EP2: How Do We Get Kids Excited About School?

Educator, author, and performer Dr. Giani Clarkson joins Steven, Katie, and Jay to discuss the art of student engagement. From building authentic relationships to creating culturally relevant learning, we explore strategies that inspire excitement, belonging, and purpose so every student sees school as a place they want to be.

Hosts: Jay Haffner - Literacy Consultant, Katie Morrison - Mathematics Education Consultant, Dr. Steven Snead - Supervisor of Curriculum & Assessment.

This podcast is proudly brought to you by Oakland Schools Intermediate School District in the great state of Michigan. Oakland Schools is an educational service agency that offers support services to school districts that are best delivered regionally and provide cost, size and quality advantages to those we serve. Oakland Schools is an autonomous, tax-supported public school district governed by Michigan General School Laws and is one of 56 intermediate school districts (ISDs) established in Michigan in 1962.

If you are an educator in Oakland County, Michigan, check out www.oakland.k12.mi.us to explore the services and professional learning opportunities available to support you. 

Have feedback for the hosts? We'd love to hear from you! Email steven.snead@oakland.k12.mi.us to connect with us. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are tuning into the Teaching Tomorrow podcast. I am one, just one, 33.332323% of your hosts. Uh Steven, uh, let my other hosts introduce himself.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Hey, hey, Katie Morrison, math consultant with Oakland Schools.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

And the third leg of the stool, I am Jay Hafner, Oakland Schools Literacy Consultant.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

And I am Stephen Sneed, supervisor of the awesome, amazing curriculum and assessment unit at the Oakland Schools ISD in the lovely state of Michigan. This is our second episode of the Teaching Tomorrow podcast with JKDNC. We are happy to be joined by an esteemed guest who is not in the studio but is in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. We're going to bring him on in a minute. But first I want to tell you about this topic today, very apropos for the beginning of the school year. How, how, how, how do we get kids excited about school? How do we get kids excited about school? I have three teenagers that live in my house and eat up all my food and run my water bill up. Um, and I can definitely tell you that exciting and school might not necessarily be two words they're gonna put in the same sentence. So, educators, we have some work to do, but we know you are the one to do it and we are there with you. So, my main man's a hunter grandj. What do you say? How do we get kids excited about school?

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Yeah, I think it's a really important question. And I think one of the things we need to consider is how do we make school a place that they want to come to and be a part of? And you know, listening to you, Steven, and and and framing uh your your kids and how they're not excited for school. Uh, I do not have teenagers. I have a second grader and a kindergartner. They don't eat enough of my food or opposite ends. I could not get them to eat enough. Is that a dad? Copyright violation. Or more to come. Uh yeah, but I, you know, I'm I'm often like struck by how excited my kids are to go to school uh on a day-to-day basis. Uh it feels like every morning is Christmas morning. They wake up, they're excited. That's what it's where they go to see their friends, they love their teacher. It's a space that they they want to be. I they bring so much energy in the morning, more energy than I have to give in the morning. So I'm I'm fighting with that morning energy, but it's a place that they want to be. We know that uh statistics show that as students go through their uh uh go through school, that they become less and less interested to attend as they move into middle school and as they move into high school. They become less engaged uh for whatever reasons or for a multitude of reasons. Those spaces are just not engaging students the way uh we do at the elementary level. So that's uh that's just my first take on things. I'm always interested in engaging in conversations around why are elementary schools such engaging places? And I think we should do an episode around that with uh our amazing elementary school teachers. Uh, but let's think about ways in which we're building engaging spaces that that uh middle schoolers and teenagers want to be.

unknown 3:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Katie, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Yeah, what do you say?

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, building off of the ideas that we had in our first episode where we were talking about the belonging button, right? Hitting that belonging button. Yeah, I mean, I think it's about creating spaces where kids feel like they belong, like this school is yours. Um, so what are we doing to help shape the space so that kids feel like this is their space and not our space? Um, I think that, you know, Jay, what you said around like creating spaces where kids want to be. So not just this is our space, but this is like where we want to go. Um, and I think that those like spaces do exist inside of our schools, right? I was, you know, we recently facilitated a professional learning session for disciplinary literacy where we were talking about like, what do you want your classrooms to be like for your students? Like when your kids are most engaged and most happy, like what does that look like? And hearing from teachers like talk and share with you know those stories that they're sharing. I think that you know, there there are those spaces. And so if we asked our teenagers, is school a place that you want to be? You know, they might have like moments. And so, how do we create a space where it's like all seven, eight hours of that day that they're there, they're feeling like good about that space.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Synergy where it all works synergy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I mean, I think I mean, speaking of like where it all works together, you know, sometimes when I think about like how do we get kids excited about school, are we really working together with the kids to make it a place where they want to be? Or is it very adult-centric where like I've made the decisions, I've decided what we're gonna learn, how we're gonna learn, and how you're gonna demonstrate it. So when you come into the school space, none of it's about you. None of it is based in your identity, your culture, your preferences, your interests, your like. It's all about the adults in in the space. And so therefore, it's not really my school, it's your school. And it's hard to get people excited, whether they're young or old. It's hard to get them excited about a thing that doesn't belong to them, that's not theirs, that they don't have like ownership or a stake in like, oh, I made this thing, um, so now I'm really vested in its success. Well, if it's your thing, it's your test, and if it's your activity, then to the extent I care about that, I'll get into it. And to the extent I die, I don't, then then I won't. So how can we truly like co-create with kids? And I want to co-create a moment here together and bring on our esteemed, educated, learned, wise, sagacious, efficacious uh uh uh teacher, award-winning teacher, author, all that in a bag of chips, and not like that little knockoff chips. We're talking about like real good better-made, because we're in we're in Metro Detroit. Shout out to Detroit. Yeah, like that real good like bag of better-made chips. Dr. Gianni Clarkson. Sir, welcome to the podcast from our nation's capital in in Washington, D.C. Uh, social studies teacher, great orator uh all around. Uh my brother Gianni, excuse me, excuse me, Dr. Clarkson. Um, geez, come on now. You know, I I gotta throw the title out there. I mean, you know, you wrote the dissertation. Um what what's your take on this topic? Like, how can we get kids excited about school?

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Well, you know, that's it's a great question, and I feel like it's an everybody problem. Or should I say everyone should be part of the solution? I think it's one part what teachers are doing in the classroom. It's one part uh the school communities that administrators are building out. And the third part, what are parents talking about on the way to school? It's an everybody problem. I think about what parents, um, and I of course being a parent, um, are you taking the time over the summer to set goals for your scholar before they enter the schoolhouse? Hey, you know, last year our grades didn't look that great. Or last year our grades did look that great. How do we gonna do that? What are some things that we're looking forward to being in this new grade? What are some things that we're gonna try? How are we gonna be brave this year? Uh, how are we gonna step outside of our comfort box? Um, what are the things that we're gonna work on? I think those are really great, smart tools that parents need to think about doing before kids even leave um and look will really enter the schoolhouse. What teachers, and I I keep saying this all the time, I I don't care how many degrees you have and and how smart you tell me you are. If your lessons are boring, they're boring. You know, well, I mean that they are, right? So what are you doing? Oh, what did you do over the summer to make sure that you're building out impactful unit plans that get keep keep students engaged every day? Now, mind you, every day instructionally cannot be, you know, uh the cahoot central, as I like to say. Um and we we have some teachers that are some cahoot warriors, you know. Every Friday, you know, it's cahoot it's a cahoot here, cahoot there, cahoot everywhere. But listen, are is instruction sound? Are you bringing together relevant lessons that uh and you know connect real life experiences to what's going on with students because that helps build excitement as well, too. Last but not least, are is your the administrators inside your school building solid reward systems that celebrate student achievement. Um, oftentimes inside of school communities, the the squeaky, the squeaky wheel gets all the oil, right? Yeah, our students that are high flyers, our students that are not having the best time academically, we pour so hard into those students, but we really don't take consideration like, hey man, you know, little Johnny over there come to school every day. We should probably celebrate that. Yeah um, you know, such that's got an A on their test and has straight A's. We should celebrate that. Because what happens is that when we celebrate positive behaviors more than trying to rectify those uh non-desirable behaviors, we change the culture of our school. We literally flip it on its head. And I think that by doing those three things in a solid attack, I think that's how we make sure that school that children are in general really excited to get school, like to get the school year going.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Uh Gianna, excuse me, I'm sorry, Dr. Clarkson. Uh I really liked uh I liked your your framing of that that it's an everybody problem. Yeah, and I think sometimes a lot of my teacher peeps, shout out to all my teachers who are listening uh to the Teaching Tomorrow podcast. I think some uh a lot of us feel like the world is on your shoulder, like it's it's your problem. It's not an everybody problem, it's a teacher problem. That's how it's framed. That's how sometimes is how it's framed. Like it's it's a like it's it's a lot of teacher blame. And I know a lot of teachers out there like, help me. Like, can I get some help? You know, can I get some help from the admin? Can I get some help from the parents? Can I get some help from the the students themselves? Right. Can I get some help from larger society? So I love that framing that this is not an issue that is teachers alone to solve it. Now, obviously, as we're in the classroom, we're interacting with school, a lot of that that responsibility is on us, but it's not on us alone that it really takes everybody in that. Um Jay, what were you saying?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Yeah, I was just gonna like picking up on the point. I think classrooms are nothing more than a microcosm of the larger society in which we live. Right. And and it's we can we have four walls in a classroom and a really strong door. None of those walls or doors are strong enough to keep the pressures of the outside world and and the influences of the outside world from inundating the work we're doing inside of the classroom. And so I guess what what I'm what I really want to get at is understanding and knowing that dynamic that we face in the classroom every day. There are so many stories of inspiration, of st of teachers that are just leaning hard into creating these incredible spaces of learning for students from the kindergarten all the way up to being seniors at high school. So, Dr. Clarkson, if you could, in your in all the great work you're doing inside, elaborate and pontificate. Elaborate and pontificate a little about what are some of the things you do to build inspiration for your students that do build those welcoming spaces that they want to come back to because I know they want to be in your classroom. They love being there. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

It's funny because you're you're as you say that I'm actually sitting next to one of my welcoming spaces, which is I decided this year that what I want to do is create a VIP lounge and it comes equipped with um I can I I really want to kind of turn my camera. Can I do that?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

You can tell what we'll we'll describe what we're seeing for the audience.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, I'll describe so vodka season four. Season four, yeah. So we'll do that season. So I have a couch, I have a coffee table in my room, I have velvet ropes that separate this part of my classroom from the rest of my classroom, and I have a beautiful flat screen TV. Uh it's called the VIPA lounge. If you do not have an A in my class, you cannot enter the lounge. And literally, what it does is it has the names of everyone that's gonna be welcomed in the lounge. So uh every other Friday, what I plan on doing is having VIPA lunch in the lounge. Um, there's going to be, of course, um additional incentives throughout the school year to that uh if you are a VIPA lounge member, you get to go on special field trips. We're setting up really an experience for kids that go, you know what, this is cool. Now, for those students that have a little bit of a concern, like, ah, my grades are not where they want it to be. I also have uh Tuesdays and Thursdays with Clarkson, which is literally design office hours where I have where students can come by, put in their Chick-fil-A order after school, and between 3:30 and 4:30 get additional tutoring that, of course, hey, I didn't understand that. Can you reteach that? Um, and that's important too. Providing safe spaces for children to ask to ask questions. You know, a lot of times the reason why kids hate school, or yeah, I'll say it hate school because they don't feel comfortable asking questions. Yeah, and it's like, well, wait a minute, you you came to this place to learn with an expectation that you don't know everything. And the way for you to learn something is to ask questions, but we haven't provided a safe environment for you to do the thing that you need. Man, that's bad practice. That's some bad, bad pedagogical stuff going on over there. So I want to make sure that this entire year, students know this is a safe place to learn. And I love when kids say to me, I can't wait to get to your class. Yeah. Because what that says is you have provided a place for me where I know I'm gonna learn something. And when I don't know something, it's safe for me to get that answer that I need. So that that to me is what I've done in my space. And and inside of my school community, there are tons of amazing spaces where people are doing a variety of various things to make sure that we're providing the best services to our students and and really taking in consideration student voice as well, too.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

Yeah.

unknown 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

So Dr. Clarkson, I'm wondering if you could tell our listeners, you know, thinking about our secondary teachers who might have students who for years have felt like school is not a place for them. For years, right? What can you tell our teachers who are saying, like, I'm working against like years of lack of engagement, lack of interest in in school. Um, you know, what do our teachers do when they're receiving those students in these first couple weeks of school?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

You know, I'm gonna quote the the musical King and I getting to know you, getting to know all about you, yeah, getting to like you, getting to hope you like me. And what I mean by that is that there's nothing wrong with a sunshine phone call before the rain starts. Okay, there's a really bad teaching practice when the first time that a teacher calls home is when there's a problem. Yeah, gotta stop that. Right. Hey, my name is Dr. Clarkson. Um, me and your child are gonna kick it for 180 days. What are some things that I need to know about your scholar? What are they like? What are they dislike? Um, what is their hesitancy about this subject that I teach? Well, let me tell you some things about me. I like I like to go outside, I like being outside when the weather's nice, I love field trips. You know, being very intentional in relationship building. See, we we say that word a lot, like, oh, you got to build relationships with kids. We do, we do. But it's not, but kids is really parentheses for for their family. You're really building relationships with their family. What are the what is what are the moments where you're saying to their family, hey, um if there's something that's going on in your in your family household that's a little that's not at its best, you can trust me to make sure that I still treat your child fair. Um, you can trust me to make sure that I'm giving your child a fair chance. That's what parents want to know. And and we're, you know, for those of us that are parents on this panel, you want your you want your child to know that they're getting a fair shake. Yeah, but you also want to be able to trust that teacher. And it starts with building those relationships early and often. Um weekly, I send a classroom newsletter, not a school newsletter, a Dr. Clarkson newsletter. From me. I say, this is what we learned this week. This is the test that's coming up, these are things I'm excited about. About 80% of our students pass the test. Um, talk to your student to find out if they didn't do well on the test. Here are my office hours. This is my phone number. Um, call me, let's talk. And by doing that, they know that I'm a trusted partner, but also on the back end and make sure that unfortunately, if Mad Day does come, I can always say, I reached out. You didn't hit the ball across the net. And I don't, and I'm I'm a little sad that you didn't return serve. But now that we know this, let's return serve, let's build out something wonderful for your scholar.

unknown 18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

You know, I I love that because, you know, what the research tells us uh is that so many uh both students and their families that have historically struggled in schools often have a tense relationship with the school. Like they don't, and and sometimes the parents themselves have not had great relationships with school. So they see school as uh almost almost as an enemy, as as as it were. And so I love that you are talking about building up that sort of positive reserve. At some point, we we may need to have a critical conversation about good choices and decision making. Yeah, and but but I don't want that to define our relationship. I want that to be one piece in the overall relationship of the school. And I and I love how you mentioned that. Um I'm I'm wondering from your lane, talking to, and of course, our primary listener are teachers to the teaching to the teaching tomorrow podcast. But uh we hope that there are administrators and instructional coaches listening too from a teacher's lens. What would you say uh could be some supports that administrators should provide to teachers so that we can create those relationships and make the school an exciting place to be?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Well, you know, for me, I think it's really got to open up that budget. Open up that budget, give some teachers some money and tell them you're gonna be responsible for one community-building event inside of your classroom. Okay, talk to me. You're responsible for a community-building event. Now, inside of my school community, what I'm doing is that I know for back to school night, I'm literally going to go on my way to pass out invitations and say dinner with Clarkson. I'm not even calling it back to school night. We're gonna have dinner. I'm going to not buy pizza, I'm gonna get some real food. You know, we're gonna have a little, I'm I'm gonna take my I have tables that set up, are set up like four tops. I'm gonna get some um tablecloths, some paper, uh, paper plates, you know, drinks, everything that we need here. And I'm gonna present who I am while we have dinner. Um, there's a really great book called by E.L. Halloway that says uh um talks about brain science, how to get the best out of people. And one major chapter inside this book talks all about how when you sit down for dinner, it's a communal experience and people feel like they're part of a community. So for me, it's like, hey, I I'm gonna provide, I know that you're making a sacrifice from coming from your job to come to school to talk to me. I know that dinner is a concern. I've taken because I am a person that has a family, I'm taking that off the table. No, no excuses. Come on, let's talk. Let's get after it. And and really what it what it boils down to is that parents, and it's something you said, you know, earlier, uh Dr. Sneed, is that uh right back at you.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

That's me.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah, parents, parents want to feel human.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Not and they and they they really feel like they are not get they're not getting a human experience from us. Shameless plug, but I'll I'll go quick. So I talk about this in my book, Teach, Pray, Drink, about how there was a parent that I had who would not walk into uh the school. You know, she was active, but she had one rule, she's not coming into the school, not coming to the school at all. You know, after time and talking to her, because I had to meet with her at a Starbucks inside of um a grocery store. That's the only way she would meet with me. I one day just flat out asked her, you know, what was the shake? And she she fell out crying. And she talked about how there was a teacher that was in the school that treated her badly, that her daughter went to the same exact school she went to as a kid, and that this teacher treated her badly, took rulers, threatened to hit them all the time. And you know, this woman is dead and gone, but that trauma of that bad educational experience rubbed off on her so badly that she removed herself from our school community. We gotta be real careful. You know, we're dealing with real people in real time that have real feelings. Yeah, and and if we're talking about how do we make sure that we set the tone for that school community, it's not uh it's bigger than my lesson plan. Yeah, it's really planning to meet and learn and and love people because this is hard work, but it's heart work. And when we take the heart out of the work, we make this work way too hard.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah. Yeah. So so how do you make it easier? How do you make it easier? If it's way too hard, how do we make it easy? Because one thing that I know that that all of my teachers can can resonate with out there, we we need that easy button because the work is so hard, is it's arduous. What are some things we could do to make it easier to create those meaningful environments?

SPEAKER_00 23:37

I like I said, I I I'll go back to that weekly newsletter is a major move. I think that you know calling parents with some good with good news first before bad news would always help. Um I I think that capitalizing on any time there is any type of event, especially athletics. Um, if you're a teacher and your school has any type of sports teams, uh, you need to go to those games. Not just boys, girls as well, too. Because parent-teacher conference can happen anywhere. It can happen during halftime. It can happen at the concession stand. You know, never miss a chance to have contact with parents. Because this is what these parents want. They want they want contact, they want to know, do I think my child is special? Do you think my child is special? Because you know, I don't really trust this thing that I love with everybody. And you're a stranger until I know you. And if you don't take the time to know me, then we're gonna have some strange things happen between between the two of us. So, you know, that's why you know, I like of course I'm highly involved inside of my school community, you know, fellas that's on the basketball team and ladies on the basketball team. You come to our game this year, yeah, of course. You're gonna be the PA announcer, of course. Man, my mama asked about you. She wanted to make sure you was good. Yeah, I'm good. Like if you do this right, you start becoming an extended member of the family.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

You know, I've had the blessing of being in this, you know, being in this field for 16 years, Lord. Um, and I think about the fact that I've been to my former students' weddings, wow, graduations, baby showers. You know, how does the man that gave you homework sit there and RSVP for a wedding?

SPEAKER_03 25:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

You know, that's that's where we talk about building those strong relationships. And it's gotta be done day one because there, therefore, that that's what leads kids to running to school because they're not going to school, they're going to see extended members of their family.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah, I mean, you said it. I I think one of the challenges, we put a lot of things in front of, or a lot of things are put in front of educators that sometimes are challenged to remind us that this is a human job. First and foremost, it is about human connection. And, you know, we're talking about something interesting here that I've been thinking about. There are almost two competing forces going on here. There are families and parents that may have had bad educational experiences that are framing their uh what school is and their view of school. As educators, most of us as educators had really positive school experiences. And we often fall into the trap of creating school spaces based on the school and learning we had. Those two competing forces are often pushing against one another. So, Dr. Clarkston, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is for today's students in your classroom, a social studies class, you're delivering a lesson. What are some of the moves that you're putting in place to engage today's students right here, right now, to keep them engaged in your social studies lesson? How are you building that positive feel in a lesson?

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Boy, I in the state of our political climate, yeah, I got enough material, don't I? Wow, wow. And and I and I think that's where we talk about building out relevant lessons. You know, I tell my students that you all are the next generation of voters. I don't want to build you all to agree with me, but I do need to build you all to be patriots. And what I mean by that, to quote Mark Twain, and Mark Twain says it so brilliantly, is that patriotism means that I love my country, I love my country and question my government when it deserves it. That makes sense. Um, I want students to really understand how the world around them is moving and how it's going to affect them. And, you know, sitting right here, having the backdrop of the nation's capital, really having the backdrop of I can look out my window and see the Capitol building.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Having that there looming, um, and my students pass it, it looms in the shadows. And I tell them, I said, that building means a lot. It means a lot to you. It means a lot to me. And you need to know what's going on in in that building over there. Uh, my my students are really deliberate in trying to get this, and I and I think that's that's why they love my class the way that they do, because they're going, man, there's a lot of great things that are happening here. And I I want to know more. I want to be know more. And I one of the biggest compliments is that I had a young man say, you know, when my parents sit at the dinner table, I now know what they're talking about. Wow. And that's and that's you know, so I'm thinking to myself, for for three years, or for how many years you there was stuff that was said that was flying over your head, and you had no idea, and now it's been brought to you, and you're going, I get it now. I I it means something now. I I'm gonna register to vote now, I'm gonna pay closer attention to things now. Um that's that's for me how I bring that uh relevance and and really kind of bring that community inside my classroom.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

So you through the way you've been able to engage students really allows them to not just learn, but to participate. I can participate in democracy. It's off the page, it's in that building there, in that community in which I live. Right. I love that. Well, we're gonna live in a different space now because we're gonna transition to our hot topics as we begin to land the plane here. This is when it's gonna get real hot sizzling on this topic of how we get kids inside excited about school. Katie, I'm gonna toss it to you first to kick us off, ladies first.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

Already.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

How do we get kids excited about school? Your hot take.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

Yeah, yeah. So I appreciate everything that Gianni said to us, really giving us some like practical, like this is what we can and should be doing in our classroom. So my take is a little out there. Okay. Oh, good. So my idea is what if students ran part of the school day? And I'm not talking like, let's make uh you principal for the day, right? I'm talking about like real, genuine like parts of the day that they got to run. So they were doing mini lessons, they were designing lesson workshops, they were co-creating alongside with their teachers. I mean, I can just imagine that like if I knew tomorrow, I was sitting in my art class as the teacher teaching my fellow classmates how to draw anime, like I want to be there. I'm gonna not only do I wanna be there, I gotta be there on time. I gotta make sure my supplies are straight. And I feel like if we get to a space where like kids want to be there because it's the place that we've created that is theirs, um, doing that by giving them spaces to design the school day, I think would would push them into a place that they want to be at the school.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

I don't want to go after Katie now. I don't want to go after that. So you're gonna make Jay go next.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

I'm always rooting for those 10 out of 10s.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Yeah, yeah. We and now I gotta follow that up. So you know it's funny, we we don't hear a little behind the scenes, we don't have production meetings and share our hot takes with one another. We don't know. They're all a surprise to it.

SPEAKER_04 31:37

That's why I always have two, just in case one of you steals my hot take. I always come with that.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

As always, Katie is more prepared than I am. So my my hot take is not exactly the same, but it's pretty it it's it's similar. Uh, and so like I said, didn't didn't know that was Katie's hot take. But my hot take is what if in the days leading up to school, especially in uh let's let's think about a high school. Kids come and get their schedule, maybe they look for their locker, they go home, or maybe they're in just one space, they come to the cafeteria and they go home. What if we opened up our buildings a week before and we allowed students creative opportunities to come in and design what they want in the in the classrooms and in the hallways? We talk about making our walls talk, right? You know, having the walls, you know, full of student work and making the walls talk. What if we gave over uh the creative opportunity to students to design what that school could look like coming in at the start of the school year? Right, build lean into their creativity, let them put, you know, and it might be a motley, you know, mess of colors and in different poems and different pictures, but man, I think if we just allowed them to express themselves on our walls a little more often, then maybe that's an entry place to owning the learning that I'm gonna get for the coming school year.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Express shows what's Steven gonna throw down?

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Yeah, what you're gonna go, yeah, I'm gonna go left field at like I uh I'm uh I'm uh a little different, a little controversial here. So we think about school, many people do, as a place where kids are doing work, we're doing academic work, and we look at the language, the nomenclature by which we address things like turn in your work, show your work, uh, what work our students doing. What if we shifted our thinking, adults, kids, and parents? So again, I'm I'm really vibing on what Gianni said about it's an everybody problem. What if we transition that away from a work space but to an experience space? Yeah. Like what are the experiences that students should have? And we literally took all out the curriculum, okay? And aside from just like we're coming to this class to like read and write things on paper? Where's the experiences? Where are we physically going to dive deep into that? Who is a person that we're gonna talk to outside of the school gates that has authentic expertise and knowledge in this particular discipline that we're studying? And so what if we made the learning experience an experience-rich environment rather than a work-rich environment? Because if you ask me the question of would I like to have some experiences or would I like to go to work, uh I think we will all know the answer to that. Like, yeah, I want to have experience. When you're going on vacation, you want to have experiences. I want to ride the roller coaster, I want to go on the beach, I want to go do something. Um, let's transform the educational experience through the lens of experiences, uh, not work. But I will leave the last word to my esteemed brother Johnny, excuse me, Dr. Clarkson, to leave us with the last hot take. Any last now, you've been dropping some knowledge on us. I really like the VIP room. I want to see the VIP room, the VIP A lounge.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

I'm gonna take a picture. It's it's pretty dope.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Mine's gotta be the VIP S tier. Here we go. We're S tier.

SPEAKER_04 35:11

We can post the photo underneath our podcast. Yeah, yeah, we can put it in some of the shows.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

I like it. I like it. And we'll have you back for season four when we move to a vlog of video podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

But I'll give you the last word, brother. What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 35:26

So I would say my my controversial hot take is that uh community parent engagement equals graduation tickets. If you know, when graduation happens, everyone wants to clap, and you know, Big Mama wants a ticket, and Auntie Shirley, and you know, Uncle Jimbo, everybody wants a ticket. I'm saying that there should be a list of things that as a parent we need you to volunteer at the school to get, which will equal more tickets of your allotment. So let's say every school gets 10 tickets. Well, uh the Sneed family has, you know, worked concessions, did concessions at the uh for the play. Uh they also were one of the uh football moms. Well, you know what? That equals six additional tickets. So you can bring six additional people for this communal event that means a lot to everybody. And I think that would buy in a larger amount of engagement amongst parents. So then the great thing about it is that you know, if there's we there's more tickets than the venue, then we know that we now have a larger communal space, so everybody wins.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

You know, to an extent, I didn't even know that uh uh that necessarily in that system, but in in a lot of private school environments, you you as a parent have to commit to certain things in the school because I think they're trying to cultivate that uh uh school community. But that's a very hot take that's very, very hot. Very, very, very spicy.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

Jay, take us out. Thank you very, very much for joining us, Dr. Clarkson. We are done with our second episode. Two episodes down, hopefully, many, many more to come. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

Let's hope.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

Let's hope, yes. And uh and more jokes by Jay. More more jokes, more uh, more huge takeaways from our guests. I mean, we've had some pretty good guests here to start. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and guess what? We have another guest lined up for the third episode. Join us next time. We're gonna be diving into a conversation that I know you're not gonna want to miss. It is a nice follow-up to this one. Once we figure out how to get the kids excited about coming to school, we are now gonna focus on how do we get kids to come to school and and sort of build a space that can tackle some of these attendance issues. For this episode, we're gonna be joined by the assistant superintendent of Oak Park Schools, Shayna Murphy. All right. In the meantime, I like her. Yeah, we like I like her too. Yeah, she's good. She's good. She is, she's inspirational. You're gonna you all who are listening are gonna love Shayna Murphy.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

In the meantime, don't forget to follow or subscribe to Teaching Tomorrow wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a rating or comment. Smash the like. It helps other educators find these conversations. And if you liked what you heard, share this episode with a colleague who could use a little inspiration for the year. I'm I'm feeling pretty inspired right now for the start of the school year. I think we're off to a really good start. Until next time, keep teaching, keep learning, and keep building the tomorrow your students can believe in because here at Teaching Tomorrow, we believe in you. See you next time.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Bye bye.