#434 – Student-Led PD, with Dr. Rosalind Henderson

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• What does it mean to truly empower students, and how does student-led PD support that goal?
• How might involving students in professional learning change school culture, for both staff and students?
• What potentially limiting assumptions might we need to confront when giving students leadership responsibilities?
• What strategies could we use to start small with student-led learning or PD in our own context?
• How does Rose’s “future builder” mindset shift the way we view student potential?
• In what ways can classified staff be meaningfully included in a schoolwide instructional vision?
• How can student-led experiences like this help students develop skills in advocacy, public speaking, and student agency?

• March Middle School (Val Verde Unified School District)
• National Principals Month (AFSA, NAESP, and NASSP)
• AVID (official website)
• AVID National Conference Leadership Forum (AVID)
• AVID Community of Practice (CoP) Offerings for Site Administrators (AVID)
• Tired of the Same Old Professional Development? Let Students Lead (Matt Homrich-Knieling via EdSurge)
• Bring Students Into Professional Development (Michelle Blanchet via Edutopia)

#434 Student-Led PD, with Dr. Rosalind Henderson

AVID Open Access
51 min

Transcript

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The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by Otter.ai. Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

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Dr. Rosalind Henderson 0:00

I feel that we’re helping them develop life skills, and we’re helping them truly find their “why” and their connection to their inner talent. I can see their transformation. Students say they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel motivated. That’s our job. We’re future builders.

Winston Benjamin 0:21

October is National Principals Month. To honor that, we’re going to feature principals on our show during the month of October, and today is the second episode in that series. The topic for today’s podcast is Student-Led AI with Dr. Rosalind Henderson. Unpacking Education is brought to you by AVID. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark 0:52

Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education.

Team 1:01

I’m Rena Clark. I’m Paul Beckermann, and I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators, and we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 1:12

Education is our passport to the future.

Winston Benjamin 1:17

Our quote today is from the March Middle School website. On their site, they post their mission statement, which reads, “We will ensure that all students learn at high levels, preparing them to be high school ready by using intentional instructional strategies, data-driven decisions, and establishing a positive school culture.” Now, I’m trying to work for a place like that. Paul, Rena, what’s that quote trying to hit you with and speak to you about?

Rena Clark 1:50

I mean, to me, it’s basically saying, “Hey, we have a plan. We’re going to use data. We’re going to make middle school a place where students thrive,” and I really appreciate “and we’re going to use intentional strategies.” Because if there’s ever a place where we need intentional strategies, it is middle school. And both Winston and I have experience being in the middle school realm, because if we’re not intentional—if we’re not making it well-meaning—they’re going to eat you alive. And I said they’re just going to “six – seven” you right out of the room. But it isn’t just about being prepared. It’s that really, that next level, those instructional choices, but really based on data, based on knowing your students, creating that positive culture. And then I love this: setting students up to be successful in high school, that intentionality around that success in high school. Depending on the district or community you’re in, there’s sometimes a disconnect, and that jump can really be disconnected. So I’m interested to hear more.

Paul Beckermann 2:53

And I’m interested to hear more too. I can’t help but think about our topic, student-led PD, when I’m hearing this mission statement, because I’m kind of anticipating how those connections are going to be made. Because the mission sounds like it’s definitely about empowering students, which is getting them ready for the next phase, whatever that is—if that’s high school, if that’s career, you know, or beyond. And I feel like the idea of student-led PD is really a powerful way to help students develop that kind of skill set and to be not only high school ready, but life ready, right? So I’m ready to hear more.

Winston Benjamin 3:28

I love it! As we get excited, we want to say thank you and welcome Dr. Rosalind Henderson to the show today. Dr. Henderson is a principal at March Middle School in Moreno Valley, California. Her teachers know her as “Queen Supreme.” We’d like to welcome Dr. Rosalind Henderson to the show. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate your time. Before we do anything, one of the things we like to do is ground our listeners into our guest. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in education and through education so that our audience understands who they’re listening to?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 4:13

Yes. Well, first, let me just say thank you so much, you guys, for this opportunity and just to sit down with you. What I would love for you guys to know is that this is my passion. This is who I am. This is what I sleep and dream, and my vacation is spent around obsessing about our students and the work. And I love—one of my favorite mottos is “the work is the work wherever you go.” And, you know, I’ve been in education for almost 20 years now. I started off as a math teacher at Perris Union High School District. Shout-out to P-town, because if you can survive there, you could survive anywhere. And it really just taught me everything I needed to know about myself and connecting with kids and really my life’s purpose. I went in—I mean, that’s a whole other podcast: how I managed to fall into administration. But, you know, I fell into it, and I ended up loving it. It took me a few years to get the work, the bumps out, but I fell into the supportive role that teachers need, you know, caring for the caregiver. So I can talk more about that, but I come from—I did all Ed and Comp and comprehensive high school work before I started at the middle school. So I definitely have a lens of looking at the end goal, being graduation for students, and being able to step into the beginning of that journey of middle school has been a delight. And I’ve just really enjoyed getting them earlier and helping make that transformation possible, versus being on the back end trying to help fix things, fix the gaps that haven’t been filled yet.

Paul Beckermann 5:51

I love hearing about some of your story, and I’m still really excited to hear about the student-led PD thing. So let’s jump into that. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I want to know more like, what is it? What sparked that idea? You know, how did it go?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 6:08

Well, so I have an AVID coordinator. Well, she’s now our instructional coach, but about a year and a half ago, maybe two years now, Miss Paula Navarro—amazing, just guru—we were on a plane, and the flight attendant was—I remember this because we were about to land—and he said, “Oh, you guys are done talking now?” We went back—we had, you know, on a plane, you’re given uninterrupted time. So we were using this flight to really work. I told you, I’m in it. Like, we’re working no matter what. So we’re sitting there and we’re going back and forth about—we, at the time, wanted to be an AVID Demo School, and I was—I’m a new principal. Well, this is my fourth year, but when I came in, the AVID coordinator at the time said, “I’ve always wanted to be Demo,” and I said, “Okay, we’re AVID cited distinction. Let’s do it. You want it, let’s do it.” And so we started coming up with how we’re going to really help make sure that the saturation is there and that we’re ready to go. So we were doing a lot of PD with the staff and work, and she was pushing on me, saying, “I need to do this one more.” But, you know, as the site principal, I go, “Ah, wait, they can’t handle it. They can’t handle hearing from you again, and they surely can’t handle hearing from me again.” So through us arguing back and forth on the plane, we came up with the idea: “Well, what would it look like to let the kids in?” And, you know, we all love the kids. And so we were thinking we were kind of being sneaky, like the students will definitely be able to deliver to help us get over that threshold. So we started very basic with AVID binders, notebooks. The students came in, and they were presenting and, you know, just showing everybody the power of AVID through the student perspective. After this, we were—I go, “You know, this is great, but I need—one thing about me is I don’t do—I can’t just check a box. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it well. We might do one thing, but we’re going to be wholeheartedly in it.” So we looked at each other, and we were like, “What would it look like for the kids to develop this PD?” And I looked at her, and I said, “You better not be anywhere on this. No PowerPoint, nothing.” She’s amazing, right? I’m like, “I’ll be able to tell. Keep your PowerPoint, keep your Canva. The students have got to do it, and they’re going to have to deliver it, because the power of that authenticity and being genuine—we all feel it, right? We can connect to that energy.” And so that’s where it began. And when the students started coming in, staff loved it. Everyone loved it. And that was that initial kind of birthplace of, “Wow, this is powerful. This is something good,” and especially watching the kids respond in a way of they were stressing about, “Well, I gotta prepare for this.” You know, when you see a 10-year-old stressed out—a little calm, you crazy—but it feels good to watch them equally stressed about having to present, because you could see this ownership taking place. And this was just on the very basic levels before we even got into our PD team that we developed. So me and Miss Navarro, we looked at each other. We brought in more people. We started bringing in staff, going, “This is—the kids like this. This is good. They’re committed.” That’s awesome.

Rena Clark 9:08

It is great. And one of my absolute best PDs we ever did with staff was student-led. But thinking to, you know, some of our listeners who are hearing this, “Okay, we don’t want the teachers to take over, but, you know, where might we start? How are we going to be successful? How are we going to have students be a part of this?” What are some of those, like, basic entry steps that we might give some advice to our listeners?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 9:36

Yeah, so absolutely. Well, let me just say this first: when we introduced the staff meetings, PDs, through with the AVID coordinator, my big thing is, one, not one voice should overpower the next. So I wanted—if we’re an AVID Demo School, you should be able to walk into any classroom and we demonstrate. So you bring up a really good point in—I wanted to make sure we could replicate it in any classroom, and that’s the challenge, right? So the first thing I would say is you need to have clarity. And it sounds cliché—everybody, you know—but it’s true. If you do not have clarity around your administration—all that—when I say clarity, I trained my custodians, and when I say I trained—the kids went and trained them on AVID. They sat down, and they had to take notes. The clerk, the receptionist, everybody has to have the same message, and it just goes back to your mission statement, right? And I know everyone wants that, but if you actually try to live it and you get into it—we, you know, my staff are very competitive. We gamify everything. So I’m like, “Okay, let’s see who can repeat the mission. Let’s see who—” You know, we—I would do a lot of competitions around that work of “Are we all on the same page and what we’re going after?” And so just having, I think, that baseline of understanding that, okay, do we all agree that kids are capable and can they handle this work? Can they take this responsibility on? And it’s worth noting, because some people—me and the team, we all had moments where we had to check our bias, like, “Well, they can’t do that, though. Well, they can’t go that far,” right? Like, we all have these limiting beliefs of how far they can go, and so you need other adults in the room to be able to—even myself included, like, “Well, that’s good, but who’s going to do this part of it? They couldn’t.” And it’s like, “Well, hold on, why not?” And what supports would they need to put that into place? So after you look at the clarity and really, I guess, for a lack of better term, an equity audit of your site and what your beliefs are and where you’re at, the first steps are really—it just goes back to the good old basic WICOR collaborative strategies. I mean, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, right, guys? And so the students actually came up with it. They were like, “Well, you know, it’d be a really good strategy to help teach the staff.” And so we got BOGO. We started calling it BOGO because I—because I’m like, “Well, if we want the staff to really understand philosophical chairs, why don’t we teach them about another district initiative using the strategy philosophical chairs?” And that was really student-led. They came up with these ideas. And I would say, get a student site team. It doesn’t have to be super formal and, you know, and everything. Like me, mine have their own shirts and titles and all of that. But if you get a group of kids, let them become your instructional design experts. They will tell you what is boring and what a good strategy is. And what we did is we said, “Okay, take these strategies. You guys come up with a proposal for a PD, maybe in the AVID class. You have three or four different groups, they’re having to create it, and then, as a class, they vote on the one that they like.” But all of each group has to be able to speak to that presentation, and then they have to kind of go back and forth and tweak it. And so that would—that’s one just very basic way to start introducing these strategies. But, I mean, I can go on and on how you can really tie it back. The students should be talking about the mission and the vision. They’re the ones who should be really driving it, because it’s for them. But that’s a little—that’s probably the little bit of the advanced class. So we can just back up to the basic WICOR strategies presented at staff meetings. And I will tell you, the staff love it, even the—you know, you got the little grumps in the back. They’re like, they’re so proud too. Because who can deny a kid getting up? And I think one of the first ones—the kids spoke about, they worked on an attention-getter, and they go, “Okay, who knows waterfall?” And they’re like, “If you’re old, you should probably know waterfall.” And we were in there, so it’s like all of these little bumps where, you know, the kids’ voice comes out, and they’re looking at me, and I’m like, “I didn’t—” You can see I obviously had nothing to do with this, right? So we have a lot of fun with it.

Winston Benjamin 13:59

I appreciate the fun and poking fun of us old grumps, but there’s something that—

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 14:05

Their words, not mine!

Winston Benjamin 14:10

—are still useful. Definitely claim it, sister, with the term “grumps.” But you’re highlighting something where I was thinking about as you were talking—you mentioned this in the beginning of your conversation, realizing that at a point the teacher is going to tune you and your co-lead out, and to shake it up and stuff. But one of the things—it’s hard to get teachers to sit there to be taught, and especially if you’re flipping the role of students, right? So how did you get your teachers to shift from this closed-minded defensiveness to being vulnerable and open, other than that, “Oh, those are our babies. We’re proud.” To really dig into being open and vulnerable. What were some of your strategies for that?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 15:02

Um, well, two words: PE. Started with the PE department. Now the strategy was, PE is always left out. But PE teachers have big voices, and they’re usually respected. Like, you know, just they do their own thing, right? But if you can bring in PE into an academic setting and a staff meeting, how can the math and ELA not follow? That was our thinking. So if you get PE up and they’re demonstrating a WICOR strategy, how can math not, right? It’s a—it might be a little manipulative, but we did start with PE, and we started with just, like, I think, basic, like, Numbered Heads. And do you know it went on for like 45 minutes? I had to start setting timers because they loved it so much they wanted to talk about it and reflect and share out. And they got so into it that I was like, “Well, we have to move on. Like, we can’t keep doing that.” So I think being able to be strategic about who you’re assigning what to what group of kids, making sure that the kids are prepared—when I tell you, our kids stress about it—I have high expectations. The students have to do the research. They have to make the presentations. They have to sell me. There isn’t—this isn’t just, you know, what we’re not going to do at March Middle is just kind of clap because the kids are up talking. We’re not going to celebrate them just being able to recite a line. They have to know their stuff, and they have to be ready to engage the audience and defend their work. And so when adults see that too, you’re seeing quality. You recognize that that goes a long way. But on the back end, as far as building trust and vulnerability, me, as a site administrator, I had to make a campaign about “This is what I’m going to be relentless about. This pursuit of ‘You can try.'” I love when the team said they wanted to go Demo. I’m like, “Let’s try it. What’s the worst?” That’s what—”Maybe we fail. We’re going to fail forward, though, every day,” right? And so I encourage my team to try. I give them their space. I go in, I support, but I also allow them—”Do you want me there?” It’s always the joke. I’m like, “I can be there if you need.” They’re like, “We’re good,” right? Like, “We’ll let you know.” Really, everything out of your administration and really your leadership on campus should be “We’re in it together. We support you. We know you’re professionals, and we’re going—but we’re all going to—” Part of being a professional is getting that coaching, right? And we’re going to allow the kids to coach us up. So I did a lot of team building, like I said, incentives, campaigns, and I was a brand new principal at the middle school at that time when we decided to go Demo. From the time I took over to the time we went Demo was 18 months—first year in. And so I worked really hard with them on, “Hey, we’re doing it. We’re failing together one way or another.” And, you know, it’s like, “We’re not going to look back,” and all I need—and I always—I say this almost every staff meeting: “All I need is for you to try and do your best. Just try and do better. That’s it. That’s all.” And we, you know, that’s all we all have is “Let’s try to be better every day. And wherever you’re at is fine because there’s a student there that’s going to help carry you through.” And they are. You know, every kid is watching their teacher. They can pick apart their teachers in a minute if they needed it. And I think there is something to the teachers feeling nervous about releasing that control. So the last session I had with the students, we were talking about student bias and how students have to address training and coaching up, because now my students go to other schools. They do PD with different staff. We want to make sure that they’re not being, you know, condescending or making anybody feel uncomfortable, so they spend a lot of time having to reflect and provide feedback to themselves. And the kids always walk away with a little sheet, and they sit in a circle and they give themselves feedback on how they did and how their presentation went, and they’re very critical of themselves on that process because they want—you know, they want to do—they want to do well for each other.

Paul Beckermann 19:08

I’m really impressed with the whole process, you know, just empowering students to that degree, and then the whole process of how you’re having them reflect for self-growth. It’s growing the students, but it’s growing the staff at the same time. It’s like this whole community building. I’m kind of curious if there were some insights that came out during this whole thing, because it was student-led, that maybe adults might have overlooked or undervalued or not seen the same way. Like, what kind of unique perspectives came from the students that maybe wouldn’t have happened in a different model?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 19:44

You know, so many. I mean, I just get goosebumps you asking me that, because I can think of so many examples. I just had a conference, the Equity Conference, out in the desert for our COE. And one of the students—he just qualified and has an IEP for a specific learning disability—and he goes, he was talking about, even at the conferences that they do, the bias of people in the audience going, “Well, you must be all in eighth grade. You must be the honors and advanced kids.” And how it made him feel that they were being asked these questions. And he was putting the audience on blast a little, saying, “When you ask me this, this is what I see behind it, and what I see behind it is that you don’t think I’m capable. But—” and he pounded his chest, and he goes, “But I know I’m capable because I’m here presenting in front of you.” And when you have a student—uh, right, seven—not even—you know, when you have a student, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, being able to speak with that authenticity and from their heart and, you know, I don’t allow cue cards. We’re not doing that. I’m not—you know, you’re going to be thorough and prepared, but you’re not going to just read a script. And so to have a student be able to develop those public speaking skills and that life skill, right, of being able to share how they’re feeling is—it’s to me, it’s like the best part of my career, and I’m obsessed with it now because I can see their transformation. So students say they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel motivated. But these are just, like, conversations I might have with them. What the data—because I am always like, “Okay, it’s lovey-dovey, but what’s actually happening?” We took a team. They did a keynote up in Monterey. It was amazing. All of those students went on, and now they’re all high school students, and I’ve reached out, I’ve talked to almost all of them, I think, but maybe one. They’re setting up appointments with their principals because they don’t have the same program. So they’re demanding that this be developed. I’m actually waiting for a call from my colleagues, like, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you. Sorry, not sorry,” right? So the students, though, they’re so comfortable working alongside, you know, co-creating the knowledge with staff, with the administration. It does something to your soul at that level. I mean, I receive more than they do, but the student—it’s the true definition of empowerment where, I mean, sometimes they’re emailing teachers, asking, saying, “Can you make sure this is graded? Because I have a conference I need to be at. I need this graded on time.” And they’re CCing me like to make sure it gets done. And this—this actually true story. It was a sixth grader who was CCing me to make sure that his teacher got the grades in. And I’m like, “Wow, the impact on the student lens of ‘This is truly their school. We work—'” and we all say that cliché, “You’re the client. We work for you.” At March, I’m really trying to flip that. “We do work for you. So how can we help you?” They walk in the office. “What do you need? What is it that you need from me?” So the deepest insight has really been watching the data on our campus just spread and infuse with—I mean, anywhere from behavior to, you know—it’s middle school. It’s like, “No one’s on fire. We’re a great school.” But I’m like, “No, that’s not good enough,” right? It’s like, everything—you know, if you’re whole—if you’re just keeping the discipline down, it’s considered like you’re great. But that’s not enough. We don’t want that, right? I want to see, “What else can you do? What are we connecting you to high school?” Because we know the research shows how powerful that is. If you feel that positive school identity moving into ninth grade, where that transition—and you drop in and you start failing some of your classes, and you disconnect. So watching our kids email me and CC their counselor in high school or the principal and say, “I didn’t get the classes I wanted. I need this fixed,” and then they think that I’m going to do some—you know, that they’re adding me on it like I can control the other school for them. But the advocacy, the communication, the belief in themselves—I’ve had students that were on, like, academic probation and discipline and fights, and their whole demeanor changes with “This is who I am now. This is—this is—thank you for not giving up on me, because this is who I truly am.” And one kid, he told me just the other day, and he said, “Because I’ve had these leadership opportunities, I feel now that I’m connected to who I truly am.” And it’s—I mean, what else is there? I don’t know, like, right? What—I mean, that’s—that’s—

Paul Beckermann 24:29

Top of the mountain.

Rena Clark 24:30

—goes right into “This is why.” My “This is why” file right there. Absolutely, every day. Chills.

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 24:38

Yeah, pretty amazing.

Rena Clark 24:40

I mean, you’ve talked a lot about the culture shift for students, and you’ve talked a little bit about it with the staff, but I would love if you have any more examples of really how the culture, as a result of having these student leaders, how has the culture of the staff changed? You had that initial conversation, but what was that shift for staff? And maybe even the larger community, because you’ve alluded to that as well.

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 25:03

So, yeah, so with—I would say, let me just take it back to the classroom level. I think that this has been—in a short while, this is a three-year period, right? Three-and-a-half-year period. I have seen almost 180-degree turn, and I came into an amazing team. I’ll just preface that. These teachers love their kids like no other. What I came in to do is go, “Let’s make sure how we’re loving them is data-driven and going towards our ‘high school ready’ vision, right? Let’s make sure we’re loving them in the right way and pushing them all in that unified direction.” Watching teachers—so it was twofold, helping teachers get comfortable with WICOR strategies allowed their confidence to build, and then allowing kids to come in, right? Because teachers are experts. They want to feel like an expert too, and so you don’t want to undermine them with, like, letting students kind of run and take over. So it really had to be done in parallel and in partnership. So some of the activities that we did were student-based. Some were just teacher-based, where we’re building first and then we—everything—I’m obsessed with rubrics, so I have a rubric for how you greet someone. Did you smile? Did you make eye contact? Did you—you know, everything we were—excellent on everything we do. And so, in the classroom, I feel that the teachers started opening up to engage because kids were asking for it, and that’s all you really need is the open—I know it might sound cheesy, but if you’re open and you allow the process, it starts to connect and snap, and then you have to have a good team ready to support the heck out of them when they come to you and go, “Hey, can you help me with this again? Hey, can you send me that email again?” Because now they’re ready, right? Now they’re locked in and they’re ready to go. And we go, “Boom, what else do you need?” Another big piece is going AVID Demo. From the day we became Demo, I go, “Guess what Demo means, guys? It means we demonstrate.” So I work my butt off to keep schools visiting, because I think if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. So you’re going to come in and you’re going to visit. I don’t care who it is. I make it—it’s a big deal for everybody to come on my campus. Students are going to greet you. Staff are going to be ready. They’re going to be doing their strategies. We always stay in practice. So I’ve had—it’s first six weeks of school—I’ve had three guests on campus, and so that means hosting and visits and the coffee setup and the lunch, right? We—oh, we go big every time, and that way staff and—I pick different—I pick different teachers. It’s not just those four that, you know, will never let you down. I even had a school comment and say, “Oh, is that teacher a late adopter?” you know? And I was like, “Well, yes, but it’s there. Okay, they’re getting there. Everyone gets to practice,” and it doesn’t—for me, I said, “I’m not judging when you get there. I love that you’re trying, that you’re on the journey with us.” And so the staff, I think, acknowledging them for where they’re at and not—because they know, if you’re always visiting one teacher’s room and not the other, they all know. They know. And it’s like, “No, we’re going to rotate fairly,” and we just rotate, and whoever’s up, I just go to the next person, and we just share the workload with visits. I think also at the site, we do unified campaigns. So our AVID T-shirts are like the hot off the press. Like, everybody wants it, and they spend so much time designing it. This year, I think I’m buying—everybody’s like, I think that’s going to be the little gift. But what happens is, if we do have a guest, we all wear the same shirt. We show our team spirit. When I say everyone, the custodian, security, front office, the secretaries, the attendance clerk, the nurse, everyone, because you’re an adult on campus. You care about kids. You’re a stakeholder. You matter. AVID should matter to you too, because this is what this is—our Demo School, right? Our shirts are so nice I get, like, maintenance people that aren’t even on campus. “Where’s my shirt?” right? The impact—substitute teachers, the part-timers, the subs coming in, everyone wants to be a part of it. And if I can, I try to make sure that they all get that. But yes, it’s money. Yes, that’s a whole other thing about how to get that together. But I think it’s important for administrators listening to realize, like, you have to know when you—how to support and what you got to put your money to, because we want to feel like a team. So at the site level, a lot of campaigns around “This is who we are. AVID. We’re—you know, this is what we love. This is what we do.” And I think for the district, when they heard what we were doing, I had to sell it. I’ll be honest. This is middle school. Maybe—to work in Val Verde is to love Val Verde. I love my school district. Huge shout-out to my entire team. It’s the best district I’ve ever worked in. However, it’s the district like any others, like, “What do you mean you got 10-year-olds who want to come and tell us something? We got work to do,” right? So it took a lot of me being—I can be very—well, I don’t know if I’m persuasive or just obnoxious, and won’t give up, but it works. I just kept bugging them and saying, “Hey, this is what we need.” And when I booked the students a pretty big gig, I kind of shamed them and said, “Well, listen, our kids are going here. How are they not going to get to go here, here, and here?” right? So once we got them in the door, and they got that first standing ovation, the whole district started booking them. And when I say booking them, the kids don’t just come up with, like, “We’re going to teach a basic strategy.” They have to create a unique presentation based off of the needs of the client. So if the elementary says they want to work on collaborative study groups, “Go design it, make it, and then go and do it.” If they say they want to help with their tutors, “Okay, what are we doing?” If they want to work on a campaign for sixth graders or seventh or binders, they’re doing unique presentations each and every time. That’s what professional development teams do. So we can’t baby or water it down just because they’re younger. They can do the work. And when I say they can do the work, they stay after school, they come in on their non-student days. They came in over Christmas break, and they work. They put the work in because they love it.

Winston Benjamin 31:31

So the only kid that I’m really thinking about right now is the kid that called those individuals out from the perspective of “I was told I wasn’t,” right? I love the fact that—so my question to you is about this idea about responsibilities. Thinking about the students who have never been seeing themselves as being valuable, don’t look at themselves as being educated, don’t look at themselves as that part of that value of education. What qualities do you see come out of those students when they get the responsibility? Because it is a powerful thing to be—to recognize that you are responsible, absolutely, right? How did that—what kind of skills, leadership qualities, personal development did you see when they were responsible for guiding adult learners or guiding learners?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 32:36

Here’s the thing: how do you be—how do you become responsible if you’re not given the opportunity to be responsible for something? So what I wanted to ensure and protect is that students get to drive this work, because we all talk about, you know, middle schoolers being apathetic, and they’re not connected, and they’re, you know, their behavior problems. And, you know, anyone—since no middle school is to love it, right? But like, “Oh, there’s this and there’s all these problems.” So if the kids are driving it, it solves itself. So the first thing they do is they have to research what they want to talk—they do it. I didn’t even know. I literally, I don’t even bother checking in with them until they determine what it is they want to do. Because after you tell me what you want to do, I know me. I can spin it towards any, right? We can spin it back towards education in any way. Last year, they worked on student voice. That was—they really wanted to be heard, and so we worked on that. This year, student agency. Now, the kids don’t say the word “agency,” right? I mean, they’re good, but it starts off with all of these things, but their teacher helps lead them through this thought—the—I always tell the teacher, “You’re the thought leader. Help them make those connections.” And then when they get to that vocabulary, the—the vocabulary, help give them that, and then they sit and they talk about it. And so this student, I have one in mind, and there’s many, but he was saying that in sixth grade—he—when he was a kid, right? He’s an eighth now. When he was a kid, he was a bad kid, and whenever I hear a student talk like that, it’s like, it’s heartbreaking, right? And he goes, “I know everyone had a target on my back because I was such a bad kid.” And so there’s a lot involved just in the complexity of what he’s saying about how he feels about school and the adults and how they see him. And he spoke about what it meant to him to not be given up on, and what I did with him—and once I see something works, I’m, you know, I just extrapolated it from there—is I sat with his parents one day and I said, “He’s not going to make it. He’s on a contract for fighting. He’s hanging out with the wrong kids.” You know, you can fill in the dots, right? You know that kid, and I’m like, “I know his first, last name. I already looked up if he has siblings. This isn’t going—he’s not going to make it,” right? And I said, “Parents, we’re in partnership. We’ve got to figure out a plan. What is—let’s figure out what’s great about him.” And you know what? Him and other kids like him, especially the ones that drive you the craziest—they’re leaders. They’re not leaders in the classroom. They’re leaders, though, and they want to disrupt your class, they write—they want to take over, take your power. And we all know we’ve had that kid where we’re like, “Oh, if you could just get on my side, you’d be fine.” But I realized we’re battling against them, but if we could shift them, right, and channel that leadership opportunity into something positive, academic, sky’s the limit. And so in that meeting with that family, I started to realize we need to actively recruit, right? We’re designing for equity. The instructional plan is we’re going to design for equity. We’re going to look for diverse learners, and the diversity starts with the one that—the knucklehead that wants to—in his words, “I would come to school and just go do my little bathroom loop.” He said he went to the bathroom two or three times a period, right? And so he would just do his little restroom loop. And you’re looking at him going, “Oh no, he’s not into school,” right? We’re already given up on him. And I said, “No, I see him out at lunch. I see all the kids that come to him. I see the way he gives me a little attitude. I could take that as he’s being disrespectful, or I could take it that he has enough chutzpah to challenge an adult,” right? So we’ve got to redefine how we look at leadership in kids and channeling that. With him and saying, “Okay, what is it that you love?” In fact, this student, now, I brought a new kid to the team. She’s been acting up at school. I walk her in. This just happened last week. He looks over and he goes, “Hey, you want to join? Come on in. Let me get you started.” Immediately taking ownership of his team and his program. So I think that the work that we have to do as adults about really challenging our assumptions and even our stereotypes—we say we love the kids, we say we’re there for them, but do we really mean “all”? Because, you know, there’s three or four kids we’re thinking of going, “Oh my gosh, just not him. I don’t want to deal with his mom. I don’t want to deal with him. He already has an F in my class,” right? Like, we make all of these little taglines, and we slowly give up on them. And he said, “Thank you for not giving up.” And he told me, he goes, “You know who won me?” Because what I did with his parents behind the scenes is I said, “I’m going to talk to my coordinators, and I’m going to tell them, ‘This kid’s amazing. Whoever gets him is going to be lucky.'” So ASB went after him, AVID, PBIS, Scholars—everybody’s fighting to get this kid now, who was really on a contract, who shouldn’t be at our school, like if he messes up one more time. And within six weeks of this new year, he has the best grades he’s ever had. He just presented at his first state conference. He’s killing it. He’s doing amazing. So what is his skill set that I see, and what are the skill sets? It’s infinite. It’s transformative in a way that is even hard for me to describe. He has a little sister that goes to the school. His little sister was being picked on. What did he choose to do? Well, he should have come to the office, right? We know that, and shared with us. But what does he do? He goes and finds the parent of the student during dismissal and tries to have a conversation about what’s happening. I go up and I go, “What’s going on?” And he’s like, “Well, I just wanted to talk to him, man to man, just to let him know what I’d been seeing, and just to make sure he was aware.” He was calm, he was respectful, he wasn’t being rude at all. But now, you know, I’m like, “Wow, this—this is the same kid that was fighting two years ago at a park,” right? Like, not able to control his anger, not able—the parents were so worried he’d be kicked out of the school entirely and put up for expulsion. Able to communicate and use his words—this. And you adults, you know this, but students really need help with regulating their emotions. How? What better way to learn how to regulate your emotions than to have 100 people waiting for it, to have you—and you’re going to—about to come, go in front of them and have to deliver. And you’re delivering without cue cards, without anything. You’re delivering and you’re engaging, sometimes for 45 minutes straight. I feel that we’re helping them develop life skills, and we’re helping them truly find their “why” and their connection to their inner talent. And like he said, to who he truly is.

Rena Clark 39:23

I think that’s just so powerful. And I was about to ask another question, but I almost feel like you answered in a way, because we were thinking about, you know, listeners, because not everyone that listens to this is part of the AVID community yet, or maybe they just have little speckles of AVID. But there’s always something to take away, even from this. And I love that—that approach. I feel like you said, you know, what lens, how we look at kids, that strength-based lens, absolutely. And I don’t know if you want to add anything else, just thinking about our listeners that maybe, you know, aren’t in a community that’s about that, but they’re trying to do little pieces of this on their own. What might be like a little nugget or a little bit of advice we might give our listeners?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 40:20

I think I would say, don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t you dare. You know, and it’s like you really have to—I know I can’t think of a better word than fight for it. I have to fight district. I have to fight—I have to fight parents, you know, in a loving way. I have to fight staff and teachers. I have to fight myself. Sometimes when I go, “No, the district says there’s no money.” You know what? Go find it. Go figure it out, right? Like, don’t give up. I would say the first thing would be to have a conversation with yourself. Do some reflection. Have you been giving it your all? Have you been really passionate? Do you still have that first year, first few days of like, “I’m gonna change the world”? And if you don’t, student-led is what you need, because they will give it back to you. They will tell you, not only about yourself and your teaching, if you can handle it. They will tell you about what they need and what they want, and together, there’s nothing more intoxicating than co-creating knowledge with your students. So what would the—for a first step be is to have a conversation centered around how they like to learn, what they’re interested in, and we didn’t—so I’ve made this a class this year. The student PD team now is a class through AVID as an elective. They sign up to do it, and they get to do it after school. If they can’t take it as an elective, they have opportunities to be involved. But last year, my first year doing this, the kids had to get pulled out of class, and they had to stay after school, and they did it all year. So this was something that we just kind of threw together out of their desire for more and just that little—that little, you know—I didn’t have a system in place that supported it. We didn’t even have any money, but I was determined. When you see a student, they presented, and then they looked at me, and it was a sixth grader, and he goes, “What’s next?” And I was like, “Ah, I’ve got to figure it out,” right? I’m like, “Well, what is next? I’m going to have to find opportunities.” And this is what I’m spending my life doing, finding opportunities to allow these kids to get up and show and to connect and to teach up and to be present in our community. The fact that we keep students out of our educational journey and we do our professional learning alone is so just archaic to me that we wouldn’t want to co-create it together when they have—are you kidding? They’re smarter than us. I couldn’t—even if you guys asked me to connect my earbuds to this, I wouldn’t have been able to. We’d have had to reschedule. I needed to—I would have needed a kid to do it. You know, it’s like they have so much to offer us if we allow that space in to find out how to let them help drive their educational journey.

Rena Clark 43:00

Well, lots to think about, ponder, dream about, but I’m gonna just go ahead and get us to our toolkit. Check it out. Check it out.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 43:12

Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Rena Clark 43:19

You’ve given us lots of good ideas. But are there any ideas, toolkits that we might give our listeners to walk away with?

Paul Beckermann 43:28

I can go first. I was just gonna say, if you don’t feel like you can have students lead PD with staff, if you’re not at that point yet, have students lead learning with other students, even if it’s a younger grade. It’s an entry point into that. I used to have my 11th grade speech kids go down to the second grade classroom and they would read to them. I remember an 11th grade literature class had a buddy classroom in eighth grade, and they would journal to each other, and they would work with each other. We had high school mentors that mentored middle school kids. The more you can build that that way, that can be an entry level into this, I think.

Winston Benjamin 44:12

I’m gonna jump with, yo, try the AVID WICOR strategies in your PD. I mean, try to think about how to make it enjoyable, right? Like engaging, something where the participants are doing something and walking away with an item to be prepared with and engage with. So I just think that having—flipping the script and changing the pattern of professional developments would benefit teachers, who will then benefit students.

Rena Clark 44:39

And I love this idea of, you know, starting with your—and I call it “encore” department, so the idea of some of those singleton teachers or those departments that I’m going to say often felt left out or like, “This isn’t for us,” or like, if you can get that encore, encore department to be a big part of it, then we’re going to get everybody. So Rose, you have something you want to add to our toolkit?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 45:05

I would just say that don’t forget about your classified staff. They care so much and they feel so neglected and left out. But they love the kids. You don’t sign up to work at a school without loving our students. And so even having—you can have the students go practice, train up your classified, and just say, “Hey, come on in. We’ll, you know, we’ll give you a cookie. Sit here for 10 minutes. Let us practice the strategy,” and let the kids practice getting comfortable, because they don’t want to be doing a PowerPoint. They need to be actually playing in the strategy with staff. And so the classified will be very thankful to engage with them in that way. That would be just a very low entry way.

Paul Beckermann 45:45

Awesome. All right. Well, let’s jump into our “one thing.”

Transition Music: It’s time for that one thing. One thing. It’s that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 45:58

Okay, one thing time. Final takeaway for the day. Rena, Winston, you want to—you want to go first?

Rena Clark 46:06

I can. I can jump in if you want. I love the line that you just said, Rose, that nothing is as intoxicating as co-creating knowledge with your students. That just painted such a vivid picture in my mind, and even my own way, my own personal way of learning is I love that lead learner, learning with students. And if you can embrace that, just that the space you create with your kids, and you’re building community together, you know, then when they go talk about you, they’re gonna have nothing but, you know, exciting things to get other kids on board too, and other teachers.

Paul Beckermann 46:44

Yeah, I love that line too. Winston?

Winston Benjamin 46:47

Beware of backhanded compliments, recognizing that those compliments that you’re giving or framing students—you might be limiting their opportunities or who they really are because you have not stepped outside of yourself to see deeply the capabilities of all your students. So those backhanded compliments about the students being top level students, but also, you know, our Ds and Fs can teach you some things about life. You’re right. So to be aware of that is a really important takeaway for me.

Paul Beckermann 47:25

I keep coming back to the word “empower.” Seems like the whole conversation really revolves around that: empowering kids, empowering teachers, empowering support staff, empowering your custodian to be part of the crew. It goes back to—I remember when I switched school districts, one of the young teachers came up to me and says, “What’s one piece of advice that you would like to leave me with? Because I want to learn from you as you’re walking out the door.” And I said, “Kids can be great if we let them. We have to empower them so that they can show their greatness. They all have it inside of them, just in different ways.” Like you said, Rose, what’s their strength? Let’s find that. Let’s empower that. Let’s build them up. We can make a—we can change the world. All right, Rose, you get the final platform today. What would you like to leave our listeners with as we sign off today?

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 48:24

Wow. No pressure. I think that, you know, we are so incredibly lucky to work with these amazing students. I think that just the reminder of, if you—if you chose this field and it’s—and we chose it, right? We could all be driving a bus and not have half the stress that we have working at a school site, but to be chosen to do this work—we have, you have to go back to that love and look at those students for the treasures and the gifts that they possess. When I see a student, I’m investing in their potential self. I don’t care who—if they’re sitting in front of me up for expulsion, I’m sitting with that dad, I’m sitting with that family, and I’m still investing in six months from now, six years from now, because that’s what they need. So it’s just like, I think of myself as half talent manager and half potential, like, potential energy digger-upper and finder, and just remember that that’s our job. We’re future builders, and it’s such a great job. And I’m just—I’m thankful to get to chat with you guys tonight. It was wonderful. But when we look around our campus, we should just see all of the treasure right there in front of us, ready. Just hunt it out.

Winston Benjamin 49:42

And on that note, ladies and gentlemen, thinking about how to flip the class, flip the program, flip your building, where you provide your students with the responsibilities that they can and they will and they shall lead us to the future. Thank you so much, Rose, for your support and just continuing to shout out to your teachers. We honor you, Queen Supreme.

Dr. Rosalind Henderson 50:10

Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. And shout-out to my teachers too. They’re amazing. I have such an amazing team and staff, absolutely phenomenal. I am so blessed to have each and every one of them.

Team 50:24

Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education. We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners. We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education, and remember, go forth and be awesome. Thank you for all you do. You make a difference.