And How are the Children..?

I am excited to invite you to check out my guest blog over at Teachstone.com! As an early education coach and classroom observer, I see a lot of classroom interactions. This article is about teacher-to-teacher interactions; they are often overlooked, but critical to a positive classroom climate, and need to be factored into the quality of the students’ learning environment. Here’s a little bit to think about:

I first paid attention to the phenomenon of low positive climate (sometimes partial negative climate) between teachers when doing CLASS-based coaching in a room where both teachers were highly skilled, but would not communicate with each other beyond what was absolutely required. Each week I saw how both teachers showed strengths across all domains, but could barely be seen to make eye contact between the students’ arrival and lunch time. They spoke to each other rarely, sometimes addressing each other through the students. It was not unusual to see either of them roll their eyes and mumble to themselves as the other walked away from one of their stilted conversations. As an observer, I wondered, ‘How do they behave when I’m *not* here watching?’ and more importantly ‘How is this impacting the students?’

For the full article, visit the Teachstone Blog: http://info.teachstone.com/blog/how-positive-negative-climate-among-teachers-affect-children

I’d love to hear your comments on your experiences with teach-to-teacher interactions, as a teacher, administrator, or observer. Please share!

As an artist, and educator and a writer, I have immense respect for the power or words. As a professional, I choose my words very carefully each day as I communicate with my clients in writing. They are the tools of my trade. My existence is wrapped up in ways of making meaning, and how words are used to relate experiences, and to motivate our actions in the world.

Yesterday I got into a debate with someone I respect very much about whether or not it is productive to publicly refer to the young men in Baltimore who are breaking things as ‘broken.’ (If you know me well, you know that I argued against that kind of labeling). This ‘brokenness’ was referenced in the context of the popular Frederick Douglass quote about ‘repairing broken men,’ which was also posted.

While I heartily agree with this sentiment, I disagree with the use of that quote to condemn those people in protest, and I disagreed persistently with the use of the language ‘broken.’ We went back and forth, and if you can imagine, neither of us changed the other one’s mind.

I have been reflecting on that conversation deeply since last night, feeling conflicted.The point she was making centered on how property damage and attacks on local businesses should be held to account. I certainly don’t want my car smashed – that would make things incredibly hard for my barely stable situation. I’d hate to see our neighborhood shops in flames. I want young people to be reading books, playing games, not needing angry uprising to be the way they engage in their communities. I agreed that property damage is a problem, but in the context of devalued human life and abusive systems of authority, not the best way to frame these events. I think focusing on rioting over systemic violence in a conversation about how to help those young people approaches the problem from a deficit model. During that conversation, I was told that I was angry, that I needed to review my understanding of deficit models and strength-based practice (professional lingo – this was a grad school acquaintance), and that my persistent focus on the ‘broken’ language was unfortunate. While this was hurtful, I chose to take it as an opportunity for me to really reflect on what I was trying to express. Which ultimately, is this:

‘Broken’ can mean many things. It has spiritual connotations, it can reference physical and mental health, and often is taken as pejorative. To declare one’s self broken can be a powerful act. It can lead to seeking help, and healing, and transformation. To declare someone else broken is a different thing. Especially if you are a person who holds power and privilege and you are referring to marginalized people who have been oppressed as a way of life. That, too, is a powerful act which I think does more harm than good. It reinforces the infrastructure that says we (black people, people of color, poor people) need to be controlled instead of supported. It echoes the refrain of demonizing the impoverished. I will not support that. I will not use my privileged voice to declare powerless people broken. I won’t participate in telling that story, because it isn’t true, and yet that is among the stories told most often, most loudly in our nation.

I look at little black boys in the classrooms I work with. I have often seen how they are starting to be treated differently from their peers by the adults who care for them and manage their days. I have heard teachers begin to talk about them and their parents as though they might be broken, without volunteering any language about how to fix anything. I think we do children, families and communities a disservice with this kind of talk. Because the way we talk about people reflects both how we think about them, and how we treat them. My argument is that not ‘broken’ does not necessarily apply, but that the history and political baggage of that term loads it in such as way that it cannot be used in that way without participating in that story. Sometimes (usually) history is more powerful than our personal, individual intentions. This is hard when we mean no harm, but do harm anyway. For those of us who are called to do work that lifts people up, this is an ongoing risk of our service. To get lost in our good intentions, straying from our understanding of historical context and what our power and privilege mean to those we would seek to uplift.

So, if you find yourself in a situation where you are about to publicly declare what is wrong with someone, I encourage you to take pause. I encourage you to think about  and study what is the root cause, and whether or not you can do anything about that. If you can, I encourage you to talk about that instead. If you can’t do anything about it directly, find someone who can, and amplify their signal. Make that the loudest thing you do with your voice.

Having said that, I will leave you with another Frederick Douglass quote (thanks to Kelly Hayes​):

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” – Frederick Douglass

For adults dealing with prolific young artists… The design problem: Displaying your child’s art – Shopping http://ow.ly/9ZObw #ECE

What a week.  We recovered from the blizzard, and jumped back in.  Report cards came in, and I looked at the list of grades.  I think I had what could potentially be described as a Geoffrey Canada moment; I thought to myself, ‘It isn’t enough.  How can it be?  3 hours in the afternoon, with just a few adults (however caring and creative and resourceful), in the face of all that schools and parents do not, for whatever reason, provide… How can we help more than a few of these kids?  How do we, as busy people, connect with parents who are busy people who barely have time for teachers, who are busy people (whom we should also be connecting with)?  How do we close these cracks that these bright faces are already slipping through?’

Now, don’t get me wrong.  We do help.  We change lives.  We provide opportunities that these young people might not otherwise get (like yesterday’s field trip to meet the legends of Negro League Baseball at Chicago Children’s Museum), and we provide stability, high expectations, relationships and resources for families.  We’ve helped parents and grandparents find resources to help their children with identified special needs.  Tutoring and technology education and art classes and youth councils – I have no doubt in my heart that we impact lives every day.  But how long will that impact last?  How wide is the ripple?

Serving youth and families is challenging in this way.  You do it for years, and because it is relationship-based, the outcomes are more qualitative than quantitative.  Which means you never see the full impact of what you work so hard at doing.  When you affect someone’s heart or mind, it doesn’t always show on their skin (especially if they are artfully disaffected adolescents).

Anyone who has been to this blog before today knows that Youth Development is a new field for me – I come from the world of Early Childhood.  I am challenged by the time that has already passed.  I wonder if we can pull them back from the brink so late in the game.  But I do not despair, or lose faith.  I just really need to name my fears if I’m going to get past them.  Then I remind myself:

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Children are enormously resilient and resourceful – even past the ripe old age of 8 years.

We have no choice but to invest in these young people, and the most challenging circumstances often offer the most creative and elegant solutions.  I will be an open vessel for these solutions.

I am grateful for the opportunity to serve.

Today was a great introduction to the world of professional early childhood consultation. I have learned about so many great tools and resources.

My first Leadership Connections session was a pre-conference seminar: Consultation and Change Management, facilitated by Patricia Reinhardt and Anne Mead of Connecticut.

It was enlightening to learn about the structures and real intentionality that have gone into developing standards and practices for early childhood consultation.  Anyone who is interested in starting consultation should seek out these resources – there is much more to it than I knew.  This is not to say that I thought there was nothing to it, but a lot of professionals have put a lot of thought into really developing organized and ethical practices for consultants in ECE.  This is encouraging for a couple of reasons:

1. It’s always great when a group of people care enough about a topic to develop intentionality about the way it is handled.

2. There are guides for practitioners who are interested in pursuing early childhood consultation as a career direction.  Guides that are aligned with the NAEYC Code of Ethics.

I think the best thing about the session (besides being well-presented and engaging) is that they offered so many practical tools for consultants, such as a basic guide for assessing the culture of an organization, and the frameworks for understanding system structures and methods for communicating with consultation clients.

This was a good start to what I’m expecting to be a great conference.  Stay tuned for more!

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