001foreign was supposed to be here today to talk about uh advocating for the healthy relationship skills course that you know you've been hearing about for how many years and so actually I've been doing a lot of homework again this last month remember I gave you these Bill numbers and they were not correct because every year they changed the numbers so I finally got a hold of somebody so the new bill is a 3087 I've had many phone calls trying to get where that is happening it's in the education committee uh the addabil office who is the initial person who put it on the jacket in 2017. I was not able to get a hold of him so then I went to Anna callus and the callus got me to Vivian cook who is a legislative
002person I finally got to talk to her doctor and she's now checking in with the adult office to see where we are with that mandate for social emotional learning okay so I just wanted to give you the update on that and to say that Kelly is sorry she's not here she had some family issues so she could not be here today so do you have any other questions about where this is at or anything about it I'm glad to come here make sure we get that uh I have to admit I haven't looked at it but the last time we were traveling the Albany a lot so it's good to have a new number yes any responses from my house another day thank you all right so we're moving on to improve our minutes from
003our last meeting and uh it's been a while I looked at those minutes they were five minutes well thank you for that so they're going to be approved and next we're moving on to our objects and we have to hold on let me refresh my memory I know we have at least two critical items that were determined to discuss today yeah just the two right literacy and the anti-marginalization right they already take a squid teach us everything we need to know in 15 minutes about this I'm gonna take a deep breath for that one okay okay I want to begin by sharing that all of us can remember moments of when we learn to read like I remember learning the word the and then seeing it everywhere and when learning another language I remember learning
004a word and always thinking to myself well I'm glad I learned that word because a lot of people are using it when really they had always been using that word I just wasn't hearing it I didn't know it yet and so if you can think back to moments that you had as a reader those light bulbs this is what we are trying to understand in the body of research right now so who learns how to read and why and what are the components and I'm I'm giving an example specific to reading there's also literacy so comprehension oral language development and then the reading and the writing component so just to Define these two terms I just want to start talking about reading but then I'd like us to stand out and think about literacy as
005as a full meal folks in the district say readings they aren't necessarily talking about the comprehensive universe is that a fair Essentials right but when they talk about literacy and they should be talking about everything including reading correct we're learning already okay Okay so right now in the field Educators and caregivers are really debating discussing how do kids learn to read how do we know hi Harris they learn to read and why if we understand how kids learn to read why why haven't they been doing that and that you'll hear is the science of life and I have my own um my own personal thinking on that and how the field of Education and Research has been funded versus other Sciences and how opening up you know caregivers watching their children learn how to read
006online really elevated the conversation quickly wait a second how come you know I learned to sound out a word how come my kid is looking at a picture and being asked to to guess what they think it is so that is uh the the podcast that Lots uh you might have heard reference to called Soul the story it folks are listening to that and it documents the history of leading in the United States and how it's been taught in our schools so so essentially uh I have some handouts and I wish I'm going to hand these we can [Music] we got you okay all right so I feel like we need some of the materials for you to build context yeah okay all right we're supposed to have different things okay okay so you can
007tell I haven't been in the class room in 10 years because I totally just did the teacher foul where you hand things out and then you talk to kids as they're like sure oh wow I know officially wow I loved it love it uh so what you'll see in front of you those bound texts if you open that up that's an example of a decodable text so when we're talking about reading children you have three different levels kindergarten first the second grade this is an example of how a child might learn a rule about how letters interface with one another and they're taught it and then those passages only have those letter combinations so a child can go through and practice so when you look at that what do you is there anything you notice
008jumps out at you where in here any any page any one of the passages um I mean these yeah yeah the thing I noticed that I was happy to have noticed because it wasn't the first two pages but I guess that's because of course a couple things it's a kid towards adults lovely pictures okay so so Elder just pointed out a picture so can you show folks the oh my picture yes lovely pictures chip and tick-tock and yours doesn't sure but yours is different mine is different you have countdown which is kindergarten ah why they call countdown kindergarten I do not know but they do and they named first grade blasts and second grade is HD word that's just not catchy correct they're probably gonna hire you to be their marketing consultant so what you'll
009notice Elder said okay there are pictures so when you hear the term queuing system that was a way of teaching children that they would look at the picture and it would cue them to make meaning and these texts intentionally do not have a lot of pictures because they want children looking at how the letters are interfacing with each other and practicing the rule that was taught so they look decidingly different than something like um a Dick and Jane text so you have lots of pictures I remember 10 000 years ago I remember yeah all right so in the last six minutes so those are some examples of decodable passages they're not the whole story because the intent is for a child to learn the rule and gain confidence by practicing that the page and not
010being able to memorize it so that you can you can actually assess what they've learned versus what they've memorized and how they've learned to apply the rules are we ready for the next handout the next thing on your table I'm reading the passages fudge now I will tell you um I don't recall the passage on fudge Madge made a batch of fudge in the big Dutch pot I see what they're getting at yes but it's um it's uh as a work of literature I'm not a fan yeah so get well if I can't see it yeah so what do you what do you I mean what are you seeing by reading it what am I seeing by reading it is they're going for the same letter combinations and sounds over and over and over again
011and I think something is lost in this story and someone who was raised on stories so that's a great segue because this is so we're gonna we're gonna build a sandwich we're gonna have coding one piece of bread and that's the decodable text we're gonna have the meat which is oracy so that Art of Storytelling and language development and being able to hear things and attach meetings to them after you've learned it in the written word or not through experience and then comprehension so how do we take these symbols off the page attach them to our experience in the storytelling and then make meaning that would be the final piece of bread so when we're thinking about a literacy block this coding portion is 15 minutes really great reading is intended as a high Pace
01215 minutes access to to that coding piece and then what other ways in your classroom are you building language development and Conference so through Dr Holly's culturally responsive text sets we might read a book and have questions that are going to allow children to turn and talk to each other about what they heard in the story or how that relates to them their own life and so this um text so balanced literary literacy is this idea of the teacher having a combination of having read-alouds and kids read to self for literacy instruction and so shifting from that approach and that included the queuing system and looking at pictures and guess what it means to more of the science of reading which includes the coding lesson and then the language development you know reading a story
013to students talking about it like a Socratic seminar type method and so this is the text that we are going to be using next year to support Educators or Elementary Educators and specific looking at classroom practices for the other components the last two years we've really focused on really great reading we need to now add on to that sandwich or Aussie and do that for a couple of years and then add on comprehension it's not saying that they're not already thinking about that and doing it but we want to really build you know build the foundation and just add on to it with sustained professional development for educators a quick question before you move on so we've gone you are not capable of a quick question [Laughter] around so see what the elementary teachers are
014doing we've seen babies in the five different places that's not going to change as we layer this time no no I think it's going to be we're going to be really intentional when we're thinking what we don't want to focus to what Pat said so much on this decodable passage that's what you do for the whole hour and that Joy of reading a full story and making meaning and talking about it with friends is it's not a shared experience in our classrooms um I just can't help think and when I listen to social story I kind of thought the same thing and this is a two-pronged question because I always seem to do that to y'all um one you know research is always changing and so how are we sure we're going to change with
015it and and you know sure it's right and then the other question is you know we keep learning more about neurodivergent minds we still don't know everything we should and so when we're looking at how we're teaching reading how do we take into account I mean it's not just different learning styles like it's you know it's it's so much more than that so what are we doing to account for that with our students so absolutely what we know now is going to change okay and so it requires it requires a lot of attention and care and support of Educators they the building the relationship with students to know what books they're interested in or what might capture their attention that's important we don't we don't want to lose that Joy of reading even though we
016know now no we haven't had uh system for teaching decoding that was shared by all eight elementary schools actually not all of our schools so we can do that and still stay curious because you know we don't want to get sold a story again let's question what we're doing and and how we're seeing children Thrive or not but flourish or not with with what we're doing and then to speak to supporting neurodivergent Learners one of the things one of the components that I think is really important and really great reading are some of the manipulatives that they use and the ways in which you can do independent work through online games you can take your board you'll see on your first page these letters and tiles that are added and go to a quieter space
017you can work with a partner that's like a three concrete strategies specifically you that are highlighted in using really great reading you'll see as well um one of the handouts is an example of a letter to caregivers that has the hyperlinks that Educators can send home so again we're building that that partnership with families what's your point to your point absolutely some students you know when I when I got to be a classroom teacher some students really would Thrive with Socratic seminars and that would be what we would use as a pre-writing exercise was because it helped them build their understanding before trying to to write about it and so I think that I love that you asked that question so you have to keep surfacing that question as we're adopting other layers onto this
018I think something else that I would just um add on to uh you know I was in college like 20 years ago and uh the research was they continued to do research the way brains learn to decode text um and much of it has remained the same um so even in sold the story you know they talk about this history right where it's like yeah it's Onyx right of teaching phonics is one is is a component on the national reading panel I remember um you know when I was at SU published the you know their review on what um what all of the research says is required in order to actually learn how to how to read right um and the science of reading was there right was it called the science of reading right
019um but um and I was I was a lucky one right because my my professor one of my professors at Syracuse was we need a black wrote wrote to the code which was which is a program that teaches first phonemic awareness so that's the ability to manipulate and segment spoken phonemes um into attach um a thing right to those phonemes right clap syllables we tap tap sounds we move shapes onto a line as we say at right and then it transitions so and that was super rare right to have a professor knew that part right it taught us that part uh because most of my other colleagues learned a way of teaching that's the three healing system right it's like check the picture does it make sense and then after all that fails then you
020can take a look right and so I know I'm not that old but like 20 years of like people saying like Okay same thing since I've just been in a game um is a level of I think you know it's pretty helpful information keep fine sorry follow-up no that's good do you find that people are researching the right things I mean a lot of the work I do you're the right questions aren't being asked right they're like they're researching my brain right right um I have a feeling I like Mary saying like we have to be open um we have to be open to more um you know and what I've what I've read since graduating um and my Master's is an inclusive special education with a concentration in teaching children with autism um so
021there's a level of like you're not really paying attention to current research then around um neurodivergent learners um you know they're they are researching different brains and different ways kids learn how to read and one of the ways that they've discovered that the three queuing system doesn't work is they've researched kids brains who were struggling readers and continued to struggle and struggle and struggle and struggle and that's what they were doing but I also think people change to keep yeah yeah and we've used science for a really long time um to do tricky stuff as humans and so we have to be aware of that and if it's not including everybody attention to that shift s so when we did our our instructional rounds for the literacy of uh component in elementary schools last last
022year and we were seeing the last year it was either last fall with the previous spring I can't remember semesters blend together but but we went into several classrooms and they were working very strongly on Phonics and those those looked to be very productive classroom situations in which the kids I was seeing from being in the back were were engaged and and participatory and getting something out of the lesson and the phonics is one of the three components of this brand of scheme that you've got here yes okay and they were you saw classrooms using really great free day really great reading gifts and there is a learning curve with the pacing again the pacing it should be 15 minutes whole class instruction so you can get to the other components of literacy that we're
023seeing comprehension products would technically fall under uh the first element which is coding yeah and fluency vocabulary yeah yeah well it's hard because I I see them in as a flow yeah that yeah as a flow the interest of your opinions so without knowing any of the signs the first time we're getting into this level of your profession I've been working with kids for 30 years in this channel to try and get them caught up and Universal I'll fail even when the teachers have been inviting me in the class and work with those three or four scripts don't get it now I think what I would say hearing these words is they can't code coding is gone they tell me that but comic books I share with them they see nothing in those clouds right
024the talking clouds can't read it um I guess they're not willing to share with the class what they do know so maybe that's RC but reading comprehension but I'm always down to say write down or tell me everything you see in these picture boxes right and I have to tell you I'm getting news films thinking about the universal these kids come over 70 or 80 things they see and the other kids who are doing it the normal way they come up with 15 things I've just found that extraordinary these kids will tell me they're coming Sky they'll tell me that they see three wheels and what the fourth one is they see the Hulk has five fingers and a fist on one hand and they just they can they're comprehension level is spectacularly advanced but
025they're missing me of it they don't got the other stuff is that function of it's questions a function brain function is a function of of this type thing we've been saying for 30 years exposure to words right at a certain level or is it a function of mom and dad reading term so I I think it's complex and I don't want to oversimplify it but I as last night as we we got to be at this talk about um unconditional appreciation for children and so as an educator and I do not feel I stand alone in this if I would see a child struggling that would be a product of something that I had not provided space and exposure to because we have the right kids so when something like that is happening and I
026see a void I don't want to look to to blame caregivers and we want to partner with or that somehow the child's deficient in any way but there's an unmet need there in our instructional practice so this summer when we had a group of high school students who some of whom we had never given direct decoding instruction to they attended the training with teachers and they went to support students at Beverly J Martin in our summer programming his reading Buddies one of the Children looked at me and said this is a 16 year old child in our district said Miss Grover I am not broken I just learned to read differently like the queuing system was not working and so that's what I would say I wonder in spending time with those children if they
027had time with the letter tiles in the decoding it might be that they might need more language development and by that any time talking to each other and covid kovid has been incredibly challenging for children that it you know it's it's um today in a school I watched a child who who I went went to put earphones on and she's like I don't want those happy you know like really having a reaction to having to have warn them for two years and I think we're just at the cusp of understanding some of the impacts of that sustained time for kids and so um so they're not sequential they're just they're not sequential thank you now that our babies need to get eventually I'll be darn you're being concise and I'm not yes they're not sequential
028I'll also say just you know looking at our data you know we You Know It's Tricky right it's a I understand the tension and I feel the tension it's important for us to keep ourselves accountable especially when it comes to race and class and ability disability right so we need to look at our data and our reader level data right and I also know who designed the assessments that look like you need white women in their 40s could bring lots of biases to each of these assessments so I feel that tension right but as we as we more systematically look at some of our data as we continue through here I am feeling comfortable with some initial smaller gains memories so one of our schools where um you know I would say most folks would
029say you know our test scores haven't been super awesome there right we've got the right kids or test scores haven't been super awesome we've talked about the second grade team wow kids have really good great reading you're still doing all the awesome case study work anti-marginalization case study work fabulousness right there's the kids had 15 minutes a day the phonics instruction in first grade now they're in second grade just about so some of our initial and that's not true everywhere I'm not going to say like oh this is truly fixing everything I'm just saying that um that access to that specific way of learning to read was something that for many of us not for our own fault but when we went to school most of us did not learn how to teach phonics we
030learned whole language treat you back so Judy relaxed for a long time board member many of us know when I first joined the board 2009 I've never heard giving me this article signed this article across the table about uh bgm Learners and phonics from 1969 I believe it was so we've been at something a very long time so can we put a pin in this because we really got to talk about this other thing it was secretly important but can we get a commitment that will come back to this after you let us have a chance to absorb all this stuff the materials that you're given us all right it's going to be helpful we see each other so we can we can exchange them right Aaron yeah yeah yeah those are those are available
031online teachers have access to them we just downloaded them and sent them to BOCES to be bound so they had easy access for the teacher said yeah we'll we'll ship them amongst ourselves at different meetings this is first and that's second yeah yeah they stop learning to play but this this year since he's in kindergarten we're doing extra work on Phonics apparently the Little Golden Books I was raised on are not no longer acceptable for the Modern Age I've crossed out so many words and the books that my mom gave me so some of those things are I just I just hid a couple of books the next thing on our agenda let me just give you guys some context uh I have been in communication with one two three four five at least six
032Educators in this particular last three or four months white black and in between and they have felt that they were that their hands were smacked when they made a mistake was around some aspect of doing what we've asked them to do let's get in there have a difficult conversations about race about class about some other difficult issues and uh some have been asked to take a temporary leave I think it is right others have said well if this is the way they're going to treat my colleague how can they possibly expect me to be brave right because I'm seeing what's happening so let me to think that we want to have a discussion here about the materials the science the actual way we sort of steer our teachers through that difficult uh Canyon they can
033come out on the other side one confident too brave enough to feel that if they make a mistake that's not going to happen today and ultimately we'll want them to have the game capacity and do this fluently and yeah and uh and and learn from the kiddos along the way so that's what prompted me to ask that question uh because of both black teachers and white teachers are saying yeah you can't have them both ways you can't ask me to do this and if I get it wrong you smack it down so that's where we're at now I'm looking forward to hearing about how we do help them facilitate these conversations we are start in that's um really Mary is the genius along with the assistant hospital today at the anti-marginalization curriculum work um and
034we all should and have to be in be able to speak fluently about what's happening in relationships um and full disclosure will be um have to be smart about what we're separating to prepare so um I was going to start and I was going to start out um and then Mary Mary um so first I want to acknowledge the SE brought up because that's real and you know like for people who are watching people through it now um there's as we try to change the way and the what of our teaching from what I was like done to us right um it's different and we're gonna make mistakes as someone who is in 2000. 8 9 was teaching first graders about Dr King's giant triplet of racism militarism materialism um I was going to say
035extreme material but um the there were I'm gonna be honest there were some things I did not do completely wrong really right um and and in part because and also it was really important to do right it was still a really important unit to do and I had some support from colleagues in the district at the time and including Dr eversley Bradwell very cool and some other folks in order to refine those lessons David Billings was part of the articles Institute for survival and Beyond the answer um so I I just think it's important to acknowledge that and like you know as I I all right um now I think we have a better system designed to work through some of that right which is part of why we're trying to figure out a way
036to really invite everybody in to the anti-marginalization curriculum institute writing process because it's not just like sit down and write a unit there is a lot of identity work done and there is a lot of work around how on Earth do we facilitate learning around race around power around privilege um and it's Gotta like we continually have to come back to like who we are and how we show up in the space and knowing what like our impact is um as a white woman talking about this very topic right now I am aware of that you know of my cisness of my whiteness of my involts like makeup right like I have to just know there's like an impact um and so there's four days of that work that people are doing interspersed with understanding
037the socio-political context and the history of education so there's learning and there's collaboration there's trust building there's Norms Etc right and so part of the power of that Institute is to give people some frankly like safe practice and affinity group practice in order to engage in some of that stuff where we're not harming each other in in those kinds of spaces um so that I think is a is a much better system to address a lot now what I have here and what's attached to the agenda are some of the resources specifically that we use in a relationship to that training mode that people walk away with and utilize and actually the the Columbia one the one that um it's the smaller version it's like the eight and a half by eleven uh no let's
038talk it's from oh Columbia is good the black yes or this we just had an extra one that's awesome I print that when I was like going into a um a conversation I actually went to the very back and looked on page six and I went through the example how a conversation could go in a way that's more effective that validates and affirm and then builds the bridges so this was a really helpful resource um that actually Equity Consulting Group shared with our team of teacher leaders who helped facilitate the anti-marginalization curriculum writing Institute 17th of March um so real time very recently utilizing this is kind of work so um this is more specific to like facilitating conversations with adults which is helpful and this larger one teaching tolerance guide which is now learning
039for justice is very specific to facilitating conversations with kids so [Applause] um I'm thinking back to oh my God I just come back into school 2020. um I think even before that we had started sharing this with Educators pretty widely um and I think coming back and revisiting it often it's really helpful but it's a helpful resource because it's almost like step by step a guide right clarify terms consider your own identity evaluate your comfort level with different tactics um figure out what's holding you back step by step um and then it's with your kids right so you do some pre-work and then it's with your kids right so um what are your classroom agreements right honoring student experience um prioritizing social emotional skills of safety and then we're talking about facilitating oh 15 years
040ago now I think it's literally 15 years ago a middle school teacher at a middle school that will not remain much less a teacher's name introduced to kids to a book that's well known War comes to really freedom I'll bring it now we're still using such a thing um at the n-word nine times for the first 50 days kids lost yeah there was a whole conversation in the community about banning are you know me Sean other people it's years before building boys how do we ensure that the teachers understand that they should set a path for that and that be that'd be diligent right it set that path for the kids with fidelity they have this conversation and then read the Edward they don't lose it world attack or make fun of or support each
041other in the ways that the middle schoolers do so that's really all I see that already right just pointing that out it teaching me talents but to come back to the Fidelity back to this is a one in a few times I wanted to sit here and say I want something mandated right I want a a decision tree that if teachers do not execute it leads them to you right or leads into building leads into somebody will do it over and over and over again it leads them to butt up right and uh and I know the strategy here has been to grow to build relationships with to encourage to support to have people bring themselves on board come to us work through their identity issues I'm just gonna say I don't feel this is
042an issue I don't feel this is an area where I want all that right because we can get there by just saying look this is 12 things you need to do give them a map go however you want I'm not even interested in saying what the first what does the order of the steps I don't care about that these are the things you need to think through with a white black or issues class or gender or ability go through this process and they were going to be pretty sure that you have tried your best you will always be iterative continue to get better I don't know who the people would be who would say what this path should be but uh you know I I it's this is a this is an area I want
043something more that I make and I don't know how we get there um and I plan to read through this really carefully um and Lily much like you said like it feels weird me saying this um I'm around a lot of kids and I have had um a white a young white student say to me that you know they feel bad about themselves because they are a white boy and how you know so many white men are bad and I didn't quite know how to relate this in one of our meetings um and I was like well maybe this student is like very few and as I've kind of like talked to people I know and share this they I've met a few people who've said they've heard the same conversation in students as well
044and I don't think these students probably don't feel comfortable bringing this up in school and I you know I I know our teachers are doing a great job and I think I and I wonder as we recognize all these things how do we make sure that these kids that just don't have the maturity in their brains who are white boys who there's a lot of anger towards white men now how do we protect them and make them feel good about themselves are we going out of our way to be intentional we've talked so much about white privilege what about these kids who like they take them on themselves have we heard any of this are we exploring that as well how are we sensitive to them when we're teaching this and I I don't know
045is is that anything explored in anything we've been reviewing yet yeah I can tell you a little bit of a conversation actually that um that I was privy to that uh you know I think um that a white teacher was having with a group of white students um and they were unpacking a mistake fall head had just made that was a that was a racialized mistake right um and the teacher very skillfully conveyed a message of deep love and respect to the young people like literally saying you're such an amazing kid you do this oh my goodness you are just this amazing human and here was that impact howdy how do you think so much people about oh my gosh oh whoa whoa right and the and the walk away was oh like light bulbs
046go off like I can do better okay okay I'm part of this thing ah got it okay and I my teacher still loves me cares about me cares about me enough to tell the truth um and did it in a way that showed just the utmost regard I don't know if that's exactly what you're getting at but I um but I want folks to know that there are there are ways to engage in this work that allow space for everybody and as someone who's who's had the opportunity because of where I grew up and who my teachers were and then you know the professional development that I was able to access very early on when I became a teacher here um you know I I could honestly I could have very easily felt bad about
047myself and my in my way I remember unpacking you know the invisible knapsack Peggy macintosh's work when I was in seventh grade um and I could have felt bad about what advantages I have had because of the structures of our world and I've seen it done over and over not only to me but also with other educators that it doesn't have to resolve some folks now the specific nuances I love to like unpack a little bit more you know one of my own experiences that I've had to repping with and I'm not saying this is the case but it's just something that I've had to reckon with it's like um you know it's a sort of an old adage at this time right it's like um for some of us who are accustomed to privilege
048Equity can feel like oppression right too so even like bringing in other folks perspectives or experience into the story sometimes I've gotta like check that oh my gosh right you need to unpack some of that or feeling like there's not room or were um or we're not we're not talking about the the heroes and the all of the wonderful folks who worked together or continue to work together for racial Justice there are white foot David Billings right I've talked about a couple of times right he was he's a white man cisgender man who led undoing racism workshops for decades right um and he's a you know so highlighting some of those examples I think also more so it helps us get away from some of that here yes so I have a strategy but I've
049worked with any young people regardless of the topic I'm trying to introduce a range of Excellence right because it exists we're talking about dance so Williams Brothers African-American it's forever Sam Ginger Roberts or the middle upper middle class fight and it's that I always forget his name it's a country Comfort one consistently for having the fastest feet in the world and all he did was dance on tables and Appalachian that guy was incredible I think it's important to allow babies to see themselves across the board before you even start introducing these Concepts about about who's on top right can we at least let them see what the possibilities are you want to talk about who lived where and restricted covenants you can get into all that right but that's a that's a again as I
050said last night I'm a boy you're in your book I have a lot of things I like with kids I have no idea which ones are research which ones are top of mind now which ones are part of the RMB standards but what I do knows I don't want to have conversations with adults anymore saying I try I tried to do what they asked me and I obviously somehow screwed it up and instead of somebody taking me into confidence and working with me I got my head smacked you know when it comes to safety babies we know that's our number one priority but I don't know what I'm saying it's that time no it means in regards to the teachers out there I've had similar conversations right I know exactly what they're talking I don't
051know exactly what you're talking about but I I I've heard similar and yeah there's I mean there's so much work to be done right I feel like what we're implementing here is just like so new in the span of our history that it's kind of learn as we go no like in some ways I don't know if it's new Aaron it's not new but I mean in schools doing it it's the education system that's our worst enemy but gang leader got it right the video goes on to talk about the the principle we haven't done he's actually a member of the community who lives there teacher saying I need to get outside this building work with the kids these are not new conversations let's just just put that out conversation actually started when African-Americans were
052removed from the head of the classroom some almost Wars we had in public education systems between unions and black women right and suddenly we had a whole swath of middle class white women being gay people in Social Services in teaching and nursing so this is not a new conversation I'm glad we still have it right because it's that important let's not confuse novelty with newness implementation though right that's what I'm referring to implementation in an entire School District do we know how many nations in the country are doing somewhere or how many nations who need to sleep do we I mean do we know how many schools in the country so the ships are rolling teachers education I'm putting the wrong spot nothing more than we think many more than we think many more okay
053so to help my brain grasp it do we know like percentage-wise 700 school districts in New York state there are 4 000 colleges and universities across the country uh you start multiplying that out we're talking about probably about a thousand schools who are trying to do this kind of work and so I'm referring specifically to Public Schools I don't count higher education it's total different realm I'm just given the skill of scope of the kinds of Education that we have that are out there that are engaged in this sort of work right so are we on the front end of it absolutely is it new absolutely not folks we're having this conversation in 187. I was part of reconstruction this is not we're not doing anything new Justice and protecting well-beings it's not a New
054Concept how we do that how we build out how we scale out how we resource uh those are conversations we had but it's not like folks haven't done it before it hasn't been successful in some of the most successful models were intentionally shut down because they were successful right and it seems like we've as a collective we've come to the point where we don't want bullying anymore right so to an extent that now we have a state program called baths as Milestones people have to have to check in about these things we know about if if a child accuses another child that's mandated their Portage right so we've gone through that confidential World takes over the adults oftentimes don't even know because it's deemed at a point right race six-year-old subject we are still talking
055about what it would be nice to do yeah personally infuriates me nobody in this room is fault but it infuriates me to Eldred if you could have a perfect world and have your choice on how to implement this based on your knowledge as a person and your knowledge in the schools for in this community for 30 years that you could label one tomorrow and change something I'm not talking about mindset because we all know that that is the biggest hurdle right but if you could wave a wave them on tomorrow to make this change for the better within our school district what would you do I said I create a thought a decision tree so all of our administrators and and uh teachers no you picked the topics nobody's going to tell you what to
056do should you want to implement a unit about indigenous people should you want everybody unit about uh this issue going on right now about sexual gender identity and sports if you want to take if you want to implement something that could bring you close to a third rail these are the things we want you to think about these are the things we would like you to try see if it's a background invite the parents in right have those conversations to check with your leaders build a support structure on the outside we can give you some guidance and then I I think we'll accept the outcome right because that's never going to be perfect quick the magic wand I would want folks to recognize if we take a look at the life of a true human
057who just recently passed away as one of the largest Disability Advocates that our countries ever see that has always been an intersectional approach it's never been just about race it's been about disability about gender about gender expression gender identity race and people need to look at the most successful movements they weren't doing it in silos so while we may talk about anti-morganization or anti-racism let's be real we're talking about humanizing babies that's we're talking about how do we find a way to humanize All the Young Folks it's not siled they're interconnected and we have too many models to be able to teach us that lesson I hope we follow them yeah that's well said I mean I remember all right last thing I'm going to say is we've got to move on to get into
058except Dr Brown bought a little brown may be up to the stage Sean remember this maybe six seven years ago the kid was so adorable I want to turn upside down and sweep the floor at his elementary teacher at the time had uh created his face in the classroom there and where everyone had a device that he was using in doing that she created an entire room from a baby Source suddenly bilateral yeah but he could communicate just not in traditional needs exactly right point take it yeah yep so he would well I said Don the phrase then was not communicative right right and I've seen other schools where a dance person comes into a classroom some random time but every classroom every day the kids begin to do the dance and she's worked with
059them on right religiously and the kids who could communicate differently is always lead in those classrooms this is a paid position to allow children to expand their Horizons and their capacity to engage so it's a Sean's point I'm well past this idea that this is just about race but I think we owe it to our teachers to give them a guide that's a little stronger than some well thought out beautiful recommendations that would require probably Union engagement right but so what this is Ithaca we've set standards that have gone Statewide in Nashville so many times not going to put you two on the spot and say what do you think I'm just sharing my thoughts to somebody as you're reading this during your work for a while so here's something else we need to do
060with these dots at least materials so we could Circle back this the next round of Wisconsin and I want you to sketch can you sketch a second actually right yes that would be fantastic you guys are wonderful