also unpacking or having to unpack our mental models about what's important in schooling?
Speaker D:Oh, Michael, you hit that.
Speaker D:When you and I started teaching, we were told American schools were a rising tide of mediocrity, the nation at risk.
Speaker D:Japan was having a moment of economic ascendancy, and we were told we have to be more like a Japanese schools.
Speaker D:When my mom and dad started teaching in the 60s, Sputnik had just gone off a few years previously.
Speaker D:Teachers were told, you have to be more like the Soviet.
Speaker D:The Russian schools.
Speaker D:I'm sure if Thucydides covered education instead of the Peloponnesian wars, he would have said, the young Athenian boys aren't quite what they used to be.
Speaker D:You need to be more like Sparta.
Speaker E:I.
Speaker D:There's a time honored tradition of saying schools aren't what they used to be, teachers aren't what they used to be, kids aren't what they used to be.
Speaker D:Except now we quantify it.
Speaker D:We have this Moneyball data obsession.
Speaker D:So now Mr. Pipa's fourth grade ELA scores are in the school newspaper and the NAEP test says we're bad at this and Pisa says we're bad at that.
Speaker D:It's really hard to give love to students when the metric that we as educators are being evaluated on is very numerical and quite frankly measures about a third of what we do.
Speaker D:And that if you live long enough that you have students that are now married and working and you get invited to weddings and baby showers and you go to funerals and you see the arc of humanity.
Speaker D:The things they remember about school most often are those moments of humanity.
Speaker D:They're not.
Speaker D:You know, Michael gave a great lesson on Catcher in the Rye and Rich did this beautiful acid base thing.
Speaker D:A year after they graduate, that's disappeared.
Speaker D:What they remember is that Mr. Pipa did this and Mr. O did that.
Speaker D:And it takes 10 years of teaching to get to that point when you realize the content's important.
Speaker D:They need to know the content, but our humanity is equally important, if not more so.
Speaker D:And you have to have both.
Speaker D:There's a sweet spot in that laugher graph of where they meet.
Speaker D:And sometimes that takes a little time as a teacher, but oh my gosh.
Speaker D:We have to evaluate teachers more on human growth and less on a number that comes one day in June.
Speaker D:And again, I was fortunate.
Speaker D:I had principals and superintendents who were very holistic and say, no, no, we know we're giving this teacher some of the most challenging students because he or she is really good at it.
Speaker D:So yeah, maybe her test scores are a scooch lower than the other two teachers in the grade, but she's got every single kid with a challenge was kind of fobbed in that direction.
Speaker D:So yeah, we have to evaluate educators as much on our human development as we do on a snapshot of a one day algebra test in ninth grade.
Speaker D:And if we tell students, you suck because of a one day algebra test and then we tell the students, teachers, well, you must suck too.
Speaker D:That's not a recipe for making people very broad.
Speaker D:Thinking about our role as educators, it's.
Speaker A:Also not a very effective way to get teachers to be humanizing right when we're going to smack them upside the head because the transactional number isn't what we want that number to be, right?
Speaker D:And we start to look at our students.
Speaker D:I think a postman and Weingartner one of, and I'm guessing Dr. Elaine Onybetty might have made you read that book.
Speaker D:I'm just going to go out read that book.
Speaker D:They said you should, as an educator, take a class or a workshop every year in something at which you are terrible at.
Speaker D:For me, that would be art and music.
Speaker D:So you have that fear of going in in a place where you're no longer the king of your domain.
Speaker D:I'm going to be playing a musical instrument at which I am terrible, or I'm going to be trying to draw an art so that we recognize those kids coming into our classroom every class.
Speaker D:There are kids that come in with fear, that feel they've been told they're not good at science, they've been told they're not good at English.
Speaker D:Somewhere along life's path, we have to recognize that.
Speaker D:And as teachers, if I look at that kid who's bad at chemistry in September and say, oh, that's going to ding my Regents scores at the end of the year rather than here's a beautiful child and I'm going to try.
Speaker D:I remember a young woman telling me in September in her letter Back to me, Mr. O, I suck at math and science.
Speaker D:That was her, her quote.
Speaker D:And I said to her, lauren, well, my job, fortunate for you, is to make you unsuck at math and science.
Speaker D:And the first day, the first unit test she had, I was grading.
Speaker D:It was like, September, it's late at night.
Speaker D:And she was like on the edge of passing.
Speaker D:And I got to the last page of the test and it was blank.
Speaker D:And she had, there's a graph and some questions.
Speaker D:And she froze on the graph.
Speaker D:And I was about to put a failing grade down, Grant, and a little voice said, ugh, don't do it, Rich.
Speaker D:So I just left it.
Speaker D:And the next day I used a complex pedagogical strategy called lying.
Speaker D:And I took Lauren to the side.
Speaker D:I said, lauren, clearly you must have run out of time because I know you can do this.
Speaker D:And I hinted and nudged and I cajoled her through the graph and she answered the rest of the questions.
Speaker D:And then I lied a second time because she would have got a 78.
Speaker D:I said, this kid needs a confidence boost.
Speaker D:So I rather holistically rounded up to an 85.
Speaker A:I thought she needs 78 to an 85.
Speaker A:That's close.
Speaker D:It's close.
Speaker D:And you know, kids who suck at math and science don't know when we do this.
Speaker D:So I know that night I got a message from this girl, a three paragraph email, saying, thank you for not giving up on me.
Speaker D:And she stayed in chemistry all year.
Speaker D:And I don't even remember if she passed the regents or not, but she stayed in chemistry all year and she enjoyed it and she got better at it and she grew in my presence.
Speaker D:She's not going to be a professional chemist, but she grew as a human and that's what we have to value.
Speaker D:And we have to give teachers the courage to sometimes look and say, I'm going to value the student for giving me their best.
Speaker D:And if their best is a number that doesn't make me look like, you know, the all star teacher of all time, I'm going to just be very comfortable with that.
Speaker D:When we're getting evaluated from the top down in our society writ large on those numbers sometimes to be humanizing.
Speaker D:So it's a really interesting phenomenon as we're, the five of us are all trying to make schools more humane.
Speaker D:I think the pendulum is swinging back.
Speaker D:I think we're finally, at least in New York State, we're backing away from really crushing teachers based on those test scores.
Speaker D:Because when teachers get crushed, kids get crushed.
Speaker D:It just.
Speaker A:And if we look, if we just look at the numbers that they love to throw in our faces, if we look at all of those efforts around quantifying all of this and making it all transactional, has made the experience worse, not better.
Speaker A:And that, my friends, brings us to the end of episode five.
Speaker A:Rich, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker D:Thank you.
Speaker A:Day in the wheelhouse.
Speaker A:We'll see you next week.
