Why Your Anti-Racist PD Isn’t Actually Changing Anything with Dr Abby C. Emerson

00:03
Speaker 1
A lot of the teachers realized because they heard it in this that they were being more punitive to black students than white students. And they had all their rationalizations of like, oh, why that was. But when they heard from the data that white students were saying I do the same thing as so and you punish them and not me, they were like, oh, it's so obvious that even the white students, you know, like can see this. Like, you know. And so for the school leader there, she was a little disappointed the teachers had to hear it from the white students because black students had been staying saying it all along,

00:45
Speaker 2
Still scrambling for supplies like it's 1999 ODP Business Solutions streamlines everything from pencils to projectors so you can focus on what matters making an impact. Visit ODP business.comeducation to learn more. That's ODP business.com education as districts look ahead to the coming school year, the groundwork starts earlier than you might think. The way professional learning is designed can shape culture, collaboration and stability long before students arrive. Frontline Education's 2026 K12 lens report takes a closer look at how districts are connecting professional growth to stronger staffing stability. Download the full [email protected] leaders to learn more. That's frontlineducation.com/leaders if you could differentiate instruction in 20 minutes or less, would you do it for all your students? Well, you can with IXL. Over 1 million teachers use IXL because it empowers them to use effective data informed instruction. And you can get started [email protected] leaders.

02:09
Speaker 2
That's ixl.com SL leaders. This episode is brought to you by Kids First Education. Founded by career educators, Kids first partners with Pre K through 12 schools and districts to deliver instructional coaching, leadership development and curriculum support that puts students first. Real educators, real results. Learn more Kids First LLC. That's Kids First LLC.

02:47
Speaker 3
I want to welcome Dr. Abby Emerson to the show today. Dr. Emerson is an Assistant professor of Childhood Education at Hunter College, the City University of New York. Her research and teaching centers on anti racist and abolitionist Teacher Education, a critique of whiteness in education spaces, restorative justice, and arts based multimodal research methodologies. She's won awards for national association for Multicultural Education's Critical Teacher of the Year. She is an active community organizer, specifically around New York City's public library system, and is also an author who has written a Harvard Education Press that will be released this fall. It is from Anti Racism to Professional Learning for liberating schools. So Dr. Emerson, welcome to the show.

03:49
Speaker 1
Awesome. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

03:52
Speaker 3
All right, so I gave her bio, and one of the things that we like to start with is a compelling story to bring Ruckus Maker listeners into our discussion today.

04:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, so when I was kind of thinking about that, I thought back to one of the more visceral experiences when I was in the classroom, which is it was, I believe, my first, maybe second year of teaching. And I was at. And I was teaching third grade in the Bronx, and the school was struggling in a lot of different ways. There was a lot of leadership turnover and whatnot. And one of the schools leaders of the moment stepped up, you know, at a professional development, a PD session and said, you know, they were trying to kind of recalibrate school culture and whatnot. And they established something along the lines that the school. The rules that applied to students also applied to teachers. That was the main idea. And so they were said, you know, you can't be, you know, drinking coffee in your classroom.

04:55
Speaker 1
You can't, you know, and they had all these kind of, you know, almost arbitrary rules that they were establishing. And I really don't remember a lot of what they were. But as a new teacher, what I do remember is the response that my colleagues around me had to it. And it was, if you can believe it or not, a very negative response. People were really frustrated, very upset. They felt very belittled. And that kind of set sowed some seeds for me around kind of professional development time. And ever since then, I've been really just curious about how we use that time when teachers come together, because often, you know, we're in our own classrooms with students. And so that time when we come together is so precious and so rare almost. And so how can we use that time really strategically?

05:44
Speaker 1
And so that's what I've spent a lot of my time both, you know, when I've been in the classroom as a classroom teacher or now kind of switching into more of a researcher mode of what's going on during professional development and how can it be used more effectively? In the last few years, I've really been focused not just on PD broadly, but on PD that looks or aims for racial justice. And so I've kind of been curious of, like, what are schools doing when they say, oh, we want to tackle racism in our school, or we want to talk about racism in our school. And that's kind of what I've found myself learning about the last few years.

06:24
Speaker 3
Great. And one of the points that you hit on with that story is so impactful to me right now. As a school leader and as school leaders that are listening to our show, the time that we have with our teachers is extremely limited. So it is important that we are strategic and specific and make it worthwhile. You want to be a place where the teachers want to be in, and it's something that's going to grow them and grow the culture in the school. And when you start off with, you will not get in. It's hard to come back from that. Really?

07:02
Speaker 1
Yep. Yeah, it was a tough moment for that school, for sure.

07:07
Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, getting into your work with abolitionist teaching and anti racism, can you. Can you speak to how you ended up getting into that topic as something that you became passionate about?

07:23
Speaker 2
Yeah.

07:24
Speaker 1
So, you know, I entered teaching and education because I saw that, you know, education was a tool that could be used to address racial inequality and racial injustice. Like, from the beginning, that was kind of my orientation and what drew me to education as a field. And then when I was not that first school that I mentioned, but some of the other schools that I later taught at, we did have professional development where they said, hey, you know, there's a mismatch here between our predominantly white teachers and our predominantly students of color, at least in the schools that I taught in. And so the school leaders really wanted to surface that kind of mismatch, as it's called, and talk about, well, what does that mean? How can, you know, what does this mean for our teaching?

08:14
Speaker 1
What does this mean for how we interact with families? And so the schools I worked at were trying to have, you know, anti racist professional development. But I also was really curious because the couple schools I worked at that had this. It was kind of like the wild west, if you will, where every school was doing it in its own way. I heard about friends at other schools, and they were doing it in their own way. And so that's kind of what drew me to learn more about it was I was, you know, I was hearing about a passionate assistant principal over here who was getting things started, or a principal who thought this was really important for their school. And everyone was doing different stuff.

08:52
Speaker 1
And so I kind of wanted to have conversations across different schools, across different districts in New York City and learn more about what. What are the kind of the patterns of schools that do have anti racist professional development? What are they seeking to do?

09:07
Speaker 3
Okay, great. So how, you know, we can wait, let's. Let's dive into that. You know, what were the things you know that you learned as you know, picked up this study about the strategies that were effective, how we can bring it together. I'm sure you came up with some solutions and some recommendations, but can you talk to us about things that really came out in your. In. In what you learned from looking at different schools?

09:35
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I found that there were three things that were happening pretty consistently, and then there were two critiques. So, you know, so to speak, that a lot some educators had of, we're having this pd, but these are the issues that are still kind of happening here. So the three things that were happening relatively consistently to greater and lesser degrees, and some were executing it better than others. But overall, there was some work happening to make sure that educators understood structural racism. That was kind of the first thing where there would be PD to make sure that they understood that racism is not just about a couple bad apples, but that racism is a systemic structural piece that impacts all of us. And so as well intentioned, we are, as educators, we are part of a system that's bigger than us.

10:25
Speaker 1
And so that was needed to be kind of understood so that people didn't say, oh, well, this has nothing to do with me. Like, I'm, you know, I don't think this. I don't do that. So that was kind of first and that looks different ways, talking about current events, maybe doing some book clubs during, you know, through PD and whatnot. The second thing that schools were doing a lot of was individual reflection and getting teachers to really reflect on who they were, how they were raised, the communities they grew up in. And what is that? How does that relate or not relate to the school community in which they're working?

11:01
Speaker 1
You know, so for me personally, thinking about my, you know, my positionality as a white person and interacting with students of color and so what does that mean, like, and just getting educators to really unpack some of that and some. Sometimes that meant talking about bias, sometimes that meant talking about culture or privilege. Right. Different things. And then the third and final thing that was happening was curriculum revision. And so the kind of idea was, okay, we've talked about these things. We kind of have an understanding of ourselves and the system we're in now. What does this mean for the curriculum that we are enacting with students? And so for some educators, they talked about updating a unit to have a book that maybe represents the, you know, racial or ethnic background of their students.

11:51
Speaker 1
And so they started to think a little bit deeper about putting it into practice in a way that would impact students. Right. And their experience in the school. And so those were the three things that were kind of most consistently happening when I heard about different schools trying to have anti racist pd.

12:11
Speaker 3
Okay, I want touch on each one of those three to get a deeper understanding of what that experience was like for you. Now, when you come to that first point, as far as getting an understanding of, you know, what racism is and systemic racism is, what were some. How did teachers receive that? Because I can imagine, again, there's probably a spectrum of folks that see it, have experienced it, lived it, and then others that are like, I don't know that truly exists, that racism is a system that we exist in.

12:48
Speaker 1
Right. Yeah, there were definitely a range of responses. And that's something that I heard about from the different educators, because I spoke with teachers, I spoke with school leaders, and I spoke with some of them were like consultants or facilitators who maybe were hired by schools to lead the PD there. And so I got many different perspectives. And for some teachers, you know, they knew this already maybe from lived experience. Right. As a black person, as a person of color. So they're like, I don't need this PD to tell me there's racism. Right. But then there were also educators that, you know, knew about it and were aware of it. And so similarly kind of were like, yeah, I know. And sometimes that feeling of, like, I know this was affirming for some people.

13:34
Speaker 1
They felt like, I heard from a black woman who said, this was so affirming that were talking about in this setting. Of course I know this, but to know that now my colleagues know this and we're talking about it, and I don't have to, like, hide that the race is something I'm thinking about, that it can be talked about here. That was really freeing for her. But then there were also some people that, you know, were saying, this is not appropriate. We shouldn't be talking about this at school. You know, this doesn't really have anything to do with me or my students.

14:05
Speaker 1
And so the people that were leading PD or thinking about PD had to be really, I don't know if what the word would be, but they had to be, I guess, intentional about it and recognizing that this is not going to be okay. We did one workshop and now they get it and we're done. And we can check that box and move on. But that this is going to be a longer journey, a longer conversation. I heard about a black principal who had some white staff that were a bit resistant and she had, you know, many one one conversations and she nurtured relationships with them so that they did feel comfortable talking with her. Of like, I am not feeling great about this PD and you know, this is why I don't feel great about it.

14:48
Speaker 1
So that she could kind of, you know, think about it big picture and have the conversations that needed to be had. And then in the most extreme examples, although it was not as common, is there would be people that said, hey, this isn't for me and if this is what the school community is talking about, I think I'm going to leave again. That that was kind of an outlier situation and people said that was a bummer. But ultimately that created an opening for maybe someone to join their school community who did think that this was valuable.

15:21
Speaker 3
I think that is super critical. The last couple of things, a lot of these hard conversations that are had around race or you know, whatever other challenging topic, you have to have strong relationships in order to make it a productive, you know, conversation, discussion. And then, you know, if you're trying to, if you're a school leader and you're trying to move in a direction where you're creating equity for your entire school community, it's not a, it's not a fast process. And you know, the story you just told, you want people that are going to come along on the journey with you in a way that is going to be productive. And if there are folks that are trying to derail what you're doing, it makes it extremely difficult. So you know, relationships is the key.

16:14
Speaker 3
And you know, as a leader you've got to be able to have conversations and just kind of be list, kind of listen and not be judgmental when there is some pushback or resistance or you know, fear. I think that's probably one of the biggest things that you see as well.

16:31
Speaker 1
Yes, 100%. You're touching on something so important that fear piece is people are afraid to hurt other people. They care about their colleagues. Like for some of them, these are their friends and they don't want to say something offensive. They don't want to say something appropriate and so, or inappropriate rather. And so having kind of empathy that people are at different places. As you said, on this journey of like understanding is what you know is critical. And I think a misstep that I heard about at times is that when it these anti racist PDs, on occasion it was not universal at all. But on occasion it would sometimes go into this sort of call out culture, if you will. Right, that. Gotcha. Like, okay, you use the wrong word. You know, you said that this needs to be a safe space.

17:21
Speaker 1
We don't say that anymore. We say brave space. Right. Like, that sort of policing of each other was ultimately really detrimental. But that relationship of, you know, we're going to talk about this, we're going to have patience with each other, we're going to support each other. That relationship piece is more important than calling people out, which I think especially around 2020, that kind of became like a very kind of popular response to racism. But kind of what I try to suggest is that an abolitionist idea of how to reach towards racial justice is more fruitful. And abolitionist work is really grounded again in those, like, relationships and working together and not calling people out for sure.

18:08
Speaker 3
So going to that point about, you know, 2020, I think the world's eyes were opened to structural racism that exists with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and those types of things. So, you know, what we faced as a country, you know, many people experienced, people of color, black people experienced, but it wasn't something that was out there. And I think, you know, as went through that, somewhat of an awakening 2020, he will, I think, you know, social justice and racial justice has kind of been under attack. So how was that then for you as an educator and leader in the field?

18:56
Speaker 1
Yeah, no, absolutely. There, there's, you know, we've seen a lot happening politically on that front, kind of the federal landscape and whatnot, and even local in different contexts. And so I heard about schools even in New York City. Right. Which is obviously known as kind of a relatively progressive place when it comes to this type of thing, although we certainly have our fair share of racial issues here in the city, undoubtedly. But I heard about, you know, one of the principals I spoke with their school was really like on the forefront of, you know, having these conversations and they, you know, did some really cool stuff. And. But even there she was getting backlash from a couple parents and, you know, who were.

19:43
Speaker 1
Felt like the school was, you know, too maybe quote, woke or progressive or whatever kind of words like that you want to use. And so similarly, she, you know, knew she needed to have some conversations with families as well. Right. Sometimes when we think about PD and shaping school culture and whatnot, we think and talk a lot about the teachers. Right. And of course, hopefully that impacts students. But I heard also less so. But I do think critically about the conversations that need to be happening with families and with the immediate communities and there's some education even that needs to happen with families to kind of get them on board with the direction that schools can be going. And you know, that's obviously at the very, you know, the school level. Obviously in some states around the country right now, there's worse things happening.

20:36
Speaker 1
Right. In the state that I grew up in, New Hampshire, I don't know if it's still active because I haven't lived there in a while and I'm not on the pulse. But there was like a portal where people could submit names, you know, of teachers, like really kind of frankly heinous stuff because that's sort of, again, that's, again, it's like a form of that call out culture and that like surveillance when really we need to have these conversations together and say, like, hey, this is why I think we should teach this. What do you think? Like, why should you, why do you, why are you against that? Let's talk about it. As opposed to finding ways to punish each other for talking about things that are important.

21:16
Speaker 3
That is so crucial. I think that is really harmful. And being an educator is challenging enough. But when you feel like you've got to, you know, walk on eggshells or look behind the door of who's coming, that type of thing, that does not sit well with people because teachers are pouring their hearts out when it comes to what they're trying to do in the classrooms. And when you have that fear, I think in some cases, some folks don't want touch it because they are afraid that someone's going to come after them. And I think as school leaders, you know, part of our responsibility is to protect our teachers. And one of the things that I am really hammering in specifically in my community is like, we've got to be proactive when it comes to communication.

22:09
Speaker 3
And yes, going back to the relationship component, like, here are the things that we are doing. Parents, we want to invite you in to get a better understanding of what these, what it looks like and, you know, fight against the negative portrayal that could be, you know, in the media or in politics of what we're trying to do to support our kids. Because I think the bottom line is like, we want healthy kids that are going to be able to function and not be mean when they go out into the world.

22:42
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. And you're exactly right. That proactive communication, I think is so critical. When I was a classroom teacher and we would have tough conversations with my students about race or gender or whatnot. I never had any pushback. And, and it was because I really tried to get ahead of the conversation so families knew it was coming home and that they weren't coming. You know, students, of course, are going to have, like, misinterpretations as they learn and they figure things out. And so I wanted to give the families some framing of, like, this is what we're talking about. This is why, this is how, you know, what came up. Like, please talk about it with your child. Like, I, you know, I don't want them, I don't want any accusations of indoctrination over here.

23:26
Speaker 1
Like, I'm just creating space for you to also have that conversation with them too, and share your values at home. And so again, getting ahead of that communication, I think is really critical.

23:37
Speaker 3
Now, the second thing that you talked about coming up in your study was, you know, the individual reflection. Was there anything that came out about, you know, from educators that you talk to about that self reflection component? I can, I can see that's definitely a challenge when we come from so many different types of backgrounds and touched on, you know, the majority of teachers in the classroom are women that identify as white. And, you know, that's different from, you know, almost probably 50% of our students that are students of color. And so I, I can imagine that there were some enlightening things that came out of responses to that aspect of what you found.

24:26
Speaker 1
Yeah, that was kind of an interesting component because for some educators that I spoke with, they learned about structural racism and they're like, yeah, that sucks. I get it. Like, it was almost like an intellectual thing for them. But then when it said, okay, now let's look at you and think about you, or, you know, not in a group setting, but to give you the space to do that. Right? Like, that's what the goal of it was, to give educators a space to think about themselves. And when they were sometimes given that request to do that was harder for them because they were like, oh, I knew I could, like, I could point to racism over there or being over here.

25:04
Speaker 1
But now to look at myself and my own, you know, maybe even classroom data and notice that, like, oh, I am, you know, giving more detention to the black boys in my class, and that's me in my room, you know, and, you know, is there something going on between my, you know, with my communication style or, you know, whatever that may be. So for some educators, that was a harder component actually than learning about structural racism or Acknowledging it. And so they had to kind of find some space to, yeah, reflect on themselves.

25:39
Speaker 3
There's, yeah, I can imagine so much variation going on there. It's fascinating. And then the third thing that you looked at was that curriculum revision and being a classroom teacher and working with classroom teachers on a daily basis. I know how hard it is for some to make that change. These are things that have worked for me for so long. Why would I change it? And then you also have teachers that are trying different things every year or every month or as often as they can when they find something new that they want to try. So you know, what kind of patterns or what things that came out from that aspect of your study?

26:25
Speaker 1
Yeah, for the most kind of, you know, for the teachers that were the most invested in this was a really important component because in the schools where the school leader said, oh, yeah, you know, we talked, we reflected, we learned about structural racism. But no, I don't, I don't, you know, we have our curriculum and it works. I don't, you know, want teachers to change it or I don't trust teachers to change it. Teachers are really upset by that where they're like, why are we doing anything? Why are we even having anti racist PD if at the end of the day, I'm not allowed to put anything into action in, you know, my classroom? So it was really important for a lot of those educators.

27:05
Speaker 1
But then as you said, on the other end, there are those that are, you know, I don't really want to change anything. This isn't, you know, a good place and whatnot. And so you definitely had a spectrum there. And I think the most success that I saw in schools were the schools that didn't try to bite off more than they could chew. They really broke it up into parts that were manageable. This year, let's see if we can just change, you know, the text in one LA unit. Right. Or reading unit. Right. Like we're just going to swap that out for this text that we think would be more culturally relevant. And then maybe the next year we're going to update another unit.

27:43
Speaker 1
And then the, you know, the year after that, maybe we're going to start thinking about math a little bit, which is, that can be a little harder. Right. Than maybe just switching a book. So kind of doing it in steps, in ways that are accessible, in ways that are doable was really helpful. And social studies was a key starting point for a lot of the schools because, you know, inherently learning about people and history Lends itself quite well to thinking about and analyzing race and what's happened in our world as related to race.

28:15
Speaker 3
And that's one thing that you see when it comes to changing a school culture in going from where everything isolated. And I'm a social studies teacher, so I'm just teaching social studies. I'm a science teacher. I'm just teaching science. And I think there's so much value when we come together and realize that our students may be learning different subjects, but it's all connected. And when school leaders are trying to create that environment, I think it gives such a rich, much more rich experience to our students. Because it's hard the way that our system is set up when you've got one set of rules and expectations in one class and then you go to the next class and it's totally different. And you don't see any relationship between all the different classes that you're taking, but there really is.

29:13
Speaker 3
And I think that if you're being intentional about creating a well rounded experience and showing how the science and the math connect to the social studies and everybody's reading and writing, so English language arts is in there as well. That I think that is critical to creating a great system that works.

29:34
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.

29:37
Speaker 3
Yeah. And then, so then we touched on the three areas that. That came out. But there were a couple concerns that you found as well in your study too, right?

29:47
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, there definitely were. And those, these two concerns are really what I've been more curious about in the, you know, the last while because they've been, they've been nagging at me and I' about them a lot. But the first concern that, you know, a number of teachers expressed were, was that, you know, we have this pd. We're engaging in these three components. Great. But at the end of the day, the relationships between educators and students wasn't changing very much. They were ultimately still quite punitive. Right. Kids were still getting detention or suspended or, you know, expelled in extreme situations. And they felt like, okay, I changed my unit, right. I updated my curriculum, but so and so is still out of the class, you know, taking a break all the time.

30:35
Speaker 1
And so they're not even in the classroom to kind of experience my changed curriculum. And so a lot of educators were really felt a real sense of tension that we're having these pds, but it's not changing the school. Our school's policies and structures and systems, especially around discipline and behavior. And they were saying, you know, it doesn't mean that we are, you know, become incredibly lenient and we let kids get away with everything. But we want to try to find a space that acknowledges that there's still racial disproportionality in our discipline data. And we're having this PD about race, but we're not really addressing that issue in the discipline data. And so that was a real tension for a lot of educators.

31:26
Speaker 1
So then the second kind of issue that educators brought up was they felt like the pds, while great sometimes were too individualized and too individualistic. And they said, okay, great, we're learning about this and maybe we're updating the curriculum, but it's still about me and my classroom and my unit. Where is the look at our school wide, right at our policies, like who's getting into the AP classes? Right. Like I can update my units, but as a school, what are we doing about, you know, the racial representation in AP classes? So that was kind of a concern and actually principals said that same concern at the school slash district level, while teachers had that concern at classroom versus school.

32:15
Speaker 1
School leaders had that concern about the school district level where they said, my school, we're doing this, I feel proud of the work we're trying to accomplish. But the district, my superintendents and whatnot, they're not looking at the district wide stuff from this kind of anti racist lens. And so again, it's too individualized. Yet we know that anti racism is. The goal is to tackle racism as a structure. It's not about individual people or classrooms. And so getting the PD to not just be an individual thing, but something that looks at it structurally. That was a concern that a lot of educators expressed as well.

33:03
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
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35:04
Speaker 2
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36:13
Speaker 2
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37:25
Speaker 3
Okay, and so you had a couple things that stood out as recommendations because you know you do the training, the professional development and the reflection curriculum change and then you know, you got these challenges where you know the still punitive in the classroom and you know, we're so narrowly focused, individually focused. What are the recommendations that came out of your learning?

37:55
Speaker 1
Sure, there were a couple schools that were doing some pretty cool stuff, right, that I felt like they did the three things, you know, that we talked about that were happening, but they also did some stuff that addressed these critiques. And one of those, I'll give, you know, as an example. So there was a high school, and they had some issues, again, about racial disproportionality in their discipline. You know, they had some, you know, other kind of issues that they wanted to tackle, right? And so they created, or they had an equity team, and they actually had students on the equity team. And so student voice became like this. This formalized committee at their school, Student voice committee.

38:37
Speaker 1
And it became a really powerful mechanism of change that was really grounded in what the students were experiencing and, you know, with a pretty explicit racial focus. And so they. And it became a mechanism that they built and then now is kind of an ongoing practice of this school. And so what they do now, once or twice a year is they send out a Google survey to as many students in the school to get it or take it as they can. And then they look at the data. And then what they would do is the student voice committee would then have focus groups with their peers about this data where they'd say, like, oh, a lot of students are saying this, like, let's get some qualitative, you know, anecdotes and responses. And there wouldn't be a teacher in the room.

39:20
Speaker 1
The teacher would sit outside and make sure, you know, things are cool, but also give them the privacy to have an honest and authentic conversation. And then so they gather some data qualitatively. And then the student voice committee meeting with the teachers on that equity committee, they're talking about it, they're looking at it, and they found some real things that they said, you know, we need to share this with the entire teaching staff. And at first, the teachers on this equity committee were nervous to do that, where they said, oh, like, oh, this is going to be like a tough pill to swallow for some of our colleagues. And the students were like, oh, we'll share it. You know, we'll run the pd. We'll do it. And so they had. They have. I think it's. Again, it's still an ongoing thing.

40:06
Speaker 1
They have the pd. The students do the PD for the teachers once or twice a year, and they, you know, put up the chart papers and they, you know, share data from the survey and they share quotes and responses, and they have, you know, the teachers do a gallery walk. They have them in discussion groups, and it's all facilitated by the Students. And out of that kind of that structure of student voice and student leadership, there were a number of outcomes. Right. Like, one of them was that a lot of the teachers realized, because they heard it in this, that they were being more punitive to black students than white students. And they had all their rationalizations of, like, oh, why that was.

40:47
Speaker 1
But when they heard from the data that white students were saying, I do the same thing as so and so, and you punish them and not me, they were like, oh, it's so obvious that even the white students, you know, like, can see this. Like, you know? And so for the school leader there, she was a little disappointed the teachers had to hear it from the white students because black students had been saying it all along. So she was, you know, I think a little frustrated that. But also, at the same time, she was like, great, they're hearing it. If that's what it's going to take to get them to hear that we need to do something about how we interact with students, I'm all for it. And also, that student voice committee also led to some changes instructional pedagogy as well.

41:31
Speaker 1
And they realized, oh, we're relying too heavily on the high flyers quote of this class to lead conversations or whatnot. And so they realized, okay, we need to now do some more PD around scaffolding and differentiation, right. To make sure that teachers have a strong toolkit to make the classrooms strong, function in a way that works for everyone. So that student voice committee was a really powerful tool at that particular high school, and it really got them to start thinking about changing the relationships and their discipline practices as well as their teaching.

42:07
Speaker 3
Also that those are phenomenal reflections and strategies that can be used in any setting where you're flattening the leadership, you're bringing in students, and you're being proactive in the changes that you're making. Really, really good. I want to transition into the last part of our conversation. We've got three questions that we ask to each and every guest. And so I want to ask the first one. If you could put one message on all school marquees around the world for a single day, what would your message be?

42:47
Speaker 1
Yeah, so I'm gonna have to go to the iconic teacher, Ms. Frizzle. She really knew her stuff, and she had that quote that she would always say. I think every episode it was, take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. And I love that.

43:02
Speaker 3
You can't go wrong with Magic School Bus.

43:05
Speaker 1
Yeah.

43:05
Speaker 3
All right, Very good. I like that. Number two, you are building Your dream school from the ground up. Your only limitation is your imagination. Any resource that you want to use. What are three guiding principles for building your dream campus?

43:24
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think the first one is a little bit more kind of a philosophy and whatnot that would be in that school, but it would be the concept that would have to be part of the school culture is that we walk with people and we walk with children through their mistakes. Whether it's academic and intellectual mistakes and errors or social and interpersonal ones where we harm each other. But giving space for educators to really walk with students through that and rely less on punishment and find other tools to get them to repair or improve or whatever it may be. And then the second thing that I would want to make sure is really pervasive in that school is different places, call it different things, but thematic learning, project based learning. Right.

44:11
Speaker 1
Things that are based in students creating, making, doing things that are, as we said earlier, you know, interdisciplinary. Bringing different subjects and content areas together. And maybe those themes are things that students are already passionate about or themes and projects that the educators are passionate about and students don't know anything about. But it opens the world to them in a different way. So I see that as really important to this dream school. And then the last thing I would say, and this is more guided by my role as a parent these days, is after school. Enrichment was not something that I thought about very much when I was in the classroom as a classroom teacher. I was like, it's after 2:30, like that's not my business, frankly.

44:57
Speaker 1
But now as a parent and kind of very involved in my kids school and whatnot, I see how critical those other enrichment activities are. Whether there's a school musical, whether there's soccer, whether, you know, whatever it may be. That's what I see my kids being really motivated by, of course. And that's what I see a lot of kids. It like really just helps them build those really positive feelings about school. Some kids are gonna have positive feelings about school always. But I think some kids need a little bit of something extra to attract them and keep them motivated. And so I see those sorts of things as really, you know, building out school to not just be that eight to two or whatever hours learning time, but really like a holistic thing that thinks about children wellness broadly phenomenal.

45:48
Speaker 3
So we talked about a lot of different things today. What is one thing you want a ruckus maker to take away from our discussion?

45:56
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think I would say that for me, what I've come to understand is that education and teaching can be used to maintain the status quo. Right? This is how I've done it. This is what works. Or it can be used. Education and teaching can be used as a tool to really challenge inequality in all its forms. And so every day we have to ask ourselves, what are the choices I'm going to make that are going to be used in education to challenge what's happening and do better and for our kids and for our communities?

46:30
Speaker 3
Awesome. Abby, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it. And thanks to all Ruckus, all our Ruckus makers listening today's show.

46:43
Speaker 2
Hey Ruckus Maker, thanks again for pressing play. I hope you enjoyed this show as much as I enjoyed recording it. And before you go, if today's episode shifted something for you where you want to do school different or you have a new idea about education, then I want to invite you to subscribe to Ruckusmakers News. That's our newsletter. And you get three new opportunities to do school different every week sent to your inbox. It's trusted by over 5,000 school leaders. And if you want to reimagine education within a traditional setting so that you could create a campus experience worth showing up for, subscribe for free at Ruckusmakers News.

  Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/