It's interesting because I feel like a lot of these strategies were things that many teachers already do naturally. I wonder how much greater the impact would be with intentionality behind it.

There's so much inquiry coming from James. It shows that he isn't carrying the cognitive load in this situation.

I really appreciate how both partners are carrying the cognitive load in this process.

It's so important to build buy-in with your students so they put in as much effort as they can into what they're doing.

This is so important to ensure that the feedback in also meaningful.

I actually want to steal these questions to ask students during an observation. I do wonder what kind of responses I would get.

It's so important for the goals of the day to be displayed for students, and not evaluators. I also sometimes have my students help me create the learning objectives for the day, it's helpful to give them a focus and to build buy-in.

This is so important. I literally said in my last comment that it's a continuous process. It's also important to use up to date research and evidence-based practices. For example, I know a lot of teachers who use Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and I know some teachers who feel that that hierarchy is culturally insensitive.

It's been a challenge in my school for teachers to share their data. I think many teachers conflate their data with their effectiveness and stop right there rather than seeing it as a process that you can grow better with each time.

If anyone has a protocol for data analysis for a large, comprehensive high school, that would be greatly appreciated.

A perfect example of this and why this is important is IEPs. It's so important to have voices from all teachers working with a student in the IEP.

I also wish there was a streamlined interpretation process in the district I'm in. It's also hard to get access to certain data and it sometimes requires additional training to access some systems.

There are many people who do this for personal reasons, like deciding to not speak with an old friend who posts crazy stuff online, etc. I have never thought of applying this concept to myself for professional reasons, but it really makes sense.

FOMO is a struggle lately. I wonder how this plays into decision making.

I want to learn more about what this looks like

"Ongoing" is a key word here. I often find that schools have good intentions, but then don't follow up on PDs or only talk about certain topics one time and it never comes up again.

As someone who evaluates students for initial services in special education, why is this even a thing?

As someone who appreciates a voice of dissent, I want to push back on some of this. I grew up in a home with a very low socio-economic status, with family members who were gang affiliated, in and out of jail, dropped out, and drug addicted, to name a few examples. A huge motivation for me in school was to not be like them. I saw a lot of moments of failure rather than mastery. I had a lot of models of failure. I was constantly shown and given negative feedback. I definitely did not feel safe. However, these are the very things that motivated me to do better in school. So, I do want to push back and this and I do wonder about how else these skills are built up in students, because although I was the only person to go to college in my family, I was not the only person to go to college from my neighborhood.

Okay, I can see how a lot of the information in these for major sources answers part of my last comment, but I'm interested in more concrete examples. For example, how do you build a feeling of safety with a teacher you evaluate when you also have to follow district protocols that force you to engage with evaluations a certain way?

This is very interesting. I can think of ways to build confidence, but how do you build optimism in someone? I hope the rest of the reading dives into this more, but it making me think a lot. My mind is going to examples I use with my students like modeling positivity, positive narration, giving them their scores in terms of how many questions they got correct instead of incorrect. I'm interested in strategies for adults.

I really appreciate this specificity.

I have been dying to find ways to build leadership in my department. I work with so many skilled experts and I want so badly to show them off to each other, but I have been struggling to find a way to do so. I'm definitely stealing these ideas.

It's so frustrating that this is a measurement. I think it really depends on so many factors and that combination of factors is what should be used, it's just hard that some of the factors scream a little louder than others.

This sounds like true collaboration

This sentence was profound for me. I always try to be a facilitator and a participant and I think now I understand more why those sessions don't always yield the results or engagement that I had hoped they would.

I really like the idea of teachers observing each other just to learn and see how things go. I wonder how to build a culture of observation so teachers can feel comfortable having someone randomly observe them to see how they implement teaching strategies, lessons, etc.

This makes me think so much of how important the co-teaching relationships are for Special education and Language acquisition. Mixing those things and placing them all on one teacher when there isn't an opportunity to co-teach really makes me thankful for the teachers who do that work. It's hard.

I have experienced Team Coaching and never realized that's what it was. It was really effective for my co-teachers and I in most circumstances. I felt like the impact was great when we talked about classroom strategies and how to handle different situations (this was a first year teacher I was working with). Where we struggled is when it came to accountability. There were many situations that I was blamed for and it felt like I didn't have a lot of support from the coaches because they were focused on supporting the first year teacher.

Constantly developing leadership is so important too. I know that as a teacher, I never want to stop learning. As a leader, I keep that same mentality, but I have to learn for others and not just myself now.

The idea of a smaller group running MTA and seeing how it works then sharing it with the larger ILT is such a great idea. There is a very large ILT at my school and it can be difficult to implement something for everyone to try. So, the idea of just a smaller group trying and reporting on it feels so much more productive to me. I will steal this idea.

It's so appreciated when people volunteer for things like this. I typically only teach one class a day so when someone opens up their room for trying something new, getting feedback on a strategy, etc., it's so important.

We all need to own our decisions and work as a collective in order for things to have meaning and impact.

I'm also interested in finding out how the implementation of the strategy worked. I've tried giving surveys but they don't always get filled out. I've tried observing and filling out the survey myself, but it's a limited time frame of the whole class time. I'm still working on this.

I really love this idea, but I want to know what accountability looks like and how that comes up when someone doesn't follow the norms that have been established.

This again makes me think back to the Sped Praxis and how one of them covers 4 subjects. These subjects are English, math, science, and social studies (there is a separate reading praxis) and the tests cover a base level of knowledge in each, not anything too specific (definitely not calculous, for example). This helps me understand why the praxis might be the way it is.

This is something that I think about a lot as someone in Special Education. Currently, in the state of Colorado, you need to take 3 praxis exams to get certified in Sped, and one of those exams covers 4 subjects. I even had to engage in either another praxis exam or take courses in order to keep my sped license. The content knowledge is very important, but it does make me wonder if there is any correlation between lack of sped teachers and the lengthy process for obtaining a sped license in teaching.

Not totally professional, but I have a colleague who always says that people need to go out drinking together and that will change everything. Her point is that we need to engage with each other outside of the school building so we can get to know each other more.

I'm so glad this was explained and that distinction was made. If we can't trust each other and work with each other, how can we expect our students to do the same?

This means overcoming hesitations we may have around technology and learning/adapting with changes as well. This is hard to do, especially if you step away from something and then come back to it years later and it has changed. For examples, if you switch subjects you teach and then come back and find out there is a completely new online curriculum/tools than what you used to use.

This is so true for me. I used to teach with a smartboard that I controlled with an iPad as I walked around my classroom. My coach realized she could chat me feedback on my iPad. It was so helpful for me because I was so uncertain about what I was doing, and it gave her the opportunity to give me quick advice instead of waiting until I was debriefing later. Our meetings later on turned in action steps instead of staying in reflection.

We need more of this. When I first started teaching, I was told I needed to be the most entertaining thing in the room if I were going to try and keep student's attention more than their phones or computers. I feel like this is the advice you actually need for adults.

This is something I want to engage in more. I am a Sped Lead and I would love to collaborate with the English Leads to facilitate learning. I think a block of it has been that there has been a lot of turn around with the English leads, and the lead who has stayed seems overwhelmed. This is making me wonder if my approach needs to be one with a solution and not an ideas, I wonder how it would be received then.

I really love the idea of teachers observing each other. I want to try this so badly but I'm not sure how to build buy-in with teachers and I'm not sure how to make them feel okay with people outside of the norm observing them. How do you build a culture of observation?

This would have been so helpful for me to see as a first year teacher. I wasn't ever really sure how to show up to class as a co-teacher, as that wasn't an instructional method used where I went to school.

The fact that there is a step dedicated to just researching strategies/programs/interventions is giving me so much buy-in. As a special education teacher, it's so important for me to think from that perspective and it can feel like I need to remind other people of that difference too, but this step makes it to where everyone is explicitly thinking about it.

This is really good. It's also important to ground yourself in the reasons why you're doing the work you're doing and the impacts it can have in your building.

This is actually a hilarious but good suggestion. I used to watch Fox News as a teen because I thought it was satirical. I haven't watched any news as an adult lately, but I do wonder how I would react to watching either of these channels now.

A lot of these strategies seem to encourage you to take a step away from yourself and your way of thinking before reacting. It's just a interesting pattern I'm noticing.

I really like this advice. I tend to be solution oriented and offer advice when not needed at times. Sometimes, people just want someone to listen to them. I'm going to start using this more but also, I do wonder if it's okay to ask someone what they need. Is it okay to ask someone "Do you need me to listen so I can offer advice. or do you need to me just listen?"

I'm wondering how to go about this when you work with someone as let's say, a co-teacher who may have this type of connection with you? For example, I used to work with teachers who felt that students shouldn't be allowed to speak or write in Spanish in class, even if that was the only language they knew how to do either of those in. The argument was that they needed to focus on English skills for the writing, and the teacher admitted she was uncomfortable when students spoke in Spanish because she couldn't understand them. This felt very toxic but I wasn't sure how to not have a relationship with the other English teachers. I ended up leaving this school.

Not going to lie, I use this strategy a lot. I always speak using collective pronouns. Partially, I do this to lessen the thought of a task being the responsibility of one person, but also because I want people to know they don't have to do things alone.

I always try to keep this at the forefront of conversations with the instructional leadership team. Specifically, I will ask the group "How does this serve our students?" or "Is this to serve students or adults?".

I love this. One of my favorite things to do is ask the teachers for their favorite neighborhood restaurant. I do this so they can find common ground, but also I don't live in the neighborhood so it gives me ideas for catering events that we might have for the department.

Stereotypes have been really hard for me to deal with. I definitely think they blocked me from opportunities, friendships, and better colleague relationships. One of the challenging parts too, is trying to keep a working relationship when you realize someone sees you as a stereotype.

I feel like this is something especially important to think about if you are a leader working with someone who is brand new to the profession. I will be working with a green teacher this year and this is something I'm going to really try and think about so he feels more supported.

I feel like this is especially common with how we communicate; text, email, chat. We're using methods to communicate sometimes heavy information and I feel it's very easy for things to get lost in translation. It's sometimes hard to read emotions in text, and I think that's what causes the disconnect.

I've recently started asking if I could share/speak. I think this give the speaker an opportunity to reflect on what they have said and decide if they need to say more, it also gives them the opportunity to elicit a response from me if needed.

What a good question to ask. It's important to stop ad gauge the conversation to see where it can go. I think I tend to not take the time to think about these questions and it can end up leading to a different path than I imagined.

Something I am still trying to learn as well. It is very easy to have my computer open during meetings and "take notes", but that always leads to distractions from other tabs that I may have open. I need to learn to focus more on someone when they are talking to me.

All things that are heard very often. I try to emphasize that despite these things, every student deserve the same opportunity and rigor.

Students have to deal with a lot and no one can learn well from someone they do not like. Learning and being in a space where you can be vulnerable enough to take risks means you need trust and it's hard to trust your teacher if they treat you like an annoyance.

This is very true. In the past few years, many districts have seen an influx of students who are linguistically diverse. In order to teach English Language Development in the state of Colorado, you need a degree in English (not necessarily training). So, by that expectation, we should have been more prepared, but suddenly, veteran teachers were not sure how to teach their students.

I feel like this needs to be talked about more. This is one of the situations that causes people to feel "imposter syndrome" when they are in spaces that haven't been traditionally occupied by them. One example I think of is when the conversation around what our families expected of us and school. For my colleagues, many of their families expected them to go to college and grad school. For me, I was encouraged to drop out of high school so I could go straight to work. It caused a weird dynamic and I was almost blamed by my colleagues in a way. It was really uncomfortable. And that's just one example and doesn't really touch on race (although the expectation was cultural), or other intersections of my identity.

It's so interesting to see how people may respond to a situation just depending on their age. I wonder what this means for people who go into teaching. I know many people who start teaching right after they graduated college, which was right after high school. I didn't start at this age. I didn't start teaching until I was almost 30. I know there's a huge difference in how I would have responded in my 20s as opposed to my 30s, however, the expectations are the same. That's what I think is really challenging about teaching, even if you are new to the field, you are still expected to do the same as the person in the room next to you if they're teaching the same subject.

I feel like it's really important to have these types of conversations with people who want to go into teaching. I did an alternative license program and I think less than half the people who did the program with me are still in teaching. Many of them left because the job was different than how they thought it would be.

I have never heard of this concept. I wonder if there is ever a fluidity within these levels. Like, if someone is always at the highest level of consciousness, can they ever regress? I also wonder about how to teach these levels so people can better engage with productive discussions.

I cannot tell you how many times I have felt out of place at a training because it was for a particular audience. A few years ago, the district I'm in really pushed an initiative around supporting black students. This involved all schools engaging with bias training. I hated doing this training because unpacking my biases as a queer person of color who grew up very poor, is very different from the biases that my white, older colleagues had. It felt like I was being asked to talk about my trauma so everyone else could feel better or something. Or, it felt like I had to lead a discussion because I "had the most experience". My point is, the district did not prepare a training for their diverse teacher population and it was very felt.

This. The district I am in often feels like they push out trainings as a reactive response rather than a proactive one. People are often uncertain of who does the training, the online platforms often fail or have limitations that the district facilitators didn't know about until they reached those limits. It just feels like it's not a priority and again, its in response to something rather than to prepare us for something.

Hegemony is such an interesting topic to include in the discussion. I think we need to talk about this more about how it influences structures. I always tie it tot he structures in a school and how that impacts decisions made and how people take those decisions, it's easier to start with a concept applied to a familiar situation then start applying it to other places in the world. It's a great way to get people thinking and talking about structures.

I appreciate when self-directed learning can be fluid and move from being alone, to learning with other people. I find that it can also be nice to get a short answer for something from a colleague instead of doing a 30 minute training for the same answer.

I feel like this is something that really drive buy-in for me as a learner. I need actionable steps, otherwise it feels like I'm learning to learn and not learning to apply, both useful, but one more applicable.

This is an interesting suggestion. What does it mean when you are in a situation when an experienced teacher is learning something new and is resistant to change? I have found that their are some experienced teachers who are used to constant changes and development, while there are also experienced teachers who are very comfortable where they are and don't want to learn or apply anything new.

Interesting. I'm not religious or spiritual and I'm hesitant to take advice from someone who has this context in mind because there is often a hidden agenda. However, I appreciate some of the ideas from here and I appreciate that religion can be used as potential guide for people in how they act toward others in some (SOME) ways.

What great advice, especially when the world is so easily swayed by the negativity that inundates our news broadcasters. When there is a real, positive example of how to lead change, that makes a difference.

Also, people of color shouldn't always have to be the teachers to white learners. White learners can seek out information on their own as well. It's exhausting to be a person of color in these spaces at times. White colleagues get to reflect and think about "was that racist", where as I have to find a way to talk about things without trauma dumping and making people uncomfortable.

I have a re-occurring theme with my experiences. When I moved out of the city I grew up in and into a world that was way less mono-cultural, I had so many people who would comment on my English. I would always get told that I speak English very well. Which, I would hope so since it's my first language... But this was a confusing situation for me for a long time. I would always thank people when they told me that because I wasn't sure what else to say and I was confused as to why they would mention something so simple. Then it clicked one day. I realized that it's because they had a certain expectations around how I would sound and communicate and I broke that mold for them. I definitely respond differently these days.

What strong statements. It almost made me uncomfortable just to read because of the pedestal that white people have always been placed on by people I grew up with and society. But there have been many people in my life who have been open and receptive to conversations around race a privilege with me. I think it's important to be able to have conversations in spaces where people can speak freely to understand. For example, I think it immensely helped my friend group keep the human part first when talking about people experiencing homelessness because I explained to them that I experienced homelessness as a kid, and I would have never wanted anyone to think of little me as homeless before I was a person.

This was hugely emphasized for me as a young person of color. So much so that I was actually told and encouraged by my family many times to "act white". My mother refused to teach my siblings Spanish because she felt that was a negative skill (she wouldn't call it a "skill") to have. This is also the reason why my siblings and I all have Americanized names.

When I was younger, I felt like I almost had to find my own identity in order to combat the expectations that were put on me by other people. I think that's one of the challenges with being a young person of color, the way society may place an identity on you before you even get to develop your own.

This is so interesting to think about. With this thinking, does that mean that when there is a negative perception, people are hesitant or have a less favorable way of engaging with the other person because they see aspects of themselves that they don't want to address?

This is something that needs to be talked about more. I am often confused about working in "inner-city" schools and the other people who work there and their responses to the unique needs of the student population. I'm confused at why teachers are often confused as to why they need to offer support for students with learning differences, as if that isn't addressing inequities or not their job.

This is so true. I am very much a firm believer in hearing people out and creating space for their perspectives. This was a big way I connected with my current department, hearing them out. This was impactful for my team because the person before me did not leave this space for them. I found that it made my team want to be more collaborative and they were willing to engage more, which was also a shift for them. My goal was to feel like this was everyone's department and not a department that I run.

Hypothesis is not letting me high light this section correctly, but I wanted to emphasize this part about Admin. Being an admin, especially if you are new, is so challenging. I feel like these leaders get harshly critiqued. I can specifically remember a new AP at a school I was at and that was the biggest comment I hear about her, "she's incompetent". It was very hard to see because I didn't feel the same way about her skills.

I appreciated the whole quote from this coach but I couldn't highlight it all because Hypothesis. But this makes me reflect a lot on the work I've done and how I deliver truths to my department. I do feel like I try to lay things nicely for them and I'm not sure why I do this. I think it distracts from me trying to be direct about a situation and I wonder if it keeps voices of dissent from happening because they don't want to push back on someone who is being nice, and that's not fair.

I'm already having conflicting ideas with this section. It makes me think about how we have expectations in place from the district that don't always line up with the needs of students. For example, how the district essentially has parent choose if they want language services or sped services when there is a student who has both needs. Many schools don't have the staff members who can provide both services. However, when there is someone who could provide sped services and language services, the district/school does not pay this person more for those skills. Just like how there is a need for some students with disabilities to be tested in their native language, if I were to get certified to test in Spanish, I would not get paid more to do so. All this to ask, what is Ethical? Who defines that and to what standard are they holding people?

I literally had this thought before finishing this paragraph; how there is a huge list of what trust could look like on the page before, but it's a loaded yet understood statement when someone says "I just don't trust him"

I've often wondered what it means to build trust with someone. For me, it was more about being vulnerable and sharing myself. I never thought of this piece to be honest. For me, this was just always an expectation that any human should keep.

It's hard to learn from people if you don't trust in their ability to help you when you need it. This is especially important when it comes to working with students who have learning differences such as language or sped services.

The highlighting in this book is really messed up, but I meant to highlight the line "when our beliefs are inconsistent with our actions, people might rightfully question our authenticity". This is so important and this is why transparency is so important from a leader.

What a powerful thought. I never want one of my coachees to feel like they are being talked down to, reprimanded, etc. I always want to go in with a productive mind-set. Now, I think I need to help this idea evolve to include a more meaningful outcome than just a fix for a problem.

I really appreciate how reflective this is. I have a new teacher who I will be working with next year and this person will be very green to teaching. I think I often want to rush to a solution without thinking about the problem. This part of the text really makes me think about how I need to look to that teacher for ideas and guide them rather than just solve problems for them.

This is so true! It's better to offer support and direction instead of dictation and expectation.

This is so true and so powerful. There have been times when I need to make a document to norm something for my department and I know I will forget something, or leave someone out who may have a unique circumstance. In order to navigate that, I often ask my department what a paper with parameters around a certain topic would look like. Their feedback is so valuable, plus it goes from 1 person's ideas to an entire department's ideas. It gives teachers autonomy and ownership in a process.

The idea of including student voice is so important. I have seen teachers elicit feedback from students in a number of ways from having a thumbs up, thumbs sideways, or thumbs down on each exam question to indicate how a student feels about a problem, to more formal surveys that ask open ended questions around feedback.

I often wonder why this happens. It's interesting to me when people come into a role of authority how it can impact them and cause them to take on the role of oppressing when they know how it can impact others.

What a challenging situation. This is something that happens so often because newer leaders feels they are just supposed to deal with things. This can be even more true so people who already have imposter syndrome and feel like they shouldn't be there anyway. Or, for people who don't have many examples of how leaders should be in their lives and just think that these conversations are normal.

What and interesting way of thinking. I tend to go into conversations with the mentality around "get this message across and make sure people understand". It often feels more cautionary than with a set intention, especially when it comes to more challenging conversations.

This is so important. We can't choose who has access to equity and who doesn't. If we really want to see change and we want people to have equitable access, we have to want that for all people. However, one thing I think about is how this language can be weaponized, especially in today's political climate. Can someone say it's inequitable if a person comes to this country through means that aren't government approved? Can someone say an all-female gym is inequitable because it excludes male-identifying people? These are some worrying examples to think about.

This is so important. It's so important to have people in our lives who have differing views from us and different lived experiences. My view is not the only valid view of the world and my experiences do not define the experiences of someone else. Especially now, it has been important for me to really speak to people who have different views because they may be missing the perspective that I just explained. Getting mad and closing people out just because they differ in views from you is the end of finding a solution, and I don't like giving up on problems.

I have never heard this phrased in such a way and I really like this. The idea of social identity-blindness is perplexing in itself because of how it could do the opposite of the intention. This is definitely something I want to explore more and be more conscious of.

As a Special Education teacher, lead, and mentor, this really hits home. I have to be the one who advocates for my kiddos and ensures they are supported and respected. The way we speak about students is so important, I constantly advocate for student-first language.

This is something that is so important. In my experience, many educational books around unpacking your own bias are written for certain people to unpack. I have had to learn to unpack my biases from a different perspective as a queer person of color. All this to say, no one is free of biases and we should all take the time to reflect on them and how they make us show up in the world.

This is so important. As someone who has a name that has an accent in it, I always make sure I tell people it needs to have that. As an adult, I recognize this can be very othering and even dehumanizing. So, it's important to respect the names of our students and colleagues.

I think coaches can also be that voice for teachers when it needs to be directed at admin. We are their advocates too.

And that meet the needs of students with learning differences while also maintaining rigor.

This is so important, especially when there is a new staff member, this can make or break their experience.

I'm also interested in creating resources. In Special Education, we often have to make our own resources or it has to be very specific. Learning to create and adapt resources is a huge part of Sped and something I try to show my teachers as well.

I LOVE using data. I usually have to have a conversation with my teachers at the beginning of the year around how they like to receive feedback with data. For example, some of my teachers feel like it's almost tied to a grade so it's stressful for them when I state "80% of students started the task after being released for work" as opposed to saying "Most students started the task after being released for work". However, I do still use the data when we have our debrief meeting so the teacher has a better understanding.

What an interesting concept. I have experienced this many times, but never put a word on it. I think this happens a lot at the beginning of the year so it makes me especially think about new teachers/staff members and how they may be so overwhelmed with ALL the new systems so they may not get to them.

Especially when they are people who "have been doing this for years and already have a system in place". This is a challenging mentality for me to navigate with adult learners. I definitely agree that asking questions like "who does this process serve?" is a good question because we see if the developed process is for students or not and that usually helps us move forward with something more student focused if we need to. But this is a huge hill to climb and I haven't mastered navigating this.

Change is so hard. For me, I came into my school and filled a position that was held by someone for about 15 years. There was so many nerves coming from the department because of the huge change that was happening with someone leaving who had built so many of the systems that were used before.

I wonder how this is done. Like, what builds up to this to ensure it is implemented with fidelity? How is trust built between staff that you don't directly work with in order for them to feel okay with implementing a new innovation that someone else has come up with?

How can we better align across the district so these intentions are streamlined in how we approach achievement? I think the role of coaches is also a hybrid role in DPS and impacts how coaches can show up.

How do you know when something is working? I know you can use student data, but I've had relationships with coaches that were hard while my student data looked great. Even when I think about my own practices as a coach, I wouldn't know I was doing better than before if it wasn't for feedback from the people who I work with. Even then, I'm not sure how to quantify feedback like that.

One other piece of the puzzle that I think about is the relationship between coaches and coachees and how new it may be. When I first started at my school, many of the teachers I worked with had a new coach every year and for some of them, I was the 4th or 5th coach they had so far in the building. When it got to the point where I worked with the same teachers for a couple of years, I found the dynamic changing. Teachers were more receptive to feedback and I found myself being able to push them more.

This was interesting to read. I am an instructional coach, but the way my school has instructional coaches engage is interesting to me. We are able to go into classrooms and observe, but we do not give feedback on lessons plans that we don't observe in that moment. The reason for this is that we would have to ask teachers to give us the lessons in advance and we would have to review that and provide feedback. This process seems normal to me, but there is a lot of resistance around this at my school for some reason. I wonder how I can show the benefits of giving lesson plan feedback to everyone involved.

This idea sounds amazing. I've been trying to figure out how to make this work at my school with the teachers I coach. I'm only usually able to do this when they teach the same topics. One thing I want to be better at is co-observing as well. I love having someone else there to share their perspective and we kind of layer what we saw.

I love this concept. I'm constantly wondering how I can develop my teachers into leaders and I'm always wondering where I can find them opportunities to lead. Even if it's just leading a session during a department meeting, it's still an opportunity for others to learn and grow from them, and it's a chance for that teacher to grow in another area.

I'm curious about how to strike a balance here. I do feel like I've attended conferences that have helped, but they were more of a sit and listen so that made it hard to use what I was learning in the moment.

It's so interesting to see this sentence and think about the challenges my school has had this year with leadership. A lot of it has been around collaboration and transparency. Even when I reflect on my own leadership, I realize I'm not as transparent as I want to be and it has motivated me to think about how I communicate to my team about progress and not just end results.

What an interesting system. I wonder what the impact would be if we implemented something like this in the USA. I know that for Headstart, there are a number of metrics that are used to track the progress of the programs. It doesn't necessarily lead to autonomy, but it is tied to funding for the program. But it does give detailed reports about what's going on in the programs, from data collection to open complaints on teachers.

I'm so curious about this. I wonder what some examples of "informal" curriculum are that I could mentor other teachers about. How is this measured?

This is so important. Some communities function this way and I have found it to be so much easier to interact with some families through getting to know them outside of the school building.

I agree so much with this statement. Intentions were not aligned with the actual achievement of students in the past, the focus was more broad and tried to address issues beyond schools, by blaming schools. Addressing learning differences and access to opportunities would have had a larger impact. It's why so many of the same issues persist today and why students haven't made the growth we thought they would, despite the harsh criticism.

I was one of these students labeled as "at risk". I was never really sure what I was at risk of doing. I do know there were certain perceptions of me when I went to high school and this was based off of the interactions my teachers had with my siblings. I know economic data played a role in that title, but my socio-economic status didn't render me incapable of learning, it just impacts how I learned. All this to say, I was personally impacted by this technique of "analysis" and the only thing it did was keep low expectations for me.

I remember reading "A Nation at Risk" for another class and I recall reading that the report acknowledged that teachers made 17K a year (~32K in today's money) and it acknowledged that there are shortages of teachers in science and math. This same issue persists today with low pay and little incentive for people in math and sciences to go to the classroom. It's so frustrating that something like this influenced public perception when it seemed like it wasn't directly about education, it was about politics.

It's always interesting to me when people who haven't been in education are so quick and harsh with their critiques. It always made me wonder where they got their data, who was included in that data, and to what standard was it compared?