Welcome to the Counter Narrative Podcast, a show designed to change the way we talk, and think, about education. By sharing stories of successes and triumphs, we aim to challenge the dominant narrative that often negatively portrays our disenfranchised populations.
I’m your host, Charles Williams. An urban educator for more than 15 years, a current school principal in Chicago, an educational consultant, an equity advocate, and the co-host of Inside The Principal’s Office.
Let’s get started.
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In this episode, I chat with Matthew Joseph, who currently serves as the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment in Leicester Public Schools. He has been a school and district leader in many capacities in public education over his 27 years in the field such as the Director of Digital Learning and Innovation, elementary school principal, classroom teacher, and district professional development specialist.
His master’s degree is in special education and his Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Boston College. He is the author of the recently released book Power of Connections: Connecting Educators, Cultivating Professional Learning Networks, & Redefining Educator Collaboration as well as the book Power of Us: Creating Collaborative Schools. Matthew is also the co-author of Modern Mentoring, Reimagining Mentorship in Education.
During our conversation, we talked about conflicting parallels that exist with educational leadership. We, as administrators, encourage teachers to adopt a growth mindset and to take risks in their classrooms and yet we utilize punitive evaluation systems that often discourage the very behavior we would like to see. Matthew insisted that we need to develop a system that balances both accountability and innovation so that teachers can move from lessons to experiences and would be more willing to celebrate the attempts of their students as opposed to being focused solely on results. We also discussed the power of reflection … to know oneself so that we can walk in our purpose.
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