Achieving Joy and Mastery in Public Schools
This podcast is designed to celebrate all that is good in Public Education around Western New York. We will be featuring programs and innovative ideas that inspire and influence our students, faculty, staff and community in new and exciting ways.
Achieving Joy and Mastery in Public Schools
NY Inspires - Dr. Jonah Schenker, District Superintendent of Ulster BOCES
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In this episode of Achieving Joy and Mastery in Public Schools, I sit down with Dr. Jonah Schenker, District Superintendent of Ulster BOCES and host of Leading for Deeper Learning, for a timely conversation about the future of public education in New York State.
At the center of our discussion is NY Inspires, New York State’s multi-year effort to rethink what it means for students to graduate truly prepared for their futures. Jonah helps unpack the major shifts ahead, including the development of a statewide Portrait of a Graduate, new approaches to credits and learning experiences, changes to diploma assessment requirements, and the movement toward a single New York State diploma.
But this conversation goes well beyond policy.
Jonah shares why meaningful transformation must be human-centered, placing students, families, educators, belonging, and access at the center of the design process. We explore the NY Inspires Playbook developed by Ulster BOCES, a practical resource designed to help school communities move from conversations about change to the actual work of redesigning teaching and learning.
We also discuss the power of student voice, the challenge of leading through ambiguity, the resistance that often accompanies meaningful change, and why simply layering innovation on top of outdated systems will never be enough.
As Jonah reminds us, policy alone does not transform schools. People do.
Whether you are a superintendent, principal, teacher, board member, or anyone interested in the future of public education, this episode offers both inspiration and practical ideas for moving from vision to action.
To learn more or to access the "Playbook" follow this link: https://www.ulsterboces.org/educator-edge-home/consulting-for-program-development-support/playbooks
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Learn more about the Erie-Niagara School Superintendents Association at E-NSSA.org.
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Or visit our website E-NSSA.org
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Eerie Niagara School Superintendents Association's podcast, achieving joy and mastery in public schools. I am your host, Brian Graham, Superintendent of the Grand Island Central School District. We are really excited that you're listening today. This podcast is designed to celebrate all that is good in public education around Western New York. We will be featuring programs and innovative ideas that inspire and influence our students, faculty, staff, and community in new and exciting ways. So, everybody, let's get started. In this episode of Achieving Joy and Mastery in Public Schools, I am speaking with Dr. Jonah Schenker, District Superintendent of Ulster Boseys and one of the clearest voices in New York on what the future of learning can become. Jonah leads a regional organization serving districts across the Hudson Valley, and he hosts his own podcast, Leading for Deeper Learning. Joan, I'm just going to pause this intro for a moment. I started listening and I absolutely loved the episode where you had three students, I think it was three students, just talking to you about their journey and about learning. That was really a great idea and how it elevated student voice and student agency. Is that is that how this podcast rolls? You you bring in different guests and explore learning in a deep way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so again, thank you so much for having me on and and awesome to always speak with other folks who are thinking creatively, sharing stories and and doing that work. But yeah, leading for deeper learning is is just that. We want to uh connect with leaders, students, you know, stakeholders who are thinking about the needed changes that we know we've needed to work towards here in New York and and everywhere in this in this system of education.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, I loved that episode, so I bookmarked it. I'm gonna listen some more. And I just want to continue just for our guests to learn a little bit more about you. So, under your leadership, Ulster Bolsies built the New York Inspires Playbook, a human-centered design guide that helps districts co-author a vision for transforming teaching, learning, and the very meaning of a diploma. In this episode, we're going to be discussing the heart of New York Inspires, New York State's multi-year effort to rethink what it truly means to be graduate ready. We will walk through the four major shifts guiding the work adopting a statewide portrait of graduate, redefining credits and learning experiences, sunsetting diploma assessment requirements, and moving to one New York State diploma. What makes uh Jonah's approach stand out is the method, placing students, families, and educators at the center of the design, listening deeply before deciding and treating transformation as something communities build together rather than something handed down from above. Jonah will remind us that policy alone does not change schools, but leadership truly does. This truly is patient, multi-generational work, and it asks leaders to step into some ambiguity, but do so with courage and hope. At its core, this conversation is truly about people, the young people who walk through our doors each day carrying rich histories and limitless potential. It's also about the educators who create the conditions for them to thrive. When we design schools around belonging, access, and joy, every student gains the chance not only to be ready for the future, but to help shape it. And Jonah, that's really what I was what I was getting from that episode of Leading for Deeper Learning, talking to the students, how honest they were talking to you. And so as we go through this podcast today, we'll talk a little bit more about your your playbook and your podcast, but also just overall the mission and vision of the portrait of a graduate. So I'm really excited to welcome you to this podcast.
SPEAKER_02Great to be here. And you know, a lot, a lot of content that that you you just covered. I I guess I'll just kind of frame everything in the simplicity of how how this playbook, how I think about transformation work or or really any work, right? And and it's rooted in design, human-centric design, design thinking. We've had a great opportunity to work for over a decade with uh the folks out at Stanford and the D school and some other folks who who started their journey there, but have since since moved away. And and the concept is simple, right? Like before we create things or do things that are going to impact other people, it might be a good idea just to ask them what they think. Always that that that's that's the heart of it, right?
SPEAKER_00No doubt. And I just, you know that this podcast is a called Achieving Joy and Mastery in Public Schools. We started this about four years ago. And I'm just curious, and I like to ask all of the guests, what is bringing you joy right now in your current leadership role?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I I guess I'm one of those folks who maybe is uh fortunate, but also a blessing and a curse is uh is work does bring me joy. Not all aspects, not all aspects, but sometimes if you have strong enough coffee. Right, right, absolutely. But but the design element I I love, I love to build and create and design. Yeah. And and it turns out, right, that those conditions are are what really we're asking for uh in these in these changes, like the the the conditions to really and whatever the language is, deeper learning, it doesn't matter what we call it, right? Like learning, you know, there's this this idea that like we have to figure out how to make learning fun or joyful, and actually, like by nature, we are learning beings. And so as I think about like this transformations and this idea of joy, perhaps it's actually actually not what we need to do new, but it's what we need to stop doing. And and so there, I think we've done things to school that have put a gap in that kind of innate uh want to learn, to discover, to build things, to to work towards mastery and get feedback and change things. And again, we've we've we've got this system created, you know, in the 1800s that you know puts learning between September and June and then adds quarters and periods and then ranks things from in a number scale. And maybe those things just have to atrophy a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, wow, that is great. Hey, so before we really dive deep in some of these concepts, maybe share with our listeners just your journey. Yeah. You know, what inspired, influenced you to pursue a career in education? Where did you grow up and and how did you get to this point in your life?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I'll give you the kind of the quick, quick overview of that. I would say I, you know, I am as I am a teacher still. I've always been a teacher, but I but I didn't take any formal education classes in and in undergrad at at all. You know, I I went I was born and raised in uh the Hudson Valley and Newport area. Uh I went through school. I had wonderful teachers.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right. That's brilliant.
SPEAKER_02And but but I wasn't engaged. Uh uh the the relationships were were amazing, but but I wasn't engaged. Uh I I can think of about certain moments through the journey and and look at at like where I was engaged and why. Yeah. But I was good at the game of school.
SPEAKER_00And I love I I love that. I love that. My daughter is currently an attorney, and she says the same thing about her journey. She she's maybe the epitome of compliance, right? And where does compliance intersect with engagement? You know, I just I love that concept.
SPEAKER_02I and maybe uh and so I deeply appreciate that. I think I I don't know if if if I asked my teachers if compliance would be the first word that came to mind.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_02Non-compliant, but but but really good at navigating the you know the the game of school.
SPEAKER_00Right, right.
SPEAKER_02But but either way, right? Like, you know, a means to an end for that portion.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you so in high school, I get it, right? You you had one you had great relationships with uh with teachers, but sometimes even a relationship may not fully mean engagement. So I like that a lot. So as you're moving into your collegiate work, what were you focused on? And then how did you arrive at education?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you know, growing up, I was told, you know, I mean, you're gonna be a doctor, you're gonna be a doctor, you're gonna be a doctor. That's the kind of environment in which I I grew up. So I went saying I'm gonna be a doctor. I went to SUNY. And you are school.
SPEAKER_00And you are a doctor.
SPEAKER_02I am not not the one that they were telling me I needed to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so I went to a SUNY school for about two years. I took my, you know, I got in, took my freshman bio, and as an elective, I took a woodworking class. I always like to build a park in the garage and build. Right. Um, and at the end of that semester, I think I got an A in lab. I think I got a C plus in lecture. I probably didn't go much, and I built this a dining room table. Nice in my other elective, and I said, well, this is where I feel most connected. And at about the two-year mark, I left school. Uh, I did an instructor training program through Outward Bound and spent six months in northern Maine, nice Florida Keys, kind of looked at this outdoor education approach, and then I left for two years and through SUNY Empire, worked with a group of teachers who put together an independent study. And I finished my undergrad traveling Europe, Eastern and Western Europe, every country, northern Africa, the Middle East, uh, and I wrote and I looked at artwork and I took pictures, and that was kind of the game changer for me to say, okay, there's more than one way to do this thing called learning in school.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, wow. And so when you finished all of that education, where where did you end up? What did you begin doing?
SPEAKER_02I wound up back and moved it to New York City. I I worked as, you know, at actually at Crate and Barrel. I did some visual merchandising in the city, and I wound up actually via my older brother who was engaging in the the teaching fellowship program, meeting a principal who was opening a school in Red Hook, Brooklyn for over a underacreded youth. I wound up helping write some kind of art and science curriculum for the summer. And at the end of that, I said, like, I want to teach what we just built. I had never taken a teaching class. And in the magical machine of the DOE, I took some classes and I had, I was on my way to certification and wound up teaching there for about five years in a small transfer high school, uh, which was a school-based option, which means it was a teacher run. There was a principal. Wow. Really it was a teacher-run school. Yeah. It had a partner, a non-for-profit partner, which provided kind of the therapeutic services. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Um, and that was it. I never, never looked back. Left the city after that and taught in Duchess County uh as a as an art teacher, and then began my uh leadership journey at SUNY New Paltz. And and I think 17 years ago, uh here at BOSE's, I started my first leadership job in instructional services, doing professional learning. And then I've worked in in really every component of the BOSE's. I've been a RIC interim director, instructional service interim director. I've worked in pathways and uh career in technical education, but mostly alternative and special education here at BOSE's. And then had the opportunity to work as a deputy superintendent for the previous district superintendent who retired about five or six years ago, finishing his 50th year.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And started when he was five.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, started when he was five, exactly. And and he really he really opened, you know, kind of my eyes to what became this kind of concept is that there are people around this world and country who are ahead of us, who have been thinking about this work, and you need to, you need to connect with them. And that was really the journey to to start the work that we've been doing here over the last you know decade.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what a very cool bio, a very cool life story. Love the whole arts and your passion for the arts and for building, right? And your journey working in kind of, I don't, I don't, I don't think you called it an alternative high school, but a very unique setting for students. And I'm sure that has been impactful in your journey throughout everything, but currently, right? Work and your passion for working with kids, talking to students, understanding their experience. Very, very cool journey, Jonah. Well done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And the, you know, I'll I'll I'll I'll kind of tie where we we started to that, and I think where we're at in this moment. You know, when we think about design and design thinking, there is this concept around average, right? Like generally in this country, in this state, we design to have the most impact for the most amount of people, and that's kind of in the middle. And what happens is those furthest from the middle, furthest from opportunity, kind of we call them extreme users, uh, we have to figure out like how they access that thing in the middle. And it turns out actually, if we do the design work up front for those furthest from opportunity, it's not a zero-sum game. Nobody loses and everybody benefits. And so I think we're in this moment where when we're thinking about schools, we can't, we can't design the thing and then figure out like how is special education going to access and those who need enrichment. Like, we actually have to put their design at the forefront. And that's really that human-centric design piece that we need to use empathy to understand. And and the kind of metaphor that I always share, right, is you know, we we designed all of these streets and sidewalks, and then we had to go back and cut curb cuts in them for accessibility. Whereas if we just would have asked folks what they needed, they would have built it, been built in from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, that is that is a great way to look at things. And that that leads leads me to the question about New York Inspires. You know, this podcast is listened to by superintendents and educational leaders, teachers, and it's actually surprisingly listened to all over the world, which really shocks me. But for people tuning in and listening, maybe give us that overview of what New York Inspires means, you know, for us here in New York State and why does this moment particularly matter as it as it intersects with the New York Inspires?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so I think I'll I'll start with kind of where this is could have come from, the kind of quick like history lesson of New York Inspires, right? 2019, Commissioner Rosa writes this article for on board, say, like, what is the value of the diploma? Like, are we doing the right thing? What should it mean? That triggers the the Blue Ribbon Commission. Uh stakeholders from all over all sectors coming together to kind of grapple with that question. What should a New York graduate look like? What skills should they possess? And a really beautiful human-centric process, right? Like students were on that, non-school people, and they arrive at these 12 recommendations. Those are presented to the board of regents. And and the board of regents says, look, we like this, and and turns to the department and commissioner and says, like, what could this look like? They go to work and they they develop this plan. That is New York Inspires. The plan is the you know, those 12 recommendations uh distilled down to four transformations, right? Portrait of a graduate, the adoption, which has happened, the reimagining of learning experiences and credits, the decoupling of regent assessments to graduation requirements, right? There's there's still gonna be some exams. Uh some of them are tied to federal accountability.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02About what that is gonna look like. And then lastly, moving to this kind of one transcript or one diploma for the state with various kind of thinking around endorsements and seals and ways to allow students to differentiate areas of expertise. And so that's that's done over kind of an initial planning phase, which we're through, and then three phases, and we're in phase one right now. And so phase one really begins to put the architecture of what the system is gonna look like. And I think this is gonna be an instrumental year for the department to come out with some. Again, we have we have a portrait of a graduate. Uh, it's the second iteration. The CRSE framework sits in the middle of it, which is a bold statement that belonging and the elements of the framework are instrumental. Like if we don't do that work, if it, if we don't have relationships, if we don't have individual students and adults that can see themselves feel heard and seen, like none of these other things can happen. And then and then we're gonna see some prioritized and revised standards. We're gonna we're gonna see the the competency-based system just at the last our board of regents meeting in the spring, that commitment to say we're gonna move away from the Carnegie unit uh to a competency-based system. And and as we begin to look at all those things, progressions and skills underneath the portrait of a graduate, the rubrics that we'll need to follow, the revised standards, whether or not there's experience maps that are inherent that all students should have these experiences if we want them to become global citizens or be reflective and future focused. You know, there are this pushes on every single component of the system accountability, uh, certification, right? Like this, as I as I had the opportunity to kind of investigate other large statewide reforms, and there are many states who have portraits of regret, who have thought about competency. But but what New York is attempting is the single largest transformation to the kind of American school model to date. And and I think it's important to say that because no, we're not gonna have all the answers. Yes, it's gonna be hard. Uh, of course, we're gonna make mistakes, but there's there's there's only one way to do this, and that is together. And kind of going back to your statement, and then I'll kind of take a pause, is we know, and I've had this great opportunity to have some conversations with Michael Fullen.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know it's been and I I I I want to just get his autograph.
SPEAKER_00Did you how did like you and I are kind of nerds? Like, how did you geek out over this experience?
SPEAKER_02Well, first of all, I I I I just you know, I looked at the length. I was I had about 90 minutes uh on a zoom with him. I I would have stood up for four hours and just said, listen, I'm just gonna mute and please just talk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I love it.
SPEAKER_02But but he simplified like a lifetime of research into this idea of like, and and you said this in the beginning, right? Like, there's never been a policy agenda that has changed the experience of a child in a classroom over here. So true. And he proposes this new kind of structure where we need to strengthen the foundation of our schools because New York Inspires isn't new work. So we've we've got to move towards student-centered and learning environments multiple ways in which students can showcase, demonstrate learning, et cetera. And then the middle piece is really interesting. We need to mobilize the middle and then just intrigue the top. And I think maybe the political correct is we partner with the top, but but we want the policy agenda to be informed by students and those closest. And and so that was kind of the the trigger to thinking about like this system outside of the department, which is where kind of the playbook is landing and where the evolution of this New York Inspires Transformation Collaborative was born.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Wow, I love that. And good for you to get Michael Fullen on a Zoom for 90 minutes. That is awesome. I recently had an experience where I was chatting online with Jay McTie, and that was equally exciting for me. Yeah. So that is great. So you you have said these words uh several times, human-centered, and I've heard you talk about belonging, and it seems to me that that's really the at the core. And I'm curious if if you could share maybe what your vision is and what that looks like for our students, uh, their families, and our educators trying to make sure that they're at the center of the design that's coming forward in the future uh as we build this out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I I mean I so I think you know, a lot of times the the thing that creates the uh kind of inertia for for for schools to do the things that they do. Do is just that. It's inertia. And so, like what we did last year rolls over schedules generally look. Sometimes we pick something and try to tweak it, but but for the most part, the system remains the same. And we and if we think about our school systems, which are essentially action research with humans that cost millions and millions and millions of dollars each year, you know, do we spend enough time each year as schools deeply reflecting on did the things we do this year work? And and if not, why how are we changing them? Or if they did and they only happened in a pocket, how are we growing them systematically? And there's kind of three questions that I use each year, which are which are what are the things that we're doing that are working that we want to carry forward? What do we need to stop doing? And where do we need to design new? And I the human central piece really comes in to as school administrators, as educators, we can't do this in cabinet meetings and roll it out. That's the same, right? That's the same theory that Michael Folland suggested about policy reform. Yeah. And so the missing piece is that empathy work, which design thinking asks us to do, which is uh ask folks and not ask folks with already answers at the forefront, but listen deeply to the needs of those individuals to help inform our transformations, our design, and our work. And so, you know, it turns out that that same process is what I aspire to see in classrooms. Students engaged in deep thinking, being able to design and iterate, to be able to tune and reflect and get feedback and not just from teachers, but from experts, right? Like Ron Berger from Expeditionary Learning suggests this hierarchy of audience when students are working to for compliance, lowest form of engagement, when they're working to be of service to community and world, highest form of engagement. And so, so when we can when we can give students like real authentic problems or questions, when we can invite those experts in to tell the students, hey, we've we want you to think about this thing, or we need you to help solve this thing, and they can work on those things. And and I want to be sure that we also put a stake in, and it is part of the portrait of a graduate, and it is sitting at the top, which is this academic preparation. Like there is academics and content that is critical for students to know as we think about developing and building and growing good humans, right? Like just because we carry around computers in our pocket doesn't mean that there aren't math concepts and history and literature and science principles that we should know. I think more importantly, I don't want students to just know science. I don't want them to just know history. I want them to act and think and demonstrate like a scientist, like a historian, like a mathematician, as they think about interacting with like real authentic problems. And when they can work to again be creating things and building things, that's a high level of learning, right? That's that deeper learning.
SPEAKER_00Truly authentic.
SPEAKER_02Right. And and the research is clear. Like, there's this idea that like if we do that, then uh they're not gonna do well on exams. And it's actually quite the opposite. Like, I don't even need the regions to be decoupled. If we were if we if our schools were doing those things on a regular basis, the regents are low-lying fruit. Like, sit them for the exam. We could do a little test prep because you have to learn how to take that. And in life, you're gonna have to take some standardized tests. Like that is the way it goes, but but it can't be the end all be all. And I think what has happened is we've got these standards, which have, even though curriculum is localized, right? They're so dense. They have been, they have been prescriptive to become kind of curriculum in disguise. And then there's this high-stakes assessment at the end, and we've lost touch of the human experience in between, around again, what we were talking about, which is just like the innate abilities to learning. You know, it's the reason why you can buy all these expensive things and then bring a child over to grandmother's house and she throws a cardboard box and wooden spoons, and your kid's looking at the $500, you know, toy over here, and you're like, what's going on? No, because like that's the basics right there. It's relational to grandma. It's about there's no, we're not, you know, we're not, we're not micromanaging through a Lego book and yelling at our kid, and really we're putting it together, and we're giving them just the guy to put together so we can do the Lego, right? Like, you know, all of those things, man.
SPEAKER_00That is very, very good. I love it. All right. So we we here in Grand Island, we partnered with modern learners, and Kim Moritz has been facilitating that for us. And there's a bunch of districts involved, and that's really helped kind of set a foundation for where we're headed. So I really, really have been enjoying that experience. Now, but I want to now bring it to your playbook, and maybe uh you could share with our listeners how the playbook can move from vision and a tool to something that's real, that guides and really supports the work that we're heading into and developing now. So maybe just give us like an overview of how that playbook can really be put to practice.
SPEAKER_02So, kind of going back in the beginning of uh this rollout, you know, bold vision, not a lot of guidance on how to lead this forward. And in that gap was where we kind of got to work on, okay, let's not figure out how we're gonna tell districts to do this work. And all of the districts, right again, because New York Inspires isn't new. This is work that we've known need to needs to have happened for decades, and there's different levels of readiness and entry points. But how can we begin to put together a process? And so I kind of always laugh that the the guidebook's kind of cool, but in the absence of no other structure, like anything would have looked good. And so it got a little bit of and and it is it is it is awesome work, but but but there's no answers in it. It is not a prescription, and it is just that, it is really rooted in design cycles and offering some tools for that kind of initial phase to say, let's do some sense making. Where are we at? What does this mean for us? Let's talk to some students, let's talk to some community, let's begin to think about what is New York Inspires going to mean for. And again, in my bosis, we have eight districts for those eight districts. And so we came together last year at three moments in time, and the playbook offers kind of a workshop, which is an in-person session, to come together to connect, look at some tools, practice using them, and then go out and do some field work. And and the field work, it was interesting. The eight districts did the field work, all did it eight different ways.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_02Some took some took a district-wide team that was already in place and said that's gonna be our design team. Some said, we want to create a new design team and we're gonna pull from these different stakeholders and and so on and so forth. But at the end of the day, we had eight districts who said, okay, we're gonna commit to doing some things, we're gonna shadow some students, we're gonna do some empathy work, and let's hear first and ground everything in the student experience about like what we have going on now and what they believe needs to be. And so the beauty in that was it doesn't say you have to do three of them, ten of them on these days. Like it worked for each of those districts. And then beginning to pull those together because the most in, and again, we are designers, right? Like everything is designed. It's either intentional and non-intentional, and there's no research that says non-intentional design is gonna get good results.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so the biggest, you know, the most important thing about design, and school people like jump to solution itis, right? Like throw administrators in the room, we're gonna figure it all out and tell everybody, um, is to make sure we're actually solving for the right thing and and the right question. And so, really, the first year of implementation was like, what are the questions that X district needs to be thinking about? As we know we don't have some of the collateral, and there was this perception in the field, we can't start because we don't want to go down the road of the stuff.
SPEAKER_00Right, that's huge.
SPEAKER_02Yes, right, but it's not true, right? You know, at the end of this, there are pedagogical shifts, there are moving towards broadening ways of assessing students, there are ways of broadening how we demonstrate learning, moving to move like that's the heart of this work. And so, so let's not say we can't get started, but let's start on the things that we know are gonna be able to meet the collateral or the the policy or the the items within the four transformations that we can say, okay, like we were using we started with this rubric, that's fine. This is the statewide one now. So we swap them out. Like nobody's nobody's going, nobody's gonna go down that rabbit hole that they can't climb out of. And so uh and so that process at the end of the year kind of landed districts with a a kind of a plan of who who New York inspires is against the district, and more importantly, called for them to communicate that out to districts, right? To to their communities, to their boards, to their students, like here's what we understand, here's who we are, here's who we want to be. And the human-centered piece that I think is the most powerful is that when when those stakeholders, again, who are going to be impacted by these changes, can see their voice in the plan, that's that's where innovation and transformation can happen, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. And and speaking of that voice or that agency, you know, I think I said earlier, but I've enjoyed at least one of your complete episodes where you are speaking directly with students. I imagine in your role outside of the podcast, you are engaging with students all the time through the BOCs. And I'm just curious if if you have learned anything through those interactions that have either shaped, you know, your work or has shaped the playbook or you know, is propelling you and your component districts uh forward with student agency in mind.
SPEAKER_02That is at that is at the center, always thinking about you know, not just how we not just how we elevate student voice, but how students are actually part of the decision-making process, how they have deep ownership over the process. And and so, you know, we have you know, we have done some things here at Ulster Bose's. Uh, you know, two of the things that I'll cite, one, you know, our graduation ceremony at our career in technical education center.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_02Is there isn't a single adult voice that you'll hear for the two and a half hours.
SPEAKER_00Totally still round.
SPEAKER_02And then we go to this other side where you know, I had the opportunity to go to celebrations and demonstrations of learning for one of our elementary schools in our special ed programming. So watching nonverbal second grade students with autism demonstrate and present their learning.
SPEAKER_00Nice.
SPEAKER_02Just, you know, you know, and and and so don't say this can't happen in places like come come see these classrooms, like it's happening there. Yes, you can do it too. So, you know, I think those are kind of like the two foundational things is just elevating. And I at the heart of of this, what will get in the way of doing the right work and doing the good work is adult egos and adult problems, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02Uh, and and a magical thing happens when we invite students into the design process with adults who have different opinions. It's really hard to say, like, no, we can't do this when you have three students saying, this is how we want to learn. We don't learn the other way. And so I think uh we have to anchor students in the process and then engage them in co-design, right? That's really where the magic happens. And and I think that represents the relationship of of what we want to see in classrooms is is co-design. Someone recently shared this metaphor. This was this was Tim Knowles from who's the CEO of Carnegie.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, and and he talked about assessment as the relationship between a student and a teacher to represent their becoming. Uh and I I just I just state of becoming, yes.
SPEAKER_00I think that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_02Love that, you know, and that it's relational and not this moment in time that's gonna go on this report card.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a way I love that. I worked I worked with a a superintendent who talked about the state of becoming all of the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it really resonated with me. And and I've I've weaved that into different speeches that I've done throughout, you know, myself being a superintendent for different occasions. And then I I actually think about my my father. My father's 87 years old, and he is as active as active can be. He knows how to use a laptop, he knows how to use a smartphone, he is you know connected with his church, and he loves to golf. And he's 87. And I still see him in a state of becoming, right? So I love I love that. Jonah, who who was it? You you mentioned the person that talked about that. What what was that person's name?
SPEAKER_02Uh Tim Knowles, head of Carnegie. Nice. And and it's interesting, right? I'm having a lot of conversations with with Carnegie, who, you know, that designed the Carnegie Unit. That's right. And the Carnegie Unit that we measure everything, you know, 22 credits, four plus one regents exams, uh, our collective bargaining units are tied to prep periods and Carnegie units and all those master schedules. But they and so the creators of the Carnegie Unit have have evolved and said that's that's not working. That doesn't work. And you know, it was it was designed to measure teacher time. It wasn't designed to measure student time. And they are working on the kind of definitions of that from a kind of a national and international research base to create the definitions that are inherent in any portrait of a graduate. So, and and they talk about this as the unspoken consensus of skills that have the deep transferability to whatever next is two-year college, four-year college, or work. There isn't college and career readiness. There's one set of skills. They're inherent in the New York portrait of a graduate, they're inherent in every other state's portrait of a graduate. Maybe the words are are different, but it doesn't matter where in the world, it doesn't matter who you're talking to, educators, higher education, military, community partners, manufacturers. And we and you ask this question of like, what do you really want to see when a student walks through the threshold to interview or to apply? And they don't say a 98 on earth science.
SPEAKER_00No, right.
SPEAKER_02You don't hear that, right? And I love earth science. Don't get me right. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00I love that you brought that up. That is really great. Yeah, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02But they they say, like, bring us people who are self-directed, leadership, they can communicate rather the story goes. And so, so the the currency, as the Carnegie talks about, behind the diploma is the portrait and these durable skills. And so they're creating these kind of definitions and skills maps which are being field tested. And and so, so if we think about why the portrait of a graduate, if if our skills are tied to those definitions that have been field tested, and like those who are receiving our children are saying, like, yes, we want students to be this, and we're working on upscaling or building dispositions for students to get there, then the currency of the New York diploma is worth so much more. And and and and so there's this idea too. Like, one of the other things you'll hear is like, how are we gonna know that my, you know, my kid is a student's gonna get into college? How are our colleges gonna know about this new transcript? Well, they're gonna know because they've been doing that for a long time. Like, that's right. Colleges accept students from all over the world, right? From homeschool, from charter school, from public school. Like, again, the the Regents diploma isn't isn't the secret sauce. Nobody's knocked on New York's door and say, like, can you tell us what your secret formula is for regions? Because it because it works so well. It's like that hasn't happened.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. As well said for sure. I guess I'm winding things down a little bit, but I I want to ask you about the competencies toward the attributes of the of the graduate. Right now, during our admin retreat, our principals are going to go back and work with faculty to start thinking about those competencies. I guess I want to ask you, do you think that's a good model, right? Get get some educators around, you know, start thinking about those competencies. And then that may then translate into looking at our current units of instruction and seeing where those competencies are aligned. I guess just maybe give us some advice on, you know, we we know the attributes, what about competencies and should should individual schools and districts be working uh to develop those competencies?
SPEAKER_02So so I think I think the answer is uh yes, but it's a yes and.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And the and is I think there is a step prior to the competencies that is really, really critical. And I think before we actually map the competencies, what we have to think about is the student experiences. And we had this amazing exercise last year where we deconstructed the portrait of a graduate and we brought everybody in food service, custodial, teachers, one-to-one aides, you you can go down the list. And we said, because everybody might not be an educator, but everybody has experienced school and has experienced experiences that have been meaningful, right? And so we are starting with experiences. And we said, okay, if we want to produce a student who is a global citizen, what are the what are the three experiences in each grade level or each grade band that must be true? And and we took all that information and we crosswalked it and we built these kind of K-12 progressions of experiences, and they weren't, they weren't detailed. It it says that in fifth grade, a student who's gonna be a global citizen should have an opportunity to interact with somebody that doesn't speak their language. Yeah, uh and need to, right? And and then a teacher can figure out, right, like who that should be, what's the text we're using alongside of that? Like, again, how are the students gonna capture and and display what they learn from? Like, it's not about taking away teacher authont autonomy, but if we know in a district or if we know in a state that every eighth grader has these experiences that are opening them up to understand all the possible pathways, like that's where equity can happen. And there, and yes, there might be one small district that they've got a fire department, they've got a school, and they've got a hospital. Okay, like that's where those experiences are gonna happen. Awesome. And when we can branch it out and work across lines, then we should be looking to do that as well. And then when you've got these kind of experience maps built, then I think underneath it, like, what are the competencies that can be developed through these experiences?
SPEAKER_01Love it.
SPEAKER_02And and then and then, like, where can we bring in academic standards? And then, like, let's create units of study or project project units, whatever, whatever the philosophy or structure of the school. But I think starting with the experience allows uh the humans, the educators, to think about what we know is really important when students have experiences where they can see themselves in the work, uh, when they can see their identity, when they can have creativity, uh, when they can work towards mastery, right? Like that's that deeper learning context. And there's a whole other conversation about like where is that happening in in our schools? Halmeida and Sarah Fine at Harvard uh wrote the book in search of deeper learning, and and they they went out and looked for like these magical moments or deep connections, and they weren't finding it in academic school. And they go, they, they, they talk to students and they go back out and they find them in the very same in the same schools, but they find them in theater and in art club, they find them in sports and athletics, like you know, where students again, you don't hear students taking an English 11 course very rarely and saying, you know, I'm a writer. But but after but after a year of track or a year of music, they are they are an athlete or a truck or a truck star or a musician.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and it turns out actually that the pedagogical shifts that that I believe are needed are happening in those very places. I I I said to a group of superintendents recently that we're talking about project based learning. I said, you the deepest project cycle you have going on right now. It's spring is in your track field. I said, go out and watch somebody who's never jumped over a hurdle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02They're not taking a they're not taking a quiz on Friday. The coach is there. They're giving them feedback on how to jump out of that out of that starting block. And they have high-stakes tests too. It's called a track meet. Audiences watching, and then they don't get a grade. They watch video and they get out and try to do better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right. Like talk about a state of becoming, right?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Thanks for that guidance. That really helps me think about the work that we're going to be doing. And I'm I'm really sure that the superintendents and educators listening today are just enamored with your expertise, Jonah. So this has been fantastic. As I wind things down, what else? I know. Did you just have a deeper learning conference? Did you just put something together?
SPEAKER_02Yes. So each summer we run Deeper Learning New York. It is leading for deeper learning. It is part of the high tech high graduate schools global network of conferences. And so what this is about is if we want these experiences to be happening in classrooms, then how can we help leaders create the dispositions and understand how to create the conditions in their schools to allow this work to happen?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Very powerful.
SPEAKER_02And so yeah, that's that is on our website. The dates are solidified for next year. Oh, good. Um for deeper learning New York. It's at our new iPark 87 campus, which is an awesome rehabilitation of a former IBM headquarters, Gone, you know, Economic Development Center, Career and Tech Center. So that's an awesome event where like-minded folks who are thinking differently are getting together to uh think about everything we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And for listeners who may be interested in the playbook, how can they access that or uh purchase that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so at ulsterbose.org, you know, you'll see a link to all of our professional learning, our playbook, uh playbook two. Really excited because we've uh it will be coming out in the fall. And we didn't, we didn't design this in isolation. This was designed by men, probably about 12 of the Boseys coming together, thinking about it. Uh, playbook three will be designed by even a bigger network through the Transformation Collaborative, which is basically taking the work uh that we did here at Ulster and thinking about building coalition and the architecture kind of outside the department to allow all of New York to kind of walk this forward together, not in the same way, but it is critical when we're innovating that we are sharing and learning from outside of our geographic boundaries and our systems. And so we're just gonna continue to think think about the systemness of the work, which actually allows a local context to thrive and be shared. Yeah. Uh, it's not, it's not controlling that. So so yeah, that's that's where we're at thinking about how we can do this together. All of that is on the website, ulsterbosis.org. And and my contact information is there. So please email. I love to get on calls and and zooms to talk about this so I don't have to do the parts of my job that I don't really like to do.
SPEAKER_00What do you think we're doing today? Right. So, so and then the podcast, right? How can people find it? Where is it best to access?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's the same place, right on the website at ulsterbosy.org leading for deeper learning. All the previous episodes are LinkedIn, and then this upcoming year will be a little bit of a shift from kind of podcast at studio. We will be going into schools to take a look at the kind of spotlighting, again, uh, work that is Disney or inspires that's been happening, talking to students, leaders on the ground floor to just try to show some modeling and structures to help folks think about exciting things that are already underway.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's great. We I do two. I'm the host, of course, of this podcast, and then I do one in each of our schools. We call it Inspiring Viking Values, and we go to each school, talk to principals, talk to students. It's really a joy. So I love that you're branching out and we'll be doing something similar. And it's already been baked into your current, you know, your current podcast because you're including a wide variety of guests, including students. So congratulations, Jonah, on everything you're doing. I hope our listeners really enjoyed this podcast and they visit your website and uh take a look at Playbook One and then the sequel. I think that'll be great. So thank thank you for joining us today. And for our listeners, if you love achieving joy and mastery in public schools, don't forget you can find us on your favorite podcast platform. That's Apple, Spotify, Odyssey, and so many more. Until next time, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for joining us today as we explore the concept of achieving joy and mastery in public schools. We will be interviewing school districts in Erie and Niagara counties on a regular basis as we look to shine a spotlight on all of the amazing programs and practices essential for achieving joy and mastery with our students, faculty, staff, and community. This podcast is sponsored by the Erie Niagara School Superintendence Association, and we hope you consider subscribing.
