A False Sense of Competence: Important Conversations about Teaching and Learning

How do we define competence inside the classroom? What are some of the nuanced differences between special and general education? How does specific language help teachers communicate more clearly? Our conversation with Dr. Paula Lancaster, Dean of the College of Education and Human Services at CMU engages with these questions and more. Dean Lancaster draws on her experience as a special education teacher, faculty member, and Dean to bring so much depth to these timely topics.

Links
Teaching Works
High Leverage Practices in Special Education

Introduction Music by: David Biedenbender

Other music from Pixabay:
madirfan 
ZakharValaha 
Coma-Media 
Lesfm

Find us on social media:
Instagram: cmichcese
Facebook: cmich_cese

Transcript

Introduction: 0:00

Okay, now we're recording. So welcome to teach wonder. Wonder podcast hosted byAshley O'Neill and Julie Cunningham.

Ashley O'Neil: 0:24

When we first started this podcast, it was important to us to honor the work that teachers are doing, while poking out and exploring ways in which the practice and the system could change for the better. I'm not telling you new information when I say that it is a difficult time to be in education. This episode is an important part of that conversation, because it talks about some of the realities of teaching that cannot change, as well as talking about some of the aspects that absolutely need to in our interview, today, you'll hear us talking about the role of teachers as being in service of students. Now, when I first heard that phrase, I had to sit with it for a minute and let it roll around in my head, because I had this automatic push back to how it felt. I'm a professional and an educator, I feel like a lot of people are telling educators what to do and how to be and what to teach. And adding another group to that party felt really crowded. But then, as you'll hear in this conversation, the nuance and complexity of that idea blossomed. The best way that I can think to talk about it is with my own child, I'm not in the classroom as a teacher right now. But I think the parallels are helpful. So with my toddler, I see a lot of things, I see big emotions and moments of dysregulation, and some of that can feel personal. And I have choices. As a parent, I can get frustrated and frame the situation with, I cannot deal with another interruption to my day, I need to do the dishes, I need to answer this email, why are you doing this, or I can look at my child and think you are feeling overwhelmed by your emotions, and you don't have the skills yet to work through this. I can be that skill builder for you. But to be that to be the Skill Builder, you have to recognize that your role in that moment is to help that child. And that first perspective of doing the dishes and being busy is normal and honest. But it's also not likely to get in either of you really back to the dishes and the emails and the playing either. So now if we translate that to the classroom, your classroom should be a place that feels safe to you, of course. But the charts on the walls, the structure of the day, the way you instruct is not for your benefit. You've mastered that content already, you're not building cooperative groups for your practice, you're doing it for your students. That is very different from teachers being in service to anything else. We're not talking about compromising our wellbeing or our boundaries, just the opposite. We're talking about getting rid of the background noise and getting back to the core of the profession, and building up our toolbox so that we have the skills to help students that walk through our door. I'm excited to share this interview today because it is full of ideas like this. We met with Dr. Paula Lancaster, the Dean of the College of Education and Human Services here at CMU. Some of the highlights of this conversation for me, were the enlightened definition of special education and general education that came out of our conversation about high leverage record teaching practices. I also value Dean Lancaster's perspective on where to start when considering teaching, and how clearly she articulated one of the biggest problems in education. I hadn't thought about it that way before. special education teachers, general education teachers, parents, pre service teachers, faculty, whatever hat you're wearing, while listening to this episode, I have no doubt you're going to walk away with something to consider.

Julie Cunningham: 3:30

So Paula, I know you a little bit outside of this podcast, and I know that you have you had a variety of opportunities throughout your educational career. So I'm wondering if you want to tell us something about yourself and maybe some of your highlights and what you're doing with yourself now in terms ofeducation?

Dean Lancaster: 3:50

Sure, I'd be happy to. For starters, I grew up in a small town in Illinois, south of Chicago. So I'm from kind of rural America. I'm a first-generation college student. I was a special education teacher. That's how I started my career in education. I was a high school teacher at Crystal Lake High School District, which is kind of north of Chicago. Think about it that way. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. I thoroughly loved my teaching career. And that particular district had so many wonderful mentors. And I had an amazing opportunity to go to graduate school at the University of Kansas, where that excellent mentoring just continued. So I've been so fortunate. But throughout my entire career as an educator, a teacher, I was a special education teacher and learning disabilities was my main area of emphasis, and in particular, working with adolescents and young adults. So that was kind of how I started my career, and then eventually found my way to Michigan. And so I've been in the state working here as a teacher, educator, special educator for a little over 20 years. I've also served as the department chair for a number of years. And as a director of teacher education, I've had some great opportunities to work with teachers in many, many districts throughout the state in many settings, and, and now have landed, as here at Central Michigan University as the Dean of the College of Education and Human Services where I continue to work with some amazing educators.

Julie Cunningham: 5:25

Thank you. And I have to say, we're very lucky because not every Department of Teacher Education ends up with a dean who has such a invested background and education and so much knowledge when it comes to not just teacher education, but special education. And one of the topics that we're going to talk about today, which are core teaching practices.

Ashley O'Neil: 5:47

I'm interested Paula, since I don't know you as well, and I don't know your history, would you share a little bit more about some of your instructional practices and times when you were a special ed teacher in the classroom?

Dean Lancaster: 5:58

Yeah, um, it's a great question. And I will have, I will say, ahead of time that I could talk about teaching for hours and hours. So I'm really going to try to stay focused here. When I think about my teaching or instructional practices, I definitely see myself in the role of teachers just in general, to be in service of the learner. And so in that regard, I think it's really critical for teachers, I thought this of myself, after I'd had some years of experience, and kind of better understood my role. But I think it's really critically important for us to have a range of pedagogies, to have skills in a range of pedagogies and practices, and also to have knowledge of different theories and frameworks for how students come to learn or how people come to learn in general, because learning occurs in all sorts of ways in all sorts of instances. And, and people come to it very, very differently. So if we're going to be able to meet the needs of diverse students and in consider their varying interests and capacities, then we have to be, we have to have kind of that deep knowledge to and we have to be able to move back and forth from different pedagogy. So, you know, I think that I try to remind myself, even when I was teaching graduate courses, I tried to remind myself that not everyone in my class is going to need the same thing for me at the same time. And I certainly thought about this when I was working with with students with teenagers and young adults. So rather than cling to that favorite philosophy or favorite approach, I really think we need to be able to consider what is challenging about the stuff that we're teaching, what is it that makes what we're trying to teach in any given moment, hard or difficult for students, like they're not the problem, what we're teaching is the problem. So if we, if we start there and kind of analyze the what that we're teaching, and then think about the various students in our classrooms, and what they might need from us, in order to kind of thrive from our instruction, that that's a really, really good place to start. And so that might mean that even though I personally love to facilitate discussions, I love doing that. And I love the the exercise of trying to get students together and have them think together. I also recognize that sometimes that's just not what they need. Sometimes they really need explicit instruction. And I need to be able to give that explicit instruction in a really clear and concise way. I need to be able to provide multiple examples sometimes. So it's funny that when I think about like, what do I, you know, what are my instructional practices, I usually go to the things that I like to do. But then I also know that in in the classroom, that's not really terribly relevant. What I as the teacher will like to do isn't as relevant as what to the students in the classroom need from me in this moment? So I guess, you know, what I would say is, at the end of a good day, it would be a good day, if I taught something or in a particular way, that might be challenging for me, but it went really well. It was what students needed in that moment. So I guess, you know, maybe one way to think about that is I feel like it's important for us to be eclectic in our approach to teaching and to be able to draw from kind of a range of pedagogies and move in and out of them as needed.

Julie Cunningham: 9:42

I think that's a great response. And I have a follow up question, although I'm not sure that I haven't fully formed follow up questions that you might have to play along with me. I was thinking that you mentioned after you had some years of experience under your belt. I didn't not like being you know the same Dennis stage are giving the explicit instruction. But you're absolutely right. Sometimes you have to do that, regardless of whether you like that or not. But can you think about how you got there? Or when you realize it? Or was it a series of events? Or was there any, anything that stood out to you along the way?

Dean Lancaster: 10:17

That's a great question. So how do you kind of move from that? playing to your strengths and doing the thing as a teacher that feels really comfortable to you to kind of pushing yourself outside of that and thinking, what do the students need? I actually, I felt very, very lucky to have taught high school students. Because once we got a relationship built, once they felt safe and trusting in the classroom, they would just tell me (laughter) like, this isn't working for me. And so what a gift, you know, to have the people that you're working with to be able to say that, but also, I felt. So let me back up a little bit. Also, I had another gift as a beginner teacher, which is that I had an amazing supervisor, who gave me a lot of space for trial and error. And I never felt like when I made mistakes, or had missteps, I never felt like I was being judged. And I think that's a problem. I always I think that's a problem for others, I always felt like, she was going to just shrug and say, Okay, here's what I would recommend that you do. So there were opportunities for me to try things that didn't necessarily feel comfortable. But then when you see students grow from those things, that that that makes you realize, okay, this is really what they need. And I think too, we did in the school district that I taught, we spent a lot of time focusing on, we didn't use the term evidence based practices back then going to date myself a little bit. But we were very concerned about making sure we understood what others were trying and learning from what was in the research and literature we had, you know, weekly, we shared with each other things that came through in journals. And so we were we were always looking for what do people What does scholars in our area have to say about what's best for, in this case, students with disabilities, students with learning disabilities, so we were paying close attention to that, which did sometimes mean that we were pushing outside of what we maybe had learned in our trading programs, or what had felt comfortable to us. But it took time.

Julie Cunningham: 12:35

I also taught high school students and I love that you look at their honesty with the lens of well, how great that they'll tell us what it is that they need from us. Because I think sometimes it takes a little bit of a thick skin to get there as well. I mean, I love that age group, I agree. But nonetheless, it could be looked at in a different light, I think, for sure.

Dean Lancaster: 12:57

I remember spending a lot of time on a bulletin board once. And I didn't do that very often. But I, you know, spent a lot of time over the weekend on this bulletin board. And first hour, I had seniors and a student walked in. And he looked at it. And he looked at me and said, Do you want some help taking that down?

Julie Cunningham: 13:15

Like, Well, I do now (laughter).

Ashley O'Neil: 13:18

So, Paula, I know. And Julie and I have talked about this before about how her our own teaching and thoughts on teaching have changed over time. And I would say that one of the biggest areas that I have felt in seeing my perspective shift from my undergrad time, you know, focusing special education, to now is really thinking about strength based practices and that approach and how that was different even from when I was in, in college and what I learned as best practice and undergrad, but really that shift and then also the shift for me and understanding how so much of your classroom management strategy should be grounded in building respectful relationships with students. So I want to bring that question back to you to say, How have your thoughts? I know you've talked a lot about your growth and how you've deepened your toolbox over time, but how have your thoughts on teaching changed over time?

Dean Lancaster: 14:07

My thoughts on teaching have changed in similar ways than what you had described with just the way I think about students and the voice that they should have. When I worked when I was working on my graduate degree, I spent a considerable amount of time and focus on self determination and self advocacy skills. And that was actually what my dissertation focused on. And this was for students with disabilities. But when you when you get into that area, it it does change the way I think at least it did for me it changed the way I thought about young people and their humanity. You can't once you've read work in that area, you can't walk away and not and not have that realization. And I think about how often I, as a beginner teacher, especially, really wanted the classroom to be calmer, smoother, quieter, whatever that might be. And that and that their voices, we're just not going to let that happen, you know. But over time, I came to really appreciate that and, and want that and want that for young people. So I think that that that is one of the areas in which I feel like I have changed my thinking quite a bit. And I would go back to the way I think about teachers as being in service of students, our role is to bring out the very best in them. It's not about us, it's about them all the time. And I think that can be really hard. It makes the work a little bit harder to, but it's just of critical importance that we kind of think that way. I've also been, you know, was exposed to universal design for learning as a kind of a framework early on, and had the luxury of spending time with people who have expertise in that area. And again, I would say you can't get steeped in UDL and not have your, your mindset change of it. Like just the notion that, you know, so often in teaching, when I started from we would talk about academic diversity, like you'd have all this academic diversity, this wide range of students in the classroom, and we would talk about that as if that was a problem. And, and once I started reading and learning, I thought, Well, how could something that is absolutely inevitable, be a problem. The you know, the one thing we can count on is that there is going to be difference in a classroom, humans vary, we just do that is a natural part a natural order in the world. So why think of it as a problem, why not embrace it and understand that that's, that just is, and that it's our job to be able to connect with students and find what really motivates them and interest them and you know, work from there, it's not our job to make them conform to us, it's our job to bring out the best of themselves.

Julie Cunningham: 17:18

It's always interesting to me when we have conversations with people that we've had on the podcast, and they often have like these serendipitous events that occurred maybe earlier in their career right or, and and I know that for myself, that's true as well that I can count a number of opportunities that I didn't go looking for, but that I fell into that have helped me become the instructor that I am today. Paula, how did you come to be involved in core teaching practices? Or how did you find that to be meaningful?

Dean Lancaster: 17:46

You know, for a couple of years, I had been talking with colleagues and peers, and people both at the institution I was working at, but also just others across the country who I've known over the years. And we we would lament the same thing, which is that are saying things I should say one of which is that when it can't comes to instruction, in particular, or the work that teachers do, that our profession lacked precision, like our language, and our way of talking about teaching was so imprecise. So we made it sound like it was this really easy thing that anybody can do. We're very vague about teaching, you know, even the term classroom management, I would hear people talk about how this particular candidate was really strong and classroom management, or this particular teacher candidate was a little bit weak in classroom management, I have no idea what that means. That is such a vague term, but to try to drill down and really understand would only kind of show us that if you had a room of 30 educators, we would all define classroom management differently. And that is a problem in a profession, when you're trying to kind of come to the level of being a profession and really understand practice. So so this was were things that we were talking about, you know, and when you're just a small group of people, or when you're kind of one person at this institution and one person at this institution, you don't imagine that you can actually change that, or, you know, have an impact on it. So, so you just tried to do little things here and there. And that was it. And then I remember we had this group of faculty who would get together and talk about the program and how we could improve it. And across my, at the time, I think I was serving as department chair and maybe just It started as the director of teacher education and an email came through my inbox and it was an invitation from Deborah Ball, who at the time, she still is the Director of Teaching Works at the University of Michigan. She was the dean at that time at their school. And it was an invitation for us to be involved in this network. And I don't know that they actually even mentioned core practices in that particular introduction or invitation, but it really was about setting standards of practice for the profession. And I just thought, oh, there is no way we're saying no to this we are, we've got to do this. And, and we just got a group of people who are highly enthused and, and began working on it at the same time. My, you know, my background is in special education. At the same time, there was another group through the cedar Center, which is at the University of Florida. And I had been involved a little bit in some projects through the cedar center. And so the CEEDAR Center and the Council for Exceptional Children, um, had assembled a group of educators and scholars who were embarking on the same journey in the special education side as well. And so it just was, it was just perfect timing. And in a wonderful, like I said, kind of this amazing, like series of events that I was able to be, at least, you know, involved a little bit in both of those movements forward.

Ashley O'Neil: 21:11

Now, Paula, you mentioned the special education, Core Teaching Practices and the Core Teaching Practices, can you talk a little bit about what is different and the overlaps that might exist between those two, I'm going to call them sets of lists, I know that they're more comprehensive than that, but they're very basic form. They're a list with explanations under each one about these core practices that teachers should be working on practicing improving upon, reflecting upon, right.

Dean Lancaster: 21:40

So in both cases, the Core Practices or High Leverage Practices, we use that language interchangeably. Those practices were chosen, in much the same way. And with the same kind of criteria. Like these are practices that all teachers use, all beginner teachers need to be able to do, they're highly consequential to students, they are foundational in the development of an educator, and they under the underlie a more advanced skillfulness. They are used by teachers and not by others in the profession. And so the criteria for deciding on what made up the core practices or high leverage practices on the general education and special education side are the are essentially the same. One difference is that on the special education side, I believe there are 22 total core practices that were identified. And they are categorized into four different categories. So there are a group of practices related specifically to instruction, specifically to collaboration, assessment, and then social, emotional and behavioral and well being, you know, at first glance, you might see some, some similarities between a few of the practices. But when you dig a little bit deeper into the practices, there are some differences. So for example, both the general education and special education sets of practices have a practice that addresses group work on the general education side, it's called setting up and managing group work on the special education side is called flexible grouping. So initially, you could look at those two and think, Oh, these are, here's two practices on group work. But when you dig deeper into the practices, they are distinctly different, maybe some things are the same. But on the general education side, what we're really talking about is we're setting up and managing group work in which all of the students in the classroom are working toward the same learning objectives. So there's, in that case, there are probably one or two academic objectives, maybe one social or collaborative objective that's embedded in that that learning sequence from this group that's group work. On the special education side with flexible grouping, we may not necessarily all be working toward the same objective, hence the flexible. So we might have some small groups that are happening in the classroom and some one on one or even smaller groups that happen, we may have students working in groups, but on different objectives, we may have some students who, for whom the primary objective is in the social and emotional side of things, whereas other students might have a stronger emphasis on the academic side of it. So so there are some differences between those two practices, even though they they sound essentially the same at first glance. And I think just generally speaking, the two sets of practices I would say a primary difference is that on the special education side, you're going to see a lot more language that focuses on individualization individual students, and probably more but focus on a little bit more intensity of instruction. So, so those are some some differences there. But the overall purpose of the core practices in both cases is the same, which is to say that beginner level teachers, whether they're general educators, or special educators should be able to do these things, they should have knowledge about these practices, and they should be able to enact these practices. And we think it's important when we think about core practices to always remind ourselves that we really are talking about beginner level teachers. Certainly, I can shore up my skills in a lot of those core practices. And I know I need to, and I know I need to stay very conscious of them as I'm teaching. But, But really, what we're talking about is our expectations for beginner teachers,

Julie Cunningham: 25:52

I'm glad you gave us that example. Because that was that was really helpful when you were just use the terms, it was harder to see the difference in the group work, but when talking about the objectives was helpful for the objectives for the group work. Actually, did you have a follow up question?

Ashley O'Neil: 26:08

Yeah, I also agreed that that was helpful. I also think it's a great, maybe anecdotal example of the tension between general education and special education. Right, as someone who has technically being certified in both degrees, we often use similar language, right, like in my special education classroom, I'd say this is our small group time. But defining that deeply is very, very different. And what that looks like and what your goals are, is very different. So it's interesting to hear how the, there are some unified goals, but also how that plays out in each setting.

Dean Lancaster: 26:42

So I agree I that is so important for us to keep talking about and because, you know, I see that also with like, assessment, formative assessment, progress monitoring, curriculum based measurements, how whatever terminology we're using, I think, sometimes what gets lost on the general education side is that when you're a special educator, we're using these assessments, possibly for different reasons. Because we know in special education, we know that time is critically important. And so we have to be paying attention to whether or not whatever we're trying is actually working. And I think sometimes the assessments we use in special ed, they're in special education, they're interpreted as being hyper focused on the student, and the score that the student gets or the rate of growth the student makes, or all those things. And I think what we're probably not doing a good enough job of explaining in this case, is that well, sure, it's partially about the student. But that's because if whatever we're doing isn't working, we need to stop and try something else. And the only way to really know that is to collect data and information about it. But yeah, I agree, I think sometimes things just get lost in translation, because I guess I'd go back to that necessity for clarity and precision in the way that we talk about our work.

Ashley O'Neil: 28:12

I love that. And I think that's so important, too, because, as a special educator, you have so many numbers and so much data in front of you about a student. And when you're running an IEP meeting, and you have these parents and all of these other practitioners there with you. It's, then it's your responsibility to take that data and also remind them of the humanity that this is not a summary of anybody's child. This is not a summary of an individual human. Right. But that that data, its purpose is what you said, right is to really inform the instruction. So do we need to tweak the instructional side of things to achieve our goal? Not a reflection on that child's worth or capabilities?

Dean Lancaster: 28:53

Absolutely. The data, the scores all that doesn't describe the child, it describes the work that was happening around this child? Yeah, yeah,

Ashley O'Neil: 29:01

I've been chatting a lot. So it's your turn-

Julie Cunningham: 29:04

I was going to say it sounds like a message that we that could transcend the way we use data in any type of education, not just special education. But, Paula, I know you and I have talked about different core teaching practices before and we've had some conversation and some thought given to is there an order in which new teachers or pre service teachers should be looking at these? Or is there even an order that makes sense to talk about them in terms of your work with students, maybe with one of the lenses being you want your classroom to be an equitable, an equitable space for students? Right? And maybe some of it depends on the content you're teaching or whether you're teaching special education or general education. But do you have any thoughts about which one might be sort of the basis or is Is there such a thing or does it not matter which order you tackle these?

Dean Lancaster: 29:57

This is a great question. So the question of the order of core practices or what's most important? And I, I, I would say, I think there are scholars much better equipped to answer this question than I am. So I'll just, I'll share what I think about quite a lot. And I know that there are others who certainly agree with me and the practice that I'm going to start with my highlighting. Because I think, fundamentally, I think a skill that all teachers, particularly beginner teachers need to have before they enter a classroom is just the ability to truly listen to a child or a young person without judgment, just to listen to start there. And, and so once you can do that, I would say the practice that lends itself best to kind of reinforcing, listening and also opening your eyes up to the value that these young people bring to the classroom, the just brilliance that they bring to the classroom is eliciting and interpreting student thinking. So I do often think of that one as kind of the the place to start, I could be wrong about that, it's hard, it's a really hard practice, it might be better to start with something a little bit easier. But I think if you pull it apart, and just begin with just generally listening, just hey, listen to a child, just be quiet, and listen, start there, and then build into now how do you ask great questions of a child? What does that what does that sound like? What does it like to ask a child a question that he or she that is worthy of an answer, you know, that was worthy of thinking. So you can start to tear it apart a little bit. Even before you get into interpreting, in fact, hold off on interpreting, because they're going to want to do that anyway. So hold off on that, just listen, and and then ask questions and figure out how to do those things. Because, to me that practice, I've described it I'm sure others have to. So I don't claim that this is, you know my words, but it, it has always felt to me like a stake in the ground. It is the practice that says that this is how we think about kids. We think that they are worthy of being heard, we think they have something to say that we should be quiet and listen to. And we think that it's so important that we should spend time, occasionally asking them what they think about things, and letting them talk to each other about what they think about things. And that we shouldn't judge it, respond to it corrected. None of those things, we should just listen, because they deserve that. So to me that that is a great starter place. Because I think that a it, it changes maybe the way that we approach some of the other practices that we're going to do. It says something about what we shouldn't believe about and think about young people, or adults, for that matter, really anybody in our classroom. And it also does serve as a basis for other practices. So if you can elicit and interpret a student's a Child Youth a young person's thinking, you'll be better equipped to lead a group discussion, you'll be better equipped to build a relationship with that student, because they're going to know that you're actually hearing them, you'll be better equipped to set up and manage group work, because you'll be able to stay attuned to what they're saying about their work while you're waltzing around the classroom, you'll be better able to assess because you're more objective about what they have to say and what they're doing. So there are all sorts of reasons why that practice seems like the right place to start, or at least the one that we should be paying an awfully a lot of attention to, and probably more attention than we do right now.

Julie Cunningham: 33:58

But that's interesting to me. Because when you started down the path of listening, I thought you were and and I did not have a right answer in mind. It wasn't like this was a test question or something I really was interested in. And in which core teaching practice and also not to sort of make it sound to the audiences though, these are all discrete practices. Right. Listening, as you've mentioned, is part of running a group and listening is part of building respectful relationships. But that's what I thought you're gonna say, I thought you're gonna say building respectful relationships when you talked about listening to students. So the idea that there is a lot of crossover between them I think is important as well.

Dean Lancaster: 34:33

Yeah, there there is. There's considerable crossover. And the same is true in the special education side of things, too. So this idea of bundling practices and putting them together I think is very, very helpful because I think there's a there would be a rare moment where or a rare even 15 or 20 minutes of a day where you would only ever be drawing on one particular practice you you're probably using mobile To pull ones at the same time.

Ashley O'Neil: 35:02

So I hear some challenges when I think about bundling them together and then teasing them back apart again. And making sense of it in my own mind. On top of that, maintaining, I think there's a headspace you have to be in when you're teaching. And when I think about my, not my finest teaching moments that comes from a place of panic or not knowing what to do, or being emotionally or physically tired. And it's hard to draw on those best tools, and you revert to some of your basic level instincts, right instead of those practices. But what are some challenges that you associate with this type of teaching meaning, thinking about these practices, being intentional about how you implement them reflecting upon that implementation?

Dean Lancaster: 35:45

There are a couple challenges that come to mind for me. One is that I think it's that the unpredictability of teaching, I'm not sure that it's a profession that you can have enough iterations in that you've truly seen it all, you know, because I know for my own career, even all the way through teaching high school students, undergrads, Grads, there were moments where I, where I would come home and say, I've seen it all now, and then two weeks later, you see it all again. So I think that some of it, it really is that unpredictability. So So given that that's a challenge, I think the then the bigger challenge, in my mind. And again, I could be wrong about this, but I haven't been thinking about this a lot lately. And that is, I think one of the biggest challenge is challenges is the way we judge teachers and teaching. I think that's, in some ways, at the heart of the problem. So teachers, especially beginner teachers, feel very judged. Evaluated is, you know, certainly evaluation is, is an important part of what we do, and we need to do that. But I think the problem is that oftentimes, what has been judged, is their presumed control over students. And so if you think that you're being judged based on the control that you're displaying in a classroom, that means that any moment, when you're not feeling totally in control, is going to heighten your anxiety, it's going to feel like this isn't going well. And we're never at our best thinking, when we're at that heightened sense of control. Instead of just acknowledging that, if you're in a room with more than two people, the likelihood of something surprising happening is pretty good. So let's just all acknowledge that teaching is not one of those places where we're ever going to be, nor should we, why would exercising control be the goal anyway, it's just not going to happen. And then maybe we can be I hate to overuse the term vulnerable. But maybe we can just be that a little bit, we can be a little bit more honest about the fact that things aren't going to go exactly as we planned in our mind, there are going to be moments where something's going to surprise us. And we can only ever do our best in those moments, which means we try something, we try something based on what we know, or what our experience has taught us, whatever that might be, I think, I think part of it is this false sense for what competent teaching really is, that is so embedded in our culture. And we really need to tear that away. We need to across the enterprise, we need to change the conversation about how we evaluate teachers. And like, you know, just kind of pull away from that notion that control is tied in some way to competent teaching.

Julie Cunningham: 38:58

Every time I think I agree, every time we try to hold ourselves to that I had a perfect day to day and nothing went wrong. And my students never saw me make a mistake kind of level. And maybe that's an exaggeration, but we're not really doing anyone a favor with that.

Dean Lancaster: 39:11

Right? Instead, we should make it healthy, to think about what went wrong. And what do we do differently next time or ask the questions about why you know, not rather than saying that it says something about me as a teacher, let's focus on Well, what happened with the teaching in that moment that maybe we could adjust or we weren't expecting or any of those types of things, but we have a hard time with that.

Julie Cunningham: 39:38

Do if there's something that you wanted to add that we didn't ask you about that you want to do?

Dean Lancaster: 39:47

One of the things that I really like about the conversation around four practices is that we are also talking about practice as a way to address issues of equity and inclusion in our field. We tend to think about those topics as being beyond our control. But with each of these practices, they can be done in ways that exclude kids, they can be done in ways that marginalize kids. I think about group work a lot, I think about the way that I did it. Early on in my career, in particular, same thing with leading discussions. And, you know, sometimes in teaching, we feel compelled to do things for expediency sake, or to keep things moving a little bit smoothly. And so we might call on certain students for that purpose, or, or whatever those practices are. But I increasingly believe that there is little to nothing that happens in a classroom, that is not consequential in some way. And so if we realize that the day to day practice, the manner in which we do things like lead group discussions, deliver explicit instruction or choose not to, because we don't like it so much, or how we set up and manage group work and how much attention we pay to students who don't normally participate, those types of things. If we think about every single one of those instances, as equity and inclusion work, it suddenly becomes incredibly powerful. And if you multiply that by the, you know, over 3.7 5 million teachers who are working in classrooms every day, you can really start to see the incredible power and impact that attention to core practices can have in for an individual child, for communities for society. It goes on and on. So I think I like the fact that we are really getting into that part of the conversation that done well. These practices are amazing, and can be, you know, really affirming and, and wonderful for children done poorly or haphazardly. They have the exact opposite effect. So we have to be really conscious of you know where on that continuum we want to fall as teachers