District teams are designing plans to address six critical issues:rebuilding trusting relationships; engaging students in their own learning; ensuring equity for all stakeholders; harnessing digital technology to support learning; leading from the middle and utilizing systems, protocols and procedures to create a collaborative culture. The Galileo Institute's professional learning series facilitator, Larry Thomas summarizes the development, content and impact of these six sessions. Link to an overview of the six session series: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13HSiB7WNwTmmq76dnWuXpX1VIUjIwV0auia7fO4yLyk/edit?usp=sharing
Bob Maxfield and Suzanne Klein spoke with Larry Thomas, facilitator of the Galileo Institute’s professional learning series on Re-imagining Teaching and Learning, to reflect on the workshops as well as hear his perspective on the challenges facing educators moving forward. Fourteen school district teams of teachers and administrators attended the six-session series, with Oakland University School of Education and Human Services faculty and Intermediate School District leadership staff serving as thought partners. Utilizing the topics of rebuilding trusting relationships, quality instruction, equity, technology, and systems thinking, teams assessed what would be helpful to their educational systems, their schools, their classrooms and most importantly, for their students and their families during the workshops and in the follow up conversations back in the districts.
Rebuilding Relationships and Trust - Relationship building was an underlying theme in the design of the series. Trust is at the center of quality relationships; consequently, relationships among teachers, students, parents, administration and community were focal points of the discussions resulting in the collaborative development of strategies to address and strengthen these relationships. Participants worked to develop a sense of community and supportive networks beyond their current district or county. Series facilitator Larry Thomas, introduced the use of noteworthy cards to promote acknowledgement and affirmation among participants for contributions that sparked new thinking or further reflection.
Learning v. Schooling - Session two challenged teams to examine current pedagogy, offering the opportunity to make some changes to the system to increase student motivation and ownership of their learning. The guest facilitator, teacher Grayson McKinney, brought a broad spectrum of instructional practices which underscored the importance of deep learning, relevancy and application through project based learning to build students’ skill sets for the future.
Attending to Equity for All Students - While working on rebuilding relationships, and improving instruction, “our theory of action was to ensure that all students, families and teachers were getting what they needed in order to provide the best education for all of our kids.” Guest facilitator Dr. Robyne Thompson‘s extensive knowledge in the area of equity grounded her presentation which shared videos, personal perspective, and informational resources.
Technology to Support and Extend Learning - The digital divide and the challenges of remote learning quickly became evident during the pandemic. Teacher Jen McCollum, as guest facilitator, honed in on the evolving use of digital platforms and the role of districts in supporting students, teachers and parents by assessing and then building the skills necessary to support and extend teaching and learning. Her three-tiered approach to harnessing technology for digital communication and learning validated the importance of technology not as a driver, but as a support to learning for students and adults.
Structures, Systems and Leading from the Middle - Co-guest facilitators, Michelle Black and Principal Catherine Russel, introduced leading from the middle as a high leverage strategy to drive systems change. In leading from middle, teacher leaders help support other classroom teachers, bringing feedback information back to the central office, while superintendents work at the regional and state levels to affect policies to support education. Districts on the Move: Leading a Coherent System of Continuous Improvement by Jay Westover was a resource utilized in this workshop.
Systems Thinking – The final session facilitated by Mr. Thomas focused on systems thinking using tools and protocols that participants could employ when working with others. District teams had been given time to organize their thinking and to develop comprehensive strategic action plans. Each district team was then matched with another team to present an overview of their plan and receive feedback using specific protocols to question and clarify components of the plans as well as encourage and lift up important ideas.
Survey feedback from participants about the workshop series was extremely positive: participants wanted additional time to collaborate across the three counties and with their district teams to create systems and protocols to drive and sustain continuous improvement in their district.
Larry reflected further on the importance of time as districts approach the reset. “We never have enough time to do the kinds of things to really get at good solid core instruction with kids, that’s meaningful and equitable, that has built rapport for kids; all the pieces that we had as our titles for the sessions. Learning comes best when we have good protocols and systems to have time spent with educators in meaningful ways, and so we tried to practice in this series using a lot of different protocols and then also talking about the value of them, so that people could think about how that would fit in their classrooms first and foremost, in their grade level meetings, in their district meetings and so forth. We were trying to take the time to model and give them resources that would take not just the content of learning but make that time effectively used in order to make the system better than it currently is.”
He passionately challenges educators to be cognizant of all kids’ needs first and foremost, whether you are an individual, a grade level team, a school, a district or across districts. “Finding the vision and finding polite ways to say ‘no’ to things that are not going to have the impact for kids that you want to have or allow you the time and space to get better than you are with your practice is core." Other thoughts were to attend more to the social emotional learning and trust. "Finally, lead effectively and more from the middle and be strategic with the ways leadership takes place.”
Link to an overview of the workshop series: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13HSiB7WNwTmmq76dnWuXpX1VIUjIwV0auia7fO4yLyk/edit?usp=sharing
Bob Maxfield:
Welcome to Podcast for Leaderful Schools coming to you almost live via Zoom from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. It's a beautiful spring day in Michigan. This is Bob Maxfield and I'm here with my wonderful co-host Dr. Suzanne Klein. Sue, good morning.
[00:17.730]
Suzanne Klein:
Good morning Bob. It's another beautiful day in the neighborhood. Flowers are growing; we had a little bit of rain and it is truly spring almost summertime weather.
[00:28.140]
Bob Maxfield:
And today is a special recording of Podcast for Leaderful Schools, because we have with us as our guest, one of my favorite people, Larry Thomas. Larry and I have worked together for 1000 years on a variety of projects and it's always been a privilege for me to work with him and a privilege for our staff to have the benefit of his service.
So Larry, we're delighted you can be with us today, and good place to begin is just to let you tell us a bit about your professional background and then we'll talk a little bit about what all that means to us in the longer term.
[01:02.130]
Larry Thomas:
Well, good morning to everyone, and thank you for the invitation to join you.
I started back 40 years ago now, and it's amazing to think how quickly 40 years in public ed. can fly by. I started my career working with Detroit Public Schools in the Head Start Program, and loved that, as the first experience as an educator and stayed there for a number of years. I kept getting laid off and decided full time employment and paying bills would be helpful as well as working with kids, so I was lucky to get a job in Rochester Community Schools and taught, served as a building administrator, a teacher leader, and central office administrator over the course of 15-16 years in Rochester and then took a position with Oakland Schools, the Intermediate School District in Oakland County for the 28 school districts and charter schools.
And again thought, "Oh I'll do a few years there and then go back to a district and work with kids but the incredible experience of working with colleagues from across 28 school districts and charter schools, on behalf of children and educators was just wonderful, so I ended up staying with Oakland Schools until I retired, and have since been working part time for them and doing some contracting work outside of working with them since and loving it, still with teachers, still with kids, and still with administrators.
[02:19.860]
Bob Maxfield:
One of the things that I remember, as I mentioned earlier, which it's a privilege to work with you, but as a superintendent it was always comforting to know you were working with people in our district, because they always came away saying this was valuable, "I'm better teacher or better administrator now because of what Larry Thomas has done." Then in later years you worked closely with us at Oakland University on a countywide equity project that's a, I think still is a model of what could be done and what should be done, so for all that I'm grateful. But from your perspective Larry, what are the things as you look back that you're most proud of?
[02:58.320]
Larry Thomas:
I think what I'm most proud of is being able to work with so many dedicated, passionate people on behalf of children and just to be a contributor to that, and a learner with so many other people, is really what I'm most proud of related to the career work that I've been able to do. It is being of service to children.
[03:19.260]
Bob Maxfield:
And there's nothing much better than that, so for that thank you. So Sue, let's turn to the project you and Larry have been working on.
[03:27.330]
Suzanne Klein:
Recently, I had the pleasure of working with Larry on a series of workshops for district teams from the tri-county area here in Michigan, as they looked at what they were going to do post pandemic; taking a look at what they'd learned, taking a look at what they wanted to keep, what they didn't feel was successful any longer, and basically planning ahead in a systematic and coherent way for learning in their school district.
We entitled the series “Teaching and Learning after the Pandemic”, and from the feedback and all reports, it certainly has been a professional development experience that helped them live into some of those questions and then seek some answers.
Larry, for our listeners, please give them an overview of this project in terms of how it was organized, who helped you with the facilitation, so that they have a better sense of what it was that the six weeks- the six session experience provided.
[04:22.860]
Larry Thomas: Thank you. Well, it was great information given to me. Bob and Suzanne had originally met with superintendents across the three counties and asked what would be helpful to them as they start thinking post pandemic, and what would be helpful to their educational systems, their schools, their classrooms and most importantly, for our kids and our families.
So we took that data, the three of us and did some brainstorming and what we ended up coming up with was a six part series, professional learning series, that were going to be an hour and a half long each, because we're also hearing with all the stress that all the educators were trying to juggle both web-based learning and live learning and everything else in between, that an hour and a half was going to be as much as they could really muster up right now.
We crafted a six part series, hour and a half each and the topics that we landed on with the input from the superintendents across the three counties was relationship and trust needed to be first. Because at the core so many things were going on in so many directions that relationships were stressed in districts, in classrooms, in communities with parents and schools, because everyone was in such a state of confusion and trust is at the center of quality relationships. So our first session which I facilitated with the group was around that.
We followed it intentionally with learning versus schooling, is what we called it, and it was really a focus on instruction. But the whole notion of is school first and foremost about learning and/or schooling, and because this is our opportunity to change some things, hopefully with what we've learned in the last year, year and a half of our life. We had Grayson McKinney from Troy School District, was an elementary teacher. He facilitated the content portion of that session for us and did a beautiful job. He brought a very broad spectrum of instructional practices really honing in on things that also motivate kids to learn, and I think he really laid that out very well.
That was followed by a session on equity. We felt if we're going to be able to get at instruction at its core, we're working on rebuilding trust and relationships, our theory of action was we've got to make sure we're attending to equity so that all kids, all families, all educators are getting what they need in order to provide the best education for all of our kids. And we were really happy to have Dr. Robyne Thompson who's the HR Director for Utica Community Schools currently. She facilitated the content for that session for us and her experiences and her knowledge in the area of equity was just superb and that session was very well received by our colleagues.
Then, to put this little system started together, with everything going on during the pandemic, we knew that technology and digital was at the center of everyone's life during the pandemic and it also has huge impact for how we go forward. So we followed that session with one on technology and digital, and tried to also put it in its perspective that, that's not the driver; it's a support system to learning.
So that's why we intentionally went first with relationships and trust, then focus on instruction at the core making it equitable, and then helping to encourage the thought processes around technology and digital's contribution, and tremendous contribution and possibilities.
So that was our next session and again Jen McCollum from the Woodhaven-Brownstown School District in Wayne County, she facilitated that and just again she knocked it out of the ballpark, like the other facilitators had done.
And then we followed that with a session on systems. Our fourth one we thought "All right, we've got to start taking these core ideas around trust relationships, instruction, equity, and digital, and provide time to think about what's the impact to your system now, whether it be the system of your classroom, your school, your district, your county, cross county."
So we did a session on systems and we lucked out on this one. Michelle Black, who is a teacher leader in Walled Lake Schools and Catherine Russel, who was a principal, had both gone through the Galileo project together. Both had taught together in their district, but are in middle management positions in the system, which really was a core idea we were trying to get across in that session. We lucked out getting two people that were very experienced at middle management, in middle leadership and they just again, like everyone else, they spoke to the needs of people.
Our participants were made up from classroom teachers through superintendents. And so we tried to have facilitators to represent many of those different roles as well and perspectives. So that the work people were getting was really right to the point, right with people who are delivering it as the teachers were.
And then, our last session was really kind of to wrap all this together. And it was really continuing to focus on systems thinking and pulling tools together and protocols together that people can use to work with others.
And then we did something really kind of fun in the last session. We had each district team match up with another team and give their draft plan of where they thought they were going, based on the sessions we had had.
And they did a feedback listening session and feedback session to one another in order to kind of critique but also encourage and to lift ideas up across systems that were really important. So that's a quick summary of what we did.
[09:25.200]
Suzanne Klein:
It was all done from the perspective of leading learning and supporting learning and improving the quality of teaching and learning. I know as you're describing the sessions and having attended as they unfolded that there were lots of things that went just as planned, and then there were other ideas that came zinging in from left field, or from someone's comment that helped us redesign or tweak or whatever. Talk a little bit about that experience because wherever one is in that teaching and learning dyad we monitor, we adjust, build on, we get new perspectives. What did you expect and what surprised you that made you say "Aha got to head over this direction, a little bit"?
[10:07.710]
Larry Thomas:
Well, part of it was juggling the digital learning atmosphere which for me is somewhat new. Then we had many teachers that have been tossed into it. Well every teacher had been tossed into it, so this whole notion of communally learning together digitally with all of us, kind of a tapestry of what we put together online. It worked out kind of beautifully. With my lack of technical skill in this area as a facilitator, but people that were helping us with these sessions were doing it day to day, so we just...
It was a nice example of what I think teachers have been doing throughout this, and schools and districts have been doing throughout this; we just wrapped our arms around one another. We modified where we needed to, we had a plan of action intently in focus of what we were wanting to do, but we customized based on needs, based on context, and it was just a nice representation of the reality of the last year, year and a half for us. We lived it in the sessions that we did, and obviously I wasn't anticipating all that. It just happened and I think we made good of it and thank everyone that helped with that.
[11:15.150]
Suzanne Klein:
Think with us out loud for just a moment because you've had so much experience at the ISD and then at your district level roles in creating networks for teaching and learning, and networks for professional development, was there an "Aha or ah yes" kind of moment, as you look at what came about as a result of those sessions?
[11:37.920]
Larry Thomas:
It's interesting, for the amount of time that we had, as I said earlier an hour and a half, each time we had intentionally built into each one: a content piece, a connection piece, we wanted them to meet with their district team, because we knew they wanted that, we wanted to also integrate with conversations with colleagues from across other districts and other counties in order to build collaboration.
And there were moments where someone said it felt like speed dating in the feedback to us, but at the same time as it was feedback "our speed dating" they didn't want to miss any pieces of. So each individual component of what we were trying to do, I think was necessary, needed and helpful, but it was done in the context of time that was being respectful of educators' time frame.
But they wanted more and it's kind of a nice conundrum but it's kind of what we lived. They wanted more, but yet we're being respectful of the time because they're juggling so many things.
But I would argue that I think the core of what we got at, because of the superintendents' input to the two of you that we built on, the topics were such quality need for them, and supported what they were thinking about. It gave them the space to start thinking about what's possible going forward, and I think that was one of the things that you were hoping for.
[12:52.050]
Suzanne Klein:
Absolutely, and again I just had flashed through my mind the slide that you put on the screen for a number of those sessions about what is possible. It really set the stage for the content and then the tools you modeled and the process you modeled gave them opportunities to learn about how they might go back and lead learning in their own district.
[13:12.900]
Larry Thomas:
Well, and with all the pressures everyone's been living under, to just live with where everyone's heart and soul and intellect really is for children. We tried really hard to provide that; to be of service to our colleagues out there who have just been giving their hearts and souls to all of our kids.
[13:29.100]
Suzanne Klein:
Absolutely.
[13:31.140]
Bob Maxfield: The scope of this project, I think we need for the sake of our listeners, flesh that out a little more. How many districts were involved? How many individuals were involved and were they just teachers, were they administrators, who were they?
[13:46.200]
Larry Thomas:
I believe we started off with 19 districts, if my memory is correct.
[13:51.030]
Suzanne Klein:
Actually 14 districts.
[13:52.650]
Larry Thomas:
Oh thank you, sorry 14 districts, we had a number of others that kind of wanted in, and some districts wanted more people than what we originally thought each districts should have. And Elaine and Suzanne juggled that beautifully with districts to accommodate their context, their needs. So we didn't have a particular singular number that came from districts, but what we did ask them to consider was that a superintendent would be there, some central office colleagues would be there, building administrators would be there, and first and foremost teachers would be there. The most difficult one to get there were teachers, because of what they were juggling and digging with, with all the kids and just trying to survive.
Our hope, I think, initially was like 60% teachers and 40% the other group and it actually ended up being I think the reverse, we had about 60% of people that weren't directly teachers, but 40% or so were teachers. It worked out fine. But we were trying to be first and foremost of service to the direct practitioners with children, and so there was a little flip there because of the timing and what we're living through right now.
[14:53.400]
Suzanne Klein:
We also had some folks from the University and the local IDS who appeared as they could. They weren't attached to a particular team, but they popped into some of the breakout sessions as critical friends, as thought partners, as a person who could help support with resources later, that we appreciated the fact that there was this floating group of folks, who might also be a resource later on across counties again for the folks that attended.
[15:21.240]
Larry Thomas: I think, just to add to what Suzanne just said, I would say that that was intentionally done by us in the planning because what we wanted to do is align, to be a service to all the schools and districts in the tri-county area, instead of everyone kind of competing without trying to compete for time, energy, resources and direction, to help our colleagues we were really making an intentional try, to get as much coordination and collaboration involved going forward just to help teachers and administrators.
[15:53.160]
Suzanne Klein:
And Larry, that makes me think of your noteworthy cards. So could you tell our listeners just a little bit about that before we move on, because that was a strategy, as well as a tool?
[16:01.800]
Larry Thomas:
Sure. So part of it was we wanted to build community across the schools and districts here, which often times we don't have time for and we also know that everyone is rushing and everyone's juggling so much. But stepping out of one of the things that the superintendents had said to the two of you, when you were thinking about doing this series and it stuck in my head when I met with you, was this whole notion of building trust and relationships, has to be an underpinning of healing.
So I chose to really become somewhat of a little bit of a nag, but trying to do it playfully with people through the course of the series. And just saying,” When you hear someone really sharing an idea that provokes thinking for you, or adds to your thinking and provide you with a resource, consider just sending them a little note.” So I had this little formal card that we had made up and said, “You know here's one that we've made up called noteworthy, because something noteworthy happened today. Share it with someone, don't have to use that but just consider sharing the thinking contributions from people that are helping to trigger thinking for yourself or giving you resources to think about.”
So that was a kind of a piece we embedded throughout the entire series and a number of people took part of it. Whether they did it there, or they do it somewhere else, or they do it for kids in the classroom didn't matter, but what we wanted to do is promote acknowledgement and affirmation for people as part of the series as well.
[17:23.010]
Bob Maxfield:
A good transition to where I wanted to go next. That is in many ways the 14 districts and assorted hanger on, and I think we had as many as 80 or 90 people signed up for this thing, serve as a kind of a microcosm of what's going on in schools across America, and not only what is going on, but what we hope is going on, and so as you reflect on this experience and reflect on your work with school districts across the broader region what do you see as the big challenges that schools are going to face coming back at it in the fall of when some sense of normalcy returns?
And we'll go from there to what did we learn from this series that hopefully they can apply to make teaching and learning better for everybody concerned. What do you see as some of the challenges Larry that these districts, the school leaders and teachers are going to be facing?
[18:15.390]
Larry Thomas:
Well, I think the biggest one that stands out right away hearing that question Bob, is time. It's always been difficult, but finding time is one piece, and again we chose an hour and a half to be respectful of their schedules and everything they were juggling but an hour and a half we had to pack all this content and it's kind of an interesting analogy to what has happened in schools for as long as I know, 40 years I've been part of it, is we never have enough time to do the kinds of things to really get at good solid core instruction with kids, that's meaningful and equitable, that has built rapport for kids; all the pieces that we had as our titles for the sessions.
Time is always difficult and then, when the bureaucracy around us surrounds us the way it does, well intentioned governmental policies and such, they suck up so much time with those things that we don't spend as much time on the core reason we exist which is learning for kids.
And I think that's the piece that educators really need so one of my hopes, when we look at changing systems is start small, find what we can do, find successes, but then challenge the state, the federal government and even our school boards where necessary, that the time that we get needs to be used for what's core, which is helping us get better with this thing called learning.
So that would be the first one that comes to mind hearing the question, but then learning comes best when we have good protocols and systems to have time spent with educators in meaningful ways, and so we tried to practice in this series using a lot of different protocols and then also talking about the value of them, so that people could think about how that would fit in their classrooms first and foremost, in their grade level meetings, in their district meetings and so forth, so that we were trying to take the time to model and give them resources that would take not just the content of learning but make that time effectively used in order to make the system better than it currently is.
The commitments are there from our colleagues, so I think we were trying to give them breathing space and tools and talk about structures, but time is a huge one.
[20:26.640]
Bob Maxfield:
And the beauty of the structure of the series writ large for school districts is these are really the post pandemic challenges that every school district's going to have to face: how do we build and restore relationships; how do we deal with equity; how do we guarantee equity in a ways we haven't before; how do we effectively use technology; how do we lead from the middle? I mean, these are all challenges that we've known. These are all goals that were important before, but the pandemic has revealed how important it is to address those in a very specific way.
I think, for all of us, the challenge is going to be, how do we take that to a larger... up the scale, how do we take it to the broader audience? Any thoughts Larry as to how we may.. What the next steps might be?
[21:21.930]
Larry Thomas:
Well, I think one of the next steps is building off of what they're trying to do right now. Again not that this series we just did was the ultimate series, but it's the example to which we can talk about right now together and stepping outside of the tyranny of the urgent, an old saying, can take over the important.
So to me trying to keep what's important, important is the one idea that I would encourage people in whatever way you can do that for yourself, to try to do that for yourself, because we're going to get bombarded. It's just part of our profession. It's been part of our culture and as we're trying to get back to what used to be normal, which hopefully will just be a different place with some of the old normal things, how do you prioritize that?
So again visioning out what's your mission; what are you trying to get at and holding close to that, whether you be an individual, a grade level team, a school, a district, across districts, sticking and finding that vision and finding ways to say "no" to some of the stuff that isn't going to have the impact for kids that you want to have, or allow you the time and space to get better than you already are with your practices to me is the core. We've got to. That's where the discipline has to come in, in some way, shape or form, and I think that will be a huge struggle. But I do think people are ready to try to tackle that differently than I think even three years ago was in place, if that makes sense to you or not.
[22:55.890]
Bob Maxfield:
That's been a theme in a number of our previous podcasts in this resetting series; is how do you resist the pressures? I think there will be pressure from the parent community, in particular from politicians to make up for the so-called "learning loss". and for some that means just kind of force feeding everything that we used to do before, that wasn't so effective and now try to cram it into more time. And what you're proposing is something very different, which is take the time to get it right, take the time to do a few things well, and resist the temptation to cram it down kids' and teachers' throats.
[23:35.550]
Larry Thomas:
Well, and what you make me think of with that Bob, is um.. I'll use myself as an example because I have thought about this one quite a bit, this whole notion of "learning loss" rather than living your life. Because we all have been living our life with the context that's been in front of us, which has gone on in civilizations forever. And so, as a person that has never been one to exercise; I've had a phobia of being a person that would exercise. I could say to myself, “well don't exercise because I haven't done it before, or over the last two years” when shortly after I got diabetes. I learned to start exercising and I've learned to discipline myself to something that's probably the biggest phobia I ever had in my life, was exercising regularly or going to a gym was even worse. I do both regularly now because I recognize the importance of it. I know it's kind of a small example, but we all are living our lives as human beings, first and foremost.
And if we can learn to say no with something whether it's diet, or whether it's a hobby or something else, and we can learn some of those, in this context our careers of being of service to children and to the system of public education, is an opportunity to learn to politely say no, but to grab that courage to do something a little different and help impact changing our system.
So this notion of leading from the middle; the reason I'm so committed to it now is when we get teacher leaders helping to support classroom teachers and bringing information back up the system into central office, that's leading from the middle.
When we get superintendents who are really trying to work at the State level to help affect policy that's of service to education, rather than service to bureaucracies and/ or governmental needs first and foremost, and I'm not saying those are bad, I'm just saying that they don't always; we don't always get from legislative bodies, the things that are most beneficial for children.
And it's setting those priorities in that leading through the middle, and different roles with different people in the system, taking out pieces of that and then collaboratively communicating together. I do believe we could really impact the system in very constructive, positive ways for everyone's sake, and particularly for the kids' sake. I think it's possible.
[25:44.070]
Bob Maxfield:
That's optimistic and encouraging at this time. You’ve sort of anticipated what was going to be our last question, that was if you could wave a magic wand, what are two or three things that you would hope the new normal would involve, people would do differently than they've been doing. And I'm hearing you say what you just said, which is give yourself time, do a few things well, trust the leaders in the middle, but is there anything else that you wanted to just underscore at this point that you think is just so critical moving forward?
[26:17.100]
Larry Thomas:
I do think those are two of them, but what I would also add, tend more to social emotional learning and trust, because at the core if we're not taking care of human beings as human beings, whole human beings we're not going to get much further and simultaneously attending to the academics. So for many of us I think, historically we thought our job is to come in and teach the stuff, the curriculum.
And I would argue that our job is to teach children and human beings first, and that the complement to that is by giving them academics and things to learn. But if we don't attend to the whole needs of a whole human being or a whole community, we're not going to get very far for all kids and the whole equity issue, I don't believe it's ever going to come to life the way we want it to.
So that would be the other one, but then leading effectively and more from the middle and being strategic with the ways that leadership takes place, so this notion that everything has to come from the school board or the superintendent down, is such an antiquated thought, but there significant leadership roles all of them play.
But getting clearer about where leadership can really be a value to the system and that in my mind I haven't seen any other examples, or read any more that leading from the middle is a construct that I think we could get more serious about and get better at, and then you named the other ones. While you're doing it it's got to be done in the context of a collaborative culture using protocols in order to help us make the collaborative meetings most useful for kids, rather than just sitting in some of the old meetings I sat in as a classroom teacher and as a principal and as a central office administrator and many times facilitating, without good protocols and structures where we just talked.And so those would be the three big ones that come to my mind.
[28:02.850]
Bob Maxfield:
So is there anything that we haven't discussed in this interview that you wish we had; is there anything else as we have this opportunity to reach out to the school leaders who are going to be addressing these post pandemic challenges, anything else that you wished you'd been able to say?
[28:20.640]
Larry Thomas:
Well, at the heart of it all for me, I would say, be kind to yourself and to others because what our colleagues have gone through for the last18 months or however long it has been in total, has been horrendous on many regards, but also full of possibilities.
And if we're not being kind to ourselves and to others nothing else is going to really shape up and try, try, try to keep your focus on kids' needs first and foremost, and what all kids need, more than what the system sometimes will tell us to do, and I think we have talked about that one some.
[28:57.900]
Bob Maxfield:
Great advice. So Sue, to use Larry's phrase in another context, this has been a home run.
[29:06.600]
Suzanne Klein:
It's been a wonderful starting point, because what we found as we did the evaluation survey and got information back is people want more. People want time to collaborate across the three counties. They want more time with their teams to delve into how they can create systems and protocols for continuous improvement in their district.
This was a wonderful learning experience, but it also opened the door for other things to come, which will be in the next phase where imagining, designing and then hopefully presenting and sharing.
[29:41.640]
Bob Maxfield:
So with that I always need to mention that our guest has given permission to record this program so that it is available and will be posted soon. Larry, I'm sure you don't mind if we put your email contact information on the website, when this is finalized. And there's some nice links from the workshop that I'm sure that Suzanne and Elaine will figure out how to include. So to our listeners, thank you for being part of this installment of Podcast for Leaderful Schools. It's been a privilege to give you an opportunity to get to know more about Larry Thomas and so please take advantage of the opportunity to follow up with him, and stay tuned as we continue the Podcast for Leaderful Schools, almost live from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, as we continue to wrestle with the challenges facing schools and school leaders beyond the pandemic.