EL Education Podcasts

The Practice of Crew (Part 2 of 2)

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This episode dives into the practice of Crew: structures, strategies, behaviors, and mindsets that support  a school community and the individuals within it. Host Roel Mason-Vivit  meets with Ron Berger for a conversation that echoes a typical Crew meeting structure: greeting, reading, activity, debrief. 

In Part 1, Ron and Roel share their advice and reflections on the practice of Crew, and share their personal journeys of learning to teach, lead, and live with their whole selves. 

In Part 2, Ron and Roel speak to students and teachers practicing Crew across the country across all grade bands. The complete episode can be found in EL Education's Crew Navigator, an interactive course that will give you tools and strategies to understand, prepare for, practice and improve Crew at your school. Find it at https://eleducation.org/what-we-offer/curriculum-services/online-courses  

Ron Berger is the Senior Advisor at EL Education and is the author of 8 educational books, with his latest focused on Crew. Ron speaks nationally and internationally about student character, teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and most importantly, has spent over 25 years leading Crew himself as a public school teacher. Roel Mason-Vivit is EL Education's Director of Partnerships for the Midwest region, and the co-founder of Polaris Charter Academy in Chicago, IL.

Original music, audio engineering and mixing on Crew, not passengers is by Sean Brennan.

Produced and edited by Rosa Gaia 

Thumbnail Artwork by Jada Walters, a high school student and Crew member at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in Queens, NY. 

- [Child] We're Crew, not passengers.- [Adult] Say that again.- [Child] We are Crew, not passengers. We're Crew.- [Group] We are Crew.- [Roel] This is Roel Mason Vivit. Welcome to Crew, not Passengers. Our first episode talked about Crew as a concept, the structure, culture and the way that those things strengthen each other. We focused a lot on the purpose and now we'll be diving deeper into the practice. Today, we'll be meeting with educators and students practicing Crew at many different locations and grade levels. And talking about the practice of Crew with our guests, Ron Berger. Ron Berger a senior advisor at EL Education, and is the author of eight educational books with his latest focused on Crew. He speaks nationally and internationally about student character, teaches at the Harvard Graduate School Of Education. And most importantly, he spent over 25 years leading Crew himself as a public school teacher. So, Ron, how would you explain Crew to someone who has never heard of it before?- [Ron] Roel the first thing I would say is that Crew changes school from being an individual sport, to being a team sport. And let me explain what I mean by that. When I went to high school, for example it was an individual sport. My job was to get good grades, to graduate and to get into college. And it was not to help anyone else. On the other hand, when I played team sports in high school or when I was in a play or when I was in an orchestra or a band or was a part of the school newspaper, it was a team sport. My job was to help everyone around me. If we didn't all do well, we wouldn't succeed. And so Crew is an engine for changing school into it's not just about me, it's about us. We're all going to help each other, get into college. We're all going to help each other graduate. We are all going to help each other succeed. That's our job here not just to look out for ourselves individually and when school becomes a team sport, rather than an individual sport it lifts everyone at the same time. The other thing I would say is Crew is two things. It's a culture of teamwork and it's also a structure. And if you're an elementary teacher that structure looks like a morning meeting but done more deeply and often extended through the day to a closing meeting or to other meetings during the day. If you're a secondary teacher Crew is like an advisory period but most schools have an advisory period once a week, once a month, once a semester. And Crew is a daily advisory period where you sit together in a small group. And you're totally honest with each other about how you are socially and emotionally where you discuss hard issues and where you also push each other to succeed personally and academically. So Crew is sort of your support and accountability group every day in your secondary school.(upbeat music)- [Roel] You were talking about sort of the culture as well as the structure around Crew and what it might look like elementary and secondary. And I know that most people in terms of structures when we think about it, we think about the different parts. And with Crew, we think about the greeting the reading, the activity and debrief. And I thought for our conversation, Ron if you'd be up for it, that we would sort of structure our conversation around that Crew structure.- [Ron] Sure.- [Roel] And the learning targets are, I can explain Crew as a practice and our second learning target is going to be I can reflect on Crew practices in my own experience. For our greeting the prompt or the question is around what is a passion that you have from outside that you bring into your work around Crew?- [Ron] Well, this is something that I share with you Roel and not so many people that I know in the world but a little bit hidden or dark side of my past is that during the 1970s.(upbeat disco music) I was obsessed with disco dancing. I took it very seriously. I owned a three piece white suit. I went to New York city clubs all the time. I competed in dance contests. I had a very serious dance partner.- [Roel] Oh wow Ron.- And even though disco has a bad name from many people these days, the spirit of disco has lived in my heart ever since the seventies, because there was this moment in time when black and white and Latin and gay and straight and trans people were all all on the dance floor together, all accepting each other, all loving each other, all enjoying the music. The wild, independent dancing of the sixties had morphed into this partner dancing and group line dancing which then later became soul line dancing and country line dancing. But it was a thing to do together. Like we're on the dance floor together. And people of all different backgrounds all different racial identities, cultural identities, gender identities, sexual orientations, everyone would start doing a line dance together.- [Roel] Oh wow.- [Ron] They didn't even know each other. And there was this sense of common spirit and joy on the dance floor that I've rarely seen since. And to me, that's the spirit of Crew is like we are in this together. Everyone's included, everyone is welcome. And so for the next 30 years, I taught disco to my students.(upbeat music)- [Ron] I saw you light up talking about disco and I can make those connections. I share a passion in dance that informs my work around Crew around hip hop dancing, urban dance.(upbeat dance pop music) I belong to what we call a dance Crew. And so they even use the same terminology of like you're you belong to a dance Crew. And the fact that we have this culture with each other where we look out for each other and that we actually support each other. One of my favorite things about being a part of the dance Crew is the freestyle circle is that every single time we get together as a Crew we just get music going. We circle up ourselves and people take turns going into the center of the circle, doing their freestyle. You got people that tremendous gifts they could be breaking. They could be whacking. They could be just showing their grooves. And you just see people superpowers in different ways and expressing themselves not just in their movement, but in their facial expressions as well as what they're wearing. And people could just be free.- [Ron] You and I share this passion for dance but Crew leaders all over that you and I have met share all kinds of their other passions with their Crews.- [Roel] Even as we talk about sharing parts of ourselves. And as we did just right now sometimes it's a little bit hard to do that, to like have the vulnerability to say, like am I good enough to do this? And is it worth something?- [Ron] Yes Roel, what that makes me think is when most of us think back on the teachers we had over the years, often, the teachers that are most memorable to us were ones who brought some passion in themselves for their subject, for something in life that they shared parts of who they are in a way that we really connected with. And that is very much true of Crew. A lot of Crew is just the spirit and culture that you bring to your Crew and that's you, like bringing your full self to Crew makes it more genuine, makes kids see you're really here with us. You're willing to share who you are with us. And that at is more important than trying to be formulaic and following something exact, is really bringing your heart and soul to your Crew and kids know when you do.- [Roel] I think what all people want is like something really authentic to their experience and really brings them in, which brings us into sort of this next part, sort of our circle, our Crew circle that we're having together which is the reading, and just going to have this quote that's going to be shared with us, that we can think about and make connections in our conversation.- [Camille] It matters a lot what your identity is because people respond to you in different kinds of ways, depending on your identity. And you come to understand yourself in different kinds of ways based on your identity. And the notion of an integrated identity, is how do you create the conditions where somebody can really kind of bring their full selves into a learning environment and it is not dissonant or conflicted with the identity they're expected to take up in school. So Crew is a particular context that I think creates the opportunity for belonging rather than inclusion. If we really take to heart, the idea that we are Crew, not passengers and Crew, you are actively participating in the direction that the boat is going. You're actively participating in the creation of the experience that's happening there.- [Roel] This was a quote from Camille Farrington, a researcher at the University of Chicago consortium and school research. As you know, around her academic mindsets framework has been really foundational in our work, particularly our thinking on Crew.- [Ron] Well Roel, I love this quote and this work of Camille for a couple reasons. One is the affirmation of how much our identities and having our identities feel that they're valued really matters for every kid and for all of us, because all teachers know and all parents know that if your child or your student does not feel like they belong that they're accepted, that they're valued. They'll never really put their heart into their work and into their learning. You have to feel like this is a place where I can be my best self, my full self. And for so many students school doesn't feel like that place. So they hold themselves back. It may be on the football field that they feel like I can be my real self or in their church choir or helping my grandmother after school or taking care of my younger two siblings or at my after school job, or, you know there are so many other places where in my group of friends, like I can really be myself, I can put my full heart, but then those kids come into school and they think school is not a place where I can even let people know I'm on the church choir. I have this group of friends I'm on this football team. I take care of my grandmother, I hide that part of who I am in school. And this notion that Camille has of integrated identity is school could be that place where you can say you know, I'm actually all of those things. Like I take care of my grandmother and I play football and I'm in my church choir. And I have my group of friends on the street and I can also be a good student here in high school. Like I can be all of those things at once and not be ashamed of any of them. Like it's okay to integrate those things into a full sense of who I am. And school's a place where I can really be myself. That was never the case for me in high school. Like I would just say, I hid so much of who I was in high school and my background and what happened outside. And that was true of almost everyone I knew. And so it's shocking and powerful for me when I go into EL middle schools and high schools that use Crew as a structure and find that kids are willing to be fully honest about who they are. That they talk about all the different parts of who they are and don't see that as a weakness but as a strength that they can integrate those parts of their identity and Crew is what makes that possible because that's the place where you learn to have the courage and get the support to actually share who you are as a full person.- [Roel] Hmm, I love this idea of the integrated itself which really makes me think about just the idea of integrity. It's more than just doing the right things but actually being your full self is what that challenge is. In this quote there is this idea of being your full self but also discovering who your full self is in that Crew circle. What does it require for student to support each other in helping them learn more about who they are and who their full being is?- [Ron] Well, one of the first things I think it takes Roel is some courage and confidence on the part of a Crew leader to model bringing their full self as much as is comfortable and possible for them. So I will give you a particular example. I led Crew for 28 years with my own public school students. And I knew that many of my students came from homes of real trauma. And that's a hard thing for a kid to admit or especially to talk about among peers. So every year at some point when it was relevant, I would share that when I grew up many of my family members including my mother and my siblings struggled with mental health. My mother was hospitalized she fell apart. I had to go live another homes for a while.- [Roel] Yeah.- [Ron] And then other kids would say, oh my God Mr. Berger, I had have that. Like my mother struggles with, or my brother struggles or my father struggles with mental health. Because if I could have the courage to mention that other kids would and once one kid opens their heart and shares that that's hard for them then other kids feel like it's safe for them to do as well. It could be even parts of themselves that they've never thought about fully, their own sense of their sexual orientation or their gender identity or their strengths in life, or their fears about their weakness or their body image, things like that. They may not have not even face those things but because other kids are facing them it gives them the courage to actually open up.(soft music)- [Roel] I remember trying to live into this point of Polaris that we had, which was integrity. And I knew at one point in my life where I was like I cannot live this point of integrity if I didn't live fully as who I was. And part of that, was being in the middle of community Crew one day and having enough courage to finally be able to say guess what Crew I'm getting married. And I'm getting married to my husband, which for me leading up to that was such a fear inducing thing for me. I was like, is my community going to be ready for this? And I will never forget a kindergartner who came up to me afterwards and she's like, I have this question for you, Mr. Vivet It's really important. I was like, sure. And will there a cake at your wedding? And I said, of course there's going to be cake. She was like, oh, thank goodness. Okay. So happy, congratulations for you. But what was significant was even later on down the line a Polaris student coming up much later and just saying, hey Mr. Vivet, I just needed to let you know that when saw you come out at that moment in front of the community Crew that changed me and allowed me to step into who I am. When we discover ourselves and put ourselves there that we allow other people to step into their beauty, into their full selves as well. So, but it takes, as you said tremendous courage to be able to do that- [Ron] As a Crew leader there's a process to this. You can't just open your heart right away with your Crew. It's going to take you time to feel comfortable to have the courage to things as you are ready and it's going to take students time. It may take months. It may take years for certain students to really open up to who their true hearts are, but being patient with that and building a trusting environment really pays off.- [Roel] Ron, thank you so much for that reflection on Camille Farrington's quote for our reading. And so that brings us into this next part of our Crew circle, which is the activity.(soft music) Before we start Ron into our own activity around these learning targets, I'd like to step back for just a second to give some background about what the activity portion of a Crew is. Can you just give some examples of what Crew activities or that our initiatives would be during this portion?- Sure, Roel I actually am very fortunate that I get to travel around the country and step into Crews of little kids, of older kids. And often they engage in a wide range of different kinds of main activities for the Crew that might be 15 minutes long. It might even be 30, 40 minutes long depending on what the Crew setting is. But sometimes those are what we call initiatives which are sort of collaborative games where kids are trying to solve a problem by all getting each other over something or through something, or working with blindfolds or working with some interesting collaborative game where they laugh and they tease each other and they work together and then all they figure out how do we do this together? How do we all succeed in this? But that's just one example. I go into other Crews where kids are sitting and working on their financial aid forms for colleges. And this is a prep time of how do you fill out your financial aid forms? How do you support your parents to help with this process or where they're preparing their college essays or role playing college interviews together or working on their resumes? I walk into other Crews where it's an academic reflection time where kids have gotten out all their portfolios and their work and their having honest conversations with peers about what am I struggling in? How am I doing in all my classes? Where do I need extra help? So it could be a very academic time. I've walked into other Crews where kids are having courageous conversations about issues in the world or issues in their school at the moment, where they're processing conflicts or hard things that have happened in the world or in their school. And when there's a crisis in a school for whatever reason it could be a national crisis that they're feeling or it could be a crisis that happened right within the school, Crew is the place where people get together right away to process that and talk about it and make sense of it and figure out how to deal with it productively together. So it is a widely diverse use of that time. That main activity could be something that happens every week. It could be a literacy Tuesdays, where we're all reading together and sharing the books we're excited about. It could be a college prep Fridays where we're always working on our college stuff. It could be a game Mondays where we're always doing crazy games outside, but it also that activity can be a place where it can be responsive to the moment. And so if there's something that happens in a student's life or in this life of the school or in the world or in their community, Crew is a place where you can get together and have that trusting and honest conversation about what's going on and how can we deal with that? I mean, I visited your school Roel, when a valued member of the broader community of the school, someone who had been a basketball coach that many of the kids knew had been killed. And every upper grade Crew was discussing that issue. Because once it got around the school kids it hurt, it hurt for so many kids. And in a typical school setting with no Crew. Where do you talk about that? Like on the playground after school, on the bus like where do you have a chance to process your pain and your fear when someone you love or someone you admire is killed, yet Crew was that place. And so Crew can be a structured activity and it can also be a responsive place during that time. To have hard conversations about what you need to.- [Roel] What you just said right now, makes me think of how students have said they could count on Crew. They knew that, you know, if something had to be talked about, they could count on that space being there.(upbeat music) Thanks so much for listening to part one of this episode of "Crew not Passengers." In part two Ron and I will speak to students and educators at schools across the country about the practice of Crew. Hear recordings of Crew meetings from a variety of grade levels and debrief our learning. You can hear the full podcast and learn more about implementing Crew through EL Education Crew Navigator. This interactive course will give you tools and strategies to understand, prepare for, practice and improve Crew at your school. A link to this course can be found in the episode description. I am your host Roel Mason Vivet. Our guest today was Ron Berger. Original music, audio engineering, and mixing on "Crew not Passengers" is by Sean Brennan. This episode was produced and edited by Rosa Gaia. Content advising for this project came from Elizabeth Marsh, Tiffany Fick, Sarah Norris, Natalie Cooper, and Katie Schneider Gumeron at EL Education. For more information about Crew grab a copy of the book"We are Crew" a teamwork approach to school culture and visit ElEducation.org.