Just Schools

Flourishing for All Humanity: Matthew Lee

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Dr. Matthew Lee, research professor at Baylor University and co-leader of the Global Flourishing Study—a longitudinal project spanning 22 countries and nearly 200,000 people. They discuss what it means to flourish as whole human beings and how education can support not only academic success but spiritual, emotional, and relational well-being.
Dr. Lee shares insights on how flourishing is not just about individual happiness or wellness, but about contributing to the greater good—what he describes as "ecosystem-wide flourishing." He and Eckert explore how love, hospitality, and compassion can shape the culture of schools, drawing from research and real-world examples, including organizations like Barry-Wehmiller that center care and community in their leadership.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Unreasonable Hospitality by Will GuidaraChristian Caregiving: A Way of Life by Kenneth Haugk
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
 
Transcript:
Jon Eckert:All right. Today we get to welcome a good friend and colleague at Baylor University. So Matt Lee is here with us today, and his work all revolves around flourishing, which is the ultimate goal of all education and one of the most intrinsically human things that we think about. So Matt, if you just give us a quick intro as to why you're at Baylor and kind of the 30,000-foot view of what you do here at Baylor.Matt Lee:Well, thanks, Jon. I'm delighted to be here at Baylor, and I would say part of the reason that I'm here is that the Global Flourishing Study is a joint project of Baylor and Harvard, and this is a five year, 22 country survey to understand the forces that affect flourishing for about 200,000 people globally. And we've got nationally representative samples in each of these countries. So we're almost able to generalize to all humanity, which is unusual for a study. And to have this longitudinal approach enables us to follow up over time, look at changes. We've got the time ordering nailed down, we've got some statistical techniques to address robustness. We're almost able to make causal claims that generalize to all humanity. So that was one of the reasons.The other thing is I just really appreciate Baylor's mission and ability to combine really rigorous research with a Christian commitment. And so I think that is a special strength of Baylor University, not to go into a commercial for Baylor right now.Jon Eckert:Oh no, we're all for that. But it's one of the reasons why our work overlaps, because we work with education leaders in over 45 countries and all 50 states and the stated goal of education since Aristotle has been for the flourishing of human beings. And so there's obviously a school component of this. You're looking at all of humanity. Again, that's not probably something I'll ever be able to say as a researcher that I've able to generalize findings to all humanity.But I'm curious to hear how you all think about words like flourishing in love and operationalize those for educators. What does that look like in whatever school you're called to? Obviously, we're here at Baylor and we can have a faith component to what undergirds everything we do, but a lot of our educators that we serve are in public schools, and there's secular humanism there, and there's all different kinds of kids with all different kinds of backgrounds. So what does flourishing and love look like universally, in the way you would define it?Matt Lee:Well, I would frame it as a dialogue. And so we are contributing to a dialogue. And I remember there was a chaplain at Harvard who used to just observe that Harvard tends to treat students as though they are just a brain on a stick or maybe a neocortex on a stick. And of course, there's more to human beings than that.And so when we think about flourishing, we think about multiple domains. We're flourishing in terms of our physical health, we're flourishing in terms of our spiritual health, our emotional health. And so there's all of these different domains at the individual level, but it's sort of meaningless in a sense if we're not contributing to the greater good.And for most people, particularly in the United States, the greater good is going to be largely defined in terms of a sacred narrative. So if we're not honoring that need to serve the greater good in terms of a sacred narrative, then we are dehumanizing people by definition. And so if we care about the inherent dignity, the infinite value of every person, that we need to attend to all of the domains of flourishing across levels. So flourishing is different than well-being and happiness and wellness and some of these other constructs because it really is not just about the person, it's about the person in their context. And their context might include a sacred context.Their context certainly would include a political and economic context. It's knowing we have the skills in order to make a meaningful difference in this person's life. We're not trying to fix anything. We know that that doesn't necessarily work, but we can be present with loving awareness in a way that is itself healing, and then we can get people the help that they need if we can't provide it. But it's not one person's responsibility to do that.So oftentimes when we think of love or compassion, we think of one-on-one, but this is actually something that you find at the level of groups. And Brian Wellinghoff, my co-author on the one article about Barry-Wehmiller, he's a senior director at Barry-Wehmiller. He said in the article, what we've found over these couple of decades is that when love is present, it promotes the conditions that are required for flourishing.It's not just that love is present at the level of one-on-one interactions, it's that it's now that love is part of the culture. Love is part of the context, and that enables everything that they do. And they help encourage that by promoting skills like listening and the practice of gratitude and regularly celebrating people, not just employee of the month where you get a nice parking spot and everyone hates you for the month or whatever. But like a culture of celebration where it actually is joyful to celebrate the people that you care about and you want to do that and you appreciate it when they do it for you. And you know it's going to happen because you can see your love, make a difference on a daily basis. You know that you're contributing, you know that you're engaged.And I remember asking Bob Chapman, again, the CEO of that company, "What do you do about free riders?" When I went to Harvard, I thought, "I'll never see any free riders," and there's free riders everywhere, and how do you do that? And so he said, "Well, we want everyone to get on the bus, but they're not necessarily going to get on at the same stop, but we have faith and we're committed that eventually everyone's going to get on the bus."So there's some mercy and there's some grace. And then there's the tough conversation. There's the tough love. It's not just the warm hug, it's the powerful love that says, "Look, I'm going to speak truthfully to you about your contribution as a co-creator of this culture," he calls it a culture of caring, but I think we could also call it a culture of love and compassion.Jon Eckert:So couple of things that came to mind when you were talking about that. I like the term sacred hospitality, but the book Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara came out just a few years ago. He ran Eleven Madison, and they became the best restaurant in the world based on not their service, but on their hospitality. And he differentiates service from hospitality. And it's absolutely a culture that gets created. It can't just be one person. It's how the whole team views the experience they're creating for diners. And it's a remarkable book that it's hard to replicate in schools because that is an elite experience with lots of money behind it, and public schools aren't functioning in that world. But how do we have that kind of an attitude about how do we see whole human beings and reach out in a hospitable way, not just in a service way? So I wonder if you have any... Are you familiar with Unreasonable Hospitality at all?Matt Lee:I've not read it, no.Jon Eckert:Okay. But does that align with sacred hospitality as you're considering it?Matt Lee:Well, one conceptual resource that I found helpful is from a book called Christian Caregiving, and this is written by the founder of the Stephen Ministries. This is the laypeople in a congregation who provide care to others in the congregation. They're not trained as psychologists or counselors, but they've been given a set of skills and they know their boundaries. That's the most important skill is knowing what's yours and what's for a professional and what's for God. And so when you think about the critical distinction in that book, it's between servitude and servanthood.And so when we are living into our vocation, that's servanthood. And when we are forced to do something that we wouldn't want to do in a way we wouldn't want to do it, then we're talking about servitude. And so when we imagine education and we think about a system that is perfectly designed to get the result that it gets, what is our system getting? It's perfectly designed to get disengagement. That's what we see from the Gallup data. So as you progress through your journey, you start out highly engaged in kindergarten, and then you're less engaged in middle school, less engaged in high school, and it just continues. It's a nice linear downward trend.Jon Eckert:That's not a nice trend, Matt.Matt Lee:Well, it's not nice, but from a research standpoint-Jon Eckert:It's clean.Matt Lee:It's very clean. So what are we doing systematically there? Well, we start out in kindergarten, we're sitting in a circle with our friends holding hands, finger painting the alphabet, singing songs. The creative arts are infused into this container of friendship. And we're learning our core material in that kind of container. And then we systematically start pulling all that stuff out. No more recess, take art maybe once in four years in high school.Jon Eckert:Elementary school, on average now, get 27 minutes of recess a day in the United States.Matt Lee:Oh, so we're-Jon Eckert:It's devastating.Matt Lee:We're doing it even younger than when I was a kid.Jon Eckert:Yes. Yeah.Matt Lee:I started doing this UN class called Love and Action at the University of Akron, and I said, "Rather than reading about this, why don't we practice it and then come back in a community of friends and share what are we learning?" And it just felt more like kindergarten to me. Let's sit in a circle and let's sing some songs about what we're learning. And I remember saying, "Well, do we even need exams at some point in these UN classes? Maybe there's a different way to be in relationship where we don't need the exams." And some of my colleagues would say, "Well, that's dangerous. You're going to have all these free riders." I had so few free riders in that context, and it's sort of like Barry-Wehmiller company as well. There's so few free riders because you empower people to be what they were created to be.Jon Eckert:Seeing data coming out on what leads to flourishing and mental health and what doesn't. But we're always looking for the things, what's working. I don't have time to spend a lot of time on the things that aren't working. I do like Bob Chapman's belief that everybody will eventually get on the bus. I don't believe that is true. I believe some people need to find another bus. But I think eventually you need to get the people that need to be on the bus, on the bus, and they'll get there. And they may choose there's another bus route that's better for them, and that will lead more to their flourishing. And that's great. But with 12,000 people in that company, that's not going to be 12,000 people that are on the right bus all the time.Matt Lee:Well, and I think maybe it's not everyone, but you go after the lost sheep.Jon Eckert:That's right. Yeah, you do. You do. That is fair. That's fair. And teachers definitely do that. And you can run yourself ragged. This is the last part of the time, and this is always the hardest part for me. I would be terrible at this, but you have four questions, four sentences. So one sentence for each one. So in all of your flourishing work that you've done, what is the most obvious finding that you're like, "That's kind of a duh, we all knew that and now we have empirical evidence that says that's true."Matt Lee:Better to give than receive.Jon Eckert:Okay. Well, there you go. Some ancient wisdom. All right, second. What's the most surprising finding that really jumped out? Like, "Oh, didn't see that coming"?Matt Lee:Yeah, I don't know that it was really surprising. It was just surprising to see it so consistently that groups that so obviously prioritize financial material stability, have the lowest flourishing on all the other domains. At the country level, at the group level, even within particular organizations. So we find in a paper that I've just... This is more than one sentence, but I'll give you an example.Jon Eckert:That's all right.Matt Lee:So I'm co-leading a paper on showing love and care to another person, and this is using the global flourishing study data. We find a fairly strong negative correlation with GDP. Countries that have higher GDP have people who show lower levels of love and care.Jon Eckert:Wow, okay. And I'm not-Matt Lee:So I'm not totally surprised by that, but it's still kind of shocking to see it so reliably surfacing in all of this work.Jon Eckert:I'll keep this short, but my daughters went down to the Dominican Republic to do some work there with a lot of high school and college students this summer. And they had an amazing experience because of the joy of the people that they were with in the Dominican Republic. And so the joy that they exuded through... Some of them had very little, but the joy was there and it made a fundamental difference I think will mark my daughters for the rest of their lives because they recognize, "Oh, really, joy is not tied to what we have."Matt Lee:Yeah. I had a group from Spain consult me a couple of years ago, "We're going to this impoverished country and we're going to help them with their flourishing." And I said, "Oh, really? You might find that they help you with your flourishing."Jon Eckert:100%, right. So the last two questions. What's the biggest challenge you see globally or in the US, take your pick, that's inhibiting flourishing right now?Matt Lee:Yeah. I think that the way we understand flourishing or love or leadership is really just a small part of what those words represent. And so I think if we understood flourishing as ecosystem-wide flourishing, we would have the appropriate North Star. But if we keep doing it as, or understanding it as, a kind of subjective experience of wellbeing for an individual, I think we'll never get out of the crab bucket.Jon Eckert:That's good. And then what's your biggest hope for flourishing, globally or in the US?Matt Lee:My biggest hope would be that we would learn from the positive outliers who are already doing it everywhere in the world. And I think I remember some years ago... So I'm bad at one sentence.Jon Eckert:I know, I am too. This is a challenge.Matt Lee:I have to immediately support it with evidence.Jon Eckert:That's good.Matt Lee:So let me give you just one example of evidence. I was chair of the section on altruism, morality, and social solidarity of the American Sociological Associations. That's a lot to remember. But as part of my role as chair, I was also editing the newsletter, and I was approached by a member of the section who had done some research on concentration camps, Nazi Germany, and he found in his argument... I'll just cut to the chase. His argument was, most of the Holocaust museums focus on the narrative of victimhood. But what you saw in the camps was incredible heroism, incredible sharing under pain of death of your last crumbs and incredible, just inspiring altruism. The human spirit was soaring, even as the body was being destroyed by this evil regime. And so people who have never had their names in the history books have done incredible things. And Holocaust museums around the world could tell that story too. Not just the victim story and not to the exclusion of the victim story, but tell the story of empowerment.Jon Eckert:Wow. That's a great place to end. Thank you for taking the time, and thanks for the work you do, Matt.Matt Lee:Thank you.
 

2025 Texas Teacher of the Year: Chris Mihealsick

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Chris Mihealsick, the 2025 Texas Teacher of the Year from Westwood High School in Round Rock ISD. They discuss her passion for expanding access to high-level science education, the importance of mentorship for new teachers, and the challenges facing public education today.
Mihealsick shares insights on supporting students new to AP coursework, fostering a collaborative classroom culture, and navigating the demands of teaching while avoiding burnout. The conversation also explores the impact of uncertified teachers and the role of teacher preparation programs. 
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Armadillos to Ziziphus: A Naturalist in the Texas Hill Country by David HillisCourage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave by Ryan Holiday
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
 
Jon Eckert:
All right. This week we have Chris Mihealsick, the 2025 Texas Teacher of the Year from Westwood High School. She is in Round Rock ISD, and so she's representing educators across the state of Texas and we're really excited to have her here today. So Chris, welcome in.
Chris Mihealsick:
Thank you so much. It's so good to be here.
Jon Eckert:
And just give us a little background about how you got into teaching in the first place. I always love teacher origin stories, so how did you get to doing what you're doing now?
Chris Mihealsick:
Well, both of my parents were in education and for a really long time I thought, "Nope, nope, not for me, not for me." When I started college, I was a bio major. I worked in a lab. I thought maybe that would be my path. I kind of thought I was going to switch to environmental engineering, but my freshman year, I tutored some at-risk kids in biology and chemistry and I just loved it. I loved seeing them grow. I loved them going from really struggling in biology to being able to get Bs on their tests and be excited about science. And even as hard as I pushed against the family business, I just couldn't deny that that was where I was meant to be. I really liked working with teenagers and helping them learn and grow.
Jon Eckert:
The kids are always the draw. That's always the thing. And I feel like other professions that don't get to work with kids and see the way they become more of who they were meant to be, they miss out on that joy. And so that's cool that that's what pulled you in even though you were fighting the family business. So we're glad that you broke through that barrier. So tell us a little bit about... You have a platform this year as the 2025 teacher of the year. What are you most passionate about as an educator?
Chris Mihealsick:
I am incredibly passionate about students having access and being able to do higher level science. I teach AP Environmental Science, and I really say, "My course is a course for anybody." I work really, really hard to build students up that have never taken an AP class before. I also oftentimes will have some of the top students at our school, and I work very, very hard to make my class engaging for all levels. So I really believe that every kid deserves to have a higher level science experience before they leave high school. And that's kind of my mission as an educator.
Jon Eckert:
Oh, that's such a gift. As a former middle school science teacher, I always loved being able to pass my kids along to science educators like you because kids are naturally curious about the world. Environmental science, what a great place to try to explore where we fit in the world and how is this made to work and how can we be better stewards of this earth? That's something that a great teacher, I think, can hook any kid into. And so I love this idea that any kid can access those higher level courses because for so long we've been tracked in ways that some kids never get access to that class. Do you have any examples where you've seen a kid who maybe would've not gotten that opportunity in another school or with another teacher where you've seen some incredible growth that gives you belief that this is the right thing for each kid?
Chris Mihealsick:
Yeah. Every year I get students that this is their first time taking it. For example, I have two students this year. I have a student that has never taken another AP class and she started out getting 30s or 40s on most of the quizzes, and she's worked really hard. She stuck with it. I checked with her a semester, "What support do you need?" She just needed some extra help with some of the writing props because we do essays. Which is sort of a little bit unusual, I guess, in a science class, you don't tend to think of science classes doing essays, but our AP tests, they take a multiple choice part and they have to write three pretty large robust essays. So we do a lot of lab report writing, but we also practice that skill a lot because that's where the kids that have never taken an AP class before really tend to struggle.
They can answer the multiple choice questions, okay, they're great in lab, they're fantastic in class, but they really struggle with that writing component. So really working with her this year and helping build her writing up as well as helping build her confidence up. She wasn't quite sure she fit in the class when we started this year, and she absolutely belongs there, I think every kid that comes to my door that's willing to take that chance, and that's a risk for kids, right? They've never taken a higher level of science before. Maybe they had a bad science experience before and they're jumping into this advanced class. So I want to honor that courage that those kids show, that decide, "I'm going to try this, I'm going to take this."
So just giving them enough support. And I think also building that culture where the kids really work on helping each other. I try to build up really tight lab groups and then we switch them and they have to build up tight lab groups with a whole new group of kids. So really working with their peers quite a bit is a big cornerstone of my class as well.
Jon Eckert:
That's one of the things I love about AP is that it forces the writing, because writing is where you really see how kids are thinking, and that's the power in that. It's not rote memorization. You have to be able to think. And as an educator, it's the closest thing we get to getting inside a kid's head. And so I love that that's where you started. And people that listen to this podcast will know I'm always talking about joy through struggle. And it's so true that that student who struggles at the beginning and then gets to the point where she gets a three, four or five on that AP exam in her first attempt at an AP class, she's going to experience so much more joy than the kid who's taking their eighth AP class and they're getting their eighth or ninth four or five. That's great, that's success, but you don't experience the same level of joy if you haven't had that struggle.
And so what I also love, the last thing you said really sticks with me, I've been pushing this for a while, that schools obviously have to be safe and psychological safety and physical safety all matter, but what you're celebrating and respecting is that struggle that kids do with others. And so it's not about being safe because those kids don't feel safe when they sign up for that first AP class. That feels like a risk. And so if kids feel like, "Feeling safe is not taking risks," that's a problem. And so what you've created is an environment in your classes where kids know, "Hey, this is a place where I can take risks," and then it's going to be celebrated and respected. And so I love that you're moving kids into that in tangible ways. What have been the benefits to other students in the class? Not the kids who are taking their first AP class, but to other AP students that are seeing a wider range of students in your class than, say, they might in another AP class. Have you seen any benefits to the classroom culture from that?
Chris Mihealsick:
I think students seeing anybody at our school attempting an AP class and being successful and being part of our group is really important. I think sometimes the highest flying kids at the school tend to think like, "I'm here and everybody else is not as academically robust as me." So really seeing, "Nope. You know what? A lot of people can succeed in a lot of different ways." Sometimes I have some of the kids that are the super high-flyer academic students that struggle with some of our lab work, and then other students are able to step in and be like, "Oh, nope, I got this. I can handle this procedure," or whatnot. And it just shows that there's huge value in everybody working together. There's huge value in everybody having access to these classes. And I think it opens everybody's eyes a little bit in terms of working with all kinds of different kids.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and again, going back to middle school science. In the lab, I felt like the lab was the grade equalizer because you had some high-flying students that never want to be wrong because that's identity threat to them. And so they don't want to take risks in labs because they don't want to look like they don't know what they're doing. And you can't fake your way through a lab very easily. And so I felt like getting kids partnered up of different abilities was gold because sometimes the kid that you thought would be leading in the lab is not. It's the kid who's like, "Oh, I'm willing to jump in and try this and we don't know what's going to happen and we're going to do this and we're going to track the procedure and we're going to do it safely." But I think that's a great point that I think science has some nice advantages when you have those labs because it's a vulnerable thing, especially for those high-flying kids that never want to be wrong.
And that's really problematic for learning if you're not willing to acknowledge, "Hey, I don't know how to do this." That's the whole reason why you're in class. So it's good. So love that you came up with that. I also like... We've talked earlier about how you see building the profession. So we've talked about students, but where are your passions for the profession? Because you don't get to be teacher of the year in a state like Texas if you're only focused on kids. I mean, that's always our primary focus, but what's your hope for other educators in Texas and beyond?
Chris Mihealsick:
So I really, really care about good teacher leadership. I want every teacher to work in a department or a learning team that has a really competent, caring teacher leader. I want everybody to have a department chair that's a competent, caring department chair. I want people to be able to be mentored. I've been mentored five different times in my career and I'm getting mentored right now by the 2024 Texas Teacher of the Year for my next role. And just that ability for somebody that's there with you in the trenches. We're still in the classroom. I'm still teaching full-time. Teacher leaders are still there. They know the struggle, but they also can help guide you in really great ways that help you grow. I would not be where I am right now without mentorship I got when I first started teaching AP I didn't know what I was doing, Holy cats. And I had two AP teachers that kind of took me under their wing.
They weren't even AP environmental science teachers at my school and really helped me learn what it was to help kids learn how to write for AP and how to do the more advanced lab skills. So I think teacher leadership is so important, especially right now when we're talking about, "How do we keep good teachers in the classroom?" Well, it's having people that support them that can help you grow to the next level. Really helping set that culture of your department is so important as well, that support system that... I am very, very fortunate I work for an amazing principal and I'm so grateful to have her support, but at the end of the day, there's one principal, right?
But there's 200 of us in our building, and having those teacher leaders in the departments or in the learning communities is just really, really important in smoothing over the day to day, when you have questions about different strategies for working with a kid or how do I teach this in a more engaging way? Those teacher leaders can grow the staff and there's a lot more job satisfaction and working with people that are invested in you staying.
Jon Eckert:
And I think what you're saying is more important now than ever that the session that I met you in, they had put up a slide... This is from Raise Your Hand Texas, that 56% of new teachers in 2024 were uncertified. So this need for mentoring has never been greater because you have... And there's some great people who have come into the profession without certification, but the only way they're going to succeed is with great coaching and mentoring from people that have done this before because those uncertified people, for the most part, will not have gone through a teacher training program, they won't have done student teaching, they won't have had all those pieces, and now they're in your building. And over half of new teachers in Texas, that's their story. Have you seen an increased need for mentoring, or is this just kind of more of the same?
Chris Mihealsick:
No, we've seen a huge increase in the need for mentoring. There's a huge difference in getting a pre-service teacher that's gone through student teaching and has had some courses and knows the lingo, right? 504, IEP, all the acronyms. And somebody that has a good heart for kids and knows the content, but knows none of the management skills. So mentoring has been hugely critical. I've noticed a huge uptick in the mentoring that we've done on our campus in the last two to three years, for sure.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and it feels kind of crazy that we will turn kids over to someone who has no certification to teach when... My favorite statistic on this, I think this is right. In Ohio, to become a barber, you need 1500 hours of supervision. And I'm grateful. I don't want somebody coming in and hacking my hair up. But if you're requiring 1500 hours to cut somebody's hair and then nothing to be responsible, to be the teacher of record for children who are only going to get one shot at environmental science, who are only going to get one shot in third grade to increase their reading or to become a better human in first grade, to be... No certification. In some states it's even worse than in Texas where we're now... In some states, we're not even requiring a bachelor's degree. It's like we're having college students come in and be teacher of record because we're hurting in the profession so much.
So my question for you... Obviously, when we have those teachers in our building, we're going to do everything we can to serve those teachers, but I do not want to burn out teachers like you who feel this burden not only for their students, but then for teachers who are coming in who are underprepared and who might be good in two or three years, but in those first couple of years, that's a lot of intensive work for you. What do we do to make sure we don't add more to plates that are already overflowing so that those teacher leaders don't burn out and leave?
Chris Mihealsick:
That is a really, really important question because I've seen that happen at our school where we've had good teachers leave because they've had two uncertified teachers they've needed to work with. And it's just overwhelming because you have all of your regular day-to-day responsibilities. You're maybe the team lead, so you're also working with your team, plus you also have to support the people that are working on training and getting into teaching. So it's really, really, really challenging. Our school tries to be really judicious about who we assign as mentors. So somebody isn't mentoring... Like for example, we had a biology teacher last year mentoring a brand brand new teacher, and this year we took her off mentoring. She's the team lead for our bio team, but we're like, "Nope, we're not going to have her mentor anybody else this year," because it was a lot last year. It was a lot. And you don't want to burn people that you know are effective and are doing good things for kids and really helping them grow. You don't want them leaving either.
Jon Eckert:
That's right. Well, I love that rotation idea, and that just means you have to develop a wide, wide range of teacher leaders because you have all different disciplines, especially in a comprehensive high school like you're in. You have all different disciplines. You have department chairs, but you just can't keep putting more on department chairs. Administrators, if they don't have background... If you've never been a science teacher, it's very difficult to give very specific feedback for how to get better if you've never run a lab. You can give general classroom management practices and think about student engagement, but you've got to have people with a lot of different kinds of expertise to give the mentoring just in time for people that are really needing that kind of feedback.
So as you look around Texas, are there any real bright spots you see where you're really encouraged by some of the things that you've come across, maybe through the teacher of the year process or just people that you've worked with? I'm sure you're in networks of educators, but is there anything that has been really encouraging to you as you step into this role as teacher of the year?
Chris Mihealsick:
So I was really fortunate to do two different kind of talks. I did one in late February at Weatherford College with the Jack Harvey Awardee teachers. And first of all, I love, love, love hearing the good work that teachers are doing across the state because it just fills my bucket to hear how much teachers around the state truly care about the kids that they're in charge of. And Weatherford College is a two-year college, but they have some four year degrees and they have a teaching program, and their teaching program is growing. So that was really exciting. They're in North Texas. And I am a University of Texas grad. I will always be proud that I'm a UTeach teaching program graduates. They are doing some really, really... They've done historically since 1998... '99 I think is when they started. And they do some really great work at teacher prep.
We consistently try to hire their graduates if we can because we know their graduates have the content knowledge, but also they've had a lot of field experience so they really know how to work with kids. So I think there's some really good stuff still happening all over the state in our teacher prep work. And that's something... Obviously, I want more people to join those programs. Lower enrollment is an issue that both of the schools have talked to me about, but I think that there's some really good work preparing some of our university students. And that's for sure. Besides all the great work from the teachers that I've just kind of talked to anecdotally as I've been kind of tootling about with my work is good.
Jon Eckert:
And I think why I love talking to educators like you is we have to stop cannibalizing our profession. So we have administrators making administration look so miserable that no teacher wants to step into it. And we have teachers making teaching sound so miserable that students don't want to step into it. And teachers told my own children, I've heard it said multiple times to their children, "Don't go into teaching right now." And what they don't understand is they're looking out for that person. They're saying it in love, but what they're doing is, is they're cannibalizing the profession. And if we don't have a strong teaching profession, we don't have other professions. And so that is really troubling to me. So I really respect what University of Texas does. Good to hear about Weatherford. When I came to Baylor six years ago and saw the program that they run for... I don't get to work in the pre-service teacher program, but they've done six different placements in a full year student teaching internship.
Now in many districts, it's a paid internship if they're in high need districts. That is amazing. That is blowing away what we were doing in Illinois with our teacher preparation program where they had a 12-week student teaching placement and they had four practicum placements. That experience is gold when you're in with good teachers like you, and they can see, "Here's how I set this lab up and here's what it looks like at the beginning of the year, and here's what it looks like at the end of the year. That is powerful. And I am not a big fan of bureaucratic requirements that are unnecessary, but I certainly want good preparation for my kids' teachers, which means I want it for every kid in the state of Texas. And so really grateful for the way you're representing education. So let's shift into our lightning round here. I usually have three or four kind of common questions that I go across, and these are just pretty brief answers, if you have them. So best and worst advice you've ever given or received, you can start with either best or worst, but let's start with those two.
Chris Mihealsick:
Okay. Worst advice for sure was, "Don't smile till Christmas." Who thinks that's a good idea? You don't build relationships with your students by being a jerk. So worst advice for sure. Best advice was from my mentor who helped me when I was first teaching AP, Joy [inaudible 00:20:00]. She said, "You only have so much life energy, so decide what you're really passionate about and what you feel really skilled at, and just work to be really, really great at that." And I thought that was amazing because you get asked to do so many things as an educator, I am not great at facilities. I probably shouldn't sit on the facilities committee. So focus on what you're really good at and use your energy and your passion to get better at that, to make a bigger difference.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's really, really helpful advice. So follow up on that, what is the most life-giving part of your job and what is the most soul sucking part of your job?
Chris Mihealsick:
For sure, working with the students. Even with all of amazing things I've gotten to do as Texas Teacher of the Year so far. And I love working with teachers. When I'm back in my classroom, which is most of the time, and just working with the teenagers and seeing them grow. I could teach for another 15, 20 years probably. We'll see how that all works out. But... Because I'm 23 years into my career, but for sure life-giving is just... I love working with the teenagers. Every single day is a little different. They'll say something funny or unique or they'll make a new discovery. Soul sucking, I would say probably paperwork. Not a fan. I'll do it because it's all the laws and all the things and I like my job. I'll do all the paperwork, but not my fave.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, there's always some component of the job that is the reason why you need to get paid for the job. And I say paperwork for most of us is there because that's always going to be part of it. But all right. Best book that you've read in the last year. This could be education-related or just a fun read. Anything that jumps out at you as a good book you've read. I'm always looking for recommendations.
Chris Mihealsick:
So I read a mix of science and historical fiction and kind of leadership books. So my favorite that I've read lately is Armadillo's to Ziziphus by David Hillis. He is a professor at UT in biology. He actually discovered the Barton Springs Salamander. And it's just a whole bunch of short essays about natural history in Central Texas. And I am currently in the middle of reading Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday. I like his work too. He's a stoic, so he kind of talks about when things happen in life, we can't control that, but we can always control how we react to things. And I think his book right now has a whole bunch of little anecdotes about historical figures and their courage in different things. And I think it's just really relevant right now. I think being a teacher takes courage always, but I think especially right now, it's good to hear about other people's struggles and things they've overcome to make the world a better place.
Jon Eckert:
No, it's beautiful. I love those two. I have not read either of them, so I've got them written down. So thank you for that. Last two questions. What do you think is the greatest obstacle facing teachers right now? And then the second, the follow-up is what gives you the most hope? As you look around the state of Texas, what gives you most hope about what's happening in education?
Chris Mihealsick:
So challenging... I'm just going to be honest. I think the budget situation is really challenging right now. I'm hoping that changes for us because I'd like to see smaller class sizes for all of my colleagues and me so that we could give students the more individual attention that they deserve. But what gives me hope is two things. First of all, the students that I work with... I just... Every single year, I think, "You guys are going to change the world. You're going to go out, you're going to do something amazing for Texas and it's going to be phenomenal." So just seeing the potential and the energy that... I love working with juniors and seniors, they're my jam.
Seeing them kind of grow and change and get ready to go off and then go off into the world and... That energy and that passion. Texas is in good hands with the teenagers that are continuing to graduate from our public schools. Yeah. Also hope the teachers that I've been meeting across the state... As a teacher in Central Texas, I'm a little bit insular and this is my world, but being able to get to travel a little bit and talk to people in other parts of the state has been really phenomenal. And I have a lot of hope for the kids of Texas because of the people I've been meeting. And I hope to meet a whole bunch more. So my hope for the next year is just to get to meet some more folks and to be able to start highlighting some of their good work as part of what I do.
Jon Eckert:
I love that. Well, Chris, thank you for what you do. And Round Rock, thank you for what you're going to do for the state of Texas. Thanks for your heart, for students and for educators. So grateful to be able to highlight your good work, and hope this year is amazing and we'll have to catch up with you at the end of your year. So thank you for joining us.
Chris Mihealsick:
Thank you so much for having me. This has been delightful.

Everyday Christian Teaching: David Smith

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews David Smith about his new book, Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom. Smith shares how the book was inspired by teachers who wanted practical guidance on integrating faith into their daily teaching practices.
The conversation explores how a bottom-up approach helps educators create hospitable, faith-filled classrooms through intentional rhythms and practices. Smith discusses redesigning assignments to build relationships rather than just complete tasks and emphasizes the importance of shaping learning experiences that reflect who students are becoming.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom by David SmithEverydayChristianTeaching.comOnChristianTeaching.comJust Teaching by Jon EckertSolutions that Heal by Alan Bandstra
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
 
Jon Eckert:
All right, so welcome David. It's great to be able to talk to you about your new book, Everyday Christian Teaching: A Guide to Practicing Faith in the Classroom. So I just got it yesterday, so appreciate that. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what brought you to writing this book. I mean, you've obviously written a lot of things.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
What brought you to this one right now?
David Smith:
Yeah. It was two experiences that really sparked the idea for this book. One, was just that the last book on Christian Teaching had circulated quite widely and a lot of schools had used it in professional development. And a couple of school leaders said to me, "Okay, we've read on Christian teaching, we believe you that this is a thing. We're on board, you've persuaded us. Now, how do we learn how to do this on a regular basis? We are kind of convinced of the concept, but how do we internalize this?"
And then I had a slightly more detailed version of the same conversation when I was doing like an online seminar for Trinity Western University for some of their faculty. And at the end of, I gave a presentation about some of the old Christian Teaching staff and some different ways of connecting faith and teaching. And one of the faculty said to me at the end, "I go to a church, have done for years and years and years. I teach at a Christian university, have done for years and years and years, and I would never have made the connections between the two that you just made. How do I learn to think like that?"
And I thought, it's another version of the same question. How do I learn to more instinctively think in a way that connects faith and teaching. Especially in a culture where so many of us have learned so deeply to keep those things apart, and that teaching is about tips and tricks and getting it done. And faith, it's about church and theology and so on, and it feels like we don't always have a great set of mental muscles for moving fluidly backwards and forwards between those two. So that just seemed like a great question, like how do you... Like don't try and persuade me of a philosophical position, but teach, like how do I learn to think about this on a regular basis? So that's what I was trying to address in the book, is-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
How to learn to think.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and the intro is, Invitation to Wisdom, which I love, especially right now as we look at everything that artificial intelligence can do, all the things that can be offloaded to different kinds of tools. We have more tools to help people learn than we've ever had. And it also feels like deep, meaningful learning grounded in something more than just tips and tricks is increasingly obfuscated. And so I love this very human invitation to wisdom. So talk about why you started there.
David Smith:
Well, it's partly Comenius' fault, 'cause he's my hero. For those who are new to Comenius, a 17th century major Christian education thinker, and he's got this textbook called The Orbis Pictus, the World in Pictures. And it's probably the most famous textbook in the history of schooling. It went through 250 editions, close to over a couple of hundred years. And the very first line of the book is, "Come child, learn wisdom." And I just thought that's a pretty interesting way to start a school textbook, that's not how most of our textbooks start these days, right. And so I sort of borrowed that as the start of this book. And his book starts with this image of a road that we're walking along as we learn wisdom and the Bible, wisdom's often spoken of in terms of a path or a way. It's something you walk in, wisdom's not just something you get by getting the diagram straight in your head, or getting the doctrines all lined up, or knowing the sentences in the right order.
Wisdom's something you have to learn how to walk in and walking is something that takes place over time and you kind of sway to the right and the left and it's got a rhythm to it. And again, that's sort of what I was going for with the book. So this book doesn't start with the philosophical concepts or the theology or the reasons why we need to do integration of faith and learning or that kind of top-down. It really starts with the rhythms of the classroom and how you start the class, what things you repeat, how you use silences, how you end the class, how you frame things. Those things that are happening to us every single day if we are educators, as we sort of walk through this life in the classroom.
And again, if we're going to learn to think in a way that habitually connects faith and learning, it has to happen in that context. It can't just be when we're sitting in the great lecture with some great Christian thinker who tells us how the world fits together. It's got to be while I'm in class, while I'm in motion, while I'm moving. So the Comenius image seemed to help me capture a little bit of that, that we are walking along a road, we're trying to learn wisdom, we're trying to walk better, we are not just trying to have better theories or better solutions or better fixes. We're trying to learn to walk in a way that's got a certain kind of rhythm to it, a certain cadence.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. And I love that you begin and end with wisdom. So when you get to the close, before you finish it out, you get back to the purpose. And throughout the book you have what looked like woodcuts from your hero and it's a cool through line throughout the book. So learning to be wise, that's really what we want from education, is how to learn to be wise and, so appreciate that.
And then, just the way you've broken the book down, it does really, and I think you said it even before we jumped on, it starts from the bottom up. Like what does this-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Look like in the classroom? And then where is the wisdom in that? Where is the humanness in that? Where do we see our creator in that process? So-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Can you talk a little bit how you came to that bottom up piece? Because I think a lot of times philosophers and people that are in the academy get accused of starting top down-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Like, "You should do it this way." But I think what you're saying is here, this is how it is done, and then-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Here's the wisdom in that. Can you speak a little bit about that?
David Smith:
Yeah. Oh, I could speak for hours about that, because there's something in this that's been kind of motivating everything I've done for 30 years, has been trying to push on that very thing, because. And I think a lot of it goes back to, I didn't grow up Christian, I became Christian as an adult. And then a couple of years after I became Christian, I became a teacher and then started figuring out how those two sort of connected with each other. So I started reading the Christian books and the philosophies and the theologies and going to conferences and listening to people. And I thrive on that stuff, I mean, I love a good philosophy book. I've got no objection to people writing great philosophy books.
But I also find that sometimes, as a classroom teacher and I was a language teacher, I wasn't like a religion teacher or even a history teacher where we could talk about big ideas in class. I was teaching languages, I was doing this very nuts and boltsy kind of thing. And I just found that sometime, even when I'd read the book on what a Christian vision of knowledge is or of the world or whatever, that there was still this gap of like, yeah, but what do I do on Tuesday morning with my twelve-year-olds?
And there's a moment I sometimes share with my students, and I remember, my very first semester in the classroom I was doing my student teaching and total newbie, no skills, and I made the rookie mistake of standing writing on the whiteboard for too long. I think it was a blackboard at the time, actually, writing on the blackboard for too long with my back turned to the class. And I turned around and a student in the front row had removed almost all of his clothes and was sitting there in his underwear, apparently just to see what I would do. And I just had this moment of like, they didn't tell me about this in teacher ed, just that the classroom is like the Wild West. The classroom is this place where very unpredictable, angular stuff happens and often the theory is, it's a thousand foot.
So I've always been fascinated in this middle space, of how do you avoid, either ending up reading a philosophy book that's at a thousand feet and it might be brilliant and it might be inspiring, but you're still not quite sure what to do on Tuesday morning. But I also don't want to end up in the other end of the scale, and there's lots of this out there, which is the, like, 50 tips and tricks to get you through your week in the classroom stuff which is... Sometimes you get some good ideas out of that, but it's also kind of brainless in terms of lacking like a coherent reason why we should choose these tips and tricks. It's just like this big bag full of stuff and you're just going to pick stuff out that looks like it works, but there's no coherence to it.
So for a long, long time I've been fascinated with how do we try to describe that middle space, where you want to do stuff that works, you want to actually live in the classroom, you want to actually teach, you want to actually help students. But you want to do it in a coherent way that's in touch with your beliefs and your values and your commitments and the way the world fits together. And that, it feels like a difficult but the most interesting space. And so much of our literature seems to drift off to one end or the other of that, like it's either philosophy of education, or else it's a hundred tips and tricks for teachers and how to rescue your classroom kind of stuff.
Jon Eckert:
Well, I want to go deeper into that idea and a couple things from the book, but you have to tell me, what did you do with the kid that's sitting there in his underwear?
David Smith:
It's actually one of those rare occasions where I think I probably did the right thing without having a lot of forethought.
Jon Eckert:
Okay.
David Smith:
I actually just laughed at him and invited him to go outside and put his clothes back on and then join us again and then carried on with the class.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
And therefore, I think deflated his attempt to-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Capture everybody's attention for the next 15 minutes and make me look really stupid, so. Which I think was probably the right response, I think he was kind of-
Jon Eckert:
Right.
David Smith:
Hoping that I would sort of go ballistic or something, but-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
I just sort of basically said, "That's really funny. Now go put your clothes back on."
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Well done. Well done.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
A novice win.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
So one of the things, I just was having a conversation with the head of school at a really great school and they're talking about how they integrate their academic success. They've been very successful based on test scores and everything, they've got great scores K through 12, and they're actually a school that's funded by vouchers, so it's an interesting model, in Milwaukee. And so they've been doing this for a long time. So they have a faith-based component to it, but they're also measured by state tests, so it's kind of-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
An interesting-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Place to look at. And they're like, "We know we've got to get better on our faith integrations, we want to work on our K through 12 Bible curriculum, that's one of our strands. And this other strand is on improving academics." And my response was, those two things have to go hand in hand.
David Smith:
Right, right.
Jon Eckert:
Because you've got to have that integration about why do we do this well? We do this as a reflection of what our creator's given. It's all got to be woven in there. Have you seen schools that do that well? And what is a hallmark of that? So you've laid out all these great ideas here.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Have you seen schools where that's happening really well right now?
David Smith:
Yeah, there are schools here and obviously there's a lot of schools I don't know, so I'm sure there are schools-
Jon Eckert:
Right.
David Smith:
Out there that are doing brilliantly, that are just not ones-
Jon Eckert:
Right.
David Smith:
I happened to have visited. But the schools that I've visited that seem to be doing really well at this, seem to more often be schools that have really set aside intentional time to think about it together. That's the one simple thing I would put my finger on, it's the schools that have got time set aside each week for a professional learning community, where they're actually talking about how to integrate their values with their teaching and they're not just doing admin things or curriculum things or whatever. So I think this is very dependent on being able to build a reflective community where you can talk to each other about how your values are infusing your teaching and learning choices.
Something I've been suggesting to schools for a while, is like why don't you take one of your professional development days each year and just cancel it and just tell your teachers to go to the park or whatever, but then say, and now you owe me six hours. And what you're going to do with that, is you're going to get together with three of your colleagues and for six months you're going to meet one hour a month at the local coffee shop with a nice pastry and a nice drink. And you're just going to talk about three things, what was the best thing that happened in my classroom in the last month where things really felt integrated? And what was the worst thing that happened in my classroom last month? And what's one thing I want to change in the next month? And just talk about those three things for an hour. And how much learning might you get out of that in terms of questioning your own practices and moving them forward?
So to me, it's less about getting the perfect model and more about, can you build the kind of community where you question what you're doing together and can then start to make adjustments? And you can be constantly asking, why do we do it this way? Is it just because we did it that way last year? And how does this actually reflect what we say we're about on the mission statement?
I mean, if I can throw in an example here, interrupt me if I talk for too long. But to throw in an example that's in the book, is a perfect example of this kind of, again, finding this middle space and questioning things. I was having breakfast a few years ago with some teachers at my daughter's school when she was in high school. And I was just venting, I wasn't even trying to be constructive, I was just complaining about the general state of the world.
And what I was complaining about was that I'd noticed that during the vacations we got our daughter back, that she was articulate and she shared her life with us and we talked about things. And as soon as the semester started, it was down to monosyllables, and it wasn't because we had a bad relationship, it's just because she was tired all the time. And because school was colonizing her every waking hour, she would get up at 6:30 in the morning, to be on a bus by 7:20, to be in school by quarter to eight. We get on another bus at something after three and get home by four-something, and then we'd have supper together at five. Wasn't always our most brilliant hour as a family because my daughter just had long tiring days, and then she'd have four hours of homework.
And what had struck me was that the homework was always designed to be done alone. And so she would disappear to her room with a pile of books and a laptop and the only role for me as a parent, was to either nag her to get it done or tell her to quit and go to bed. And after we had this conversation over breakfast, and I just complained about this, the teachers who'd been at that breakfast started surprising me. So a week later, she turned up in the family room one night at eight o'clock and she said, "Do you guys have some time, because I've got this weird homework from my religion teacher? I've got to talk to you for half an hour about whether you grew up Christian, or became Christian, or how you relate to all of that, because we're going to talk about it in religion class tomorrow, and you've got to sign this piece of paper to say that we talked about it for half an hour."
And then another teacher sent home a homework where we had to choose a TV show and watch it together and then discuss what its value system was, and whether we thought this was a fruitful way to spend our time and they were going to discuss this in the media studies class. And there was a whole string of these from different teachers.
But one of the things that struck me about this, was that this was a school whose official philosophy was that God has given primary responsibility for children to their parents, and the Christian school comes alongside parents to help them raise their children in a Godly way. And yet as a parent, the only role I was being given was to nag about homework and to sell food at sports games. And until this point, I wasn't being invited into the learning process, and what's more, the school was occupying, not only the whole day but the whole evening with tasks that the student was designed to do on their own. And as soon as we started asking this question, "Well, could you design homework activities that actually strengthen community and actually build relationships between people?" Suddenly you've got something that is a little more in tune with what the school says it's official philosophy is.
My daughter said she learned more from them from the standard fill out a worksheet kind of homeworks. So it was actually beneficial for learning.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
And it didn't necessarily involve throwing a Bible verse on all the worksheets. This is just more about trying to actually get the practices to line up with the values. So that's the kind of thing I'm sort of constantly fishing for, because we all think we know what homework is supposed to look like, so we all just keep doing what we think homework is. But maybe sometimes it doesn't look like that.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and I think that notion about homework is shifting significantly post-covid and what teachers actually assume students are doing on their own. Because I think the assumption is, that has been, that they're doing it on their own, I think that's a pretty false assumption now.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
That they would be doing anything on their own if you consider the tools that are available to them to get rote homework done. The thing I love about your example, is that homework assignment cannot be offloaded to ChatGPT, or if it was-
David Smith:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
It'd be, probably somewhat comical how ChatGPT might answer that question about how you came to faith and where your family, you know.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
So I think there is a benefit to that kind of homework and building community, because again, I think even with homework now, we need to lean into the humanness of what we do. Because there are a lot of other tools for getting assignments done and not always crediting the source of that assignment-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Whether that's a friend, Photomath or some type of artificial intelligence tool. So I think if we're not rethinking homework right now, we're really sticking our head in the sand.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Because I don't think students need four hours to do homework anymore, I think they're way more efficient.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Because they divide and conquer and offload to other things, so if you're not giving a meaningful homework assignment that is not able to just be done by something else, that's a problem. What I also loved about your example, and this is from page 76 in your book, it really gets into hospitality and what that looks like. And so it's asking students to be hospitable and then asking families to be hospitable. And you have this great separation here that, I'm just going to read this.
"The call to tolerance asked me to put up with your differences in exchange for you being willing to put up with mine. A Christian frame asks for more, extending the idea of love of neighbor to include strangers and even enemies." And so I do think as Christians, as educators, we have a really high call, that tolerance isn't even close to what Christ requires of us. And so-
David Smith:
Right.
Jon Eckert:
Welcoming students into that and helping them welcome others in it, that's a really high call. So can you talk a little about, this is from your framing sections, I thought that was a perfect place for it.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Can you talk some about that?
David Smith:
Yeah, I think there's more than one Christian idea that can become a framing device in education, and one that I've been thinking about for a long time is hospitality. There is this theme in scripture, from start to finish, about hospitality to strangers. And it appears in all the important places, it's in the law, it's in the gospels, it's in the prophets, it's in the epistles, it's everywhere. So there's also quite a long history of thinking about schools in terms of hospitality, so when you start thinking about that in curricular terms, what does a hospitable classroom look like? How do students experience the classroom?
So the way I started one of my classes this semester, and I talked about this in the book as well, is I actually started the class with us all sitting around in a big circle. And I asked each student to, I asked them to pair up and introduce themselves to each other and share two pieces of information that they were willing to be made public. And then I asked each person to introduce their partner to the group. And as we went around the group, we tried to memorize all the information, so we stopped after every second or third person and said, "And what was her name and what was her cat called?" right, and so on. So it's a real simple thing. And then I had students journal about it, and I've done this for a few years now.
And first, I think there's an interesting difference between coming to a classroom and having to introduce yourself and having somebody else introduce you-
Jon Eckert:
Right.
David Smith:
Having somebody speak up for you in the first five minutes of class. And then, rather than going around the class and doing the introductions and by the end you can't actually remember any of it, because 40 pieces of random information just went through your short-term memory. The fact that we're actually focusing on remembering things about each other, my students have written quite eloquently about, in fact, I was fascinated just reading the journals over the weekend. One of them said, "Teachers often say at the start of the semester, "We care about you, we are here to help you," but usually I don't believe them. I think it's just something teachers are supposed to say at the start of the semester. But this activity made me believe that you actually cared that we were there, because the information about ourselves actually mattered for the start of the learning."
And it's not like I think that's the way every class has to start, there are different disciplines and contexts and so on. But again, it's how do we find these moves that actually create a welcome within the classroom and you then push it further, how is the classroom welcoming to voices from beyond the classroom? So whose pictures do we show? Whose stories do we tell? And then how do we enable students to go out beyond the classroom? If I give my student a homework where they have to go to interview someone, how do I help them to be a good interviewer, to ask good questions, to not roll their eyes when the person says something they disagree with, to show in their body language that they're interested in what somebody has to say? Suddenly you're into a whole new set of skills that you don't get if the homework is fill out a worksheet.
So there's a whole continuum here in terms of, hospitality is a very rich way of thinking about lots of different facets of schooling, from just basic classroom relationships, to curriculum content, to what kind of skills we're trying to equip our students with. And tolerance is not nearly enough, tolerance just means I'm willing to not kill you.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great example. We do some similar things in the, I teach a leadership capstone class, it's the only class I get to teach to undergrads. And I just had lunch last week with one of my students from last semester, who has been through a lot, really tough life as an atheist. When you dig in, you realize where a lot of the hurt is. And so at the end of the semester, I give each kid a book and I inscribe something in the front to encourage them where I've seen them grow, what I hope for them, how I'm praying for them. And I'd given this class, All Prodigal God, by Tim Keller. And it was interesting, when we sat down, she read it over break, and so she wanted to gather and talk about it at lunch. And the book is the story of the Prodigal Son, but it's really, God is the center of the story is a reckless spendthrift, so that's why it's Prodigal God. And it's a beautiful story.
She actually said, in this way that I find having atheists in class to be unbelievably interesting to creating a different dynamic in the class. She was wise enough to identify herself as the elder brother in that, so not only was she not tolerating Christians on campus, she was looking down on them as being less than, because of how she felt like they made her feel and instead, she had become the older brother in it. And she articulated that at lunch, and I was like, the wisdom that she shared and the hospitality that she displayed by, A, reading a book that I gave her that's explicitly Christian.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
And then B, wanting to have lunch and talk about it. I mean, what a gift that is from a student to an educator to be able to have that, and then to have that all throughout the semester in class, 'cause we dealt with a lot of really hard things. And so I think that's a beautiful piece, and I love this, you say this on 113, which relates to, I think, both of those last two examples. It's about hopes and tasks, and I thought this was really good. "Instead of just giving a reading assignment, we could devote the same kind of reflection to tasks focused on other skills such as writing research or artistic creation, with the idea that we are trying to," this is the next sentence down a little bit. "A carefully articulated task becomes a chance to remind ourselves of who we are trying to become, as we read."
And so if we started thinking that way and curating our assignments that way, I think that would fundamentally shift how we assign work in class.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Is there another example that you have where that's been really successful for you?
David Smith:
Yeah, I mean, just yesterday in class, I got the most nods around the room that I've had in a while, from students just going, "Oh, yeah. When we started talking about how there's something about school that if you're not really, really careful, slowly teaches you that the point of doing the assignment is to get the assignment done. And that in the end, what the teacher really cares about is that you get the assignment done, because what you're going to be penalized for is not failing to grow, it's not turning it in at 3 P.M, and it's not having written 250 words, or not having got to page 27. So a lot of the messaging that we give to students when we give out assignments, it's often like the last two minutes of class and we're already in a hurry, and it's like, "Make sure you read chapter two by tomorrow," right.
So the strongest verbal message is, what I really care about is quantity, deadlines, getting it done, getting it turned in. And so I also find that what my students most often come and apologize to me about, is, "Oh, I didn't quite manage to get to the last three pages today," or, "I need to turn it in 30 minutes late, is that okay?" And a big part of me is going like, "Why would I care if you turn it in 30 minutes late? Like the world's not going to stop turning." So that means you're a good student being conscientious, the fact that you still want to get it in within 30 minutes. But what they're not coming to me and saying, is, "I started reading this and I didn't get through it because it was really challenging me and I had to go and think about it." Or, "I tried to get through it, but I didn't quite understand it. Can you help me figure out how to apply this?"
And so, again, this is a big mountain to climb, but how do you start to shift the message from, school is about getting stuff done, to school is about growing and learning. And I think a real simple way to run at that is by being explicit about assignments.
So if I give you something to read, is the message, "Read to page 27 by tomorrow?" Or is the message, "I'd like you to read to page 27, and when you get to page 22, you're going to find a paragraph there that's kind of a little dense, but it's a really core paragraph in this chapter, and we're going to need talk about it together tomorrow, because I've read this chapter eight times and I'm still trying to live out this paragraph and I'm not sure I'm there yet, so I need you to think about it with me. So when you get to that paragraph, stop, read it three times, then go find a friend and read it to them and see what they think. And if that means you only get to page 26, I can live with that, but this paragraph, right. And then see if you can think of some ways that you would live differently tomorrow if this were true."
And I'm just making this up as I go along-
Jon Eckert:
[inaudible 00:27:12].
David Smith:
But imagine that as a homework assignment, compared to the usual kind of, "Read to page 27, answer the first three questions, turn them in at 4:37 P.M. on Moodle." And it's all about messaging, and so if I could do that consistently, is there a chance that I could get more of my students believing that in the end, what I really care about is that something changed, that some learning happened. And not just that we all managed to click in the right place on the right day. Which, frankly, is the least of my worries, so.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Because even when you emphasize that, it doesn't happen anyway, so.
Jon Eckert:
Yes, no, I want to give that a giant amen. I mean, my classes are always designed, I take the best 25 authors, I've read their best article or their best chapter from their best book, and I have curated that as like, this is what we're going to focus on today. And I love that even focusing them further on the paragraph and going back to the example I just gave you from the student who I gave the book at the end of the semester. Like that's not an assignment, that's a, "Hey, I am grateful for you. This is my last, kind of bringing closure to class and here's this." And then it's, I may never see that student again, we may never have another conversation.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
But when you do, that's a much richer conversation, because it wasn't compulsory, it wasn't about compliance, it wasn't about getting something done, so I love that. I love that point. The last thing we always do, is we do a quick lightning round, and with all the years of experience you have, I got to imagine you've got some good answers. I just have four questions. The first one is, and you can do in whatever order you want, these first two. Best advice you've ever given or received as an educator and worst advice you've ever given or received as an educator? Start there.
David Smith:
Best advice, never talk to a child without eye contact.
Jon Eckert:
That's good.
David Smith:
That was the best piece of parenting advice I was ever given, actually.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. That's good.
David Smith:
I think it's really easy for adults to talk at young people-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Rather than, to young people. And something I said in, at least once in a previous book is, I think teaching is something you do with people, not something you do to people. My students are not objects that I'm trying to hit with something, and if I can't establish communication, that we're actually human beings looking at each other and we're trying to figure something out here, then it's probably not going to go as well as it could. If I just kind of broadcast over the top of the assembled heads, that's not going to go well.
Jon Eckert:
Just watch a great kindergarten teacher, they're always down on a knee-
David Smith:
That's good.
Jon Eckert:
Eye to eye with kids, yeah.
David Smith:
Right. Well, I often find, it's not just kindergarten, university, I often find myself down on a knee by a table, 'cause that's where you should be, right.
Jon Eckert:
You should be, you just see it far less. I totally agree.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
No, but yes.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
That is good.
David Smith:
So-
Jon Eckert:
Worst advice?
David Smith:
And then worst advice. Worst advice I've been given, don't smile till Christmas.
Jon Eckert:
Oh yeah. Classic.
David Smith:
It's one of our old chestnuts. Yeah, it's funny, when I first started teaching, my early teaching was in some urban environments and I found it very difficult. And I did not have great classroom management skills when I started and I struggled, I had some unruly classrooms. But one of the things I also learned about myself was that I couldn't do the Policeman act convincingly, it's just not in my personality to look mad-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
With students. Because I'm not actually very often mad with students, I just find classrooms fascinating.
Jon Eckert:
Even when they derobe. Yeah.
David Smith:
Yeah. And so, a few times early on, if I tried to pretend to be mad with students, then they just laughed at me, because it just wasn't convincing. So I had to gradually find other strategies, which had a lot to do with just investing lots of time in relationship building and trying to make the learning meaningful, and again, the one-on-one contact. And so the sort of be mean until they know you mean it thing, has just never ever worked for me.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Maybe there are people for whom it works, but even then, I'm just not convinced that an ethic of be unpleasant to people until they get on board is a great way to go.
Jon Eckert:
I'm pretty convinced that's not a great way, which I think you're being kinder than I am. I don't think that's an effective way to manage people, especially not in 2025. I don't think that's a-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Ethic that's going to work. Okay, next thing, best book you've read in the last year related to education?
David Smith:
Oh my, read so many books recently and some of them were really, really specialized.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Or pick one of your top five.
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Best book that I've just read. Well, you know what, I'm going to do the really embarrassing thing here, I really enjoyed your book. I read your book just recently-
Jon Eckert:
Oh.
David Smith:
Just Teaching by Jon Eckert
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Is something that I've been getting ideas out of for my own classroom, and that's always a win. So that was a really great one. And another reason I have for picking that out is, at the moment I'm working up to a big research project on Comenius. So I'm reading a lot of-
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
Books about Comenius at the moment, and some of them are really great.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
David Smith:
But they're in German and they're really specialized, so.
Jon Eckert:
That is specialized.
David Smith:
But-
Jon Eckert:
That is specialized.
David Smith:
In terms of books that are just about the classroom, I did enjoy your book, Just Teaching.
Jon Eckert:
Okay.
David Smith:
And, yeah, another one I just read the other day, I just did a podcast the other day with Alan Bandstra, who's a teacher from Iowa, and he's got one called, Solutions That Heal-
Jon Eckert:
Okay.
David Smith:
Talk about infectious behavior in classrooms. And it's a self-published book, it's just a teacher who wanted to write about the things that are going on in his classroom, and I found it quite winsome.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's good.
David Smith:
[inaudible 00:32:43]. So, yeah.
Jon Eckert:
That's good. The funny thing is, whenever I ask that question about best book, I always have my pen ready to write it down. And as you're sharing that, I'm mindlessly, I literally wrote down, "Just Teaching," on my thing. I was like, okay.
David Smith:
so you can look it up later and see if it's any good, yeah.
Jon Eckert:
Right. I'll see, I'll check. But that's very kind. Last question, what makes you most hopeful as you look at schools right now?
David Smith:
It's funny, I don't draw hope from looking at institutions really, so it's not so much looking at schools. What always makes me hopeful is, like every student who is in my classroom right now is a human being who is spending a lot of money to learn how to help other people learn. And I just find my students are sometimes idealistic to a fault, there's some things that will get more complicated when they get into the classroom, but they are students who deeply want to do good for their learners. And I'm glad every semester, that I've just spent a semester with another 20, 30 young people who want to be teachers and who want to find a humane way of doing that and a faith informed way of doing that, in a way that does good in the world.
And that's among my students. But I'm going away on a retreat as part of a research project this weekend, with five teachers from area schools. Where we're actually going to talk about hope for the whole weekend and how we're going to address that in schools. And again, just seeing their eagerness to be part of that project and to want to give up their weekend to talk about how we teach for hope in schools. So all over, when I do professional development, I just keep running into teachers who haven't given up yet and who are trying to do right by their students, do right by their faith, find a more true and wholesome way of doing things. And as long as there's a good subset of people who are doing that, then there's still a chance that it can get better.
Jon Eckert:
That's good, that's good. Good place to find hope. Well, hey, thank you for your work, really appreciate Everyday Christian Teaching. Super helpful, good follow up on Christian Teaching-
David Smith:
Thank you.
Jon Eckert:
Also, super helpful. Oh, and excited for the platform you're building out, we didn't even talk about that. But there's a platform that's going to go with all of this. Do you want to just say something to wrap up-
David Smith:
Yeah.
Jon Eckert:
And give people a sense of where to find that?
David Smith:
Yeah. I'll try to say this quickly. Where to find it, there's a website, everydaychristianteaching.com. It already exists, if you go there right now, you'll find a description of what's coming, but there's no actual resources there yet. We are hoping to have the first resources up there by March, we are building it frantically right now. But what it's going to be is really an extension of the idea that this book is about, how do you learn how to do this regularly, not just how do you have this one blinding moment of revelation, but how do you make this part of a routine? So we're building professional development resources that help to create community conversations around this.
So there are some resources where you can just download everything you need to run a PD day. There's others where you can download everything you need to run a seven week or seven month whole school conversation around it. There's going to be self guided resources, so if there's just one of you or if there's a small group of you that want to do it at your own pace, there's going to be versions like that. And there's some graduate credit bearing options. And we're building these around specific topics like community or hospitality or Shalom, and we're sort of building out resources for each of those. Like I say, we're furiously working on finalizing details on some of these, and we've been piloting them out in schools and getting really good feedback. And so we hope to have the first ones available on there and we're trying to make it very affordable as well. First stuff should be up sometime in March at the latest, and yeah, go there and take a look and then keep coming back to see what we've added over time.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's great. Thank you for that. Appreciate your work. Thanks for being with us.
David Smith:
Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for the invite.
 

Untapped Talent: Joel Hazard

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Joel Hazard, a longtime educator and leader passionate about unlocking untapped talent in students and educators. Hazard shares his journey from student-athlete to educator, reflecting on the mentors who saw potential in him when he couldn't see it himself.
The conversation highlights the importance of creating environments where every individual’s gifts are recognized—especially those who don't see their own potential. Hazard shares how small moments of encouragement can spark confidence in both students and colleagues
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:Student Leadership Challenge by James M. Kouzes and Barry Posner
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Jon Eckert:
Joel, it's great to have you in the podcast studio today. We just finished a great conference yesterday where you facilitated a panel. But you got to this point in your career through some interesting ways, because you're a great athlete... Weren't sure you were going to be an educator.
Joel:
Correct.
Jon Eckert:
I don't even know if that was ever on your radar. But talk to us about how you got where you're at today.
Joel:
Yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me. Greatly appreciate the time to sit and talk about these things. Well, in a nutshell, I did not see myself in education at all. I thought I was going to be a firefighter. I did not like school. I was a kid who stayed back in elementary school; very academically defeated. Didn't feel I had anything to give to education. But my parents being who they are, I was heavy in sports, they said, "Hey, you got to be in school if you're going to play sports. And if you're not going to do well in school, you're not playing sports." Long story short, I tolerated school for as long as I could because I really wanted to play sports.
And so long story short, by God's grace, was blessed enough to go earn a scholarship, play at Boston College where my dad went, my older brother went as well, and really sitting back and saying, "Hey, if I don't go pro, I'll go ahead and be a firefighter. It's one thing I don't really have to do additional school for, and I can serve my community." Always wanted to serve people in some capacity. Just leave my thumbprint on the world, somehow, some way.
As it were, it was one of those things I was thinking heavily about. The professional realms, that didn't work, and so I had to get a job quick. I was freshly married to my wife, and the only thing that made sense to me was education. It was either sports or education. I get into education at a Christian school early on and fell in love with the kids. I love kids. You ask me to this day, I love kids. I love just little kids that are just fresh, innocent, and just so full of life. Love that.
Jon Eckert:
What level did you get a job at?
Joel:
I was ninth grade.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. All right. Very good.
Joel:
Ninth graders are a different breed. They're knuckleheads, but funny kids. I learned so much about myself just interacting with them. And so next thing you know, my mentor at the time said, "Hey, listen, I just want to let you know most educators leave in three years. They're going to leave in three years, and I don't want that to be for you." And so my competitiveness kicked in and say, "I will not be that. I'll stay at least three years." Three years turned into five, five, 10, 10 to 14. And I was at that school for 14 years. And in that time, being surrounded by sports, I coached three sports, being around athletes, being around coaches, and being around teachers, that just poured into me, it was just something I was like, "Okay, I can do this long-term." And so here I am in leadership. I'm finishing up on my 20th year in education.
Jon Eckert:
Wow. Wow. Well, we're grateful that you have. You've been a great partner to the Center for School Leadership. I think I heard correctly too. Did you get invited to an NFL combine after your time at Boston College?
Joel:
I did. Long story short-
Jon Eckert:
It was a bit of a side note, but-
Joel:
Long story short, I was in the master's program at BC, Education department. And I was going through, and I'm like, "I don't know if I want to be a teacher. I want to go out," right?
Jon Eckert:
Yeah.
Joel:
Make millions. And so long story short, agent comes back and says, "Listen, you're about 5'9 3/4s". The smaller you are, the faster you have to be." And so I said, "All right." I left grad school, left and trained for three months, trained for three months. And I did my pro day at BC and by God's grace hit the 44, 41-invert, the whole thing.
And so during that time, I was planning a wedding throughout that whole time. And so long story short, what ended up happening is a Canadian football league came down and said, "Hey, we're going to be trying out people too." And so I tried out for them. And they come back after the draft happens. I don't get drafted, whatever. And they said, "We want exclusive rights on him. We want him to come to Canada." My agent says, "Hey, you can go to the Patriots, try out with them, Seattle, Cincinnati, try out for them, or you can go the CFL route. They have exclusive rights on you." And so I'm about to get married. "I'm like, I need money now." I went the CFL route, and within a day, day and a half, I was like, "This is not what I want to do. This is not what I thought." And decided to step away, came back home, got into education. That's how it all happened.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. That's a great side story. Again, we've been talking before we jumped on about untapped talent and untapped potential, and so I'm so grateful that education has tapped some of your potential. Talk a little bit about some of the people that were integral in doing that, because as leaders, we want to help other people be that for kids. Can you talk a little bit about some of the people that were impactful for you that way?
Joel:
Oh, absolutely. First woman that comes to mind is Ms. Astrella, my resource teacher at the time. If you're a kid in the '80s, you know resource teachers, you get pulled out of the class. You got to take that walk of shame to the door. You can't really stay in the reading groups. You can't really stay in any of the other groups; you have to be sent out to a special room. And it was really at that time, I'm getting pulled out, I'm just academically defeated. I'm stupid, I'm worthless. I don't know what's going on. This is why I can't stand school. But Ms. Astrella, yeah, she's at my foundation. She brought me in. She loved on me. She believed in me outside of your parents, right?
Jon Eckert:
Mm-hmm.
Joel:
And there's a bit of you that says, "Hey, your parents got to love you. Your parents got to do this." And so when you're in that mindset, of discount what they say, how they love on you. My parents loved on me, supported me, but at the time you're thinking they have to. But Ms. Astrella was that foundation that came in, worked with me, held me accountable. She was not playing around. Held me accountable, believed in me. Made me do it over if I did it wrong. And so really helped me to get some of that academic confidence back. And then next thing you know, she becomes my second grade teacher.
And it was like I was back in resource class. She would hold me in from recess if I did it wrong. She would love on me. She would communicate with my parents. Oh man, my parents and her work on a constant communication thread at the time. And she was at my foundation, absolutely. And then as I started to become more academically confident, I had coaches that would pour into me. And those were the people, believe it or not, that were at my wedding. I had coaches and teachers at my wedding. Yes. And so those are the people that have meant the world to me because they believed in me at a time I didn't believe in myself.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and it's interesting that you didn't see yourself as an educator-
Joel:
No.
Jon Eckert:
... and that you had these people, these coaches and teachers pouring into you and it just took time. And going up to the CFL and saying, "Hey, this isn't for me, and then, no, firefighting for whatever reason isn't for me." And then you get in with the kids, and the kids are always what's sell-
Joel:
[inaudible 00:07:42] education.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. That's it. There's a lot of other interesting things about education, being a constant lifelong learner and being able to go deep into content and some other thing. There are things that are appealing, but if the kids don't sell you on education, you're in the wrong profession.
Joel:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
The paycheck's not going to do it, so it's got to be the kids. I love that. You got to ninth grade. And as a former middle school teacher, in my mind, those ninth graders are super mature kids. And we all know that your knucklehead characterization might be more accurate most of the time. But you went from there, ninth grade teacher, you moved up the ranks. I'm assuming, did you coach at all as well?
Joel:
Coach three sports. Football, basketball, track all the way up.
Jon Eckert:
Okay. You're living life with these kids, and you're doing this-
Joel:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
And now you're in the center working with us building out networks of leaders. Talk a little bit about how that's helped you and some of the other work you've done tap the potential of educators in the field, because I think there is a lot of talent in our field that goes unrecognized. Talk a little bit about how you've done that.
Joel:
Absolutely. It really comes from me having to live it out. I believe I was on tap talent and there were people that surrounded me and said, "Hey, you would be good at this. You'd be good at this." And I'm like, "Yeah." But you hear it multiple times. When you interact with those people, you start to believe it. And so by God's grace, I've been able to put in a lot of leadership roles is because I believe, trusted people and friends and other leaders that say, "I'm going to put you in this so you can lead."
And so what I've done is ever since getting into leadership, I have felt it's had to be my obligation to look at that untapped potential. And there's a lot. I believe in every school there's untapped potential. I've usually found it not in the obvious cases of those that are working on their degrees, it's mostly those are your quiet leaders, your working bees that are out there and are just wanting to do their best for the kids. That's the talent that I've been able to shine a light on and say, "Hey, you can do more in this."
Jon Eckert:
Well, in our master's program, we have a number of people that'll enter the program, it's a master's in school leadership, and they'll say, "I don't know if I'm really going to be a principal," or, "I don't know if I'm really a leader. I try to do really good work, and I have great colleagues." I'm like, "You're the exact person we want in this program." And so we've seen so much of that going on. And could you just share briefly the example you had on your panel that you were facilitating yesterday with the participant in the front who was a little reluctant?
Joel:
Yes.
Jon Eckert:
Can you take that away?
Joel:
Yes. She was actually the highlight of my panel. And so the panel, you're in there with leaders all throughout Texas. And you have the panel up front that is sharing their wisdom, their experience. And you can just tell, leaders, when they go to conferences, I believe they're the most vulnerable simply because they're there, and it's one of the most comfortable spaces to where any leader can say, "I don't know. And I'm just trying to connect with other people."
And so how I like to run panels is I don't like to give to get model. They're there to give, you're there to get, and then you move about your way. We're going to participate, we're going to support one another. And one of the ways in which I do that is I create a very uncomfortable environment in regards of I'm just going to call on you and you're meant to contribute. People don't like that.
And so there was a woman in the very front row. And I said, "All right, guys, here's your Q&A for the panel. If you don't ask questions, I'm just going to call on you and you're going to have to have a question." And so everyone has a heightened sense of I better have something ready. And so we had a couple of participants, and I saw this woman sitting in the front row all by herself. And I said, "Hey, I'm coming to you next." And she says, "Oh, gosh." And she just had this look of he's going to call on me; I got to have something ready. And you could tell she was nervous. I said, "Hey, don't worry about it. I'm not going to call on you now, but you're going to end our session with the last question." And you could tell she was sitting there, she was processing because all the pressure was on her.
And as the Lord would have it, she asked one of the most profound questions that the panel actually had to really sit back and really think and say, "That was a great question." That is untapped potential right there is because now that individual who didn't want to do it, at least somebody like me who, I didn't know her from Adam, but for me to say, "You're going to end our panel with your question," and for her to be validated in the question she asked, she left the conference with a smile. I was able to give her a hug afterwards. And hopefully she left more confident than what she came in.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and wasn't your panel on engagement?
Joel:
Engagement, yes.
Jon Eckert:
Again, future leaders.
Joel:
Yes.
Jon Eckert:
And so it's engagement over comfort. And sometimes comfort is the enemy of engagement. If you feel like, oh, I'm not going to get called on. I can just be back here and blend into the woodwork. And you didn't let her be that comfortable. And the whole group benefited from that engagement. And again, that's the point.
And so you do a lot of work with Black male educators through the center. And that's one of the things, we are trying to get more voices into the work we do because when you don't engage the body of Christ, you don't engage the world of students that you serve and you don't have a wide range of perspectives in there, it's not about representation so much, it's a we are impoverished when we miss those voices of that educator in the front who doesn't come in or we miss a whole population of people who don't have a voice because we're not in conversation, and we're not in community with them. How have you had some successes with bringing some different voices into conversations and spaces where they might not have typically been?
Joel:
Right. Well, when you look at the group Black male Christian educators, and it can be Christian educators or public educators as well, I really wanted to help create the group. I don't want anyone thinking that I spearheaded. I wanted to help create the group is because when you look across the demographics, Black males make up 2% out of those two-
Jon Eckert:
Of the teaching population.
Joel:
Of the teaching population. 2%. And me being a Black male, I'm saying, "Yeah, I have a heart for this. I need to keep more in." And so we create a space to where we can come to the table and we can talk about some of our general realities and then also be an encouragement to one another and really push ourselves to really think outside of our current position.
And so the group has been very great. We come together and we're extremely vulnerable. And we're saying, "Hey, how can we better our environments for all students?" But before we can do that, we have to feel encouraged like any teacher. We have to feel encouraged, we have to feel we can do the work, and we just have to feel we have a space and opportunity to go somewhere and just be unfiltered and just say what we got to say within its rawest state to really brainstorm what other people who we feel understand some of our general realities. And we all do that. We do it on a woman's level, men's level, principal level, head of school level. We all have these groups. The group is not to silo our thought process or silo our experience, but sometimes we just need to break away from the group to regroup and then come back in the group and participate.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. George Yancey is a sociologist on campus, and he comes in and speaks to my classes. And he tells our students of color, "Hey, if you just need to step away from these conversations that you're constantly having to represent your entire race or ethnicity, give yourself permission to step away because that conversation's going to be there." And so so many students can feel this, and certainly educators can where every time there's another committee on inclusion or mattering or belonging, it's like, "Oh, well, we got to make sure we get Joel on that committee." It can be exhausting.
Now, the impulse is right. We want to get the wisdom from Joel as an educator who's had this unique experience of coming through with a... I have to say you're the only person we've ever had on the podcast that runs a 44 40 and had a 41-inch vertical, so that's the real claim to fame. But we want Joel's perspective because of what he brings to it. And so that's a good impulse, but it can also be exhausting. How have you found a balance between retreating into community and then stepping out into places where it's going to be uncomfortable? But you have to be engaged because you care about each kid? How have you balanced that?
Joel:
You just said it. It's really thinking about the kids who will benefit from this. And so it's one of those things, you feed the teachers, they don't eat the kids when you think about it.
Jon Eckert:
That's good.
Joel:
And so I sit back and I say, "Hey, my voice is as equally important as everyone else's voice at the table." Can it be exhausting? I know it can be exhausting from a position level. I know principals are fatigued in their role, in their experience. I know heads of school are fatigued in their role. I know teachers are fatigued. I know women are fatigued. And so we're all fatigued. But given our experiences, it sets a unique fatigue, if that makes sense, for each group.
And so for me, what keeps me going is knowing that there is real fatigue, absolutely, but my voice is as equally important at that table. And it's one of the things of letting people know, especially as you look within the world we're in today, I'm not saying my voice and my experience needs to dominate the conversation, by no means. I'm an ingredient to this whole thing just like everyone else is. My experience is not meant to be worshiped or idolized, nor is it meant to be ignored. And so I just want that part of the conversation, not to dominate it, but it's a part of it so we can get a collective understanding of who's in the room. What are the unique experiences? And then how do we navigate those experiences as we move forward together to make sure all of our students are understood, heard, and valued. For me, I sponsor kids in my head. Sponsor kids are what kid out there or kids out there or groups out there would benefit from my experience at the table?
Jon Eckert:
Well, I would also say, because I totally agree with the unique levels of fatigue based on positionality, whatever that is, I also would say there's also a unique opportunity for joy and energy from that because as you bring that voice and you represent each kid in your mind, there's a different level of... It animates you differently. And so while I always want to acknowledge the hard work that educators do, it's also really meaningful. And our work is so much more interesting than so many other people who do work that earns more money, that adds value to society, that is... I don't ever want to prioritize one profession over another, but being in the profession that makes all others possible, we, as educators as a group, have this unique opportunity for energy and fatigue that are imbalanced. And so I'm willing to endure a little more fatigue because of the opportunity and the energy that comes when we get to do meaningful work together. Would you agree with that or am I being a little too-
Joel:
No, no, no.
Jon Eckert:
... toxically positive?
Joel:
I would agree. I think everyone knows nobody stays in education for the money. They don't. There has to be a high element of joy that you get, satisfaction that you get that you're imparting wisdom. And to be honest with you, that these kids are gracious enough to invite us in their journey. And so I think we stay for the relationship. I think we stay because we have something to impart to the next generation. Those that don't like kids or don't like that will fizzle out. They'll self-select out eventually. No, that joy is an important component of what we do.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Well, and you pointed fatigue out, and the other night we were talking at dinner and you mentioned how, as educators, we should follow a kid through the day to understand how exhausting it is. And I was recounting an administrator in Illinois who had done that. She got to third or fourth period, and she was just exhausted from the day. I do think we have to remember our students are also uniquely fatigued and also have unique opportunities for joy and energy, we just need to tap into that more. And sometimes it takes us stepping into their shoes to see, oh, yeah, I forgot what this was like. Yeah, I appreciated your point about that.
Joel:
And it was told to me early on, "A great administrator never forgets what it's like to be a teacher." You ever say that in front of a teacher, they will stand up, they will applaud, encore, whatever. The second part of that is, "A great teacher never forgets what it's like to be a student."
Jon Eckert:
That's right. That's right. In the good and the bad, the fatigue and the joy.
Joel:
Absolutely.
Jon Eckert:
Lightning round. We always do a few questions at the end where we just get a sentence or two answer. I'm terrible at keeping my answers concise, but we'll see how well you do. You're fast, so let's see how well you can manage this. What's the worst piece of advice you've ever received as an educator or just in general? And then the best piece of advice. We'll take those in whatever order you want to take them.
Joel:
Yeah, the worst case, the worst advice, just get by. That's the worst. Just get by. Hey, I'm trying to really do this, or I'm trying to bring this to the classroom, something a little different. I'm still racking my brain over it. "Hey, just get by. Just do what you got to do."
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. That's what's exhausting.
Joel:
Worst advice.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. All right.
Joel:
Best advice, listen to the kids. As you're customizing things, as you're thinking about the kids, when was the last time you listened to the kids on what they want, how they listen, how they process? Best advice.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and we tried yesterday at our conference to bring in... And I think we did. We said we had expert consultants coming in at lunch. And then 15 minutes before lunch, 20 students come in and they're going to be expert consultants for people as they work on their problems of practice, how they're going to increase their gritty optimism and tell their leadership story. I really wanted to debrief with the students, but they had to go back to class before... I really wanted to get their take on what they were doing because I think about 10 of them had no idea what they were walking into, and they're standing at the back of the room being described as expert consultants on something that they don't know about. But that was our attempt, to listen and get leaders to listen. And I think we need to treat them in that way because they are, in fact, the partners in the learning process that so often get left out of the conversation when they're the whole focus of what we do.
Joel:
The whole focus. Absolutely. One of the things I've asked teachers over the years is, "Give me your hardest math problem. Give me the hardest concept in, whatever, science or whatever class. And I ask you, 'Can I find it on Google? ChatGPT. Can I look it up on ChatGPT?'" And chances are you can. And so what does that say? Is we've seen a shift in education, especially in the instruction. Now these kids are equipped with all the information they could possibly want, but they need guides. They need someone to help them sift through that information. And so as you look, it's like education has always been this. I'm here to be a reliable and trustable guide to get these kids through some of the obstacle courses and help jump these hurdles so that they'll be fully functioning, successful individuals in the world and impact the world for a greater good.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's good. They need wisdom is what they need. And that's what they need us for. And that's what I think greater educators do. Speaking of wisdom, best book you've read in the last year? It doesn't have to be education, but what's the best book you've read?
Joel:
I've read. Well, I would have to say The Student Leadership Challenge. I teach a leadership class, Go Lead. Shout out to Jason Beard over at Mount Paran Christian who designed the course. But The Student Leadership Challenge is a great book. It's able to put leadership on a student level. Things to think about: What is your commitment level? Why do you want to lead? How do you lead? And that student leadership challenge allows us to go deeper into why somebody would want to lead. But not only that, why would someone want to follow you?
Jon Eckert:
Yeah. Love that. We'll wrap up with this. What gives you the most hope as you look forward to the time ahead we have in education?
Joel:
The most hope I see is people keep coming to conferences, number one. Students keep showing up. Parents. Despite where you are at in your education journey, but parents keep dropping their kids off to our schools.
And here's something we have to acknowledge. Parents drop them off at our schools, and we have seven hours with them. If they play sports, that's an additional two, two and a half, depending on their level, so they're with us for nine, nine and a half hours. Most active parts of the day. Parents continue to drop them off because there is some level of trust they have with us. That gives me some hope that parents are still looking to partner with educators. And we're looking to get that trifecta to where it's the parent, it's the teacher and the student involved in this process. That continues to give me hope.
Jon Eckert:
No, that's a great place to end. Joel, thanks for your time, thanks for your leadership. Appreciate all you do.
Joel:
Thank you for having me. 

Each student struggling well: James Blomfield

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews James Blomfield from the International Forums of Inclusion Practitioners (IFIP). They discuss his work in inclusive education, the importance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and the global challenges and opportunities in creating truly inclusive schools.
Blomfield shares insights from his visits to Texas schools, highlighting student engagement in career and technical education programs. The conversation also explores the role of artificial intelligence in education, the shift from inclusion to belonging, and the power of networks like IFIP in connecting educators worldwide.
The Just Schools Podcast is brought to you by the Baylor Center for School Leadership.Be encouraged.Mentioned:The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to Coherence by Mary MyattHow Change Happens by Duncan GreenThe Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Jon Eckert:All right, so we are blessed to have James in our podcast studio. He flew all the way from the United Kingdom to Waco, Texas, to be on this podcast.So James, tell us a little bit about what you've been doing here in central Texas these last couple of days.James:Yeah, I've been spoiled. I've just had the best cheese and ham roll, ever. I can tell you a lot about Texan food now. And brisket. But the quality of the experiences, the visiting the schools, meeting you at Baylor has been a terrific privilege. I'm very grateful.Yeah, today, this morning, in fact, we visited three schools in Waco Independent School District. We were shown around by the loveliest people, Adam, Caroline, and Christie. I think Adam and Caroline are on from your doctoral program.Jon Eckert:Yes.James:But they're like institutional coaches. I gather.We would call them improvement offices where I come from, but they had such a light touch. They knew everyone. They were so friendly with people, and I gather that they are also about compliance, but with the coaching aspects. So they were great.And the three schools we went to, we were Midway yesterday, which was amazing. And then this morning, Bells Hill Elementary, Cesar Chavez, and then GWAMA, Greater Waco Advanced Manufacturing Academy earlier. And yeah, what impressed me was speaking honestly as an English person, it is shocking to see police in a school. Very quickly, I was unaware of them. But we have our own issues in the UK with knives and all sorts.But the staff were, despite that, throughout just so calm, friendly, loving, and attentive to the students. Asking them, talking to them in front of us. And some wonderful experienced people, trauma informed. There was someone who was training to be a social worker this morning who just came out of her office and gave us a short speech without any preparation, speaking from the heart, talking about what she was doing, how much the children matter. If you've got people like that, then you are going to be doing the right stuff.So yeah, I was impressed. But also from the type of education, obviously Texas is massive. The school footprint, I've never been into such big schools, even the elementary and yesterday with Midway, that was the biggest school I've ever been in. It took us a long time to walk around. And all of the stuff, like this morning at GWAMA, we saw robotics, drones, they have the construction academy, welding, forklift truck driving.Yesterday we saw them building an airplane. When I was doing metalwork at school, it was for like a baked potato holder. They were building an airplane. And I would love that as a student. I would be inspired by that even if I was building a small part of the airplane. Rebuilding tractors yesterday. So that's practical. That's 21st century teaching, but visible, practical, hands-on.Jon Eckert:And then the engagement that you see that's possible there through starting a cafe restaurant through the airplanes. Just to be clear to the audience, the students are not doing this on their own. It's a two-seat airplane that would be like a Cessna, and they have engineers coming in to help build.I still am not going to be the first person that volunteers to fly in that, but it was impressive to see. And I do feel like in central Texas, there are a number of schools doing a lot to try to meet the needs of the community by educating kids in ways that engage them, use the skills that they've been given, help them become more of who they're created to be in a way that benefits the community.And even the principal yesterday, Allison Smith, was sharing about the new factory that's coming in that's got a gigantic footprint, and it's going to be a huge benefit to the tax base. Before they came, they met with the high school to see if there were ways that they could integrate some of the needs they have with what the high school's developing in their students.Because at Midway, about half the students go on to a post-secondary education. And so there have to be opportunities for kids to step into things that allow them to be gainfully employed and meaningfully use the skills that they have. And many of the kids were doing things that I couldn't even fathom doing. And they're just leaning into it and gaining expertise, which is for 16, 17, 18 year olds is truly remarkable.James:Isn't that also a bit like a UDL mindset? If the manufacturer comes in and has that intelligence to ask about what would you need? What would be helpful? And then you're designing the education from the ground up.Jon Eckert:That's it. And I'm glad you brought up Universal Design for Learning, because that's something that we haven't really gotten into. Why you're here and what you do in the United Kingdom, because we actually, Eric Ellison, met you a while ago. But you were the reason why we were at a UNESCO conference in Paris where we got to work with educators from six continents that were all interested in UDL and what it means to educate each kid around the world.And there's 250 million kids that don't have access to a school. And then we're in these amazing schools where the biggest schools you've been in that are offering all these different opportunities. And so we're getting to see it, but what does it really look like from your perspective, from your organization as it relates to UDL?James:Yeah. So interesting, I am a teacher, head teacher, classroom teacher from some 25 years. And for me, it's all about practical teaching and talking to parents, making things work. But at a very practical level. And one thing that drew me to my organization, which is the IFIP, International Forums of Inclusion Practitioners, was that when I met Daniel, who's a fabulous person to work for, it's much more practitioner based. It's all about pedagogies. I felt at home straight away.But also, how do we train teachers? How do we bring them on into inclusive practice? And the IFIP is all about the voice of teachers. Daniel would say inclusionistas, all manner and range of people, teachers, specialists, therapists, but parents as well, who are committed to a more equitable and enriching education.So the majority of what we do is training. We have things like our GITI program, which is a global inclusive teaching initiative. But we do events. And that's something that Daniel, one of his strengths, he speaks all over the world. He's written many books. We were so, so grateful to have the event at UNESCO in Paris. So we were co-hosting. Daniel had been talking about that for two years beforehand. And we didn't believe him. He made it a reality. He dreamt about it, and it happened. And the same more recently in Brazil. We went to the G-20 ministerial meeting. He was talking about that. So he sees things and it falls to me to follow behind him and try and make some of the practicalities work.But yeah, the inclusion piece covers so many flavors. And I think what you mentioned just now, we talk about inclusion. Well, if the 250 million aren't in school, well, that's a level of inclusion that puts lots of other schools into a completely different context. Where does the inclusion start?And even in some of the schools I visited, I've been very lucky to visit schools around the world who would say they're inclusive and they may have a sensory room, or they may have, but they aren't necessarily inclusive. But for me, one of my favorite schools I've visited was in Rome, [foreign language 00:08:28], Our Lady of Good Counsel. It was run by Silesia nuns. And they said in the words of their founder, Don Bosco, "Young people need not only to be loved, but they need to know that they're loved."And it's very reassuring as a practitioner, a teacher, former head teacher, to come here to Texas and you see that. You see that palpably going on. And I feel at home. The elementary school this morning, because I was a primary school teacher, it was just like, I know this. I understand this. I could probably take a lesson. But they had some great ideas. And teachers, I'm a teacher, you love stealing good ideas.Jon Eckert:Well, and I think this is the beautiful thing about the jobs that we get to do. We get to see all the amazing things that are happening in schools. So much of what's in the news and what gets publicized are the things that aren't working. And the tragedy that there are 250 million kids who don't have access to schools, that is tragic.But in schools, there are amazing things happening all over the world. And getting to see them is this encouraging, oh, it gives you hope. And I wish more people could see that. I do think there are challenges though, because when we think about inclusion, we've moved as a country toward inclusive education, the least restrictive environment for students, and bringing students into a place where they can flourish.But we really, as Erik Carter, who runs our Baylor Center for Developmental Disability, you met with him yesterday. He talks about moving from inclusion to belonging. And I think we even need to think about belonging to mattering. So you keep hearing more and more about what does it means to matter and seeing your gifts being used with others.And that's what we saw yesterday. It wasn't individual students. It was teams of students doing this and each member of the team had a different role, whether it was robotics or it was the plane or the cafe. And the educators needed to step in. So the principal was talking about, I need an educator who's willing to step up and do this so that this can happen.And that's the thing that I think people that haven't been in schools for a while don't see what it means to really help kids belong. They have a sense of what inclusion was, maybe when they were in school, where there was a class down the way that was a Sensory room, which is a nice room for just, here's where we're going to put a kid who's out of control that we can't manage in so many places.It's like, no, there's so many schools that are doing so much more than that. So what are some other hopeful things you've seen through IFIP?James:Well, I think, yeah, you see a lot and on social media, and you must have found this, there's so much many aphorisms about inclusion and metaphors about what inclusion is. It's a mosaic. It's a banquet with many tastes. It's symphony orchestra with many sounds. Inclusion is a garden. That's quite a good one actually, the metaphor. And that's something that Sir Ken Robinson from the UK has talked a lot about. And there's lots of analogies with growing and flourishing, which that's a word you've taught me in my visit here.But I do feel sometimes that it is all good to talk about that. I don't disagree. But there's some recently inclusion makes every day feel special. Yeah, it does. Inclusion is the antidote to the division in the world. It is. But will that help the early career teacher struggle with their class? Will that give them the practical steps that they need? So I think all of those things are true, and we must love the students. But I would say that's just comes a standard with being a decent human being. I would expect that from you, from anyone. You treat people with a respect.But for me, I feel more inclined to say, what are the practical professional steps? What's the pedagogy? What are the teaching principles that will help me to, as we were saying yesterday, maybe to hesitate before ask another question in class and listen. And listen. That's inclusion, isn't it? Wait for someone to answer and maybe then not say anything. It's actually stepping back.So for me, I'm very impressed by... I mean, I was brought up on quality first teaching, we would call it in the UK, which is about high quality, inclusive teaching for every child. So you mustn't differentiate in a way that you've got the low table. No one wants to be on the low table. You want to have high challenge on every table. And we used to say, you want your best teacher on the lowest table. It's not like you just put a teaching assistant or some volunteer on the lowest table. It's got to be focus lesson design, involvement, interaction, metacognition. So responsibility for your own teaching, for your own learning. Sorry.And I love the dialogic approach. Someone said yesterday, Socratic circle that I've picked up. But it's like you would encourage a child to talk about what they understand because very quickly then you assess what they actually know. Sometimes you'd be surprised by what they know.But for the same reason, UDL appeals to me, to my sensibility, because it offers very practical steps. And crucially at the design stage, it's not like I'm going to apply this assistive technology to a lesson I created a year ago and will do the best we can, and that child will now be able to do more than they could. But if I design the lesson, and one of our colleagues, Helena Wallberg from Sweden, who was a co-author on the Global Inclusive Teaching Initiative, she talks about lesson design. It's a far sexier way than lesson planning.So teachers are professionals, they're artists. They need to use their profession.Jon Eckert:So when you start thinking about design, I use Paideia seminars because Socratic seminars are great, but Socrates taught one-on-one. We don't usually get the luxury of doing that. So how do you bring in the gifts of each student, not so that you're doing something kind or helpful for that individual, but so that the whole group benefits from the collective wisdom in the classroom?And so the inclusive education is not to benefit one single individual, it's to benefit all of us because of what you draw out. And that's where design, I think, is more helpful than planning. And so when we think about this in this state that we're in right now, we've never been in a better time to educate. We have more tools than we've ever had. We know more about how people learn than we have in the history of the world.James:Yeah.Jon Eckert:And yet sometimes that can make things feel overwhelming. So that beginning teacher that you mentioned. The only thing that beginning teacher knows is no one in the room learns exactly the way she does. That's all you know.And so then how do you use tools... And we've talked a little bit about this artificial intelligence. Amazing tool for adapting reading levels, for adapting basic feedback, for giving an educator a helpful boost on lesson design because it can synthesize from large language models.It can do work that would've taken us hours in five seconds. But it can't replace the human being. And so how do you see tools like artificial intelligence feeding into UDL so that it becomes more human, not less?James:So where I am, there's a shortage of specialist teachers, for example, and therapists. And Daniel's been doing a lot of work in India and parts of Asia where there isn't the expertise. So I think maybe AI can help in those places.But even he would say that will not replace a specialist. You can never replace a specialist who has the intuitive and curiosity to see what an AI system can't. But it may empower parents who have no kind of training as a teacher might have for neurodiverse situations of how do I deal with my child when they're like this?And similar for teachers and who are looking for... They've tried everything. What do I try now? So we've been working on one on an AI system that's based on all of the research that Daniel's done. It's not released yet. We've got a working title of 360 Assessment, which doesn't really mean anything, but it was meant to be assessing the whole child.And he's, through his work in many schools over many years, many thousands of hours, he's put all of this stuff into the data for the AI system coupled with his books. So when you ask a question, it will do a quick spin round and come back with some suggestions. And it's quite fun to use, I think, as a tool to empower parents to signpost them. And for teachers, it's a useful tool.I don't think it's the panacea, but I think you have to use these technologies sensibly. But my daughter, who's a nursery nurse, and she tried to break it by saying, oh... We tried it, the computer. My child is two years old, but can't pronounce S. should I be worried? And it came back with the correct answer, said no, there's nothing to worry about. Up to four years old, some children won't be able to pronounce the sound S properly.And then it gave her the advice that she would give, because a manager of a nursery nurse, the advice you'd give to her staff. Now all of her team have just started that. None of them have any experience. So that, I could see, could be useful for training numbers, the ratio of good advice to people. That's the way I see it working in the short term.Jon Eckert:No, and I think that's great because it enhances the human's ability to meet the need of the human right in front of them. Because I will always believe that teaching is one of the most human things that we do.James:It is.Jon Eckert:And so any way that we can enhance that with any tool, whether it's a pencil or an artificial intelligence tool that allows you to give feedback and synthesize things and help with design. I also believe we just need to give credit where credit's due. I don't love it when we don't give credit for tools that we use.So if you're using UDL, they're a great people cast. We're about to have a call with them later today. They do great work. And so the same thing. If you have a digital tool, share that so that we know here's what we did and here's how we can spread that collective expertise to others.And so what role does IFIP play in bringing networks of people together to do that? Because in your convenings, that's one of the main things you do. So can you talk a little bit about that?James:Yeah. Well, in the title if you like, in our forums, one of the things that Daniel is very keen on is sustainable growth. So we want to introduce people to each other. And it's surprising with head teachers and principals who struggle. I've just come back from Brazil from a UNESCO GEM, which is a global education meeting, where the focus was on the quality of the leadership. And we need to give, empower our leaders.They're often working on their own. One of the roles of the IFIP is to join them together. So we're launching in January at the BET Show, which is the biggest technology show in the world, apparently, in London Excel Center, our Global School Principals Forum.So we have a forum for them. We have a forum for specialists, forum for pastoral leads. And we've also got regional forums of South America, North America, Asia, just to try to bring people together. Because when you share the experience, and I've been really grateful this morning for the opportunity to walk through and see some American schools that you share the ideas, you see the similarities. That's the power and that's so important.Jon Eckert:No, and that's been our experience. Whether we're just in the states or internationally, there's so much good work going on. We just need to have ways of connecting human beings who are doing it, so it doesn't feel like it's another thing to do, but it's a better way to do what we're already doing.And so I feel like that's what UDL does. I feel like that's what IFIP is about. And that the most meaningful part of our time in Paris at UNESCO was not in the panels, it was in the conversations that happened over lunch, in the hallways. The panel may have sparked a conversation, but it's hey, what are you doing here? And what are you doing there? And I walked away with multiple connections of people that we'll continue to talk to because, again, there's so much good work going on.Yeah, go ahead.James:My memory of the... Because it was a very stale affair, wasn't it? And the bureaucratic approach, UNESCO, because you feel like you're a United Nations and lots of people talking were sat down for hours and hours, was when you lifted your hand and actually ask a few questions. That's inclusion, isn't it?Eric was saying that people who were leaving the room walked back in to listen because that was interesting and someone was asking them how they feel and bringing it back into reality. That's so important. But I also think inclusion, there is an interesting power dynamic with inclusion.A guy called Michael Young who's a professor of education at UCL, talks about the right for all children and young people to be taught powerful knowledge. What knowledge are we giving them? How are we empowering them? So I think inclusion is all about discovering your power within, if you like. That's so important so that they begin to see.And some of the teachers are saying this morning, kids know what they see, what they've experienced. And if you introduce new ways of dealing with anger or with pain, they don't have to fight. They don't have to resort to what they've necessarily seen. Then give them new strategies. That's empowering those children.Jon Eckert:Well, and Adam and Caroline who were taking you around, they're behavioral interventionists. And they are always busy because there are kids that are struggling with how to manage the feelings that they have. And if they don't have people giving them those strategies, how do they grow? And again, that's very human teaching, and Adam and Caroline are great models of that.James:They were wonderful. So good, and it was the light touch that impressed me. Because I've worked with, as I say, school improvement offices. And the trick is not to push people down. It's to make them think twice about what they've done or how they could ask a question better.And their observations of the displays on the walls and just the language teachers and teaching assistants use has a profound effect. I do believe that inclusion is about the students look at the way their teachers behave. It's nothing to do with this pedagogy or the post. It's about how did they respond to me? How did they respond to the other person in the class? What's important to them? How do they talk?That's the inclusion that you teach. Empowering them to make the similar choices when they're older.Jon Eckert:That's well said. So our lightning round, I usually ask four or five questions that have relatively short answers.So first one, what's the worst advice you've ever received as an educator?James:Oh, as an educator? Worst advice.Jon Eckert:Oh, it could be as a human being if you want.James:Well, when I was young, my dad had many qualities and taught me many good things. But one of the worst things he said to me was, "Don't use your money, use theirs."So he would borrow money. And that got me off to a terrible start in life. And I learned through my own experience that it was better to use... Well, I was always using my own money.Jon Eckert:Yes. Yes, okay.James:But I could use it better. But bless him because he's no longer with us. But that was one piece.Jon Eckert:No, that's a tough start.James:Yeah.Jon Eckert:Thank you for that. What's the best advice you've received?James:The best advice, I think, was to go back to university.Jon Eckert:Okay.James:I dropped out of school to get engaged, because that's what you do when you're 19. And I was going to get married, but it didn't happen. And then I went to do a summer job, which lasted for 10 years.Jon Eckert:That's a long summer.James:But my blessed teacher, Michael Brampton, who gave me a love for painting, history of art, he kept on pestering me go back to university. I went back as a mature student and loved it. I think people should start degrees when they're near in the thirties because you appreciate it so much more.Jon Eckert:Yes.James:So that advice he gave me led to such a change in my life.Jon Eckert:Yes. Well, and then you went on to get a degree in art history, philosophy, then a master's in computer science. So you went all in.James:Yes. And that took me into education. And the time I went in, there weren't many teachers that were doing anything with computers.Jon Eckert:So as you get to see all this around the world, what's the biggest challenge that you see schools facing that you work with?James:I think it's manpower.Jon Eckert:Okay.James:I think there's a real manpower issue and belief that school can make a difference. I think one of the things that we believe in IFIP is that positive change is possible. And sometimes it's shocking going to schools. And if you do make people see that the positive change is possible, it transforms them.So advocacy, shared vision. And one of your colleagues was saying this morning, just changing the mantra can make a profound difference.Jon Eckert:Yeah. So what makes you the most optimistic as you get to see all the schools all around the world?James:Yeah. Well, I've just come back from Stockholm in Sweden, and I was really, really impressed by the school there. It was one of the best schools in Stockholm. It was a school that had in their entrance hall, you'd expect it to be very austere and you don't want to see any bad stuff in your entrance hall. But they had a table tennis table set up and they had a piece of found art or hanging above. And it was the whole sense of the school's about children started there, about young people.But in Sweden, it's all about sustainability. Everyone is expected to clear up after themselves, be mindful of other people, respectful. Even in the hotel where I stayed, I had to sort my rubbish in my room. It's that approach that starts from not just in school, across the board.Jon Eckert:Yeah.James:So that impressed me.Jon Eckert:Yeah, that's a beautiful example. One of my favorite schools outside of Nashville, Tennessee, they don't have custodians that clean up the building. They have 20 minutes at the end of the day where the students do all of the cleaning, including the bathrooms. Which you start to take care of stuff better when you're the one who has to clean it up. And the peer pressure to take care of it shifts a little bit.So it's a great word. All right, one other thing. Oh, best book that you've read last.James:Can I give you two books?Jon Eckert:Absolutely.James:I mean, I've got into fiction in a big way recently. So I use Audible, the app.Jon Eckert:Oh, yes.James:And I've been working through all kinds of classics that I never read properly. Just reread The Hobbit and Tom Sawyer. But I've gone through... The Name of the Rose stuck with me recently. I so enjoyed reading it. And I've just got into Robert Harris. He's written Conclave, which has just come out as a feature film. And a series of books called Imperium about Cicero and Oratory and how the Roman Empire was lost. But they aren't the books.Jon Eckert:I love that. Go ahead.James:But the two books, one is by an English specialist called Mary Myatt. And one of the really practical books that she wrote was The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to coherence. Gallimaufry is a word, I'm not sure if it's Gaelic, but it means a mess. So going from a mess to coherence. And that book is all about how it's important that children struggle. That learning only happens. We try to protect kids all the time that way. No, they should struggle. You imagine if everything's easy. And then she says this, if everything's easy, it's hard to learn. There's nothing to hold onto. There's no scratch marks. You need some of that.So Mary Myatt, that's a brilliant book. The other book is by Duncan Green called How Change Happens. And that's all about this idea of power. And he talks about power within, that's your self-confidence power with when you've got solidarity with people. Power to change things and then power over people.But it strikes me that as he shows in his book, where you've got instances where you've got the 'I Can' campaign in South Asia, all about women who were being violently treated by men, reclaiming their self-worth. It's like invisible power. Where does it come from? The change. You can't see any difference, but inside they've changed dramatically to stand up collectively against something. And that's what we need to do with students. Build that self-power inside.Jon Eckert:Great recommendations. And we talk a lot about struggling well and where that fuel comes from. And so, love that book by Mary Myatt. I'll have to get the spelling of that from you when we get off. My also favorite thing about that is I asked for one book recommendation and I wrote down at least seven. So, well done James.All right, well hey. We really appreciate you coming over. We look forward to potentially doing a convening where we get to bring great people together who want to work on serving each kid well in this way that benefits all of us. So hopefully that will happen sometime in the coming year.But really grateful for your partnership and a chance to go visit schools and have you on the podcast.James:Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
 

Faith, Sports, and Education: Paul Putz

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Paul Putz, director of the Faith & Sports Institute at Baylor University, where he helps to lead and develop online programming and curriculum as well as assisting with communications and strategic planning.
They discuss his journey from high school teacher and coach to historian, diving into insights from his new book, The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports. Putz reflects on the role of sports in K-12 education and the importance of of resilience, collaboration, and integrating faith into leadership in both education and sports.
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.The Center for School Leadership and Faith & Sports Institute are partnering together for a summer professional event! Join us for the FIT (faith-integration-transformation) Sports Leadership Summit! We will gather at Baylor to empower and equip Christian sports leaders in K-12 schools to lead, serve, and educate well as they pursue competitive excellence.Be encouraged.Mentioned:The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports by Paul PutzPath Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe by David Maraniss.Faith & Sports Institute Youth Sports Summit 
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Jon Eckert:All right, so we've got Paul Putz here in the podcast studio and we get to talk about a new book. We get to talk about coaching, we get to talk about teaching. So Paul, it's a huge blessing to have you here today. Can you just give us a little bit of your background about how you got to this office today, where you came through as a student and professionally?Paul Putz:Yeah. Well, I started, we'll start with I'm a teacher at heart and was a teacher, a high school teacher. So I grew up in small town Nebraska and playing all the sports thinking that I'm going to become a coach. So I went off and played small college basketball and then wanted to hang around sports. And so I got my secondary ed degree, was a social studies teacher. And as I started teaching in Omaha, Nebraska, I had a sense of how important sports were to me in terms of forming me. I was a pretty good student too, but sports mattered to me on a deeper level. And so I was really intrigued about learning more about sports. As I'm teaching social studies classes, I'm thinking about, man, how historically did we get to a place where sports are part of a school curriculum where sports are actually seen as educational or sports are seen as formative?I was just so curious about that. So instead of becoming a coach as a high school teacher, I get my master's in history and I start exploring these questions about the history of sports and as connections with Christianity. So those sort of questions I was wrestling with as a high school teacher lead me to applying to Baylor, coming to Baylor to get a PhD teaching at Messiah University for a year, and then coming back to Truett Seminary where I lead the Faith & Sports Institute and have been involved with FSI for the past five years.Jon Eckert:So love the work you do. I also understand from guys who still are able to play basketball with you, I have not been able to, as my knee no longer allows it, but you have a nice mid-range game still.Paul Putz:Old school. We keep it old school. Yeah.Jon Eckert:That's great. That makes Nebraska and Indiana boys proud. So love that. And I love the journey that you took. You go into education thinking you're going to coach and you're going to teach, and then you go down this history path, which then leads you to leading a Faith & Sports Institute. So it's kind of funny the way the Lord weaves us through these paths. And then to this book that's been published by Oxford University Press, really nice book by the way.Paul Putz:Thank you.Jon Eckert:Much nicer production than I typically get in the books that I write. So I'm impressed with what Oxford's done with it. The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports. It says it's this fascinating look at the overlap and the way Christianity and major college sports and professional sports have been woven together starting in the 1920s. So tell us how you got to this book from that journey you just described.Paul Putz:Yeah, I think so many authors say their book is in some sense autobiographical. You have a question that you want to think about and in the process of exploring your own questions, you kind of realize, hey, other people might be asking these questions too. So that's how it started for me. I mentioned I'm growing up in Nebraska, I was a pastor's kid, I was also loving sports. And so this idea of being a Christian and being an athlete were so central to how I saw myself. And so when I did pursue the PhD and became a historian exploring sports in Christianity, it was my desire to figure out where did I come from? How was my high school basketball coach, Joel Heeser, who's a friend of mine now still coaching high school basketball? How did he learn what it means to be a Christian athlete, a Christian coach? And so out of that kind of sense of curiosity and a sense of where's my own place in this story, I went and do what historians do.So we go back to the archives and we try to look at the origins and we look at the cultural context and we try to figure out cause and change over time and how did this happen and how did it influence culture and how did culture influence what was going on? And so that's what I got to spend five years doing. It started as a PhD doctoral project. I'm going to archives across the US and I'm looking at memos and documents, and going to the libraries and just trying to tease out how this space to bring together sports and faith developed and then how it evolved and advanced to the place where it shaped my life and shaped the lives of so many others in America.Jon Eckert:That's well said and a great setup to the book. And one of the things that kind of blew my mind, and it's just in the introduction to your book, you have this comment here, "Compared with 100 years ago, there are far more athletes and coaches today willing to publicly champion Christianity as a formative influence in their lives." So I think sometimes in the US we feel like we're in this post-Christian world. And in some ways it's a very different world, especially when you hear athletes as soon as they're interviewed after a game, immediately giving credit to God and giving glory to God and the Steph Currys of the world and any number of football players. And you see this over and over and over again. And that wasn't the case a hundred years ago, probably because sports weren't as, they didn't have the platform that they do now. But as you've written the book, what do you attribute that to the most? I know that's the point of the whole book, but can you distill that down to two or three points for the people listening and why you think that's the case?Paul Putz:Yeah, what I try to suggest in the book is the blending of sports and Christianity kind of happens in two phases. And so I start in the 1920s, but there's this era before the 1920s, we'll say goes from after the Civil War until the 1920s. And it's during this era there's a movement called, muscular Christianity. And what muscular Christianity does is it helps Christians see the value of the body, the value of physical activity to moral formation. And it's out of muscular Christianity, which is a movement that starts in England and then it comes to the United States. It's out of muscular Christianity that a lot of these ideas about character formation in sports are developed. And it's why sports become connected to schools and education because people and school leaders are trying to figure out how do we channel this interest that our students have in athletic activity into productive ways so we can use it to form and shape them as good citizens.So muscular Christianity is kind of the first stage, which again connects sports to Christian mission with this character building way. And it has a profound effect. I mean, some of the sports we play today are products of muscular Christianity. And the classic example is basketball, 1891, James Naismith enrolls at a Christian college in Springfield, part of the YMCA. And when he enrolls at the school, he said his desire was to win men for the master through the gym. So he has a Christian purpose, a Christian mission at a Christian school, and he creates basketball to advance these muscular Christian ideas.Jon Eckert:And I didn't realize this, but in the book you highlight, Naismith is the only coach in Kansas history that has a losing record.Paul Putz:Only coach with a losing record.Jon Eckert:Because he didn't care.Paul Putz:He didn't... And this is such an important point because in that first era there were some real idealistic people like Naysmith who thought sport legitimately as first and foremost for moral formation, it's about developing people. Win or lose doesn't matter. So that's the first era. 1920s comes along and it's pretty clear that sports has developed into something else. Sports is connected to commercialization, winning comes first. Even at colleges it was supposed to be educational, but it's clear that at the college level, if you're a coach, you might be a great molder of young men, but if you don't win games, you're getting fired.Jon Eckert:Right.Paul Putz:So there's this sense in the 1920s, this reality sets in that sport is now commercialized. It's big time. And even though it's still connected to say college, at the big time level, that muscular Christian mission isn't there. So what my book tries to do is say, okay, when muscular Christianity is sort of on the back burner because we now have this big time sports structure in the 1920s where it's all commercialized, it's all celebrity, how do Christians still engage in that? How do they wrestle with that tension of a, when at all cost atmosphere, a space where Christians don't determine the culture of sports they're guests in this culture and how do they create a space to still cultivate and nurture Christian athletes and coaches there? And that's where we see in the 1920s, very few Christians able to navigate that. There's just a handful of them who can be in major league baseball or can be in big time college athletics and still feel strong about their Christian commitments.But a hundred years later, we now see all sorts of Christian athletes and coaches who are comfortable in those spaces. And you kind of asked what drove that. What I would say drives that is the formation of a community that was embedded within sports institutions, that creates a sense of shared mission, shared purpose, and that over generations continue to invite more people in, continue to develop and just kind of under the radar, ministry of presence was just there and available to help athletes and coaches identify as Christians in that space. So it really comes down to the creation of these networks and organizations like the Fellowship of Christian athletes, like athletes in action, like Pro Athletes Outreach, like Baseball Chapel, people starting something new and then sustaining it over time and seeing the ripple effects years later.Jon Eckert:The beautiful example and what I had just finished this summer, this, Path Lit by Lightning, it's the Jim Thorpe book. Have you read this?Paul Putz:Yes, I have. Fantastic book.Jon Eckert:Such a fascinating read, because it's in this, leading up to the 1920s, his career is this amateur versus professional, which he gets caught and just treated so poorly and Pop Warner, the king of amateur child sports that we have Pop Warner leagues all over, kind of a horrific human being in the way they exploited people and they did it through sports. But he started his career at the Carlisle Indian School, which was one of the horrific experiments in US history when we took students off from their families off of reservations to try to quote, unquote civilize them into these things. And sports were a major part of it. So in our conversation, I'd love to pivot a little bit, well maybe not even pivot, but integrate sports into what K-12 education has been because still most places other than maybe Friday night lights in Texas football, most K-12 sports are not big time sports yet that most of the athletes playing sports there.You would make the case that the extracurricular there is to support the moral development. It's not a huge money sport until you get into the AAU stuff and some of those things where you have revenue, but K-12 systems, it's still more about that and it's been used for a lot of good things. And then in some cases, in Jim Thorpe's example, it was good kind of. So could you integrate those a little bit and how you see K-12 sports still having an influence and where Christian coaches and Christian athletes have a spot in that?Paul Putz:Yeah, yeah, you're right. There is a difference. And that muscular Christian ideal still continues in some ways, certainly even at the big time sports level. There's elements of it, but especially I think when we get into K-12 or if we get into division three small colleges.Jon Eckert:Yes.Paul Putz:There's a better chance to I think fully integrate the sports experience with the mission of the school. And at the same time, I would say the trends that we see at the highest levels of sports, your professional leagues, those do filter down because kids are looking to athletes as celebrities and heroes. So they're emulating them in some ways. So even though at the K-12 level and the small college level, there's a difference structurally and financially, you still have people who are formed and shaped by what they're seeing in these images in this culture. Now at the same time, I do think in terms of the growth of sports in what we've seen, I think we saw really a century from the 1920s until the last 10 years of continual development of sports as a central part of education in the United States. And this was done intentionally through organizations and networks like coaches associations, high school athletic associations.These develop in the 1920s and after the 1940s and 1950s, they sort of take on this professional identity. There was a period in time where to be a coach at a high school, you were seen as like, well, you're not really part of what's going on at the school. And so it took time for coaches to establish a professional identity linking it with education. And that evolved over the course of, again, a hundred years from the 1920s into the present. But these coaches and athletic directors, I have a quote in my book where I mentioned this, they intentionally had this vision for cultivating in young people a love of sports, because they thought through sports we can instill good values for American citizens or if you're at a Christian school you can instill Christian values. And so at the K-12 level, sports were always connected with some sort of vision beyond just the game.It was more than a game. It was about who you're becoming as a person. It was about learning life lessons and it sounds like a platitude. We've all heard this and we've also, I'm sure seen hypocrisy where we know of a coach who says this, but it doesn't seem like it plays out that way. But there's also some deep truth to that. I think anyone listening to this, if you've played a sport at the high school level that formed and shaped you, maybe in some bad ways, but in some good ways too. And so I think there is a power to sports that continues to have relevance and resonance today. I will say in more recent years we're seeing some really big shifts with K-12 school. With club sports, with travel sports. And there's some ways that that sense of community identity that was tied into the school level, it doesn't exist everywhere.There's pockets where it does. But in some places, some of the best athletes are now not connected to their school. And so for the future, I worry about what will it look like in 40, 50, 60 years where sports could be such an important part of a community and neighborhood identity at a school level. Will that go away as more and more athletes maybe turn to different models to pursue their dreams and goals? Some people in education might say that's healthy. They might say we need to separate education from sports. For me, and maybe I'm naive, but I think there's something important and beautiful about linking sports to education. But we do have to have guard rails and we do have to have people fighting to do it the right way.Jon Eckert:I completely agree. I want to see sports, I want to see all extracurriculars integrated well into what's going on in the classroom. I think that provides more holistic place for kids to learn is where kids can be more engaged and kids can flourish in areas where they may not flourish in one classroom, but they might flourish with an instrument they might flourish in a club or with sports. And I think sports are a powerful place for that. I do know with some states moving to NIL deals for high school athletes, that completely changes the dynamic and is really disconcerting for me because in that case, unlike colleges where that athlete is generating revenue for the school, it's hard to argue that the gate attendance at the high school game is really that much impacted by an individual athlete. But that's coming and that is the world we're living in.And that's some of that trickle-down effect that you described. I never want to be the sky is falling person. I'm thrilled that we have a 12 team playoff system in college football. I'm also not ignorant of the fact that, that completely changes the dynamics of the economics of the sport. So what I'd like to say is Christian leaders, because our set in the Interfaith Sports Institute and the Center, we overlap in some really good ways. What I'd like to see is what you described about the athletes in the twenties and thirties, creating these associations and these communities that fly under the radar of just inviting people in because I think that's what as Christians we should be doing in whatever we're called to. So do you see overlap for Christian administrators and teachers for how we can represent Christ well in the platforms big or small that we have? Do you see any lessons that we can take away as educators from what you found from your athletes in the book?Paul Putz:I think so. I think probably one of the most important, or I guess if I were to highlight two things. One is I would say there's lots of different ways to do it.Jon Eckert:Yes.Paul Putz:I think sometimes a certain person or a certain organization, they come up with a way that works really well for them and then they hold fast to that as if this is the way, this is the biblical way, this is the Christian way. And what I would want to say is it's a part of a conversation. Different contexts need different resources, different methods. And the way God made us as a community talks about the diversity of strengths we have in giftings and callings. And so I think one thing to learn is you can learn from other people who have methods and approaches when it comes to integrating faith in sports. And you probably also have something to offer to that conversation too.So if we can hold what we do loosely, but also not in a way that shies away from the calling to step up as Christian leaders and to say there is a way to engage in sports that reflects my convictions, but then also in a way where there's a sense of humility that I can learn from others. I don't have it all figured out. A bunch of Christians before me have messed up as they're trying to do this, but they've also done some good stuff along the way. And I think that can give us freedom to try, probably to fail, but to maybe advance the conversation forward. So that's one piece. And the other piece is I think it's simply expect tension, expect that there's not an easy overlap between the culture of sports and Christianity. I think there are certain elements to sports that I'm really drawn to. I'm competitive. I love the competitiveness of sports. I want to have the winner. For me, there's a drive for all of that.Jon Eckert:You're not James Naismith, is that what you're saying?Paul Putz:I'm not. I love James Naismith, but for me, boy, I want to, I'm kind of like, I want to win.Jon Eckert:You can be John Wooden. He wanted win too.Paul Putz:There you go. That's right. He did it. The quiet winner. But biblically, there are all sorts of messages, passages, commands from Jesus that tell us that his kingdom is upside down. It's different than the way the world works. And sports culture so often has a certain way where we prioritize the winner. We maybe give our attention to the star athlete. And that type of culture, it's really difficult to fully, fully integrate that into this full-fledged view of Christian faith. And especially because sports is also a pluralistic space where you're going to have people of all different faith, traditions, race, ethnicity, backgrounds, which is beautiful.But it also means let's just have some realistic expectations for what we can accomplish in sports, realizing tension's going to exist. It's the already not yet tension. We live after Jesus's life, death and resurrection before he comes to make it fully complete. And so in the midst of that, we can witness to Christ's way right now and point to glimpses of his coming kingdom. But let's not have this sense of maybe an idealistic perfectionist bent that insists or expects that we're going to round out all the sharp edges of sports. There's going to be tension there.Jon Eckert:And so as educators, the beautiful thing, I got to teach coach for years and what I loved about it was I love basketball, but it wasn't going over the same play for the fourth year in a row. And the 50th practice that I've done it was seeing how individuals came to that and what skills you had and how you could put them in place to be successful. And so when I taught a science lab the 16th time I taught the science lab, I knew what was going to happen with the chemical reaction, but it was fun to see through the eyes of the kids that were there. So the more diverse and pluralistic the classroom of the team is, the more interesting it is to see that through all those different perspectives.And I think that's really how God sees us anyway. And so there's beauty in that and it's not a challenge to be overcome. It's the beauty of being in the world that every person is made in the image of God, whether they're the guy on the end of the bench or the best player on the team, or the kid that struggles in the science lab and flourishes in the art classroom. That kid is fascinating. And then you can't give up on that kid. And so the great coaches don't give up on players. It's why I'm super curious to see how Bill Belichick does at University of North Carolina, having been a pro coach for so many years where it is like, yeah, you've got to recruit well, but you also have to build a culture where your team, and that's harder to do now than ever because of what's going on in the transfer portal.And I don't like this, so I'm going to leave. And at least in the classroom, for the most part, we get a kid for the year and we get to be with them. We get to walk alongside them for a time and help them become more of who they're created to be and then pass them off to the next person. So I know in the Faith and Sports Institute, this is a lot of what you're trying to do through sports and how you integrate faith well. So talk a little bit about any events you have coming up or what you hope to do through that.Paul Putz:Yeah, well one thing we are excited about is the stuff we get to do with you, the Center for School Leadership. I think just over the past couple of years we've connected and collaborated. We've hung out and [inaudible 00:22:43]Jon Eckert:Board, you're on our advisory board board.Paul Putz:I often tell people, CSL think is one of the best things Baylor has going for it. And that's because I was a high school teacher and I see the sort of leaders that are developed through CSL. And so I immediately wanted to get connected and to see some overlap. I also knew sports is so central to education, and I know you have many coaches and athletic directors who come through your degree programs. And so it's been fun just to explore together some of the ways we can partner. So we do have, in June, we're actually going to be putting on at Baylor in conjunction with Baylor Athletics Center for School Leadership, faith and Sports Institute. We're going to have a little Christian Leadership Summit event. We're going to gather people together who are interested in these questions of faith and sport integration and how do you compete with excellence, but with Christian values and perspective.And so we're real excited about that. We have other events that we're doing in February, we're hosting a youth sports event, thinking about how the church navigates youth sports issues. And that's going to be February 7th and eighth here at Truett Seminary in Waco. And then in next summer, July, late July, we're hosting the Global Congress on Sport and Christianity. This is more of an academic gathering. We're bringing in scholars who do research on sports and Christianity, but we're also bringing in some thoughtful practitioners, some chaplains, some coaches, some athletic directors, people who have thought deeply about sports and faith. And it's a shared conversation. So a lot of what we try to do with the Faith and Sports Institute, convene people, have conversations, collaborate, bring people together. And we do have some grad programs and online certificate programs. So we have some educational pieces that are foundational to what we do, but also we have these just public facing programs and collaboration opportunities that I'm real excited about.Jon Eckert:Love that. And I love being at a place like Baylor where there's so many good things going on. As a center, we get to partner with you, we get to partner with Baylor Athletics. Anything Coach Drew does, I will happily support.Paul Putz:100%.Jon Eckert:So we have so many great people like that. So that's a blessing. And I know we're almost out of time, so I'm going to do our lightning round because we really need to do the lightning round. But I want to start with this. What's the biggest challenge you see facing Christian coaches and educators right now?Paul Putz:I think it's margin and time, and the demands of the job. It seems there's more and more responsibility, and for good reasons. It's because there's these issues. It's mental health. We want to care for the kids. And there's all these challenges kids face now you need to figure that out, because if you're going to teach the kid, you better know what you're doing. And it just seems like I was last a high school teacher 11 years ago. I don't know that that world exists now 10 years later. It's totally different when I hear what educators are going through. I think for coaches as well, you've talked about it with NIL, it feels so new. I would just say some margin, some grace, some space, some sense of community. And then through that, maybe we can figure out some healthier rhythms because it's unsustainable with the way it is now. So that's one thing I see just with the people I've been around, and I know we've talked a little bit about this too, it's something... We need each other. At the end of the day, we need each other for this.Jon Eckert:Yeah. Best advice you've ever received?Paul Putz:I would say, I'm going to, boy, here's what I'll go with. John Wilson said this, "Let a thousand flowers bloom," was what he said. And he was talking about in the context of academics who kind of try to claim their territory, their space, and kind of own it. And his perspective was, let's encourage it all. Let's let it all grow. Don't try to cultivate your little space, a little thousand flowers bloom. It's going to look more beautiful and let's encourage one another along the way. And so that's the first thing that to mind. If I were to think more, I might have something else, but that's something I've been continually reminded of is how much we need each other and how much we need to encourage one another. And how much there is when we look out from ourselves and see the other work that's being accomplished. There's so much to support and encourage.Jon Eckert:That's good. I always like what comes to mind first. So that's good. Worst advice you've ever received?Paul Putz:Worst advice...Jon Eckert:Or given?Paul Putz:Or given? I've probably given some bad advice. I cannot think of... There's nothing specific that's coming to mind. That's for worst advice probably because sort of just went in one ear and out the other.Jon Eckert:That's good.Paul Putz:Gosh, I've run a total blank. You stumped me. [inaudible 00:27:39] Yeah. I'll circle back. I'm going to email you, if I can think of one after.Jon Eckert:You have to have gotten bad advice from a coach or from about coaching. That's where some of the worst advice I've ever received about coaching.Paul Putz:Well, I'll tell you. So this isn't necessarily advice, but I have heard a coach say, and this is about being a Christian, basically it was, "Hey, when you're a Christian, when you step onto that field, you're someone else. You're totally someone else. You can become whatever you want to be there." So there you go. That's some bad advice.Jon Eckert:Yeah. That's good.Paul Putz:As Christians, sports are part of life. So we don't separate who we are as Christians, we don't compartmentalize. So there you go. Worst advice is that you can separate who you are in the field to play.Jon Eckert:So if you had to distill down into a sentence your one takeaway piece of advice for somebody who wants to write a book, I talk to a lot of educators who run to write a book, you've now written a book. Any nugget that as an encouragement or as a discouragement, like, "Hey, think about this." What would you say?Paul Putz:I would say you got to write it for yourself. You got to care about it. And it's got to be important for you that you put this out because there's a ton of great books out there. You're not going to get rich off writing books. It's got to be because you're passionate about it. For yourself, not in the sense of to glorify yourself, for yourself in the sense that I have these words that I think could be helpful if I get it out. And the other thing is resilience. You got to be willing to sit down in that chair and write when you don't feel like it. Get that draft out, edit, revise. So it's resilience. And it's also a real calling that these words need to be out there.Jon Eckert:Yeah. Well, you said you were not going to make money on this. I've heard you refer to yourself as the John Grisham of sports historians.Paul Putz:There's only... Yeah, of sports and Christianity in America. Historians. There's like two of us.Jon Eckert:That's good. No, no, that's good. It's so true about the books and not getting rich, and you do have to have something that you feel so deeply that you need to get out there that it's going to drive you on those days you don't want to do it. So that's good advice. Last question, what makes you most hopeful as you look ahead, as an educator, as somebody who's interested in sports, what makes you most encouraged?Paul Putz:I think it's being around people who we're in this with, it's about the people we're in it with. There's a lot that I can get discouraged about when I see the news and it feels like there's so much that's changing. But then I'm around people who are saying, "You know what? This is a time we lived in. We didn't choose this time, but here we are, and what are we going to give up? We're going to say, oh, it's hopeless." No, it's the people. It's looking for people who want to find solutions and who realize young people are growing up. They're being shaped and formed right now. And if we're not in that work, what are we doing to shape the future? So that's more than anything. It's just being around people who are willing to put in the work, even in the face of the struggles.Jon Eckert:Well, until wrap up, I'm grateful that you decided not to take your talents to the NBA, but you brought them into academia and you brought those loves together. So I really appreciate your partnership and you being here today.Paul Putz:Thanks so much. Really appreciate you and the work you do.

Constraints Breed Creativity: Stephen Carter

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Stephen Carter, founder of the Seed Tree Group and director of the entrepreneurial program at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy. They explore how constraints breed creativity and how fostering an entrepreneurial mindset transforms education.Carter works with schools across the country to help them start similar entrepreneurship programs that focus on transforming student and teacher engagement rather than just adding new programs or tools.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:Teaching the Entrepreneurial Mindset: Innovative Education for K-12 Schools by Stephen CarterThe Seed Tree: Money Management and Wealth Building Lessons for Teens by Stephen CarterThe Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
 
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInX: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
 
 
Jon Eckert:
All right, Stephen, welcome to the Just Schools podcast. Really excited to have you on. We've been wanting to have you on for quite a while as I think you're leading some of the most interesting work in schools right now. So tell us a little bit about your background and what got you to the point that you're at right now in your career.
Stephen Carter:
Jon, thank you. I'm pleased to be on this podcast, and love following your work and what you're doing as well.
Really, the journey was a journey through Christian education. I started in 10th grade in Christian education, graduated from a Christian school, went to a Christian college, started teaching at a Christian school, landed at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy in Cincinnati, Ohio when I was 24 years old. So that means they took on a teacher who had no idea what he was doing, and they took a risk, right? And I cut my teeth on those early years as an English teacher. And I made a discovery early on, which was if you say yes to things, you will get a lot of awesome opportunities.
I should also point out, Jon, you'll get some not so awesome opportunities, i.e., let's start a debate team at the school. Let's coach cross country. Let's get involved with the fine arts, different aspects of writing, critical reviews for plays. I said yes to everything. And that meant that 11 years ago when Dean Nicholas, who at the time was our principal, came to me and said, "Stephen, we've got this idea for this coffee shop for students. You should help run it," of course my answer was yes, never mind the fact that we are about to welcome our second child and we had all kinds of irons in the fire. The answer was yes.
What I didn't know, Jon, is that would completely change my life. I talk a lot about transformation. That was the defining moment of transformation, when it was here's an English teacher who in my mind had no business starting an entrepreneurship program, stepping into this space, discovering a passion that came alive through student engagement, and now 11 years later, just to borrow one of your favorite words, flourishing, a flourishing program that has now enabled me to help impact schools around the nation as they start programs that enable students to thrive and then flourish through just meaningful engagement. So it's been a journey of discovering what it means to truly engage students around the entrepreneurial mindset.
Jon Eckert:
Well, and I'm curious, and I've never asked you this but did you have an entrepreneurial bent prior to taking this on? It feels like to just jump into what you've done and saying yes as a form of being somewhat entrepreneurial, but did you have that in your background at all?
Stephen Carter:
Well, Jon, I did, but I had repressed it because I thought you had to repress that to be a teacher, right?
Jon Eckert:
Oh, right, yeah.
Stephen Carter:
Because if you're a teacher, you're the academic. You're the person who contains the knowledge. You can't have an entrepreneurial bent. I had a lawn mowing business when I was in school, a babysitting business. I would go door to door passing out flyers to do anything around a house to get some money. I even sold my lawn mowing business when I went to college, not for much money, but the point was I had just repressed it. And when I stepped into this space, it just all came flooding back and it took me on a journey of discovery into what does a renewed mindset really mean? I talk a lot about Romans 12:2 when Paul says, "Don't conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." I experienced it that first year starting an entrepreneurship program in real-time, and then I saw students do that as well and it's just been a journey ever since.
Jon Eckert:
Well, I think it's fascinating and maybe a sad commentary on our profession that it feels like you have to set aside that entrepreneurial mindset to be a teacher. And so I've worked with a group that was the Center for Teaching Quality, now it's Mira Education, but they wrote a book a number of years ago called Teacherpreneurs, and how do we get educators to think more in a more entrepreneurial way about this really human task that we do with students. And so I think that's why I've had such an affinity for your work. You're literally working on entrepreneurship with kids.
But I think even just in the way you've built out what you've done at CHCA and now working with schools all over the country, I've seen that mindset in you as I know you've had to overcome some challenges. So what were some of the biggest hurdles for you getting to where you're at now? Because I think there are a lot of schools out there looking at entrepreneurial programs, and obviously there are going to be different challenges, but I would imagine there would be some similar obstacles people might have to get over. So what were two or three of the biggest challenges you had getting this going?
Stephen Carter:
Hindsight is a beautiful thing. I can look back on it and say they were formative, and I would almost call them constraints more than challenges. And the principle that I now realize I operate out of is that constraints breed creativity. So now I seek them out, Jon. I'm like, "Yes, give me a constraint."
So for me, there were a couple big ones. Budget was huge. I'm remembering this. I document this in the book. I went to Dean Nicholas early on. This was a motif in the story. I go asking for money and I leave with very little money or none. That's a constraint. Here's what I've told him multiple times. "If I had gotten the money for the program that I asked for, it wouldn't have grown like it did." The constraint was budget.
Another constraint, time. Time is the number one thing. You talk to school leaders all the time. Time is the biggest constraint. Our teachers are strapped. There's no bandwidth. There's no time. And I would just say the beauty of this is it helps us understand how to better manage our time so that we begin investing it.
And I think the third, this is one I don't talk about a lot, but it was getting over the sense of being almost hypocritical in a space where I didn't have an MBA. I wasn't an entrepreneur technically at the time, and I felt like an imposter. And I'm in a school, like many schools listening, of business leaders where the parents own businesses and they have MBAs and they have these degrees. And I just decided in that moment, I would own it and ask for advice and ask for help and what should I be reading? Who should I be talking to? And it opened up more doors than I ever possibly imagined.
Jon Eckert:
So you mentioned the book, and it's a great book teaching the entrepreneurial mindset, innovative education for K-12 schools. I love it that you built... Because the SeedTree Group is your... That's your group, right? So you've published it that way. Again, it's a great blueprint for it. But I have to have you share a little bit, I don't know if I have the name quite right, but was it the Leaning Eagle Coffee Cart? Wasn't that-
Stephen Carter:
The Leaning Eagle Coffee Bar.
Jon Eckert:
Can you give a... That story just makes me laugh every time I hear it. Can you just give us a little bit-
Stephen Carter:
Oh, my goodness. Well, so we're-
Jon Eckert:
... the genesis of the... Yeah, go ahead.
Stephen Carter:
So Jon, you're referencing our flagship business. And when we launched this whole program in Cincinnati, we started with a rolling coffee cart and three little rolling carts and we're not... This was Jason Oden was a teacher at the time who was instrumental in this. And we built the permanent location and we were going through some naming pieces. Well, the school was going through one of these big rebranding campaigns and had hired all the consultants and all the things. And they had just released this big idea, and it was, "Hey, at CHCA, students lean in."
And so I remember, I'm sitting there as a teacher, we're in the big assembly room, and every teacher turns and you just get this look of like, "Oh, here we go. Where are we going to have to implement this? Oh, another one of these branding campaigns." So I remember the discussion then went into the naming of the coffee bar, and our mascot is the eagle. So it was this tongue in cheek approach of, "Hey, we're the Leaning Eagle because we lean in and take a sip at the coffee bar." And it was really funny for the first two or three years, then the school changes its branding campaign. So now it's like, "Why is the Eagle leaning?" So we have the old school people who remember the why, and it's rooted in that.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. Well, and speaking of constraints breeding creativity, didn't your cart get shut down due to health concerns? Wasn't that-
Stephen Carter:
Oh, Jon, you're getting-
Jon Eckert:
That right?
Stephen Carter:
... all of our dirty laundry out there. And yeah, you're absolutely right. Oh my gosh, those early years, it's so much funny. That's why I tell schools when I work with them. I'm like, "Look, we've been doing this 11 years. I can start you at year seven because you're going to overcome a lot of what we learned the hard way." And I'm telling, this is embarrassing, Jon, but I guess we'll just put it out there. We didn't know we needed a health license. No one told us. We're just selling coffee. We didn't know.
And so we've got the student there and he's serving coffee. Well, here comes the health inspector, walks up to him and says, "Hey, where do you wash hands?" And this is probably not the best kid to answer that question. Let's face it, Jon, this is the one kid where you're like, "Please don't ask him anything." So this kid says, "Why would we need to wash hands?" And it's like, "Are you kidding me right now?" I'm teaching an English class and I get called down and it's like, "Why is this conversation even happening? Couldn't you have had a better answer than why do we need to wash hands?" We did not get shut down. But I will tell you this, we had a hand sink in no time, a license at a record pace, and we learned a lot of lessons along the way.
Jon Eckert:
So I love it. Page 188 and 189, they have people saying, you walk into CHCA now, we should talk a little bit about where you're at now with the teaching kitchen and the greenhouse and all those pieces, and people are like, "Well, we don't have that. We don't have the resources for that. But you can do this with $150 and an innovative idea. And I think that's what the Leaning Eagle was. And then that blew up into these things. And then you've had a number of businesses. I remember the... Was it a smoothie business that you're like, "Hey, we didn't have it placed right. We didn't..." And the kids learn so much from that failure about what does work and what doesn't work. And so you want some of that because as an entrepreneur, you have to try things. And the benefit of risk-taking isn't that you're going to be successful. It's learning from that. And so I feel like you have built that in well.
And I want to know how you have built what you've built at CHCA, but then give schools what they need where they have the constraints that are going to be real, but they learn the lessons that you learned in those first seven years because I feel like those are super valuable for you and for the students that you've been leading with. So talk a little bit about what you've built and some of the ways you've built it, even how you got the pizza ovens. I think that's an amazing story where you found state money that allowed you to buy pizza ovens. So I would love to hear a little bit about the current state at CHCA.
Stephen Carter:
So currently when you step into our school on our campus where we are PK-12, over a thousand students, right around 1,200, several campuses, you're going to see a fully fledged program, six full-time faculty members running it, six on-campus businesses, 15 elective courses, a certificate track. It's fully baked, but you're seeing the product of what we learned along the way. Because I will tell you this, as we've already illustrated, when we started, we were living that entrepreneurial mindset. And by that, I mean that famous saying of we had jumped off the cliff and we were building the plane on our way down in real-time with students.
And that's the beauty of it, is the students were experiencing all of these different aspects and having an awesome time. We now have to seek out failure. I hate to say it that way because early on, failure is easy. Now, we have to create it because learning from that is so pivotal. It's one of our four attributes we teach. We built these businesses and then we discovered we needed curriculum and we needed learnings. And so all of this was built along the way as we were going. And we discovered there's four attributes that truly embody the entrepreneurial mindset. And that is truly understanding a directed growth mindset, tethered to mission, vision and values, understanding the why and the purpose and the compass of direction, then developing grit. And that's the goal-setting piece that's been instrumental in all of our business.
I'll give you a little anecdote here. You mentioned our pizza oven business. That started because we had a goal. We wanted to build this teaching kitchen. We had no money. And I'll second your point, Jon. People walk in our campus and they say, "Wow." Well, you should have seen it when we were building these things. It was nothing, okay? So we're building this, we don't even have enough money for the drywall. So we were going to build it without drywall. It was going to be an extra $20,000. And we had a senior at the time who now is at a three Michelin star restaurant who said, "No, we're going to do that drywall, Mr. Carter." And I'm like, "Oh, really?" He's like, "We're going to start a business using that pizza oven and we're going to sell pizzas until we have enough money to finish building that drywall." And that's how it started. It was a goal. And that pizza business is still an operation. And so it's teaching these attributes through the experience of these hands-on businesses.
And I'll end this point on this note. What we discovered in hindsight is it's not a business as much as it is a laboratory, and it's a laboratory to experience in real-time problem-solving via systems. Hey, we're out of cups at the coffee bar. That's an awesome problem. Why? Because it means something failed in our system, which means we need to address that failure, which means we need a better system so that we can replicate the success in the future. That's the learning. You're going to have kids graduating with this program. I don't care if they start a coffee bar. Frankly, I don't think they should. You lose a lot of money unless you open 15 of them. Don't start a coffee bar, listeners, okay? At your school, it's fine. But you've got kids leaving who know how to solve problems and create systems to prevent future problems, I guarantee you every business owner in the country would hire that kid on the spot.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's well said. I think sometimes we get caught up in the product and where we get to and we miss the whole point of it, which is the learning that goes on and the problem solving, which is so key. And so you having to seek out opportunities for failure, that's a great place to be in. But I do think it's important that we don't miss that, that kids need a chance to try some things that as adults, we're like, "Ugh." And you have been doing it for 12 years. That's probably not going to work but at some level, you need to let them learn that lesson or better yet, prove you wrong. Because that's what entrepreneurs do. They see something, they see a hole, they figure out a way to solve the problem. And then in doing that, they're solving all kinds of problems. So I love the mindset that you're teaching because I think that's what's so integral.
What opportunities do you have do you see for schools who want to partner with you? I know you're with 25 schools now. You want to get to 50 schools in fairly short order. What opportunities do you see for that? Because I think there's been a huge interest as I've heard people talk about you and to you about the opportunities they have.
Stephen Carter:
So when I talk to heads of school, typically I hear problems. I used to hear problems around enrollment and things have changed to where there's not a lot of that anymore but engagement is huge. And it's teacher engagement, student engagement, and parent engagement. And here's what I'm really seeing as a massive opportunity. Parents are now coming to school saying, "We want this. We want this. We want this." But they don't exactly know what they want, just that they want this. And the same often at schools. And schools have the problem of we've got a lot of programs, a lot of great programs, and often you can get program fatigue. It's like, well, we're going to launch this other program. Well, does it have a long shelf life? Is it just going to be another maker space idea that turns into a storage room?
So for me, the opportunity is transformation over tools, or I could even put it as skills over content. We are at a defining point in education when it comes to shifting to meaningful real-world skill building for our students. Think about what Malcolm Gladwell said last summer on stage at an event. He said that collaboration is the skill of the 21st century. We've been doing collaboration in schools for as long as we can remember, but when you collaborate with a group of students to build a brand new venture on the campus that is still going to be there 10 years later, you're collaborating around a legacy. You're collaborating in real-time to learn leadership skills, effective communication, all these core skills, even emotional intelligence.
So I'll answer your question like this. The opportunity is parents want this kind of programming. Students are engaged by this kind of programming. And here's something really cool. Donors come alive with this programming. When I work with private, I mostly work with private Christian K-12 schools around the nation, and here's what I'll tell them. 60% of our program here in Cincinnati, Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, 60% is funded by donors who are alumni parents that had stopped giving to the school. That to me, we're not talking about robbing, giving to other programs. We're talking about new interest. So the opportunity is low barrier to entry with massive ROI around engagement and true transformation.
One of the big areas of this business, it's not just starting a program. It's training teachers to then engage the students through the program toward a certificate that demonstrates key learnings in the entrepreneurial mindset. So it's student-facing and teacher-facing with the mindset to transform the entire school culture. So Jon, I am pumped.
Jon Eckert:
Yeah, and I feel that for you. I should say full disclosure here, I'm on the Cincinnati Hills board because I love what Dean Nicholas is doing as head, and I love the entrepreneurial program. And we went and studied your school as part of a book project we were doing several years ago. I walked away thinking this was some of the most interesting work that I've seen in schools, particularly because of the engagement piece. And I think your point about donors getting excited about it and people seeing the value in it, it's when you see kids truly engaged and doing meaningful work together in this collaborative way, not this cheesy artificial collaboration that happens in schools where we give kid, "Now, this is your role and this is your role," and you lead the discussion. It's like this is real money and you now have six businesses that are flourishing. That's really powerful.
I wanted to circle back and then we'll do our lightning round. I wanted to circle back to this initial thing, you saying yes to so many things. We have a lot of people who are educators, and some of them are in their first four or five years of teaching. And I'm always citing this David Brooks quote, "A life of commitment requires saying thousands of no's for the sake of a few precious yeses." And I really worry about people saying yes too often. I'm a people pleaser. I say yes too often all the time, and I don't treat my yeses as precious enough. But I wonder, your comment, constraints breed creativity, is there a way to balance those yeses with that constraints breeding creativity mindset? Do you see any through line there? Because I think you cannot be saying yes to everything anymore-
Stephen Carter:
Right, right.
Jon Eckert:
... because I know you can't manage that. So how do you see those two things in tension, constraints breeding creativity and saying yes to cool opportunities?
Stephen Carter:
Oh my goodness, this is the best question I've heard this month. This is awesome, and I'll answer it with a little bit of Greek mythology. There's a character in Greek mythology who's considered the god of opportunity, and his defining characteristic is he has a lock of hair in the front of his head and the rest of his head is bald. And the idea is he's got winged feet, he comes running by, and if you want to grab onto opportunity, you got to be ready to grab that lock of hair or all you get is the bald back of his head.
So for me, it's not just about like, "Oh, when opportunity comes, I'm going to get up off my seat and open the door and I'll begrudgingly... I'll put my coffee cup down and go." No, I'm already outside the door and I'm going to see him running down the street. And in that moment, I'm going to decide if that is an opportunity that is within my why and my vision and my mission. And to me, that's why we always start with a directed growth mindset.
If you come into our greenhouse, you're going to see these tomato plants, Jon, that are 20, 30 feet tall. You don't get to be a 25-foot tall tomato plant unless you do some pruning, and you've got to prune those leaves and you've got to prune those suckers. And that means you have to know where you're going and why. So I would answer your question by saying I would never chase opportunity until I knew where I was going and why, and that is what we're teaching to our students in real-time.
Jon Eckert:
Love that. That's so needed for all of us, not just our K-12 students. So we always wrap up with a lightning round just to get quick, short burst answers. These are the ones I'm the worst at always. But what would be the best advice you've ever received as an entrepreneur, as an educator, or just as a human being?
Stephen Carter:
Kaizen, the Japanese word for continuous improvement. Never stop learning or improving. Best advice I ever got. In fact, I even have temporary tattoos I pass out that say kaizen on them.
Jon Eckert:
I love that. Love that. What's the worst advice you've ever received as a teacher or entrepreneur?
Stephen Carter:
Probably I would say every single idea has validity for you. And that led into chasing opportunities I shouldn't have chased.
Jon Eckert:
Yes, good bit of wisdom there. Best book you've read in the last year? This could be education-related, business-related, or just being a human being.
Stephen Carter:
I read 52 books a year, and there's one of those that I reread every single year, every year. And that is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. I'm telling you, this book has changed every part of my life.
Jon Eckert:
All right, that's been popular for quite a while, so...
Stephen Carter:
Yes, it has.
Jon Eckert:
It's good.
Stephen Carter:
It's old-school.
Jon Eckert:
Yes. But hey, when there's wisdom, there's wisdom. So that's great. All right. And then what would you say your greatest hope? If you were to distill down your greatest hope for what's ahead in education into a sentence, what would you say it is?
Stephen Carter:
This is the time for education to experience true transformation, and we as educators get to be part of that leading toward impact. And to me, impact is refusing to stay in the same place but committing to the same path.
Jon Eckert:
That's well said. That's a great place to wrap things up. So if you're interested in knowing more about Stephen, his work is out there. He's part of the SeedTree Group, and he has written the book Teaching the Entrepreneurial Mindset. He's put out a number of other pieces. I've heard him speak. He's great. You can always hear the energy and the passion in what he's sharing. But it's a blessing to have you on, and I'm so grateful for the work you're doing in schools at Cincinnati Hills and now all over the place. So thanks for being with us.
Stephen Carter:
Thank you, Jon. Appreciate what you're doing and appreciate the opportunity.
 

Leading Leaders: Max Silverman

In this episode of the Just Schools Podcast, Jon Eckert interviews Max Silverman from the Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) at the University of Washington. Silverman shares his journey from a high school principal to leading CEL, where he supports district and school leaders nationwide.
A key takeaway is the power of student voice in creating meaningful change, emphasizing the importance of listening, fostering belonging, and staying collaborative as leaders.
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:The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves by Shawn Ginwright
Connect with us:Baylor MA in School LeadershipEdD in K-12 Educational LeadershipJon Eckert LinkedInTwitter: @eckertjonCenter for School Leadership at Baylor University: @baylorcsl
 
Dr. Jon Eckert:
All right. Welcome back to [Jeff 00:00:05] Schools. Today we're here with Max Silverman from the University of Washington. He has been doing work that we really aspire to do in so many ways, in supporting school leaders and education leaders in all different kinds of places through the Center for Educational Leadership. So Max, if you would share a little bit about, what brought you into this work? Maybe we'll start there and then just take the conversation from there.
Max Silverman:
It's a funny story, I was a high school principal ... I was a high school assistant principal here in Washington State, at a school that, however you would characterize a school or measure a school, it was struggling. I think the students would tell you that, the staff, and I got the opportunity to be the principal. I quickly found out that as a former high school basketball coach and former social studies teacher, I was actually pretty good at getting people coalesced around a vision of what could be. I was pretty good at working with folks and us agreeing that the kids were fine, that we were the problem, and then we hit a wall. We actually didn't know how to improve the quality of teaching and student experience. That beyond our really wonderful intentions towards our students, that we needed to drastically change what teaching looked like, what school culture and environment looked like. And my school district, just by chance and luck for me, contracted with the Center for Educational Leadership. This is about 2004 maybe, 2005, and I immediately went through the most rigorous program around how to be an instructional leader. I went from saying really stupid things to teachers like, "Oh, I was just in your classroom, and I noticed you called on more girls than boys. Maybe that's something you want to work on."
So knowing how to talk to a teacher and ask questions around, "Tell me a little bit more about what you're working on in your practice. What was your intent for student engagement today?" I just learned how to be in language arts classes and math classes and not be a waste of time to the teachers, to actually be a value add. So that started my journey with CEL, and I was a client of CEL for probably five years and then in 2009 had the opportunity to join the CEL team, begin to build out our work with central office leaders.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Yes. I love the confident humility that you just led into with that, the example that you gave on the who's being called on. My other favorite thing that principals always like to point out is, "Oh, I didn't see a learning target on the board." I didn't see ... It's like, okay, if you're a really bad teacher, then having that learning target on the board might give the kids some idea of what the teacher is trying to do. But for any average educator that learning target is not doing a whole lot for kids, but that's always a go-to one.
Max Silverman:
It's pretty funny to watch a group of leaders walk into a classroom, see a learning target, check the box on their checklist and not think about, oh, is it standard space, is it rigorous? Is that actually what the teacher is doing that day?
Dr. Jon Eckert:
That's right. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into learning targets and I'm like, I feel like that learning target may have been up for the last four or five days because whatever is happening here seems completely unrelated to that. But hey, it's on there, that checks the box, complete compliance exercise. So I do love that research out there that the people who benefit the most from evaluations are the people doing the evaluating, because you're the one getting all the expertise as you see all these different contexts. So I appreciate the humility that you had saying, hey, I could do a lot of the things a leader needs to do, but when we actually wanted to move the needle, I needed this expertise from CEL to figure that out. So I'm curious, the program that you went into, was it a degree program? Was it a support? Was it a part of a cohort? What did that look like?
Max Silverman:
No. So when CEL started ... and more formally, when the Center for Educational Leadership University of Washington, but CEL, we are very unique in that we are a fee-for-service center from a tier-one research university. So we contract with school systems across the country to provide leader professional learning. Even back then, my school district hired CEL and instead of going to a district-led leader professional development, CEL led it. They brought in the most brilliant people from District Two in New York City, from San Diego Unified School District. We had whole group professional development. But even then, Jon, it was fascinating, they would model for us by bringing a whole elementary classroom to our professional development. We'd see a model lesson and then learn how to give feedback to the teacher right there. And then I got coaching in my school, so it was both really good professional development as well as embedded coaching.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
I love that, and I love that an R1 is doing that. Because so often we leave that behind for the research, so then we don't actually apply any of the good research that we're finding, so that feels like a great relationship. How many districts do you all currently work with at CEL? What's the scope of the work? So let's talk about breadth and then we'll talk a little bit more about depth.
Max Silverman:
Yeah. We have a fascinating scope, in that we work with approximately 40 school systems a year as large as Chicago Public Schools and Metro National Public schools, and then as small as Nooksack, Washington. We tend to be in urban districts and rural districts. For many years we lead or facilitate the South Central Washington Superintendents' Network. We've done that for about 15 plus years, and that's out in the Yakima Valley of Washington. Once a month we're in classrooms with superintendents, so we have a pretty wide, pretty good breadth. We also lead the National Principal Supervisor Academy for AASA.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Okay. So with that breadth ... I love the urban/rural because those challenges are different because of different contexts, but there are commonalities. I'm interested, as you've been able to see that and you've gone deeper with these districts, what are some of the commonalities you find across districts, particularly post-COVID? Because my sense of COVID is, it exposed a lot of issues that were already there,, it just exacerbated them. So I'm curious to see if that's been your experience and then, what's been common across these pretty diverse contexts you've been? Because that's a pretty unique perspective that you all have.
Max Silverman:
Yeah. I think it was, Rand just put out a study of superintendents and they compared where large district and small district superintendents spend their time. They're a little bit different, but what was striking to me is how little time they spend on the quality of teaching and learning. That really I think confirmed for me something that we're seeing is ... and leader surveys bear this out, school leaders and district leaders are spending a lot of time now particularly on mental health, both for students and staff. They're dealing with staff shortages, certificated, leader and classified staff. I think they're still putting things back together from COVID, so we find again and again that the bandwidth isn't there yet for leaders at scale. We still find plenty of leaders who can focus really intently, but the bandwidth of individual leaders in school systems isn't quite there yet to really focus on what's happening in classrooms, how do people get better?
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Well, and we were talking about this briefly before we jumped on the conversation, the conversation with Pixel out of the United Kingdom and the work they're doing. The two books they've written are Time to Think and Time to Think 2. I love that because so many educators I talk to, whatever role they're in, they don't have space to think. Or at least they don't feel like they do because the urgency of what they have to deal with and the mental health issues that are exacerbated by learning loss. So that's what I see. You had this learning loss happen over COVID, depending on how long you were out of in-person school because we know the online delivery just didn't work as well for so many kids. So you have these gaps and those gaps then feed the lack of worthiness, the lack of mattering, the lack of belonging, that then exacerbates the mental health, which then exacerbates the learning loss. So it's this thing. And then when you have staff shortages and you might actually get an adult, a human being in a classroom but they're not really trained, their background is not in the area they're teaching, that then exacerbates the mental health of that teacher. That exacerbates the mental health of the kids.
And then the other veteran faculty who know what needs to be done, they're then carrying a larger burden, because they're trying to help these new people that are coming in with good intentions but they're under-prepared for what they're going to do. So I wonder with all of that, that feels like a pretty bleak picture, where are you seeing some signs of hope in some of the districts that you're working with?
Max Silverman:
Yeah, thanks. We're lucky, we get to see hope all the time. The hope we see is that actually when we are with leaders, they want to dig in. They want to learn and get better, and they believe that getting better is a way to improving what happens for students. In most of our work we bring students into the learning in different ways. When leaders get to hear from students about what they want and need, it instigates their learning in a different way. It's really fascinating, the difference between a group of school leaders or district leaders looking at student climate survey data ... even if they do the most elegant analysis, it's still all intellectual. If we can bring in a student panel and have students talk about, how do they know they matter at school, what's a good day at school, what's a bad day? All of a sudden that instigates leader learning in a different way, because there's real kids right there in front of them. So that always makes me hopeful. The other space, I work primarily with central office leaders, and we've been working on this idea that students will have no more of something than adults in the system have.
So if we want students to be seen and heard, they actually won't be unless teachers and principals are. If we want students to have a sense of belonging, they won't unless teachers and principals have that as well. I've been really amazed at the willingness of central office leaders across the country, their willingness to slow down and go out and even interview principals about principal experience and use that as actual data. They all have to put in an Excel for it to become data to them. The willingness of people to really change their epistemology on what is true and knowledge, I do see a shift in that when people are afforded the time or make the time, and that's really hopeful.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Yes. I love that, and people that are still in education right now obviously have to have some element of gritty optimism. So that's the next book I'm working on, where do you get that optimism that's born out of experience, where you've seen kids become more of who they were created to be over and over and over again? What I love about what you said is the way you bring students into it. This is one of the challenges we've been dealing with in our center. So we have a leadership conference, it's a one-day thing in February. One of the things we're working on right now is having the leaders go through using a tool all day for what they're going to do differently, and then they check in over the next three months to make sure that's happening. But before they can actually finalize what that plan is have a student consulting panel where they're meeting with them and running their idea by a panel of students ... who are not at their school but are at the grade level they serve, who can give them feedback on yeah, that would work, no, that wouldn't work. Or here's what I think about that, so that they're the advisory board to the leaders.
Because we've done a lot of student panels and I think you're totally right, they get lost in the data. But when they hear the voices and they hear the lived experiences of the kids, that's different. So now we're trying to do this advisory board piece. I don't know, we've never tried it, it could completely blow up on us. I love that because I agree, if we miss the fact that students need to be leading with us ... I think that's a powerful insight that you all have had. Any advice for us as leaders as we try to bring students in? Any cautions or any, just based on that idea I just shared with you, bad idea, good idea, try something else?
Max Silverman:
Well, so what we keep coming up against is how hard it is for people to listen. So one thing, my colleague Jen McDermott had a project, really which started a lot of our student-centered work, where she interviewed students and met with students and just asked them, "What's a good day at school? What's a bad day at school?" They actually wrote stories or drew pictures, and she made this brilliant move of having them analyze the stories. So it was their data, they kept the data and they came to some conclusions about what they saw. Basically they told us, well, it looks like school's a place that we want to be happy and proud. But the other thing that they then helped us develop was a tool that helps leaders listen. I think my big takeaway, it's called the Student Experience Story Guide, and your listeners can get on our website. It's pretty cool because students came up with the use of the metaphor of heroes and villains. So leaders might ask, "Tell me about, who are the heroes in your school day, who are the villains?"
And one thing as I make sense of this, I think why that works for students is because what they hear is, tell me a story. As opposed to, "When are you most engaged," or "What part of the school day is most rigorous?" Students know that's for us, but tell me a story and then prove to me you're listening by asking really curious, thoughtful questions. So I don't know if I have any cautionary tales for you, but just keep thinking about, how would students ask each other's questions, or they talk to each other about school?
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Yeah. I think that's a super helpful idea and clear that you all listen to kids a lot, because I think we lose sight of that in academia. We lose sight of that in administration. One interesting thing, I had a conversation last year with Jon Hattie, he's from the Kiwi, from New ... But we were sitting and talking and he said, "Equity is a good example. Everybody, we care about equity. That's an important concept and that really matters. But kids don't think about equity, they think about fairness. So how do they talk about what's fair and how do you ask questions they understand?" I love the heroes and villains piece because that's thinking about things in the form of story, the way kids think about stuff. Because kids will all talk about teachers who are fair and who are not fair, they're not necessarily talking about those who are equitable and inequitable. But in their minds those are the same things. I'm sure philosophically you could find some nuances between them.
But at the end of the day, what matters most for kids is what matters most for kids, and therefore, what matters most for educators. So I think that's a good reminder.
Max Silverman:
That square [inaudible 00:18:41]? So that Superintendent's' Network I mentioned that I facilitate in the Yakima Valley and Washington, we were at an elementary school getting ready to observe classrooms. We brought students in, and one of the questions is, "How do you know you matter at school," or "How would you know you matter?" A young girl, I think a fourth grader said, "Oh, that's easy. All those walls in the halls wouldn't be white and there would be rainbows at my eye level."
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Wow.
Max Silverman:
What happened was, the superintendents decided as they were walking around, they saw the school differently. They hypothesized the question, they asked the question of what they saw, who is this school for? The bulletin boards looked, they saw all these beautiful bulletin boards. Oh, a teacher made that for other teachers or for parents. And by bringing student voice in like that, it just changed-
Dr. Jon Eckert:
That's beautiful.
Max Silverman:
... both their focus and their analysis.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Oh, beautiful example. So I always like to ask before we wrap up ... You've been in education a long time. You're actually looking at the end of your time at CEL, and you have this time to look back. But I'm curious, best advice you've ever either given or received and worst advice you've either given or received. You can take it in whatever order you want.
Max Silverman:
Oh, that's a good question because I've given lots of bad advice, so we don't have to go there.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
So have I.
Max Silverman:
I think the best advice that I've most recently been given is by my colleague Casey Warden, who reminded me about moving at the speed of trust.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Yeah, that's good.
Max Silverman:
I use that with central office leaders all the time now and you can just see their heads, the nods across a room. It just helps us all because we all have this sense of urgency. So moving at the speed of trust, it's tricky, but that's probably the best advice. I use that in my internal leadership itself and in my external work. I think some bad advice that I've given in my own leadership at times, when I have a sense of urgency and a sense of, there's certain things we have to get done, in and of itself that behavior is bad advice. I think when I ... and my colleagues will probably affirm this, those moments when I lose my curiosity about the ideas they have and fall back on either things like, "Oh, that's not how we do it," or "We've tried that in the past." So it's not necessarily bad advice, but it's very unleaderly behavior on my part that I really try to pay attention to now.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
No, that's good. That's helpful. All right, last two questions. What's a good book you've read in the last year that you would recommend? It can be education related or otherwise. I always find books to be ... I enjoy books so this may be a selfish question, but what would you say?
Max Silverman:
I think a book I'm just about done with, The Four Pivots by Sean Ginwright. It's The Four Pivots: Reimagining Justice, Reimagining Ourselves. It's a fabulous book about how to be transformational rather than transactional with ourselves and then in our work.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Okay, that sounds like-
Max Silverman:
I highly recommend it, highly.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
Love it. I've not read it. I've got it written down though, so that's great.
Max Silverman:
Yeah, and Dr. Ginwright is a wonderful writer.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
That always helps. That always helps. Some people have great ideas, they just don't always know how to get them out there. So when they can do both, that's a gift. Last question, what makes you most hopeful as you wrap up your time at CEL? You already gave us, you've seen some hopeful things even in challenging contexts. But if you had to say, this is what makes me most hopeful, what would that be?
Max Silverman:
I think that I get to, because of the work I do with central office leaders around belonging and inclusion, I think there's a real, once we get beyond the ... and it's funny, we're talking on election day. It's easy to see partisan divide. Underneath that, it's hard to find somebody who doesn't want to make sure all kids have a sense of belonging. I find that across the country, across the political spectrum, it's hard to find people who in practice want to deny other people's humanity. The pessimistic side of it is, we all get them caught up in these policy and other debates that ultimately do that. But there are a lot, there's probably hundreds if not more spaces in the country today where educators are talking about very real issues of humanness and humanity for the people they serve. Again, I find that across geography, across district size, across partisan divides.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
What a great place to wrap that up. And I have to say, I appreciate your conversation because we started our time, before we jumped on officially, talking about Gonzaga absolutely dump trucking Baylor by 38 points last night. You did it in such a kind way. We broke down where some of the breakdowns were for Baylor, that was kind. And then the other piece ... and I fly to Vancouver tomorrow, so I get to go to Canada and try to explain whatever has happened in our election process.
Max Silverman:
Oh, good luck.
Dr. Jon Eckert:
So yes, I'm going to be seeking belonging and mattering in some good ways.
Max Silverman:
I think the Canadians are more nervous about what's going to happen than ...
Dr. Jon Eckert:
I was just in Toronto the week before this, and I would absolutely affirm that. But I wanted to say, one of the worst pieces of advice I received is that leadership is lonely. I find these kinds of conversations to be super helpful because leaders do make lonely decisions. But I think we have to stop that narrative that leadership is lonely because then nobody wants to step into it. Ultimately there are lonely decisions, there's no way around that. But by having colleagues and what you described with your experience with CEL ... how you got brought into it, and then for you to then step into that role and then provide that for leaders all across the country, that's a tremendous gift. So thanks for what you do.
Max Silverman:
Yeah, thanks for having me.