Just Schools

Catalyze: Patti Goforth

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Patti Goforth, principal at Robinson Elementary. Goforth shares insights from her journey as an educator, including the importance of building connections with students and fostering a culture where every child is seen and valued. The conversation also highlights the impact of collaboration through improvement communities and the transformative work being done to enhance student engagement and well-being.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Ron Clark Academy 
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcslJoin us at Catalyze (formerly Just Schools Academy) July 28-30 at the Hurd Welcome Center at Baylor University, where your team of teachers and administrators will have the opportunity to address a problem of practice related to your campus improvement plan focusing on feedback, engagement, or well-being. This is not a conference. This is a retreat that offers your team a collaborative environment where you’ll work alongside a network of educators and the BCSL team to develop a plan of action using our improvement science tools. With ongoing monthly support from our team, you will be equipped with strategies to catalyze lasting improvement in what we like to call “catalytic improvement communities” that will benefit your school. You will improve an aspect of your campus improvement plan, develop leaders, and enhance collective teacher efficacy. Gather a team of 2-10 teachers and administrators because we do this work best together.

Moving at the Speed of Trust: Dustin Benac

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dustin Benac, co-founder of Baylor's Program for the Future Church. They discuss the connection between schools, churches, and communities in fostering flourishing environments. Benac shares insights on leadership that moves at the speed of trust, the power of belonging, and the importance of taking strategic risks. The conversation also highlights how collaboration and shared language can drive meaningful connections and create spaces where individuals and institutions thrive together.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:Adaptive Church by Dustin D. BenacBelonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides by Geoffrey L. CohenMan's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcript:
Jon:
Welcome back to the Just Schools podcast. Today we are here with Dustin Benac. Excited to have him here. He's a little different kind of guest than we usually have, so we're going to start with Dustin telling us a little bit what he does here at Baylor, and then we'll get into how it connects to what we do as educators. Dustin, welcome in.
Dustin Benac:
Thanks Jon. Thrilled to be here. Love what you guys do in the School of Ed.
Jon:
Can you tell us a little bit about what you do here at Baylor? We overlap some because we're interested in leadership, we're interested in education and institutions, but can you talk a little bit about what you do here?
Dustin Benac:
Absolutely. I am the director and co-founder of the Program for the Future Church. We are a research, resource and relationship hub that's devoted to engaging the complex and emerging challenges between current and emerging Christian leaders. We do that through curriculum. We do that through convenings or gatherings, and we do that through contextual research. And one of the things that we're seeing is that even as the church and our communities are changing in incredible and dramatic ways, there is a remarkable future and we're committed to supporting that and pursuing that together.
Jon:
Love that. My question for you, obviously we care deeply about the church. That's one of the primary institutions that really supports what goes on in our country and around the world. And we have the global flourishing study that's a partnership of Harvard and Baylor, looking at what flourishing looks like, and certainly churches and faith are a big part of that, but another big part of it is schools. Where do you see K-12 schools fitting into the work that you're doing?
Dustin Benac:
I think they are an essential aspect of the flourishing of our communities and the flourishing of churches. Because one of the things we see is that the faith formation of people who inhabit churches, particularly inhabit churches over their life course emerges in those first 10 to 12 years. That certainly happens in families, but that also happens in spaces well beyond families. Sunday school classrooms, camps, schools, after school programs, baseball fields, athletic fields, gyms, art rooms, all of those are spaces where people are being formed. And a flourishing church, particularly a flourishing future church requires flourishing generations. And then secondly, it requires connections across different communities of faith. We think about our work happening at the level of the system or the ecology where we think communities need thriving congregations. They also need thriving schools, they need thriving nonprofit sectors, they need thriving entrepreneurs and the health of those realities, those sectors will only contribute to the thriving of the local church.
Jon:
A lot of that focus on community because we don't do any of these things in isolation. And so as educators, we have this great role of walking alongside people as they become more of who they're created to be as we become more of who we're created to be in the work that we do as we are formed. My question for you especially is your vantage point largely focused on the church, but also then looking at the ecology, as you use your term, which I love that term as well. What does a healthy school look like in your opinion, either currently or in the future, or maybe those are the same thing, but what's it look like to you?
Dustin Benac:
I think there are several markers of a healthy school. One, I think healthy schools require healthy leadership, and that's one of the reasons I appreciate the work you and your colleagues do is you all are equipping, resourcing and engaging healthy leaders and supporting healthy leaders across the country. That's the first thing. I think the second thing is a connection to and commitment to place. One of the things I love about education is it's one of the increasingly few institutions that still have a geographic designation. We have ISDs that are connected to particular places. And schools are places that bring people from their surrounding community to a shared gathering. Third, I think healthy schools require a healthy balance of diversity and similarity.
You have to have something that you have in common, which I think is the education of our children. And you also have to have environments where people gather around and from the various differences and particularities that they bring to these spaces. Third, you've got to have matters of trust, justice, equity. Schools are only as strong as the virtues that carry them, and our leaders are only as strong as the virtues that they possess, so you've got to have schools that are marked by integrity. And fifth and finally, I think a healthy school requires a hopeful vision for the future. We can't have a hopeful vision for our children if the leaders and the communities don't have a hopeful vision for the future.
Jon:
The country right now is somewhat polarized as we're in an election year and you hear a lot of things about separation of church and state. And a lot of times that comes into play in schools where what's allowed, what isn't allowed? In Oklahoma right now, there's mandated Bible teaching going on in public schools with a hope that that will lead to better virtue development. And that's getting a lot of push back and possibly not really being implemented because that's not been traditionally what's gone on in public schools in Oklahoma at least over the last several decades.
I'm curious to have you talk a little bit about the way you think churches and schools can work together effectively, because we also have the model of churches coming in and reading with kids and providing tutoring with kids and afterschool programs and this kind of ecology that we're all in this together and that both schools and churches serve the community. Do you have any sense of what that might look like? Not in the church state, separation wars that are out there, but in we're all part of a community, leadership as service. How do we lead in a way that serves each member of the community well?
Dustin Benac:
Yep. I love that question. I think that's part of one of the things that gets me really hopeful about the future schools and the future of churches because I think there's opportunities for real partnership here. Just a quick anecdote, I found my way into this work after doing several years of research in the Pacific Northwest. And the Pacific Northwest is a context where there's a marginal position for religious organizations. They're on the edges of society, but there's also a real history of religious entrepreneurship, that people of faith are doing new things.
Entrepreneurship is the water they swim in. And one of the things I saw there is that people of faith and churches in the Pacific Northwest, they found a way to exist on the margins of society in ways that are not anxious. They're not trying to reclaim power, they're just trying to be faithfully present. And I think that's the first step to find this meaningful partnership, is churches and people of faith can pursue meaningful partnerships with schools, public or private, not trying to control the content or control the outcome or set the table, but simply show up and be a good partner and be present. Second, that takes a lot of time.
Jon:
You're right.
Dustin Benac:
You can't just parachute in a community and expect change to happen. You've got to keep showing up. Go to the football games, go to the band concerts, show up, show up over and over and over again. And when you do that, you begin to, one, see the needs of the community and they might be different than what you think. And then secondly, you begin to earn trust. The third thing I say is be prepared to be surprised by the encounter. When I've shown up in spaces, when I've tried to be relationally, faithfully present, I go in expecting knowingly or unknowingly something from that connection. And I'm always surprised. And as a person of faith, I like to think that surprise is part of the gift of God.
Jon:
That's beautifully put. I would say I think it overlaps with our view of leadership in general, but I would go all the way back to teaching middle school students. You can't just hit middle school kids over the head with truth if you don't do it with love because they're not listening until they know that you love them and you show them that you love them by spending time with them when you're not contractually obligated to spend that time with them. And so it is that showing up. And I think that's true with adults that we lead and we work with the educators we serve all over the world. It does coming alongside listening first, being surprised by what we might learn, not coming in with solutions for people. We don't know the context.
We come in with processes. We come in with ideas for improvement. We come in with networks of people that we connect. That's Eric Ellison's main job at the Center of School Leadership. He does that even on Baylor's campus for us. And so how do we do that better? Because ultimately in the time we're in now, I don't think anybody can be that superhero solo leader. We write a lot about collective leadership at the center and what that looks like to do the work that moves towards shared goals. You do a lot of work on collaborative leadership. What kind of leadership do you see working at Baylor in churches in the ecologies? What kind of leadership do you see working? What are some attributes of that that you're encouraged by as we move forward?
Dustin Benac:
There's several different attributes. One is it's leadership that moves at the speed of trust. Collective collaborative leadership is leadership that it can't be engineered, it can't be manufactured. It takes time and it moves at the speed of trust. The second thing is this type of leadership is leadership that's carried by shared language. And I think that's one of the values of a place like Baylor or a place like the Center for School Leadership is I think one of the things you all offer are some shared language. And that allows people to partner around shared work by using the shared language because we can't assume that we mean the same thing when we talk about community or education or formation or faith.
You have to have shared language because that's the point of contact where the shared work begins. The third thing that I think is required is an ability to recognize and celebrate a diversity of leadership expressions. Leadership, particularly collaborative leadership, is carried by teams. In order to have a strong team, you need to have people who lead in different ways. In my book, Adaptive Church, I talk about this across six different modes of leading, leading as the caretaker, leading as the catalyst, leading as the connector convener, leading as the surveyor, leading as the champion, leading as the guide. An effective collaboration requires people and teams who have the diversity, the dexterity, and the variety of gifts to lead in different ways in order to respond the needs of their community.
Jon:
You talk about diversity, dexterity, and variety, and a lot of people will hear that, and say it sounds messy.
Dustin Benac:
It is.
Jon:
And my argument is leadership's always going to be messy. It's whether it's going to be messy on the front end or the back end. I'd much rather it be hashed out with diverse thinkers that bring this variety to what we do so that we better represent the communities we serve. If you're thinking in ecologies, you certainly can't, as a single person know what's going to work best for everyone in that ecosystem. That is just not going to be possible. But it takes time, which you already mentioned about relationships, but it also takes time to process things. But then at the back end, you have something that actually might work as opposed to you implementing something which churches do this all the time, "Oh, we got to grow attendance, we got to grow the budget. We got to do..." And so it just becomes this hamster wheel we jump on and then we're spinning off crazy. And in churches, you are burning human beings who get run over by that hamster wheel.
Dustin Benac:
That's exactly right. And I think it's important to make a difference between the messiness of shared and collaborative leadership and sloppiness because-
Jon:
Yes. That's a good point.
Dustin Benac:
... we don't have an excuse for being sloppy. The responsibility of leadership requires that we do it as well as we can. And part of not being sloppy is having shared language, knowing your lane, and also having good and effective strategy. It's going to be messy, it's going to be improvisational. It's not going to turn out like you thought or hoped it would, but you can be purposeful, you can be intentional, you can be strategic, you can be patient. And when those ingredients are there, the outcome is oftentimes far better than we could ever hope or imagine.
Jon:
The sloppy piece is such a great point. I think in schools, we have oversold the idea of failing forward. We've taken this Silicon Valley idea that fail fast, fail forward. No one wants to fail. And so you don't take haphazard risks, that's sloppy. You take strategic risks and Chip and Dan Heath write that the promise of risk taking is not, I don't have the exact quote, but the promise of risk taking is not success. It's learning. All right. If success were always promised for taking risks, it wouldn't be a risk. And so ultimately, how do we take the right risks? How do we take them with the right people?
How do we take them in the way that we're actually going to learn from them and then revise and improve? I've certainly taken many risks in my career where I'm like, "I'm never doing that again." That was just a flat mistake. But most of the time, whatever it is, I figure out ways that we can improve and do better the next time. And then that's where leadership is fun because you're constantly iterating and you know don't have to have it right the first time ever because we probably aren't. But it's like all we got to do is get better. And so I've quit talking about solutions because solutions sound too neat, sound too prepackaged. It's not about solutions. It's about improving, so if you are leading a dumpster fire, just put the fire out. You don't have to build the Taj Mahal yet. Get the dumpster fire out first.
Dustin Benac:
I love it.
Jon:
As we think about that, what's your greatest fear as you look ahead to churches and schools? What's the greatest fear you have right now? I know there are many fears out there. What would you say is the thing that keeps you up at night about churches and schools?
Dustin Benac:
You actually teed this up so well, Jon, because I think my greatest fear is that we wouldn't take the risk. I think we are in a moment of significant and dramatic change. The world is changing, the church is changing, how we gather is changing, what education looks like and feels like is changing. And that can be a moment of real anxiety and uncertainty. It can also be a real moment of opportunity. And my hope is that in this moment of incredible change, we will do the thoughtful, the strategic, maybe even the prayerful work of considering what are the risks that are ours to take and take them with other people. We don't have to take these risks alone, but I do think we are in a unique moment of time where there's things that we can do together that are going to build the structures, the schools, the churches that our children inhabit for a generation. And if we don't do that, I think we've missed an opportunity.
Jon:
That's well said. Before we jumped on, you mentioned a couple of books that you were reading, which I think tie into this fear and also to the hope that we can have. Would you mind sharing a couple of books? I always like for our listeners to get a couple of recommendations that might be useful that may or may not be part of a typical educator's reading list. But do you have a couple for us?
Dustin Benac:
Yeah. One of the very best books I read in the last year is a book by a Stanford psychologist, Geoffrey Cohen's Belonging, a brilliant book about the structure of connection and how to understand the need for belonging and also the strategies that can help us build cultures of belonging. Brilliant work, data-driven, translatable across cultures and across contexts, so, that's the first one. The second one is a book by Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning that is about his experience surviving a concentration camp and also his theory of purpose that emerged out of his work there as a clinical psychologist. And one of the things Frankl says is that those who survived, survived because they found purpose, even purpose in suffering. And it's precisely this purpose that gave them meaning and ultimately gave them a future hope that they could imagine. Even if the circumstances were such, that it was very unlikely that they would live to see that future hope, the purpose carried them forward and gave them a reason to live.
Jon:
Well, I like the way those two books fit together in that if we're going to belong, we have to have a purpose.
Dustin Benac:
Yes.
Jon:
And that's part of what we do. And when we have a purpose, we are willing to struggle well with each other. And ultimately that's where joy is found. It's not the freedom from the struggle, it's the fuel to struggle well. And our joy comes from something deeper than our circumstances because that's where happiness lies and certainly Viktor Frankl is not talking about happiness. He's talking about where purpose can lead to joy because there's a life of meaning. And we don't have wellbeing if we don't have a purpose. And so I think the belonging piece doesn't happen unless we can do that with others because we serve a relational God and we reflect that in the ways that we interact with each other. We don't thrive by ourselves. That just doesn't happen. Love those two books. You shared your greatest fear, not taking risks, so what's your greatest hope as you look ahead for schools and churches?
Dustin Benac:
That new connections will form? I think the future of schools, the future of the church is carried by the work we do together. And one of the things that gives me great hope is that in a time of isolation, in a time of polarization, in a time where so many people do not feel like they belong, new connections are being formed every day. And that gives me great hope. That gives me great hope for the work that we do in the program where people come through our events, come through our courses, come through our programs, and they come out saying, "I'm more connected with other people." That's my hope about Baylor, is we have incredible students who come through our classes, and they certainly leave with a degree, but they also leave with a lot of connections. And that's my hope for churches, is that churches are finding a way to be faithfully present right where they are that is simply holding out the space for connection. Connection with others, connections with themselves, and connection with God.
Jon:
And that's why it's such a blessing to be part of Christian Research One University where we can convene these things, create those connections across communities, study them, and try to amplify the good work that schools and churches are doing, because there's a lot of great work going on out there. We just don't always hear about it. And so how do we accelerate that? Well, let's bring people together. Let's do it together in a way that creates connection and joy and then amplify it.
Dustin Benac:
That's right.
Jon:
And so that's the blessing. Well, thank you for all you do at Baylor through this, the program for the Future Church. Thanks for being with us and always love allies like you at Baylor, so thanks for taking the time.
Dustin Benac:
Thanks, Jon. Thrilled to be here.

Universal Design for Learning: Lindsay Jones

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Lindsay Jones from CAST to discuss her work in inclusive education and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Jones shares insights into how UDL transforms learning environments by focusing on student agency and creating flexible, supportive spaces for all learners. The conversation covers practical examples of UDL in action. Jones also reflects on the opportunities and challenges for UDL globally and her optimism about its impact on education.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Books Mentioned:Radical Inclusion by Ori BrafmanConnect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcript:
Jon Eckert:
All right, today we're here with Lindsay Jones from CAST. She is one of the more interesting people I've met in the last couple of years, and so I wanted to just jump in. First of all, welcome, Lindsay.
Lindsay Jones:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Jon Eckert:
I want to start with a new question that I've never asked anybody, and I'm going to kick it off here, but I always think it's interesting since most of our listeners are educators to ground who you are in your first, last, best, worst experience in schools. So you spend a lot of time in schools and supporting schools. So what's your first memory, your last memory, your best memory, and your worst memory. So we'll do that by way of introduction. Take it away, Lindsay.
Lindsay Jones:
Wow. Okay, so you may have to help remind me of that order.
Jon Eckert:
Sure.
Lindsay Jones:
My first memory and a lot of my memories are going to center around my mom, who was an educator, a special educator for many, many years, special ed director. My first memory was when she came in and started... I was in a public school in Avon Lake, Ohio. I was in second grade, and she came in and started helping and teaching some extra content. And so it was a huge memory for me because she was there and it felt so special and I felt very special that my mom was there and I felt like I got a little viewpoint in the behind the scenes and that was exciting. So that was first.
Best was eighth grade. I had a phenomenal history teacher, and I can still remember the project that I wrote, and it makes me now think of Universal Design for Learning. I had a lot of choice in the project. I wrote it on the history of vigilantism in the United States. It was part of American history and going west, and it's amazing to me. I remember so vividly. So many parts of that I don't remember, but I remember the paper. I remember some of the materials that we did and seeing a play about it and all of the ways that that teacher really brought it to life. So let's see, first, best, worst, and that, and last?
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Yeah, that's what you have left, worst and last.
Lindsay Jones:
Okay. Worst, I'll say two things. Being bored a lot. Not engaging, that's worst. Just feeling like I'm just going through the paces. But a really formative worst one for me is my mother, when I was in third through fifth grade, also living in Ohio, she was teaching in Lakewood, Ohio, and I was going to school near there and she was teaching in a self-contained preschool special ed program in a public school. And I can remember I would go there before school every day after school every day. I met all the students in that room. I was probably in third grade when I started going there. There were different multi-ages. And I then went, I had a day off at my school and like many other kids, my mom let me hang around her school that day. And with a teacher in regular ed at that time, general ed. This would've been a long time ago, the early '80s.
And I can remember hanging around in a regular ed third grade classroom for the whole day and never seeing my mom's students, never seeing my mom, never seeing anyone with a disability. And that really struck me. Where are they? They are not here. They were not a part of that community. And I think that was a really formative experience that drives why I do the work I do today focused on inclusion. So that's probably also my worst because it wasn't ideal. It wasn't the way it should be, but it really, really formed me. So in some ways it's my best in many ways too, I guess. And then my last is law school. I went to law school. That was my last.
Jon Eckert:
That puts an imprint on you.
Lindsay Jones:
I practiced as an attorney for many years in Arizona. And my last schooling experience personally was law school. And it was a shock. It was like being dropped into an ice bath. But I loved it. Actually, I really learned a lot. It was such an interesting... The Socratic method itself has interesting parts to it. It can be really very engaging, but it's a challenging setting.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Well, and I think one of the things that law school does that I've always admired is it teaches you how to think. And so I think there's some value in that. Now, the process of learning that can be pretty painful and you can get some tough professors who are maybe not that skilled at how to teach or how to make it accessible, but if you navigate through it, you come out with a set of skills that are pretty valuable. So it's pretty great. Well, hey, I actually enjoyed that because there's a lot of jumping off points there for what you do now. So you've already hit on what is normally my next question is what brought you to this work? So talk a little bit about what you do now, why you got out of the legal profession and into the work you're doing now based on some of the things that you experienced with your mother in schools and some of the other pieces that you've already discussed.
Lindsay Jones:
Yeah, so my mom, who, as I said, special ed teacher, local special ed director, all the things, special ed member of the Council for Exceptional Children, spoke, ended up working as a independent consultant, expert on ADHD, writing books and said to me always, "Don't become a teacher. Don't do it. Be a lawyer." And thinking now back on that, I think that was largely because she was a real activist as a person for inclusion, a real activist for social justice around disability and felt powerless sometimes with the limitations put on her position. So loved educators, was a model in my mind, a wonderful educator, a teacher's teacher, but just really felt like there were limits and she wanted to make a bigger difference.
So I actually ultimately, did go to law school and thought, "I'm never getting into education. I'm staying out of the family business. What in the world?" But when I got my first job at a law firm, I happened to join a firm in Phoenix, Arizona that represented most of the school districts in the state. And I had sat my uncle and my aunt, also special educators, lifelong. I'd sat at so many tables listening to like IEP, behavior implementation plan, all of it, that I knew it. I knew those things. I don't even know how I knew those things. I never took an education law class. So I started though, being drawn into that work. I represented public school districts and I focused a lot on special education matters. I took lots of cases all the way, and I've been in three day IEP meetings and that was a challenging... I did the first 504 due process hearing in the state of Arizona because they just didn't really have those before the 2000s.
And then I saw lots of the same problems over and over, and I thought, "Boy, I'd really like to work on these from a national level." And that drew me to go to work for the Council for Exceptional Children in DC where I live now. That is the organization of the professional learning association of special educators across the US. And that was a phenomenal experience. I worked there for four years. And then I decided to move to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, also working with parents and families, again, from a national role on legislation.
And then I was so excited to be able to join CAST where I work today, a nonprofit organization that invented something called Universal Design for Learning, UDL. And it's a way for me to influence policy and try to make a difference in the way our laws are created, but also to, in a more real, tangible way, we work with educators in classrooms around the world. And we work with authors to push the field forward, and we have research that we're conducting. So it's just a deeper way to be able to work on inclusion and those issues.
Jon Eckert:
Such a great introduction. And I do have to say the three-day IEP meeting, I don't think I've been in a three-hour one. And those are painful. So the individualized education plan, great idea, but when they get down on paper or try to get them to paper, it's tough. I also have to say that what you do with UDL is so transformative all around the world. And so I know we were at an international convening where they were discussing the 250 million kids worldwide that don't have access to schools and how many people knew UDL and knew you in so many different countries. It was pretty powerful to see the people coming up and talking to you about how that we do this well because at the Center, we're all about supporting education leaders so that they can serve each student well. And that feels like the whole mission of UDL.
How do we reach each kid? Not all kids, but each kid, because each kid comes to the learning differently. And that's the beauty of education I've been in for 29 years. I did not avoid education, but I didn't have a parent who was an educator. So who knows what would've happened if that would've been the... And I would say our work is infinitely interesting and always challenging because the only thing we know when we're standing in a classroom with a bunch of students is we're the only one that learns the way we do. And so that's where UDL is so powerful because it gives you principles for how to think through it. And you're vigilante project that you did in eighth grade had so many of the hallmarks of UDL. So I'd love for you to just dig a little bit deeper into some of the opportunities and challenges you see right now for UDL around the world and maybe particularly the United States as well, if you want to dive down there.
Lindsay Jones:
Sure. I would say around the world, the number one challenge really is some basic access, as you would know better than I do, Jon, but in terms of at the core of UDL is assistive technology that's started by nine Harvard neuroscientists, working with nine students with really significant cognitive disabilities and saying, "Maybe tech and being flexible... Maybe the person isn't broken, maybe it's the system." And in fact, they proved that's right. And now that system and some of the drawbacks of the system for people in different places around the world is probably the biggest challenge. The biggest opportunity though, I think especially in the United States right now is EdTech is throughout schools. It's overwhelming. It's almost too much in schools, but it does that same principle of it gives us more of an inherent understanding that we all use it differently. The way I use my iPhone or whatever my device is, is probably different than yours, and you don't judge me for that. I don't judge you. I don't even know how... And so that is a freeing thing that I think is a big opportunity.
And UDL, it's a design thinking framework. It just helps you think, "How can I find barriers to leaning that I don't see?" And I think that tech is a way to help us make environments more flexible. It's not the only way, we don't need it, but it can make that environment more flexible and it can also reduce the stigma of difference. The stigma that I saw when I felt my mother's class was down a dark hall. They weren't included. They were very separate. Tech, we're all using it. And that's, I think, a great opportunity for us to think about universal design for learning and how we can create those environments that are flexible and dynamic and individualized.
Jon Eckert:
And I love the connection to design thinking because at the end of the day, that's using technology to humanize interaction. It's not replacing the human, it's accentuating the human connection we can make through it as we design solutions that move us all further forward. And that has to be individualized. So I still think, and I think this is potentially something that's really prevalent in US schools, people believe that struggle is a sign of weakness where in fact, struggle is part of learning. And learning is productive struggle. So everybody needs different tools to help them struggle well. And so I think particularly coming out of Covid, we've had this shift in that well-being is freedom from struggle, and that can't be the case. And what I love about UDL is it gets kids into that zone of proximal development where, here's what I can do on my own, here's what I can do with some assistive technology, here's what I can do with some choice, here's what I can do with a more advanced peer.
There's all these places where there are these supports that come in that humanize the interaction. So that's where I'm most hopeful about UDL and where I see things going because we have more tools than we ever have. Now, if we just use those tools in this cast a wide net, throw at every kid, hopefully we catch every kid and you know kids are going to fall through the net, that's a problem. But where we have educators who are deployed with these tools to meet kids' needs, who are then allowing kids' choice, allowing kids opportunities to collaborate and making sure each kid is able to contribute, that's where I see things being hopeful. Do you have any of those kinds of stories where you're like, "Yeah, here I've seen UDL really make a difference in the lives of kids." Is there anything that jumps to mind?
Lindsay Jones:
Absolutely, and that's exactly what it is. So we just updated our guideline. Guidelines are a tool we use to help people implement it. There's just things to prompt your thinking about as design your environment. We updated them and the focus now is agency, learner agency. It's always been about what you just described. We know the kids are leaving school. And right now today, you and I probably are having to learn more about artificial intelligence than we ever... Maybe you knew a lot. I know nothing. So now I'm completely learning about it and I'm relying on all the ways I learned how to learn. And that is what we're trying to make sure those kids are learning so that when they leave, they know, "Oh, I feel confident. I may not know it. I'm going to struggle, but here's what I can do to learn it." That's the goal. That's learner agency.
And so what I would say, there's a lot of great examples of that around, but one of the ones that I think really just resonates for me, there's a school here in the District of Columbia that we've been working with. They have a model UDL demonstration classroom, which they're showing to others, and they're bringing UDL throughout that school and hopefully through the other schools in the District of Columbia schools. And when you go in, there's a part of you, I think... I'm a parent. I'm not a teacher, as you know, I'm a parent though. And there's a part of me that I will say, I was like, "We're just going to let fifth graders make choices about what they want? I've had a fifth grader. That seems scary to me. I'm not sure. What is this going to look like?"
And I went into this fifth grade classroom, and it is so interesting to see what and how that's really intentionally designed by those educators. Several different areas are happening in the room. And one of the things that stood out to me, Jon, is those kids in that room know if they're asked a question... I watched an interaction between a teacher and a student where the teacher asked the student a question about the material, and the student kept trying to answer it and was struggling. The teacher was not giving the answer. And then finally the student said, "Oh, I'm going to go to my resources. I'm going to go get... And they walked over to several different resources they had available, got the answer, came back so proud, so confident.
And it was so painful for those moments of watching that child struggle, that teachers maybe call it "wait time." It is painful to sit there and watch that. You want to just say, "Lincoln, it's Abe Lincoln." But my God, when I saw that student be really actualized, find something, come back. And that is a very micro way of talking about what was a really complex interaction with some really skilled educators and just incredible kids, but it wasn't out of the norm, and it did more than one thing at once. It taught the student the answer, and it made that student engaged in a way of like, "I am proud. I did this." And that's good. We need that because it won't always be easy, so you got to draw on something. So yeah, I think there's a lot of examples like that that are exciting and empowering.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's great. I love that example. And I love the idea that it's in a model classroom because I think for educators, they need to be able to see it happening. And we need educators who are doing this well to be able to spread their expertise. And so in our research, we find one of the most powerful predictors of how a school will improve is whether or not a lot of peer observation's happening. It's not evaluation or judgment, but it's learning from other educators who are doing this hard work and letting kids, requiring kids, giving them the opportunity to struggle because there's so much more joy in finding out it's Abraham Lincoln when you go with your own agency and find those in the sources than having someone else just tell you the answer. And that just breeds learned helplessness. Just like, "Hey, somebody's going to tell me anyway, so why would I have any agency in the first place?"
The other thing I wanted to say, I teach a class in a half an hour. And so anytime I go in, even to my undergrad or grad classes that I'm teaching, when I am the least well prepared, I lecture. When I am the best prepared, it's this interactive engagement where student agency is part of it, and there's meaning. And I always pull in student responses from the night before. I always read the responses that come in by 10:00 PM and I put those in and I let that direct the class. But that takes a lot of time. And so it's just, if somehow that time hasn't been set aside, the class just isn't as good. I can manage it. I can control it. I did this as a fifth grade teacher, as a seventh grade science teacher. You can control it, but that's sometimes by boring kids into submission, which is what you mentioned. I mean, just because a class is quiet doesn't mean any learning's happening. And so that's not the goal.
Now, obviously a class that's in chaos where kids aren't safe and all that, but those baselines have to be set up. But in that model classroom, I'm sure so much work has gone into how to help students make good choices, that I would 100% trust those kids to make good choices. And when they're not, you just say, "Hey, we're outside the parameters we set. Now, move back in". Is that an accurate read of that classroom or other model classrooms you see?
Lindsay Jones:
Yes. And I think your critical point is it's not about vertigo of possibility to students. It's about scaffolding. You start to make choices. You have a smaller number. What are they? You're learning about them, you're reflecting on them. I think that's really critical. You said that and you talked about it, and I just wanted to pull it out because yeah, that's right. That's right.
Jon Eckert:
I love that.
Lindsay Jones:
That classroom was fun. It was amazing. Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. I love that. I never heard that. I've never heard that phrase vertigo of possibility. But yes, that sounds like anarchy, what we want. And I think kids feel safer where they know where the boundaries are, and then they know how to move, and then they scaffold and they build, and then they can do amazing stuff. And that's when teaching gets really fun because it's not about the teacher anymore, it's about the learner. And we're all learning together. So I always like to end with a lightning round. So I know you're super busy, so if you've taken time to read a book that you would recommend, it's got to be pretty good because busy people don't just read beach reads all the time. So is there a great book that you would recommend? It could be education related or not, but is there anything you've read in the last year that you would recommend to those listening?
Lindsay Jones:
It is. And it's called Radical Inclusion. And yeah, have you read it?
Jon Eckert:
I've heard of it. I have not read it yet, but it's been recommended to me already, but go ahead.
Lindsay Jones:
It's so interesting, and I'm so sorry, I have to follow up with the name of the author. He's an education minister in Sierra Leone.
Jon Eckert:
Wow.
Lindsay Jones:
And it is phenomenal. It is super interesting. It is well written. It's thought provoking. Yeah, he spoke actually, we saw-
Jon Eckert:
I was going to say he was at the convening. Yeah, he was on a panel. Yeah, so his name is Ori Brafman.
Lindsay Jones:
Thank you, yes.
Jon Eckert:
And it's What the Post-9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership. It came out in 2018. Is that it?
Lindsay Jones:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah?
Lindsay Jones:
Radical Inclusion. And it's about the way they're reframing in Sierra Leone, including individual... They're starting with everything in terms of radical inclusion, voting, everything.
Jon Eckert:
I love that.
Lindsay Jones:
People with disabilities and a barrier-free environments.
Jon Eckert:
Wow. That's beautiful. All right, so then what is the worst piece of advice you've ever given or received in your work?
Lindsay Jones:
Oh, my God, so many.
Jon Eckert:
I'm sorry.
Lindsay Jones:
I know, it's terrible. But I actually think one of the worst pieces of advice that I was ever given was that you could not be a parent and a full-time attorney.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, wow.
Lindsay Jones:
Or a full-time anything.
Jon Eckert:
Wow.
Lindsay Jones:
And that has not proven to be true. And it was a really bad piece of advice because it made me worry for years. And it was silly that I did that, so.
Jon Eckert:
Wow. All right, that's helpful. That's a helpful reframe of bad advice. What's the best piece of advice you've either given or received?
Lindsay Jones:
A wonderful attorney I worked with, the best piece of advice was, "Be bold." This amazing guy, Dick Siegel. And then my other favorite one is a Matisse quote, Henry Matisse the painter. I have it on my board over here. "Don't wait for inspiration. It comes while working."
Jon Eckert:
Well said. I love that. I did not know that Matisse quote, but that's a great add and obviously, you got to be bold to do the work, so those two reminders go well together. All right, so as we wrap up, what's your most hopeful perspective on where we're heading in education makes you most optimistic?
Lindsay Jones:
I am incredibly optimistic about inclusive education. I meet people every single day who want to make that happen. And they see, when they use Universal Design for Learning or whatever method they're using to make learning more inclusive, they get to something you just referred to, which I call the magic moments. They come up to me and tell me, "Oh, my God, this happened. I saw learning. I remembered why I went into teaching." That experience of watching someone really learn, learning with them, that I am so lucky because so many people share those types of things with me. And it just means I feel like I'm so hopeful I want to tell everyone about this and help them to be using it.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, what a beautiful example. I think it's what gets educators up every morning. It's not the paycheck. It's going to be those magic moments. And once you've had a couple, they're addictive. You keep coming back for more. And that's a beautiful way to wrap up. Well, Lindsay, thank you for the great work you do at CAST, for UDL, for your leadership and just taking the time to be with us.
Lindsay Jones:
Yeah, thank you so much.

People Pleasing, Thinking, and Listening: Rachel Johnson

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Rachel Johnson, the CEO of PiXL in the UK. They discuss PiXL's mission to improve student outcomes by supporting leaders in schools and highlight key challenges faced by school leaders today. Johnson shares insights into overcoming people-pleasing tendencies, setting boundaries, and creating ownership. The conversation covers practical tools for healthy communication and empowering leaders to think deeply and make transformative changes in their schools.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us for Just Leadership on February 3rd at Baylor University, a one-day professional learning event for school administrators – from instructional coaches to superintendents – that focuses on catalyzing change as a leadership team.Register Now!Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Jon Eckert:
Today we are here with Rachel Johnson, a friend that we've made through mutual friends in the UK who's doing amazing work. And I just want to jump right in to what you're learning and then we'll back into more of what you do. So what are you learning through PiXL? So you can give us a quick introduction to what PiXL is and then what you're learning from the leaders that you're supporting.
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah. So PiXL stands for Partners in Excellence. We work with two and a half thousand schools across the UK. And what we're learning is how important leadership is in the conversation in school improvement. So we believe in improving life chances and outcomes for every young person irrespective of background or status or finance.
But behind all of that is the ability for brilliant people in schools to lead well. And that's the conversation people want to have now more and more than perhaps they ever have because people are fascinated with how they can be better, how they can thrive, what's stopping them thrive. And that is the attention that I've been giving a lot of my work recently around that issue.
Jon Eckert:
So love that mission. We always push at the center for moving from some students to all students and now to each student, what does it mean to do that for each student so that thriving for each student is powerful. In order to have those thriving students, you have to have thriving leaders. So what are some of the things, I think you mentioned you have 3,200 people in leadership courses, what are some of those takeaways that are keeping people from thriving that you're finding?
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah, we're finding a lot of very common things. And actually it doesn't matter what level they are in school leadership, it's the same issues. So things like people pleasing, which is getting in the way of leadership and decision-making, not being able to hold a boundary, sometimes not having a boundary. So there is no difference between work and life. There is no stopping. We just carry on going. I think that's a real issue.
We're finding people not really knowing are structured to have difficult conversations or as I like to call them, crucial conversations. They shouldn't be difficult, but the lack of confidence in having those conversations. And then I think other things like how to create buy-in, how to get momentum, how to have that very delicate balance as Jim Collins calls it, between the brutal facts and the unwavering hope.
So what does that actually look like on the ground? How can I do both at the same time without going for hopium where you're drugging people on things that can't actually happen or being so honest and brutal that nobody wants to follow you because it sounds so depressing? So what does the reality of that look like in school leadership? And what we are finding is across nearly three and a half thousand people on our leadership courses, they're all struggling with those kind of issues.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's powerful. I think one of the questions that I'm always asking leaders because it's a hard one is, and I think it comes from Patrick Lencioni, but I'm not sure. It could be from another theorist, they all start to run together a bit. I don't think it's John Maxwell, I don't think it's Jim Collins, but is for who are you willing to make enemies? What ideas are you willing to make enemies over? So what are those things that like, "Hey, this is a non-negotiable for me."
And I think a lot of educators don't think about that because we have a people pleasing sense of what we want to do. And so that's a really hard conversation to have because I agree, we tend to lean toward hopium. I think that's a great term for what we do. And so how do you get people into those crucial conversations? I like that reframe as well. But how do you get them into that when you know that there's kind of a natural resistance among a lot of educators to those kinds of conversations?
Rachel Johnson:
It is really difficult, but not having the conversation doesn't make the issue go away. And I think as soon as people realize, "It's actually making me miserable. My department is underperforming, therefore young people are underperforming all because I'm not courageous enough to have the conversation." And what we find using Susan Scott's model of fierce conversations is when you give them that seven-part model of how to have the conversation in one minute where you say your peace but you stay in adult, as Transactional Analysis would call it.
So you're not giving it a kind of sly interpretation. You're not giving a mean tone to your voice. You're being absolutely clear and absolutely kind, but absolutely straight, then people respond usually really well. But I think one of the things that is most disconcerting for leaders and educators is you have to listen to what the other person says. It isn't just about us delivering our truth and how we perceive things.
It's about being quiet long enough to hear what they're saying and maybe more importantly what they're not saying. And so it's fascinating to me that what is stopping us sometimes is the courage. But this is really affecting our schools. And certainly in the UK, in a recent survey that one of our big agencies did called Teacher Tapp, 64% of teachers said they had worked or did work in a toxic environment in school. That's a lot of people calling their environment where we should be seeing young people thrive, and our leaders and our teachers are saying it's toxic.
So something's going wrong somewhere. And what stops us dealing with this I think is the lack of courage and the lack of tools to be able to know how to approach it, which is why that's where we put our weight in the practical tools that can help people unlock this. And people say things like, "We feel liberated, transformed. It's like a weight off and we feel like we can do it." And that is the kind of feedback we get regularly. And I think that is really very, very important that people are helped to do these difficult things.
Jon Eckert:
Really, really good stuff there. It reminded me of two things in what you said because you've shared a lot. And I love how much we've into right here off the bat. The book High Conflict by Amanda Ripley. I don't know if you've seen that book. It came out in 2021, so it's been out for a while. She introduces this concept, which I think is what you're getting at in that one minute conversation a little bit in the way we listen.
So it's not her idea again, but this is where I came to the idea. It's the idea of looping, that when you're in conflict with someone, the key is when you're receiving the feedback from the person where they're telling you how they feel, where they're upset, where they're disagreeing with you, you have to listen, then you have to distill what's being said.
Then you have to check for understanding and then question, "Did I get it right?" So that you're repeating back. Because I think sometimes, at least in the United States, some of the conflict is due to poor communication, and that looping provides an opportunity to correct that communication error and it's a form of empathy because it's taking on that perspective, did I hear you right?
Now, just active listening, you can really alienate people with active listening skills without being genuinely curious. So that's one of the things when you're doing that, you can't do it in a formulaic way that feels like you're just jumping through hoops because that's really alienating to the person doing it. Does that square with what you found or am I thinking about something differently than you are?
Rachel Johnson:
I think what's fascinating is that, and this is what I do really for my job now, is I take lots of different things like that from High Conflict from Chris Voss and his hostage negotiation techniques, crisis communication that we have over here with a fierce conversation and I kind of mush it all together in one model.
And so what all of these people are saying, including Nancy Kline who's written brilliant work on listening and thinking is we mustn't overdo it when we talk to people. We mustn't kind of interpret what they're saying and then tell them what they're thinking. We have to ask great questions. We have to be comfortable with silence and let the silence do the heavy lifting. Most of us are not comfortable with that. We have to summarize like you've said and say at the end, "Is that right?"
And if the person says, "No, that's not right," that's the opening of the conversation, not the end of it. That's when we say, "Okay, great. What did I not summarize well? What have I not understood? Tell me?" We've got to be more curious and less judgmental. But because I think educators are so used to making judgments, because that's literally our job a lot of the time is making judgments on grades, on behavior, on progress, to not make judgments on fellow adults, it's sometimes really hard.
Jon Eckert:
I always say educators are way more gracious with students than they are with each other. And-
Rachel Johnson:
Or themselves.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Oh. And typically that lack of graciousness to others is because of the lack of graciousness to self. I think one of the key points you said, and you mentioned earlier in tone when you asked that question, "What did I not get right?" You can say, "What did I not get right?" In a very curious way. Or, "What did I not get right?" With the eye roll.
And then you've either closed off the conversation or you've opened it. And I think the tone and the facial expression goes a long way to that, which is why I think we have to have this interpersonal connection. If you're doing this over text or you're doing it over email, it's pretty doomed to fail. I don't know. Would you agree with that, that this has to be kind of face-to-face as much as possible?
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah. I think a lot happens on Zoom these days or on Teams, which is difficult. And I think that is manageable if you get your tone right, if you get your eye contact right. I think one of the most damaging things in communication with anybody is the not listening, as you've mentioned, and the tone. So making it sound like a judgment. But the other thing I think is really difficult is when we speak in ulterior transactions. So the conversation we're having is not the conversation we're thinking. And people can smell it a mile off, can't they?
I think of all kinds of situations at home where I say to my children like, "Oh, did you not have time to tidy your bedroom?" And what I'm actually saying is, "You're absolute slobs. You round here making a mess of my house." And they can hear the criticism and then they say, "Are you having a go at me mum?" And then I go, "No, I don't know what you're talking about." And that's dishonest. And I think we fall into that a few times when we are not courageous enough to have the real conversation. So I think that's another trap we can fall into.
Jon Eckert:
Right. I think I had a couple of those conversations with a daughter and a wife this weekend potentially, so that I need to go back and do some correcting. So thank you for that. One other thing you mentioned earlier was, and I think it's a chapter in, I think it's in your first book, about getting buy-in. One of the things that I've been pushing on here, and I'm curious to hear if there's a cultural difference here potentially.
I found Gen Zs and millennials in the US, they do not want to buy-in to things because it sounds like an idea is being sold that they're just supposed to get on board with. And they don't do that. And I almost say that to their credit because they want to co-own what they're doing. And so buy-in is not something that they're interested in. They want to own it with you sometimes in ways that make it way better if we do that. Do you find that in the UK that there's less interest in buying in and more of an interest in kind of co-owning the work? Or is that still something that works relatively well in the UK, trying to get buy-in?
Rachel Johnson:
I think you're absolutely right, and I think this new generation are very different and I think they don't want to do it the way we did it. We wore tiredness and exhaustion like a trophy, like a medal. "Look how knackered I am, look how late I was up doing all my work." They look at that and go, "I don't want that. I want to have a sabbatical. I want to have a life. I want to go to the gym. I want to do what I want to do." So I think the way we are talking about buy-in needs to change. But I also think the way we get buy-in needs to change.
We, I think have thought buy-in means, "Here's my idea, here's what we are doing, join me in what I'm doing." And that isn't really genuine buy-in. Buy-in is saying, "What is the problem we're trying to solve? Let's get people around the table, listen to really healthy conflict within a boundary where we feel safe to be able to disagree." All that psychological safety stuff by Amy Edmondson, it's crucial. It's not easy, but it's crucial. And then I think people do buy-in when they're heard. I think all these things we're talking about are linked. If I'm ignored, I'm not going to buy-in whether it's a great idea or not, because you're not hearing me. So I think we have to create more time to be heard and to hear.
But I think one of the issues we have in leadership, particularly in education is we're always in such a rush. That hurry-up driver like, "Let's get everything done yesterday driver," can stop us really engaging and listening. And so where we can go fast, we sometimes do, and I think we lose a lot in that, especially this new generation who want to be heard, want to think things through, want to be well-researched. Great, that can really benefit us, but we have to give it time.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and again, leadership's always going to be messy and it can either be messy on the front end where you all own, where you're going together or it's going to be messy on the back end. So I'd much rather have it be messy on the front end.
That just takes some patience and some ability to avoid falling victim to the tyranny of the urgent where we constantly throw one change after another at people in a way that doesn't actually produce what we want because we're too impatient to see it happen.
So I'm curious how you got to this work. So this amazing work that you're doing through PiXL, which we can get more into PiXL in a little bit, but you personally, how did you end up writing these books, doing the podcasts, building out being a catalyst at PiXL to do this kind of work with leaders, but where did that come from?
Rachel Johnson:
So I think it started fairly young really when I was, my dad led a church and he was a leader in schools and so was my mom. So I watched all of that all of my life. But I was kind of old before my age really, and I always wanted to lead something. So I did Sunday school when I was 10, teaching three-year olds. I always took on more responsibility. And so what I wanted when I was 13 and 14 was to work out what does leadership look like? How can I be a better version of me?
How can I make change happen? And apart from reading people that you've mentioned, like John Maxwell, there wasn't an awful lot for people my age. And so I never had anything age appropriate. So I read all the adult stuff. And I was looking back at my old journals actually yesterday. I was clearing out the loft and I look in my journals at me at 13 and go, "There she is, there's the person I am now.
There, I can see her so clearly when I look." But it wasn't usual back then. And so I was a bit different and did different things, but I was absolutely committed to leadership. And so from that point on really, wherever I was I wanted to lead. And it wasn't that I was bothered about promotion or position or title or money. I'm not bothered about any of those things.
I want to go where I can be to make the biggest difference. And so for me, leadership is where you make the biggest difference, where you could have the agency to make the difference. And for me, that has become the driving force really to try and do good in the world, to try and help people create their own change. So yes, that's where it started, very young.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. And so now at PiXL, what do you try to do organizationally? You gave us a little bit of what PiXL stands for, but how are you doing that and what different avenues in different countries? I know you have a number of ways you're trying to serve leaders who want to become the kind of leaders you wanted to become as a young person.
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah. So we do conferences, we did big conferences in the UK and those are hugely attended. We work with different types of leaders. We have two podcasts, PiXL Pearls, which are just 10 minutes leadership reflection. So not heavy, but just a moment of reflection to think about our own leadership. And then we have the PiXL leadership book club where we take non-educational school books because that's another really important thing of mine, to look outside of education, not always within.
And so I interviewed two school leaders about a non-educational leadership book and how they've applied those messages into their context. And that's the kind of thing I'm interested in. I'm interested in looking at what other people in the world are doing and how we can take that from marketing or that from branding or that from hostage negotiation and how we can turn our schools around based on the lessons that've been learned elsewhere.
So that's become a really big thing. Now I write all kinds of things on that. The books which I wrote that two have come out already, the chapters in those are all of the things that I asked our leaders, "What do you struggle with?" And that's what they said. And so I wrote the chapters for them really to try and help us all get a little bit more unstuck. Because we all get stuck and sometimes it's too difficult to find a great big book and read all the way through it when you haven't got time.
So it's really short, bite-sized chunks to help get us unstuck. And so with that and working and with how we have resources and strategies, a whole range of things to help school leaders get the support they need. But I think one of the most important things we've just started doing is named after the book, we have something called Time to Think where leaders are able to book time with my team to just think a few ideas.
We're not going to talk, they're going to book 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes. And that time is for them to talk through their ideas, for us to ask questions to help them get clarity, but for them to leave more empowered than they came in. And what school leaders are telling us is they don't have enough time to think.
It happens on holidays, in the mornings, in the middle of the night. And it shouldn't happen then, it should happen in working hours too. But sometimes people need a bit of a helping hand to get there. So that's one of the most exciting things we're doing at the minute, creating that time to think and walking with people as they do that.
Jon Eckert:
I love that. I tell people when they start masters or doctoral programs at Baylor that the biggest gift we're giving you is time to think through what you're doing with the kinds of books that you're talking about. I totally agree, we need to look at education, but we need to look beyond education. So I love that conversation you're having with school leaders about books.
Everything you described from the PiXL Pearls to everything else is trying to give people this catalyzing force to spend more time thinking and just carving out that space is a huge gift. So I think you mentioned that you primarily work in the UK, but that you have some connection into 46 different countries. Are there things you're seeing that feel like they work cross-culturally, like, "Hey, everyone is dealing with this." Because I know most of our listeners are in the United States and we can spend way too much time navel-gazing at our challenges and opportunities here.
I'm wondering those conversations that you've had where they identify challenges that leaders have, are there any things there that you're like, "Hey, this feels like a common challenge. It does not matter where it is. This is..." Maybe it's the Time to Think, but if it's something other than that as well. What are some of those challenges you're seeing that cut across contexts?
Rachel Johnson:
Well, how I would kind of evidence that really is it's the podcasts that have gone all over the world in different countries. And we haven't really pushed those out. We've had them in the UK and they've gone everywhere through Apple or Spotify. But the ones that are most listened to, that's what's really fascinating. The biggest episodes are Dare to Lead with Brené Brown. So clearly if that's our leading episode, it's because people don't have courage like we've touched upon.
The other one that is massive is the People Pleasing one, which is based on a book by Emma Reid Terrell called Please Yourself and is around the real problems of people pleasing. That's been another massive hitter. And then the third one, which has been a really big hitter, is based on Cal Newport's work on Deep Work and Time To Think.
So if that's the three places where people are going across all of the people who listen to our podcasts. And I think in total there's about 195,000 downloads now maybe. I think that says something about where people's attention is, that's what they're craving. And I think we should listen to that because I think these things are quite deep-rooted and I think people don't find solutions to how to handle those three things either.
Jon Eckert:
Well, I love Brené Brown, I love Cal Newport. I need to read the people pleasing book, so.
Rachel Johnson:
Wonderful.
Jon Eckert:
I'm getting good recommendations. Yeah. The Slow Productivity by Cal Newport that just came out is kind of the latest manifestation. I still think Deep Work is his best book, but Slow Productivity I've worked into some of my classes because I do think this idea and his premise there is that we do less things, work at a natural pace and obsess over quality.
That's how we provide the human value that is going to become increasingly value as AI and other things automate other pieces. It's what are we uniquely suited to build and do? And that's really to me, the extension of deep work. That's the critical component. And you have to have time to think because-
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah, you have to have time to think. And then you kind of think, why are we not doing deep work? Why are we overstretched? And I think it comes down to what I would call now toxic productivity. I think when you have a profession full of people who love to be efficient and love to-do lists and tick things off and feel great about themselves, the danger is we become addicted to productivity.
We can't rest, we can't stop, we can't switch off. We have to be doing something productive. We even monetize our hobbies for goodness's sake because we can't do them for free, because that's a waste of time. It is quite astonishing. And we are obsessed with adding things, not taking things away. So I don't speak to many leaders who say, "We're reducing our efforts by half because we don't think it's working. So these five things are going and these five things will replace them." They should add more things. No wonder we're all frazzled, so.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and social media has turned us into the product. So our attention is what is demanded and that is what is being sold. And that's new and I think devastating for especially adolescents who are coming into leadership, those 13-year-olds that dreamed about leading the way you do. "Oh, I can do that through my followership on this as I sell products for someone else." And so you become a conduit for other corporations to grab other people through you.
It's not real leadership. And so I worry about, I do not want this to happen, but my email box, I worry that I will be getting AI-generated emails into the box. I will then have AI-generating responses, and I'll just be a spectator watching AI talk to AI which by definition, Darren Speaksma says this all the time. AI is consensus because all it is scraping from large language models.
It is not wisdom. To get wisdom, you need the human. And that's the point of deep work. How do we pursue joy through truth and love? How do we do this and this? And AI just, that's not what AI is designed to do. It can summarize, it can collect, it can scrape. But that's the part that I'm like, "Oh." And that's the life-giving work.
And so Greg McCown, UK guy, Essentialism, that was the book. And then it became how do I? I've reduced all the small rocks out of the jar and I've just got big rocks and now the rocks are too much. And I feel like that's where we're at. So I love his work as well. So based on all that, those common challenges that we see, where do you see hope? Where are you most hopeful?
Rachel Johnson:
I'm hopeful that people want the conversation. I'm hopeful that in a room of thousands of leaders, I can say, "Put your hand up if you're a people pleaser." I've been a recovering people pleaser since 2020. I often say to people, I went into recovery in March 2020 when I read that book, Please Yourself by Emma Reid Terrell. And thought, "Oh my goodness, I don't want to be that." She says, you can either be an authentic person or a people pleaser.
You cannot be both. And I was really convicted by it because I thought, I want to be the best kind of leader, but if I'm people pleasing, I can't be. This has got to change. And I am with roomfuls of people now virtually and in person who are embracing this, who say, "I want to go in recovery too. Enough. I realize it's holding me back." And wherever there are people who are willing to change and are up for the work and up for the debate about it all, I think there's always hope.
And when we face our own brutal facts and we believe we can change, then I think there's always hope. And that is the kind of message we want to talk about in education in the UK and further afield, that we are not stuck. We don't have to be stuck. Human connection, human understanding, human wisdom, as you mentioned, these things that we can learn to be better and overcome our stuckness can change our lives first and foremost before we change anybody else's, but then help other people to change.
And I think there is a great deal of hope. I think sometimes we have to look hard for it because social media and the news don't talk hope, they talk despair. And so we have to be very open and vocal about the hope. But that's one of the things that I hope to always be, the voice of hope. Not ignoring the brutal facts. We mustn't do that, but always saying, "We'll find a way if we think about this. If we invest, we will find a way." Because I believe we will.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. The next book I'm working on right now is "Gritty Optimism: Catalyzing Joy in Just Schools." How do we build on what we know can change in schools and what they can be? Because there's so many great stories out there and there's so many ways to do it. So this conversation has been super encouraging that way.
So I'm just going to end us with a quick lightning round here. You've already given me at least one book recommendation I need to read. I'm just curious, in the last year, what's a book that you've read from any field? It doesn't have to be from education, that you would recommend to me and to us?
Rachel Johnson:
I'll give you two, Ruthlessly Caring by Amy Walters Cohen about the paradoxes in leadership and the Friction Project by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. So I have been reading pieces of the Friction Project, remarkable. Have not read Ruthlessly Caring, so I've got to get on that. Thank you. All right. What is the worst advice you've received or given as a leader? And then follow that up with the best advice you've either given or received.
Rachel Johnson:
The worst advice I've ever been given is that humility is putting yourself last. Because it's not true.
Jon Eckert:
That's good.
Rachel Johnson:
That's a very blunt and terrible definition. The worst advice that I've probably given would be in my early years of leadership when I was first new and basically said to people, "Maybe don't cause a fuss about that." Because I was a people pleaser, I didn't want to make a fuss. And so sometimes I told other people not to make a fuss and that was a mistake.
Jon Eckert:
That's good. So if you were, oh, so I had a quick break on the connection. So our connection broke there a minute. So don't make a fuss, that's also bad advice. Correct? Yeah.
Rachel Johnson:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
So what's the good advice that you've received or given, what's the best advice you've either given or received?
Rachel Johnson:
The best advice I think I would give is make sure when you have any interaction that you are okay and you're seeing the other person as okay. And what I mean by that is that we're not coming with an attitude of judgment or superiority or anything that someone can sniff, which is going to put their back against the wall immediately. So be an adult, be in control of yourself. And if you're not in control of yourself, be vulnerable, but don't do it and create a mess in front of somebody else when it's going to damage them. I think that is unfair.
Jon Eckert:
That's great advice. Love that. What is one word, if you had to describe the schools you work with right now, what would be one word you'd use to describe the schools or the leaders of the schools that you serve?
Rachel Johnson:
Resilient.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. Love that. No, that's right. If we're still in education right now, we're resilient people, so good word. And then what would be one word you would hope would describe the next year in the schools that you serve?
Rachel Johnson:
I'd hope, it's a dramatic word, but I'd say transformational. Because I think if people can grasp this stuff, if they can make the time to think, if they can put themselves on their thinking tank first, I honestly believe we'll overcome challenges that we didn't think were possible. And I hope that in turn doesn't transform PiXL. It's not about that. It's about transforming them first and then transforming the way that they lead because that, I believe, unlocks everything else.
Jon Eckert:
That's a great word to end on. Well, Rachel, this conversation has been great for me. Huge encouragement. Thank you for the work you're doing and thanks for spending the time with us.
Rachel Johnson:
Thank you so much. I have loved speaking to you.
 

Humanizing Conversations: George Yancey

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. George Yancey, a Baylor University professor. Hear them discus his collaborative conversations model for addressing racial issues. He proposes goal-oriented dialogues that prioritize listening, empathy, and building on others' ideas. Yancey believes these conversations can foster deeper understanding and more productive solutions to racial and societal conflicts.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us for Just Leadership on February 3rd at Baylor University, a one-day professional learning event for school administrators – from instructional coaches to superintendents – that focuses on catalyzing change as a leadership team.Register Now!Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl

Catalyzing Culture in One of America's Best Schools: Abby Andrietsch

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Abby Andrietsch, CEO of St. Augustine Preparatory Academy, in Milwaukee. They discuss the school's rapid growth since its founding in 2017 and its mission to serve a diverse student body with excellence. Andrietsch shares insights into how Aug Prep has become one of the top-rated schools in the state and the transformative impact it has had on the surrounding community, including a 43% reduction in crime.The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcript:
Jon:
So today we have Abby with us. She is one of my favorite school leaders from one of my favorite schools in the country, St. Augustine Prep in Milwaukee. And so I want to start, before we jump into how you came to this, just tell the audience about Aug Prep, how it started and where it's at right now.
Abby:
Awesome. Thanks, Jon. So Aug Prep is not necessarily the typical story. We actually just started, we launched in 2017. So in a lot of ways we are a baby as an organization, but we have grown a lot since we launched. We serve today 2200 students on Milwaukee's South Side. We have the privilege of serving about 86% of our students would be considered low income, more than 95% students of color. And they just have all the potential in the world, same potential as my own kids who are actually also students here.
But we started in 2017 with a vision of being part of bigger, something bigger in Milwaukee to serve students with excellence. Milwaukee does have a voucher program, which created a lot of opportunity for us and we chose, our founders chose as we launched to start as a Christian school very intentionally knowing we'd get about a thousand dollars less per people. But that Jesus being at the core of everything we do was really essential.
And we started with four pillars, faith, family, excellence in academics, and athletics and arts. And I think a lot of schools do one or two of those really well, some even three. But it's rare that you see the four pieces coming together with excellence. And for us, I would say that's really the critical part of the fabric of who we are is serving our students with excellence, but serving the whole child with excellence.
Jon:
No, and I get to visit there and Erik Ellefsen, our Director of Networks and Improvement Communities has been talking about Aug Prep for years. I finally got to visit this past summer and it is a truly remarkable place. If I remember correctly, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, when your school started in the neighborhood that you were in, there was a dramatic reduction in crime in the neighborhood, literally transformed the neighborhood. In my mind it's like 42%. What's the actual number? Do you remember the actual number Abby?
Abby:
I do. It's 43, so you're really close We opened our doors, crime in our neighborhoods gone down by about 43%.
Jon:
Yeah, that's amazing. And that's what we want. We don't want just schools that are isolated things. We want schools that really serve their communities well and the communities that serve the school well. And so love that statistical evidence that this really has made a difference.
Now you just purchased a college campus on the North Side of Milwaukee. So talk about that and where you're headed because again, that's a big play to make right now, especially with some of the buildings that I know may not even be usable. I don't even know all the details, but where are you at in that process, Abby?
Abby:
So I have a business background, we'll get to that later, but we weren't planning this. The candor is it was an opportunity that God created that we kind of jumped in fully for. On the North Side of Milwaukee, there is a college, it was Cardinal Stritch that closed about three months before our founders were there for an event. It was the first time they had been there and they walked around thinking this place was meant to be a school.
And really long story short, the school was purchased. We are launching a second campus on Milwaukee's North Side. What I'm most excited about is actually the school is located in a place that bridges a lot of communities in Milwaukee from more affluent, whiter suburbs to some of the toughest zip codes in Milwaukee. And it's a really unique location. And actually the college that was there before, their history includes a deep history of faith and a deep history of diversity. And our vision for this campus is to create a campus that reflects the world we live in, where our kids are part of our diverse socioeconomic, cultural, racial student body, all grounded and unified and being in Christ, but seeing and valuing the differences in each other and learning and growing with each other through that.
Jon:
Love that vision, love the opportunity that wasn't even being sought out. I mean, it's so much of what Aug Prep's story is that you've just had your work multiplied in so many ways, which has been really meaningful. And now just another thing that stuck in my head. You're one of the, if not the top-rated school in Milwaukee. In what measure? How is that determined, Abby?
Abby:
So I mentioned earlier we're part of a voucher system in the state as such, and I'm a big believer in parent choice. And as we get public funds, being accountable to serving kids well. So I lead with the and academic excellence and serving the whole child Jesus, intertwined and grounding every piece of that. We are per the state's report card in the top 2% of growth of any schools in the state. We are the number one K to 12 school in Milwaukee, the number two in the state. We've gone back and forth between one and two. And that for me is a number. But numbers matter. I look at those numbers as necessary but not sufficient measures of, "Are we serving our students and our families well?"
Jon:
Love that example of excellence. And anytime you can measure growth and not just status proficiency, which can be based on the demographics of your school or the location and the educational attainment of parents, you actually are saying, "Here's where they come in and here's where they grow." And I love the point that it's necessary but not sufficient. And so in this conversation about choice and what that looks like, certainly in Texas, that's a really polarizing conversation right now.
At the center, we want to serve leaders who are doing great work to serve each kid wherever they're called to serve. And so that's how we came across you. So tell us how you got into this role of CEO of this startup school that now was purchased a college campus. How do you get into that? You have a fairly non-traditional journey. So would you mind sharing that?
Abby:
I do have a non-traditional journey. My training and education is a lot more on the business side. It was actually when I was in graduate school that I stepped from a room full of business leaders talking about what I thought I wanted to go into totally disheartened because I realized it wasn't what I wanted to do and I stepped into a room with people with business backgrounds working in education, and it was a light moment for me, a light bulb moment.
That in and of itself led me down working with some different national foundations. Gone back and forth in the corporate world a little bit, but I had the chance in Milwaukee almost 15 years ago to co-found an organization that worked with leaders from our local public schools, charter schools, and also private schools. And Aug Prep didn't exist at that point in time. And it was a group of leaders that came together around kids and quality and not politics of the adults really in the city.
And I spent about eight years getting to work with that organization, helping great schools grow, schools that wanted to get better, get better. We had a whole team of coaches that walked and worked with school leaders. I actually personally stepped away from that after eight years, wanting a little bit more time with my kids and to be the mom that I wanted to be. I just realized that the balance, it was a stage in life where I needed to step back. And about a year later I found myself in the interim role at Aug Prep, vehemently planning to be interim. And five and a half years later, I couldn't be happier to be here. Both of my kids are here. That was actually part of the decision to go from interim to full-time was my family made a decision to move closer to the school and to have our kids here. And it has just been God's, I think, biggest blessing for us in the last five and a half years through it all.
Jon:
Well, great example of the fact that I don't really think work-life balance exists. I think it's something that we always strive to attain. I've yet to meet anyone who's achieved it. And so I think there's work-life rhythm. So knowing when your family needs more of you. And then if you can get healthy work-life integration, which I think is what you've done, that's a win. That's a win.
Abby:
I think of it as harmony. So I like your rhythm, but I don't believe in work-life balance. But I do think there's a harmony that comes together and it looks different at different times.
Jon:
Well, and to be clear, so I give attribution, I think it's Adam Grant's work-life rhythm he talks about. I really like that. I think that's useful. So when you think about the challenges ahead for Aug Prep specifically, you're in a particular context. I mean Milwaukee is a gigantic voucher experiment that's been going on for decades. So it's in a different kind of context than a lot of people.
But what do you see as the biggest challenges to really being what you aspire to be at Aug Prep? That's one of the things I was impressed by this summer, you might be the number one or number two school in the state of Wisconsin for growth, but there definitely wasn't a sense that you had it all figured out. It felt like you all knew that there's places where you could get better and we're striving to do that. And that was what our work was together and how we do that joyfully. But in that joy there are challenges. And that joy doesn't mean it's the freedom from struggle. Joy is actually the fuel to struggle well, so when we lay these challenges out, that's not to depress the audience, but it's to be honest about, "Here are the challenges you see." So if you were to identify one, two, or three challenges ahead for Aug Prep, especially as you expand, what would you identify?
Abby:
Yeah. Well we've been a mixed expansion really since we started. In some ways we've added the equivalent of an additional school almost every year since we've opened. If I go big picture, I think the biggest challenge that we have as a community, but I would say this as a country as well, I just see it much more intensely as a community would be a lack of belief and a lack of hope.
So for our kids, especially in certain parts of Milwaukee, we have far too many kids that are 12, 13, 14 years old that are being told that they're never going to live to be 18, 19, 20. So just do what you want. Our kids need to be believed in and they need a sense of hope. And what I love about what I get to do is that hope gets to be Jesus grounded every day. In my last role, I didn't get to. Who I was as a leader, was deeply grounded in faith, but it wasn't an overt part of my job.
But as we think about the work we do that hope is eternal and earthly, but I think we have generations that have been failed, especially in our cities by our education system. And so how do we create a sense of hope where they don't see it from their past? And that's a big part. But along with that is a sense of belief in what's possible.
And I would argue that any of the kids that walk through our doors here at Aug Prep are just as capable as my own kids. They're just as capable as kids from our suburbs. And there are far too many adults that see the challenges, which are real, that they step in and through our doors with and don't believe that they can succeed at high levels. And I think the difference in what we do here is we do believe in what's possible. We set the bar high for them, equip them with tools to fly. But that lack of hope is I think one of our biggest challenges because it's mindset change, not just for our kids but for our community.
If I get tactical, we've been growing a lot and so we've always got to think about how do we hire great people? We're very intentional. We have a super rigorous process that people don't love going through, but when they're on the team, they love what it creates. Thinking about the growth that we've had in the last two years, we've hired more than 75 new staff each of the last two years. We've had more than 600 new students each of the last two years. That's a big deal. Both hiring enough great people, I would argue even more important is creating, keeping, and protecting the culture that we've worked so hard to build.
And so being really intentional about finding, developing, onboarding really great team members and even more, how do we be really intentional as new kids, as new staff come onboard? Having that culture that isn't created by lack of intention, but instead is there from the get-go. And actually it's gotten stronger each of the last couple of years as a result.
Jon:
Well, two things on that. You certainly will be a case study in the next book that I'm working on, which is Gritty Optimism: Catalyzing Joy in Just Schools. Because I think you're doing this in this powerful way where that optimism you have is grounded in the experience of what you've seen since 2017. You've seen kids become more of who they're created to be, and that becomes this virtuous cycle of improvement where you're not basing it on naive optimism where it's like, "I hope they'll be better or I think they could be better." You know they can be more of who they're created to be because you've seen it over and over again and then that becomes part of the culture.
The second part of that I wanted to ask is could you just briefly run through what your interview process is because that scale of hiring is remarkable in schools and trying to maintain culture and even improve culture doing that, that's a tremendous feat. So can you just describe what your interview process is?
Abby:
Yeah, that could be its own podcast.
Jon:
I'm sure. Yeah.
Abby:
And you can ask more. A couple of key pieces are part of it. A few years ago as a senior team, we took time to step back and say, "What are the most important characteristics of any team member at Aug Prep?" Could be a teacher, it could be administrator, could be one of our facilities, team members, security guard. And we identified three key pieces.
And for us, the first and foremost is an active and living faith walk with Jesus. The second is growth mindset and coachability. If you're an educator that's been in the work for 30 years, you don't think you have anything to grow and you want to coast, we're not the place to come. There are great places for educators that are there to go, but it's just not the right culture for us. And the third is actually belief and belief in our kids and our community and what's possible.
Those three things are built into every step of the process. From phone interview to essays, we ask people to write as part of the process to in-person. In addition to the core capabilities of any role, it's how are we really intentional? And we have a really diverse staff. I mean just even racially and ethnically, about 45% of our staff is diverse and we're working to make sure that that's throughout our organization and everybody is unified in certain places, Jesus being first and foremost and a desire to grow and learn. And so that in and of itself creates a place that staff members want to be and stay. So our goal is every year to have at least 90% of our staff stay. We've been between 85 and 90% for the last several years, 85 and 95% for the last several years. Our best source of new staff is our current team.
And so when people want to tell, we just had a team member whose sister and brother-in-law moved across the country from California. They were looking at Ohio and at Aug Prep. And when you have team members that love what they do and where they work every day, it's the best way for us to recruit new staff. And it's been a really big part of how we do what we do.
At the end of the day, we try to make sure every decision we make is around kids first. We are not a place that makes adult first decisions, and we recognize that in order to best serve our kids, we have to have a strong and healthy team. So there's a tension and balance that goes there, but I also think it means that we recruit team members with a really high bar for themselves with belief for kids, and that want to be in a place that strives to serve kids well. And that in and of itself creates that culture I talked about.
Jon:
I've been able to see that. Again, I need to be at Aug Prep when there are kids there because that's when it's fun.
Abby:
Yeah, you do.
Jon:
But in the team that you have, we have four of them that are in our master's program at Baylor. So Aug Prep has becomes some kind of a strange pipeline for Milwaukee to Waco Texas. But I see that in your team, they are building other leaders all the time. We always say leaders are always building leaders. And so they're encouraging the next group of people from Aug Prep. And I hope that we always have a nice conduit work. With your growth, you're going to need to continue growing leadership hopefully indefinitely, and you need partners to do that. We want to be that kind of catalytic partner for you where we can connect Aug Prep leaders with other schools because so many times, especially in the Christian school world, there's a lot of navel-gazing about, "These are our problems and nobody else's and nobody understands our context and nobody understands these challenges."
And what I've loved about the leaders that you've sent to us at Baylor is they're always looking to get more information and understand other contexts and figure out what they can take back to Aug Prep and then share out what is and isn't working at Aug Prep. And so that is a way to not only build culture, but actually accelerate that culture development. So really encouraged there. So we talked about the challenges, but you already kind of jumped into the opportunities you see, but what would be the thing you're most excited about for the year ahead for Aug Prep? And then we'll jump into a lightning round, but what are you most excited about for the year ahead and the opportunities you see?
Abby:
I'm most excited about, so this year ahead, we graduate our first group of college graduates. So I'm starting to see, I'll have finished my sixth year at the end of this school year. I'm just getting to see the ripple effects and I already see them. One of our graduates from just this last year is at Marquette. He's going on a service trip over Christmas this fall. He's talking about coming back and talking to our young men and women in chapel. And so just seeing the ripple effect of the leadership that's leaving. And he's actually a young man that would self-identify as lucky he didn't get kicked out in middle school, got in a lot of trouble. We do a lot around restorative practices. I know one of our fellows is doing a lot within the Baylor program around that. And it's so cool to watch our kids go from really struggling with themselves as much as it is with others and often with faith underneath to really flourishing and shining as young adults. And I can't wait to see what happens in the community.
So big picture, I'm probably most excited about watching some of our first class of graduates stepping into that next step of the journey. I think sometimes, and Jon, we've got four fellows at Baylor. You didn't ask me to do this, but we're a learning organization. There's a lot of things we're doing well. There's a lot of things we're still learning how to do. We want to share what we're doing, but how do we learn from others? And our fellows are down at Baylor because they're in a place that seeks to do that too. I've watched you and I've watched the Baylor school leadership, the Center for School leadership. It's not about faith or academic excellence, faith or serving the whole child. You all lead with that and that I talked about being really important and you create space for our leaders to learn.
And I think I often run into folks that say, "Well, you all are different. We can't do what Aug Prep is doing." I don't actually think we've done anything that's remarkably special or different. What we've done is pulled best practices from a lot of places and continued every year to think about how we get better, who do we need to learn from or what do we need to do differently? And we've been able to get bigger and better at the same time. We haven't arrived. I hope we never do because I think part of the culture of who we are is actually that constant mindset of what do we need to keep doing better to serve our kids and community?
Jon:
Love that attitude. Thank you. Thank you for that encouragement. And we just want to find more partners like you because they're out there. How do we connect other Aug Preps to this Aug Prep? People with a similar kind of mission and view and where can we learn together? And that's, I think as a Christian R1 University, that's our call is to help connect those pieces. So I'm grateful for the hard work you do or the work that the Lord does through you in the community because that's the evidence that it actually matters. Because we can talk about these things in platitudes all the time and sit down here at a university and say, "Hey, here's what we think people should do." What we need to see is what people are doing and where that's making a difference for kids.
So let's jump to the lightning round. So I know you have pulled from a lot of great ideas, so I'm curious if in the last year there's a really good book you might recommend to me and to us that you're like, "This was a super helpful book", whether it's in education or not, just a good book that you've read the last year. Or listened to. It's fine. Audible counts too.
Abby:
I do listen to a lot of books. I love to read, but I often find myself falling asleep when I sit down or lie down to read a little bit. You know what? I am a big believer in reading a lot of different things and pulling the pieces that apply most to your circumstances. So you talked about Adam Grant. I love reading his books. Anything Patrick Lencioni, I've read multiple times. We've pulled pieces from Jim Collins, Good to Great and Built to Last. And so I would say any of those pieces.
We read as a leadership group last year, Fierce Conversations, there's several takes of that, Radical Candor being one of them. But my probably biggest encouragement is be a reader. And for me it's been, those are all more leadership organizational books. When I'm really wrestling with a topic, I try to read the full spectrum of perspectives on it to then figure out where I'm at and finding those books. Just Teaching is one that I did just pick up in the last year, so I hadn't had a chance to see it before then, but it was one that I picked up and I'm not a teacher and so that's not my skill set, but there are pieces to learn and to then share with other people.
Jon:
Yeah, I love that. And it's really common, Abby, I hope you know that I am typically mentioned Lencioni, Adam Grant, Jim Collins, Jon Eckert. That's kind of the normal group that I'm mentioned. So that's comforting to know that.
Abby:
You know what actually what ties all of those people together, Jon, is you don't just think in theory. So when you write, you're not just thinking in theory. And I will own that that can be my struggle with higher ed is sometimes just being caught up in the theory. It's all of those leaders who are also authors think about how you take the theory and apply it in practice and how do you break it down in a way that is easy to digest. And so Lencioni writes in fables, Adam Grant tells his stuff in a lot of stories as well. And so that's, at least for me, usually I capture lessons learned by seeing things either I'm struggling with or trying to figure out how to put words into in stories that other people are talking about.
Jon:
Yeah. Well, and I love all those same authors for the same reason. And then is this Fierce Conversation because this the one by Susan Scott, is that who you?
Abby:
Yeah.
Jon:
So I have not read that one. It looks like another one I should read. So thank you for that. So let's start with this. Worst piece of advice you've ever given or received?
Abby:
Worst piece of advice?
Jon:
It could be a leadership piece.
Abby:
I had somebody tell me that I was taking somebody else's spot in business school because I wasn't sure if at some point I'd want some time to stop and be a mom. And so that was probably the worst piece of advice and my encouragement for anyone listening is that I think there's different phases of life. I also think that any education we get can be applied to lots of aspects of what we do.
Jon:
Yeah, no, that's good. I'm assuming that was because that was your degree at Stanford when you were getting question on that, right? I can't imagine.
Abby:
Right. And that was an awesome degree, but I actually had a whole conversation. It was someone in a generation that fought so that people like I can make the decisions that are best for me. But I think they fought for the choice, not for the decision themselves. And I appreciate being able to make it myself.
Jon:
That's well said. That's another podcast that we could do on how those choices get made. And so really grateful for that background you have because I think your curiosity and your ability to synthesize theory and apply it, I mean that comes great degree programs will do that. And obviously Stanford knows something about educating people, so that's good. Then best piece of advice you've ever given or received?
Abby:
Not to seek perfection, but always to strive to keep getting better. I think we get caught up in trying to be perfect and miss the opportunity to keep getting better.
Jon:
That's our favorite quote we use with our improvement communities. That your plan is possibly wrong and is definitely incomplete. So that should be empowering. There's places to grow. Then if you could in a word or a phrase, describe what Aug Prep will be in the next year, what would it be? So word or phrase for Aug Prep that would describe it in the next year?
Abby:
My hope is that it is a light on the hill. How do we be a light for the community, not just the kids in our building, but the whole community outside our building as well?
Jon:
Love that, beautiful sentiment. Well, Abby, thank you for being with us. Thanks for the work you do at Aug Prep. It's great to have partners like you because you make us all better.
Abby:
Thanks, Jon. Appreciate it.
 

Enhanced Engagement Through Phone Freedom: Matt Northrop

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Matt Northrop, the Associate Head of School at Oaks Christian School in Southern California. They discuss the school's decision to eliminate cell phone use during the school day and the positive effects this has had on student engagement and community building. Northrop shares insights into the implementation process and how students and parents have responded. The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcription:
Jon:
Today, we're here with Matt Northrop, amazing leader in Southern California at Oaks Christian School. This conversation really started through a text exchange where I was asking how the year was going, and I got this great response from Matt. First of all, give us a little bit of a window into how the year started at Oaks and what you're doing is a little bit different than what you've done in the past.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Jon, have the utmost respect for you and the show and all the things that you all are doing, but yeah, this year we, so a little bit about Oaks Christian. We are about 1,700 students, a little over 1,100 on the high school side. This year we made the jump in after reading Anxious Generation made the decision with leadership that we wanted to walk away from our students being able to use cell phones while on campus. We've had a number of different iterations with cell phones. We've used them in the classrooms, we've kind of jumped in on the tech side and really believing that that could be a tool. I think a lot of schools have gone that direction. We just really felt as we not only read it, but also as we saw a lot of the same conclusions that he was coming up with, we really felt like we needed to do something drastic on the phones.
We had pretty early on made sure that our teachers were involved in this decision and that they were aware of it and communicated at the beginning of the summer for all of our students and parents. What we've done is we've made it where you can't have a cell phone on or in your possession throughout the school day from, and we start our first classes at 8:30, so 8:30 until 3:15. What we have found, and this is what we were texting back and forth, is it has absolutely ... Not that our culture wasn't for us. I think the culture was always there. What the cell phone was doing was interrupting what the culture had the potential of being. As we took away cell phones in these first few weeks of school, the noise level in the hallways has multiplied probably two or three fold in good ways.
Kids are laughing, kids are playing games, they actually have board games in our spiritual life office that they're playing. Kids are in circles and they're having conversations. They're sharing stories where you might find the first few weeks when there were cell phones, and kids sitting on a couch or a chair somewhere just kind of minding their own business on the phone. I don't see kids by themselves anymore. Whether that's them having the courage of just wanting to go out and start talking with friends or meet new friends, or if that's people, kids on our campus who are seeing somebody who's all by themselves and sitting down and having that conversation. It has been a huge boost to our community, to the connection that takes place on campus. We've really look back at the teachers are saying, this is a game-changer for the school.
Jon:
It's powerful. We're hearing this, I mean, some states are banning phones, there are districts moving to this, they're public schools, independent schools. I'm curious to hear how your parents received this. You mentioned teachers starting to communicate this I think early in the summer. How did you go about communicating this shift and moved away from, this is something that I think sometimes kids feel like it's a punitive measure, like you're taking away something to, oh no, we're offering you something better. We've had an engaging culture in the past, we think this will be even better. How did you roll that out? Then what was the response that you got maybe initially versus where you're at right now?
Matt Northrop:
Sure. What was interesting is we communicated this via email to parents at the beginning of summer. We kept waiting, honestly, as administrators waiting for an angry mob to approach us. We did not receive a single email from a parent that was upset about this policy. In fact, at our new parent orientation a week before school started, it got a huge ovation, the fact that we were making this decision. This is one of those decisions for us that it has had the support of our parents from the get-go.
Part of that is I think parents are starting to see this, and then part of that was probably the way that we communicated this out as far as, again, we're not trying to make their kids miserable. We're not trying to keep them from connecting to their kids. What we are trying to do is have academic conversations, increase community, allow their kids to be able to see each other face-to-face and develop empathy and develop courage and develop curiosity and all of those things that can be difficult to do with a cell phone on their hand. What's interesting too, Jon, is I've had a few kids walk up and they look to their left and they look to their right, make sure no friends are listening and they say, "Thank you, Dr. Northrup, for taking the cell phones away. Even the kids, to some degree, not all of them are happy about this for sure, but to some degree I believe that they're starting to see the difference on campus to have that connection.
Jon:
Did you get resistance from students at the beginning that's now reduced or did you have any of that pushback from them?
Matt Northrop:
Nothing serious. Kind of the adolescent eye roll, probably collective eye roll, but again, even as reminders on campus, the reminder is not, we don't have big cell phones with a red circle and red lines through it. We have the reason why, so we're emphasizing community. We're emphasizing contribution, and we're emphasizing celebration. If your head's not up and your eyes aren't open, you can't do any of those things, and so be available. See those things that you can celebrate on campus, find ways in which you can contribute and then be a part of this community.
Jon:
Love that, love the three Cs there, and it's a positive, not a negative. I think that's remarkable. I think more schools can lean into that in ways that I think would be increasingly life-giving. I was going to say, your school. I've been able to be on your campus several times, and it's one of the more engaging campuses I've ever been on because you have these institutes that connect kids, and you're now fifth through 12th grade or have, you've gone down to fourth?
Matt Northrop:
Fourth through 12th.
Jon:
Fourth through 12th. Fourth through 12th grade, you have this deeply engaged campus where you're moving all over, it feels like a college campus, and kids are entering into these different spaces and doing the work of professionals and they're connected to professionals. You're obviously in a talent-rich environment that you tap into well, so talk a little bit about the way you all think about engagement anyway, even removed from the smartphone conversation. How do you think about that in meaningful ways?
Because I think, let me back that up with one other piece of context, because what you said earlier resonated from what Jonathan Haidt said about the students. He asks about the way technology interferes with their engagement. He asked them his classes, "Is anybody here upset that Netflix is a thing that they're streaming on Netflix?" Everybody's like, "Yeah," Netflix, they love Netflix. Netflix is a win. Then he's asked them, "Does anybody wish that we could go back from social media?" About half of them say they would like that to go away, which I think speaks to kind of the invasive nature of some of the technology where Netflix wants you to give it your attention because it wants you to be on, but it's not this constant clawing at you that I think we all feel even as adults.
When we talk about kids not being able to handle phones, and I would argue most adults can't handle their phones either because it's a multi-billion dollar industry to try to keep our attention. I think you all have acknowledged that, have seen that, but I think better than most schools, you have already built a culture of engagement that already was focused on community, contribution, celebration. Talk a little bit about where you've built that culture and then maybe how this has added to it.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. There's a couple things that come to mind as I think through community. One is we've, from the very get-go, been very Socratic, especially in our humanities. A normal thing is to walk to campus and you'll see the Socratic circles with a novel out, with scripture out, with a document that they're reading together, asking great questions. I think that has lended itself where the teacher is not the center of the classroom. The discussion is, or an idea is versus the teacher. The teacher typically will sit down with the students in a posture of learning together. I think from the very beginning, Oaks has been a place where scholarly conversation, it's a normal thing for kids who engage in that scholarly conversation.
Jon:
Let me interject there. I did get to see a conversation at your school where they were discussing the things they carry, and there were about 12 students gathered around with a teacher. It was really hard to tell where the teacher was and where the students were, but the conversation was one of my favorite conversations I've ever been able to listen into, so absolutely agree. That was now maybe four years ago?
Matt Northrop:
Five years ago, yeah.
Jon:
Yeah, four or five years. Amazing, so yeah, I can second that. That's a powerful thing that you all do at Oaks.
Matt Northrop:
A special part for sure. Then I think on the other side of things, we also genuinely believe that our students can be contributors to society, to culture now. They don't need to wait until they're 35. with these, we've started five institutes. These are institutes for students. We have about 25% of our kids that are part of one of these. It's for students who are thinking that they may want to be an engineer or they want to be a filmmaker. We have our Institute for Arts Innovation, Institute for Global Leadership, which is Finance and Law, Institute of Engineering, which has our idea lab. We just added Health Sciences Institute and a Bible and Discipleship Institute for kids who want to go deeper into those areas.
It really becomes a highly engaging elective set of offerings. I think one of the things that I love, so maybe just as a story that might help bring this out as far as the engagement is concerned, we had an assignment that was given probably three years ago now to students, and it was just an open-ended develop a, and this was in our engineering institute, develop a water filtration device for an area, geographic area in the world that doesn't have readily access to clean water.
That was the topic, and so they began to work on it, ended up putting together things that I don't completely understand as a history major, but ozone, sand filtration, heat, and there's one more element that they put together into one unit and then found out later that nobody had ever developed a filtration device like this. The next year, they wrote a journal article on it, they began to continue to test it. It was found to be 99.9% effective. That was the second year. Third year is they began to link arms with some of our other institutes of trying to find a way, how do we bring this now to an area of the world that would need this? We're sending a team in October to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where we are bringing some of our global leadership students who are looking to come alongside young businesses that are happening there in ways that we can help and support that they're bringing the water device as well to be able to figure out what we can do there.
Then all of it is being collected for a documentary for social change designed to help bring awareness to both, both to schools as far as things that we can do to help engage our students beyond just book knowledge, but practical knowledge as well. Also, to be able to showcase what kids can do today that can benefit the world when they're 17 years old versus when they're 37 years old. Something to help inspire this generation to be difference makers. It's an example of probably an abnormal one on our campus, but a normal conversation that's happening on our campus on a regular basis.
Jon:
No, and two things that that made me think of from what I've seen on campus, your idea lab, your innovation lab is in a former dog food factory. You've converted into this amazing space where the first time I was there, Jet Propulsion Labs had just been there the day before because they partner with you. I think at the time you were the only high school in the country they would partner with. They typically only partner with universities. There was a conversation going on in that lab about getting water to different parts of the world that were not getting water. It wasn't a filtration thing, it was just how to do a water project. They were white boarding all these things and generating ideas and these really creative problem solving ways with a teacher there that was super animated in what he was doing.
It was also tied into, I think he was going over there some rocketry and telemetry things on one of the boards that I did not understand. Then we walked over to a machine that you have that you had a teacher and a student go get trained on it. It was like a four or five-day training, and he was going to Stanford, I think he was the head of your debate team, and he was trained on this. He talked us through, in detail, this unbelievably complex machine that you had invested time in him so that he could then invest time in students totally a transformational space on so many levels because of the human beings. It wasn't about the tools, it was the way the humans were using the tools. It was amazing. Then I think the next day they were filming a feature length film.
There was a fight scene that was about to happen on campus that the booms were ...
Matt Northrop:
[inaudible 00:15:02].
Jon:
Yes, then it was all staged. It wasn't a real fight but ...
Matt Northrop:
[inaudible 00:15:06].
Jon:
... It's just seeing all that come together in the documentary and the leadership pieces and in the lab and then taking it and using it globally. I mean, again, you don't want smartphones to get in the way and distract from that kind of deeper problem solving that changes students at your school as they seek to serve the world in ways that, I think, most high school students don't have a vision for what that could be because they don't necessarily have those same opportunities to think that way, because the institutes you've built bring in the kind of outside expertise that feeds Oaks and then Oaks can feed back out. Which, I mean, that's pretty powerful. I wish everybody had a chance to just walk around your campus and just see, because I was just there on random days, the times I've been there, it wasn't like anything special was going on that day, it was just, this is just what happens on campus, which was amazing.
Matt Northrop:
Yeah. I do think one of the elements there too is, and you've alluded to it, but finding people in your area, whether it's parents or community members that can help take the kids to the next level in those areas as well. We have advisory councils around each one have been kind of that Wayne Gretzky quote, "You don't just want to skate to where the puck is, but where it's going," and so looking at engineering of where is engineering going? Where is computer science going? Where's leadership going and preparing our kids for that?
Jon:
I love that, and any community can do that. Obviously, you're in a fairly unique place with some of the resources you have in your community, but every community has those resources and it doesn't really have to cost the school anything extra. In fact, it can bring resources with it where people get invested and they see what these high school kids are doing and they're like, "Oh yeah, here's some." I'm sure you have many examples of that. As the community engages your school, both sides benefit.
A couple of questions. These are typically, I do like a lightning round or shorter answer questions, which I'm terrible at answering. I always like to see how well you can do this. Have there been any books that you've read in the last year that you're like, "Yeah, absolutely." Other educators, Anxious Generation, 100%, and you're like, "Yes, everybody needs to read that if you're a parent, educator." We had both of our two oldest children, we had them read it because we're like, "Hey, this is talking about you all," and it was super impactful for them. Any other books you've read that you would recommend to the people listening?
Matt Northrop:
I have loved, we've been walking through with one of our groups, the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by Jon Mark Comer, The Importance of Solitude and Silence and Sabbath and Slowing Down. I think for all of us, that was challenging then one that I've always loved that we're reading as well as The Power of Moments by Dan or Chip and Dan Heath, that one's an eye-opener and so applicable to so many areas of school.
Jon:
Love both of those books. I also just read Jon Mark Comer's Practicing the Way this year. Super helpful. Good follow up to it. At least this one, he's not just taking Dallas Willard's quote and making it his book title, so that's a win. The Power Moments, the idea of the peak end rule, the idea that the promise of risk-taking is learning. It's not success. How do you do that? How do you build that into your system? Power Moments has been one of my favorite books since that came out in 2017, so hey, I would second both of those. As you look ahead at schools in general, what do you see as the biggest challenge to engaging kids? You've removed smartphones, that's key. You've got these things going on, but what do you see as the biggest challenge to engaging kids?
Matt Northrop:
That's a good question. I'd say one of the things that I am starting to see, and I guess it surrounds the AI conversation, and I think we're all trying to figure out as educators, where does AI fit? We've been taking a look at it as well. I think one of the things that we're trying to do is making sure that that is exaggerating the humanness of relationship and community where AI is. There was just that recent article of a UK school that is now teacherless and completely driven by AI.
We're certainly not a school that runs away from technology, but I think that has a profound impact on education, on making sure that we're engaging our students. I hope we're not walking away from humanness altogether. I think as we look at AI to remember the impact that a teacher has in a classroom of kids of that face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball, wrestling with big ideas, having those conversations that are all unique to each class period and not getting to the point where we're letting AI teach our kids. I think that's a dangerous spot. Nor do I really think that that really engages young people either.
Jon:
Everything you've talked about so far on this podcast could be potentially aided by artificial intelligence, but it could not be done with artificial intelligence. I love that exaggerating the humanness of school. If you've read any of Cal Newport's stuff, he wrote Deep Work and then he just came out with a book, Slow Productivity, his claim, and he's a computer science MIT grad professor at Georgetown. He makes a living in the world of artificial intelligence and computers. He said, "What will become increasingly valuable in the decades ahead, wherever the world goes, is the more human our contribution is, because that's where our value is in our humanness. What are you uniquely capable of offering the world if you're able to articulate that and obsess over quality, doing less things at a natural pace?" Ruthless Elimination of Hurry ties in nicely there. That's the value you have. How do we help kids see what they've been created to be and what they contribute?
Obviously, tools can help with that, but they will not replace that because AI, I always say this, this is from Darren Speaksma, it's consensus. That's all it is. It's scraping large language models. It's consensus. It is not wisdom and it can't be wisdom. There are things like if you're writing a paper, there are things where AI is super helpful for checking and fixing, but if it's generating, I don't want to read something generated by AI. One of my worst nightmares is that AI-generated emails will begin to fill up my email box to the point where I feel like I need AI-generated responses and it's just AI talking to AI, and I'm just this third party looking on at this nightmare. To me, how do we keep, I totally agree on exaggerating the humanness of what we do because that's the joy in schools. All right, so then what do you see as your biggest hope for engaging students well? I mean, I think you all are doing a lot of this really well. What would you say your biggest hope is?
Matt Northrop:
I think my largest hope is in the things that I'm seeing, and I know you're seeing in different Christian schools and different schools around the world, I think that we're getting to a place, as I look around, there's just so much hope in so many schools with amazing educators and leaders that are doing phenomenal things. Both with the hand in who we have been and who we've been as teachers and mentors for centuries. Yet also ,a hand in where is the world going and how do we continue to prepare our kids for a future that we don't know? I think I'm hopeful for these types of conversations. I'm hopeful for us as schools to become less siloed, maybe less competitive at times, and to be able to learn from one another and those unique things that we all bring to a conversation. There's still yet a school to visit where I haven't learned something from that school that I can pretty much immediately take back to Oaks. I think that's where the hope is, I guess, collaboration with one another and learning from one another.
Jon:
That's the whole reason why the Baylor Center for School Leadership exists. We try to bring schools together to do this work of improvement because we can always get better and it's a lot more fun to get better with each other. If you get a chance to visit Oaks Christian, you have to do it. The good thing is we have nothing to be afraid of in the future because we serve a sovereign God and He's not worried about the future and that victory is already done. When your eternity is all set, what happens between now and when we get to heaven, that's all just an adventure that we get to enjoy and create powers of moments and ruthlessly eliminate hurry and practice following Christ in ways that make us more like Him. It's a pretty good work that we get to do. Matt, thanks for all you do. Thanks for being on today.
Matt Northrop:
Thanks, Jon.
 

Hope in Challenging Times: Janet Gibson

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Janet Gibson, an experienced educator and leader at Baylor University. They discuss the importance of conflict resolution in education and how to equip leaders with the tools needed to navigate challenges effectively. Dr. Gibson shares insights from her extensive background in school administration and her current role in directing Baylor’s executive EdD program. The conversation also highlights the significance of maintaining a student-centered approach and the power of cultivating hope within school communities.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership. Each week, we'll talk to catalytic educators who are doing amazing work.
Be encouraged.Join us on October 15th at the Hurd Welcome Center for an in-person information session to hear more about the MA in School Leadership and the EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership. This is a free event but we need you to register here: https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/2003682/1973032/
 
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Transcript:
Jon Eckert:
Welcome back to the Just Schools podcast. Today we are here with Dr. Janet Gibson, who is an amazing educator and is a great colleague here at Baylor. We've been able to work together full-time for the last year. I've learned a ton from Dr. Gibson, so I'm excited for her to be here today. So Dr. Gibson, when you decided to come to Baylor, you had a lot of experience that brought you to that point. So can you give us a quick, here's where I've been and this is why I'm now here at Baylor?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, sure. Well, first off, thanks for having me. But yeah, so my background just started out as an educator in special education, and then quickly went into administration. And so I spent probably about, I would say 15 plus years in administration where I was a middle school assistant principal, elementary principal, high school principal, and then I went into central administration. And all of that experience was kind of in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in various sizes of school districts. And I was an assistant superintendent, not that exact title, but that was the role, in a very large district right outside of the Dallas area. Spent several years doing that. And then my last experience was in a suburban district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where I was assistant superintendent.
And in those roles I had lots of experience covering curriculum instruction, supervising principals, and all of those experiences have led me to Baylor, led me to that opportunity. Obviously when you are a principal or you're an assistant superintendent, and even in one of the districts, I was an interim superintendent, that gave me lots of opportunities for... What word would I use here? Opportunities, I guess would just be the best word to describe it, to have different experiences, whether it's with students, whether it's with teachers, parents, other educators. Just different opportunities that I think right now in what we do here at Baylor just lends itself well to be that practitioner that is giving those types of things back to our students. So when I left public ed after 27 years in public ed, I spent a year working for Engaged to Learn.
Jon Eckert:
That's great.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
And I coached educators around the United States, not just in Texas, so around the United States, and worked mainly with central office educators, in coaching them. And that experience, even just getting out of Texas really lends itself well to what we do here at Baylor and coaching those that are coming up in education, those that are going to be leading districts. And so that really just lends itself well to what we were doing here at Baylor. And what brought me to Baylor was just I think the Lord's blessing me in that because I never really thought I would have that opportunity to be at Baylor. And so I really just feel like it's just been a great blessing to be here and have those experiences from my past in the various different roles that have just really blessed me to be here at Baylor.
Jon Eckert:
Well, what I love about the role you're in now is the director of our executive EDD program is you started off as a special ed teacher, and I feel like those people are gold because you know how to see each student. Because that's what you're trained to do as a special ed teacher, and that never goes away. And so you then had all these other lenses to look at education from school level to district level, then coaching across the country and out here at Baylor, but you never lose sight of that individual student. And you do that for our doctoral students. I know they reach out to you when they have personal needs, they have other things because you see the whole human being. And so I think that's unbelievable preparation and the people listening won't know. But I was on three different search committees, I think in the year we eventually hired you, and I wanted to hire you for all three positions.
So I was like, "Which one of these is the best fit?" And I think the Lord knew the best fit. And so in our doctoral program, you teach a conflict resolution class, and you've now done that for a few years, because even before we'd hired you full-time you were doing that. And you've had obviously in 27 years in K through 12 and then coaching administrators all over the country, you have plenty of opportunities to engage in conflict. And there's a lot of growth that happens through conflict, but most of us want to avoid it. And I feel like I've gotten to sit in on some of your training when we've had educators in, and I've heard about your classes. But if you were to say, "Hey, here are two or three takeaways for those people listening, whether they're teachers or administrators, here are some things, always lean into this." What would you share with them?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Gosh, that's a great question. Well, conflict is inevitable. We can't get away from conflict. And so it's really just ensuring you have a tool kit available to you when you are dealing with conflict. And so throughout my class, I really try to give them different lenses to look at the conflict and different ways to handle that conflict. And so I bring in different guest speakers where they can hear how they have handled conflict throughout the years. And you mentioned my experiences with conflict. One of the districts that I was in dealt with a tremendous amount of conflict in that district.
And I bring some of those stories to my class not to expose, but to share and so that the students can learn from those experiences. And so the other thing is the Bible is the best learning tool. And so we really talk a lot about the different stories in the Bible where there was so much conflict, but yet this is where you can lean into the answers for how to solve conflict. And so I hope throughout what my answer here, that I gave you the three answers there is that it doesn't go away. It's inevitable. Have your toolkit available. And the best places to find those answers is the Bible. And so those are the things that I try to share with the students.
Jon Eckert:
So you just encapsulated to me the beauty of an executive EDD program at a place like Baylor. So you have the theory behind what it is. You certainly have read a lot. You can apply theoretical approaches, which you would get in a PhD program. You have the applied experience of here's what I've been through and here's, I'm sure, what you're going through. And it's not, here's what I did, now you should do this. It's grounded in biblical wisdom. That is this ancient understanding of how human beings work.
And being able to do that at a place like Baylor, that's the blessing of being at a research one university where you can be explicit about that. Because you and I spent most of our careers before higher ed, all of our careers in public schools where you could do all that implicitly, but you couldn't come out and say, "And here's why." And so that to me is the value of being in a place like Baylor because they get that experience, they get that theory, but then they also can get this explicit grounding in why we do what we do. And there's great hope in that.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
So that really gets to the next question. Talk a little bit about what we get to do at Baylor and the kinds of students that we get to serve, because that's why we're here. They're doing the hard work, we're coming alongside and trying to give them tools, questions, processes to do that work better. But talk a little bit about what you've found in this year doing this full-time now.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, so one of the best things we get to do is we get to recruit highly, highly qualified educators to come and be a part of our program. And so we get to do that and recruit a new cohort every year to come in. And then once they're here, we really get to... and the cohort model is the key, is that they move throughout our three-year program. And we try to have for us in the EDD and also for the master's program, it's a cohort model as well. But we move them through in that cohort model, through the program. And we have full-time professors and we have adjunct professors that are practitioners. So they've been in the seats that our students are in, but then also are the researchers as well.
And so they have the best, most highly qualified professors in front of them that are giving them, just like you described, the theory, all of those things, the practical things as well. But we have that biblical experience that we can talk to them about, but they get to engage in so many practical activities and lessons. They get to go on field trips and see different districts and how different districts are engaging in the different topics that we're discussing in our classes. And I believe just this cohort model and being in-person, and that's the other key to our program, is that it's in-person. I think that lends itself to being so important because they're engaged with each other, they're engaged with their professors. And I think that's what makes our program special. And because it's smaller numbers as well, we know our students, not just who they are as a student, but who they are as a person.
I mean, we know if they're going through trials at home, if they're going through trials at work, we know what is going on. And I think that's important where sometimes in larger cohorts or organizations and things like that, or even online, you don't know. You don't have as much of that personal touch. And I think we have that, and I think that's what makes our program special. So as our students move through, they get to engage in that. And then of course we have our clinical experience that I think is outstanding where our students get to go through a mentorship with myself as their clinical leader here at Baylor, but a mentor back at their home district where they can really engage in some very thoughtful, practical experiences that can benefit them as they increase their leadership experience.
Jon Eckert:
Well, in the last year that you've been here, I don't know how many coffees, breakfast, prayer times, crying times that you've engaged with our students, but it's been such a huge blessing to our students. They talk about it all the time, and so huge asset there. And I think the size of the cohort matters because if you get stretched too thin, you can't do it. And one of our former colleagues, Bradley Carpenter, would always recruit the 12. And so we would always shoot for 12 in our cohorts. And I was always like, "It sounds like we're picking disciples here." I was like, "No, we're not doing that. We're all following Christ, we're not trying to." But there is something about that. And now with the master's program and the EDD, our master's program, we bring in about 35 to 40 master's students a year.
Now, a third of this cohort eight in the EDD are from the master's program. And that's beautiful because we get 18 months to try to orient them to what improvement science looks like. And so we're going to ask them to do a lot of work in the EDD program. They're going to do a dissertation. But what I always say is, while it's a lot of work, it's better work, and it's all grounded in what they're doing in their schools anyway, so that when they finish the program and they finish that dissertation, it doesn't just go sit on a shelf. They use that in their next job interview. They use that to say, "Hey, here's the work that is different because of what the Lord's done through me in the lives of kids." And if they're doing that in public school, it's just like, "Hey, look how much growth has happened here among teachers, among administrators, among kids."
And that's the beautiful thing about the way the EDD is set up. It's not trying to fill a hole in the literature. It's not some really esoteric, narrow thing that allows you to go into academia and write papers that five people read. It actually makes a difference in the lives of kids. And we get to see that. And especially you get to see that in the clinical piece. So you go out and see our students there. What have been some of the more hopeful things that you seen out when you've been out doing clinical visits? Where have you seen like, "Oh wow, that's amazing. These are the students that we see." Can you think of anything off the top of your head? Anything specific or general?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
I can. So in particular this year, one of our students worked with a smaller district near here, and she created a product through the clinical experience for this district. That without that mentorship, without that partnership and that clinical experience, the district would've never come out with that product. And it was an MTSS handbook.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
MTSS is a requirement for our students to have experiences with in the public schools and have exposure to. And that district just didn't have the capacity to create that. And she created that for them. And in her observation, the last observation that I was there for, that district had shared it with other surrounding districts that they are a part of because they're, again, a smaller district. And about six other districts are going to be modeling their handbook after that. And so that wasn't just the one little district, that spread out too. And so you think about the exponential touch that just that one product had for... That's going to be impacting students because MTSS is that tiered model, that leveled model of support for students. And it just started with one student and one superintendent in one district, and now it's impacting several other districts.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's the definition of a catalyst. An agent that provokes or speeds up change without being used up. So that work that she did, hard work, created this product that then made other people's work easier to better serve the needs of each kid. I was just out last week with Christina Flores, I didn't know this, she's known as C-Flow, so in Riesel. And she had done several days of professional development with all of her campus leaders, and I got to do kind of the wrap-up piece of it. But it was so amazing to see the work they were doing in a small district in central Texas, but really good work in her dissertation was going to be amazing work. I get to be her dissertation chair. So when we get to chair these dissertations, you walk alongside this person for a couple years and you get to see from the idea to the implementation to the evidence what difference it makes. And so it's pretty cool to see that. And then when you see it going beyond that one district to other districts, it makes what we do feel like it's worthwhile.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Yeah, for sure.
Jon Eckert:
So that's good. So if you were to, in three or four sentences, describe what you see in Texas, in education, Texas or in the country, how would you describe what you're seeing as a leader in education going on in public schools, private schools, whatever you've seen?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
I see right now a shift happening. As I exited public ed, there was a shift happening as well, but it was kind of a negative shift happening. There was a lot of political, just a lot of divisiveness happening in schools around the country, those kinds of things that were happening. And right now, I really honestly see this uptick, this positive shift happening, and it gives me a lot of hope. And what I'm seeing with our students, and I know you said three to four sentences and I'm saying a whole lot more.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's all right. I'm terrible at this as well. So that's just a try.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Okay, thanks. I see students that are wanting to be our next leaders that have so much passion in what they do and what they believe in in what is happening in our schools, that it just gives me so much hope in this shift of just this next generation of leaders. And so I do, I just see this uptick in this positivity of what's happening in public ed in particular.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. So in one sentence, the year ahead, what do you hope this year will look like? If you can put it can be a run-on sentence if you want it to be.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Good. Thank you.
Jon Eckert:
But go for it.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
And so I'm going to focus on our students. I hope our students are able to let their passion shine in their schools because I think, and this is where my run-on is going to be, because I think they've tried to hide and been afraid because of that turmoil that had been happening, have been afraid to let that passion shine. And so my hope is that they let their lights shine this year and their passion shine.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. Love that. I think I know what this might be, but if you had to use one word to describe the next year, what would be the word that you believe would best represent the next year?
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Hopeful.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. And it sounds like given your answer, you see evidence of that. That's not a naive optimism that that hope's back. And that is one of the blessings of being in the position we're in. We get to see districts and schools and leaders all over the place. So when you're in your own district or in your own school or you're in your own classroom, sometimes you get myopic and you only see... and you see amazing things up close, but then you don't see the landscape. And I do think you're right. I think we have hit a transition point where there is more hope, now that's fragile.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
We can crush it really quickly and we're going to have conflict.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
For sure.
Jon Eckert:
Again, hope doesn't mean freedom from conflict. We're going to have it. It's going to be there. So I'm really grateful for the work that you do and the work that we get to support together, because again, our jobs are only meaningful if the people we serve are doing meaningful work with real kids. So thanks for all you do, and thanks for being here.
Dr. Janet Gibson:
Well, I'm blessed to be here. Thank you for having me.