Today's show begins with a 40, 000 foot view of student voice and then takes us right to ground level to break down implementation of a specific practice for elevating not only student voice but also teacher voice. Are you ready? Lindsay Lyons is an educational justice coach who helps schools and districts co create feminist anti racist curricula that challenges, affirms, and inspires all students.
A former New York City public school teacher, she holds a PhD in leadership and change and is the founder of the blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. She believes a secret sauce of educational equity is student voice. Hello, Lindsay. Welcome to the show.
/Hi, Frederick. I'm so excited to be here.
Yeah, this is going to be fun before we jump in. I'm really eager to do that. But before we jump in, tell me, what are you celebrating today? What
a question. I love that. I am celebrating that. My kid loves bubbles so much that he was tantruming last night and we put bubbles in the bubble bath and he was just like, I'm a happy child. And it was like a miracle.
Wow. I will not tell you how many years it's been since we had kids taking bubble baths in our house. Oh, but you enjoy every stage, every stage has its special things and bubble baths are part of that. That's right. Lindsay, is there a story that would help listeners understand why you're doing the work you're doing?
I think there's a lot of stories, so choosing one is hard, but I think that the reality of how I grew up. And what I did not experience, right? I think oftentimes we're looking for things that we didn't get as children, whether we're in an educator mindset or a parent mindset. We just want things different than how we had them. I did not experience.
a curriculum, a student body, a teaching staff as a student in, in my K 12 experience that pushed me around questions of justice and injustice that enabled me to create. And specifically to create solutions to problems that I saw in the world. In fact, I was often silenced when I brought things up, and educators in my space were actually silenced, for lack of a better word, and kicked out of the district if they were to bring in content that questioned things like gender or race.
I had one teacher that introduced books. Their eyes were watching God, there's a feminist text that he introduced and led those conversations around race and gender justice. Wasn't there like a year or two later, you know, it was just like a quick blip and then, then gone. And so being able to see what was possible, but not to really experience it as a student day to day, all the classes, every grade. Really made me seek it out. And so I got some of that in college. It was really exciting.
I realized that I wanted to solve problems of the world, but I was too focused on once the problems had happened, I wanted to do something about it. So I wanted to be a domestic violence lawyer, for example. And then I was like, this is really hard. The bad things have happened. I want to prevent them from happening. Where do I do that with children? And so that's how I became an educator.
Wow. What a beautiful story. Thank you. So we're going to talk about what you've termed pedagogy of student voice. So before we dive into it, let's define it. What is pedagogy of student voice?
So I have always used the phrase student voice in line with the field of student voice research that I'm part of, but I recently heard pedagogy of student voice in, I think 2020 the book street data came out from Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan. And I was like, running with it. So they have six rules of it. They say it's about having student talk time exceed teacher talk time. I think they use a Hamilton phrase. They say, talk less, smile more.
And really they're talking about like at least 75 percent of class time. Students should be talking, or if not, literal speaking, like, you know, engaging in some sort of creation. Valuing questions over answers is their second rule. Ritualizing reflection and revision, which we often don't make time for, making learning public, and that's for educators and adults as well as children.
Circle up as a specific practice, and I think about a lot of protocols or activities that you can do, so having those at the ready. to amplify student voice. And then the sixth one is feedback over grades. So that real focus on progress versus perfection and that idea of, you know, getting to be the best you can be versus that idea of hierarchy that is way too common in educational spaces.
I love this because it opens a lot of space for not only student voice, but I think for relationships. Relationships between students because In this kind of a venue, they're really going to get to know each other more. But also that relationship between teachers and students. I'm doing a lot of work right now focused on classroom culture, which I think has three components. The relationships piece, the management piece, and then how we keep students safe.
And when I think about that relationships piece, I think about students and teachers having a relationship along two lines. One is kind of the learning centered relationship that is as a student. How do I relate to you Lindsay as a teacher of the subject of the content and then there's the other side of it, which is the Learner not learning the learner teacher relationship. So how do I experience you as? As another human being in this classroom. Right?
And and so if I, if I have a strong relationship with you from a learning perspective, and from a learner perspective, then you're going to be able to reach me and support me in ways that are much stronger if we don't have those. So it seems like this really ties in to this idea of student voice. And I'd like to just Open that up and let you run with that a bit.
Yeah, I think if I had to distill down that big definition of pedagogy of student voice, I like to think of it as a co creation which to co create with students in an authentic way, you need to be able to have that trust. and that human piece built and you need to know enough about your curriculum and instruction that you can flex with whatever it is that the student needs or is interested in.
And so I think from a planning and curriculum perspective, there's definitely a lot to be said about that model, which I absolutely love. Thank you for sharing that model. And then I also think from a. practical sense of like, well, what does it look like to do something tomorrow that does both of those things? I would say my number one protocol to do and to do with staff, as well as teachers with their students. I think everyone benefits from this practice is circle or circle up.
And so from indigenous communities, we've learned, you know, this practice of circling up, having a talking piece past. Sing it around and literally giving everyone this democratic space to share, sharing about self and stories and personal connections to material, and also sharing in response to content, but democratizing the space so you don't have the kid who's the loudest get the most say in the conversation.
This sounds like a powerful practice. And I think we're planning to kind of dive into this, right? Mm hmm. Here today. I, something just popped in my head though, as you were talking, when you said co create and, and needing to be flexible. And I'm thinking about what does that look like? How do we do that with students? And then it just hit me. Some of the things we've been talking about recently in the assistant principal podcast about working with veteran teachers are really.
Any teachers and helping teachers grow, helping that professional development piece, and I'm a strong advocate that teachers should be in the lead with that. But that relationship really is a co creation relationship with teachers. So if I'm an assistant principal and I'm trying to support teacher growth. In some ways, I think that's going to mirror me as a teacher creating, you know, student voice, giving room for student voice in my classroom. Like it's the same, kind of the same relationship.
Yes. Oh
my gosh. Yes. It's the same thing, right? We always used to... to say in the school that I worked in, and they have a whole network. Their model is one learning model for all. So the same things we do with adults is the same things we do with students. And the students see that latch onto that, appreciate that. And it all works better that way.
I want to, as we move into the circle piece, I'm going to share with you, a version of this, but I am not claiming that it is. Correct in any way. In fact, I want to start with it because I suspect it's flawed, but it's something I can do. And I just started doing. And I think sometimes that's a good way for us to start these things. So I'm going to share what we do and then you can help guide me through it and improve and build on it. Sounds great.
Okay, so I train a lot with nonprofit and governmental leaders and now we usually have small groups. So we're. 7 to 12 people and at the end of training sessions, we will circle up and these are groups that meet a total of four times. So after the first time we all know each other, right? So we'll circle up at the end. I provide three prompts and they are what are you going to be thinking about on the drive home? Do you have a challenge for the group?
Or is there a thank you that you would like to share and they, they're supposed to only do one of those because right, even with eight people that could take a long time. So we try to really keep it succinct. We circle up. I've had colleagues that have done that, that have said you're allowed to pass. You don't have to participate. I never put that out there. I just put it up. We have these three options. What are you thinking about on the drive home?
Do you have a challenge for the group or do you want to say thank you to somebody? And then we go and I go last. Usually. All right. So tell me how to make that better. Where did I hit it? And where am I missing?
I mean, I think that's beautiful, but I think the thing about circle is you can't really do it wrong. And so the one, the one thing that I think is important is the structure. So it sounds like you have that structure of the circle. I said one thing. I'm going to say like three things in the structure of the circle, the democratization and of the facilitator or the keeper of the circle sitting as well.
And to have nothing in the middle, except maybe a centerpiece that's co constructed to do this. I actually love having index cards for everyone to fill out and they just write the name of a person that is important to them. It could be a young person if you're specifically, you know, thinking about education spaces, but then you immediately have something that, you know, is. is a centerpiece. And so that's the structure.
The only other piece of the structure is there's an opening and a closing ceremony. And the reason as explained to me for this is that circle is a very different kind of conversation than a typical class, right? Where students can shout out or they can raise hands or interrupt or whatever, you know, and so just to preserve the sanctity of the circle space to open and close, but that opening closing could be, you know everyone make. A face or a movement based on how you're feeling right now.
You know, it could be really quick. It could be I've done when the bell rings and we're wrapping up class real fast It's like group clap everyone clap at the exact same time, you know something quick but we're honoring the start and end and then literally any questions. So I love all of those questions I I think anything that connects with your group anything that enables choice like you give them choice and what they're selecting and that idea of you know, what is important to me?
What am I still thinking about? What am I challenged by? You know, those kinds of questions are the best because they're not just academic in terms of what content did I just learn and what am I going to do action wise tomorrow, but how am I going to be feeling about it? I'm feeling overwhelmed, you know, like my challenge is there's so much good stuff and I can't do it all right. That's also like the human part.
So to go back to your model, I think you have both there and those questions, which is great.
So one of the. Big things we're trying to do. We're, we're elevating student voice, but the way that works with circle is students are getting choice because most of the time when we do a circle, we are giving some kind of choice, right? So we're giving choice. It's something that. I think allows students to connect with whatever we're doing, but also allows human connection in general between students and teacher and everybody.
And then if we're doing it right and we're getting the prompts right, the choices, then they're also connecting to their self, which means they're connecting to that voice. And that's where. That part of the win comes in.
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I can give some concrete examples. I don't know how deep you want to go in terms
of what this looks like. Yeah, I do. Well, cause the other, the other question that popped into my head, I made an assumption like I always do it at the end of the training. But as I heard you talking, I think you said that maybe it can go into different places. So I need to step back just one sec and say, okay. From an overarching perspective, what is the role of circle in the classroom that promotes student
voice? Oh, such a good question. Okay, so there's layers to this. One is you're building the foundational community and the foundational. A set of agreements, ways of interacting with one another to enable you to tackle things that might be challenging emotionally that might deal with justice or injustice that might personally impact a lot of students.
And so you're kind of building that foundation to be able to have those hard conversations if that's what the student brings up or the student has a, you know, a personal connection that is fraught with emotion around those topics. So I do a lot of justice work. So I think that's, that's important to build that community, to be able to go there. You're also, I mean, usually one of my first ones. So just to give a concrete example, I think would, would best illuminate this.
But one of my first circles is typically the story of your name. And so on that level, you're just building community. You're not really doing a lot of things academically, but you're just asking students, tell me about your name. And that's the prompt, right? You can give a lot of sentence starters and stuff, but some students will tell me, you know, their, about their last names and how they have both their mom and dad's last names.
And this is cultural and, you know, or some people will be like, I hate my name. No one can pronounce it right. This is how you pronounce it. And they teach the class, you know, there's so many different directions you can head with that. And everyone has something to share. About their name. So I think that's that's a way that it's just pure human, not so much of the academic and instruction.
But then from there, you know, you go to something about current events like this is a staff circle and I can I'll share these resources as well with your listeners so they can like literally just grab the slide deck. But We were in class or in, you know, in the year that Trump was elected to the presidency. We were, as a staff community, grappling with, we are at a school where we have all students who are newly immigrated to the country.
How are they going to be feeling about this and how do we facilitate class, right? And so we're like, we need to first figure that out as a staff. Before we go teach class tomorrow, kind of thing, right? So, one of the things we did was talk about that. And so, it was like, literally, what is the word first word that comes to mind when you see, you know, and then like, a magazine title.
So for that, for that would be like, newspaper headline of like, Trump winning the presidency or something, right? Whatever the current event is. So it's literally just word association at first. You could do this with students current events. You could do it with a, a reading assignment. Then maybe you give a couple minutes to read or listen to a podcast or hear, you know, commentary, whatever. And then the next prompt is literally make a connection. So it's not debating something, right?
It's not saying here's what's right and here's what's wrong. And this is my position. I'm never moving. It's saying, what's a personal experience you have related to the word that you associated with this current event or something, right? Like, what's another story that you want to tell the community? What's another current event that's connected? What is a text that you read? A song that's coming to mind? You know, a, a class, a science class.
We just did this thing and that reminds me of this thing. You know, any kind of connection and you open it wide up. And enabling people to almost storytell as a form of instruction, but they get to be the experts in their own lives and the experts of the content that they're bringing in is super cool and also depolarizing, especially when you're talking about hard topics.
So there's kind of the human element of grappling with emotion in those conversations, getting to know everyone else's stories and experiences and the agency that students have. and adults have in conversations like this, to bring in their own wisdom to the conversation and feel listened to because no one can interrupt. And then usually what I'll do as a closing there might be, all right, I'm going to put up a bunch of words that are like skill words.
So for example, vulnerability emotional regulation, like things that were required in this conversation. Like, which did you feel like you did really well in today? So everyone ends on a success. And then they can just share that one phrase as they go around to a close. Sorry, that was a lot of talking.
No, that's great. You mentioned depolarization, so one thing I can imagine some listeners are thinking as you're going through this is, Whoa, I'd be concerned about putting in a circle that's going to open up all this stuff. We live in this weird space where we have to deal with this stuff, but it's all become so red hot flammable as well. So we're kind of trapped. So in what ways is circle depolarizing?
So, oh my gosh, I love how you're asking this question. I think Anytime you can speak from the I, so I think about this even in just like interpersonal conflict resolution training. Anytime you can speak from the I, and to truly speak from the I, not like, I don't like what you just said, but like, I'm feeling X, you know, and here's the story that's behind that. I think the invitation to share a story. is immediately humanizing.
So it kind of decreases this need to be right or wrong or put people into categories. It invites emotion. I'm thinking about Dr. Sheree Bridges Patrick and I published a framework for analyzing what types of discussion kind of are present. And you can have multiple types of these. So it's not like one or the other, but in generative mobilizing That's the type we want to have.
We're open to the disequilibrium, kind of feeling a little bit of discomfort because it invites change and possibility, and it connects with our emotions. So one of the things that we see is polarizing discourse kind of entrenches us, right? We don't invite that disequilibrium or or We might feel a disequilibrium, but we don't invite the imagination possibility. But another thing that's very popular in especially white liberal spaces is we intellectualize.
So we can academically say, I say this all the time, like, I heard a podcast that said blah, blah, blah, right? And I'm leaving it in the head space, but I don't have the heart space. I'm not, like, feeling any emotion, because I'm academically talking about something that's not my own story. I'm just repeating what I heard. And I think that's very common when we talk about issues of injustice, or really, like, anything, right? Any academic thing.
It's like, well, I'm just regurgitating this information. But I'm not personally connecting to it, and so I'm less likely to remember it. less likely to actually impact my life and people are probably going to tune out when I speak.
But if I have a story to share and I'm invited to make that connection and choose the type of connection and the degree of the connection that I make, people are going to be more engaged in listening and I'm going to feel better about sharing and we have that generative mobilizing discourse.
So when you and I kind of had a preliminary conversation about what this podcast might look like, and we were both excited about this idea of, of student voice, and I'd asked about, well, you know, I could see teachers wanting, yes, that sounds great, but that also sounds like one of those things that can get really messy and, and run off the rails. And, and you said, well, circle is one really safe. Space to start. And so we've started to unpack that. And then we talked about.
We want to make sure that coming out of this assistant principals can kind of see how can I introduce this to teachers and it's not, Hey, I heard this circles thing and you need to go do that. This looks like, right? We don't even have to sell it. What we can do is let people experience it and then they can decide whether or not they want to take that back to their classrooms. I think that's a really key point. We're going to help assistant principals.
Think about how to go do this with teachers, and I would suggest don't go do it with teachers because you want them to go do it with their kids. Go do this with teachers because you value teacher voice in the same way that you want your students to value student voice, right? So don't do this.
Because you want the next generation effect, do it because you're going to value the immediate impact and so to, have and foster more teacher voice at the end of a professional development or at the end of some meeting that we have, whatever excuse I can have to get teachers together, I want to bring their voices and I know because I've been listening to Lindsay now, A simple way to do that is circle. So I'm the AP, I've got all these teachers there.
We just finished whatever we finished and I'm going to, take a step out and we're going to do a circle. What should I do?
Oh, such a good question. Okay. So in something, in a situation like that where you had your typical meeting and now we're reflecting, I might do a very quick. Circle. So it might be how are you all feeling in a pose? Right? And so that's another again, thinking about UDL is really important. Universal design for learning. So not everyone loves speaking. And so giving people different opportunities. It could be how are you feeling in a pose? It could be everyone. What am I trying to say?
Oh, take an index card and draw, right? It could, it could be some other modality. It could be literally find a picture on your phone or a meme or something and hold it up to the group, right? Around like how you're feeling in this moment. But get that emotion. there. What's the emotion? Just do an emotion check. You can also do that at the beginning, especially if you're going to introduce a new pedagogical practice or some change that people might be a little averse to.
Like, let's feel the temperature of the room right now, right? Like quick, quick circle. And then I would ask for like a next step or an experience that you. Either have had that connects to what we're learning or that you want to have kind of visioning what is possible With whatever it is you learn. Let's say you just learn a new tech tool or something, right? And it's like how might this bring joy to your students?
For example might be the prompt and everyone will share like their ideal scenario barrier free. They're not thinking about the challenges They're just putting out there their wish and then you might end with something like a group clap or an inspiring quote to end the circle. I also would say you can do a circle as an entire PD. So especially if there's something to talk about, but also to just model quality practice.
So I have a bunch of slides that are like, if you have an hour with staff, here's how to do a circle. for the entire hour. And here's how I would build. So there's like three in a row that I would do over time. Build community values and agreements first. Then you talk about circle practice story of name, and then you do something challenging like current events within the community or news item that we talk about.
But Lindsay, if I have everybody in a circle for the entire PD, how are teachers going to sit in the back row and grade their papers? Exactly. You mean I have to be engaged? Okay. I'm thinking through a lot of this and I can just see so many opportunities. I love the idea that let's just wait in and try this and see how this goes, right? Because that's another thing as leaders we need to do if we want. Teachers to grow and be willing to take risks. We need to be willing to do that too.
and again, instead of coming in and saying, Hey, there's this new tool for student voice, I can go in and say, I know that the wisdom is in the room and I need to be better about giving voice to that wisdom. So this is something I heard on this goofy podcast, two people talking about. Using a circle to promote teacher voice, and I want to try it out. Here's how it would work. Are you okay to do this? Hopefully enough people will nod their heads and you can claim permission.
and then we can circle up and do that.
One of the things that just came to mind as well as, as you're thinking about the human centered part of what you're talking about. I think sometimes When you were speaking, I was just thinking of the teacher who just wants to be heard, like maybe they're literally not heard in their classes and the students are disruptive and they just want to focus on them for a minute. It's nice to have that space for that reason. It's also nice for people to be appreciated.
And so one of the other things that I can put in, in this link, I'll, I'll give for your audience is values in action. It's a resource. It's a website. They came up with like 20 or so values or strengths, character strengths, and it's a bunch of positive psychologists who were like, let's talk about positive strengths of people. And so I actually printed them all out and put them out on the wall of my classroom.
And we would do a circle where it was turned to your left and say something positive about the person next to you. And I tried this without the resource. Nothing. Or like, that person is nice. You know, something really generic. I like your shirt. Exactly. And then once we got the language up there, it was like, I appreciate your sense of humor because I was having a tough day and you made a joke and made me laugh. Thank you.
You know, it gives voice and opportunity and specificity to those opportunities. And, and it gives the opportunity for each teacher to feel like someone sees me and they said something nice about me, even if I had the worst day, even if I had the best day, that's really cool. And I feel good about that. I don't think any teacher would rebel against that idea.
I'm also thinking about the easiest ways maybe to try this out. So for me, it's been comfortable doing the way I close it, but we always begin with celebrations. We're usually parked at our table or, you know, whatever our kind of workspace arrangement is to do that, but we could begin that in a circle that could be, isn't that the easiest, simplest circle to do right? Hey, before we get going, y'all, let's stay in a circle and go around and what are you celebrating?
And again, you've got choice. Right. Cause I choose what I celebrate, but you're giving this opportunity for connections because as people celebrate, I'm going to hear parts of my own life, maybe reflected in that. And everybody's getting voice because it's their celebration. So you're hitting all three choice connection and self right in that. And it's so simple.
Yeah. Oh, I love that. And there's more attention paid, I think, to one another sharing versus when you're at tables, because then people can be distracted by their phones or, you know, you can't hide a cell phone in your lap when there's no furniture in between you. So you're looking at the speaker. And I also think I used to work for Life is Good Foundation for the Playmakers. And they used to always do Positive News Ball as like the share out celebration.
So I was thinking you could combine this with another circle practice I've seen where it's just where you pass a ball around the circle as like an imaginary talking piece. And you can make it like a really big ball and it's so heavy. And then the next person is like hitting it to the next person. So you could do like positive news ball or something, and then just have a little bit of movement in there too, to just make it, you used the word goofy. And I was like, yes, this is the ticket.
I love it. It sounds like something that's just so flexible. It's something that we can really should do with teachers, right? We should be elevating voice. And this is a really strong tool for doing that. And Oh, by the way. Teachers might also embrace it and then use that as a tool to elevate student voice. So kind of sounds like a win, win, win to me. the only other thing I'm thinking about is to me, this seems like this is a procedure,?
And I know after the second time we've done this with a group, they know at the end I put that slide up and everybody's getting up and we're going into our circle and, and we're doing it. So. As a classroom procedure, from a teacher perspective to students, are there teaching points that I need to lay out for them? And then how would that translate into me as an AP doing this with teachers?
Yeah, I would do it the same, AP to staff and teacher to students. And I think really it is a shared agreement that you want to co create if you can. If this is the first time you're rolling it out, I would say use a couple standard agreements for the procedure. So for example, we will always you know, help create a circle with our chairs and move the desks out of the way. We will... We will put our index cards with all the important people's names on them in the center as a centerpiece.
We will pass the talking piece, and I usually do have the caveat that they can say pass, but I, I have to require them to say the word pass to be able to engage in some way. Like, I'm making a choice. I'm, I'm choosing to pass. And we will, never interrupt. And that includes the circle keeper. So whether that's the AP facilitating the staff circle or the teacher facilitating students unless there's an emergency.
And so that was really important for me because I was, you know, often as teachers and leaders were giving directions. Here, you need to comply to these things I'm telling you to do. And for this one, it's here's my commitment to you and the circle process. I'm not going to interrupt. If I see someone talking, I might try to give them eyes, you know, like, but I'm not going to speak because that's the commitment I made to you all.
Unless someone's in imminent danger or someone's being, you know, really rude and screaming or something.
And so I can think of those agreements as kind of the. The bullet points of teaching, maybe I should call them piece points, given what we're talking about but the main points we're agreeing to hold the circle. You can pass, but you need to say pass so that we know, and then we are going to hold the space for people and not interrupt.
The only other thing I would add to that, which is actually something that I learned.
Because this happened is when you create a space like this, even if you're not talking about something like, for example, gender based violence, there are some students who will feel so comfortable in that space and have not felt that comfort anywhere else that they will come up to you afterwards or they will share in the circle some sort of something happening in their lives that now as a mandated reporter, you have to now do this thing.
So I have Decided to have that as one of my rules or like kind of like asterisk at the bottom of the rules like just so you know If you want to share anything that I need to report that includes harm to yourself or others I like need to do these next steps. Just know that You can absolutely share it, but I don't want to violate your trust by not telling you ahead of time So for teachers particularly I would include that and I like I said, I learned the hard way on that one
I'd never thought about that, but I know exactly what you're talking about when somebody opens up something that you were not ready for. And in a way it's a beautiful moment and in another way it is scary as hell.
Absolutely.
Okay. Lindsay, this has been fun. Hopefully y'all listening are going to think about the next meeting you have and it doesn't need to be a room full of people, right? We could do this with five people. If you're not sure where to start, maybe just start with the celebration before you get going. Hey, let's stand in a circle and just go around and say what we're celebrating.
And then it, you can also use it as closing, but then I think you've already given some insights into different ways that we could do this. And it seems another really easy tip is keeping your prompt kind of open ended and let people interpret that any way they want. And it's simple way that's going to play out is in celebration. Somebody's going to say, well, personal or professional. It's up to you, right? Absolutely. Ah, okay. I have a couple more questions for you.
Yeah. Number one, what part of your own leadership are you still trying to get better at?
So many parts to narrow it to one. Let's see. I want to be a better listener. I think Circle is actually, that's one of the reasons I gravitate to it. It's a, it's a growth area for me. So, I do a lot of talking when I give webinars or presentations, but, like, my joy, but also the gap in my skills is, like, being able to sit And truly, deeply listen when people are talking. And I think, like I said, it's joyful. And it's also an area where I could be so much better.
Thank you. If listeners could take away just one thing from today's show, what would it be? Practically.
I'm going to cheat. Practically the circle practice and doing that in any way. Mindset wise, I think what is more important, but it might be less tangible, is the idea and the question of how can I co create today? How can I invite voice today?
I think we just hit the title of this podcast show. Excellent.
I love those moments.
That is such a great thing. And I think if there was only one thing I could say to a leader every morning, it would be be present, look for opportunities to be present. And I bring that up because I think that this idea of co creation and presence go hand in hand. If I'm fully present, we're co creating. And if we're not able to co create, it's because we're not present and they go together. So I just think that's so beautiful.
And I thank you for giving us another, lens through which to view relationships and what creates a quality relationship.
Thank you for the opportunity. This has been so fun.
Yes, it has. And Lindsay, where can people find out more about you and your work? Where can they? Tap into some of those resources and you're going to tell us, but I know you do a lot of tremendous work with schools and school districts and helping them, embrace and work through what can be really challenging. So necessary practices. So let's learn more about what you're
doing. Thank you so much for the opportunity. So I am on lindsaybethlyons. com. That's my website and everything is there. So there's a podcast called Time for Teachership. Like the guests are amazing. Frederick's going to be on my podcast. So everyone tuned into that episode and. I have a lot of my, you know, offers on there. But primarily what I do are two things. One is the pedagogy of student voice. So how do we literally build that up?
How do we coach teachers and coach leadership teams to support teachers structurally? 'cause that's important with those opportunities to co-create. And then the other piece, which is very closely related, is designing curriculum for justice and co-creation. And so that's really tough to grapple with all the choices that you need to make when you're.
You're designing curriculum for intersectional justice, but then also when you're co creating, how do you design a curriculum ahead of time that gives flexibility and space for co creation with each new group of students that you teach the unit to, right? So it's, it's a real balance and it's definitely an art and I absolutely love working with departments to create some new units. Right now, I've had an influx of ideas and questions around US history. Unit revisions.
And so that's been a big topic of conversation for folks lately, but, you know, also people who are like, I want to teach art for justice. And so what is that like? So there's been some really cool creation happening in that front.
That's great. Thank you for sharing. Lindsay, is there anything else before we leave that you would like to leave our listeners?
I think just that Michael Fielding in the, in the student voice researcher space talks about this idea of radical collegiality, this idea of seeing students as colleagues and partners is just so profound to me and really speaks to what we've been talking about. About there's that idea of the intersection of, you know, in instruction and human ness, right?
The learning and the human pieces that, that blend together when we're truly in partnership with students and what we end up co creating both in the classroom, pedagogically, instructionally, but also for the school community, right? When we partner with students in that kind of colleague way is just profound. So I guess I would just leave it with that concept.
Lindsay, thank you so much. This has been so much fun. You've brought so much for us to be able to enact in a concrete way, but I think also so much to think about on the drive home.
Excellent. Thanks so much, Frederick. All right.
Take care, Lindsay. You too. Bye. This was one of those wonderful interviews where I experienced a couple of lightbulb moments. Lindsay and I had met previously to outline the show and agreed to focus on the circle practice as an example of a practice for enhancing student voice. Lindsay had suggested that APs could use this in their own work to model the practice, so I knew we were going there.
It was only in the middle of the episode that the light bulb went off for me, and I realized that we were teaching you, my colleague, to empower teacher voice. And I love the term co creation. I advocate for teachers to lead their own growth, to lead in identifying their goals and the process for growing. I advocate that they lead, but not that they go it alone. And the word co creation captures what I haven't really been fully able to articulate.
We need to work with our teachers, and in so doing, we provide choice, create connection, and lift up individual voices. I encourage you to try using a simple circle. If we want teachers to grow, then we also need to model our own efforts to grow. If this feels challenging, be transparent. You can say something like, I heard about this way to help me listen better to you, and I thought I would try it out. If it doesn't work, blame the podcast folks. And then go for it.
A smaller group will be easier than a larger one. Maybe a team meeting or something similar. The important thing is to try it and see what happens. Remember there will be links to Lindsay and her resources in the show notes. If you want to learn more about me and my materials, you can go to frederickbuskey. com and that link is also in the show notes.
I look forward to seeing you again on Friday when we recap the week's daily emails, please remember to subscribe and rate this podcast rating the show helps others find it. And if you want to be a super fan, consider leaving a review. I'm Frederick Buskey, and thank you again for joining me on this episode of the assistant principal podcast. Cheers.