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A literate life? What does that mean? Perhaps at its most basic, it means having enough knowledge to do what you need to do. If you are using a computer, a certain level of computer literacy is needed. But what does it mean in the realm of reading and writing? What does it mean to be literate in these areas?

As a fan of the Little House on the Prairie Series, I often think of literacy as it is presented in the many episodes. Students are seen practicing their spelling on the board or reading from a basal reader to the whole class.  Oftentimes, they are writing to a whole class prompt. They’re growing their literacy. But our world is changing. The areas in which students needs to be literate need to change as well. The information coming to them has multiplied through many different sources, such as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, etc. These sources bombard our students with information.

But have our students learned to think critically about the information that is coming to them? Have we prepared our students to be critical consumers and to evaluate what they see before assuming it is correct or accurate?  Young learners need to be more critical purveyors of knowledge. They no longer can assume that what they’re reading is truth. They must decipher, from multiple sources, what is accurate and inaccurate – a task most adults find difficult to do.

So, what does it mean to be literate as a 21^st century learner?  It is critical to teach foundational skills, to not make light of their importance. These skills are necessary in today’s society. But armed with those skills alone, our young scholars will not be able to effectively critique what they have written and read and consider multiple sources that may present varying perspectives.

This author would argue that young people need to understand that there will be conflict. But what should happen at that juncture? Literature serves as a context for helping students view the world either as a mirror or window.  Emily Style, who works for the National SEED Project, describes a mirror as a story that reflects your own culture and helps you build your identity. A window is a resource that offers you a view into someone else’s experience. It is critical to understand that students cannot truly learn about themselves unless they learn about others as well. It involves reflection.

Chimamanda Adichie, in the Ted Talk “Danger of a Single Story”, explains the importance of providing a window for students using the context of literature to help them see multiple perspectives on any given topic. In other words, give students the experience of many stories. Literature teaches about tolerance, to learn about someone else’s experiences, and why they hold the perspectives that they do. It teaches open-mindedness to understand that perspectives come from sets of experiences and that the more experiences gained, the more likely we are to accept others for their differences. This allows celebrating others for their differences and does not allow limited understanding to cause misunderstanding.

Another literacy to consider is ethical literacy. This does not mean imposing educator ethics on students. It means teaching students to use what they understand about perspectives and apply this knowledge to situations in which core values conflict. This empowers learners to participate and initiate change in a global society.

Literacy is a simple word, but its meaning is complex. Jess Lifshitz, during her Innovative Education in Vermont podcast, shares her understanding of the seminal text by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. In reference to literary skills she quotes, “That we can’t teach these isolated skills to kids and then expect kids to go out into the world and make the kind of changes that we know are needed. And that we hope for them to make.”  The challenge for educators is to use literacy and literature to give students many opportunities to look in the mirror and out of the window to create intelligent, critical thinking citizens.

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Laura Drake is a Wyoming native of 55 years. She has been in education for 32 years teaching K-6 Regular and Special Education, as well as serving as an instructional coach. Drake has a master’s degree in literacy, is a National Board Certified Teacher (with renewal), the 2013 Wyoming Teacher of the Year, and has her Ed.D. in Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. She is now retired and is pursuing her  cake decorating business, as well as doing peer review work for our department of education. She also aspires to teach at the collegiate level.

 

Many of us have ventured into secret sharing spaces in our schools. These are the places we go as educators when we don’t quite understand a concept or when the objective of a recent professional development was lost on us. It’s where we go when we aren’t quite sure how to embed the new learning into our practice. I’ve been in professional development and heard myself say, “Ok. Yes, I understand that.” But in private, I might say to a friend, “I don’t have a clue what they want us to do. What in the world were they talking about, and how do I actually do it?” Although asking for help should never be seen as a negative, the culture of the profession screams at us to smile and say, “I’m fine” and then go figure it out. No one wants to admit that they’re the teacher who is still working to improve their practice. However, this is exactly the thing we all need to embrace. We have work to do. We’re working to be better teachers.

But why do teachers sometimes seek growth in private rather than reach out to an instructional coach whose role is to help them to improve their practice? Sometimes teachers lack the trusting relationship with an instructional coach that is absolutely vital to fostering and sustaining good practice. Sometimes talented instructional coaches fail at truly shifting teachers’ practice because they have been given limited time in the school day to work with teachers. And the times I’ve seen instructional coaching have almost no impact on instructional practice were instances in which coaching was used as an evaluative gotcha game or tied solely to negative feedback. It fails when the coach is not skilled at relationship building and facilitating adult learning.

As a teacher, I didn’t always trust that instructional coaches knew what I needed or had the time to help, so I found what I needed either on my own or through colleagues. And while that collaboration was impactful and essential, no teacher should be forced to shift their practice by visiting colleagues’ classrooms after school or by having quick conversations in the hallway or at the copy machine. Therefore, as a coach, I am spurred by my experiences as a teacher to do everything I can to build positive relationships with teachers, the type of relationships that allow me to be a trusted partner in teachers’ instructional growth.

In my work, I keep three principles in mind.

Don’t be a human red pen.

I never want to be a walking red pen on a teacher’s practice. No teacher wants to spend time with anyone who only points out flaws. Even if a teacher needs to do quite a bit of work, I try to highlight the positive things that are happening in the classroom and celebrate those as often as I can. When I need to call attention to instruction that requires improvement, I do so in a way that is respectful and not authoritarian. I share stories of times I struggled as a teacher. I guide them to call attention to the ways they hope to grow, and we start our planning there. Teachers trust coaches who can be fair, balanced, and human in their support.

Being a mere spectator isn’t helpful.

Good data can be gathered by observing a teacher’s practice, but if instructional coaching only consists of observing and then giving feedback and then observing again, a huge opportunity to truly coach is likely being missed. Going into the classroom to teach a segment of a lesson or to co-teach the lesson builds trust with the teacher. Building tools and planning together, reviewing student work, and building student activities as a team builds a partnership. Coaching is not about telling; it is about showing how.

Be careful with reporting

The method we use to document a teacher’s growth or lack thereof is so critical to the coaching relationship. Whether or not the coaching role is evaluative, documentation either for a principal or for the teacher’s reflection should be focused on the plan going forward. Again, balance is key. Documentation should always be used to capture praise and to cement a plan.

Ultimately, good instructional coaches can help shift the culture in the school by being a present partner in the growth that occurs in classrooms. When feedback and observations are paired with effective planning and modeling, teachers are much more willing to take instructional risks that lead to growth for their practice and their students’ learning. They are much more likely to ask a question out loud and welcome the assistance and support of an instructional coach.

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Monica Washington is the Director of Inclusive and Responsive Educational Practice and an instructional coach for BetterLesson supporting teachers and education leaders across the country as they make positive shifts in instruction and leadership. A decorated educator of twenty-four years, Monica has received honors and awards from a wide variety of organizations for her leadership, advocacy, and classroom instruction. She is a 2015 Milken Unsung Hero Fellow and a 2015 NEA Foundation Global Fellow. In addition to instructional coaching, Monica supports educators through workshops, speaking engagements, and blogging. Monica is passionate about educational equity, and she serves as a Leading Educator Ambassador for Equity for the Education Civil Rights Alliance. Additionally, she serves on the Board of Directors for the National Education Association Foundation and The National Network of State Teachers of the Year. Monica is the 2014 Texas Teacher of the Year.

Instructional coaches walk in two worlds simultaneously, serving as bridges between the turbulent waters of active teaching practice and the steady mountain of pedagogical theory.

One of the most significant barriers to building a culture of trust is that, in American culture, excellence and growth can be considered mutually exclusive.  Coaches face the challenge of addressing a duality that challenges American perceptions of outstanding professional skill: it is possible, and indeed necessary, to be a wonderful teacher and determined to improve professionally.

Educational professionals face, on a daily basis, an infinite learning curve.  Even superhuman teachers can continue to grow indefinitely, stretching towards the zenith of perfection, without ever reaching the apex of the curve.  Because learning is a dynamic endeavor, and because classrooms are shifting mosaics of persons, ideas, and circumstances, educators will always encounter novel challenges, barriers, and imperfections in our work.

How can instructional coaches build a culture of trust that affirms the confidence of the professionals they support – while working continuously towards that zenith of perfection?  Here are a few steps that can help.

1. Know your role. Instructional coaches can serve as supporters, cheerleaders, evaluators – the permutations of coaching roles are truly vast.  It’s important to have clarity about what exact role you have to play in your work with educators.  Lack of clarity can easily undermine trust.
2. Track your relationship. Just as educators work over months and years to cultivate productive relationships with students, coaches need to take time to observe, understand, and nurture our relationships with educators. Consider perspective-taking exercises like journaling to get a glimpse of how the people with whom you work view your presence in their practice.
3. Read the room. There are days when my students walk into my classroom and I can tell immediately that I will need to adapt my lesson to meet them where they are academically, socially, or emotionally.  We are living through unprecedented and challenging times, and educators mirror the times in many of the same ways that students do.  There are days when the educators I support are just not ready for the leaps and bounds I’ve prepared – and days when they are ready for a larger leap than I imagined.  Instructional coaches need to have the flexibility to shift to meet the needs presented to them.
4. Focus on the bright spots. Asset-based inquiry provides a structure for instructional coaching that elevates and reinforces what teachers do well.  When planning teacher-led learning walks at my school, I’ve asked teachers to choose a shining star of a lesson to show off to colleagues as an example of outstanding pedagogy.  Volunteers invite teacher teams to visit specific classes that to serve as exemplars.  Visiting teacher teams then take time to discuss what best practices they observed and might apply in their own classes.  This approach can set the foundation for a strong culture of trust that will eventually support critical inquiry practices.
5. Lighten the load. Think creatively about how your presence in a teacher’s work could free up their time, energy, and cognition for professional growth.  Teach a section of a class, run photocopies, or help with assessment tasks so that a teacher with whom you work can take a deep breath and study a technique or approach that sparks their passion, giving them the lift needed to bring their practice to the next level.

A creative, compassionate coach can be an incredible asset in the work of an educator.  A strong culture of trust provides the supports for that bridge between practice and theory, allowing coaches to walk in both worlds, bringing the best of both to the teachers they serve.

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Dr. Megan Olivia Hall is the 2013 Minnesota Teacher of the Year. A National Board Certified Teacher, she teaches science and agriculture, and coaches anti-racist social-emotional instruction at Open World Learning Community in St. Paul Public Schools.

At a young age, I became conscious of issues of equity. My family emigrated from El Salvador, a country that was torn by a civil war caused by inequities in its government’s system, in 1981. Being Latina and going through the U.S. public educational system in three different states allowed me to experience firsthand how issues of equity impact students across all contexts. With our family’s moves, I went from attending a school that was predominantly comprised of students of color, to a school with mostly white and Latinx students, to a predominantly white high school.

Little did I know at the age of five, that a decade would pass between the only two times I learned from a teacher who looked like me. My kindergarten teacher, Mr. Hernández would be the only Latinx teacher I would have until my sophomore year of high school when I had Señor Furio as my Spanish IV teacher. Not having many teachers who looked like more like me, or knew much about my culture, has shaped me as a teacher.

Reflecting on the lack of teachers of color in my own educational experience reaffirmed my desire to pursue a career in education. It’s no secret that the U.S. teaching profession is mostly made up of white teachers and doesn’t accurately reflect the diversity of our students. In Wisconsin, the disproportionality is huge, with 91% of teachers being white, despite only 70% of students being white. Having teachers of color can profoundly impact both students of color and white students, helping to reduce racism and dispel deeply maintained stereotypes.

Growing up, I often heard of the high dropout rates of Latinx students. By being a part of the Latinx community, I was confident that I could leverage my cultural background to build strong relationships with students and families. While all families are unique, and my Latinx experience does not represent all experiences, many cultural aspects have impacted my teaching and have served as a bridge in relationship building.

An essential component that has been instrumental in my ability to communicate with families and students is being a native Spanish speaker. I want students to see the beauty of being bilingual. Far too often, multilingual students have been told to only speak English. Yet, many people wish they could speak another language. Being bilingual has impacted my ability to empower students to be proud of their heritage and language, while helping them strengthen their English skills.

Students walk into our classrooms with a wealth of knowledge and experiences. My culture has allowed me to be more effective at tapping into students’ funds of knowledge to engage them in learning. For example, whether it is food, music, or experiences about moving to a different country, I can use my cultural knowledge to connect with students and create a space where they can share their culture and experiences.

Leveraging my culture has benefited students of color and white students who, in most cases, had not had a teacher of color before. It allows them to learn about my culture and experiences. For some of my students, meeting me was the first time they heard of the country of El Salvador and met someone who was born there.

Having an immigrant experience has allowed me to bring a lens into my teaching career that has impacted not only my classroom but my ability to eliminate barriers for families and students. I am very familiar with the challenges that many students and families face as they try to navigate an unfamiliar school system. I feel fortunate that I can use my cultural background and experiences to empower students and families. My hope is that educators from a different culture feel supported to leverage their culture to positively impact students and families.

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As a child immigrant from El Salvador, Sarahi Monterrey recognizes the pivotal role teachers play in students’ lives. Sarahi’s approach to teaching embodies a genuine belief that every student has the ability to learn and grow, and every educator has an obligation to tear down barriers that stand in the way of students. Sarahi has been teaching in the School District of Waukesha for the past 14 years of her 19-year teaching career. She is currently an English Learner teacher at Waukesha South High School.  Sarahi was named Wisconsin’s 2018-2019 High School Teacher of the year.  She was selected as Wisconsin’s 2019 State Teacher of the Year representative to the National Teacher of the Year program and is the first Latina in the state of Wisconsin to have this honor.

 

“You are ‘peach’ perfect!” – I exclaimed, moved by the emotionally fulfilling rendition of one of the choral pieces at my recent rehearsal. Loud giggling echoed throughout the walls of our school auditorium and I realized, once again, how “imperfect” my pronunciation was. “Oh, no…” I thought, and quickly recovered to hide my slip of the tongue: “Yes! It was peachy!”

As I continued my rehearsal, I marveled at the sound of my students’ voices. I imagined a beautiful mosaic where each student represented a special color that made the entire artwork unique and cohesive. Nabhitha, an Indian girl who struggled to maintain her individuality while staying connected with her culture. Alex, a transgender student who had suffered from bullying in middle school. Elena, a Russian immigrant student whose mother died when she was twelve… This mosaic included different cultural and life experiences of my students, highlighting each of their identity. I thought about my own identity, the one I struggled to maintain, trying to fit in and to be “just like everybody else.”

As a first-year immigrant teacher for whom English was a third language, at times I felt insecure and flustered. A culture clash was inevitable every time I walked into my classroom, and my students did not try to hide their discomfort related to my accent. That year, my music theory class was full of rebellious senior boys, some of whom dreamed of becoming rock band drummers, others hoped for an easy “A” and yawned non-stop during the first period. It did not take long before one of the boys found a way to disrupt my class. I felt powerless and, quite frankly, betrayed. But soon, something happened that influenced my entire perspective on teaching: my son Areg went to preschool.

It was Halloween, and Areg could not wait to show everyone his new shirt with the image of a skeleton in front. He also needed to share that the skeleton could actually light up in the dark – they wouldn’t be able to see that otherwise during the day, right? The only problem was: he couldn’t express himself in English. You see, my husband and I decided to raise our children bilingual, so we did not speak English at home. Areg’s English was limited to what he had learned from watching cartoons.

That morning, he asked me: “Mom, how do you say this in English: ‘Скелет светится ночью?’”^[1] I answered: “The skeleton lights up at night.” So as he walked to school, holding hands with his dad, he kept repeating over and over: “The skeleton lights up at night,” “The skeleton lights up at night”…. As soon as he walked into his classroom, he shouted: “The skeleton lights up at night!”

A few weeks later, during a parent-teacher conference, Areg’s teacher expressed suspicions that he might have a learning disability: following directions had been a challenge for Areg. “Could this be the result of his limited English?” I asked. She was speechless. Areg was never identified as an ESL student, so she never thought that he might have a language barrier. In fact, Areg worked really hard to hide his struggles, having developed a database of memorized phrases and expressions he heard on TV to then use them as needed, just like he did with the skeleton phrase.

That parent-teacher conference was a revelation: I wondered how many Aregs I had in my class, struggling but not willing to share, even working hard to hide something? It was my job to listen, understand, and connect. So, I began learning about my students’ interests and life aspirations. I listened to their stories and grew a passion for working with them. One of them was Matt, a senior from my theory class. Matt came from a broken family and preferred staying after school rather than going home. We would discuss the staccato riffs by Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” or the remarkable chord progression in The Eagle’s “Hotel California” for hours! I grew to love these kids, and they loved me in return. Suddenly, quitting was not an option: these kids needed me, but I needed them even more. They cultivated a calling that I didn’t know I had – to be a teacher. They helped me find my own identity.

My quest began in Armenia, an ancient country in the Caucasus, and I became a refugee in the United States, by way of Russia. My husband, my two kids, and I were all born in different countries. Yet, I am an American. My “newfound” identity inspired me to create a series of concerts, “Around the World in 80 Minutes” in which each student represented their culture and language, displaying their humanity and empathy. I was proud of my students for using their language and musical skills to express their identity and to build character. As I listened in awe to my students’ stories, I realized that I was finally free to be the person I have been avoiding to be: myself.

 

^[1] Phonetically, “Skelet svetitsya nochyu?”

Argine Safari, 2017 New Jersey’s State Teacher, teaches music at Pascack Valley High School and is active as a speaker, presenter, choral clinician, and performer, having performed in major concert halls including Carnegie Hall and MSG. She earned her degrees from Melikian College of Music in Armenia, Moscow Conservatory in Russia, Brooklyn College/CUNY, Rutgers University, and is currently a PhD candidate at Walden University. Argine’s students earned numerous awards and accolades, traveling with her from Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles to Canada, Italy and Ireland, where their Irish song renditions were played on the National Radio. Argine is a Grammy nominee and a Fulbright Distinguished Teacher who conducted research and taught at the University of the Arts in Helsinki, Finland. Argine’s article on innovative teaching was published in Moscow in 2019, and in May 2020, she was featured in Dr. Bilha Fish’s book Invincible Women: Conversations with 21 Inspiring and Successful American Immigrants. Argine’s most favorite thing in the world is transforming the lives of her students through the power of music. www.arginesafari.com  

Educators at all levels are inherently linked by dynamic waves of achievement and despair that radiate through our complex profession. While I agree that all careers have ups and downs, the challenge of balancing thirty energy-infused sixth graders one minute with the moping, disengaged math students they morph into fifteen minutes later would challenge any professional. Yet, educators know these rapid adaptations are part of what makes education more than a career; actually, it is a thinking-on-your feet, life passion.

Given the complexities of classrooms and learners, it is not surprising that beneficial professional trainings for teachers generally come from veteran educators. Schools are full of teacher mentors and mentees, formal and informal, who share knowledge, techniques and instructional insights daily. We use mentoring as a means of passing on the art of teaching, which cannot be learned adequately in teacher preparation classes.

In recent years, I have been fortunate to expand mentoring into a second career as an educational consultant. I know there are many paths into teacher entrepreneurship, so trust that there is no perfect plan for consulting success. Similar to the classroom, the work of educating educators is full of successes and disappointments. My consulting venture has been guided by a few essential realizations:

1. Find Your Passion: First and foremost, joy is a huge part of the educator experience. Skilled educators find a driving passion in this work and spend years fine-tuning their selected expertise. For me, this passion is analyzing the techniques and strategies used by effective rural teachers and presenting them with clear purpose and function to student and teacher groups. I love thinking about the sequence of steps needed to embed critical thinking across content areas and I believe this thinking growth happens best when both teachers and students understand the process. In addition, I use visual mapping to motivate my own creative thinking. While I am still searching for the best way to bridge visual mapping into my professional development workshops, I am convinced it is a critical part of my driving passion.
2. Refine Your Vision: Good educators enjoy many aspects of education, but successful teacher entrepreneurs focus their professional expertise. Typically, classroom teachers and administrators are looking for specific and productive ideas to implement as a means of addressing identified weaknesses in the teaching and learning fabric of their schools. By developing specific areas of expertise, consultants connect more concretely with their workshop participants. In my case, I was a rural student, K-12, and have taught in rural and rural remote school districts for twenty years. My expertise is based in rural teaching responsibilities: everything from managing four class preps per semester to serving as the sole teacher in a high school English department. The challenges of rural remote teachers are quite different than those of teachers in more urban areas, so it makes sense for me to target my consulting services towards the rural educator population I understand well.
3. Know the Research: Research studies are an essential part of expanding academic knowledge. However, locating, investigating and digesting current research is a part of professional growth that few K-12 educators can fit into their contracted time. Classroom teachers rely on consultant-led trainings to provide updated, research-based information. Be ready to fill in this research gap for teachers. For example, I first began using visual maps as a means of note-taking more than twenty years ago, when there was almost no research in visual thinking as a mainstream learning approach. Now, studies into the power of visualization are published weekly, from all areas of the globe. Knowing the research has helped me strengthen my stance on visual mapping as a daily note-taking strategy for K-12 classrooms.
4. Balance Thinking and Practical Use: When I am training teachers, I keep in mind that as soon as teachers leave my workshop they will return to classrooms, ready to face a plethora of unexpected learning situations. As a veteran teacher, I know understanding the theories behind educational design is important in defining how teaching and learning works. Of equal importance is equipping teachers with ideas on what to do in the classroom to strengthen teaching and learning. For my consulting work to be relevant to the needs of teachers, I provide concrete strategy materials as well as facilitate deep conversations on why the strategies are effective.
5. Stay Grounded: Given the speed at which learner generations change, be aware that each year out of the classroom impacts the applicability of your ideas to classroom situations. Maintain diverse connections around the field of education to keep your expertise relevant. Given the narrow time frames for rural professional development workshops, I still teach full-time and work as a consultant during the summer, on school breaks and use personal leave days at times. Teachers appreciate that my workshop examples are grounded in actual classroom experiences.
6. Project Energy and Inspiration: The most important role teacher entrepreneurs fill in the profession is providing positive energy, motivation and inspiration to the educators they influence. The education field faces real challenges in addressing low teacher retention rates and high levels of teacher burn-out. Every educator and teacher entrepreneur can contribute to the flow of positive and reflective dialogue in our profession. Start by contributing your voice; your unique talents and insights are sure to inspire others.

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Karen Toavs has been working in the field of education for more than twenty years, as a secondary educator as well as an educational consultant at every level. She specializes in supporting educators in rural remote locations, which is well suited to her own classroom experiences in North Dakota and Montana. Karen is the 2011 North Dakota Teacher of the Year as well as being a 2012 NEA Foundation Global Fellow. In addition to remaining active in secondary teaching, Karen owns The Thinking Extreme LLC, which provides on-site training in literacy scaffolding strategies (reading, writing, research, technology integration and presentation), curriculum development and school improvement/accreditation systems for rural K-12 schools as well as higher education institutions. www.thethinkingextreme.com

My niece was so starstruck she could barely speak.

“Mommy,” she whispered, tugging on my sister’s shirt as she gazed up in awe. “That’s her!”

This five-year-old was rendered speechless by an unlikely celebrity: her kindergarten teacher. Though my niece started kindergarten on Zoom, Ms. Coyne had ignited in her such a love of school that seeing her in person truly felt like seeing Doc McStuffins herself striding down the hall.

As a former teacher, I witnessed my colleagues inspire this type of love and admiration in their students every year. But I also watched with growing despair as these educators, talented and transformational as they were, were burning out and leaving the profession.

As teachers, we have to learn how to solve seemingly intractable problems with creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. We have to learn from our mistakes, commit to continuous improvement, and push ourselves every day to meet our goals. These happen to be the same skills that entrepreneurs need to launch and sustain their businesses. Armed with that knowledge, I launched — Burn-in Mindset — which aims to help the best educators at risk of burnout reconnect with their passion so that they choose to stay in the job with the same energy and drive that made them so effective in the first place.

Over the past few years, I’ve worked with principals nationwide to support their top teachers through an evidence-based coaching program that helps them learn new skills and leverage their existing talents to deepen their teaching practice, improve their wellbeing, and catalyze student achievement.

What helps isn’t rocket science, but it is science. Teachers who routinely share the best part of their day, experience more gratitude. Teachers who treat themselves like elite athletes have the energy to wake up early the next day. And teachers who don’t interpret burnout symptoms as a sign of personal weakness experience less shame.

These shifts have a domino effect in school communities. As school leaders and teachers become re-inspired by their work and their students, kids feel that energy and feed off of it to engage more deeply in their own learning.

Soon enough, the entire culture at the school has shifted. Teachers and kids find more joy throughout the day, and that joy spreads through each and every hallway.

The pandemic, of course, made this infinitely harder. Teachers who were already feeling overwhelmed were suddenly adapting to unprecedented circumstances, scrambling to learn new technology, support their students through trauma, and manage their own anxieties. The principals I worked with feared an exodus of incredible teachers that would devastate their schools.

We must try to stop that from happening. A principal in Camden, New Jersey, focused on socioemotional support immediately, having meals and laptops delivered to students and connecting kids to mental health resources.

In San Jose, another principal feared what would happen if student accountability disappeared and kids lost all the hard-earned progress they’d made throughout the year. She got to work reimagining academics, devising ways to assess reading levels remotely, inspire kids to log on to virtual school each day, and incentivize online goals to keep them engaged.

As the year went on, it turned out that regardless of where each principal started, the schools that had the strongest culture of learning figured out how to prioritize both socioemotional wellness and academics. They did that by thinking creatively and refusing to throw in the towel even on the hardest days.

One teacher invited local celebrities into his “Zoom Room” to showcase his kids’ learning and make them feel special. Another teacher cultivated relationships with her students by emailing them a poem each morning with a personal note explaining how her interpretation applied to the state of the world. A principal turned the daily staff huddle into a crash course on psychological skills to help teachers survive and thrive.

In 2021, the word entrepreneur sparks images of startups and software. But to me, being an entrepreneur means helping educators transform the way they think about their work to ignite an ongoing culture of growth and learning. My favorite entrepreneurs are the teachers who met their students in their driveways to do word problems in sidewalk chalk, who created Zoom lessons so engaging and fun that their five-year-old charges fell in love with school through a screen.

I spent the pandemic combating burnout by cultivating its opposite, helping educators realize that they don’t always need to look to the innovations of others to do their jobs well. Flexibility, resilience, and creativity are what drive the very best teachers I know. When they have the support to tap into those powers, the possibilities for themselves and their students are boundless.

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Julia King Pool is a former educator, the 2013 DC Teacher of the Year, and founder of Burn-in Mindset, an organization focused on reducing teacher and leader burnout. The Burn-in Mindset coaching program works with high-performing teachers and school leaders and utilizes components of positive psychology to reignite educators’ passion for their work. Through one-on-one coaching, Burn-in Mindset helps schools retain their top talent, reduce symptoms of burnout, and increase teacher morale.

President Barack Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison when he spoke with staff and incarcerated men at the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma on July 16, 2015. He used the visit to share his ideas about crime, justice, and second chances. Two weeks later, the federal Department of Education launched a program to allow partnerships between prisons and postsecondary institutions to offer certificates, associate degrees, and bachelor’s degrees to incarcerated students in subjects ranging from business to the social sciences.

On June 24, 2016, the federal Department of Education announced the 67 two- and four-year colleges and universities that were granted an opportunity to educate approximately 12,000 men and women as part of the Obama administration’s $30 million Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative (SCPESI). The department announced a new cohort of 67 two- and four-year colleges and universities on April 21, 2020.

What is the goal for SCPESI? According to information in the Federal Register, this experiment “is intended to test whether participation in high-quality educational opportunities increases after access to financial aid for incarcerated adults is expanded.”

How is SCPESI doing since its launch in 2016? Pretty well as it happens. Using survey data collected in December 2020 from the administrators of 59 colleges that were part of  the original 2016 group, the Vera Institute of Justice identified in an April 2021 report a total of 22,117 unique—or “unduplicated”—students enrolled in a postsecondary education program during the first four years of SCPESI. Researchers also found that more than 7,000 students have earned either a bachelor’s degree, associate degree, or career and technical certificate or diploma.

Since I joined the Advanced Studies in Culture Foundation in 2020, I have partnered with education and criminal justice reform stakeholders to identify creative methods to deliver teaching and learning opportunities to incarcerated people. For example, I moderated a seminar to highlight the important role HBCUs play in criminal justice reform as part of a Black History Month celebration in February 2021.

I also hosted a seminar to highlight the vital role nonprofit and faith-based institutions play in criminal justice reform as part of a Second Chance Month celebration in April 2021.

In addition to hosting events about education for incarcerated adults, I write about it.

In March 2020, I published a report titled “A Story to Tell: The Importance of Education During Incarceration As Told by 22 Men and Women Who Know Firsthand.” Nearly half of the authors used a Pell Grant to pay for vocational and postsecondary courses during incarceration—including two students who used a Pell Grant to pay for courses prior to the ban in 1994.

In June 2020, I was pleased to release a new report on this topic entitled “Observations About the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative.” It is a collection of responses from eight individuals with experience working with a state agency, college, university, prison, or a combination thereof, with membership in the original 2016 SCPESI cohort.

I produced both reports, which were funded by a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to provide K-12 educators and principals, elected officials, agency and prison leaders, scholars, and current and formerly incarcerated students with firsthand accounts of what works, what does not work, and what we can do differently to provide an education to people during incarceration—be it for self-improvement, to reduce recidivism, for employment opportunities, or a combination thereof.

The sum findings of these reports, seminars, and writings indicate that there is a strong need for programs like SCPESI; and, that there are positive outcomes of such programs for the individuals involved and society at large.

Gerard Robinson served as Commissioner of Education for the State of Florida and Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Other leadership roles have included Executive Director of the Center for Advancing Opportunity and Director and President of the Black Alliance for Educational Options. Robinson also was a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is coeditor of Education for Liberation: The Politics of Promise and Reform Inside and Beyond America’s Prisons (2019) and Education Savings Accounts: The New Frontier in School Choice (2017). In addition, he cohosts The Learning Curve: National Education Podcast. Robinson has been published or quoted in AEI Ideas, Gallup News, Newsweek, The Hedgehog Review, the Hill, the New York Times, the Washington Examiner, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and US News & World Report. He earned a B.A, from Howard University and an Ed.M. from Harvard University, as well as an A.A. from El Camino Community College.

On June 10, 2021, five people joined me for a conversation about Charter Schools at 30: A Conversation with Members of the Founding Generation. My guests were Linda Brown, Founder of Building Excellent Schools; Yvonne Chan, Founder of the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles, CA; Howard Fuller, Founder and Board Chair Emeritus of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University; James N. Goenner, President and CEO of the National Charter Schools Institute; and Ember Reichgott Junge, Former Minnesota State Senator and author of the nation’s First Charter School Law. Each panelist was invited to participate because he or she has rich experience working in the charter school profession. 

Our dialogue centered around the 30th anniversary of the enactment of the first charter school law in Minnesota, as well as its challenges and triumphs. To gain insights into where we are today, let’s review data published by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools to see how far charter schools have come since 1991 provided in the table below: 

1991: Minnesota	2021: 45 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico (states without a charter law – Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont)
1991: Fewer than 1,000 students	2021: More than 3.3 million students
1991: Fewer than 1,000 teachers	2021: 219,000 teachers
1991: Fewer than 100 schools	2021: 7,500 charter schools and campuses

Here are some other facts worth highlighting:

• 69% of all charter school students are students of color; 
• 61% of all charter schools are freestanding (i.e., independent); 
• 29% of all charter schools are managed by a nonprofit network; and 11% of all charter schools are managed by a profit organization;
• 59% of all charter school students receive free or reduced priced lunch; and
• 58% of all charter schools are located in an urban area; 
• 30% are in the suburbs; and 12% are in rural areas or towns.

Here are some of the questions that I asked of each panelist:

Ember Reichgott Junge: You worked on education issues before, during, and after your time in the Minnesota legislature. Your state became the first in the nation to enact a charter school law, and your role in that work was essential. Why did you pursue a charter school law? Why was the time ripe for this type of reform? Who was on board? Who was not?

Yvonne Chan: California is the second state in the nation to enact a charter school law, and you opened one of the first charter school in Los Angeles. Tell us about the “ah ha” moment when you decided to open the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center. What were the early wins you experienced? What where the early challenges you experienced?

James N. Goenner: You have played a leadership role in nonprofit organizations that advance charter schools, be it in Michigan or nationally. What attracted you to charter schools in the first place? How has your organization moved the charter school conversation with lawmakers, advocates and the business community? What is the most important issue facing leaders of nonprofit charter organizations (other than money)?

Linda Brown: You work in Massachusetts, one of the early charter school states. Your contribution to charter schools is through building boards to produce excellent schools. Why did you take this approach? What are some of the successes and challenges you’ve seen over the years as it relates to board members and charter school leadership or governance?

Howard Fuller: You are a former superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools who used that experience to lay the foundation for charter schools to gain ground in that city. At the national level, your work with the National Alliance for Public Charter School and BAEO did the same. Given your focus on the role of black people (and others) in the charter school movement, what have we done well? Where do we have room for growth? How is your charter school in Milwaukee playing a role to advance academic and leadership opportunities for black students and adults?

Group Question: Charter schools have provided numerous academic, social, and economic benefits to children, educators, families, and the communities that they call home. At the same time, charter schools are under attack—by some former friends as well as the usual suspects. Knowing what you do today with 30 years of experience and hindsight, what should the current generation of charter school founders, educators, board members, nonprofit leaders, philanthropists, and charter alumni do to ensure charter schools are alive and well for another 30 years?

To watch or listen to this informative conversation, click here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p7awzx93kN4&feature=youtu.be