Open Design for Learning with Aria Chernik
In this interview with Aria Chernik, we discuss student-centered engagement situated within authentic contexts, problems with focusing entirely on capitalistic purposes of education, using critical pedagogies to problematize power dynamics in the classroom, using an open design for learning, the phenomenology of collaboration, creating a space that encourages taking risks in education, and much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the CSK8 podcast.
My name is Jared O'Leary.
Each week of the podcast
is either a solo episode where I unpack some scholarship in relation to computer
science education or an episode with a guest or multiple guests.
In this week's interview, I'm having a discussion with Sarah Love,
where we talk about the place for joy in teaching and learning.
The impact of remote learning on project based learning and early childhood
misconceptions around PBL and early childhood.
Encouraging curiosity by responding to questions with questions.
Social and emotional learning,
which is the impact of yoga and meditation on teaching and so much more.
The show notes includes links to other podcasts
and organizations and resources that were mentioned in this episode,
and you can find that at Jared O'Leary e-com
or by visiting the link, an app that you're listening
to this on our website, you will find hundreds,
if not thousands of free computer science education
resources, including a link to Buddha PD, which is the nonprofit that I work for.
In addition,
you'll find a bunch of
drumming and gaming content because I'm into both of those as well.
But with all that being said, we will now begin with an introduction by Sara.
Hi, I am Sara Lev.
I am a teacher. I am an instructional coach.
I'm an author.
And my work centers really around empowering people.
Both adults and children, to become joyful and independent learners.
I'm particularly passionate about project based learning and learner centered
practices, social emotional learning and imbed
all of that into my work with both children and adults.
And I'm particularly passionate about early childhood educators.
And how do you empower people to become joyful?
Because like, that's a very deep and praiseworthy goal to do.
Yeah, I mean, so much of it is about really knowing who your learners are,
whether that's children or adults, what matters to them,
where they come from, and bringing those characteristics
with those interests into the learning process and making sure that learning
should be joyful and it should be fun and it should be joyful for me too.
So really trying to find ways
to tap into joy when I am teaching and learning.
I had a professor once who this was for a curriculum
class, was talking about standards and it was like the things that you put on
standards are the things that you then
measure and assess, which then is very telling.
The fact that the things that we are caring about
does not include joy and interest in actually wanting to learn and whatnot.
And that has always stuck with me of like, why is it that we aren't trying to
like, assess whether or not kids are having a wonderful time learning
like at the point is just to learn a fact or a skill or an action.
It's not to learn to love learning, which is, I think,
a huge missed opportunity. Absolutely.
And yet to love learning and to love what your own questions and your curiosities
and the relationships that you have right in a learning environment.
And so I think a lot of
the joy has to come from the relationships that get built with me,
but also the relationships that are being developed with students.
Right.
Or teachers right, Even if it's in a very short
professional development setting, those relationships are very important.
So really just being aware of those things.
Yeah.
Can you tell me a story
about an experience in education that continues to have an impact on you?
Yeah, and actually, it's interesting to think about this in that context.
I got an email from a former student.
Now, remember, my students, when I have them, are five years old, and I received
an email from a student right after she graduated high school.
And this was 2020 and I got an email from her out of the blue.
She wanted to write to me as she was reflecting on her schooling and her
education, specifically the experience she had as a kindergartner in my class.
And it was really stunning, actually.
I can read a little bit if you don't mind.
Yeah, she said.
I graduated high school last week and I wanted to reach out to say hi
and thank you.
Your classroom provided an incredibly sound, creative spirit and critical
thinking foundation that I've built upon over the last 13 years.
As a little kid in your class.
I just thought we were having fun, and that was how old school was.
I now know that your classroom was truly a special and unique place,
and she tells about how she went on to this project based learning high school
and engineering school, and she says it was utterly apparent
from the first day of freshman year
that I had something most of these kids didn't profound curiosity.
Simply put, I was excited to learn.
I am excited to learn. Thank you for cultivating that.
And in light of what we just talked about with the joy and independence, right?
Like, yeah, it's wonderful to look back at that email with that lens
because she talks about both those things, right?
She was having fun, but also she developed these critical
thinking skills and curiosity, and that's being an independent learner.
And, you know, why it was so powerful was that, you know, as a teacher
of very young children, we don't often get to follow up with our students.
You know, maybe for a high school teacher, you might see them or hear from them.
But, you know, I don't get that.
And so I'm often wondering, like, I'll even remember what I'm doing,
you know, and what kind of impact will this project
or this learning experience have on these young children?
And so to such an as a COVID class of 2020
and to get that email in that time was very powerful.
And even now in challenges, I reflect on that email
and just think about like, okay, I might not know,
but what I'm doing I'm hoping is making an impact.
Yeah, that's a really interesting perspective that I didn't have.
So in the K-12 side of things,
the shortest time that I'd see students would be about four years.
So like when I was teaching high school,
the drumline stuff, I'd see them from ninth grade through 12th grade.
When I was teaching computer science, it was a K-8 school.
So I saw all nine of those grade levels over the course of several years
and whatnot.
So that is an interesting point to consider.
If you only have one year, then I don't know what happens after that.
Yeah.
And that student I actually was in a school,
we had them for three years, so I had K one and two, which was incredible.
But for now it's only one year.
Yeah, for kindergarten.
So I did get to know her really well, but we started when she was only five.
So I'm curious like what really resonated with that particular student.
So if you could kind of describe like an ideal PBL experience
with like early childhood,
what would somebody see or experience going into that kind of a space?
Yeah, I mean,
I think first off, you know, opportunities for agency and independence.
And when I think about what that means and what that looks like, it
starts with asking questions and really making space for children
to ask questions and not answer them directly.
Right.
To really inspire questioning and modeling.
Questioning.
You would hear questions and hear students helping one another.
You know, often, you know, a child will ask a question.
I'll be like, who thinks they might be able
to answer that question or help that child?
You know, again, going back to that idea of relationships and connection.
So there's this sense of agency and that I'm really giving children
the chance to do what they can on their own.
And if not, I'm going to help them or scaffold so that they will be able to do
it. You will see a lot of small groups and partnerships.
You will see a lot of kids doing different things.
Sometimes it's loud, you know, different teachers have different tolerance
for that kind of energy, right?
So I really think about it as a type of energy and that you will feel
a lot of people call it a buzz. Right.
But for some teachers, that feels really crazy.
You know.
But I think if you walk into a PBL classroom,
like what you're not going to see is like sitting in silence, right?
Compliance. Right.
I'm putting air quotes up because that's not what it's about.
Learning is active and it's engaging and it's talking and it's relationship.
So that's what I hope my classroom is, and I hope that's what people would see
in that environment.
Yeah, I really like your point
about children asking questions and not answering them directly.
I met with my principal once
after he did an observation and he rated me like a four
out of five on questions techniques, and it was like, Wait, a four out of five?
Like, I literally never responded with a direct answer.
I was only asking questions throughout the entire class.
And he's like, Yes, you were great.
But what would get this to be?
A five out of five is if the students were asking questions of each other.
And I was like, Oh, I really like that.
I'm glad he pointed it out.
That was a really important thing for me to consider, is
I shouldn't be the only one who is asking questions in the classroom.
What about the impact of remote learning on PBL?
How has that kind of changed things or what has stayed the same?
Remote learning really stretched me in that year.
I mean, I taught remotely, you know, picture my kids four and five years old
who had never met each other when they started the school year.
They'd never been in school before.
So I mean, for me,
I really thought a lot about how I could build a learning environment
that was positive and relationship based, all the same things that I always had.
But over Zoom, and that was really challenging.
But I think PBL was really the way that I could do it, you know?
So the projects I designed and developed that year
were actually some of my favorite I've ever done.
Like we designed a website, we produced a podcast.
You know, we actually wrote a book and published a book.
We did this all over Zoom, but we were able to do it.
I got obsessed with collaboration,
like because I think that was the thing that really stretched me the most.
How are we going to collaborate if my kids are not together?
And so I just did a lot of thinking and experimenting.
The other thing that happened with remote learning, the impact it had was
I had a lot of flexibility in the structure of my day,
and I had small groups every afternoon on Zoom for 20 minutes
and it was actually amazing. We had these small groups.
There was no interruptions, very focused attention, 4 to 5 children at a time.
Right.
And this really helped with feedback and revisions for writing collaboratively.
It was actually easier in some ways because now I'm back in person
trying to do small groups.
You know, you have all this noise and interruptions.
So I actually tried, instead of doing the small groups this year in my classroom,
I found an empty space to bring them to that experience of remote learning
impacted my teaching because I realized for the most effective
small group work in that kind of environment,
it really the benefit of a breakout room right?
It really is like essentially creating a breakout room in the live space.
So I'm lucky I have an associate teacher so that she can stay with them.
So in any case, it stretched me and my ways of thinking
about collaboration and also like, yeah, like feedback and revision.
It was actually better
on Zoom with my kids.
Yeah, it's interesting how while there have been some constraints involved
with going to remote learning, there's also been some affordances
where it's enabled you to do things that you might not have considered,
and that is interesting that you then took that and went,
How can I apply this into an in-person context?
Yeah, and I don't think I ever would to try
to podcast if I weren't on Zoom because I was thinking, Well, what can we do?
Like that's feasible that, you know, works in the technology, You know, like
that was kind of interesting and now I would try to do it again.
Yeah. Especially with that age.
Like I think
when people think of like the examples you gave of creating a website or a book
or a podcast, like all of those, like they might think, okay, maybe
later in elementary school, but not necessarily kinder.
MM If somebody is listening to this and they're skeptical, like I don't know
about PBL with this particular age group that young, what are the benefits like?
How would you respond to somebody like that project based learning,
like I was saying about joy and agency, right?
And I'm trying to think about your to a more traditional learning environment
because certainly there are, you know, environments that aren't PBL
but might be learner centered where there will still be that sense of agency.
So I'm thinking about preschools often like Reggio inspired environment.
So certainly that's possible.
But yeah, it's all about joy and agency, right?
The sense of surprise around what young children can do,
the relationships children build with me and with one another, like
where children can really see the why behind their learning.
That is what project based learning is, right?
The purpose and the relevance.
And this is true for PBL at any age, but for young children
it's so magical and so full of wonder, Right?
Leo Use that word wonderful.
Like it's full of wonder because they have this confidence
and I love seeing the growth over time, especially this year.
You know, my children have come in then this year with most of them,
no school right in the pandemic, staying home, no preschool.
So coming in a very different place than in a typical year
and seeing my children and my students growth in agency,
taking initiative with their learning,
questioning, finding answers, I mean, it can be quantify it.
I mean, really, my first project of the year,
we had a set of, you know, what I call need to know questions, right?
The questions that kids generate.
And there were three, three questions.
And now I wish I could show you, you know, a chart, our most recent project,
something like 25 or 30 questions that children are generating.
So you really can actually see the growth now.
So some of the benefits are that that I think PBL is just very special
in any age in terms of giving kids that authenticity and purpose.
And for young children it's even more because I don't think there's many places
in their life where they have that kind of.
So it's special.
What about some of the misconceptions around PBL in early childhood?
So like as an example,
when I've spoken with like high school teachers, some of them would be like,
Oh yeah, PBL is great for high school, but like you couldn't do it with any grades.
Young Or that, especially not with like kindergarten.
It's like, wow, absolutely.
And that's what our book that I co-wrote is framed around those misconceptions.
It's actually called Overcoming Misconceptions and Reaching Success.
That's the title because that's so common, right?
So each chapter of our book is literally a misconception that we heard
from teachers.
So, for example, you know, my kids can't read or write yet.
How can they do projects or they're too needy, They can't work together.
That's not going to work.
Okay.
These are actually things that we heard from teachers.
Another misconception is around research, because there is a misconception
that research is reading a book and writing a report or giving a presentation.
That's not what research.
It's research is investigation and exploration and experimentation.
And young children are actually experts at doing research when you reframe it.
And so the literacy piece like asking, Oh yeah, maybe they can't read or write,
or maybe they're emergent in their skills around literacy.
How do they communicate their thoughts and ideas?
Because that's what literacy is.
It's about communication.
It's also about identity, right?
It's a yes, it's about skills more than skills.
Another big one teachers have is like, Oh, I have to frontload too much
content, right?
My kids aren't ready.
I need to teach them too much content to do it. Yeah.
And so that's a misunderstanding of yes, young children, but also PBL.
You learn through a project, you don't learn prior to the project.
And that's true for young children as well.
There's lots of misconceptions that, you know, are grounded
in real experiences and they're certainly valid.
Right?
And I do think the reason we wrote the book
and even my experience as an early childhood educator
when I first was getting training and going through workshops,
you know, you're really looking for models of young children doing project
based learning, and often you might not get those.
And so if you don't get them, then you really doubt and you say, Well,
why are you only showing me a third grade and a fifth grade example of this?
And that's kind of was my experience at first.
And one of the reasons that I really wanted to write the book,
because I wanted to really dispel the myths, but also give some examples
that a lot of my work right now
in terms of like we have a website and we host a blog
like is giving teachers examples so that they know they can do it.
What about with COVID?
There are many teachers who are talking about learning loss,
and I've heard some responses who are just like,
I don't have time for PBL.
I need to focus on reading, writing, arithmetic.
Yeah, right. Foundational skills. That's what everyone's saying.
Yeah, we learned them through project based learning and again,
it's about that engagement and purpose because that misconception that,
you know, if there's learning loss, the way to learn is by what
skill and drill,
drill and kill, right?
Like that's not purposeful learning and that's definitely not joyful
in my opinion.
You have to believe that project based learning is learning, right?
It's not extra.
It's the way that learning happens.
And I would argue it's more meaningful and and it works.
Children learn, right?
So my children are definitely learning through projects.
So I would say you really have to have that belief.
You have to believe,
but I don't believe that drill and kill or the way that kids learn best.
So one of the things that I like to do is when I strongly agree with something,
try and think of, well, when would I disagree
with the thing that I strongly agree with or when would I not do it?
So in the case of PBL, like, when would you not do PBL with early childhood?
It might be hard if you're in a school that is very wedded to a particular scope
and sequence or curriculum without much flexibility.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but that is more challenging.
Or if it's a school environment
that doesn't have like a very positive learning culture
because you need to build that culture in order to to do PBL effectively.
You can't do PBL in a culture where there's a lot of shame or blame
or punitive that kind of culture, that would be really challenging.
But I still think there's a lot of teachers out there
like doing PBL in their own little islands, even when they are
in those kind of environments.
So some is definitely better than none.
I would just say that it might be more challenging.
I don't know that it's impossible.
Yeah, I did like a modified version, so in a district that I was
in, the seventh and eighth graders
were required to do a JavaScript course and it was a very sequenced course.
Like you go through step one and then when you finished step on,
you go to step two, like everybody's gone through the same sequence.
But what I did was make it so that, okay, Monday through Thursday
we're going to do this thing required to do, but on Friday
you're going to take whatever you learned, wherever you're at in the course,
and you're going to apply it into your own unique project.
And we're going to keep revising you this every single Friday.
And so you're going to keep expanding upon your ideas and what you're learning
and applying it into this thing that is of interest to you.
And so that's what I did for that year, what was required.
And that modification made it so that they were taking something,
they were learning, contextualizing it in something they were interested in.
And then eventually kids were like, Hey, I want to spend more time on this thing
than just the one day.
And so after that first year, I was like, All right, cool.
You can work on projects for as long as you want.
Now, that's great.
Yeah, that's great.
Now, if we were to zoom back out to some of the things that have influenced
you, I'm curious, what's
a piece of advice related to education that has really resonated with you?
Back when I was in graduate school, I had a wonderful advisor named Judy
Leipzig, and we had like small groups, an advisory group.
And I remember her saying something
that was so simple, but it made a huge impact on me.
And what she said was, you know, when a child asked you a question,
your first response should be, what do you think?
And when I think about the way that I teach,
I feel like that encapsulates so much of what I believe.
It's such a simple thing, but the values that I hold as an educator,
you know, number one, that I'm not like a sage on the stage, right?
My role is to facilitate learning my role is to empower young children
to go seek their own answers, right with my support or with scaffolding.
So that little phrase, that little response,
what do you think is turning it on to the child to say, Oh,
I have ideas, I have experiences, I have value, right?
And all of that is sort of wrapped up in that one sentence.
And so I use that.
I don't know how many times a day, right.
Like, think about how many times
not just young children, even adults might ask questions.
Right.
And you might say, well, what do you think?
You know,
so many times teachers of older grades tell me, Well, kids are so many questions.
And when they're young and then it gets just pushed out of them,
you know, And I'm like, well, why is that?
Why is that happening that students just over time view questions
as a negative, as a signifier of a lack of knowledge versus
a signifier of curiosity and interest, like my student was in the beginning?
And so I think that that piece of advice she gave me is so powerful.
And then a lot of teachers say, well, then what
if they say, Oh, I don't know, you know?
And then I say, they asked me a question.
I said, What do you think? And the kid's like, I don't know.
And I say, Well, how can we find out together?
How do you think we can find out?
And that really opens it up to, Well, I could do this.
I could ask this person, you could show me this.
Right? But again, it's empowering.
It's giving the student, the child, the agency,
and the confidence in themselves as a learner.
And that's really my goal, to have kids grow confident
as learners so they can go take that beyond the classroom.
Yeah, that definitely resonates with me.
I had kids sometimes be like, Why don't you just tell me the answer
when I'd respond with a question and be like,
Because what if you have a question and I'm not here?
What if there's a substitute here?
Or what if you're at home and you're working on this
and you don't know, like I'm trying to teach you how to teach yourself
to figure out solutions to this or think through potential solutions down the road.
And most of the time it would click and they'd be like, Oh, I get it.
But sometimes they'd be like, But I just want to know the answer.
Oh yeah.
I mean, this comes up a lot with spelling with young children and parents, right?
And so a lot of times parents think that the way
to teach children's spelling is by spelling it for them.
Right.
And a lot of children will come to our class going, how do you spell that?
And I always say, Well, what do you think
Now, if children don't
yet have the phonemic awareness to spell, then I just say, Well, you have a choice.
You can try on your own or I can just write it for you.
But telling a child how to spell something is actually not helping them
with anything. And so we call it brave spelling.
I mean, this is a research based approach, invented spelling.
We call it brave spelling.
But when I tell parents this, they're always like, Oh my gosh, what am I doing?
You know, Because I say to them,
Look, if you are constantly telling them how to spell things,
what will they do when you're not there or when any adult isn't there?
They've got to look inside and go, What do I know about letters and words
and sounds?
And then, you know, I have a child once who
she told her parent, you know what dad did?
You know that I can spell any word?
She was six, you know.
And how amazing is that?
It's real because then she's not hindered in her writing.
Right?
There's definitely a place for,
you know, what we call dictionary, you know, standardized
spelling and learning words and all of that, of course,
but not doing like a writing type because this is about their voice, right?
So anyway, it's the same idea of like what I tell children.
Like, you can try it on your own.
You know, I'm interested in how
philosophies are approaches to education kind of change over time.
So my own when I first started is very different than it is today.
So for you, I'm curious, like when you first began in education,
what's something that you no longer believe that you used to?
For some reason I had this belief that assessment was like a dirty word.
You know, assessments like bad like tests, you know, especially for young children
who were like,
you know,
we're teaching in a developmental way and we want to let them grow in our own pace.
You know, I had a lot of those kinds of thoughts as an early teacher.
And so I really shied away from like talking about assessment
and thinking about assessment and now I am completely changed.
I had a friend and colleague
who wrote a blog about like where the word assessment came from.
It comes from the word acedia.
Think, which means to sit beside.
And when I read that, I was like, That is how I feel.
I am sitting learning what they know, you know, so that it can inform
my instruction and, you know, certainly learning about assessment.
And it did a lot of research for our book around
like what assessment capable means, like what does it mean to be an assessment
capable learner, a young child who's able to like, reflect
on where they've been and where they want to go and set goals for themselves.
And I think it's actually really beautiful.
And so my thoughts about assessment are very different now.
So in part of the work that I do with bootcamp,
I created an assessment resources document to try and help new
to computer science education educators like O'Hehir assess.
And so we tease out the differences between assessment and evaluation and say,
Well, there are two very different things,
but there's different ways that you can assess.
So like in America, the two most common ones are summative, informative.
So in Canada they have another one that they often refer to as IPSA live.
So summative is usually like an assessment of learning.
What did you learn throughout this process?
Formative is assessment for learning, but ipsa tive is assessment as learning.
So when you're going through
an episode of process, the intent is to not only assess
but also to learn through that process, to inform your like future goal
setting and whatnot.
So it's a really interesting thing
to go through and to read that and go, Why isn't that more common in America?
Like I barely hear anyone mention opposite of assessment.
I've never heard of that.
That's fascinating.
Yeah, it's fun.
Like the document that I'll share in the show
notes like that has the resources to it all linked in it.
It has some links to some like the
I forget
the name of their Department of Education, but they have like several documents
to specifically unpack.
Well, how do you use episode of assessment in the classroom?
Wow, that is great. Thank you for sharing that.
So having worked with every grade, kindergarten and beyond,
I know that the younger grade levels are very different
than like even in upper elementary.
I'm curious if you could share some of the challenges
that like these early childhood educators experiences that
other educators, even in the elementary space, might not be aware of?
Yeah, I mean, I think that some of the challenges
are around making learning accessible.
Well, I'll just tell a story.
So one time I was in a new school environment, new faculty, new staff,
and sitting at a table during our first PD and I teach
K, So transitional kindergarten, which in California is the first of a
two year kindergarten program.
So it's kind of unique to California. My kids are four.
They turn five in the first three months of the year.
So I was developing a new program standalone tech,
and this teacher said to me, she I think she taught a high schooler
and she said,
Oh, man, I guess you're going to be doing a lot of cutting and gluing.
And I just thought and I had to say like, well, it's way more than that,
you know?
So I think there's this one perception that, like the academics are really easy,
you know, because the content
all we all know one plus one, we all know two plus two.
But like but I think there's a misconception
or maybe there's a thought of like
not teaching foundational skills like that and making them accessible
to a very diverse group of students is very challenging.
So that's one piece I would say.
And the other piece is just around social emotional development.
I think that, you know, there's a perception that like,
oh, it's all just like this touchy feely time of friends and this and that,
you know,
and like a lot of people may not realize, like there's a lot of thoughtful skill
that needs to go into supporting young children.
Social and emotional development in terms of all the skills
that we might take for granted.
You know, and especially this year, I mean, a lot of times I've been
describing this year and people are like, Oh wow, I never thought about that.
You know, for example, young children have they've ever been in a group.
They don't know what it means really.
Many of them, unless they have a sibling,
you know, don't know what it means to take turns to share materials,
to ask for what they need, you know, to ask me what they need.
You know, they're used to getting a lot from their parents or their caregivers.
So what is a teacher? What is the role of a teacher? Right.
All of these things take a lot of care and thought.
And I think, you know, that's what I would say, that the early childhood teachers
are very skillful at really developing and helping children develop these skills.
And these, by the way, are not soft skills, right?
They're not nothing.
These are essential skills that I would argue are needed throughout,
you know, all learning, even adults.
I think we see that loud and clear right now.
So that's probably what I would say.
Yeah, that's really making me think
back to when I used to teach elementary general music and band.
There were some music educators and especially people outside of the field
who thought, Oh well, high school is harder to teach music
than it is with elementary because all you're doing
is teaching them hot cross buns and things like that.
It's like, no having taught like professional level
groups like that is so much easier to refine things than it is
to teach 30 kids simultaneously how to play 30 different instruments.
And they've never like, held it before,
like to get them from making a sound that doesn't sound like a train.
To like playing hot cross buns requires a ton of skill and effort and whatnot.
It is very difficult to teach those foundational skills.
Yeah, I had another teacher asked me if there were like standards like, Oh,
are there kindergarten standards?
Like, Yes, of course, Like, but I mean, I understand,
like if you're not around young children, you might not know.
So I try, you know, that's again,
like a part of our work in my work is really just around
helping teachers know to like about the many skills
that teachers of young children have to have, you know,
academics as well as social and emotional learning.
What is social emotional learning?
And then how did you learn about it? Yeah, I mean, social emotional learning.
I mean, there's a lot of different places where you can learn what it is.
You know how I learned
about social emotional learning or school, you might call it, or the acronym.
I was a founding teacher
at a brand new charter school, and the charter school was founded on
school was a core part of the mission and the vision of the school.
So meaning that, you know, we're not just going to focus
on academic content standards.
When I think about social emotional learning,
I think about the many things that make us human beings, right?
Not just and not talking about your emotions.
I think that's a misconception.
It's not just your feelings, right?
ACL is about your relationships, like how you develop
relationships, how you set goals for yourself, right?
Yes. It's about self-awareness, your self-regulation skills.
Right. But it's even more than that. It's your identity.
It's how you problem solve.
It's how you work with others and collaborate.
And so much of ACL has to do with the socio political context we're in.
Like, you can't separate who we are as people, our race, our gender,
you know, all of these things are a part of of our identities.
And I think ACL encompasses all of those things.
So all learning is social and emotional, right?
There's another misconception
that like ACL is over here and academics are over here.
And so, you know, there's a great book that just came out a year or two ago.
It's actually called All Learning is Social and Emotional and really
brings home that fact that if you have a child or an adult, frankly,
who is in a learning environment, you can't tease out ACL
because they're coming in with thoughts and ideas and feelings
about who they are that is connected to how they learn content, right?
So yeah, a lot of those skills that you mentioned sound like things
I have worked on through therapy over years,
and it would have been nice to have developed those skills earlier.
Totally.
Yeah. And I mean, I think unfortunate lately or fortunate.
Well, I'd say it's fortunately after the pandemic,
all of a sudden it's like, Oh, well, now we have to focus on school, right?
Kids are coming back. They've all experienced trauma.
And I'm glad that schools are beginning to acknowledge ACL
in the midst of this pandemic.
It's just surprising that it took a,
you know, global pandemic to make educators think about children's
whole being and whole selves as they are showing up to a learning environment.
You know, there's a huge, you know, focus now on
ACL programs and curricula and,
you know, making sure we're addressing children social and emotional development.
But this is always important, not just after a trauma.
Yeah, and that also sounds like a misuse of ACL,
like there are trauma based approaches and therapies and whatnot.
And those would probably be better suited for handling trauma
as opposed to just Crowe barring ACL into it.
Yeah, I bet.
I mean, hey, if that's something that comes out of this pandemic
and you know, educators are focused on ACL in the classroom, that's great.
I hope it doesn't go away.
If somebody is listening to this and they're like,
I'm not really sold on like, why do you think it's important
for educators to consider and learn more about ACL?
Yeah, I think it's important to consider ACL because as I mentioned,
ACL, social and emotional learning.
All learning is social and emotional learning.
And so teachers cannot possibly be teaching children without considering
these skills.
I just don't know how that would be possible.
So you mentioned a book.
I'm curious, do you have other resources that you recommend for people learning
more about ACL?
One resource that many teachers use is CASL,
so that is the collaborative for academic, social and emotional learning.
So that website has a ton of resources.
They actually have a new framework
that's been really incredible called Transformative ACL.
It's actually been linked to project based learning
in a lot of really positive ways and there's some research around that.
It's great to see the connection actually between ACL and PBL.
So I would check out Castle.
That book is great
and so the book that I mentioned is called All Learning is Social and Emotional.
That's by Fisher Fry and Smith, and I love their framework, actually.
Castle is great, but their framework, their model in their book
has three different skills that are really deep to think about.
And then different scenarios as a teacher that you would be seeing those skills.
One of my favorites that are is new in there is is public spirit, right?
So this idea of really working as a leader,
right, and being a leader in your community, things like that.
So I definitely recommend that book, but I recommend checking out
Transformative schools specifically and some of the research that Castle has.
The other resource I really, really love is responsive
classroom, and responsive Classroom has trainings and books
that really transformed my work as a teacher in terms of language and culture.
So building a positive culture in your classroom,
which is deeply connected to developing children's social and emotional skills,
and the other organization that I love that I'm also a yoga teacher and I work
with an organization called Yoga edX, which brings yoga tools into the classroom
and for teachers, which also is really connected to school.
And why I love yoga ad is that it embodies the ideas of social and emotional
learning and brings it into your body and into your breath in the classroom.
And so I do a lot of very simple yoga for transitions or movement breaks.
That is really connected
to especially self-awareness and self-regulation in children.
So I love yoga ad, too. Yeah, that's interesting.
I hadn't heard of yoga being used for self-regulation.
I know of some schools that are using meditation in particular
to help with that.
So how has yoga kind of other than like
transitions and whatnot, how is impacted your own teaching or even meditation?
Yeah, I mean, I've been practicing yoga for over 20 years, so for my own personal
well-being, it's essential as a teacher, but also just as a human being.
So I'm very connected to my body and my breath.
But in terms of
using it with my students in my classroom, there's so many great resources
that children love the challenge of yoga postures, you know,
and they love to, you know, do cool stuff with their bodies.
And so that's just kind of fun.
I mean, we talk about the joy, you know, trying to find this balancing
or, you know, can you hold this pose for this long?
And you do just really fun things, but also secretly, it's helping them
pay attention to how their bodies feeling and pay attention to their breath.
You know, breath is such a powerful tool in terms of self-regulation.
You know, my class has what we call a peace corner,
and that is a place where children it's not a place I send kids.
It's a place that a child says I need to go there.
They don't use the word self-regulate, but that's what it's for.
We use the words like big feelings.
You're having a big feeling
and it's hard for you to stay in the class with us right now.
You can go to the peace corner and put our timer on
and it's a couple of minutes and you could do some breaths.
I teach them different breaths to do there.
There's something to draw, there's books, there's blocks.
And then when they're done, they come back, Right?
So it's teaching children how to self-regulate.
It's the same thing adults need, right?
And I tell them, I said, I need a break. Right?
Mindfulness.
You know, we do mindfulness in different ways.
We don't call it meditation, I think because maybe some people,
you know, maybe some negative thoughts associated with meditation,
but mindfulness has become much more prevalent,
I think, in education all, you know, we use different curricula,
use the mindful schools curriculum, I use mind up.
These are great resources to teach children really to pay
attention to what's happening now without judgment.
That's what I tell kids.
You know, mindfulness is just paying attention to what's happened.
I think that comes from John KABAT-ZINN.
You know, just the idea of we're paying attention to what's happening
without judgment and can we do that in different environments?
We do. Mindful schools.
I don't know if you've seen Mindful schools, a great curriculum, but adaptable
lessons on mindful listening and mindful breathing, mindful body,
mindful tasting, you know,
so like this is a part of our school language, our classroom language,
and then you can use it in, you know, everyday context.
You know, can you be mindful when you're lining up?
Can you be mindful when you're sitting down at lunch
to make sure that your body is in a safe space? Right.
So like things like that,
my kids are very comfortable with that and that's schoolwide.
We do mindfulness practices.
The examples that you provided both for yoga, like as a transition
and for mindfulness meditation, however you want to frame
it, is very different than I think most people think of.
Like, Oh, if I'm going to go to a yoga class
that's like an hour and I have to go and do this thing,
one of the things that I've heard from, like I listen to a podcast
called 10% Happier with Dan Harris, and so he talks about how, like,
you don't have to spend 2 hours a day meditating, Like it could just be sitting
for 20 seconds and just like gathering your thoughts
like you were describing with like, Hey, just spend 2 minutes,
just kind of focusing on your breath and whatnot.
I love 10% happier.
And actually in the pandemic is when I found 10% happier.
So I forgot you'd asked about like, how is this my personal practice
impacting my teaching?
I had always done yoga and I certainly mindfulness is part of yoga,
but in terms of practicing meditation, when we went to quarantine
is when I found 10% happier his book and then that podcast.
And yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it doesn't have to be a big sit down thing, right?
And accessible to anybody, including young children and yoga.
Ed is really incredible at bridging those things, right?
So like bridging like what we know
about mindfulness and yoga to children in a learning environment.
And not only that, but for teachers, right?
So they have all these great resources and tools
for teachers because we need these resources.
Yeah, I started to have a practice where actually this came from my brother
in law who practices meditation.
He says every time you open a door, breathe in or breathe out, you know,
So like I would before I would walk into my classroom every day,
I take a deep breath in and a deep breath out like really simple things like that.
And when it was remote, it would be opening my laptop, right?
Like, open my laptop, be like, okay, that kind of routine helps.
And it helps children, too.
So when we come in from lunch and recess and we sit down on the rug
ready for story, we do breath when we have a morning meeting
and then we are about to shift into our first instructional block.
We do breath, you know,
but they're like fun breaths, you know, like you can do ocean breath or you can do
bare breathing and there's lots of different names
for the breaths that yoga ed has titled so that it's easy to remember.
Yeah, you know, a bear hibernates in the winter
and it's like breathe in, hold, breathe out for three right.
Like, imagine you're a bear, you know.
So the kids love that. Yeah.
And for anyone who's listening to this and who is skeptical, 10% happier
in particular, I think the subtitle is like meditation for the Fidgety Skeptic.
So like,
one of the reasons why I love listening to that podcast
is he interviews a bunch of people from many domains talking about how they
use meditation or breathing techniques, like whether it's an Olympic level athlete
or a high level performing musician or a politician or whatever.
There's all these different ways that you can focus on your breath,
like using a square breath or triangle breath or rectangular breath,
or as one where you like, inhale, and then you do another larger inhale
after that, and then you exhale and like that's used for anxiety management.
Like there's so many interesting things that are backed by science.
This isn't just like some woo woo thing, as Dan Harris would call it.
Like it is very beneficial for anyone, whether it's adults, orchids.
I try to model this for my kids too.
So like teachers, we get frustrated, right?
And instead of losing it or yelling,
or you know, when I do go to those places, I am very transparent
with my students and I'm like, I need to take a breath right now
because I'm feeling really frustrated and they see me do it.
Or I'm really aware that right now I'm about to what they call it, Flipping
your lid in and Seagulls book, which I'm blocking out right now, I can find out.
But it talks about like flipping your lid, right?
Like your amygdala is getting hijacked.
And so I'll, I'll teach my kids this idea of, like your prefrontal cortex
and your amygdala.
This comes from the mind up curriculum, and I'm about to flip my lid,
you know, And I'll just say to them, what's going to help me right
now is just taking a couple breaths or like stepping outside for a second.
And they see me doing that and then I'll come back in.
They'll be like, Are you okay?
Is there, you know, like, yep, I'm good now,
but then they'll do that, right?
So I think it's important to model that.
Yeah, for children to know, just like, you know, I'm having a big feeling
I need a break.
What do we do?
You know, we don't have time out in our class.
We don't have a place. I send children.
I might say, Do you need a break right now?
Or like, I think you need a break, which is different than the peace corner.
And that's something that comes from a responsive classroom.
Just this idea of like, we're not giving timeouts, right?
We are going to honor the fact that we all forget our agreements
sometimes and we might need a break to reset, just like I might need a break.
So, yeah, and to add on to the idea of modeling,
I will be transparent in that I have scheduled after this interview.
I'm going to meditate outside for 20 minutes.
So that is something that I try and do midway through my day to just like
do a mental reset and especially going outside
because I'm inside most of the time in front of a computer.
I just want to get some vitamin D and whatnot.
So that's awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, one of the things
the pandemic helped me to do is to find meditation and mindfulness.
I also have a routine in the morning where I listen to a positive podcast,
basically.
So I wake up pretty early, I wake up at five and my routine is
I wake up, I make coffee, I listen to some podcast,
it's like 10% Happier or Happiness Lab, something to help me kind of get
in a frame and then exercise or do yoga or a workout, something like that.
Even before my children wake up and I have to start my day, it's
really, really important for me to do that.
But listening to podcasts that were around, you know,
that topic of meditation or mindfulness were really, really important.
And I still do it even though we've got back.
So I'm curious if this will build off of what you're just describing.
So working in education is difficult.
There are many pressures and demands put on educators, but this last
couple of years in particular has been very intense for educators.
I'm wondering how do you intentionally
take care of yourself to try and prevent the burnout in general?
And then in addition to all the stuff with COVID,
we're recording this in January, We just went back
and it's been a really, really challenging time.
I think it really has to do with balance and creating very clear boundaries.
I don't tend to bring work home with me very much.
I'm a parent,
so that's one piece of really trying to set some clear boundaries.
Also, it's about really continuing to seek out new challenges and work that I love.
You know, you talk about burnout I've been in the classroom 17 years.
It's really been important to me to focus on my overall
purpose as an educator and my own commitment to growth.
So that means doing things outside of my day of teaching,
right, that are really meaningful to me, that stretch me.
So writing
the book was a great example of like, Wow, that really was like another full
time job.
But it was so important for my own development and growth.
I work with PBL works as national faculty member doing with them as a facilitator.
So really focusing on my own growth is important to me.
Also, just on a more personal level, like I'm very grounded in nature.
I love hiking and camping and,
you know, listening to live music, you know, finding the things that bring me
joy outside of the work and also having like a few close friends.
Work and education is so important, especially this year.
It's kind of been hard to explain to non educators what it is
like to be in the classroom right now over the last two years for sure.
And so it's good to have people around who understand just one or two.
That's been important to me.
I'm curious if you can elaborate on the first thing that you mentioned.
So how do you have clear boundaries if you're working from home,
like in a remote setting?
Well, it was really about like having my own designated space
for my classroom, which was like basically I have a small house
in the hallway at a desk, closing my laptop and like getting outside.
I would go outside for lunches.
I would take my son on bike rides during the lunch, trying to do something
different to sort of make that space different for myself.
You know, I saw funny video that was like somebody like
they're sitting on their couch, end of the workday.
They close their laptop
and they move over a foot and they open their laptop
and they're like, It's the weekend, you know?
So it's kind of like that is kind of like having a designated space,
I think, to help.
But also, like I had seen my mornings of listening to a positive podcast,
doing the dishes and exercising outside like all of those things to mark
the beginning of work, pre work and then post work.
I also am lucky.
I live in Los Angeles, We live near the ocean.
We can drive to the beach and see the beach
and that was really, really helpful.
Being outside really helps me.
Yeah, a joke about moving over a foot like that,
it actually sounds like one of the things that I did to separate
my, like work time from my leisure time on the same device.
Like, so right now I have a monitor directly in front of me,
and then one angled to my right or what I would do when I was switching
to leisure is I would change that orientation.
So now it's on the left, that angle monitor
and like that little thing it made a huge difference is like, okay,
no, I'm in leisure time.
I'm not in work time right now, even though it's all the same hardware I'm using.
Yeah, that's the other thing I think I'd heard.
You know, I would always, like, get dressed and like, put shoes on.
Like, I think the thing I heard that not everybody did, right?
Like, I would get dressed as if I was going to work.
Then after work, it would be like, okay, my shoes are off.
And now I'm, you know, in my sweats or whatever.
So I think I didn't thought about that, but I think that was another thing
that I did that helped me feel like I was working and not working.
When you're describing pushing yourself, like stretching yourself
beyond what you can currently do, I'm curious like,
how do you use that to iterate on yourself and be intentional with practicing
or improving your own abilities as an educator or in education?
Well, a lot of that has to do with really thinking about
what I'm interested in and again, where my purposes serve.
My purpose is around empowering early childhood.
You know, for example, or to really build independent learners.
So I have to ask myself,
like, who's doing that work, you know, and how can I learn from them?
And, you know,
one of the answers to that question for me was the work of Zoraida Hammond,
who wrote culturally responsive teaching in the brain and her work.
Her book has had a really deep impact on me.
So when it just kind of being aware of what's out there,
last year, she had a theta of her PELKEY culturally responsive education by design.
And so I signed up for that.
You know, like even though it was a crazy time for me,
like I was teaching remotely and everything, but, you know,
it was kind of like, well, when am I going to do this?
And it was actually one of the most impactful.
So it's things like that
really looking for people who I want to study with and learn with.
The other thing is being able to be a member
of the PBL Works National faculty.
I mean, we haven't gotten a chance to have a summit.
We used to have two summits a year together where all, you know, 90 of us
would get together and have a weekend of learning experiences
and deepening our own practice around facilitation and consulting and coaching.
Oh, I really miss those.
It's just such an inspiring group to be a part of, and I'm always learning.
So, you know, even when I get a chance to be out in the field
facilitating workshops and I get to work with another national faculty,
we're at the same site or something.
I mean, we just it's so, so inspiring.
So, you know, I think those are the most impactful times for me.
And podcasts are helping to like just introduce me
to new people and new work and helping me think through how I want to grow.
What do you feel is holding back educators
or the field and what's something that we can do about that?
I mean, right now, I feel is a very specific time in education.
And what is holding back educators, I think right now is like
we are so stretched and drained.
I mean, I'm speaking from experience,
but just like there's just so much expected of educators
and now there's other just big things going on with race and equity.
I mean, I just read an article that teachers would be miked
and there would be videos in the classroom.
I mean, these ideas
that we can be monitored in this way, I mean, that would certainly hold me back.
I mean, that's not happening for me where I am.
But we need to be trusted.
I think what is holding back educators may be the sense
that, like other people think they can do our jobs or other people think
they know what it means to be a teacher and that we can just do it
because we're we're either parents or we've been to school.
So somehow just learning about all of the things going on around
critical race theory and school boards, that is truly
I didn't think I'd go here today, but that really is on my mind
when you ask me about what's holding educators back.
That would hold me back if I was at in danger of being miked and
and videoed while I was teaching.
Yeah. When was it?
About May of 2020, when parents were realizing
just how hard it is to teach a student.
I thought we were reaching a tipping point where people were going
to finally understand and the social status of educators was going to improve.
But then how quickly to that flip with, Oh, you're
preventing me from going back to my job, etc., etc..
Like we turn into babysitters again that they wanted to control.
And it's a shame that it took that kind of a sharp turn.
Luckily, I'm in a great school where there's a lot of appreciate
and and a sense of gratitude, I think.
But yeah, that would hold some teachers back.
And I think a lot of teachers are burnt out
and want to leave the profession because of those high expectations.
Yeah.
What do you wish there was more research on that could inform your own practices?
Well, it's funny that going back full circle from the first story
about my student, I wish there was more research
on like the impact of project based learning on young children.
You know, how is their questioning different?
How could we, you know, like their curiosity or their agency?
Are those measurable and how and when?
You know,
there's certainly been a lot of research around
project based learning in the last year or two.
And there was one study that was about second graders, which was great to see.
But I also wish there was more research on like younger children,
like preschool, kindergarten and how that impacts their agency
and their skills in maybe fifth grade, but then even maybe later.
That would be interesting. Yeah.
If there are more longitudinal studies, that would be wonderful.
I did an interview, Andrea Stefani, and we discussed how some of the ways
that higher education is structured for tenure and promotion and whatnot.
It does not reward longitudinal studies.
So what it does reward is putting out a lot of smaller studies.
So that's what people tend to do
so they can get more publications and presentations and so less people
will do the five year tenure projects because that won't get you tenure.
Got it. Which is a shame. Yeah.
What's something that you're working on that you could use some help with?
Yeah, I actually just enrolled in a course in instructional design,
so that is new for me, but I'm super curious about it
and really thinking about like how my skills as a teacher
could translate into the instructional design process
for different contexts, whether it's like probably an education company,
but maybe other, you know, going back to my interest
in like mental health and wellbeing, is there a place for
or a need for instructional design in some of those fields?
So I would love help with that.
I'm always looking for help with, you know, how
to operationalize culturally responsive teaching and anti-bias work.
So that is something I'm always looking for help with as well.
Like I said, I did the PMC with Syreeta Hammond and really last year
and trying to take what I learned last year
and couldn't quite put into practice because I wasn't in person.
And I'm trying to do more of that this year in my classroom with my students.
So where my people go to connect with you and then organizations
that you work with? Sure.
So first of all, my book is called Implementing Project Based
Learning in Early Childhood Overcoming Misconceptions and Reaching Success.
I that with my colleagues and friends, Aaron Starkey and Amanda Clarke,
we are all PBL Works national faculty, so you can find me at the PBL Works
website, which is a great resource for anybody wants to try PBL, lots of free,
great, great, great resources there, as well as trainings and workshops.
And then I have our own company, Early Childhood project based Learning.
We have a website, early
childhood publication where we have a blog and trainings
and workshops and we have an online course and you can find me there.
And then we also have a Facebook group that actually
we just got up to 3800 people.
So really growing, wonderful community of educators,
early childhood educators who are interested in PBL.
And so that's really fun
because I've been able to meet people from around the world who are doing PBL
with young children and again, great examples.
People ask each other questions, share projects.
So all of those places are places you can find me.
And with that, that concludes this week's episode of the CSK podcast.
Really reminder can find links in the show notes
at Charity Ecom or by clicking the link and actually listening to the song.
So that way you can check out the IT resources organizations
and other episodes that were mentioned in this particular episode.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing with somebody else
or leaving a review on whatever app you listening to this on.
But stay tuned next week for another episode.
And until then, I hope you are all staying safe and are having a wonderful week.
Guest Bio
Aria F. Chernik, JD, PhD, is Associate Professor of the Practice in the Social Science Research Institute and the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative at Duke University and co-founder and co-director of the Open Design Studio at Duke. Her research and teaching focus on open design, equity-centered pedagogies, social justice and technology, ethical hospitality and active inclusivity, access to knowledge and transparency, and the phenomenology of collaboration. Aria has over 20 years of experience as an educator and learning innovation leader across K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and professional contexts. She loves co-designing contexts for joyful and transformative learning.
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Pedagogy of the Oppressed
This episode is the start of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 1, which discusses how oppressors maintain control over the oppressed. Following unpacking scholarship episodes discuss what this looks like in education and how educators can adopt a “pedagogy of the oppressed” to break cycles of oppression.
This episode is episode two of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 2, which discusses the “banking” approach to education that assumes students are repositories of information, and then proposes a liberatory approach to education that focuses on posing problems that students and teachers collaboratively solve. If you haven’t listened to the discussion on the first chapter, click here.
This episode is episode three of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 3, which discusses the importance of dialogue when engaging in liberatory practices. This episode builds off the previous unpacking scholarship episodes on chapter one and chapter two, so make sure you listen to those episodes before jumping in here.
This episode is the final episode of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 4, which synthesizes the concepts introduced in the previous chapters and discusses the difference between anti-dialogical and dialogical practices in education (and at large). This episode builds off the previous unpacking scholarship episodes on chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three so make sure you listen to those episodes before jumping in here.
In this episode I unpack Kallia and Cutts’ (2021) publication titled “Re-examining inequalities in computer science participation from a Bourdieusian sociological perspective,” which uses Bourdieu’s discussions of capital, habitus, and field to analyze 147 publications on CS interventions.
Rhizomatic Learning with Catherine Bornhorst, Jon Stapleton, and Katie Henry
In this panel discussion with Catherine Bornhorst, Jon Stapleton, and Katie Henry, we discuss what rhizomatic learning is and looks like in formalized educational spaces, affordances and constraints of rhizomatic learning, how to support individual students within a group setting, standards and rhizomatic learning, why few people know and use rhizomatic learning approaches, how to advocate for and learn more about rhizomatic learning, and much more.
Situated Language and Learning with Bryan Brown
In this interview Bryan Brown, we discuss the importance of language in education. In particular, we discuss the role of language in teaching and learning, discursive identity, situated language and learning, the importance of representation in education, the role of language on stress, how smartphones and virtual communication platforms (e.g., Zoom) could change learning, and many other topics relevant to CS education and learning.
In this episode I unpack Coppola’s (2021) publication titled “What if Freire had Facebook? A critical interrogation of social media woke culture among privileged voices in music education discourse,” which summarizes Paulo Freire’s works and hypothesizes how Freire may have responded to some forms of woke culture.
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Pedagogy of the Oppressed
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