EPISODE 100: Celebrating 100 Conversations That Helped Our Listeners Focus with Special Guests!

We celebrate 100 episodes with past guests to distill what actually helps educators simplify, focus, and bring joy back to teaching. Reflection, metacognition, micro-PD, boundaries, and student voice come together as a humane blueprint for sustainable schools.

• pausing 24 hours to respond with clarity and care
• designing leader schedules that protect instructional thinking time
• minimalist thinking tools that strengthen metacognition in an AI world
• sacred time, sharper priorities, and JOMO as burnout antidotes
• weekly list reviews to align work with real goals
• coaching new teachers to separate essentials from extras
• micro-PD over time to change adult habits sustainably
• authentic leadership and system fixes that lower load
• art as relief and memory anchor in any subject
• courage, student voice, and belonging as engines of hope
• efficacy through small wins and collaborative routines
• reminders that invitations are not expectations

This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Learn more at planzeducation.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.

SPEAKER_07 0:46

Welcome to this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today we have made it, episode 100. We are not going to pretend this is just any other episode. It absolutely is not. This episode marks 100 conversations, 100 chances to learn, to be inspired, to be challenged. And to mark this milestone, we are joined by some of our memorable guests who've joined us over the last few years. Educators, thinkers, leaders, inspirers. We are joined by David Hyurley, Ming Shelby, Chris Fenning, Amanda Bruggerman, Shonta Garrett, Lindsay Deacon, Stephen Puri, Amanda Kunaba, Fred End, and Jessica Holloway. This episode really is a celebration of the guests, the community that has developed. You have all helped make a hundred episodes possible. So listen in and enjoy this great conversation. It is something special. Hello and welcome to this very special episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today is our 100th episode, believe it or not, and we are joined by the most epic group of people. I'm so honored and blessed. I don't know about you, Tammy, but I can't believe that we get to have this many people come back and have a chat with us today.

SPEAKER_10 2:05

I agree. I feel a little bit intimidated on our own podcast. We've had such an honor and a good time talking to different educational leaders and people in the field and just learning from different people across the country and different countries, even we have some, we've had some people pop in from different countries besides the US. And it's it's interesting to hear the commonalities that we experience, the trends that we hear, but also just learning about different things from different people in their roles. So thank you all for being here today.

Why Reflection Time Changes Outcomes

SPEAKER_07 2:45

So what we're going to do for our hundredth episode today is we are going to revisit some of the pear-down pointers that our wonderful guests shared with us when they were with us last time, and then give us a little update or different pair-down pointer if they want to, but just a little thought about what they're working on now compared to when they chatted with us last time, or maybe something completely different is going on that they want to share with us. So I'd love to start with Fred End, if that's okay. He joined us in episode 70 thinking about rethinking professional development in K-12 education. And he left us with the pear-down pointer of give yourself 24 hours to let the email or the idea settle before coming back to it. So please, Fred, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Thank you. Thank you, Christine. Thank you, Tammy, and Tanya, everyone. Yeah, so that was a that stemmed from the importance of allowing ourselves to really take the time to reflect and think clearly about our own messaging. You know, I know you both think a lot about how do you really put the focus on what's important and remove some of those distractors, right? And I know I find if I if I get activated around something too quickly, I tend not to be very comfortable in actually getting to the heart of the matter, right? And so by giving myself some more time and forcing it, right, before I send an email, make a phone call, have a conversation with a colleague to really think through what it is I want to say and how I want to say it, I tend to be both clearer and also more caring with the people that I work with. And so certainly might be a tear-down pointer, but it has helped me drastically in helping to move work forward and help people shift their practice. One thing that I'll briefly add is, you know, when we were doing introductions and I was talking about my role, I work for an organization that's tied to K-12 education, but it's not a school or district. It's like akin to a county office, right? Or uh to, you know, uh what's called a RESA, a regional education service agency. And since I can tell schools and districts till I'm blue in the face about the value of making shifts, but if they don't see the intrinsic value themselves, they are not going to do it, right? And so one of the other things that uh has been really helpful for me is thinking about the true rationale for why people want to engage in making change, right? It can't be about what I see, right? It has to be about what's going to make the most sense for them, right? So putting myself in their shoes, thinking through their eyes, ears, you know, their mouths, and then also making sure that I truly understand the needs of the people who I serve. And so as I continue to grow in that work and work with more people, those are some of the things that I'm constantly thinking about.

SPEAKER_10 5:58

Thank you, Fred. You are definitely one of the most reflective people I know, and I've learned a lot from you over our 11 years of friendship. And yeah, it's been pretty wild how long we've known each other. Does anyone have a something they want to share back to what Fred has said? Some kind of connection or something similar in your work.

SPEAKER_11 6:21

I I was thinking, Fred, thanks a lot for that. I was thinking about how we don't give our time, ourselves time to reflect, you know, just generally, and we don't often offer time in classrooms for that, for students to reflect, that pause. And, you know, in the research, it's called metacognition, but it's really just being able to sit back and think about how you're thinking and really list and really listening to other people in that moment, too. So it seems to me that's like an absolute starting point.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

David, one of the things that I hear most often from schools and districts in this part of the country is I wish that my building leaders would be able to focus more on teaching and learning. Right. And a lot of times my response is, well, then we need to find ways to give them the time to actually think about teaching and learning. And if you think about principals, assistant principals in particular, they are constantly running from place to place, putting out fires, right? Or doing something to prevent fires from starting. So if we really want those leaders to be reflective, to think about what's happening in their classrooms, then we have to design structures that give them the space to do that. So thanks, David.

SPEAKER_10 7:43

Thank you both for that. It seems like they should read the book Your School Leadership Edit that Christine and I just wrote. Just had to do a little plug there, of course.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

I was not a plant in that either.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

They told me to say that.

Metacognition, AI, And Minimalist Thinking Tools

SPEAKER_10 7:56

So thank you for that. And David, since you responded to Fred, your episode, we had, I can't remember what what season that was. I want to say three, but it was episode 48, uh, unlocking the power of thinking maps. And your paired on pointer was talking about frame of references and influences. Can you kind of update us on that? Or is that still in your line of thinking what you would really recommend to people?

SPEAKER_11 8:23

Great. Thank you so much. Uh oh, it's number 48. It's great to know that was a number on somewhere in there. So it's great to be here. And thanks, thanks for the invitation and meeting everybody. You know, I just do want to say that I just had lunch the other day with Art Costa, who's nine 94. And a lot of the folks on here were talking about coaching and facilitation and facilitating thinking. And he's he's amazing in that he started the cognitive coaching approach, pulled me out of the classroom in Oakland, California, and said, you got to do this. So back in the early 80s, and I'm aging myself there, it was a it was a focus on really his work on metacognition and framing and how do you facilitate thinking in a non-judgmental way, which is, you know, even connected to what Fred was saying about how do you step back a little bit and give yourself the time and give others the time to do that. So since we I was number 48, I forget how long ago that was, I've been really working on the intersection of artificial intelligence and, if you will, the development of human abilities to think. And I mean, it's sort of a strange term, but the interface between those. So I got really animated about 15 years ago when I read a book, How to Create a Mind, which was by one of the leaders in the AI field. And it just matches up with the fundamental processes. He was saying, hey, there are these fundamental processes of the human brain and mind. And that's what I've been really looking at, you know, basic stuff that we see every day in classrooms, sequencing, cause and effect reasoning, framing, comparing, all these things that, you know, like the NAPE results just came out some months ago, and we're flatlining on, you know, reading scores. But I think in this day and age, what I've been thinking about is that we're flatlining on really facilitating student thinking. So they have the filters to really deal with all the information that's just flooding through there, flooding through social media, not just sort of AI and going on and doing a search. So I really, really began to refocus thinking maps. I really started challenging my own model. I said there's some real discrepancies here about the connection between these different kinds of visual patterns. So I developed a sort of a refined minimalist model, if I can use that, a minimalist model of fundamental cognitive processes that are linked together visually. And it's it's called NeuroPoints. We're about to launch software that's related, directly related to that for students and teachers and in the business world as well. So it's really trying to say what are the filters that this has been the animating question for me and a real passion in the last few years is how do we uh provide students with the filters to seek patterns in any information that's coming at them, whether it's social media, in the classroom, AI searches, creating even better prompts that are driven by their own thinking so they're not cheating themselves in that way. So that's that's really where I've been focused. And it really does come down to that, back to to Art Costa's work, the framing. How do you step back, see how you're thinking, pattern those ideas, and be able to share those with others? So that's it's been exciting. It's been quite a run. I have a new partner that's been in AI for 15 years, and he's a true humanist. And I think that's what that book, How to Create a Mind, by Ray Kurzweil, was about is what are those human capacities? How do we create those filters, very practical ones for kids and all of us to use? So it's been fun.

SPEAKER_07 12:21

Fantastic. Really interesting work, David. I think we have to go directly to Stephen after that comment. I'm sure Steven would be able to jump in with some some really interesting thoughts.

Sacred Time, New Parenthood, And Sharper Priorities

SPEAKER_04 12:33

I'm not going to drop anything like metacognition multiple times in my speech, but I think it's still worth listening to.

SPEAKER_07 12:41

Steven, you joined us in in episode 79 talking about productivity.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

David, when was episode 79? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_11 12:48

I think it was soon after 48.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

It's like March. I don't know. I don't know. I think you talked about the the keeping sort of sacred time for yourself, right?

SPEAKER_07 12:59

Yes, yeah, golden, golden hour, sacred time.

SPEAKER_04 13:02

Golden hour, excellent phrase. I would be happy to expound upon that. I'll tell you the biggest lesson for me since we spoke was I'm a dad now. And which I'm super excited about. He's uh he's downstairs and just like I don't know if you guys can see that anywhere. Very sweet, but whatever premium I placed on time before has been magnified 10x. So I, as you guys you know know, I run a focused community in the Suco, which is a flow state app. And by virtue of doing that, a lot of people approach me about like, hey, could I have a one-on-one with you and just bounce some ideas off you about how I can be more productive, more focused, healthier, right? So a lot of it comes down to okay, so you're dealing with procrastination, got it. Oh, distraction, got it. Okay, motivate like it's the same common things you hear hundreds of times over. And what's interesting is in talking with a lot of our community, they are mostly remote working parents. And boy, the last four and a half weeks have driven home for me the kind of stories that they've told me. There was a guy that I in the community named Roy King, who, you know, there's a group chat there. So in between sessions, you can kind of talk to the people because unlike you know, Twitter, which is kind of full of like angry people hating on each other or Reddit people telling each other they're not right about something, you know, like here, it's a lot of people just cheering each other on. And this guy had posted, you know, over the past year, two years stuff he was working on at night. And then one day he posted, he finished his dissertation. And people in the chat were like, hey man, that's kind of a big mic drop. You just sort of casually posted. He said, Well, yeah, yeah, but give me a two weeks from Monday or something. I have to defend it. So don't celebrate yet, right? So, in the course of doing this, people you know wished him luck, da-da-da. And it was awesome that Tuesday, after that Monday, he posted group chat, you may now call me Dr. King. And people went kind of nuts when they celebrated this. He said, So I I have a job as an assistant vice principal at a high school in Missouri, and I'm also a dad. So I have this little window of time between responsibilities when I've been, you know, using this app to get something done because that's all I got. And I wanted to finish my engineering uh PhD. And that was really inspiring for a lot of people, including myself, and I loved it. And now I think about him and I'm like, okay, so I have probably 60 minutes of nap time when I can do something quietly, and you can't see it off camera. There's little bassinette, so I can kind of lean over and be like, okay, still sleeping. Good. I can get something done. And it is it is enforced with me. I know I shouldn't say this, but as someone who has talked a lot over the past 10 years about productivity and healthy productivity, it has enforced in me a greater discipline that I had already about how not to go down rabbit holes, how to prioritize, how to go. That's not actually worth my time. I thought it's worth 20 minutes. It's not. And that razor becomes really sharp. And that has been probably the by not probably, that is by far the biggest change since we did episode 79, however many days we spons ago.

SPEAKER_10 16:18

Thank you, Stephen. That's a big life change for you for sure. And it was making me think about I'm trying to make, I was trying to draw some connections to some of our other guests. Pair down pointers. And I was like, okay, well, we've got Sean Tay, who's like an OG, because she was one of our very first guests in season one, where she was talking about honoring our true selves, which you definitely have to do as a parent. And then I was thinking too, maybe this is more like a tangible thing because Jessica was talking about to-do lists and what you say yes to and what you don't now, especially now as a parent, right? But there's that connection between education and parenting as well. So Jessica, do you want to maybe talk about your tips?

Lists, Boundaries, And Saying No With Purpose

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yeah. So I was nodding my head a lot as, you know, a professional and as a parent. There's only so much time in the day, and you want to make sure you're investing your time and what matters. And I talked a lot about the to, you know, are you running your calendar? Is your calendar running you? Is your to-do list taking over or are you making your to-do list? And so I am still continuing every Friday on my calendar. There's a one o'clock reminder that says work the list. And so every Friday at one o'clock, I am revisiting my to-do list. I am going back to the Monday of that week and checking my inbox to see what did I not respond to? What do I need to finish? So it's my spot check. I still do it, it's still a good practice that I have in place. But it was making me think about moving back into a school-based coaching role and how many competing priorities there can be at a school level. And as things come across, if you said yes to everything, nothing would be important. There wouldn't be a focus. And I can see how teachers can very much feel like there's always something new coming along. Because the reality is, if you let it, there's always something new coming along. So in thinking about, you know, coaching, my coaching partner and I have tried to really consider is this in line with our action plan and our goals? Are we is this something we're gonna say yes to? Does it fit right now? Or is that something we can build on next year as we progress with what we have decided was going to be our focus for this year? So I think I see it a lot in what we're saying yes to as far as professional development, what we're doing as a staff to make sure that what we're saying yes to aligns with what we want to see accomplished instead of the constant there's a shiny thing over here or there's a new thing over here. And now it's just we're stacking new things all the time. But how can we, you know, streamline the things and make sure we're investing our time into those areas? Because if we do that right, we'll be able to add the things and build on to it.

SPEAKER_07 19:33

Yeah, very important stuff, Jessica. Thank you. Did anyone want to respond to what Jessica was saying there or Steven before that?

New Teachers, Time Blocking, And JOMO

SPEAKER_06 19:42

I definitely connected with this one. And you may have already had the intention to kind of have me connect because mine was about like time blocking. And both of what you said, I think is really important. And I even thought of because of my passion with new teachers, I think about what they look at in their time and what they choose to do over what they need to do, and trying to really help support some of our newer teachers with managing that time effectively. And so, like just blocking those tasks that are the most important for them, but then like helping them and guiding them, whether it's through coaching or mentoring of what are your tasks that you have to prioritize, kind of to your point, so that, you know, you can't say yes to everything. But then I think also too, it's like that shiny thing. You know, a lot of the new teachers want to want to do the fun, creative, like put the fun spin on their lessons or their activities. And it's I think something that's like, you know, is that really what you need to be focused on at this moment? Is it going to get you the output that you want with your student learning? And just thinking of time in that sense. So because they're playing time, some sometimes are they using that effectively and like trying to help them navigate that so that it goes back to that balance of you know, work life balance so they don't feel guilty if they're not doing something at home that night. And then they can take a break because that's important too, to give ourselves those breaks. So gosh, all of your points connected so well. But I think it's like it's almost like a funnel. We have to funnel down to our teachers. We have to help them with how to manage their time.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

So can I connect back to Steven and Amanda because it has me thinking about this whole fear of missing out? Because when you're a parent, you there are things you just you say no to because you have other priorities. But I think there are times where we we say yes or want to say yes out of fear of flattery. Like someone flatters us, and oh, you would be great on this, and you end up saying yes, and you're like, Even want to do that, but they made me feel so good about it. How could I not say yes to that? Or it's a fear of what if this opportunity never comes back again and I might miss something? And so you end up saying yes because you're afraid you're not gonna be able to do it again. So I talk to teachers a lot of times because I I this is confession, I'm in this situation of the fear and flattery. But I think sometimes we make those decisions based out of those two factors.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

I apologize for the fact that I'm in an unreasonably good mood to just like assume I'm normally more normal right now. I'm in that joy of like this little thing that makes me happy. I would I would add this, which is a bit of a counterpoint to what you're saying, which is I've been experiencing the joy of missing out because it has been such a great razor for me in terms of like invitations that I don't actually want to accept, things I don't actually want to do. Just go like, I have a three-week old home. And everyone's like, totally cool. No, no, dude, you do do, you know, you take care of the little one. And it's allowed me to focus on the things I actually really deeply care. Like today, I was excited to come about this. It's not like a paid speak engagement. This is not a oh god, a room full of boring engineers who are gonna ask me stupid questions. I said yes, because I was like, Oh, actually, I do want to do this. You know, I enjoyed our episode, I enjoyed this the pod, and I was like, I'll be here. And I've experienced a lot of that. Uh, yes, yes, I've been my joy of missing out era. It may not last long. This may just be sleep deprivation talking. I don't know yet, but I'm happy and let's roll with it.

SPEAKER_10 23:35

That's such a great connection because right now in some of the schools that I'm going in, there is no joy. And so I love that you're bringing all the joy into this conversation because we know that it's so important. And again, I'm making so many connections between what people have talked about, but what's popping out to me right now with Lindsay, you were talking about how people are not motivated by our goals, right? It has to be by their own goals. And this kind of lends itself to, you know, I'm a parent now, my priorities have shifted, I'm thinking about different things. So I don't want to do what you want me to do. I want to do the things that I need to do. So, Lindsay, what do you think there?

SPEAKER_05 24:19

I just feel like I've been thinking about so much. You know, recently, so I'm coaching a brand new high school teacher this year. I'm coaching a lot of new teachers this year, but there's one particular that just came to mind, especially while Amanda was talking to, where he was saying, you know, I'm I had a professional job before. This is like a second career. And he said, this job is completely unsustainable. And we had a lot of conversations about just the vast amount of tasks that are on every teacher's job, let alone when you're a new teacher. And in our coaching conversation, it was really important to just acknowledge, like, yeah, this is this is literally a job that is unsustainable if you try to do everything that's like impossible. So you have to be really finite with what you choose to put in your calendar. But then also going back to like that Jomo, like our conversation really was what is bringing you joy as a new teacher? And you need to have fun with your students and they need to want to come to class, or else you're all gonna burn out. It's not just the educator who's gonna burn out, but also students disengage. They, I mean, we know how what a killer boredom is when it comes to an instructional achievement, right? And so just really focusing on those small bits during your day that you can be thankful for, but also to acknowledge that you can't do everything. And that is such, I mean, there's no real science to this, right? And we've talked about like, you know, blocking your calendar, but you as a teacher, like you could block your calendar all day long, but people are coming in the door and your phone is ringing. And I mean, so it's really the ability also to know yourself so well that you can say no and you can feel confident what you're saying no to. And that's that's like a learned skill over time. So I really don't have advice here. I'm just I just feel like I am observed. I mean, every year I observe this, but I feel like particularly this year, I'm just really in the thick of it with a lot of new teachers who feel like a little lost and hopeless. And so it's our job to help them reorient where they need to be.

SPEAKER_12 26:34

Can I make a connection between that and two or three previous comments? So this is a good thing.

SPEAKER_08 26:39

Yeah, and I want to jump in as well. Oh, so please go ahead. You go first. No, you go ahead. I'll I'll come behind you first.

Making PD Stick With Small Reps Over Time

SPEAKER_12 26:45

Uh we should all put our hands up like we're in school. I've been that joke has been on my on my tongue all day. I apologize. Terrible dad jokes. So the the connection is we've got burnout, we've got time blocking, we've had a couple of people mention, David, you talked about career progression and doing things, doing things quickly, shiny objects. And there's there's a counterintuitive approach to help solve some of these things. So thinking about the professional development of staff, and this relates to the topic that we talked about, which is making training stick after you've done training for outside of the classroom. This is for teacher development, for admin staff development, and so on. We tend to approach training as a, it's an extra thing, it's two hours of extra to solve a particular problem, cram it into your schedule, and then that will solve whatever the problem was that the training was focused on. And that's the wrong way to do it. Because not only does it create a short-term time issue, because they have to find an extra few hours to do the training, it also doesn't solve the problem. Because, like with our students, we don't teach them something once and then expect them to learn it. They have homework, they have repetition, they have study groups, they have all these other methods over time to reinforce. And yet, within this environment, we expect the adults to be told something one time and then adopt that and change their habits and behaviors. So the method that we use in the very honorable attempt to try and make work life better for the principals, for the admin staff, for everybody who's serving the students, we actually make it worse by just shoving training in. And the solution is, counter to counterintuitively, to do more training, but in smaller amounts over time, focused on solving any one of these problems that we've talked about, and picking the things that are most time-intrusive, that are causing the most stress, the most burnout, and taking a longer-term, slower approach, just like we do with our students, to help change those, help overcome those problems. And then that gives us a fighting chance of stopping burnout, avoiding this sort of, I'm going to do time blocking until I no longer have time to do time blocking, because that by itself takes time. So there's a there's a shift that it would be great if the staff could have the same mindset for their own development and the same support as we provide to the students to help them learn.

Leader Load, Systems, And Authenticity

SPEAKER_08 29:19

Thanks, Chris. Go ahead, Shante. Thanks, Chris. I was gonna say, because we and I'm going back to tie back to Fred's thoughts as well. Fred's particularly working with leaders as well and thinking about that space, and I forget what episode I was was showing this as your authentic self. And that's one of those things when we're having these conversations, because oftentimes as leaders, we have this mask because we have to show up as who we think our folks need us to be. And that may not always be who we need us to be in those moments, they may not be the same person, and that's a tax in itself. And so when we're talking about this fear of missing out or this joy of missing out, and what those pieces may be, and also the the stress and the things that may come on top of those, then we kind of need to be thinking about the load, right, that we're asking leaders to carry as they are supporting their teams to navigate these different pieces, right? Because I can guarantee you if there's a a burnt out teacher, there's probably a burnt out leader in that space as well. And so it might be PD, it might be bite-sized PD, but I can also guarantee you there's a system that is not working. Right, right. Teachers may not get a chance to calendar block, but the leader, if that calendar block is not working, it might be a chance to get re to revisit that. And every leader may not have the luxury of a coach or the luxury of being able to afford someone, but I can tell you the ones that do get a chance to sit with an consultant or someone, then that's when you hear them say, you know, this is the release, this is the overwhelm, this is the release, I am overwhelmed, and to be able to get that support to rethink the processes, to rethink how we are going to to do this, and to rethink what is it that I need so I can show up better and support better in these spaces, and so it is rethinking what is the dynamic here, right? And so it's rethinking the entire system in itself. PD might be the fix, it might be something that we are not implementing correctly. It may be something that's not implemented correctly, but I can guarantee you it is probably something that we don't have the capacity to do, that we need to resystematize altogether, right? From what students are expected to do, what teachers are expected to do, and what leaders are expected to do. Because a lot of times we probably take a program and try to make it fit instead of probably looking at our capacity to do what we can do and scale it up with what we have versus trying to make what we have fit something that we can't scale to.

Career Stages And The Right To Decline

SPEAKER_02 33:17

Can I jump in with a quick thought? So all of these ideas are making me think about something else that overlays all of this, right? Which is the idea of like career progressions, right? Because if you think of if you think of our roles in any profession as mapped out on a bell curve, right? And so you have that initial starting point where it's like drinking from a fire hose, right? Like a cramp up to to get things started. And then you're at like the apex, maybe in the middle of your career, oftentimes questioning yourself, like, am I doing enough? Is this like where I want to be, right? Like, where do I go from here? Right. And then of course you've got like the third portion of that bell curve, and that's not to say like uh it's all downhill from here, right? But you you have like a as I enter that final stage of my career, right? I have a little bit of like the grandparent effect, right? Which is like you you know how people are always like, you know, that's like that's like grandpa Fred. He says what he wants, you know, like it's you you you know, you he's gonna do what he wants to do, right? You you start to enter that phase where you just your built-up experience, your ideas and opinions sometimes wrongly though, get really sick. And so you can do things like say no to things, which you might not as a beginning career educator, right? And one of the things I think is really important that I'm coming back to is we have to find ways to shift some of those allowances that we might give to people, right, at various points in their career towards everyone. Because there's no reason that a starting teacher, back to your point, should not be able to say no to things that they can't manage, right? Where they have to fear for their role, for what people will think about them, and put themselves by nature of that in impossible situations, right? So it's just something that's going around in the back of my head as we're chatting. So thanks.

SPEAKER_10 35:32

Thank you, Fred, Grandpa Fred, Grandpa Freddie. That's a forever image now. There the connections that are coming from this conversation are so wonderful. And I'm thinking about, you know, it's we've kind of evolved into this really complex conversation on so many levels, like from beginning teachers to flow states to Grandpa Fred and you know, later career. And but what it really comes down to is like Shantae said, we're looking at, you know, how do we shift a system so that everybody can flourish and there can be joy back in our spaces and we can be the people that we want to and need to be for each other. And so we have about 10 minutes left of our episode. So we want to bring some light to Amanda Kay and Ming because there's a lot of what you do that is centered around that joyful experience in education. So maybe Amanda, we'll start with you because I mean, art is joy and it's a great creative outlet. And sadly, I'm not seeing art in some schools that I'm working in, and it makes me really sad to see that kids aren't getting that kind of outlet and creative space. So let's hear from you where you're at and tell us a little bit more about your new book, actually. Pop that in there.

Art As Relief And Humanizing Learning

SPEAKER_00 36:54

So there's so many things that were said that I can make connections to, but the like the underlying theme that I keep hearing is just this overwhelm and teachers not having, they don't know where they're supposed to get permission to be creative. And that our creativity is so such a part of who we are as humans. I mean, it's it's not this is conversation, it's not about standards, not about, it's really not even about the schedule. It's about our humanity and whether or not we're going to make it as human beings and as like a group of human beings. I I have teachers that email me from all over the world on a daily basis. I it not a day goes by that I don't hear from somebody that says, My kids just cannot learn this skill or this standard. I just I've tried everything I can think of and I am miserable and I am not gonna make it. I'm sick of this job. And I found your website. And is there something is how can I dip my toe into the water of something related to art, but connect it to what I have to teach so I don't get in trouble. And help like it's it's it's a cry for help. They're miserable. And I just what I can do is say, let's find you a five-minute something, something that is related to your math standard, or because that's what I'm really good at is seeing the connections across all the arts and all of the other content that teachers have to teach. Let's find something that relates to that standard and let's hone in on the vocabulary between the art form and the art standards and what you're teaching. And there's always overlap. And then it's like play a song, find an art print to look at, and that's your starting place. And you can dip your toe in the water and you're gonna feel better immediately. You're gonna get some relief. And you can you can always tell your administrator or whoever's wants to know what you're doing in the room how that's related back, because I'm helping you have that language, but it's it's paring it down. You know, we talked about paring it down to that vocabulary when I was on the podcast before. But it's it's it's like, but by doing that, they're doing this huge thing for themselves and their students, but not just themselves, like their families, because they have to take that what's in killing them in that job, they have to take that home and be with their their babies and their you know, their families. And these teachers have aging parents and all we have lives, we're humans. So I think what everybody's saying about how you manage all your time, and then how do you do what's really important to you? When teachers email me and they say I am desperate to do something for my students because they are miserable and I'm miserable. And I think art would help us feel better. It can be, you can you can dip your toes into that in five minutes. You can. And get, I mean, I think get immediate relief from some of that stress. There's nothing stress-relieving and more joyful than arts. I mean, it's just at the basis level of who we are as people, we respond to the arts and we always have. So thank you.

SPEAKER_10 40:07

Just connecting that to Ming, your work around courage. It takes a lot of courage for a teacher to be able to reach out to someone and say, I'm I'm in this desperate place and I need somebody to like point me in a direction. So Ming, we had you on the show a couple of times, and both of those conversations were about, you know, being brave in your space and having courage. And so what are you thinking at this point?

SPEAKER_09 40:34

Yeah, I want to first echo what Amanda just shared about art and space. One of the our schools recently had their literacy family night, and one of the stations was related to art and designing their own wishing tree. And you could just hear the buzz in the room and the smell of glue and glitter and all the joy that was around that. So I just want to echo what you shared, Amanda. And I think I would like to feel like there's hope in education, right? That we're not doomed for like burnout forever and disaster as much as the current climate is, right? Like I would like to think that we are inspiring the next generation, the future builders. And this goes to what several people shared about was like the importance of student voice in these opportunities that no matter where you are in schools, whether it's a building teacher, coach, leader, district leader, of how like the audience we're serving is still those students, right? And how do we create these environments where they feel safe, supportive, belonging, that they can be like, I am courageous enough to share what brings me joy in my classroom and also courageous enough to share out when something's not going, how I think it should go. And sometimes what I notice is that the students' courage impacts the teachers and they're like, wow, this five-year-old was so courageous, just, you know, sharing something that was really challenging. Like maybe I can do that with a colleague. Maybe I can do that with somebody else. And then just like fostering these environments of belonging and connection that, you know, we're in this together and we got this. It's hard, but we got this.

Courage, Student Voice, And Belonging

SPEAKER_07 42:27

Beautiful. I love that Ming. You always come in with some inspiration for it for us. I love it. Um, but yeah, that that idea of hope and not all is lost. And, you know, what Amanda was saying about the the humanity behind the work that we do. I mean, that that really gets to the heart of why Tammy and I started this podcast is to really, you know, try and spread that message of like we can do this and we can do it together. So so thank you for that, guys. We will wrap up soon. We've heard a little bit from everybody, but is there any last words that anyone would like to share? I know I definitely want to make sure I tell Lindsay that I have said to so many people since we chatted that you can't motivate other people by your own goals. So just letting you know, Lindsay, that that has come up a lot recently. Does anyone else want to share anything before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_11 43:16

I'll I'll jump in. I was really taken because working with this small group over the last couple of years, we've been focusing on efficacy. And it's sort of beyond efficiency and effectiveness. It's like what is what is really efficacious? How do we facilitate student voice and agency? And one of the keys that I was sort of surprised by, I guess, and and this group obviously won't be, is that one of the keys to efficacy is hope. And I was just sort of taken by the conversation today around the and and Ming's you know, comment about student agency and yes, hopefulness. And so that's one of the things that came out of looking around in the research and then just. Engaging conversation. So hope is a key.

SPEAKER_06 44:04

Oh, can I add on really fast to that? That was so good. So I did a lot of research around just building efficacy with new teachers and mentors. And something that I feel like I'm connecting between several of us is that that collaboration piece of how can we build efficacious and confident teachers? And just thinking about, you know, no matter what, like time, managing time, whether we're trying to help bring hope back into our work or that passion back in education, but how we have to learn to depend on each other. And we have to teach our students and our learners to work together to do that too. And that's something that's really important. And I think it's it's what's helping us build resilience as how we can work through this. And so that's some of my most recent work too is how can we do that? And the first habit that I've talked about with some of my co-authors in a new book is about how do we create self-efficacy to build habits for resilient learners. And that's the first habit we talk about. So I'm glad you brought that up, David. That was that's just right up my alley. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Something that came back into my mind that I've been putting into practice because I remind myself of this, but I I include it when I send opportunities to fellow educators that an invitation is not an expectation. An invitation means you can say yes and you can say no, and both are acceptable answers. So when I share, hey, this opportunity is out there, I also put in there, this is an invitation, not an expectation. It doesn't align with your goals for this year. It's okay to say no. I'll keep sending you opportunities that come along, but I also have to remind myself that if someone needs to hear it, an invitation is not an expectation and no, it's an acceptable answer.

Hope, Efficacy, And Collaborative Resilience

SPEAKER_07 45:57

Okay. It looks like everyone has uh made their final comments. So thank you so much, everybody. We are so incredibly honored that you all came back and joined us and shared more of your incredible wisdom with us. So thank you so much for joining us today, everybody. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for having us. This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters, and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzeducation.com.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit planzeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.