TL;DR:
- Dr. Courtney Plotts is the guest speaker on The Good News, Brad News Podcast.
- Right now is the time to reflect on our practices as we continue to survive through this pandemic.
- How could you restructure your teaching to be more inclusive?
- Make sure all of your students’ needs are being met and take action if they aren’t.
- Take the time to really hear what others need and build those relationships.
Hello again, reader!
This is Brad Hughes, school principal and Chief Encouragement Officer from Ontario, Canada.
So glad you’re here for a sneak peek at Episode 26 of The Good News, Brad News Podcast, with my guest, Dr. Courtney Plotts.
Courtney is a professor, author, keynote speaker, and advocate for equity and education. She is the National Chair of the Council for At-Risk Student Education and Professional Standards—the only U.S. organization providing standards for working with marginalized and nontraditional students from Kindergarten to college. Courtney’s role as National Chair includes travel, talking with educators about best practices, consulting, and research–a role she describes as a “pretty cool gig.”
As we reckon with the needs of students whose schooling has been interrupted by the pandemic, we’re at a critical moment for reflection on our pedagogy. Meeting the needs requires reimagining our approaches and spaces, demanding time and energy that are scarce. As the emergency situation continues and tensions remain high, perspectives and priorities narrow to meeting immediate safety and sustenance needs. Rather than reinventing, it’s understandable that we would retreat to our most recent, familiar, or comfortable practices.
I talked with Courtney about the investments needed to support educators working to reimagine culture and build community in a “new normal.” Here’s a preview of our conversation.
Though we aspire to serve students from all cultures, the truth is that education is not culturally neutral. Talk with me about that.
What I look at is the parts of culture that are left out of best teaching practices that actually motivate and engage students. A lot of best practices stress clear objectives and consultative feedback, which is aligned with English culture. First Nations culture, on the other hand, looks at inquiry and interwoven competencies. And so when we’re making objectives, we may not be looking at how things like building and telling stories can actually get learning gains.
Students are citizens, stakeholders & decision-makers. Those roles change & shape how students interact with us & the curriculum. Click To TweetA question we could be asking learners is, “If you could talk to your ancestor from 150 years ago about this subject, what would you want to say, or what would you want to know?” It’s a whole different way to engage students in that way, and it’s really the piece that’s missing. We’ve tried different types of access. We’ve tried changing the curriculum itself. But we have not really tried restructuring how we’re doing what we’re doing. And looking at why it means something different to other people.
What else is important about assessing and improving our physical or online learning spaces so they’re more inclusive and responsive?
Educators are planners. We like our plans; we’re used to our plans. And once our plans are set, we just kind of roll with it because that’s a habit, right? We go back to our most comfortable or recent practice. Really, we have to take a step back and say, “What do I want my students to experience?” We regularly look at what we’re delivering—the learning objective—but don’t really look at the quality of the experience. What do we want students to experience as they move towards the objective? And what choices of experiencing the learning could we be offering?
What might signal that people aren’t feeling welcome in our learning spaces, or that their needs aren’t being met?
It really comes down to that basic psychology of fight, flight, or freeze. If you have a student who is talking with their feet and they’re walking out every two seconds. Or a student that you’re really struggling to engage. Or a student that’s just pushing back on everything that you’re doing—something in that environment may be triggering them to respond that way.
One of the things we can do is take a look and say, “OK, instead of students, I have citizens and I have stakeholders and decision-makers.” Those roles within the classroom can definitely change and shape how students are interacting with us as instructors as well as the curriculum.
When a student is not making learning gains, we can measure acculturative stress and measure marginalization. Then we can look at meeting their social and academic needs. We can help educators understand why you and a kid are struggling. And then provide you with some things you can try. We’re really excited about that.
Rather than make assumptions about what underrepresented learners or families need, how might we draw them into conversations about making school welcoming and relevant?
I think that comes back to really understanding that a lot of our parents did not have good educational experiences. So we’re really talking to the experience rather than the person. It starts with positive communication and building support with parents. And really anticipating the fact that we have to build relationships before we do anything else. I think a lot of people view communicating with others as transactional. It’s, “What can I get, or what do I need?” as opposed to, “Let me put everything to the side and be present with this person in this moment.”
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The opportunity to hold space for others’ strong emotions is something educators need to bring forward as we welcome people back after the pandemic. Addressing emotions and relationships will continue to be key.
Especially when we might not agree with what the person is saying. Educators are very, very protective of our methodologies—and all the time and effort and sweat equity that we put into our work. Disagreements and misunderstandings don’t take away from the value of our work. And being able to separate those two things is really important.
What are your thoughts about the inner work that educators might need to attend to so that we can address the outer work of restructuring to meet new needs?
We’re going to have to be super mindful of over a year and a half of anxiety informing our experience. We’ve been sitting with really heavy stuff. So it’s going to be hard to ask people to be reflective before we provide support in sorting those pieces out, right? It’s very hard to reflect when you’re still trying to figure out what happened months ago when you were told you had to leave your classroom to go home and work remotely. People need time to reflect on their personal experiences before we ask them to start reflecting on the outside pieces.
Educators pour out a lot at any level. And we haven’t done a good job as a profession to provide them a space to be poured into, right? Educators keep getting more and more stuff they have to do, as opposed to hearing, “You’ve been pouring out as a teacher, a social worker, a service liaison, a parent—and we haven’t really talked about where you are with that.” I really think that giving our educators time—and investing in them—that’s the key.
Be sure to check out my full conversation about Reinventing Culture with Dr. Courtney Plotts, coming soon in Episode 26 of The Good News, Brad News Podcast.
About Brad Hughes
Brad is an elementary school principal in Ontario, Canada with over 25 years’ experience in education. He is currently at Forest Hill Public School in the Waterloo Region District School Board. Before school leadership, Brad taught for 16 years in classrooms from Kindergarten to eighth grade, most recently teaching middle school Visual Arts, French and Special Education.
Brad is a certified Self-Reg School Champion and has an ongoing commitment to reframing the joys and challenges of school life through a Self-Reg lens. He’s passionate about improving kids’ lives by loving and supporting the adults that serve them.
Brad is a Training & Development Specialist with the Teach Better Team, an Admin Mastermind Mentor, and the host of The Good News, Brad News Podcast on the Teach Better Podcast Network. You can also catch Brad with Rae Hughart Friday mornings at 7ET/6CT on the Teach Better Daily Drop In morning show.
