Transcript: Educator Panel: Creating Healing, Restorative Learning Ecosystems
Rebeca Cerna:
On behalf of the California Center for School Climate, I would like to welcome you to our last session of the day, our educator panel session, Creating Healing, Restorative Learning Ecosystems. My name is Rebecca Cerna. I serve as a director of the California Center for School Climate, and I am joining you from Southern California. And I’m specifically located in the traditional lands of the Ahashamon Nation, a vibrant community in my area. Today’s event and this session is being hosted by the California Center for School Climate. The California Center for School Climate is a California Department of Education initiative led by WestEd. We provide free support and trainings on school climate and data use practices to schools, districts, county offices of education throughout the state. Our center strives to provide relevant and responsive supports, coaching supports to districts and schools related to school climate strategies and practices, and also to elevate and disseminate existing promising practices in California.
So we’re happy that you’re here with us today. We invite you to visit our website at ccsc.wested.org to learn more about the resources that we offer at no cost. And I am excited to pass this along to my colleagues who will be moderating this session. Krystal Wu brings her expertise in culturally responsive and sustaining education practices, and Krystal will serve as one of our moderators for today’s session, along with Shazia Hashmi. Shazia supports projects with the focus on improving practices and social emotional learning, school climate and community engagement. And with that, I will first pass it to Shazia.
Shazia Hashmi:
Thanks so much, Rebecca. Good afternoon everyone. So glad to be joined by you all today. We are so honored to be joined by four teachers from across the state this afternoon so that we can learn about their approaches to creating healing restorative classrooms. So we’ll hear their perspectives on how school staff can work together to cultivate more restorative school ecosystems through both day-to-day classroom instruction, as well as more systemic school-wide approaches. And in the run-up to the annual event, we had the chance to meet with our CCSC Youth Advisory team to also hear their perspectives on what makes a learning environment healing as we consider both of those groups extreme experts on this topic.
So this slide gives you a little window into how they think about restorative classroom environments. My colleague Krystal led an activity along with a few of our other CCSC staff with the Youth Advisory team to just ensure that we’re learning from them first. And we’re actually going to be able to share a snippet of a conversation we had with Alexa and Aisha, were two youth advisors that agreed to share their voices with attendees today. So I’ll pass it to that video.
Krystal Wu (via video):
Hi. Welcome. We would love to start off by having you both introduce yourselves to us. Tell us a little bit about where you’re coming from and who you are.
Alexa Southall (via video):
Hi, my name is Alexa Southall and I’m currently a junior at Eastlake High School in San Diego. On campus I’m involved in many clubs like student council, mock trial and community service-based clubs. And I’m also president of my school’s mental health club.
Aisha Bilgrammi (via video):
Hi, I am Aisha and I’m a freshman over at Irvine Valley College and I’m involved with various largely finance and business-related clubs as well as more women-based mental health clubs too.
Krystal Wu (via video):
And you both are also part of the California Center for School Climate’s Youth Advisory team. And so we would love for one of you to explore the role that the youth advisory team plays in the CCSC programming and community. And we’d also love to hear a little bit about how youth advisory team members and other students describe their current school environment. So how do young people feel about school?
Alexa Southall (via video):
As a youth advisory team, we largely focus on providing input and ideas for work that the California Center for School Climate is already doing in improving school environments. So a lot of times this looks like sharing our own personal experiences, being current students, and really thinking about the ways that we can benefit schools for other students. As far as how youth advisory members or students may feel about current school environments, I would say most students agree that there are aspects of school that are very enjoyable, like the social part or a certain club that they’re in or a sport, and that’s largely a fun encouraging place that’s enjoyable to be. But I also think that many students struggle with more of the academic rigor on campus or certain class environments and feeling like they’re less supported or maybe it’s a more difficult space to be in.
Krystal Wu (via video):
Thank you, Alexa, for sharing that with us. And so I guess from you, Aisha, we would love to hear about how members of the Youth Advisory team defined a healing learning environment since what Alexa was talking about is what might be challenging about school.
Aisha Bilgrammi (via video):
So a lot of other youth and Youth Advisory team members described it as a very safe environment for learning and reflection as well as making connections with students and teachers, other adults as well on campus. And a large focus on just adjusting to student needs and having a lot of empathy as well, especially towards students and anything that they may or may not be going through. And things like stigmas and discrimination, academic or just achievement pressure.
Krystal Wu (via video):
Thank you. Having those examples really help bring this to life for our audience. And so just to share even a little bit more, we’d love to hear from both of you about some examples from your own experiences of healing supportive learning environments.
Alexa Southall (via video):
So some examples for me personally is when my teachers genuinely make me feel like we’re all in this learning experience together. I feel like when there’s less of a barrier and it feels like you can actually connect with your teacher, it’s much more of a supportive learning environment. And so sometimes that may be having breaks or the teacher having students share about their day and just being able to have spaces in a classroom where it’s just about conversating or building connections often makes me feel more supported in what I do. And so I also know that when teachers decorate their classrooms or things like that, putting things into making it an environment for everyone, a collective environment and a space that we all like to be in, I feel like that really makes me feel more comforted in that environment.
Aisha Bilgrammi (via video):
And also reflecting on my own experiences, confidentiality was really important for me in healing, especially with having proper relationships with adults, confidentiality whether be with counselors, mental health specialists or teachers, it made me feel so much more comfortable to get the help that I needed and that was really healing for me. But also environments that were very diverse and inclusive and accepting unconditionally was very healing for me and healing for others around me. And similarly to Alexa, planned breaks and really fun classrooms, whether it be with music or we even had coffee breaks, that was a really fun time, but also so productive.
Krystal Wu:
Thank you both so much for sharing your perspectives on what makes a healing learning environment. We really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us today.
Krystal Wu:
Shazia and I were so appreciative of the time that Alexa and Aisha took to talk with us and the other CCSC team members about their approaches and their thoughts about healing learning environments because in many ways we know that youth and the students themselves are our teachers because they’re the ones that all of this is for. And we wanted to make sure that we focus on teachers for this panel. We know that the youth were the focus of the closing panel for last year’s conference. And this year we wanted to put front and center folks who often don’t get the spotlight and who are often sometimes uncomfortable on the spotlight.
And so we’re thrilled to introduce the guest speakers for our session who bring a wide range of personal and professional experiences to share with us and who are all incredible educators in their own different ways. And so I’m going to take this minute to introduce the four of them, and I just ask you to warmly welcome them to this space.
So first we’re going to welcome Lavita Jones. She is a fourth grade teacher at Inner City Education Foundation or ICEF View Park in Los Angeles. She has been with ICEF for over eight years and has had many roles including instructional aid, math coach, intervention specialist, behavior interventionist, and now teacher. So thank you for the emojis as we welcome Lavita to the stage, the virtual stage.
Our second speaker is Bobby Pelz and he teaches ethnic studies at Watsonville High School. He is also founded an organization called 25 Books, which is a program that provides free books to kids.
Our third speaker is Dr. Martin Canizales Cobos, and he teaches Spanish at Mount Eden High School in Hayward. Martin is from Monterrey, Mexico where he was a pulmonologist for 10 years before transitioning to becoming a teacher.
And finally, we have Kyley Hironaka, who recently transitioned to teaching elementary physical education at Sunset and Drew Elementary schools after being a kindergarten and fourth grade teacher. She currently works and lives in San Francisco. So we are so honored to be joined by these four lovely teachers. Thank you, guys, for saying yes to participating today.
And the focus of our conversation today will be structured around two central themes. The first half will be moderated by Shazia, and we’ll focus on the important role that you all play in the classroom as an ecosystem. And then the second half, which I’ll moderate will be focused on how education leaders, students, and families can support teachers so it can support you all and your role as part of the larger school and community ecosystem. So audience, throughout our conversation, we invite you to share questions with us using the Q&A function about either of those themes. And at the end we’ll have a nice chunk of time where we’ll answer those questions as they come in. So with that, I’m going to pass it to Shazia and we’re going to get into our conversation today.
Shazia Hashmi:
Thanks, Krystal. So we all got a glimpse of what our students who are on our youth advisory team described the restorative healing environments as. So we thought we’d kick off the Q&A or this structure of the panel with a question about their classrooms, these teachers classrooms. So if we were to stop by any of your classrooms this week, we would love to know what we’d see and here and just what it’s like to be a student in your classrooms. So I think Lavita is going to kick us off for this question.
Lavita Jones:
Hello everybody. Thank you for having me. Yes. So if you were to stop by my classroom this week, you would see an environment that is community-based. We do a lot of things together. And the reason being is because my classroom is about building relationships and a unity. And so you’ll also see students being empowered. So I don’t do much but facilitate. So my students, they all have jobs and they help facilitate the classroom in order to really just show that they are empowered and they are taking charge of their learning. It’s the leader in them. And so I love having leadership roles and I try to tackle every single leadership role from them helping with technology, helping with materials, to even having table leaders who help with group projects and works. And so in my classroom, it’s really community-based, and I love to help the students learn how to support each other with their learning. Yeah. So that’s just a little bit about my classroom that you would see.
Shazia Hashmi:
Thank you. Lavita. It’s great to hear about unity, empowerment, leadership, all of those concepts starting out really young as you’re an elementary school teacher. Martin, we’d love to hear from you next.
Martin Canizales Cobos:
Hi. Thank you. Yes. If you are coming to my classroom, the first thing that you’re going to see, the door is open. I am at the door smiling and I am going to say hello in Spanish. [foreign language 00:13:22]. So each one of my students receive the same way. They are going inside before the bell rings, and they have some time for themselves to be quiet for a moment. They are going to listen to Latin American music because all the time we are singing. And they are going to find that there is a routine. For me, having a routine is comfortable for all students because they know what is going to happen. On screen, they are going to visualize our agenda, and only a site can know what we are going to do during the day.
So the idea is to make them feel as a group and comfortable when they are entering to the classroom. Something else you are going to find at the back of the classroom, a foosball table. I just got it for my class. That is my classroom in general. I am trying to make it as much better as I can for my students.
Shazia Hashmi:
Awesome. Love the foosball table. I don’t think you’ve shared that before, Martin. Kyley, can you let us know what your classroom looks like?
Kyley Hironaka:
Hi everyone. I’m Kyley and I’m an elementary PE specialist. So I teach all grades from TK at some sites to fifth grade. In my classroom, similar to Martin, I like to have very strong structure and routines just so it can provide a safe and predictable environment for the students. A lot of the times students come to school not knowing if they’re going to have a meal at home, coming from all kinds of different situations. But school, they’re there Monday through Friday, it’s a big consistent part of their lives. And so when students know what to expect in my class, it can help them feel more confident and comfortable from the get-go. For me, I have a warm-demander teaching style. I like to be very silly and I’m also very strict at the same time.
And with that, I try to have very clear expectations in order to be fair and set my students up for success. So they should know exactly what’s going to happen if they are following expectations, being safe, being respectful and responsible leaders. And they also know exactly what will happen in my class if they’re not being safe, respectful, and responsible. In my class, there’s a lot of laughter, a lot of dancing, and moving around naturally, a lot of exploring with different equipment. And one of my favorite sounds is the pitter-patter of little feet hitting the pavement after I say my magic word, go.
Shazia Hashmi:
Thanks so much, Kyley. It’s great to hear more about what a physical education classroom looks like in this frame. Bobby, can you finish us off with this question?
Bobby Pelz:
Sure, yeah. I would probably say you’re going to hear my classroom well before you see my classroom. I like to play music in between periods and I like to play it really loud, and so you’ll hear it out the door. And I really want my kids to feel like what they’re about to experience is going to be a lot of fun and no matter what it is. And I think you can set that mood with music. And then when the kids come in the room, the first thing they’ll probably notice is that my room is arranged in a circle and it’s permanently arranged in a circle, and so there’s no front of the room, it’s all equal. And I think that’s really unusual. And so at first it’s something that kids take some getting used to, but I think it’s really a great environment for the kid because they can see each other and they can talk to each other. It encourages that conversation.
And then around the room, on one side of the room, I had this graffiti mural painted, so I have a whole wall with nothing but a mural that said be revolutionary on it. And so again, you don’t normally see that in a classroom. And so I think that the kids come in here and they think, “Wow, this is really different. What am I in for here?” And that’s what I wanted them to experience.
You also see that I made posters of a lot of famous heroes with famous quotes and things like that. And I did it in a way that I wanted to represent all different groups, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, all the different ethnic groups and things like that because I wanted the kids to see themselves represented on the walls. And then the other thing you’ll see is that we do a lot of work with butcher paper posters and markers. And so you’ll see a lot of work on the walls where kids are writing things down and coming up with ideas and generating learning. And so tried to design the whole classroom around like, “Hey, this is fun. This is a fun place to be. Let’s get to work.”
Shazia Hashmi:
Thank you, Bobby, and thanks to everyone for describing what their classrooms look like. So now that we have a little bit of an idea of what everyone’s classrooms look like, we wanted to talk more about how student-teacher relationships happen. So if everyone could share how they think about the role of student-teacher relationships in the classroom, I think that would be great follow up. And Kyley, could you kick us off for this one?
Kyley Hironaka:
Yeah. For me, it’s important to get at the root of understanding the why behind a student’s behavior. Sometimes a student might behave a certain way and it takes some digging to really understand where they’re coming from and put ourselves in the student’s shoes. I don’t always come from the same backgrounds as my students. And so that’s where understanding community and really establishing relationships not only with the student but also with the family and the larger school in general is crucial. It’s crucial to see students as people first. Kids just want to feel seen, just like teachers want to be humanized at the same time. I think it very much goes both ways. And in my practice, being mindful of student-teacher power dynamics is what is super important in my work, for me and my teaching style. I like to mentally note the ratio, for example, of positive interactions to my redirections with a student.
So for example, if a student is having a hard day in my class, maybe later on I’ll see them in the hallway. Kids are so forgiving, I might just say, “Hello, how’s it going?” And boom, that’s another positive interaction. I just don’t want my students to feel nagged all the time. And sometimes schools can just feel like that from a kid’s point of view. And so just shedding ourselves in a different light that shows the student, “Hey, we’re people too. I see you as a person. We are here for you. We care for you, and every day is brand new. You have a great start ahead of you.” And building as many positive school interactions as possible really helps build confidence and set those kids up for increasing their self-esteem. And also, students are trying to determine if they can trust us as adults. So when they report to me like, “Hey, somebody in this game is not playing by the rules,” they’re very much feeling me out to see will I keep them safe? Am I going to do anything about it? So am I worth trusting?
And intentionally choosing my battles and how or when I choose to address things is something that I try to keep in the front of my mind in schools. So I might redirect a student by a facial expression, I might just move my body closer to somebody so they get the memo, get with the program here, I might end up just laughing at something silly with the whole class and then refocusing. So it’s really an art and it takes time to develop that muscle of choosing those battles and how to address them. So it’s really all about reading the room and meeting the kids where they are, and teaching from these kinds of lenses and attitudes just centers whole student learning and prepares them with these kinds of life skills so they can be successful to eventually contribute to their communities as older leaders. So really centering social emotional learning is critical. Helping them problem solve in a conductive way is really important to student-teacher relationships.
Shazia Hashmi:
I’m hearing so much empathy behind every strategy that’s been mentioned so far and just a huge emphasis on humanizing both teachers and students. So love that. Lavita, could you talk to us about how you think about this role?
Lavita Jones:
Thank you. Wow, Kyley, that was amazing. I’m just going to mirror so many things that Kyley said. I just want to talk about the importance of building relationship and trust in a way that is relatable too. So you get to know your students, no student is the same. And so I really feel like it’s very important to build personal relationships, each one of them. You can’t just have an umbrella of, “Oh, this is how I’m going to relate to my students.” You have to be culturally relevant and inclusive. And I feel like when you really truly get to know a student, then you get to know some of the why’s. We might not know all the whys, but I know we’re professionals. And when we get to know these students and we’re like, okay, so that student doesn’t like this and this student doesn’t like this.
You know what? I know. I can use humor with this student. I can get to his funny bone a little bit and build relationships and to build that trust. Because let’s face it, if we don’t trust someone, would we be open to learn from them, really? Even us as adults. For my babies, they’re nine and 10. So they’re like nine and 10, they don’t want me just in my words, nagging or barking at them all day. And also I think it’s very important to show that I support them positively. Yes, you have your hard days, but every day in my class is a new day. And I will say that unfortunately growing up, I did see teachers who had felt like they were more, I’m the teacher and I’m the… Yes, we can have that, but that comes with routines, that comes with structure, but that doesn’t come with, you go with that power struggle and you have to show them who’s boss, all of that.
If you have that structure and you built that relationship… Actually I love to tell the students, “Hey, you’re empowered to do this yourself. You’re empowered to know that you are a leader and you can do this. Isn’t it true that you could have taken out your book before I asked you to take out your book?” And so I feel like it’s important to build relationships with the students because if they don’t trust you, then how would they learn from you and how to regulate their emotions. So we talk a lot about social emotional learning and just really getting to the meat of conflict resolution, but how would they get to do that if they don’t trust you? So yeah, it’s very important that you just really build relationships with each and every one of your students. And it happens over time. It really does.
Shazia Hashmi:
Thank you. Yes, trust first, especially when we’re talking about building relationships and resolving conflict in the classroom. Martin, what do you have to say about the role of teacher-student relationships?
Martin Canizales Cobos:
I love when my students are coming to the class and they’re saying, “Are we going to have some fun today? Are we going to do something fun?” Because for me, it is the first indication that we have a relationship. And I all the time trying to individualize each one of them because they are unique and I have more than 130 students. And it is difficult to differentiate most of the time, your tendency is to treat them the same way. And for me it is impossible because they are so different in many ways. And I am trying to put a little bit of myself in a different way to each one of my students. So another thing that is important in our relationship is to realize that when they are having a bad day or having a bad week, I am not looking for some guilt on them. I am trying to figure out who the girls, why this student is behaving that way. And then my reaction obviously is not as against my students. I am trying to understand, I am trying to figure out the causes of that behavior. And in some way, the same student is the one who is correcting or their friends. When their friends or their classmates are contributing to change that behavior, for me, it is amazing. Normally they are, “Okay, he is misbehaving, we are going to justify.” But when that does not happen and they are saying, “Calm down, he’s only trying to tell you something,” it is great because they can understand that the class environment needs to be, if not restored, maintained.
Another thing is obviously this is a point of view, a neurological point of view. They are 15, 16 years old, their brains are not mature enough. We need to understand that that’s a kid, so they cannot handle some situations and they can react in different ways. I want to bring a lesson that I keep from an author. The book is called Oncè, that is 11 in English. It is a story about a child who is behaving in different ways and just got 11 years old, but can be behaving like four years old, eight years old, because it is normal. We can behave in different ages depending on those situation, so they cannot control it. We need to be aware of that. And so my approach is understanding the behavior and trying to recognize the causes that can produce this behavior.
Shazia Hashmi:
Thank you, Martin. Yes, I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase behaviors, communication, and there has been so many advances in research of brain science. So it’s really important to keep all that in mind when we’re seeing behaviors that may be disruptive in the classroom, just to get at the root of those issues and really understand. So I have another question for you all, and then I’m going to kick it to Krystal about instructional strategies. So if you could all tell us about instructional strategies you use to create healing learning environments for your students that would help really put this picture together and we would love it if Bobby kicked us off for this question.
Bobby Pelz:
Sure. Yeah. So there’s so many that I like to talk about. I’ll pick three. The first one is that my school is about 96% Latino. And about a few years ago, about six years ago, we started an ethnic studies program. And so I teach ethnic studies. And professionally it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done because just by default, the point of ethnic studies is to try to meet the kids where they are, and in particular the content and telling stories that mirror the kids’ own story. And so it’s given me the freedom to bring in stuff for us to work with that the kids can easily relate to. And so we pick books and we pick articles and we pick stories that they can connect with. And I think that that really humanizes them and makes them feel more comfortable. And even too, we recently had a levee flood when the Pajaro levee flooded, it flooded one of the local neighborhoods and we were able to bring that into our class and actually work with that. And I think that a lot of kids experienced a lot of trauma from that, but then our classroom, the way we worked with it in the classroom allowed them to heal from that. So that was pretty cool. And I think ethnic studies allow us for that. It’s very empowering in that way. The second thing that I would say is that it’s an activity I’m very proud of. I call it dropping knowledge, but it’s a riff on restorative justice circles. And I really love restorative justice circles because it’s a way for kids to have conversations that is structured and that it values the kids’ individual voices. It asks the other kids to work on their listening skills and their engagement skills and all things that young people really are not very good at. And so I really like that.
And then what I do with mine is that we bring in current events, and so we bring in things that either the kid might be struggling with because it’s a really powerful event, like a transgender kind of a thing, or racism kind of a thing. Or it might be pop culture and it gets kids talking. Like we talked about Amber Heard and Johnny Depp one time and everybody had something to say. But it’s a way to bring the class together and get us engaged.
And then the third thing I would say is the grading. We’ve been taking a look at grading and now we do more of a standard-based grading approach. And I think that without going really, really long on this, I think the biggest thing that it made me shift is to think about grading as a way to give kids confidence instead of a way to punish kids. And I think that when I used to do points, it became a way of punishing behavior and bringing kids down instead of saying, “Look how much you can do. Look how far you’ve come and look how successful you’re being.” And so it’s another way of thinking of grading, and I think that that’s also very healing for kids. So then school doesn’t feel like a negative place to be, “Oh, they’re always telling me what I’m doing wrong.” Instead, it’s, “Look how well I’m doing.” So I would say those three.
Shazia Hashmi:
Thanks Bobby. We all know the importance of windows, mirrors, building on what’s current and on people’s minds and making space for that in the classroom. So I love all that you just shared. Kyley, can we hear from you next?
Kyley Hironaka:
So healing in schools makes me think about centering joy and letting children be children. I’m so lucky to teach PE. Naturally, PE helps students experience that joy in learning by doing. I’m very intentional with what my class is about and very explicit. So sometimes kids might come to my class thinking they have to be super athletic and already come with deficit minded thinking. So from the get go, I always make it super clear that my class is about trying new things, trying your best and having fun. And we revisit that over and over again because not everyone’s good at everything and that’s okay. Just really trying to emphasize that and drive that point home so they don’t quit before we have even started. And kids just love interacting with each other, but they don’t always have the social skills to know how. And I like to emphasize social emotional learning skills like how do we find a partner respectfully? How do we learn how to lose? How can we share equipment?
So creating that space to explicitly model and take time in a class to do that, what it looks like and what it sounds like. Talking about how it might feel for other people, just again, humanizes the students and equips them with tools in their tool belt. And if students feel disappointed, for example, if they didn’t get chosen to be it and tagged today, I will build in a routine. I’ll say, “Oh man, maybe next time.” Everyone says it. So it’s just really trying to get ahead of these kinds of social things that we already know kids are experiencing. And another thing that I like to do is provide space for my students to blurt out and engage as active learners. Oftentimes kids are thinking about what we’re talking about in class, they’re talking to their neighbors and it’s on topic, but maybe just not at the appropriate times that we want them to.
So I like to give various entry points for students to engage. When I’m giving step-by-step directions, I try to do a lot of call and response. For example, I’ll say, “I’m holding the ball with two ha, ha,” and they say, “Hands.” “Your eyes are watching the ball the whole ta, ta.” “Time.” So that way I don’t expect 100% silence all the time. They’re being active, they’re with me and they’re able to participate more. And another strategy I like to use is rhythmic and tactile things like match me’s. Working with little ones, they’re a lot of times very fidgety, which is okay, so maybe I’ll do some clapping patterns and say match me, maybe I’ll switch it up. And kids are easy to pick up on that and all of a sudden it’s like, oh, we’re all doing this collective activity. I should probably stop talking and get with the program here.
So I try to be very cognizant of power dynamics and put myself, in the student’s perspective as much as I can. I also used to be in the classroom as a classroom teacher teaching kindergarten and fourth grade. So some things I’ve also done in the past is beginning of the year activities to just foster trust between my students and myself. So if you pose the essential question of what qualities do you want in a teacher. That number one, it shows I’m willing to listen to the needs of my students and putting myself out there to try and be a little vulnerable in hearing them. And then to follow up with that so it’s not so hollow. I would every trimester, just as I give students grades on their standards-based report card, I would provide a teacher report card and check back on those same things that we established in the beginning of the year just to have some sort of piece of accountability. And that was my way of trying to somewhat balance that teacher and student power dynamic and humanize both of us.
Shazia Hashmi:
Wow, teacher report card. Well, first the question of what qualities do you want in a teacher and then following it up with a teacher report card, that feels really special to me. Just thinking my own school experiences. Lavita, can we hear from you about your instructional strategies?
Lavita Jones:
Yes. Wow, Kyley, that’s so amazing. Yes. In my classroom, some instructional strategies that I use. One, I will say in my classroom, I welcome mistakes and I welcome it because I like the students to see that, “Hey, I’m the teacher. Even I make mistakes.” So much so that I’ll do things like sometimes I make real mistakes, but when I do teach, a lot of times I make fake mistakes and I let the students catch me and then they get rewarded for catching me because that, one, it builds the trust between student teacher like, “Hey, Ms. Jones, you did that. You spelled that wrong. Or that’s not the answer to that.” But also it also builds more community. So the students know like, hey, it’s okay to mess up sometime. We all mess up, we’re all human.
And I also give out rewards. So at our school site, it’s a school ride currency of we’re the Knights, that’s our mascot. So we give out knight cash, so I give out a dollar if you catch my mistakes. That also gets them to want to listen in and pay attention more. I think that I get away with using my personality more to just take a stance as a teacher of choices. So in my class, I’m a positive behavior intervention teacher. Sometimes it might be a little overwhelming how positive I am. But no, seriously, I use positives, for example, we made up our own treasure box, so they chose the things that they wanted to go in their treasure box, and then they get to earn. One of those is sitting in my chair. That’s very clever for a student to think of that. But yeah, so we do those type of things. And so that gets them to want to, I want to say be motivated more because “Hey, we came up with the treasures that we put in our box.”
And so now it’s like, hey, then it becomes a competition, all right, we’re going to be the best and earn that treasure box. Also, I really like to do community circles and I don’t know if you could tell or not, but I like to talk. So I get my students talking as well and I always participate with them. And so similar to Bobby, we have those community circles regularly and we bring in current events. And sometimes they get heavy because you never know the trauma. Even for me, what nine and 10 year olds are going through right now. And so that really brings in the social emotional part of it. And we bring in a lot of empathy. The students start seeing, oh, they start relating to each other and that just helps us have that sense of community and a very healing and restorative environment. Just feeling safe.
Shazia Hashmi:
Yes, and making mistakes normal is a huge part of reducing some of that anxiety that we see, I’m sure. All right. So I think I’m going to kick it over to Krystal now to ask our last two formal structured questions.
Krystal Wu:
Hi everyone. I’ve been just enjoying so much the conversation you all have been having and taking notes and looking at what folks are putting in the chat. And we’ve talked a lot. You all have talked a lot about all of the things that you all are offering your students, all of the strategies that you’re trying, the ways that you think about what students need. And so we’re going to switch it a little bit now in this portion to think about how schools can support you and your fellow teachers. And so this next question that we have is around that. So what structures and supports would help create a healing environment for you as a teacher? We know that every individual in an ecosystem is essential. That’s how ecosystems work. And so what would make you feel like you were in a healing environment when you think about your school and community? And we’ll start with Martin for this one.
Martin Canizales Cobos:
Thank you Krystal. For me, when I am listening about healing, it is something is not necessarily right. The first thing that I am thinking is observing. I’m new in this field of education and I am observing. I have five years of experience teaching and all the time I’m observing my environment, my ecosystem at the school. As a scientist, I like to see the environment as a cell with mitochondria and nucleus. For me, it is the perfect environment and each one of the parties working to keep this ecosystem working in a healthy way. So the first thing that for me is so important is to observe all the structure that support us. So one of them is the policies and practices. It is an important part, the resources that we have and the supportability from our administration, the infrastructure around us. So when I started teaching, I said, this is not a real classroom.
This is not what we deserve. Obviously I came from another country and for me it was shocking to find something like that. We have restored the classroom. It is a different environment. It facilitates the instructions. You can notice with our students. So for having healing and restorative learning ecosystem, we need to try to participate in this kind of effort to visualize first and then participate. Not only teachers, I am talking about administrators, [inaudible 00:43:50] parents, and also students. They are the most important part. And talking about teachers and following the analogy that I’m doing with the cell, we are the ones who are building those proteins called students. So we are important and we need to move barriers that can stop changes. I was having yesterday in another meeting that as a teacher you are hiring me, you are going to find a force for change. I am looking for troubles, good trouble, that is my concept. But I am going to try to change things because I’m visualizing things that can improve all the time. So that is my vision about the structure in our school environment.
Krystal Wu:
Thank you Martin. Even someone without a strong science background, me, I was able to really follow those images and metaphors and I love thinking about teachers as the ones building the necessary protein. That’s beautiful. Thank you for that. Bobby, what would you say about the structures and supports that would make school a healing learning environment for you?
Bobby Pelz:
Well, the first thing that comes to mind for me is that I just need everyone to think of the learning in the classroom as the main event. And everything else is just secondary. And a lot of times I don’t feel that way. Even just this year I’ve taught in a classroom with no air conditioning. I’ve taught in one with no heating, taught in one with no lights, taught in one with no Wi-Fi. It just goes on and on. I’ve taught in one with a big puddle in the corner of the room with towels all over it. And it’s hard enough to get 35 kids all moving in the same direction. And then when you walk into your classroom, which is like, this is my house and I’m inviting everybody in and it’s falling apart, it just makes it so hard to do what I need to do.
And it feels like these are simple things. It just needs so to be fixed or something to be replaced or something new. And so I think for me, that’s the bottom of the barrel. That’s the least you could do for me, is give me a working classroom so that I can do my job. So that’d be the first thing. I think along those same lines, I hate it when I’m teaching and an announcement comes on over the loudspeaker or someone calls the classroom or it just completely takes me out of the element. And I’ve got my kids all going in one direction. We’re all ready to go, and then the phone rings and then we have to start all over again. And those are the kinds of things to me that make it feel like we’re not recognizing teaching and learning as the main event, that we have all these other ideas or all these other priorities. And it’s like it’s a school, teaching and learning is what we do. Don’t worry about all that other stuff, just focus on the part we’re here for. And so I think that would be my number one priority. I think too over the last couple of years, we’ve switched principles and it reminded of something that I think is really important in schools as well. And that is that the old principal would hide in her office and never come out. And it made me feel like it was us and them kind of a thing. Us teachers and them administration.
And now the new principal, he went to this high school, he’s been in this district forever. He loves this place. He’s decked out in school colors all the time. He covered his car in school colors. And when I see him, he’s always stopping and like, “Hey, how’s it going? Is everything all right? Do you have everything you need?” It feels good. It feels good to be connected to the people who are running the place because it makes me feel more confident in the direction that we’re going and that I will get the help that I need to make teaching and learning the main event. So I would say those two.
Krystal Wu:
Thanks Bobby. I love that you shared something like very structural and material and physical. Can we just have classrooms where I can just focus on teaching and learning. But also you shared this other piece about ways of being that school leaders can embody that really help you also focus on what you need to do. So I saw very practical advice, but totally different ends of the spectrum. Kyley, what would you add? What would make school a more healing ecosystem for you?
Kyley Hironaka:
I feel like teachers can’t make a healing ecosystem if they themselves don’t feel safe. Just generally, there has been an increase in physical violence, gun violence in schools, and it’s honestly something as somebody who’s out on the yard all day, not protected within a classroom, I’m not in a building. It’s something that does stay on my mind frequently. And I think we just need support from families and districts, society at large to feel safe in order to do our jobs. Teachers are people too, and it’s important to remember that we can only do so much with the hours that we’re with our students. We just as educators I think get forgotten about in larger discourse. There’s just a general lack of societal respect for our field.
There’s a saying that I hear, “People who can’t do, teach,” which I think is not true. And so it’s one thing and easier actually to be just a teacher, but it’s much harder and takes much more sacrifice to be a good teacher, the kind of teacher that our youth need today as demonstrated by the two young people at the beginning of this panel who shared on the video. So I would love to see more conversation around how can teachers get their cups filled? We can’t pour from an empty cup. And what can be taken off of our plate so that we can show up as whole people, show up for our kids and truly support them.
Krystal Wu:
Thank you, Kyley. Bobby was focusing on the material structural pieces within the school. You’re also zooming out to the larger ways in which violence and oppression outside the school affects those of us that are working in school. So thank you for bringing that to mind. Okay, we have one more question for all of us and you all get to answer this one, but keep it short and sweet because we do want to leave time for our Q&A. And so what I will just say, folks, if you haven’t already been adding your questions to the chat, we would love to hear what’s resonating with you, what wonderings do you have, what do you want to ask these wise and generous teachers in the room?
So this question actually comes from the Youth Advisory Team. So we had them brainstorm questions that they had for their teachers and then they voted and this was one of the questions that was voted to the top of the list. And I think it’s a lovely one. So the question is, what do you wish more people knew about being a teacher? And I’ll have each of you answer this one. And we’ll have Lavita kick us off.
Lavita Jones:
Listen, Kyley, that was a great segue to this question because they need to throw the whole quote away about those who can’t do teach. What I wish that more people knew about teaching, it is not as easy as it seems or looks. And it’s more to it than academics because we look at test scores, we look at data, we look at all of that. But if we are not able to take care of the social emotional learning, these needs of kids who are just, they don’t know what to do with all of the trauma and the things of their outside life to focus on actually learning, then we are doing a disservice. So I wish more people knew that it’s about way more than just academics and test scores and what’s on those papers and in those school books, it’s about meeting the students’ needs at all fronts. We are counselors, we are in some ways parents too. We are in some ways so many different things. We wear so many hats and it’s all under one umbrella as being a teacher.
Krystal Wu:
So many hats, social worker, sometimes y’all are feeding your students, right? You’re connecting with parents so many hats. Bobby, what do you wish more people knew about being a teacher?
Bobby Pelz:
I was thinking about this today and I was thinking, I wish that people knew how great this job can be. When I tell people that I’m a teacher, a lot of times people will say, “Oh, I could never do what you do.” And I’m like, that’s a bummer because I love what I do. And I think the biggest, it is a very, very, very hard job. I think we all know that. But we also know that we change lives. Literally, we change people’s lives. And so when I’m dead and gone I’ll know that I made a mark on the world and I put more positivity out there and I created new leaders and that are going to go out and create positivity of their own. What other jobs can you say that about? There’s not very many.
And so I think what we do is very, very special. And in there’s time when less people are becoming teachers and we’re seeing more teacher shortages, I really think that we need to get that message out there more that people need to understand this is actually a really great job and you’ll be really happy that you did it because of all the difference that we really do make. So I wish people knew just how special teaching is.
Krystal Wu:
Thank you, Bobby. A really important counter narrative to, like you said, a lot of what we hear these days. Martin, what do you want to share?
Martin Canizales Cobos:
Well, I feel like a rookie as a teacher because I am getting skills on classroom management that this is a really hard job. Coming from another profession, I had the experience of teaching at the university level, that this is totally different. So I am going to talk like someone who is not yet there. I realized that the compensation, monetary compensation for teachers here is not good. They don’t have recognition from our society and I notice a lack of appreciation most of the time, at least I am visualizing that way. So I need to applaud because they are professionals, they are enthusiastic, they are doing the work all the time. Many of them are doing more work that someone reasonable can think about. And I really, really admire all of you really because I’m trying to be one of you and I can see all the problems that you’re having.
I can mention that besides struggling with our own problems and activities that we need to do, giving solutions to our students, to our administration, we need to be making copies, fighting the copy machine. And if you put yourself in another context in another job, you can give that job to someone else because you have more important things to do. And for example, I want to do research at the school. I cannot do it because I am working on so many things. So for administrators, I know many administrators are here. Think about it. Please give us more time for things that can be valuable for you, obviously for our students and obviously for us to work on.
Krystal Wu:
Yeah. Another role we forgot to mention is you are always the copy machine fixer. And so to Martin, to connect it to what Bobby was saying, how can we make teaching and learning the main event that you all get to just focus on what you do best. All right, Kyley, before we move to Q&A, what do you want to say about this question?
Kyley Hironaka:
I don’t have that much more to add. My colleagues have pretty much hit the nail on the head. Just echoing this job is so, so hard. Just to do it well is so hard, but it’s so fun working with young people. We could talk about creating joy for our students. They make me have so much fun. They crack me up all the time. Just the off the cuff humor, just those small moments where you just sit with it at the end of the day, that really happened. Or I’m going to remember this kid 10 years from now.
And I’m not there yet in my career. I’m a six-year teacher in public schools, but I know the day is coming. When I run into a student, an old student, they’re like five feet taller than me. I run into them in the grocery store. I know it’s coming around the corner. So that’s just something that you don’t get in any other profession. How lucky am I to work with young people and be paid to play with folks and foster these future leaders? I can’t imagine really sitting in a cubicle nine to five type of job. I just feel super privileged to do what I do and it’s difficult and it’s worth it.
Krystal Wu:
Wow. I wish we could do a round of applause, but we can’t in this weird virtual space. So can we just do all the emoji love that you can muster or you can write, add emojis or thoughts to the chat. I just want to really offer up gratitude for the honesty, the authenticity, the presence that you all brought. Thank you for that emoji love audience. You really are bringing it. This is what I wanted. I hope teachers, you’re feeling the love.
We’re going to transition the Q&A portion now and we have had some questions come through and Shazia will join me now. And we have one question to kick it off. And this can be any of you can respond to any questions, so don’t feel like you have to respond to all of them. And we have a little bit of time, so hopefully we’ll get through a couple few questions here. So this first question we will use to kick it off and folks in the audience please keep your other questions and comments and responses coming. Is, when you consider teaching as a profession, what worries you and what inspires you? And I know you to some extent, you just answered some of this, but if anything else comes up, so what worries you when you consider teaching as a profession and what inspires you?
Lavita Jones:
I’ll kick it off. I think what worries me is honestly more so on a holistic view of the state of the world and how things are going and what’s going to happen for our kids. So it worries me how we had that big pandemic and we’re still feeling the effects of that. And so just worries me about the future and what can be tailored for our students. What really does inspire me though is seeing so many different schools starting to jump on, in my opinion, the train of being inclusive and trying to be culturally relevant and meet the needs of the children because I always say there’s no one average student. And I think we’re moving away from that and going to more culturally relevant. I keep hearing it in different spaces, so I’m just excited to see what is to come for our scholars who are up and coming. Yeah, so that’s a little bit.
Martin Canizales Cobos:
I can answer that question too. For me, I was the first day I was in terror because you can have the knowledge, the skill for teaching, you need to have it. You need to get that part because knowledge, you can read many things. And having that part, we have so many examples in history, people really, really brilliant that they cannot teach. So I was really, really worried about it. I am improving. And what motivates me, education is a way to make changes for the reason I came here. Because if I am close to the area of education, I can push for changes and that is my goal.
Bobby Pelz:
Real quick, I’ll just say what worries me most I think is the date of the profession. I’m just worried that people don’t want to be teachers anymore and that we’re going to be struggling moving forward. But what inspires me, I guess I would say, besides the kids. the kids always inspire me, but also things like this. just listening to other teachers talk about what they do and saying and thinking to myself, “Oh, right on man, that’s cool.” And being really excited about that stuff.
Krystal Wu:
Thanks you three. Yeah, that was part of why we were excited to bring you all together, is I think the chance to get to learn from each other, which doesn’t happen a lot. I know there’s plenty of PL sessions out there, but just a chance to talk about what you love most, which is teaching and learning, and from other folks who are equally dedicated as you is few and far between often in the school week. And so we hope that you all have been learning from each other as much as we all have been learning from you. Shazia is going to pick one of our audience questions now for you.
Shazia Hashmi:
Yes, thanks Krystal. This one jumped out at me. Sometimes when teachers try things that are different or new, which I think we heard a lot of different or new strategies, the late adopters put up a fuss. So how do you navigate potential resistance from administrators, colleagues, or families?
Lavita Jones:
Well, what I would say when I come up with things and they put up a fuss, I bring to their attention how my students are benefiting from the actual task or thing that I want to bring new. Because honestly and truthfully, I feel like we all should be partners. And we are all here for one common goal, which is the success of our students and whatever that might look like, if I come up with a practice that can help the students and it won’t essentially hurt the students, then I bring that to the table. Because definitely being, I want to say. I want to say I’m a warm demander and traditional, but also fun. And I have a lot of students who they really need more of.
So I had to fight for brain breaks, but not essentially fight. I’m not going to say fight, okay. But I had to really push for, “Hey, I need more brain breaks in my classroom.” I know it’s taken away from some instructional time, but is it really if I get a brain break and then they are able to focus more versus I’m teaching and I’m looking out and they’re wiggly. So just having that as the forefront of what I am focused on, which is what everybody and we all in this profession is focused on is the success of our scholars, our students, our babies.
Bobby Pelz:
I would say for me, so with ethnic studies, we’ve been fighting with the school district. This is actually something happening right now. My advice, I guess, would be to find your allies and gather your allies because you’ll be surprised how many people think the same way. Maybe they’re not comfortable saying it right away, but they’re out there and find them and you build your group. Because then once you have a big group, those people who are detractors, they’ll start to go away. They’ll start to fade away because they’ll realize they’re outnumbered.
Martin Canizales Cobos:
In my case, I am trying. I am I telling all my co-workers, I don’t have time. I need to act, I need to push for changes. And obviously you are going to find the status quo that it is in any profession. And also traditions, people are resistant to change. So what I’m trying to do is fortify my skills as a leader and try to find other leaders. It is part of the formation of leadership. So I am trying to make a group of people, they don’t need to agree with me that they need to look for the same common goal. So we can do it together as teachers. And I would try. The good thing about trying is that is the most important part. The results either not depend on you that you can try.
Kyley Hironaka:
I would add to this conversation here also just the idea of protecting yourself in terms of documentation. If you can track data as much as possible, here’s where we were at in the beginning. I tried to pilot this sort of idea and then here’s the results. Just maybe it’s through student check-ins, maybe it’s student feedback forms, maybe it’s test scores or benchmark scores, or maybe it’s surveys sent out to families. Does your child feel like they have a sense of belonging in this class or in this school or in this school district? Just trying to anchor your argument in as many different facets of tangibles that you can, but also documenting that journey just so you can have proof that if it is working, you something to point to and protect yourself.
Krystal Wu:
Thank you, Kyley. Okay, we have time for one more question and we’ll see how timing goes, but we may only have a couple of you answer this one. It’s a big question, but I love it. I love the impulse behind it and I think you all will appreciate it too. So how do you manage the cognitive dissonance of not wanting to perpetuate what we aim to subvert by situating our work in these larger national ecosystems that are classist, racist, colonial, patriarchal? How do you manage that cognitive dissonance of creating something in your classroom or trying to create in your classroom something that’s different than the wider society and world and school and education system that we’re situated in? Big question and realistically, probably just time for one or two of you.
Bobby Pelz:
I’ll be quick. I’ll say ethnic studies is one way, but then I would also say it’s called youth participatory action research. And so I won’t take a lot of time, but you can look it up. That’s a good way to do it too. Youth participatory action research.
Krystal Wu:
Yeah, Berkeley has a great resource hub. Maybe someone on our team can find that and put it in the chat for folks. Any other thoughts from our brilliant panelists about that dissonance and how you manage it or navigate it?
Martin Canizales Cobos:
Changing the narrative. We can change the vocabulary like you are doing just now. You are using a beautiful language, making analogies, I am trying to make analogies. Changing the narrative. For example, a simple example, we are considered minorities as a Hispanic population, but this is California, just Bobby said, he has 95% of a percentage of Latino community. We can change the narrative in some ways that we can have more power and improvements in our school system.
Lavita Jones:
And I’m just going to tag on just one small point, and I think I said it earlier, but I just want to make sure it said that letting students be empowered and know that they can do more than they know that they can do. So that’s how I just want students to be empowered in a very great way and know that there are great things up and coming. And so changing the narrative and changing the culture.
Krystal Wu:
Wow, you all. Thank you so much. Can we get that emoji applause back in here? And then I know Rebecca’s going to come close this out. Thank you all so much. Shazia and I deeply appreciate you and I know all of these audience members did too.
Rebeca Cerna:
Thank you. Thank you Krystal and Shazia for moderating and a huge thank you to Kyley and Lavita, Bobby, Dr. Martín for sharing with us. This morning, if you joined the keynote, Dr. Portia mentioned three Cs and a secret fourth C, care, commitment, consistency and connection. I probably didn’t say them in the right order, but you all exemplify these. And another final thank you to our educators, Dr. Martin, Kyley, Lavita, Bobby, for sharing your collective wisdom. You were just so inspiring. I was writing down notes while you were talking. You talked about centering joy, about equity, about using music, making connections, welcoming mistakes, humanizing students and teachers, and that balance and wearing all those many hats. And all of that is work that we need to do in order to transform school climate. Someone in the chat mentioned that your classroom sound validating, warm and welcoming. And so we want to thank you for that.
And we also want to thank all of you for joining. And for those of you who are still here, thank you for being in community with us, with our educators and with each other in this learning space and recognizing that we need to create spaces like these to connect, ideate, and to work collectively to transforming school climate. And lastly, I just want to thank our team members who have been working in the background in making sure that this event all day ran smoothly. So thank you to my WestEd colleagues, especially Lora Markel and Carla Guidi for the support in all of the sessions today. Thank you everyone for joining.