How to Move Beyond Buy-In and Cultivate True Teacher Ownership with Becca Silver

Free resources - www.thewholeeducator.com/free-resources

In this episode of Data in Education, I had a fascinating conversation with Becca Silver, the CEO and founder of The Whole Educator, and someone who is truly a kindred spirit in making data more human-centered. With a decade of experience in the classroom, including teaching abroad and co-oping a school in Tanzania, Becca brings a unique, global perspective to her work. After transitioning to instructional coaching, she had a lightbulb moment: the traditional, task-centered approach wasn’t creating lasting change. By integrating her life coaching skills and focusing on the human side of education, she developed a powerful framework for moving beyond mere buy-in to create deep, empowered change—especially when it comes to new data initiatives.

Learn more about Becca Silver at www.thewholeeducator.com

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Connect with Becca Silver
Email: becca@thewholeeducator.com
X: https://x.com/BeccaSilver_edu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/becca-silver/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWholeEducator
Podcast: https://www.thewholeeducator.com/podcast

Connect with Jessica 
Email: jess@data-informedimpact.com 
X: @informedimpact
Instagram: @informedimpact 
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/informedimpact 

Transcript

Jessica 0:49

today, I'm thrilled to welcome Becca Silver, CEO, and founder of the whole educator who brings a refreshing perspective on driving change in schools. After a decade in the classroom and a pivotal shift to human-centered coaching, Becca now equips leaders to move beyond surface level buy-in, transforming resistance, and to deep and empowered change, especially around new data systems. And I'm so excited for this conversation'cause I think it's such an important part that we skip over and that is. The, the rollout and making sure that your, your staff feels comfortable in, um, that change and change is hard, you know? So welcome, Becca.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 1:24

Thank you. Thank you so much. I am pumped to be here and I love talking about going beyond buy-in. I love talking about resistance to change all things related to this, so I'm excited for this conversation.

Jessica 1:35

me too. Me

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 1:36

I.

Jessica 1:36

Okay, so that was a very brief overview and only really encapsulates like a tiny little bit of your history. So can you please expand on that? I wanna hear more.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 1:46

Sure, sure. So, I mean, just to kind of give you a little timeline, I was a teacher for 10 years. Um, I have taught abroad actually in South America and Africa. Um, and so, and I, I actually, um, co-oped a school in Tanzania, in East Africa. Um, so that was like a really cool experience to experience like what education is like in other countries, right? In other kind of e even like economies, right? Um, so let's see. And then I, when I became a, a coach, um, I also became a life coach. And so I had like kind of both new things happening at the same time. And when I became an instructional coach, I was, I thought I was really great at what I did. I'm like, I'm doing great. Teachers love me. I had high levels of trust, but like I was wildly ineffective. I was going around telling people what I think they should do in their classrooms. They were even like receptive, but the. The, uh, the change wasn't taking hold in any of their classrooms. I'd go in, I'd be like, what happened? Why didn't it work? And at the same time as becoming a life coach, I was like, there's something here about understanding how humans think, right? Mindsets and motivations. So I started applying what I learned in my life coaching training to my instructional coaching and change started sticking and. People started becoming empowered and confident. Efficacy started going way up, and I was like, there's something here. So when I became a consultant and I started the whole educator, I really centered my work around a human centered approach versus a task centered approach. So we get things done through people's humanity and not around it.

Jessica 3:29

Oh my goodness. I love that. And I feel like it fits so well with just like my, my whole view on data. Even I, I, I constantly say data informed, people driven. Like, we need to stop relying on the data alone. We're saying

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 3:43

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 3:44

the data doesn't lie. Yes, it does. Come on now, the data does lie. I can make data lie all day long if I wanted to. I choose not to because that's. It's not a good idea, but, um, but yeah, it's so important to, to have that reminder that we're talking about people, like this is such a

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 4:02

Yeah.

Jessica 4:03

centered career and world that we live in. So, um, it's, yeah, I, I love every bit of it. So we're thinking about data when, like gimme your, your overall, like past experiences with data.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 4:19

Okay, this is really cool. So I actually, um, I became, uh, I became a teacher with Teach for America. Um, yeah. And so they're very, and I was, I was also an education major, which was kind of an odd, if anyone knows anything about Teach for America, they're known for taking non ed majors and again, them teachers. So I had both kind of, I had the training. We teach for America. That was like super high level and um, just like ahead of its time, I think in some ways. Um, and so I, from the very beginnings of my teaching, I was wildly data centered. And so every coaching conversation I had with my Teach for America coach every month was purely about data. And what was really cool was just from the very beginnings of, of teaching. We, the way coaching conversations would go is we would start with what's my data? What's the gap in data? And then we'd work backwards. What was the student actions that caused that data? What was the teacher actions that caused the student actions? And then what was, and this very much was formative for me and how I even operate today. Like what was those foundational knowledge, skills, or mindsets? That were unsupported to cause all of that to happen. So I have really embraced and loved data, um, from the very beginning. And somewhere in the beginnings of my coaching, I kind of abandoned all of it in the, in the throes of learning how to coach. I was like, ah. So I, I love people and I love being with people and I love connecting with people. So I really leaned into the people part of it and. Forgot, like, forgot about utilizing data to coach for a little while and, and so I was like, peeing it, you know, like, try this idea. It was very, I dunno if anecdotal is the right word, but it was like, I'd go and observe and I would share my thoughts and we would talk, but none of it had to do with data.

Jessica 6:19

I know exactly what you're talking about. Um, I was not Teach for America, but I, I worked at a small charter school in Chicago to begin with, and so I worked with a ton of, uh, teachers from Teach for America.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 6:31

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 6:31

of really great friends who are in the program. And, and you're right about, it's, it's very rare to find people in Teach for America that are also education majors. Um. But I, it's so funny because I had a very similar experience when I went into instructional coaching because there are some kind of, some kinds of, uh, coaching structures that are very open-ended. And, um, and being someone who loves, like hearing people's stories and stuff like that, it just did not work for me and I just got distracted. So then I went the opposite route and tried to do something way more structured. And I, it took me a while and when I was an instructional coach to find that balance. Of figuring out

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 7:10

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica 7:10

to, um, how to really like, have, have that data to stand on, um, but also do it alongside the teacher and help have a, a, a, um, productive conversation about it when that's not like feeling icky or weird,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 7:27

Yes.

Jessica 7:28

it is when you're with a coach.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 7:31

Yeah, for sure. That's exactly it. And, and I currently, the way I coach now is utilizing data and, and most of, just to kind of give you a broad sweep of how I use data now in, in coaching, I believe in alignment. And I've, in the last year, I've been joking, it's aggressive alignment, but like, I'm like really into alignment. Um. Because it builds value for people. And that research wildly shows when we align the external goals to our internal goals. That is actually what, it's a very simple, not necessarily easy, but a simple way to explain how we can help people see value and change, right? And so now when I'm coaching, I'm a consultant, so I fly around the US and internationally to work with school leadership and coaching teams, right? So the first thing I say is, what are your district goals?

Jessica 8:21

Yep.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 8:21

What are your school goals? Are they aligned to your district goals or are we going in different directions?'cause that's one thing we need to talk about, right? Are they measurable? What? What are we measuring? Right? That's the first conversation I have. Then when we talk about coaching, are the coaching goals aligned with the school goals? And when we are making coaching goals, we are co-creating goals. With the teachers, we're not going in and telling them their goal. We are co-creating them. And that takes a conversation, right, with the human in front of us and we, and so, and it's a measurable goal, right? So we're utilizing data and I really believe in tiny tweaks and those like small wins to create those big moves and DA data.

Jessica 9:15

Yeah. Yeah. And the benefit of those, those tiny moves are the, uh, the motivation that comes after it, right? Like you, you see the impact of those tiny moves and it happens so quickly and then you're like, oh, okay, I'm ready for the next one. It just adds to that motivation as you continue to go throughout the year. Um, yes, 100%. Love that. And, uh, it's so funny because I think that. You know, I go back to some of the, the presentations I've given and I, I went to several, I was so fortunate to have, um, a school system that sent me to all these conferences while I was there to, to help me learn, but also to help me go out there and meet new people. And, um, and one of the things that I would present on was how we kind of use data to, um, to. Kind of, uh, are the words that I'm looking for? Um, lesson the impact that COVID had once we

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 10:17

Mm.

Jessica 10:18

and

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 10:19

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 10:19

intentional moves that we made. And I, I narrowed it down to seven and the very first one that I would always present was the alignment of our strategic plan with all the initiatives that we had going on. And not only'cause they were aligned to begin with, but the

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 10:36

Uhhuh. Mm-hmm.

Jessica 10:39

we were able to find a way to show, you know, within like MTSS, the way everything that we're doing, all, you know, this book that we read over the summer and um, or, you know, we used Conscious Discipline or, um. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm, I'm also a conscious discipline parent, so, um, yeah, we had all these initiatives, so we had to kind of show how it all fit under this umbrella of MTSS. And once we were able to of clearly message I. Well, even just like between us as like the MTSS team where, you know, we were bringing in people from all these different teams, once we were able to kind of wrap our brains around it, it became so much easier to message that to the other team or to the other teams in the school, the other staff. Um, but it's so, so true and I, anyway, so I keep thinking about that presentation or I kept thinking about that presentation. I'm like that first step doesn't really, like, there's nothing in there that says. Data, like there's no like flashing data on the, when I'm presenting about that first step and I was like, does it make sense here? And I'm like, yes, it has to. Like, you cannot move forward if you don't have that alignment. That has to be the first step. Otherwise, everything feels disjointed and everything feels like, oh, this is a new thing this year. That's what you till next year.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 11:58

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 11:58

what the new thing is.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 12:00

Yep. That's exactly, it's done to us. And that's the line between buy-in and going beyond buy-in,

Jessica 12:07

Right.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 12:08

the way. Right. So we talk about buy-in because we have, uh, what I call a default compliance culture in schools, typically how schools run. I'm not saying all schools do this, but very, very commonly how school districts run in the US is we have someone. Um, some leader, superintendent, someone in a district office that purchases something or makes a decision, we are focusing on STEM this year, or we are going to use this reading curriculum, right? And then they tell everyone below, you're going to do this right? And everyone else below is expected to and often held accountable to do this thing that someone else decided. And that's where we get resistance to change, right? So. Well, it's, and, and we're talking about buy-in, right? It's the same conversation first of all, the, the, the typically the highest level, you know, the people that are like, yes, I will go do this change that someone else decided. The, the often, the highest level of. I guess we could call it engagement would be buy-in. Buy-in, is that someone else made a decision and I'm gonna get you to value that decision. Right. To go beyond buy-in, we actually need to be, bring people's voices to the table. They ha it has to be co-created in some way to go beyond buy-in. Right? And so that's actually why we talk about buy-in so much because of the way. Our system is constructed. Someone else makes a decision and, and you have to follow it. But then we also have resistance to change because of that same way that we do school, right? So we hire critical thinkers, right? We have our teachers that we hire, we're interviewing them. We're like, Ooh, they'll be great in the classroom. They'll be able to differentiate instruction. They value, you know, adapting and changing. You know, instruction for the learners in their classroom, right? We hire critical thinkers and then the way we do change in schools typically is someone makes a decision and our beautiful critical thinkers are being told to implement a change that they didn't decide. And sometimes that grappling with the change engagement, with the change itself, right? They're not just kind of complying, they're engaging with it sometimes looks like resistance to change.

Jessica 14:22

Yes, yes. I see that so often, and especially when you're talking about something, um, as big as, as. Bringing in a new platform or, um, like in my past, I've created all these data dashboards for schools and, and one of the things that led me to, um, kind of rebrand and start working not only on data visualization, but also data culture and data literacy, was because I would, I would make all these tools for these schools and they were paying a good amount of money for it. And then I'd reach back in like trying to help, like, what do you need? Like, I'm sure that you need. Need something to be adjusted or you need help with the rollout or anything. And it was often just crickets and, and they weren't following back up. And it's because the people that were purchasing these dashboards were not the people that were supposed to be using them. They were handing them off to their teachers

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 15:18

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 15:19

expecting that. They would just figure out how to use it. I'm like, okay, first of all, we, I have not talked to your teachers. How do we even know that this is what they need?

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 15:29

Yeah.

Jessica 15:29

so it's taken a, a while for me to kind of be like, whoa, hold up. This is not working. Like this is not having the impact that I want. Um, and so now when I do it, I, I am much more like. Meeting with teams and teachers throughout that process and

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 15:48

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 15:48

that I'm creating take a lot more work and they're a

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 15:51

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 15:51

customized, but they're being used. And

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 15:54

Okay.

Jessica 15:55

part is to like actually see that, that I'm helping them make those, those decisions for their students. So. I'd love to hear about your, um, your experiences with data initiatives.'cause we've talked a lot about just initiatives in general. I'm curious about, about what experiences you've had with data initiatives.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 16:17

So, um, like recently, as in like a couple years ago, I've been working kind of. With this district has been wonderful and utilizing data within the coaching cycles, right? And so, um, the part of this very big project, I was the coaching arm of this, this project, right? So I was coaching the coaches. I was like, really my role within this and helping them bring data into and having their coaching cycles not only be human centered, but data centered, right? And, um, some, you know, kind of, I, I was coaching the teachers to model for the coaches, so there was a lot of kind of human interaction debriefing with the coaches and some teachers really very immediately. And this is how change happens, right? Like some people are like, sure, this is great. You know, I like this. Some teachers were like, great, this is fine to start being data-driven now. Wonderful. Um, and some teachers didn't. Right? So I had, I had one veteran teacher, um, who was actually a, a pretty fantastic teacher. Um, and she was actually teaching her children how to be metacognitive, which is like

Jessica 17:29

Oh my goodness.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 17:29

advanced. Was like, yeah, like, yeah, teach them that. And I was like, okay, how can we make this measurable? And she was like, you can't. Right. So we were, and she was like, I can't, I, it was a very much like, Nope, I can't do it right. I won't do it. I can't do it. And um, you know, I really got in that conversation and I got to model, right? Because then, then I was like, okay, right. She's digging in her heels. I'm, I'm experiencing some form of resistance. And one of the things I know you and I have talked about this kind of outside of this. Is my framework for, for resistance and all resistance is, or resistance is caused by unmet needs, right? So immediately when I'm experiencing resistance, I'm like, okay, there's resistance. What unmet need does she have? Right, and then I have, I have a whole framework around my catalyst mindsets that, that help people kind of diagnose what, what need is actually there. But I really got what she needed was to feel respected as a professional. She's a veteran teacher. She's been around to see all these changes happening. I've seen it all right. And, um, I had to stop for a second with the newness, right? And say, okay, you know, tell me, tell me what you're doing. Oh my gosh, right? And so one of my, my mindsets is belonging mindset, which is a belief I believe I belong here, right? And, and parts of belonging mindset is trust and connection and safety, psychological safety. So what I did was, I just. Stopped with pushing the new, pushing the data. And I was like, tell me, right? Like, tell me what you're doing in your classroom. And I really leaned into building the trust, connection, and safety within us. And she lit up.

Jessica 19:23

Yeah.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 19:23

And once she, once she experienced being. Respected by me, right? Like, yeah, I totally like, I honor your expertise. She was totally open to being coached with, with, um, with some kind of measurable data. It just, we needed to do that for, she needed to know, I respect you as a professional.

Jessica 19:43

Right.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 19:44

Right.

Jessica 19:45

And I, I even think about that in terms of like, teachers, we, we talk about our students that way all the time. Like they want to feel respected. We, we need to dig in a little bit before we push harder. And, um. And I mean, we're all just human, right? Like we

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 20:00

Yeah, exactly.

Jessica 20:02

Um,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 20:02

Yeah.

Jessica 20:02

I've had very similar situations as well where, you know, the, the first conversations were like, Ooh, that person is not excited to see me right now. Like that is, we're this, we need to take a step back and focus on actually building that relationship and, and building that trust. And I love the way, I love hearing about your different mindsets. Um. And you've talked about, uh, this mindset. Can you go over all five?

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 20:31

Sure, sure. And I have another story for you too.

Jessica 20:33

Perfect.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 20:33

Um, so, um, the five mindsets, these are the catalyst mindsets. This is very research based around. What actually has people get stuck, right? And so we, we've been previously saying growth mindset. Growth mindset is one of the five. And the growth mindset psychologists, by the way, they did more research after growth Mindset, got very popular and said, Ooh, there's more than one, right? So growth mindset. And by the way, growth mindset has been kind of misunderstood, um, throughout the years as it's grown in popularity. Growth mindset is simply a belief. It is not working hard, it is not being resilient. Um, it is not, um, having grit. Those are outcomes, possible outcomes of operating under a growth mindset, but they aren't growth mindset, right? So growth mindset is the belief I can improve. That's it. Okay, everything else are outcomes. So if growth mindset, I believe I can improve. We have success mindset. I believe I can be successful here. And that's self-efficacy. We love talking about efficacy.'cause John Hattie was like, Hey, teacher collective efficacy has a larger effect size and everything else, right? So we love talking about efficacy. So that's another mindset we need. And by the way, um, success mindset is shows up in all the other mindsets. So I have these like new recorded modules and I put success mindset first because if you don't ha, if you don't believe you can be successful. None of the others,

Jessica 22:07

Yeah.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 22:09

yeah, can, can, I don't know, o operate.

Jessica 22:11

Oh, that makes so much sense though.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 22:13

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, I was like, oh my God. I kept in all my other research anyway. It was like, oh, here it is again. Okay, so then there's value mindset. I believe this has value for me.

Jessica 22:25

Okay.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 22:25

There's belonging mindset, which I mentioned. I believe I belong here. And then there's ownership mindset. I believe that by being responsible, I can change things.

Jessica 22:37

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I love it so much. Um, and I feel like I Al did I, did we already talk about Brene's, Brene Brown's book or did I just think about that the last time we were talking? Yeah. Maybe I didn't say it. I

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 22:50

No, no, no, we didn't. We didn't talk about it.

Jessica 22:53

Brene Brown's book, Atlas of the Heart. Have you read it?

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 22:56

I have not.

Jessica 22:57

Oh my goodness. It is so good. It's my favorite book ever. And it goes into all of these, um, emotions, um, and just like dives into the science behind them and everything. And, um, it's, it. Just like the, the idea of all of these mindsets reminds me so much of the, the emotional inte intelligence of like, knowing what you're thinking at the time. And, um, and it also goes back again to conscious discipline. I said, you know, I used that a ton with my daughter and, um, I was trained at, at my last school. And, um, and so then as you're talking about all these mindsets, I'm thinking. Okay, do I have these mindsets? And then also, how can I help foster those mindsets within her? Um, because I also, I mean, growth mindset, of course, we work on that all the time. I'm like, time she tries something new, she's like, I can't do it. I'm like, you can't do it yet. remember when I start things, I struggle with them too. You know, you, we always have room to learn. And, um, and just like trying to get her to wrap her head around the fact that like her. She has the ability to grow. Um, but I just, that was one of the, one of the first things that I heard you say about the, about the mindsets that I was just like, oh my God, yes. I love everything about this. Like it's, I find it fascinating.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 24:19

Yeah, and I, I, I wanna actually say part of my, kind of, I have a framework for each one of these mindsets, and part of the growth mindset framework is discomfort tolerance. So I have my grid, it's, it's, it's an acronym grid, which is growth equals reflection, plus informed action plus discomfort tolerance. And one thing that we don't talk about is the dysregulation that comes from being challenged and learning something. New and still believing I can do it and it can still be dysregulating, right?

Jessica 24:54

Right.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 24:54

and so growing our muscle of being uncomfortable,

Jessica 24:58

Yes. I.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 24:59

over and over and over again, and there's actually a part of our brain that grows when we continuously do things that we don't wanna do over and over and over again. It's very interesting.

Jessica 25:10

Yeah, well, I've had a lot of un uncomfortable moments the past year, so I'm sure mine is just huge right now.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 25:19

I, I wanted, I wanted to actually share one more story about the mindset with, with data. Um, yeah.'cause it, it, I, I think it exemplifies another mindset, so I. A couple years ago, I was in a teacher's classroom with their coach, and I was, um, I, I had just met her and she, um, uh, it was like, hi, nice to meet you. I'm gonna be in your classroom. Right. And she, I, I'm, I'm gonna tell you, she gave me what's called provisional trust. So we talk about trust, like it has to be built. Yes. And there's a psychological kind of, um. The concept that exists that some people, not everyone, some people actually give us provisional trust. They actually are willing to trust us immediately, and then we'll assess whether we get to keep that trust or not. Right? So something I, you know, I wasn't sure actually, you know, hi, nice to meet you. What are your goals? I'm gonna come and observe you. Right? So she was saying, well, you know, she was complaining about behavior. Right. One of the, the classics like, well, if you can help me make my kids behave better. And I was like, okay. Right. Haven't been in your classroom. I'm not sure what's going on, but I'll try. Right. So we go in and I. I'm observing her and I see immediately she is and, oh, oh, oh, I wanted to say this. Um, the talking about data, I was like, Hey, how can we make this measurable? And she was like, eh, she was unwilling to make a measurable goal'cause she was so stuck on behavior. Right. And it was like, I just need, I just need the behavior. And I was like, okay. Got it. Right. And so when someone is, is really stuck, I don't push right? What we resist persists. I'm not gonna be like, you gotta do this thing,

Jessica 27:11

Right,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 27:11

me just go in and assess what's going on. I go in and I see immediately the behaviors, some of the behaviors are because her directions weren't clear. So I leaned into what I was hoping was provisional trust. I was like, pull her aside. I said, Hey, would you be willing to try this thing in making your, your instructions clear? She goes, okay. I, I really like, took a risk. I hadn't, she would've been like, right. Uh, but she went and did it and saw immediate results. We go back, we debrief and she's to, she immediately is open to my coaching, open to making a measurable goal because the mindset, I wasn't sure, but the mindset that I was really building with her was success mindset. It so frustrated being unsuccessful with the behavior in her classroom that what she needed, a lot of building self-efficacy is action. Right. I need to actually experience success. I don't need to talk about success. I need to experience, I need to either observe it or I need to ex. Usually it's people need to experience it themselves, right in the moment. I gave her an experience of success, and so there was more trust and she was totally open to utilizing data. And to this day, she's like, I still go into her classroom. And she's like, Hey, what are we working on today? And I mean, I could tell her anything. I could like teach from the ceiling and she'd be like, yes, let's do it. That. But I just, I wanted to share that, right, that that one teacher needed me to have her feel respected. This other teacher didn't need that at all. She needed to feel success immediately in this very way, I.

Jessica 28:57

Yes, yes. I agree so much with that. Um, and I've seen that with other teachers that I've worked with in the world of data as well with just like, um, with more like academic data and why am I collecting all this data? You know, there's no point. Um,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 29:14

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica 29:16

it's funny because when I, uh, present on the. TSS systems. I know that's so redundant. I hate saying M TSS systems. Um, every time I, it comes outta my mouth, I'm like, how can I say that differently?'cause it feels redundant. Uh, but as we were working on these systems, um, we had some teachers that were just like. No, I'm not doing it. But since we were, um, going very slow and taking a ton of feedback and creating these systems with everyone in mind, and everyone had a voice in it, uh, there are some people that just wanted to volunteer and they would bring their data to these meetings and have these conversations and, and start feeling that success that they don't typically feel because they don't slow down to see it. You know, we usually look at state assessment data where you're never gonna feel success and, well, I, I shouldn't say never, but. Most of the time it's not gonna feel great. Or diagnostic data where, you know, maybe there's growth there, but you don't even know exactly what led to that growth. You don't see the, um, you can't correlate it to the, the teacher actions, right? So when you're sitting in these, these meetings that we held, and I have videos of them and it just gives me chills every time I watch it. Um, and they're looking at. The tiniest of data,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 30:38

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 30:39

the teeny tiny data that

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 30:40

Yes.

Jessica 30:41

just collect, you know, once or twice a week on whether or not the student is making growth on this one particular skill that they're working on.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 30:47

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 30:48

much easier to see that growth,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 30:51

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica 30:51

much easier to feel like I did that.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 30:55

Yeah.

Jessica 30:56

And so we had this teacher that we worked with, and I've talked about this on another podcast actually with someone I used to work with. Um, she, she came to us like a few years later and was like, listen, when we first started that, I was like, Nope, I'm not gonna be the volunteer for that. I'm gonna wait until they dragged me into this, this

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 31:11

Yeah.

Jessica 31:11

do it.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 31:12

Yeah.

Jessica 31:13

I started going to these meetings. And what I saw was that, you know, we would pop around and talk about different students and when it came to me, I'd be like, yeah, I guess they, I guess they feel, I feel like they're doing pretty good. It seems like they're

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 31:24

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 31:25

you know? And then it would go to someone else and they'd be like, they did this much better. And since we could see it, we all felt like this, this celebration. And I was excited for her. And then I was like,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 31:35

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 31:36

I wanna feel that excitement.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 31:37

Yes.

Jessica 31:37

So then that's what actually got her, um, on board was being able to observe the success of others. Which again, going back to um, Jenny Donahue, who talks about,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 31:47

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 31:47

different experiences that lead to

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 31:50

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 31:50

efficacy. Um, we always, I always presented that at the end of that presentation.'cause I'm like, look at how we were able to hit all these and we didn't do it intentionally.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 32:00

Uh.

Jessica 32:01

to like stumble through it.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 32:03

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 32:04

worked. And when we go back and look at why it worked,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 32:07

Okay.

Jessica 32:07

we were able to give them those experiences of, of success, or they were able to watch the other people, their other staff members who they felt were in the same boat, feel that success. Um, and it, it's just such a good story to tell. I love telling this

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 32:21

It is. And that's, you know, first of all, I, uh, interviewed Jenny Donahue on my podcast on coaching the whole educator. Yeah. Yeah, she was really great. She was fun. Um, and, uh, what did I wanna say about that? It's, I think what you, I just really wanna name right. When we measure the small steps, that's when we can build efficacy. When we have, I, I call them ev, every mindset has a silent progress killer in, in schools like the way we do school, actually, actively, there's, there's ways that actively work against, um, supporting these mindsets. Um, and so with the success mindset, efficacy, um, the kind of culture of the way we do school, the overemphasis of long-term goals, right, like end of year goals and the ignoring of small wins goes against building efficacy when we work continuously and measure, just like you said, those small goals. That builds efficacy. And neurologically, when you look at the neuroscience of like building habits, one thing you need to, there's kind of a, a, a trigger to the behavior and then when you do the behavior, uh, the other piece of solidifying a habit. Right. A, an action over and over again is a reward. We actually have to reward. Our brain needs to be like, I got, I got a reward from this behavior, so I wanna do it again. Not only creating opportunities for those small wins and celebrating them, create neurologically a want to do that again and again, and that's how we create habits. That's how we sustain change in our schools.

Jessica 34:11

Oh my goodness. I could talk about brain science all day long. I love that stuff. It's, I find it so fascinating,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 34:18

Mm-hmm.

Jessica 34:18

our brains work and, And how they work. Well, we don't even think they're working like, like

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 34:24

Yes.

Jessica 34:25

so, interesting to me. Um, so we've talked about, you know, the, the actual actionable step of, of going with those small, tiny steps and um, and celebrating along the way. What are some other ways that, um, school leaders can. Make sure that they are actually taking that, that human-centered approach rather than just focusing on like the, the tech aspects of the data initiatives.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 34:56

And are you talking about like specifically utilizing data in a human-centered way?

Jessica 35:00

I, you can go general or if you

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 35:02

General. Okay.

Jessica 35:03

that's

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 35:04

Okay. Okay. Okay. There's two ways I wanted to, okay. There's, uh. This happens so much where I'm like, I have two answers at the same time. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna share the human-centered data way and then I'm gonna kind of share broadly,

Jessica 35:16

Love it.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 35:17

um, one way that, so first of all, co-constructing goals, I know I shared this earlier, is a human-centered way to utilize data, right? Um, so the act of creating the goals themselves. Also when we think about goals, like the goals that you were naming were all student learning goals. I think about setting measurable goals in three buckets. Um, I think about setting it in as in teacher actions. We can actually measure teacher actions, right? Like how many times she calls on what students or how many instructional engagement. Strategy she used in a lesson, right? So that could be one thing that we measure. We can also measure, uh, student actions, right? Um, how quickly students turn and talk and are, you know, are, follow the directions once the teacher. It gives that, right? So we can measure that and then we can also ma measure student learning. So it's also very human centered to measure different things as well, and giving teachers the agency to choose that. Right? What do you wanna measure? So like how, you know, do you wanna measure your actions? Their actions, right? And then, and then within that, what do you wanna measure, right? So broadening out what, when we give teachers agency within data, right? Or within implementing a change in general, that builds ownership mindset, which is actually in my my opinion. The toughest to build because what I'm starting to learn about ownership mindset, which is um, which is the one that I actually, I, uh, kind of created that from a combination of things. What I'm learning about developing teacher ownership is it's nuanced and oh, you know, think about ownership, right? By the way, on the continuum of going beyond buy-in. I wanna pull this up real quick. I have a little graphic here. Um, uh, a dear friend of mine, Dr. Chris Jones, he created levels of engagement. And so he created this whole continuum and he says, if we're gonna go beyond buy-in, we can have ownership, which is the next level. We can have commitment, and then we have leadership, right? And we're actually kind of. Working towards commitment when we are, when we are building this, but even if we just go to the next level of ownership, we not only need agency, but we need to support the other mindsets. Right? So one thing that I, um, like to tell leaders, right? First of all, we wanna reframe resistance. So one thing I want folks to think about, one, change happens, expect resistance.

Jessica 37:53

Yes.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 37:53

don't wanna be surprised by it. It's like change is happening. Expect resistance, right? Also, resistance is a human experience. I experience resistance. You do. We all do. And like I shared earlier, we hire critical thinkers, right? Our, this is the people we want in our schools, and they're grappling. I experienced resistance as a teacher. Right.

Jessica 38:18

Yeah.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 38:19

and, and so I, I mean, I, I was a cri, I, I was like, I was like a no and then a yes when change happened. I'm like, I don't know. And then I would adopt it later.

Jessica 38:28

I was like, I, yes, I, I gave that provisional trust. You know, I'm one of

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 38:31

Yeah.

Jessica 38:31

people. I'm like, yes, I'll do it. Perfect. And then I start getting into, I'm like, wait a second. Did you actually think.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 38:41

It's so funny. Yeah. So, you know, one, one thing I just wanna like neutralize resistance to change, right? And so when we're implementing change, um, I think about, uh, the, the tiers in terms of teachers. So we do tier one support with teachers. We tell everyone, our whole staff, Hey, there's a change, right? And I'm going to. I tell you what the change is, and I'm gonna hopefully teach you about how to implement that change. Whole staff.

Jessica 39:07

Fingers crossed. Yeah.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 39:08

Ringers crossed, right? So then we send our staff off, we're like, go ahead and implement that change. Some will implement it completely. Some will partially do something and some won't at all. They'll go back to their classrooms and continue teaching as they were, right? And then what we wanna do is drill down and find the root cause of what's causing the teachers to not implement this change. Right? And so one of the. Biggest barriers I find with leaders to effectively impacting and empowering their teachers to implement and sustain the change is their shoulds. They have their shoulding all over themselves and making a mess. You got it right. And so when we.

Jessica 40:00

Thank

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 40:00

Yes. And it, and it is, and it is very prevalent. We don't realize it in, in, in, in leadership and coaching. It shows up that I think you should behave a certain way or you shouldn't resist this change.'cause it's what's best for children. Don't you care about kids? I, I have people, I have people say, how do I make a teacher care about you? I'm like, hold on. Hold on. Right? So it's their shoulds that are really getting in the way. And what Brene Brown calls it is their, your armor, right? And so I've actually, I've created a continuum and I call it the expectation continuum.'cause on one side is should, and a should is just an expectation, plus a judgment. On the other side of the continuum is support, and that's an expectation plus curiosity.

Jessica 40:52

Oh, oh, I love it.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 40:55

So we wanna shift from judgment about how they are or aren't implementing the change to curiosity about why they're not. But like really curious, right? Because what causes resistance is unmet needs. That's all it is. It's unmet needs. I have unmet needs. Sometimes you have unmet needs sometimes, right? I current, my relationship with the gym is resistance. Right. But when we have our shoulds, it's actually our own form of resistance. So hang with me, Eric. So I'm gonna say resistance a bunch of times When I, when someone is resisting change, and I ha I think they shouldn't be that way. I am resisting their resistance

Jessica 41:40

Right. Yes.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 41:41

me, right? And what Carl John says, he's a psychologist. What he says is what we resist persists. We are keeping with our shoulds, with our resistance. We are keeping their resistance in place. The very thing we don't want to exist, we are keeping in place with our shoulds,

Jessica 42:01

Yeah, makes

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 42:03

and the way that we stop resisting them is by meeting them with curiosity and non-judgment. Right. And what resistance is. Right. Part of resistance neurologically is dysregulation. So there's two parts of the brain, and I'm showing it with my hand right now. There's a, you're, you're, you're, you're nodding.'cause I am feeling, you know, right. We have the prefrontal cortex and we have the amygdala. Right. Kind of in the center of our brain. Our prefrontal cortex is a. Smart part of our brain. This is what has our ability to critically think and problem solve and lesson plan and be professional, right? It all lives here in the smart part of our brain. This is the useful part of our brain for our job, our amygdala's in charge of our survival. It's very important to us, right? It's a very primal part of our brain. This is where our fear gets processed, and this is where our fight, flight, and freeze also exists, right? When our amygdala is in charge, we go into black and white thinking, and we can also, we become very protective, us versus them.

Jessica 43:04

Right.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 43:05

So when we feel resistance, right, it is an experience of feeling unsafe in some way. We essentially flip our lid, our, our, our prefrontal cortex goes offline. Our amygdala goes online. It hijacks us. Our amygdala hijack right. Our amygdala hates logic. Our amygdala cannot lesson plan. Certainly cannot pivot when a student is right off task or not getting a a, a concept, right? We need that smart part of our brain, so when we help meet people's needs, it helps'em put their lid down and have that smart part come back online. This is what dysregulation is. Flipping our lid is dysregulation, right?

Jessica 43:52

It's so funny because it just takes me back to, um, I worked in a fairly small teaching and learning team. But they're like all my best friends too. Um, but we would tell each other, we'd be like, no, you are not in your executive state. Like you do not, you have flipped your lid

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 44:07

Yes.

Jessica 44:07

You need to wait a little bit. Do what you

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 44:09

Yes.

Jessica 44:10

to bring yourself back down to your, or back up to your executive state, um, so that you can think logically because you're not thinking logically, you're thinking emotionally

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 44:18

Yeah.

Jessica 44:19

So,

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 44:20

Yeah.

Jessica 44:21

we, it was. It was so funny to do it in front of other people too, because they're like, what are you talking about? And we're like, oh no, we're just calling each other out on our brain states.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 44:30

Yes, exactly, and to understand that there are different parts of our brains being activated at different times when we have flipped our lid and the amygdala is in charge. What tends to happen is someone's dysregulated and we we're speaking to the amygdala. Now if we speak logic, like, okay, let's just sit down and, you know, try to lesson plan that amygdala hates this. Um, the amygdala cannot process lesson planning. Right. That person. You know, we, and us as humans providing human connection, we are wired for connection. We are wired for connection. We are yearning for it, right? And what sometimes what happens is we tend to put up these walls like a shield, right? And Brene Brown calls it armor, right?

Jessica 45:18

Mm-hmm.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 45:18

oh, I'm being professional. And sometimes what that is, is actually a shield so we don't have to deal with. Doing the work to connect with someone that's dysregulated, because when we actually create that connection, it immediately helps someone regulate.

Jessica 45:36

I love it. Oh my goodness. I could, we could talk about this for three days straight. Um, and I still would not be over it because I, I just, like I said, I just find all of it so fascinating and, um. Coming from like my professional life, my personal life, my

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 45:52

Yeah.

Jessica 45:52

a mom. Like, just I, oh my goodness. I love it. Um, but we do have to eventually wrap up. So, um, I appreciate this conversation so much and I appreciate you coming and chatting with me. If anybody wants to get ahold of you, how could they get ahold of you?

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 46:12

Okay. There's a few ways. One, there's my, you can check out the work that I do on my, uh, website. My company's the whole educator, and you can just check me out@thewholeeducator.com. I'm on all the major, um, uh, social media. So Instagram at the whole educator. You can find me at Becca Silver and LinkedIn. I'm pretty, um. Uh, active on LinkedIn as well on Twitter, becca silver edu. Um, and I have my own podcast just like you, and I'm excited to have you on my podcast. It's called Coaching the Whole Educator. And so I talk about ways to grow as a, a coach and a leader and impact your teachers, um, in a centered way. So you can find me at that podcast as well, and then you can just, there's a contact link if you want to, you know, contact me directly, abeka@thewholeeducator.com. I'd love to hear from you. And I do wanna share a couple things are, are that you can access about the catalyst mindsets. If you wanna know more, there's a free quiz. Um, so you can actually take a quiz to find out, um, which, um, catalyst mindset your team needs. Support in. Um, and then when you take that quiz, it'll tell you what, um, mindset you need and then it'll email you a free ebook. There is a free resources section on my website as well, so you can just grab that ebook if you, if you don't wanna take the quiz, there's other free resources as well as, and then I am actually finalizing as we speak, a recorded curriculum that gives, uh, coaches and leaders access to a framework for each of the mindsets. Right. So once you figure, so there's a, there's a module on how do you figure out what mindsets people need support in, and then there's a mi uh, a module for each one of them. How do you actually implement it? So I'm excited for that as well.

Jessica 48:02

Awesome. All of the links, um, are in the show notes and then we'll also add a link to that free quiz as well so that anybody can grab that just from the show show notes. thank you again. I appreciate you being here and I look forward to continuing this conversation. Probably gonna go, um, download your first. Million episodes of the podcast and just listen to'em straight because this is just itching that part of my brain that that feels so good. So, um, thanks again.

Becca Silver | The Whole Educator 48:33

Yeah. Thank you for having me. This just so much fun.