Deputy Superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District and writer, Dr. Fabiola Bagula, shares her expertise in facilitating ground-breaking professional learning around unpacking implicit biases. Listeners will gain a better understanding of their own unconscious biases as well as a variety of resources. Fabi inspires listeners to embark upon the work of changing society with open hearts, minds, and wills, ensuring that everyone belongs and sees each other’s future potential.
Research & Researchers Mentioned Throughout the Episode:
Recent Publications by Dr. Fabiola Bagula:
Connect with Fabi:
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Deputy Superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District and writer, Dr. Fabiola Bagula, shares her expertise in facilitating ground-breaking professional learning around unpacking implicit biases. Listeners will gain a better understanding of their own unconscious biases as well as a variety of resources. Fabi inspires listeners to embark upon the work of changing society with open hearts, minds, and wills, ensuring that everyone belongs and sees each other’s future potential.
Research & Researchers Mentioned Throughout the Episode:
Recent Publications by Dr. Fabiola Bagula:
Connect with Fabi:
Get solutions from Schoolutions!
#solutionsfromschoolutions #schoolutionsinspires #schoolutionspodcast
[00:00:33] Olivia: As principal, she worked to market and create community connections to enhance monies and human resources available to her school. She created and maintained strong relationships with communities and parents. Fabi worked to inspire and motivate staff and community toward a shared vision of academic excellence.
[00:00:53] Olivia: Following her role of principal, Fabi became Area 6 Superintendent. With the Hoover, Crawford, and Scripps Ranch clusters, she monitored instructional practices of 29 K-12 schools. Fabi shared vertical articulation for each student in all three clusters. She led differentiated professional development for all principals and coaching cycles with principals at their own school sites in order to further understand student learning while leveraging district resources.
[00:01:24] Olivia: Fabiola then took on the role of a Senior Director at the Equity Department within the San Diego County Office of Education. She worked with her team to build the capacity of principals and district leaders alongside stakeholders and policymakers to improve equity consciousness and cultivate inclusive learning environments.
[00:01:43] Olivia: Fabi and her team focused attention on transforming public education systems into places of opportunity and high quality learning for all students. And most recently, Fabi will be circling back to where her journey began. In her own words, she will proudly and compassionately serve as the San Diego Unified School District's new Deputy Superintendent and give them a strong return on their investment in service of children.
[00:02:11] Olivia: I must also note that Fabiola is a published author. You can find her chapter, Belonging and Being Enough, within Latinas Leading Schools, a book that was published in 2021. Fabi, I cannot express how excited I am to have listeners learn of your work around improving equity consciousness and cultivating inclusive learning environments.
[00:02:32] Olivia: Welcome, welcome, welcome.
[00:02:35] Fabiola: Hello, good morning. It's good to see you, Olivia.
[00:02:38] Olivia: Yes, it's so good to have you and you are in California. I am in New York. So, I'm grateful for you jumping on. I love to ask all guests who an inspiring educator is in your life.
[00:02:53] Fabiola: So, I had to do a lot of thinking and I went through teachers of mine, mentors, people that I like to read, and I love teachers, first of all, they're some of my favorite people, and I can recite everyone's name that I've ever had as a teacher in elementary school, middle school, and high school, legit, I can do that.
[00:03:08] Olivia: I believe it.
[00:03:09] Fabiola: So, I decided to honor, I decided to honor one teacher that I had, and I'm actually going to call him after this to let him know.
[00:03:17] Fabiola: So, my art teacher in high school, his name is Mr. Rowie. And what happened with me and why he's so important is because my mother lost her job when I was a senior in high school and we were forced to move to Tijuana, Mexico. San Diego is on the border. Many students cross the border every day. So, I all of a sudden had to cross an international border, one of the busiest borders, every morning to get to school. And my mom had to go to a different work that she got. Anyway, she would drop me off at 6 a.m. at high school.
[00:03:50] Olivia: Wow.
[00:03:50] Fabiola: And it was extremely dark. So, I would find the streetlight and I would sit underneath the streetlight and Mr. Rowie would show up at 6:15. And I loved art and he would always allow me to be in his classroom. So, I would see him. I would immediately walk to his car. He was like getting his things out and we would walk in together and we would talk.
[00:04:08] Fabiola: We would listen to jazz. We’d talk music. I like I helped him. Um, he was beautiful to me. But what he did was he started to arrive at 6:00, not 6:15.
[00:04:20] Olivia: Beautiful.
[00:04:20] Fabiola: Uh, sorry. So, it still tears me up because…
[00:04:23] Olivia: Yeah.
[00:04:23] Fabiola: …I feel like he protected me like he saw. I never asked him. He just noticed I was there and, and so he just started, he changed his own schedule to protect me in the morning.
[00:04:33] Fabiola: I will never, ever forget that man. He was lovely. Um, wrote me beautiful letters of recommendation and to this day I see some artwork that him and I talked about and I see it in person. I'm like, I wanna talk to Mr. Rowie about how cool this (artist) in person is. Um, so anyway, he's just a lovely person. So that's my inspiration. Teachers you can do like little things like that, that mean the whole world, the whole world.
[00:04:55] Olivia: And Fabi, I think back on when I first met you and one of my favorite qualities about you as a human is you watch the world around you and you take notice of the tiniest things that are happening to really large things as well.
[00:05:13] Olivia: Um, And I remember it was my first year teaching in San Diego Unified. I was terrified and I signed up for a writing workshop. I walked in. I sat all by myself at a table and by lunch, the first day you invited me to eat with you out in your car and I thought, oh my God, I found my person. And it's been that way for many, many years.
[00:05:35] Olivia: Our paths, we intersect at different points. I was so blessed to see you again. A few years ago, we ran into each other at, uh, in Houston at the Marriott attending different conferences. And I think we only had enough time to get a drink and it simply wasn't enough. I just, I adore that you saw me and you just scooped me up and you do that for children, you do that for adults in a way that is welcoming and inclusive and it's just, it's a huge part of who you are.
[00:06:10] Olivia: I think of you often and I thought of you actually on Sunday. You don't even know. I was watching 60 Minutes. There was a story on Story Corps and there was another connecting story to One Small Step. Do you know what One Small Step is, Fabi?
[00:06:26] Fabiola: Yes, I love that. I know exactly what you're talking about and I'm trying to think how to do that with students.
[00:06:31] Olivia: It's so brilliant. So, for listeners to know One Small Step pairs strangers with different beliefs for a 50-minute conversation about their lives, not about politics. It was created because of the growing divisions in our country and how they pose a threat to democracy. Fabi, this is why I needed to have you as a guest because on a large scale, you are doing implicit bias work in a way that is incredibly effective.
[00:06:59] Olivia: It's thoughtful. And right now, most implicit bias work is done through that one-and-done type of standalone session that we know is ineffective. I want you to teach us, what do we do? How have you led implicit bias initiatives? I guess, beginning as a school principal, and then we can go up to present day, if that works for you.
[00:07:21] Olivia:
[00:07:21] Fabiola: Sure, that's great. And so immediately when you said it, I'm like, I know exactly what you're talking about. And I love it. And I do when I'm thinking about, or when I get afraid of leading equity work, my fear comes from adding to the polarization. I don't want to polarize or shame or blame or guilt or other anyone.
[00:07:38] Fabiola: And so, in all of our design of these workshops, that's the overall outcome because much to my chapter, we all want to belong. Intrinsically, we want to belong. And so how are we creating these inclusive environments for everyone, for teachers, for principals, for students, so that they belong, they feel seen and heard, they feel valued, and I actually think it's a more beautiful world when everyone feels like they belong.
[00:08:00] Fabiola: So that's, that's my driving force.
[00:08:03] Olivia: And so as a principal of Balboa Elementary, what were the beginning stages of implicit bias initiatives that you began with?
[00:08:12] Fabiola: One of the things that I think, and I still do this now, so I will preach what I do now with what's connected back then, which is to set the foundations for psychological safety.
[00:08:22] Fabiola: So you have to be safe enough to be vulnerable to admit that you engage in certain behaviors that might go against your espoused value system. And we all have them. Like if I think about myself, I think I'm a great person. I'm a nice person. I love people. And then get me hangry in traffic in my car and I will be mean to the person next to me because they didn't put on their blinker.
[00:08:44] Fabiola: Right? We all get that space. So how do we create a culture where instead of shaming or blaming students that aren't moving forward to actually say: I haven't been able to reach this child. What are the systems of support that are going to help my pedagogy, but also help this child?
[00:09:01] Fabiola: And instead of saying: Their parents don't care. This student doesn't speak English. And all of the implicit bias that comes with that, right? Our brain makes really quick associations, especially when people don't look like us. So, if you're teaching a group of children that don't look like you, you're immediately going to fall prey to some implicit bias immediately without even you wanting to do that.
[00:09:23] Fabiola: Having that realization of we're all susceptible, but we all can create different passages in our brain to not behave in that way and have critical self-awareness is really what I was trying to lead through. So, how do I create a culture of psychological safety for my teachers, for my staff members to be able to engage in those kinds of dialogues?
[00:09:44] Fabiola: I actually had a teacher say: Oh, my God, I don't know how to connect to my black girls. Like to be able to say that to your colleagues and to your principal, the amount of psychological safety that was in that room is really important. And once we're honest about what we need, then we can help each other out.
[00:10:02] Fabiola: So that's the very first step in my opinion.
[00:10:04] Olivia: Got it.
[00:10:04] Fabiola: Psychological safety, health, relationships again, without shame or blame. We all do it. I do it. You do it. Um, and then what do we do next? And I'm not alone. So that was the second layer. Like we are not alone in this work. We're working shoulder-to-shoulder with each and every child.
[00:10:20] Fabiola: And so sometimes we're not going to be able to reach children, but I know I have at least five different colleagues that'll help me. So how do I leverage the time and the space to come together to problem solve and to help each other out? That was really kind of the foundation aspect of, of heading towards implicit bias, which is why when people ask me now, can you come and do an implicit bias training?
[00:10:40] Fabiola: I'm like, that's about hour number 17 of 18. I don't start there. I start with psychological safety. I start with relationships. I start with stories and connections instead of that big subject.
[00:10:52] Olivia: Fabi, I want to pause for a second because you made me just think too of the level of humility it also takes to be able to recognize that as teachers we are not the savior of all children.
[00:11:05] Olivia: I think there's this savior complex that comes with teaching that is unhealthy in many ways and to realize that if we are not connecting with children, it's our responsibility to find someone that can. And that's, it's lingering in my mind right now, that level of humility. There are clear aspects to changing organizational culture.
[00:11:29] Olivia: And you just spoke to a couple, what are other foundational elements for equity-centered, reflective learning? You mentioned authenticity and trust. How do you set people up for success to achieve that?
[00:11:43] Fabiola: So we have to model it. That's the first thing. And I've talked, God, I've had a lot of these conversations where when I'm meeting with groups of people in dysfunctional school systems, they'll actually say: We don't trust, there's no trust here.
[00:11:55] Fabiola: And my question to them is: Have you been honest? It's this whole notion of everyone's responsible for the culture. So, if you're not being honest, then my, my response to anything that you've asked or said is going to be a lie, then I'm not going to know it's a lie. And so, there's no trust. And I, and I jokingly always say: You're not sitting in traffic, you are the traffic.
[00:12:15] Olivia: Yeah.
[00:12:14] Fabiola: So, if we're going to have trust and it's everyone being honest and being trustworthy now. What we do with that trust, how we receive that honesty, then we can start getting into dispositions and behaviors that we want to engage in. And so, I do conduct a lot of dreaming. Like what is our aspirational?
[00:12:31] Fabiola: How are we going to be together? I don't like calling them norms. So just even changing the language, changing the language and how you check in, but a big piece, and I think this is actually missing. So, I'm going to kind of pull out a one-string guitar here. When we're thinking about professional learning for adults, right, for teachers? Um, we don't ever talk about andragogy.
[00:13:05] Fabiola: We talk about pedagogy, but andragogy is how adults learn. And there's some very specific outcomes that Knowles, the scholar, the father says are the desired outcomes. So, I'm sorry, I'm going to preach now, because I think this is important.
[00:12:15] Olivia: Preach! Yes.
[00:13:07] Fabiola: Yes. But are the professional learning sessions that are developed for adults, do they have these six outcomes? One, the outcome is you have a mature understanding of yourself. So that means the learning is going to engage you to learn more about yourself and outcome number two is acceptance, respect, and love towards others.
[00:13:25] Fabiola: So, again, goes back to that psychological safety and organization about, like, I know I can't reach this child, but I can call on three colleagues that will help me. A fluid and dynamic attitude toward life. Meaning if I can't reach a child, it's okay. There's going to be different avenues to help support them, but it's my responsibility to make sure this happens.
[00:13:44] Fabiola: Outcome number four, understanding and reacting to causes and not symptoms.
[00:13:48] Olivia: Oh my gosh.
[00:13:50] Fabiola: Number five, understanding human experience. And then last one, my favorite one, understanding of, and the ability to change society.
[00:13:58] Olivia: Wow.
[00:14:07] Fabiola: So how are we respond when we teach children, you know, I can give you all the stats about Balboa and you will immediately make assumptions about this school. It's a high Latino school, high English Language Learner school. It was under no child left behind under perpetual AYP five. That's how I came in. The superintendent got rid of 90% of the staff. So, we were all brand new. So, think about all of these dynamics. And then think about understanding of an ability to change society.
[00:14:26] Fabiola: Like, are our professional learnings for adults so inspirational, so motivating, that teachers leave going, I can change the whole organization. I have the power. So I, I kind of lean on those whenever I'm planning my sessions of how am I making sure that people are going to be vulnerable and honest enough, but then that the session is done so well that they also leave feeling empowered to do so.
[00:14:50] Fabiola: So that's my one-string guitar and I will keep playing it.
[00:14:54] Olivia: It's amazing. And who is the practitioner that speaks to those six points?
[00:14:59] Fabiola: His name is Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S, and he writes a lot about andragogy, and I, I remember first reading about him and getting mad because I've always heard about pedagogy, but never andragogy.
[00:15:11] Olivia: Yeah.
[00:15:11] Fabiola: And I thought, why do principals know this? Like, the principals and the professionals, all of the people that are planning professional learning sessions for teachers need to learn about andragogy.
[00:15:22] Olivia: Yes, that it's brilliant work and I will definitely include some of the information you just shared in our show notes so people have access to that outside of listening to your beautiful synopsis. Fabi, that's life-changing because even a listener that's not an educator could take every one of those pieces and be inspired and implement them.
[00:15:41] Olivia: That's the other piece of this work. When we think of school systems as organizations, we both think bigger picture. It's the notion of societal change and that there's so much hope in children and adults as well. There's possibility for change. It's amazing to think about. I know there are specific structures to the way you set teachers up or adults in a learning session.
[00:16:09] Olivia: How do you do that so that you are able to be reflective?
[00:16:14] Fabiola: So I wanted to feel unlike any professional learning because first of all, teachers come in with their own schema around professional learning and their own attitude, especially those that show up with like their knitting. Right? Like, I'm like, immediately going, you have schema around with that.
[00:16:28] Olivia: You're in trouble.
[00:16:29] Fabiola: Yeah. And I will, I like. I'm in a circle because they're going to share about themselves and no one ever asks you to think about yourself, right? You're thinking usually professional learning sessions that I know I've gone to as an educator. It's usually an initiative. I'm taking something in.
[00:16:43] Fabiola: Maybe there's a talk to your partner. Um, so when they come in. No tables, it's a circle in a chair together and they're immediately and I often notice some people will even I've pushed the desks, like, out of the way and people have gone to sit outside of the circle. That's and I think, okay, so there's that…
[00:17:01] Olivia: I've seen it too.
[00:17:02] Fabiola: Yeah, so I tried to do that. We also activate the space. I do a lot of modeling and reflecting in, in the types of conversations we want to have, and I teach into listening structures because if we're going to do equity work differently and we're showing, we're asking you to show up differently and sit in a circle and be vulnerable, then the way we listen has to be in place.
[00:17:22] Fabiola: And there's two big frameworks that we spend a good, I would say a good 2 hours on there's Constructivist Listening and then there's Theory U listening and both make sense and both are strategies that we implement to use. But it's very important to listen differently to each other. And what I find when we do that is sometimes people get uncomfortable.
[00:17:42] Fabiola: They're like: Oh. I'm taught to listen a certain way. And I'm like: I know and I'm asking you to not to do that right now because our listening is almost on automatic and we're actually listening to respond and we're actually really not paying attention and what Constructivist Listening asks you to do is it will you listen to me and think about me while you listen?
[00:18:03] Fabiola: And that's a totally different notion. And then what Otto Scharmer will say is, can you listen with an open mind, open heart, open will? And that's the part that's really important, especially in equity work, especially when we're dreaming about different conditions is are we listening to each other and to the community and to the students with an open mind, open heart, open will?
[00:18:23] Fabiola: I do go into - because I want it to be strategy, right? Like, cause if I say this to you right now, a really well-meaning person could be like, I do that all the time. And so I kind of press them because one of the big pressings and it's all connected to implicit bias training is you have to be very critically self-aware.
[00:18:39] Fabiola: And so, where the critical self-awareness piece comes in with the listening is. If you notice when you're trying to listen and someone's telling you a story and you're not believing their experience, if you're critically self-aware, what starts to emerge, it's almost like my Jiminy Cricket, what starts to emerge is a voice of judgment.
[00:19:01] Fabiola: And your voice of judgment will say things to you like: It wasn't that bad. She's being a drama queen. That didn't really happen. That means I'm not listening with an open heart. And can I catch myself when my voice of judgment comes in? To stop that behavior and go back to that open heart? And so that's really kind of the push that I give to people. And then I'll say with an open mind, if we listen to each other, and this is connected to that 60 Minutes story. If we're listening to each other, and I'm able to accept some new perspectives or some new facts or new data.
[00:19:35] Fabiola: Or is my voice coming and going: What's the citation? What news channel did they listen to this to? I don't know if there's enough data. That's my voice. of cynicism. My voice of cynicism will get in the way of an open mind. And so am I critically self-aware to stop myself? The last one, the voice of the open heart really speaks more about the capacity.
[00:19:56] Fabiola: And this is something that I don't think we do very well at all. And it's necessary for equity work, because if I were to ask you: Is there truly an organization that is truly equitable where BIPOC people are thriving and we're working together with white people? It doesn't exist. Not yet. But it can, and so if we're asking to dream, then we have to have this open mind, open heart, open will, an open will to create this new.
[00:20:20] Fabiola: And people sometimes ask me about what this might mean. And I, and I say, Otto Scharmer says that you're listening for future potential. And if any of you have been a coach or have been coached, that coach should see the potential in you and try to get you to that potential. A teacher should see the potential in each and every student and try to get that potential.
[00:20:42] Olivia: Absolutely.
[00:20:42] Fabiola: So, if we're doing equity work and we're leading a community. There's so much beautiful potential here. How are we listening and doing to get to that potential of a new future that's waiting to emerge that hasn't been tapped into? So that's the kind of very foundational groundwork is done with how we behave, how we listen, how we show up before we get into any of the -isms.
[00:21:04] Fabiola: And that's necessary given the polarization that exists when someone says implicit bias.
[00:21:09] Olivia: So I'm going to pause there. I need to learn more about the Cognitive Bias Codex that you've done work with. I'd love to know more too, about Scharmer's four levels of listening, as well as I want you to take us into a session.
[00:21:24] Olivia: Let us be with you and hear more about what's a story that you share to kick it off. If we want to replicate this work in any way, shape, or form.
[00:21:34] Fabiola: We need to listen differently, especially when we're listening to set the foundation to have cross-belief, cross-race dialogue. And in order to do that, we need to think and listen differently.
[00:21:45] Fabiola: And that's why I love Otto Scharmer's four layers of listening, because it's a nice reminder for us to say to the group, open mind, open heart, open will. Right. And it becomes like, Oh, right. I need to listen differently when I show up here. But also, what I love is those little voices that I said, the voice that emerges the voice of judgment, the voice of cynicism that emerges.
[00:22:03] Fabiola: And are you so critically self-aware that you can stop it? And I know I pick on my sister. If I'm listening and I'm not listening with an empathic heart, or I'm not listening with an open heart, my voice will be like: She's such a drama queen. Like what is she? And then I say: No. You're being mean. You're being judgmental here. Let's listen again with an open heart.
[00:22:19] Fabiola: But the most important one is listening with an open will of knowing there's a new future waiting to emerge. And it goes back to that coach that sees the potential and is driving towards that potential. And as we're trying to create a different experience for children, an equitable experience for children that hasn't been done before, we really have to dream within that space of seeing the potential and behaving and listening in ways that have that potential.
[00:22:45] Fabiola: Now, what Otto Scharmer states is the voice that emerges when we're, when we're in that space is the voice of fear. And I hear this in educators a lot. They start to go: Do we have enough money? Do we have enough time? Will the superintendent give us another initiative while we're trying to do this equity work?
[00:23:01] Fabiola: All very, very real-based.
[00:23:02] Olivia: Yes. Yes.
[00:23:03] Fabiola: But the voice of fear gets in the way of creating these beautiful structures for children and for dreaming really big. So, in my work, not only are we learning about this listening, but I'm simultaneously coaching leaders to let go of some of those fears. If we're really doing this work, then we have to show up very differently and make decisions very differently too.
[00:23:22] Olivia: That’s tremendous. I want to experience pretending that we are in a session together. It may be session 13 out of 30, but where does the Cognitive Bias Codex come in? I know you've done extensive amounts of study with that resource. Can you speak to that?
[00:23:42] Fabiola: Yes. The funny thing is when people call, they always immediately say: Can you do implicit bias training?
[00:23:47] Fabiola: I jokingly say: We're not Starbucks, we're not doing a two-hour drive by and that's it. Yes, we can. But it'll be like: I'm like you're signing up for 30 hours, plus coaching plus a dedication to change something, and this will be about hour 17.
[00:24:01] Olivia: Okay.
[00:24:01] Fabiola: And people don't understand the importance of that setup. And the importance of that setup is the openness and the vulnerability to say: I do that. I have that behavior. This is how this particular bias shows up in the classroom. So, I personally love the Cognitive Bias Codex because I think it's a safe entry point. What this document is. And I hope we link it. It's a cheat sheet of all of the neurological studies that have been done on our brains.
[00:24:28] Fabiola: And what these two authors found, um, was there was 180 biases that have been studied. So pretty much our brain has 180 biases. That's a lot.
[00:24:39] Olivia: It is.
[00:24:40] Fabiola: But one of the things that I believe in and I feel like it's worked for me because when I would go, when I went to implicit bias training, they would say: Well, have critical self-awareness. I'm like: Well, how can I have critical self-awareness if I don't know what the bias are? So now that I know, and I can, I actually Google one, like at every team meeting, we Google one and we read about it and we say: How does it show for you? Do you do this? And we talk very informally and in a safe space, kind of like a theoretical bias.
[00:25:05] Fabiola: Then I'm more aware. I'll give you an example. The Cognitive Bias Codex again is organized with 180 studies, but all of the findings and the way that I bring people together is I'll say: Let's look at some of these biases and tell me if you do this. And so many of the biases actually don't harm anyone.
[00:25:23] Fabiola: So, there's, there's a bias that it's called Decoy Effect. And what this is, is have you been in the movie theater when you want to get to your movie to get a seat, but you want popcorn, so you're on their time, right? Like time is of essence.
[00:25:36] Olivia: Yeah.
[00:25:36] Fabiola: You want to get to your seat. There's people behind you and you say: I'll take a medium sized popcorn. And what do they say: For 50 cents more, you can get a large. And what do you do? You want to remain to have your power and autonomy and you go: Sure. Give me a large, right?
[00:25:51] Olivia: Yes.
[00:26:00] Fabiola: So, this is literally called a Decoy Effect. There is no size medium at all. And so, whenever anyone upsells you like that, it's a Decoy Effect. What they're leveraging is that you are working under a time pressure. Now think about how time pressure emerges in the classroom.
[00:26:08] Olivia: Oh my gosh.
[00:26:09] Fabiola: Or how time pressure emerges in school systems. And we're forced to make very quick decisions. And so, for making quick decisions, we're not actually being thoughtful about them. So that's a very innocuous sort of, you know, does it hurt anyone that I'm buying this larger popcorn? No. Apple does that too, with your phones, by the way, they'll be like, for this much more, you get more gigabytes. Anytime you see that out now, I'm very aware of it. I'm like, oh, it's, it's the Decoy Effect.
[00:26:37] Fabiola: There really isn't a medium. They're just wanting to upset me.
[00:26:37] Olivia: There really isn't a medium, Fabi.
[00:26:43] Fabiola: I'm very aware. The other one that I think is funny and I read about and I'm like, what? It's called the IKEA Effect.
[00:26:48] Olivia: Oh, tell me more.
[00:26:50] Fabiola: Our brains prefer things that we have created.
[00:26:53] Olivia: Oh, come on.
[00:26:54] Fabiola: And so they have literally built out an empire of furniture you build yourself because you prefer it. You have a sense of pride. Now think about if you celebrate Christmas. What ornaments do you keep? Think about if you're a classroom teacher, what are the charts that you have up?
[00:27:12] Olivia: Uh, so true.
[00:27:14] Fabiola: Doesn't hurt anyone, right? Like, so I start to kind of have this dialogue around, these are some behaviors that we engage in that our brain does. Doesn't hurt anyone. Doesn't hurt anyone. Doesn't hurt anyone. So we go through that whole codex, agreeing that we do these things. We can get amused and tell stories, but then there are some that get in our way. So, for example, we feel more empathy for people that look like us. And so, think about it now, the refugee experience of Ukrainians versus Syrians.
[00:27:41] Olivia: Yes! Yes. This was our dinner table conversation the other night. Say more, say more.
[00:27:46] Fabiola: So that can potentially have an ill effect. Even if you're the most well-meaning teacher, even if you're the most well-meaning person. If a child or a family arrives to your school that doesn't look like you, you're immediately going to have less empathy.
[00:28:02] Fabiola: Now, you can counter that. This isn't the way we always have to behave, which is why I say: Knowledge is power. If I can say: I’m going to be critically self-aware. I'm about to welcome a family from Somalia. I don't look like them. I don't speak like them and they're not my religion. So, I need to be very aware of how I'm showing up.
[00:28:19] Fabiola: And I need to be very aware that my brain might have me behave in ways that go against my espoused belief system. And I don't want to be that person. So, there's that. There's also little bits like my favorite one is you see bias in others, but not yourself.
[00:28:34] Olivia: Yes.
[00:28:34] Fabiola: So very easily identifiable of others practices, but not yours. Are you really looking in the mirror and your contribution? There's one of the biases that I think is actually really hurtful, especially in discipline is the Just World Effect. Which is this person deserves this punishment because of what they did.
[00:28:52] Olivia: Oh, wow.
[00:28:53] Fabiola: I see it a lot in rape cases, right? What was the girl wearing? Where was she? But I've also heard it in some discipline policies for children. We really want to punish. And I know as principal, I'd say: I understand you're mad. I'm not mad. But this child is also seven. So, we need to think through a little bit more about this punishment. And actually my son and I know we know we talk about our sons, my son just got in trouble for having his cell phone out.
[00:29:18] Fabiola: He got his cell phone confiscated for the day and picked it up after school. So, when teacher called me, I was like: You, you need a consequence at home. And his response to me was: I already got a consequence for that behavior.
[00:29:29] Olivia: Mm hmm.
[00:29:29] Fabiola: And I thought: Yeah, actually, he did, uh, which left me like, he actually did. I mean, I want to back up the teacher and don't want to make sure this doesn't happen again, but that's, that's something that I had to go: Oh, I'm falling into this he deserves a punishment.
[00:29:44] Fabiola: So those are the little bits that kind of come, but there's 180 of them. The exploration becomes, how do we continue to have this conversation in a very safe space? Let's talk about where does this bias show up? How does it show up? Does it show up in our schools? Does it show up in our classrooms?
[00:30:01] Fabiola: And then we also talk about socio-politically. Like, does it show up socio-politically? And it really is driven more for people's self-awareness more than anything else, um, because I want them to show up differently. So that's, that's how we use the Codex.
[00:30:15] Olivia: Fabi, I just, I'm picking your brain and throwing this at you. And so, if you need to pause, feel free. I think of grading systems as well. And the inequities that often come with those systems. Have you had to do work around biases within those grading systems in districts?
[00:30:33] Fabiola: Yes, specifically with the zeros. That's actually a really big one. We're holding on to some antiquated pieces about grading and learning.
[00:30:42] Fabiola: Actually. One of our norms that we use or dispositions is we say that in order to engage in this kind of learning, you have to hold concepts that might seem ambiguous and might seem like they're pushing against each other, but you're going to have to learn how to be in this gray space. And, and the example that I give, and I'll get back to the grading, the example that I give is when George Floyd was killed, I fell asleep with the sirens and the helicopter overhead, but I'm also a small business owner.
[00:31:11] Fabiola: I had all sorts of very complex feelings and my son's school was doing dialogues and I asked him, I said: Are you going to go to this dialogue? And he said: No, because I support the police, but I also support Black Lives Matter. And where's the space for that? Like, why do we have to choose one or the other?
[00:31:26] Fabiola: And so our conversation at our dinner table is: Can you support both? Can I support our right to protest? And can I support a police force but have high expectations for their behavior? I have high expectations for my own behavior, so I have high expectations for both protesters and for police.
[00:31:44] Fabiola: And so going back to the grading, it goes back to, I know that you say you're teaching them a lesson, but you're not actually teaching them a lesson, if your job is actually to teach them a concept. And having a zero put in immediately lowers your GPA, which, you know is in a system that that counts so much towards a future. We're hurting children by doing the zeros. And what is the zero really serving? So that's really been the core of the conversation is what does the zero mean?
[00:32:12] Fabiola: And why use the zero? So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is looking at how do we help students see the value of work and working hard. So, I do lean in when we talk about specific strategies. I lean in on, um, Social-Emotional Development Theory. Because ultimately, the responsibility that I feel is that we are raising future human beings for current human beings.
[00:32:35] Fabiola: And are we paying attention to the responsibility that we hold within that ecosystem of children in elementary school need to feel industrious? They need to feel like they can contribute. That's why you have young children wanting to tie their own shoelaces and those kinds of things. They want to feel that way.
[00:32:51] Fabiola: And then middle school and high school are developing their identity. And so, if we don't give them opportunities to be industrious, and then they start developing their identity that they can't contribute, and then we add the zero on top, then we create a human being that feels hopeless. That doesn't want to contribute that feels othered and it just becomes a whole cycle.
[00:33:09] Fabiola: So, I think with the grading policies. We also have to think about where it lands on the whole human development piece. I like to go meta with teachers when I talk to them about we're a part of growing a human being. We really need to step back and think about our contribution to that and whether or not it's going to be a Mr. Rowie, you know, someone's going to remember that little thing that you did for the rest of their life, or is it going to be something that gets in our way? Because we've all had those human beings too that have gone in our way, as we're trying to learn.
[00:33:40] Olivia: Fabi, I interviewed Morgan Jackson. She's an 11th and 12th-grade English teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada.
[00:33:46] Olivia: And she said something that has been bouncing around in my head ever since I had the time to have a conversation with her. And we were talking about the banning of books and what that really says about who we are and something she said. I'm not going to say it as eloquently as she did, I'm sure, but: When we remove books from our classrooms based on our own biases, what we're really saying to children that are represented by those books or have any connection to those books is that they do not belong.
[00:34:20] Olivia: And I've had people reach out to me since that episode to say they had never thought of that, of what it's saying to children. Have those conversations come up in your trainings as well?
[00:34:32] Fabiola: Yes. So, I'm going to celebrate us here. My department just got a 5 million grant from the state of California to lead the implementation of ethnic studies across the state.
[00:34:42] Olivia: Bravo.
[00:34:42] Fabiola: Yeah, I'm really proud of that. One of the rooted purposes of this whole thing is for healthy identity formation of young children and because there's so much noise around the fear of what ethnic studies means, I have to root myself in that. This is for healthy identity formation for children to see themselves in our hallways in our books in a very healthy way.
[00:35:03] Fabiola: I spent a year listening to students and actually all of the videos are uploaded on our county web page, every single group of children all said something similar, which was: Please celebrate who we are. We are more than slaves. We are more than migrant workers. We've contributed in a positive way to American society.
[00:35:22] Fabiola: I want to see that representation on posters on everything that we do in school. And I keep thinking, yes, and it's healthy for everyone to see that.
[00:35:31] Olivia: Yes!
[00:35:31] Fabiola: Not just the group that we're talking about, but I've even had to talk to protesters. One of the ones that I think we need to get very clear on is supporting our LGBTQIA+ youth. And what that means in elementary school. And so immediately the complaint is, or the concern is, I don't want my child to be sexualized. And I always have to come back and say: Have you seen the book? Let's look at the book. Because all the book is trying to say and show young children is that a child can have two, you know, two dads or two moms.
[00:36:00] Fabiola: That's it. Not asking them for pronouns or to gender themselves or to identify in any sexual way. We're trying to make sure that we see that parents can look all sorts of different ways. So that children that do have LGBTQIA+ parents don't get bullied again. It's this misconception, this, this huge problem where it really isn't, if we were really to sit down and take a look at it, you'd see that all of those concerns are not there, but it helps for healthy identity formation.
[00:36:27] Fabiola: And back to your point, I actually said something the other day, even when I was looking for books for my child and my child is half white and half Latino, I wanted books about Latino-ness. But I wanted them to be normal. I don't want the book to be about how I make tamales with my abuelita, you know, like, I don't want that.
[00:36:45] Fabiola: Why can't I be the protagonist of just a story, right?
[00:36:48] Olivia: Yes.
[00:36:48] Fabiola: How do we have those books? Yes, it's great to honor traditions and cultures, but just to be someone in the storyline that looks very much like the America that we live in would be really beautiful for it. each and every child, actually.
[00:37:00] Olivia: Yes, yes, yes!
[00:37:01] Olivia: Fabi, this has been enlightening on many, many levels. I am grateful that you live and breathe in the world of education because the way that you're impacting lives is so broad and yet so deep, which is rare. You take the time, and you invest. It's truly about a commitment and we have to change our biases as adults.
[00:37:26] Olivia: If we ever are going to have hope and our students mirroring and mimicking that work, there's so much hope with our children. And I'm grateful for you and your work. Thank you so much.
[00:37:37] Fabiola: Thank you for having me, Olivia. And it's always good to see you.
[00:37:41] Olivia: You as well. Schoolutions is a podcast created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wahl. Special thanks to my guest, Dr. Fabiola Bagula. Thanks to my older son Benjamin, who created the music that's playing in the background. If you like Schoolutions, please share, rate, review, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @schoolutionspodcast. If you want to reach out, leave me a SpeakPipe voice memo at my website: www.oliviawahl.com/podcast or via email @schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com. Don't forget to talk about us nicely on social media, and please keep listening. Let's continue finding inspiration together.