S4 E24 BONUS: Coaching, Teaching, & Classroom Management Strategies Sparked From My Conversation with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah (❤️Olivia Wahl)

What Happens When You Let Go of CONTROL in the Classroom?

✨ In this S4 E24 bonus episode, discover how student-centered learning and innovative teaching can create meaningful classroom success through collaborative agreements. By focusing on personalized learning and active learning strategies, educators can build stronger connections with their students. This episode explores how cooperative learning transforms traditional classroom dynamics into spaces where every student thrives. 🌱

I explore insights from Kwame Sarfo-Mensah's book Learning to Relearn: Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Classroom. Discover how to shift from traditional classroom control to collaborative agreements empowering students and teachers. Learn practical strategies for letting students take the lead, including student-led teaching opportunities and peer tutoring. 

Whether you're an educator struggling with classroom dynamics or a school leader looking to strengthen communities, this episode offers concrete tools for creating spaces where all voices are heard and valued. It also explores how repairing harm through education can strengthen classroom relationships and why vulnerability in teaching matters. 

Listen in to understand how you can transform your classroom into a space where both students and teachers thrive through mutual respect, shared responsibility, and authentic community building. Want to learn more about nurturing culturally affirming learning communities? Check out my full interview with Kwame (https://youtu.be/tNg3icwk-bs).

When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired, and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

New episodes are released every Monday, with a bonus solo episode on Fridays featuring research-backed coaching and teaching strategies you can apply right away to better serve the children in your care.

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When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi there. I'm so happy you're here. Your time is precious. And because of that, I want to let you know right away what you'll gain by listening to the very last second of this episode. My conversation with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah focused on his book, Learning to Relearn and how we as teachers and as community members can be better humans to our young people.

In this bonus episode, I offer my insights about Kwame's approach to shifting from classroom control to collaborative agreements, highlighting how teachers and students can co-create inclusive learning environments. You'll learn why the shift from rules to agreements is transformative, you'll learn strategies for empowering students as teachers and leaders, and you'll learn how to carve time and space for repairing harm with our students.

Stay with me. I'm so happy to have you as a listener today. This is Schoolutions: Coaching and Teaching Strategies, the podcast that extends education beyond [00:01:00] the classroom. A show that offers educators and caregivers strategies to try right away and ensure every student receives the inspiration and support they need to thrive.

I am Olivia Wahl and this is a bonus episode. It's an accompaniment to Season 4, Episode 24 with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah. We spoke about his beautiful book, Learning to Relearn, Supporting Identity in a Culturally Affirming Classroom. Our conversation primarily focused on Part 2 of the book, speaking to Chapters 6, 7, and 8.

I wanted to take the time to highlight the beauty of Part 1 in the book. Of course, you have to acquire your own copy. The reason you need to have a copy of this book in your hands is because you will revisit it over and over and over again. Section 1 is an overview of identities. And each chapter, chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and [00:02:00] 5, help you re-examine your own biases and better understand nuances of each of the different identities that Kwame outlines in the book. 

It's critical now more than ever that we lean into better understanding where each other are coming from, others perspectives, building communities and not letting fear stop us from lifting up each other's stories.

This is a time where we can move from polarization to co-creating compassionate and collaborative classroom cultures. We can do this work, whether there's a Department of Education or not. We can do this work whether we're trying to navigate it by ourselves in the classroom. But remember, we don't have to, we don't have to because Kwame's created this network, this network of like-minded humans that wants to do right by children and that are part of this Learning to [00:03:00] Relearn movement.

A groundbreaking aspect of this book is at the end of each chapter, Kwame includes a section called, How do I continue to grow and learn? He offers books and publications, films and videos, websites. And as I said in the full episode, Kwame is the host of Identity Talk 4 Educators LIVE. That podcast is a plethora of learning opportunities for you to better understand and learn from each of his guests.

And then I wanted to shift my focus to chapter nine, Co-create a Compassionate and Collaborative Classroom Culture. This is possible and Kwame offers so many strategies and ways to do that. One of the best strategies he offers that I believe to be true is let your students be teachers. Let your students lead the classroom.

He offers and speaks to highly recommending that we give our students a [00:04:00] chance to be a teacher for the day. Kwame says, “For the record, I know it may be tempting to select students who consistently demonstrate strong understanding of the content that you're teaching, but I encourage you to create criteria with open ended guidelines that allow for a wide range of students to have an equitable chance of being teacher for a day.”

We also know that those who are doing the work are the ones that are getting smarter and he offers a strategy; another way that he shared power in his classroom was by assigning certain students as tutors during small group instruction. Kwame says, “Usually I selected different students to lead small groups of three to four students. As my student tutors were leading their small groups, I had the freedom to move around the classroom and periodically check in with the tutors to provide support when necessary. By pushing my students to engage in knowledge-sharing and capacity-building with one another, I cultivated and facilitated a learning environment [00:05:00] in which students were empowered, active contributors who shaped their learning environment.”

And a thread that weaves throughout this book speaks to the need that some adults feel to control. Kwame goes back to the roots of our teacher training, to the roots of history. And he shines light on the difference between agreements and rules. 

Kwame says, “To create a classroom culture that prioritizes the social emotional welfare of students, you must shift your mindset from dictating rules to your students to co-creating a living list of community agreements that promote mutual respect and accountability with your students. Community agreements serve as the foundation that you and your students collectively want to establish and maintain within the classroom and beyond.”

In the book on page 270, table 9.1 does a nice job showing the [00:06:00] differences between rules and agreements in terms of how they impact the culture of classrooms.

And then Kwame goes on to say, “Agreements are not the same as rules. Agreements serve as reminders for all members of the classroom community, including teachers and students of the type of behaviors they expect themselves and others to exhibit. Every member of the classroom community is responsible for ensuring that the agreements are honored at all times.” 

He also provides a community agreements worksheet that you can access by scanning a QR code and even a protocol that you can follow with your students. I think we could all be better by studying the differences between rules and agreements right now in our culture. This work has a ripple effect and I believe it reaches far beyond the walls of our classrooms.

Kwame explains that “while rules are directives and commands created by authority figures, often [00:07:00] principals or teachers, agreements are mutually agreed upon and are co-created by the teachers and students. Rules typically include little to no student input, while agreements typically include more student input. Rules may not impact every classroom community member. Agreements impact all classroom community members. Rules apply to specific situations that occur in the classroom. Agreements apply to all situations that occur in the classroom. Rules are inflexible and objective by nature. Agreements are flexible and account for the social emotional welfare of all classroom community members.”

When I think of this, I think of rules versus agreements within households, within families, within organizations. Who's at the table when these agreements are being crafted? Who's at the table when the agreements are [00:08:00] being revisited based on the needs of the community members? This is critical work for building trust and ensuring that all members of our learning community feel seen, heard, recognized, that there is space for their voices and perspectives, that there's space for their stories and lived experiences. 

And Kwame also highlights that “when it comes to repairing harm through education, that the ultimate focus needs to be on community building through means of education.”

Right now, it feels like our education system is being torn apart. And something Kwame asks of us to consider in this chapter, I found profound. Instead of immediately suspending or isolating students when they harm teachers or make bad choices, he says, “imagine how much agency our students could build if we gave them the time and space to [00:09:00] process their harmful actions and learn from them. It's impossible for us to establish a culture of inclusion and belonging in our classrooms if we're quick to suspend or isolate our students every time they make a mistake. Conversely, our positionality as teachers deters students from holding us as accountable when we harm them. Therefore, it's important to empower students to call us in when they feel harmed or unsafe. They must see that we are imperfect and just as human as they are. Just like them, we will make mistakes. When we mutually share the responsibility of repairing harm with our students, we not only shift the power dynamic to make our classrooms equitable, but we also reinforce the idea that students must be active participants and co-curators of their educational experience.”

Now, whether you agree with this stance or not, what I find really powerful is the idea that this work takes [00:10:00] great vulnerability and humility. No one is perfect, and we say things that hurt others, whether it's our intent or not. And it's critical that students see us being humble enough to accept if we harm or hurt them, and that they feel comfortable to let us know.

We will never grow unless we are all learning to relearn together, our children and adults alike. I'll end this episode with Kwame's reflection questions at the end of chapter nine. The first question asks us to think about “Have you ever been in a situation where you experienced harm from a colleague? How did it make you feel? What steps do both parties need to take to collaboratively repair the harm?”

The second question, “In what ways do you provide your students with opportunities to give input on the overall structure and operation of the classroom environment?” 

And the third question, “How do you use your positionality as a [00:11:00] teacher to empower and center the voices of your students?”

And as teachers, we will feel more comfortable centering student voices if our voices are also centered and heard. This is a community effort. This is every layer of the system. And I continue to beg of us to not let fear overcome the opportunities to progress. To listen to each other. To have the difficult conversations with grace.

To learn. And to grow, and this is something we have autonomy over no matter what is happening in the world outside of the walls of our classrooms or of our school buildings. Thank you for listening and I cannot wait to see you next week. Take care. 

Schoolutions: Coaching and Teaching Strategies is created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wahl.

Thank you to my older son, Benjamin, who created the music playing in the background. You can follow and listen to [00:12:00] Schoolutions wherever you get your podcasts, or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube. 

Now, I'd love to hear from you. Send me an email at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com. Let me know what you're thinking about after reading Kwame's book, or after joining our conversation.

Tune in every Monday for the best research-backed coaching and teaching strategies you can apply right away to better the lives of the children in your care. And stay tuned for my bonus episodes every Friday, where I'll share how I applied what I learned from the guests in schools that week. See you then.