International Education News

This week, IEN shares the second part of Chi Hieu Nguyen’s conversation with Thomas Hatch about the after effects and developments in education in Vietnam following the school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This interview is one in a series exploring what has and has not changed in education since the COVID-related school closures. Previous interviews and posts have looked at developments in Poland, Finland, New Zealand, and South Africa. Nguyen is the CEO, and co-founder of Innovative Education Group (IEG. Innovative Education Group is an umbrella group of more than 10 education ventures. Part 2 of the interview discusses concerns about engagement and well-being as well as innovation in private and public schools. Part 1 of the interview discussed what happened in Vietnam’s schools following the COVID-19 outbreak, how the education system responded and what has happened since.

Thomas Hatch: In that period where schools were just trying to get kids online, in the US but also in other countries, some kids just weren’t showing up.  In many cases that has continued, and we’ve seen chronic absence has skyrocketed. Did you see that happening in Vietnam as well?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: In Vietnam, students show up.  It’s probably because of the culture of Vietnam, where, in general, it’s a very neighborly kind of community. In Vietnam you can have a house host 20 kids from the neighborhood coming together to share a laptop and study together, or you can have a whole village come into one house to study online with the teacher. Also, everyone was locked down, so the parents were at home with the kids as well and actually helped the kids get connected with their learning.  I think the only problem that we have is the social emotional aspect. Being present in class is not an issue. It’s a social, emotional issue.

Chi Hieu Nguyen

Thomas Hatch: How has that issue manifested itself? How and when did people start to see that?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: I think it was when the country started to recover and school started to get back to normal. We saw a drop in engagement with school; kids did not want to go to school, especially kids who were beginning at a new level or a new school. Surveys of teachers across both the private and public sector reported more anxiety levels and less engagement among students and more misbehaviors than they had seen for years. Most teachers say that it’s not the academic issues they are concerned about, it’s the misbehavior and discipline issues that they are concerned about.

Thomas Hatch: Now that the issue has come to the forefront, how has the system and how have schools and the community at large responded?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: Well-being in general now is one of the top priorities, but even before COVID-19, the government required private schools to have an in-house psychologist and there has been a lot of focus on psychological services, but COVID-19 makes it more obvious. Now a lot of school events are not about academics; they’re about psychological programs or counseling. You will see parents taking their children to psychological service clinics. The national curriculum has not allowed much space for that, so it’s pretty much the effort of schools and also the private sector that provides those services and programs.

I spent part of 2022 studying in the US, and now that I’m back, every school campaign is about happiness and wellbeing. It’s good to be addressing the problems, but it also highlights the seriousness of the issues that students are facing. There’s also a tremendous increase in concern about the well-being of teachers. You see more teachers taking days off; more teachers getting sick. COVID is taking a toll on teachers because they were staying at home and teaching online and didn’t have to deal with a lot of the misbehavior. Now that they are back at their daily job, there’s an explosion of misbehavior in class, and they’re getting so stressed about it. Just this academic year, 16,000 teachers quit their job. That is one of the biggest numbers we have seen.

COVID is taking a toll on teachers because they were staying at home and teaching online and didn’t have to deal with a lot of the misbehavior. Now that they are back at their daily job, there’s an explosion of misbehavior in class, and they’re getting so stressed about it.

Thomas Hatch: Is it mostly seen as something that has to be dealt with at the local level, or is there an understanding that the national system needs to change? And have there been any moves to attack the high-pressure test-based system?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: When the new national curriculum came out in 2018, there were good and not so good aspects to it. One of the good aspects is that it is more competency-based. For the first time, there were no letter grades or number grades for primary school students. Now for primary school they only have “achieving standard” or “not achieving standard” rather than a letter degree. However, there’s more academic load in the middle school, so middle schoolers tend to take the biggest hit. Then in high school, it used to be that every high school student needed to study the same 13 subjects, but from 2018 on, with the new national curriculum, students can choose what track to focus on. If they choose the natural science track, they don’t have to do as much social studies. If they choose the social science track, they don’t have to do as much natural science. In general, the move tries to lessen the pressure, but the issue is still execution: How to transition teachers from teaching knowledge-based content to competency-based instruction over the long term.

Innovation in the private and public school systems

Thomas Hatch: In New York City there are certainly private schools that are innovative, but you also see public schools that are innovative. Is there a reason why the kinds of really innovative schools you’re referring to are all private in Vietnam?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: I think the reason is that in the Vietnamese public education system students still follow a very traditional testing system to move from primary into middle school; to move from middle to high school; and to move from high school to college. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for innovation. For example, private schools talked about competency-based curriculum and competency-based teaching and learning way before the national curriculum took it up. So when new technologies come out with lots of products and services, adding them is easier if I’m teaching in a private school, and I don’t have a test to teach my students to pass so that they can move on to a good high school.

Thomas Hatch: But are private schools still preparing students for the high school exit exams to get into university? Or are they preparing them for international settings?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: In private schools, there are basically two different groups. One group is more like the “low premium” private school, which is to say, the tuition fee is low – about $100 to $200 a month. Most of those schools follow the public school system. Then, the private schools with higher tuition fees, more like $400 – $500 month, usually prepare students for more international settings. Then even if the students stay back in Vietnam, they go to a university system that accepts alternative results not just the high-stake exam results. This is different from systems like China and South Korea, where students have to go through a very rigorous high stakes college entrance exam to get into the public universities.  I think one good move in Vietnamese higher education has been the creation of an alternative application where students can use results from international standards and tests or they can use formative assessment results from their school to apply even to the top universities, both public and private.

I think one good move in Vietnamese higher education has been the creation of an alternative application where students can use results from international standards and tests or they can use formative assessment results from their school to apply even to the top universities, both public and private.

Thomas Hatch: But is it the schools themselves that are pushing things or is there a government policy encouraging them to do that?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: I think it’s all there in the DNA of schools. But with COVID-19, Vietnam is also doing lots of campaigns to improve digital literacy as well. When ChatGPT came out, the Government started to do conferences. I think in both the public and private sector, there has been a momentum to respond every time something technological comes out in the press, which was quite rare before COVID-19.

Thomas Hatch: I just want to come back around for a minute to focus on pedagogy.  You said more recently, there’s been more focus on pedagogy. How? What does that look like? What interesting innovations have you seen in this arena?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: There are a few things that are picking up momentum. People have started talking about how to create multimodal teaching and learning, how to get students using digital resources, so they are not just textbook based. Now there’s a lot more use of audio and digital libraries, Youtube channels, that kind of thing.

The second thing is in terms of differentiation. If you look at the size of classrooms in Vietnam, some public schools have a class that may have 60 students. Even private schools may have 32 students in one classroom. But now teachers and schools are talking more about how to utilize technology to do more differentiation for students. For example, using a technology platform to provide different assessments for different types of students and then provide them with different sets of homework based on their ability.

The third thing, at some of the private schools, like Olympia, is how to adopt new technologies. There is talk about how to use ChatGPT in school, and how to use augmented reality and virtual reality to teach students in every subject. In terms of assessment, history is no longer just writing a paper. It’s building a digital museum. So nowadays there’s more talk on that alternative assessment, alternative form of teaching as well.

Looking Toward the Future…

Thomas Hatch: What about any other challenges or things that you see coming up that we haven’t talked about that you think are critical?

Chi Hieu Nguyen: I think the critical thing in general is the social emotional development of both students and teachers. I think that is something that educators and school leaders have to work on. Next month I will take part in a national movement called the Happy School Movement and we’re partnering with Oxford and others, and even corporations are willing to sponsor something like that.

But the second thing coming up started before COVID-19, and it’s the shift to competency-based teaching. Vietnam is an exciting place because we’ve started the shift, but moving the entire public system, including millions of teachers, from content-based coverage to competency-based teaching and learning is a tremendous effort from both the public and private sector.

Vietnam is an exciting place because we’ve started the shift, but moving the entire public system, including millions of teachers, from content-based coverage to competency-based teaching and learning is a tremendous effort from both the public and private sector.

The third thing is that I think there’s a movement in terms of internationalization of the curriculum, and, economically speaking, Vietnam is a very attractive destination for investment. I think within the next five years you will see a lot of investment in international schools, bilingual schools, and things like that. We’ll see it not only in the biggest cities, but in mid-sized and smaller cities as well.

In this month’s Lead the Change (LtC) interview Whitney Hegseth reflects on the responsibilities of educational change scholars, the need for mutually beneficial partnerships with educators, and the possibilities for systems that support mutual respect as well as academic excellence. Hegseth is a Visiting Fellow in Educational Leadership & Higher Education at Boston College. Her anthropological and comparative research sits at the intersection of scholarship on policy implementation and the (re)building of educational systems. The LtC series is produced by Alex Lamb and colleagues from the Educational Change Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. A pdf of the fully formatted interview is available on the LtC website,

Lead the Change (LtC): The 2023 AERA theme is “Interrogating Consequential Education Research in Pursuit of Truth” and charges researchers and practitioners with creating and using education research to disrupt institutionalized forms of discrimination. The call urges scholars to challenge traditional methods of inquiry in order to create increasingly useful, responsive, and equity-oriented research that can be used by schools to develop informed policies and practices to better support students. What specific responsibility do educational change scholars have in this space? What steps are you taking to heed this call?

Whitney Hegseth (WH): One responsibility we have as educational change scholars revolves around partnership. We need to think creatively and ambitiously about how to partner with folks in and around K-12 schools in ways that are mutually beneficial and deeply authentic. Presently, I am engaged in a research-practice partnership aimed at improving youth wellbeing in a small, urban community serving a low-income, largely immigrant population (PIs Lowenhaupt, Oliveira, & Lai). This partnership challenges traditional methods of inquiry in two ways. First, it is cross-sector. The project centers a Children’s Cabinet, which is comprised of a group of community leaders ranging from city officials to school district administrators to directors of community-based organizations. Second, we endeavor to continually involve youth in this partnership. For example, our team is designing a week-long summer institute for high school youth in which youth leaders will work with us to develop their ongoing role and responsibilities within the Children’s Cabinet. During this institute, youth leaders will first learn to conduct research in order to better understand youth wellbeing within their community. They will then formulate a plan to advocate for betters supports around youth wellbeing. Partnering with youth and across sectors adds layers of complexity to the research cycle. Such complexity is crucial when working toward increasingly useful, responsive, and equity-oriented research.

Educational change scholars might also consider how to partner in creative and ambitious ways within our higher ed classrooms. Many of us are privileged to teach aspiring or current teachers and school leaders. How might we partner with these teachers and leaders within the higher ed classroom in ways that then inspire partnership work they go on to do in and around K-12 classrooms? I am currently brainstorming with some of my master’s students about how to write about our shared teaching and learning experience. These students are at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, but most were airlifted out of Kabul in 2021. My mentors are helping me to consider ways to preserve and amplify these students’ distinct voices, not just within our classroom, but also in any research and writing we engage in as we grapple with the following questions: What does it mean to respect those you teach? and; How does one engage in teaching and learning across profoundly different contexts?

“Ceding power to our partners is one step toward promoting more useful, just, and ethical research.”

My research and praxis are focused on disrupting power asymmetries. In all of my research, teaching, and writing, I endeavor to relinquish some of my own power, and share it more broadly. Ceding power to our partners — around the questions we ask, the methods we use, and the voices we involve when telling our stories — is one step toward promoting more useful, just, and ethical research.

LtC: In your work, you examine how mutual respect can be enacted in various educational systems and settings. What are some of the major lessons the field of Educational Change can learn from your work and experience?

WH: Currently, my scholarship is focused on comparing how different educational systems (re)build toward expanded aims; for example, how systems promote mutual respect, in addition to academic excellence. Informed by previous literature and my own empirical data, I define mutual respect as the work of intervening on power asymmetries typically found in classrooms — both between teachers and students, and among diverse groups of students — by way of according children increased equality, autonomy, and equity. It is first important to appreciate the ways in which mutual respect differs from respect. “Respect” is an omnipresent term in schools; it is displayed on coffee mugs and classroom posters, and is ubiquitous in school mission statements and mottos. However, respect can often entail deference to someone with more experience, more authority, or a more privileged identity. As Lawrence-Lightfoot (2000) reminds us, mutual respect is the work of creating symmetry, especially in unlikely places like classrooms.

I developed an analytic framework for mutual respect, which I discuss in a manuscript under revision, as well as in a chapter I am preparing for an edited volume, Reimagining School Leadership: Sustaining Improvement Through and Beyond Uncertainty (Editors Kruse & DeMatthews). In this framework, I conceptualize mutual respect as multi-dimensional; in my research, the dimensions that surfaced were respecting children by way of according them increased equality, autonomy, and equity. This framework also emphasizes how mutual respect can be operationalized instructionally, organizationally, and socially. Finally, with the help of this analytic frame, one understands that the different dimensions of mutual respect can reinforce and conflict with one another in unexpected ways, particularly when one attends to these dimensions across classroom instruction, organization, and social relations. For example, one might argue that respecting students organizationally — with different class periods that ensure students have equal access to different teachers, subject matters, and resources throughout the day — might constrain teachers’ ability to respect students instructionally, by giving them ample time during a lesson to autonomously pursue their own questions, or equitably move at their own pace, before rushing on to the next teacher or lesson.

One way the mutual respect framework serves as a useful analytical tool is by enabling sharper conceptualizations of any of its comprising dimensions (i.e., equality, autonomy, equity). In a piece that will be available this September in The Elementary School Journal (Hegseth, in press), I discuss the following finding: Montessori and International Baccalaureate teachers differed in how they attempted equity in practice, and, relatedly, they differed in how they understood equity to interact with other dimensions of mutual respect (i.e., equality, autonomy). These differences between the systems held constant across two national contexts. By attending to differences in how equity is positioned alongside other priorities for teaching and learning, this research provides a glimpse into some of the varied ways equity can unfold in classroom practice.

LtC: In a recent article you investigate how the educational infrastructure of the Montessori system might support antiracist practice. How might your findings help scholars and practitioners think about leveraging strengths to build more inclusive schooling?

WH: In an article published in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Educational Administration (Hegseth, 2023a), I discuss how the Montessori system’s highly elaborate educational infrastructure supports a transformation in perception and pedagogy for Montessori teachers. Such infrastructure thus has potential to systemically support teachers in moving toward more antiracist practice. In this piece, I describe a disciplinary incident in a Montessori elementary classroom in Washington, DC, which helps illustrate how the system’s educational infrastructure supports teachers in (re)framing problems and solutions in their classrooms. For example, through lengthy, intensive, and highly specified training, Montessori teachers come to understand that, when something goes awry with Montessori classroom management, the object of change—and the object of blame—is the environment, not the child. I have observed this (re)framing on multiple occasions in Montessori schools in Michigan, DC, and Toronto. In the article, I discuss how, upon observing a young Black girl who had become disengaged and unruly in class, the teacher framed the problem as a mismatch between the classroom environment and the child’s developmental stage. Rather than punishing this girl, the teacher — again informed by her training — accorded the child increased responsibility. She and some of her peers began mentoring younger children in other classrooms several times each week. Other components of the Montessori system’s infrastructure also supported how this Montessori teacher (re)framed the problem and solution in her classroom. The Montessori system has standards around multi-age grouping, and having long, uninterrupted blocks of time each day for children to direct their own learning.

“The Montessori system’s highly elaborate educational infrastructure supports a transformation in perception and pedagogy for Montessori teachers.”

With multi-age grouping, children have more latitude to develop at their own pace. The student highlighted in this article was in 5^th grade, but her teacher could flexibly include her with the 6^th graders who had also become disengaged. Together with the 6^th graders, the student in question was accorded the responsibility of working with younger children. Further, with long blocks of time to direct their own learning, these students could leave their classrooms to mentor, thus learning how to manage that responsibility alongside their other academic pursuits. In these ways, different components of the Montessori system’s infrastructure coordinate to help teachers transform their perceptions and pedagogy.

These findings hopefully encourage scholars and practitioners to consider how system supports might be coordinated to transform not just practice, but also fundamental assumptions around children: what they are capable of, and how they deserve to be treated and taught. There is still much work the Montessori system can engage in to support teachers’ antiracist practice, but the system has a track record — ever since Dr. Montessori worked with special needs and working-class children in Rome over a century ago — of empowering young, marginalized people (e.g., Debs & Brown, 2017; Lillard et al., 2017; Whitescarver & Cossentino, 2008). There is much we can learn from this. Look out for a complement to this article, which will be published in the coming months, and which draws on data from the International Baccalaureate system (Hegseth, forthcoming)!

LtC: Educational Change expects those engaged in and with schools, schooling, and school systems to spearhead deep and often difficult transformation. How might those in the field of Educational Change best support these individuals and groups through these processes?

WH: In the name of deep and difficult transformation, I focus my scholarship on examining interactions between institutional and policy environments, the educational infrastructure of systems, and classroom practice. I am presently writing or revising a few manuscripts in which I compare these interactions across different types of educational systems. I am also co-PI on a research project that compares such interactions across public, charter, and Catholic educational systems, all of which are situated in a single geographic region (PIs Hegseth & Miller). Across this research and writing, I aim to support school and system leaders. By comparing how different educational systems manage their surrounding environment, we can better understand the implementation work and challenges that leaders face, and how this may vary by system. Such understandings are a step toward better equipping leaders to support deep and lasting change in classrooms. I draw on two systems I have already discussed to illustrate the importance of considering — and comparing — a system’s relationship with its broader environment. In a manuscript I am currently revising, I discuss how the Montessori system spearheads deep change in classroom practice by aiming for tight coupling between system-level policies and classroom practice, and loose coupling or decoupling with normative educational resources and practices in the broader environment. As such, the implementation work expected of Montessori system leaders is to design, preserve, and impart extensive and coordinated educational infrastructure, which obviates teachers’ need to rely on resources in their environment, thereby supporting their implementation of the counter-cultural Montessori method.

“System supports might be coordinated to transform not just practice, but also fundamental assumptions around children.”

Relative to the Montessori system, the International Baccalaureate (IB) system aims to effect change via more flexible coupling between macro (i.e., environment), meso (i.e., system), and micro (i.e., classroom) levels. In a recent policy report I wrote for the Brookings Institution (Hegseth, 2023b), I argue that the IB system has designed a robust educational infrastructure, which is more skeletal in nature. For example, the system provides IB teachers and schools with instructional frameworks and a philosophy that can guide teaching and learning in myriad contexts. However, IB teachers are to then fill in the details of this framework using resources and curricula from their local context. Given this more open stance toward the environment, the implementation work expected of IB system leaders, then, is to continually build bridges between IB and ever-shifting reforms and policies in the environment. Further, system leaders must build capacity so that IB school leaders and teachers can similarly learn to reconcile resources in their environment with IB’s approach to teaching and learning.

“There are educational systems — in the United States and beyond — that endeavor to challenge the status quo of schooling, and to do so at scale.”

We are in a moment of system (re)building, and of organizational divergence (e.g., Datnow, Park et al., 2022; Marsh et al., 2021; Peurach et al., 2020). As such, it is important to compare — within and across systems —how educational systems interact with their broader environments. In doing so, we can think more strategically about policy implementation, about leadership preparation, and about how to support deep and difficult transformation in classrooms. 

LtC: Where do you perceive the field of Educational Change is going? What excites you about Educational Change now and in the future?

WH: I am going on the job market this fall, and three things excite me about the field of Educational Change in which I am just starting out. First, as I mentioned, we are in a moment of system (re)building. Increasingly, school systems are moving beyond simply governing and providing access to schools and are transforming themselves into educational systems, which work to organize and improve instruction, scaling excellence and equity across classrooms and schools (e.g., Peurach et

al., 2019). Second, as many of these systems reset from multiple, interlocking pandemics, they are working toward expanded goals for students. These systems are moving beyond an exclusive focus on academics and increasingly aiming for social justice or holistic student development, as well (e.g., Datnow, Yoshisato, et al., 2022). Third, this is not a time for isomorphism, but rather variety (e.g., Peurach et al., 2020). Systems are (re)building in different ways; they vary in their priorities, in how they manage their environments, in their design of educational infrastructure, and in myriad other ways.

My background is in Sociocultural Anthropology (UC Berkeley, B.A.) and International and Comparative Educational Policy (Stanford University, M.A.). As such, a longstanding research interest of mine centers on interactions between micro-level assumptions and practices in classrooms and macro-level policy and cultural forces. I employ methods like video-cued multivocal ethnography (Tobin et al., 2009) to surface and critically examine what Geertz (1975) terms “common sense” – or tacit, culturally situated assumptions – around how to treat and teach children throughout their school day. In my doctoral work at the University of Michigan, my dissertation chairs Donald Peurach and the late David Cohen helped me to recognize the promise of the meso level within the United States. It was at that point that I began to examine the potential of educational systems to intervene on the relationship between macro-level forces (i.e., political, social, cultural) and the micro-level assumptions, biases, and practices found in classrooms.

Put simply, there are educational systems — in the United States and beyond — that endeavor to challenge the status quo of schooling, and to do so at scale. Some systems focus on changing practice. Other systems go even further by seeking to transform fundamental assumptions around how to teach and learn from children. I am excited to continue oscillating between macro, meso, and micro levels, comparing interactions between these levels across different systems and national contexts. This is how I feel best suited to support educational change with my research, writing, teaching, and consulting. I have already written pieces that explore how educational systems — some in alignment with their broader environments, others at odds — support holistic student development, antiracist practice, mutual respect, and increased wellbeing for students. There is much more to study, and so many ways to partner with/in these systems in order to support their desired transformations. I am grateful to be in the beginning stages of such an urgent, practical, and varied line of work within the field of Educational Change. 

References:

Datnow, A., Park, V., Peurach, D. J., & Spillane, J. P. (2022). Transforming education for holistic student development: Learning from education system (re)building around the world. Washington, D.C.: Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/transforming-education-for-holistic-student-development/

Datnow, A., Yoshisato, M., Macdonald, B., Trejos, J., & Kennedy, B. C. (2022). Bridging educational change and social justice: A call to the field. Educational Researcher, XX(X), 1-10. DOI: 10.3102/0013189X221138837

Debs, M. C., & Brown, K. E. (2017).Students of color and public Montessori schools: A review of the literature. Journal of Montessori Research, 3(1), 1–15.

Geertz, C. (1975). Common sense as a cultural system. Antioch Review, 33, 5-26. Hegseth, W. M. (in press). Attempting Equity in Classroom Practice: A Debate Across Educational Systems. Elementary School Journal.

Hegseth, Whitney M. (forthcoming). “Systemic supports for antiracist practice in International Baccalaureate classrooms.” In George Noblit (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1837

Hegseth, W. M. (2023a). “Systemic supports for antiracist practice in Montessori classrooms.” In George Noblit (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1818

Hegseth, W. (2023b). Transcending borders: The International Baccalaureate’s systemic approach to educating the whole person. In Datnow, A., Park, V., Peurach, D. J., & Spillane, J. P. (Eds), Transforming education for holistic student development: Learning from education system (re)building around the world. Washington, D.C.: Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/research/transcending-borders-the-international-baccalaureates-systemic-approach-to-educating-the-whole-person/

Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. (2000). Respect: An exploration. New York: Perseus.

Lillard, A. S., Heise, M. J., Richey, E. M., Tong, X., Hart, A., & Bray, P. M. (2017). Montessori preschool elevates and equalizes child outcomes: A longitudinal study. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(1783), 1–19.

Marsh, J. A., Allbright, T. N., Brown, D. R., Bulkley, K. E., Strunk, K. O., & Harris, D. N. (2021). The process and politics of educational governance change in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Denver. American Educational Research Journal, 58(1), 107-159. doi: 10.3102/0002831220921475

Peurach, D. J., Cohen, D. K., Yurkofsky, M., & Spillane, J. P. (2019). From mass schooling to educational systems: Changing patterns in the organization and management of instruction. Review of Research in Education, 43, 32-67. DOI: 10.3102/0091732X18821131

Peurach, D. J., Yurkofsky, M. M., Blaushild, N., Sutherland, D. H., & Spillane, J. P. (2020). Analyzing instructionally focused education systems: Exploring the coordinated use of complementary frameworks. Peabody Journal of Education, 95(4), 336-355.

Tobin, J., Hsueh, Y., & Karasawa, M. (2009). Preschool in three cultures revisited: China, Japan, and the United States. University of Chicago Press.

Whitescarver, K., & Cossentino, J. M. (2008). Montessori and the mainstream: A century of reform on the margins. Teachers College Record, 110(12), 2571–2600.

The final part of this 3-part interview with Cynthia Robinson-Rivers focuses on some of the changes that have been made in the Whole Child Model over the years as well as some of challenges she faces now that she has moved from the role of founding principal to a partner responsible for helping the model to expand. Cynthia Robinson-Rivers is the founding principal of the Whole Child Model at Van Ness Elementary School in Washington D.C. Robinson-Rivers recently joined Transcend, where she works with schools in Texas, Tennessee and Washington D.C. who are adopting the Whole Child Model. This interview was conducted by Thomas Hatch and students from his School Change class at Teachers College, Columbia University in the fall of 2023. Part 1 focused on the initial development of the Whole Child Model and some of the supports for teachers and Part 2 looked at community engagement and some of the challenges of implementation. These posts build on an interview last year with Transcend’s Keptah St. Julien who talked about the key elements of the Whole Child Model (See part 1; part 2).

TH: You’ve talked about the depth of knowledge and expertise that goes into all of the elements of the model, but what about changes? Were there particular challenges or things you had to change about the model as it developed?

CRR: Yes, lots of the practices were developed in response to some challenge we were having in the beginning. We didn’t initially have structured recess. One year I found I was spending many afternoons on the phone with parents who were mad that their child had gotten hurt during recess. As a staff, we talked about how we can’t take away recess: a) It’s illegal. B) We know that’s bad for kids. C). Often the students that need to get outside and move their bodies most are the ones who are threatened with losing their recess. So what do we do? We had a wellness team that brainstormed, and we thought of structured recess, which allows students who have been unsafe to learn missing skills without having their recess removed. We piloted it, and then, because we were working with Transcend, they helped us to codify it.

During the pandemic, we also thought a lot about the extent to which the model has the potential to be liberatory by design. We thought a lot about racial equity and whether or not the model allowed students’ to build positive identities or grapple with issues of racial conflict. We looked at Strong Start because there were a lot of opportunities for connection; a lot of opportunities for belonging; and a lot of opportunities to self-regulate. But there were not many opportunities for students to reflect on current events or things that were bothering them. And there were not that many opportunities for creative expression. That’s when we added the Reflect and Share component. Reflect and Share is a part of Strong Start that might not happen every day, but probably once a week. That came directly out of our pausing and wanting to talk about difficult issues of race, and wanting our model to include opportunities for that.

TH: When did those conversations happen where you recognized those problems and made those adjustments?

CRR: Usually in conversations amongst my leadership team or our team that has expertise in socio-emotional learning and mental health. And then we would talk with Transcend and say, here’s what we’re seeing. Transcend functioned as R & D experts for the school. We identify a problem, and they might interview students, coordinate teachers to pilot, create a draft resource, and then get feedback from the larger school as well. The Reflect and Share is a good example of that. We spent most of one school year working on answering key questions: What are the Reflect and Share questions we should ask if we’re going to engage kids around these tough issues? What problems might come up that a teacher needs to be prepared for? What about the pitfalls that you might encounter if kids are upset, and you don’t know how to navigate the conversation? We took a couple of years looking at those kinds of issues and by this spring the Reflect and Share structure will be formally added to our model and website with refinements made based on that R & D cycle.

Scaling the Whole Child Model

TH: Let’s talk a little bit now about your transition. So now you’re working with schools in a couple of different places. How did you select the new sites?

CRR: The first five schools in D.C. that we partnered with had been led by school leaders that I knew, and they and some of their teachers had visited the school. We went to them and asked if they were interested in learning more about and potentially adopting the model. We specifically chose five schools in which one school was similar in demographics to ours, two schools that were specifically different – they had a much higher ELL population – and two schools that were in a different part of the city, with higher poverty levels. Part of that was to see how the model needs to shift, depending on the different contexts.

Our selection process includes a number of different engagements and an application process that schools will go through before they get to the early phase work. Recently, ten schools in D.C. were invited to go through the application and selection process. From there, 5 schools will then do the early stage work towards potentially deciding to adopt the model. We really want to work with schools that opt in. We have to have a school leader who is passionate and willing to lead that hard work, and then we need a critical mass of their staff members who also have the interest and the desire.

TH: That does create some challenges. One thing people say about scaling up these kinds of models is that you need central office support. But if only some of the schools opt in, then the district itself is not as invested. How do you balance that?

CRR: It’s a great question. I think D.C. is a good example of how you can work with individual schools with the support of central office leaders.  It’s also an example of how schools become interested in the model after hearing positive stories about it from their peers. We had those five early adopting schools, and they were super passionate, super interested. Then the next set of schools were chosen from a cluster of 10 schools from which 5 became model adopters.  One of those principals presented her experience at a professional development session for school leaders, and this resulted in interest from additional schools. Building excitement about something through the enthusiasm of the early adopters is one way to spread without forcing. By next fall we’ll be working directly with 20 elementary schools, which is 25% of the elementary schools in D.C. We then plan to pause expanding direct partnerships with schools to also focus on supporting central office staff members who work on aligned practices with schools that are not direct partners.

“Building excitement about something through the enthusiasm of the early adopters is one way to spread without forcing.”

TH: What’s one of your biggest challenges right now, in terms of adapting or scaling the model? 

CRR: We are wrestling with the coaching model. It’s hard because we started this in the 2018-2019 school year. In that spring we started our training with our first group in D.C., and then the next school year, the pandemic happened. So we changed the model to make it applicable virtually. Practices had to really change so we could do them virtually over Zoom or Teams. Schools were faced with such unique challenges. Because of the context changing so much in the past four years, we’ve had to try different coaching approaches. During the pandemic we had virtual coaches, who were only in-person a few times that year at schools. We have had coaches on-the-ground working at schools with intensive needs, such as lots of behavior issues or tons of new staff. We are still refining our approach to figure out what coaching model will be most useful at which type of school. One key learning has been the importance of the school staff leading the work with our support, owning their own vision, and championing the model rather than relying on us as outside consultants to do so.  

We are also trying to make sure that this is not just about rolling out different practices. When we facilitate a session, it may be interpreted as “we’re doing Strong Start now,” or “We’re doing Structured Recess now.” Instead I would want people to say, “Student having the skills to self-regulate is important; Here’s why that’s important, based on what’s happening in their brains and their bodies.” We want to be principle and research forward and help schools understand the practices are just the things that get at these underlying much more important ideas. I think that can easily get lost as we’re sharing with schools that get excited about implementing model components versus slowing down to understand the rationale first.

“We want to be principle- and research-forward and help schools understand the practices are just the things that get at these underlying much more important ideas.”

TH: As you’ve shifted from being a founding principal and now to trying to expand the model, what are some things you learned about the model that you didn’t know before or perhaps about being a principal?

CRR: I’ve noticed that it’s much more straightforward to implement the model when baseline conditions are not as challenging, for example if the school has fewer difficult behaviors at school because of students who have been impacted by trauma. I’ve also expanded my understanding of topics like extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation to support schools that want to move away from using systems that emphasize points or ‘school bucks.’ If a school is invested in that kind of extrinsic rewards system, you have to be able to both explain in a compelling way why strategies that take more time and effort are better for students’ long term development and offer alternative ways to foster intrinsic motivation.

I have also realized that how we staff schools can make it inherently difficult for the people that choose to work within schools. The teaching and school principal positions are both so challenging and stressful in the current environment, so as I work with school teams, I try to constantly stay aware of their competing priorities, brainstorm strategies to alleviate stress, and encourage partners to find ways to prioritize their own health and wellbeing. Being able to finally be on the outside of schools also encourages me to talk with policymakers and others with decision making power to let them know the changes that are needed to make these roles sustainable for those already in the profession and appealing to those considering entering it.

TH: That connects to your earlier point about how hard it is to do this work in schools that don’t have the resources or capacity as other schools, and that’s a reality we can’t accept. So the question is, how do we work against these conditions and create conditions that actually will enable these models to take off where they need to, in ways that people can do it within their normal lives. Do you have any specific advice for folks who are interested in creating new school models and new school designs? 

CRR: Yes. If you are working within a system, which is what this model does, then everyone implementing needs to understand the “why,” and being willing to go slow versus really fast with rolling it out is critical. Separate from that, though, if you’re thinking about designing a model, I would encourage super unorthodox thinking because that’s what’s necessary right now. 

“If you’re thinking about designing a model, I would encourage super unorthodox thinking because that’s what’s necessary right now.“

Really be daring. Don’t pretend that school as it exists is something that we should refine; it’s something we should completely redesign.

The second part of this 3-part interview with Cynthia Robinson-Rivers about the Whole Child Model addresses some key questions about the engagement of parents and community members and some of the key challenges for implementing the model. Cynthia Robinson-Rivers is the founding principal of the Whole Child Model at Van Ness Elementary School in Washington D.C. Robinson Rivers recently joined Transcend, where she works with schools in Texas, Tennessee and Washington D.C. who are adopting the Whole Child Model. This interview was conducted by Thomas Hatch and students from his School Change class at Teachers College, Columbia University in the fall of 2023. Part 1 focused on the initial development of the Whole Child Model and some of the supports for teachers. These posts build on an interview last year with Transcend’s Keptah St. Julien who talked about the key elements of the Whole Child Model (See part 1; part 2).

Community engagement in the evolution of the Whole Child Model

Thomas Hatch: Understanding how to work with communities so that school models are not imposed on people is a crucial part of the development process. This model is striking because it’s clear and well-informed theoretically and developmentally, but at the same time it’s a community driven model. Can you talk to us a little bit about the community process that went into developing the model and how it has enabled you to build some common understanding of the model?

Cynthia Robinson Rivers: At Van Ness, we engaged in early conversations just to get input from families and that informed what we put into the model and the components of the model. We then continued engaging families in a variety of ways, including through listening sessions with families and through sharing the information that we were learning as a school staff so that families were just as familiar as our teacher with the research that was guiding our decisions.

To be honest, I feel I could have done a much better job with family and community engagement. One place that we were inspired by and that does this really well is The Primary School in East Palo Alto California. Parent coordinators are leveraged there to get family input and feedback through monthly family meetings with a consistently high rate of attendance, which means families appreciate and enjoy them. Our team learned about this during a 2019 visit to the school when our first cohort of principals were able to visit with us. Before I left Van Ness, we were looking to figure out ways to implement practices like the ones we learned about while there.

During the initial phase of our direct partnership with schools, when schools learn about our model, examine their own conditions, and determine if they will partner with us, the school’s design teams interview students; shadow a student, and engage with their current families. One school in Texas had a virtual visit to Van Ness, where they learned about the model and saw it in action. Teachers and school leaders [from Van NESS] did a panel and a Q&A that was attended by about 100 families who got really excited about their school adopting the model. That can then help to sustain the model because you have buy-in and investment, not just from the staff, but from the community as well.

Resistance
TH: Those are great examples. What about resistance from parents or teachers or any other challenges you faced in developing the model?

CRR: I made the mistake in my communication early on as a school leader by sharing more of the compassionate side of our approach and less of the structure. I was very clear about the notion that we need to disrupt the traditional ways that we’ve treated kids, and we need to allow them to have more agency and teach appropriate behaviors instead of trying to punish behaviors. I think early on that left parents with the misunderstanding that it was about being too nice with kids. On the one hand, we needed work with our families to make sure we were not misaligned. For example, if, at home, families are punishing children harshly or using corporal punishment, then that’s a misalignment that we don’t want to be present. We knew that engaging families and also sharing knowledge with them about best practices for a child’s behavior is an important next step. But I also needed to share more about assertiveness, structure, consistency of the model and that we are not just being all nice with kids. There is actually a good amount of structure and consequences for inappropriate behavior, and I missed sharing that with the families early on. I’ve encouraged our school partners to talk about compassion and talk about what kids deserve, but also talk about the consistency and structure of this model, so that parents know we’re not just letting children run wild and do whatever they want at school.

TH: What about home visits? How do you feel home visits impact the effectiveness of the model? Do you feel like parents have pushed back with the home visits or do you think that they’re accepting of them?

CRR: Home visits have been so helpful in enabling families to understand and value the model. There’s a little bit of pushback that quickly goes away after a few parents have a home visit and then share how wonderful it is getting to know the teachers in that way. That usually gets other families excited about it. One thing that we do is get the class rosters finished by June so that teachers can complete the home visits over the summer with a goal of having 50% of them done by the first day of school. With that prioritizing, if we know about them, kids who might have a harder time have a home visit and at least one or 2 other touch points. So on the first day of school they really feel connected.

During the home visit, we will also bring a social story, which is a book that helps a child know what to expect with words and pictures. You can do a social story about how to line up, how to go to recess, or what do we do in music? We do a social story over the summer for the summer home visit specific to what to expect at school. This alleviates a ton of anxiety. It also is a time when, with the family and the child, we’re able to share a lot about what we do and what the model looks like in a totally low stakes, relationship-building context. In those ways it’s a very helpful structure.

“We’re able to share a lot about what we do and what the model looks like in a totally low stakes, relationship-building context.”

For families that really feel uncomfortable even after they hear about how great home visits are, we offer to meet them in the community, anywhere that is not school, for example at the cafe or at the park, or at the library, at a neutral location. In that location, we do all the things that we would do during the home visit. The same conversations about “what are your hopes and your dreams for your child?” Nothing academic. It is purely to build a positive relationship with the families. We’ve incorporated home visits as one of our practices in the family circle component of the model, but initially learned about how to conduct them from one of our partner organizations, Flamboyan Foundation, which specializes in family engagement strategies for educators.

TH: you talked a little bit about the need for alignment particularly related to discipline. But I can imagine there are other issues where alignment is important. How do you work on it if there is misalignment with parents and the school?

CRR: We try to do that without judgment and in as asset-based a way as possible. We know parents are the child’s first teacher, and they’re doing the best with the knowledge that they have. If they are engaging in a practice that we would disagree with, like spanking for example, we would try to come to that with understanding and not judgment. What I’ve found over the years, and this is part of why I like the Primary School’s example, is that it’s very hard to influence behavior using a top-down lecture style information-sharing such as at a back to school night or a parent meeting. It can come across paternalistic and condescending. But a different approach is to have discussion circles of parents, led by a parent leader who’s been trained and then empowered to establish this group that shares information both ways, not hierarchically. The example I would give on this is when we had a parent meeting with the topic “We are a healthy school and we want our students to have healthy meals and snacks.” I tried to talk about this in an intellectual way about the impact of nutritious food vs. junk food in a child’s body. I’m sure no one changed their habits in any way after that talk. As an alternative, if you had a parent-led circle, offered a healthy snack as part of that meeting, and a conversation starter like “Oh, how do you plan lunch for the week while buying not too expensive items that are also good for kids?” That’s a session topic where parents are sharing information. They feel valued, they feel heard, and then people are packing better lunches. When there is misalignment, getting lectured and getting told your way is wrong, or “here’s a better way” doesn’t work. We need to create opportunities to slowly and in a trusting environment learn about alternatives.

“It’s very hard to influence behavior using a top-down lecture style information- sharing such as at a back to school night or a parent meeting… But a different approach is to have discussion circles of parents, led by a parent leader who’s been trained and then empowered to establish this group that shares information both ways, not hierarchically.”

TH: What about shifting a little bit to talk about teachers. Are there particular aspects of the model that the teachers found especially challenging?

CRR: I think all parts of BOOST are hard because it addresses the kids that have some of the most challenging behaviors. So if you’re at the point where you’re meeting to figure out what CARE PLUS strategies will be helpful for a child, that might be a child who has eloped from the classroom multiple times. You don’t know where they are. You can’t leave the class. It’s not safe to leave them alone in the hallway. Or a child who has consistently, physically harmed others. And you have to talk to parents after school whose child was hurt. And you have to assure them that you’re going to keep them safe.

It’s really tough stuff that always, but especially in the past 2 years, is even harder if the teachers are already overwhelmed. There’s a pandemic, the teacher just came back from quarantine, half the class is at home on the computer. Teachers are already stressed, and it’s really really hard especially in those moments when you need to be composed to have that empathy for the child in order to follow through on an intervention that requires you to be fully present and using your reasoning brain. That’s why the model provides structures and language that teachers can practice, and when you understand “the why,” that can make it possible to leverage what you know even when you’re upset, because you have so much practice with it. You’re concerned about and empathizing with the child, instead of being annoyed with them, because you understand what happened to them, and why they’re behaving that way.

I would also say LANGUAGE AND TONE, in general, is one of the hardest parts of the model. The STRONG START set of practices in the morning feel so good. Who wouldn’t want to do that? Greeting kids and classroom design. If you go into one of the model classrooms, you can look and see, this is gorgeous. Of course I would want my room to look like this. But for language, in terms of safety, when you’re doing a transition or routine, like when you need kids to safely get somewhere or safely do something, it is sometimes different from how we actually talk. In the language of safety, it’s important to speak assertively, to be specific, and use concise, not verbose language. The example that has resonated with teachers in clarifying this is if you were in an accident and had to evacuate a plane. You would not want a captain that says something like “Okay, passengers, it seems like it’s an emergency. Maybe you guys should stand up.” No, you’d want the clarity and strength of the captain saying, “Stand up. Walk to the nearest exit door.” In the language of safety, that assertive tone and concision is not a voice that feels natural to lots of people and remembering to say things in that way is hard.

“The example that has resonated with teachers in clarifying this is if you were in an accident and had to evacuate a plane. You would not want a captain that says something like “Okay, passengers, it seems like it’s an emergency. Maybe you guys should stand up.” No, you’d want the clarity and strength of the captain saying, “Stand up. Walk to the nearest exit door.””

Highlighting appropriate behaviors is another thing that can be challenging. For example, when kids are lining up, and they’re mostly in line, but some are not, you would acknowledge a student who is lined up in a way that keeps the hallway safe. It’s hard to remember not to call out the negative, and thereby accidentally reinforce that negative behavior. If a child is hitting the person beside them, we instinctively want to say “no hitting” or “stop hitting” instead of “keep your hands in your lap like this to be safe.” In many schools you’ll hear negative behaviors highlighted “Stop running in the hallway” or “Don’t call out during the story.” We’re often noticing all the behaviors that we don’t want to reinforce, and we have to remember to notice the behaviors we want to see more of, which is a hard language shift to make.

The first part of this 3-part post draws on an interview with Cynthia Robinson-Rivers, the founding principal of the Whole Child Model at Van Ness Elementary School in Washington D.C. Robinson-Rivers recently joined Transcend, where she works with schools in Texas, Tennessee and Washington D.C. who are adopting the Whole Child Model. The interview was conducted by Thomas Hatch and students from his School Change class at Teachers College, Columbia University in the fall of 2023. Part 1 focuses on the initial development of the Whole Child Model and some of the supports for teachers. This post builds on an a 2-part interview last year with Transcend’s Keptah St. Julien who talked about the key elements of the Whole Child Model (See part 1; part 2).

Establishing the key components of the Whole Child Model at Van Ness Elementary School

Thomas Hatch (TH): Can you tell us about the Whole Child Model and how it originated at Van Ness?

Cynthia Robinson-Rivers (CRR): As we were developing what would later become the Whole Child Model, we talked with teachers, students, parents, and community members and asked: “If we’re successful during our students’ elementary school years – pre-kindergarten through fifth grade – what will our students be like as adolescents and adults?” This generated a long list of words, including, most prominently, “compassionate,” but also words like “critical thinkers.” Those became our graduate aims, and they were for the students to be creative, compassionate, critical thinkers, curious, constant learners and students able to build community across lines of cultural and racial difference. These were the characteristics and dispositions we hoped to cultivate in students during their time with us. From those aims, we then worked together to develop the actions we would need to take in order to be able to develop those traits in our students.

In our second year, we partnered with Transcend and they helped us to codify the things we were doing as a school model that could be shared with others. That work led us to establish three key components:

• Student well-being,
• Student as a maker
• Student ownership for learning

Student well-being is the most developed, as it was the component we started with, and it’s the most foundational to the model.

The work on student well-being also has 3 parts:

1. CARE is the set of universal “tier 1” practices every student receives. It’s effective in supporting kids, helping them to be successful with their school day for 90 to 95 percent of students.
2. BOOST is the set of additional “tier 2” and “tier 3” supports that we give to that 5 to 10% of students who need additional support to be successful participating in the routines of school.
3. FAMILY CIRCLE is our approach to family engagement, and it includes practices that aim to place families as equal partners in education and leverage that support for the student’s development.

Zooming in on CARE, which stands for Compassion, Assertiveness, Routines, and Environment, something as straightforward as the language teachers use and the tone of voice they use when they speak with students is considered a tier 1 support for everyone that walks into the school building.

We start with the physical environment, with the classroom as the “third teacher” and as a hugely important part of the students’ experience. We want them to enter a room that is comfortable, personal, accessible, and a reflection of the students’ backgrounds and cultures.

“We think about the physical environment of the classroom as the third teacher and as a hugely important part of the students’ experience. We want them to enter a room that is comfortable, personal, accessible, and reflective of the students’ backgrounds and cultures.“

There are many ways in which our approach to the classroom environment helps to meet a child’s needs. Most importantly, we want the room to be accessible, meaning students know how to access materials independently and where to find needed items that are in organized bins and are clearly labeled. Ideally, we have lamps and natural light as an alternative to overhead fluorescent lights and access to nature through keeping plants in the room. We have framed pictures of students and their families to not only acknowledge the importance of families and make them visible in the classroom, but also to help calm students when they are upset. We aim for our classroom environments to be trauma-informed, welcoming, predictable and consistent.  When kids don’t know what’s coming, they’re much more likely to be dysregulated and to be quicker to get upset than when they know exactly what to expect, and the classroom can help to establish that kind of predictable and supportive environment. Another important part of the classroom is the centering space, a physical space in every room that kids know they can go to if they feel upset and has the visuals and the physical materials that can aid them in doing so.

In addition to the physical environment, we have the Strong Start morning routine, inspired by a socio-emotional learning program that Van Ness utilized in its beginning years, which includes support from students beginning with a greeting at the door when they start the instructional day. The aim is to enable kids to be successful, especially if they have come to school with challenges that day or the evening before.

Strong Start includes: 

• Greetings: Students get a personal, warm greeting, with a choice of how to be greeted and a meaningful exchange back and forth – serve and return (as in tennis) – that will help kids who may not have healthy attachment to get experience connecting with a trusted adult. 
• Breakfast in the classroom: As an alternative to a noisy and impersonal cafeteria, students eat together in the more quiet and calm environment of their classroom.
• Independent activities: Students journal, conference with their teacher, or engage in partner or small group activities that can include academic interventions.
• Community Building: Teachers bring the class together as a group to foster a sense of shared community and belonging. 
• Purposeful Partnering: Teachers pair students up with at least one other child to engage in activities that create student to student connections.
• Breathe and Focus: Teachers give the students an explicit opportunity to practice ways of gaining composure if they’re upset. 
• Goal setting:  Teachers ask students to set an intention for the day. We know that when we set a goal and we tell someone about it, we’re much more likely to meet that goal.
• Reflect and Share: Students are able to process current events or recent classroom conflicts through a group conversation the teacher facilitates.

We also engage in a broader set of CARE practices – that include strong start, classroom design, intentional language, and other components –  and many people visit schools that we work with and think, “Oh, this is great!” and comment on how “warm and fuzzy” the practices seem.  So we often explain that, while the environments we create are warm and that’s important, the practices are rooted in brain science and each have a purpose.  We try to share as much as we can about what happens inside students’ bodies and brains when their development has been impacted by trauma and the importance of schools being trauma-informed.

The Whole Child Model is inspired by Dr. Bruce Perry’s neuro-sequential model. It helped us to understand that if kids come to school fearing for their physical safety, which is the case in some of our highest need schools, they first need to regulate.  That’s where practices like Breathe and Focus come in. If students are not regulated, they’re not ready to learn. We also know that if they are upset, they might be controlled by their limbic system. Their amygdala might be over reactive and they may be scanning for threats. In that state, they are also not ready to learn. Where we want them to be is in their prefrontal cortex, regulated and ready to reason and think abstractly and critically.

A typical day with the Whole Child Model

TH: The extensiveness and comprehensiveness of the support is really noteworthy and as you emphasized, it’s not just a set of features or elements but they are grounded in a particular approach and theory about children’s development and children’s behavior. Could you give us a sense of how all of this plays out in a typical day?

CRR: Students arrive, receive a greeting, and have breakfast in the classroom. As students are arriving, those already in the classroom engage in independent activities, including journaling and reading, until the teacher gathers students together for strong start group activities. While many social-emotional learning programs call for a daily or weekly block of activities, we believe that students should experience positive and supportive interactions throughout each day and should have frequent opportunities to practice their skills in authentic ways.  So, you would see this come to life in language a teacher uses when working with students, to either help them be successful because of the clarity or concision of language or help them think critically because of open-ended questioning. You would see students learning independently in all parts of the room – the maker space, the art center, the small group reading table, and other areas – in ways that promote autonomy and choice to empower students.  Social stories – visual stories that help students know what to expect – might be used to support students moving to a new activity or individually to help students who have difficulty with transitions. These are just a few examples of how a whole-child, student-centered approach would live throughout the day and not be confined to a narrow block of time.

“You would see students learning independently in all parts of the room – the maker space, the art center, the small group reading table, and other areas – in ways that promote autonomy and choice to empower students.”

Key Supports for the Model: Staffing for Socio-Emotional Development

TH: Can you talk a bit about what it takes to support the model? For example, do you need a lot of support staff to be able to make it happen? Do the teachers have any coaching?

CRR: Yes, the socio-emotional, behavioral, and mental health staff require in-depth training, but within these roles the staffing and capacity vary widely at our schools. In DC, many schools have “behavior techs” who respond if there is a child in immediate need. The behavior techs are also the people who run structured recess and restorative in school suspension.

In other regions using the Whole Child Model, staffing approaches are very different and, in some cases, have less support and capacity. Some schools have only an itinerant social worker, no behavior techs, and no positions like dean of students to coordinate behavior responses. We work with schools to determine who can own some of those systemwide approaches in lieu of the behavior techs. Typically, we are able to work with schools to figure out who on the staff would be most appropriate to take the lead and make sure interventions are running.

Before implementing intensive behavior interventions, it’s important to focus on CARE Plus, the set of interventions that happen in the classroom before a student is referred to outside supports. If the teacher has a student who could benefit from additional support, there are many CARE Plus strategies that can be used. For example, a child might get an individualized daily schedule in addition to the classroom posted schedule, because they need to know exactly when transitions take place and need to see that in a personalized way. Students may have specialized seating or they may get the additional responsibility to be the line leader because being in line is a part of the day that the student may have a hard time with. Students may get to have a movement break or use their break card to go get a break. These are all interventions within the classroom but teachers need the support of an administrator to help think through which strategies would help the child before more intensive interventions are considered.

Book Studies and Professional Learning for Teachers

TH: What about professional development for teachers? Can you talk about your book studies and how other professional development activities are integrated into the school day? 

CRR:  Yes, when I was at Van Ness, we would read one book for a school year, and we usually read a chapter or two per month and one book every summer. The summer reading was on your own, and we would debrief it during the first week of professional learning at the beginning of the school year. The year-long book study would be the focus of every monthly staff meeting, where we would talk about what we learned in that chapter and how we would apply it. Then that would line up with how we would do observation and feedback as a leadership team, giving feedback on those specific practices that teachers were learning about and implementing. We were able to use those forums because we had other opportunities for other types of professional learning.  DCPS implements LEAP, a structure that allows for weekly 60 to 90-minute content area meetings when early childhood, ELA, math, or enrichment teachers gather in a PLC to improve their practice.

“We found that when you define the times and places where you will prioritize different focus areas, it helps ensure you don’t forget about the non-cognitive aspects of a child’s development.“

In addition to monthly staff meetings and weekly LEAP sessions, there are quarterly PD days where we usually have a year-long focus area. One year was focused on racial equity and ways to mitigate against implicit bias. Another year our PD days focused around maker-centered learning, and we brought experts from Project Zero at Harvard to come do training with us. Defining the times and places for different kinds of professional learning helped us to decrease the tension that teachers often have, where they feel like they have so much to do on reading and math and raising test scores that they don’t think they have time for social-emotional learning or well-being. We found that when you define the times and places where you will prioritize different focus areas, it helps ensure you don’t forget about the non-cognitive aspects of a child’s development.

This week, IEN shares the fifth and final post in a series featuring presenters from the Educational Change Special Interest Group sessions at the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association.  This post features presenters from the session titled: Systems Change, Wellbeing, and Affect. Excerpts include responses to the question: “What are some of the ideas you hope the field of Educational Change and the audience at AERA can learn from your work related to practice, policy, and scholarship?” Part 1 of this series featured presenters from the session titled: Transforming Education and Teacher Education: Technologies, Pedagogies, and Practice. Part 2 of this series featured presenters from the session titled: Conditions Conducive to Learning that Promote Ed Change. Part 3 of this series featured presenters from the session titled: Networks in Education and Change. Part 4 of this series featured presenters from one session titled: Engaging Educators in Equity-Focused Change and another titled: STEM and Sustainable Development Goals. The full interviews can be found on the LtC website. The LtC series is produced by Alex Lamb.

Reengaging the disengaged: A program evaluation of young adult reengagement programs

Excerpts from the LtC interview with Jacob Williams, Destiny McLennan, and Christopher Mazzeo of Education Northwest 

In the United States, 4.35 million youth and young adults (YYA) ages 14 to 24, or 11.2 percent of young people, are neither in school nor working. These disconnected or opportunity youth (OY) are twice as likely to live in poverty and have a disability and more than 20 times more likely to be living in institutionalized settings (Lewis, 2020).

Many factors contribute to YYA decisions to disengage from high school; however, due to a complex interplay among them, it is difficult to pinpoint one as more salient than another. Common influencers that can undermine young people’s experiences in school include a range of school or system-level factors such as lack of support or guidance from adults, school safety, school policies, and peer influences, as well as a range of life or family challenges often met with little support from schools including health challenges, becoming a parent, incarceration, death of a family member, or gang involvement (Hynes, 2014). Other research points to racial bias, low adult expectations and negative school climate as important factors influencing disengagement (Crumé, 2020). School closures, the shift to virtual learning, and an economic slowdown due to COVID-19 are expected to lead to a significant increase in number of disconnected YYA in the coming years (Lewis, 2020) and greater demand for high quality reengagement efforts.

Those who become disconnected often become overwhelmed by an accumulation of these factors, pushing engagement in school or the workforce down their list of priorities. Once a disconnection event occurs, the odds of reengagement fall due to individuals’ sense of being overwhelmed and/or a lack of easily accessible—or perceived relevant—supports.

There is some evidence showing efforts to reengage YYA can be highly successful (Aspen Institute, 2019; Bangser, 2013), yet, the field still lacks a rigorous research base examining the implementation and effectiveness of specific reengagement programs, program models, and strategies. The results of our investigation provide additional evidence on: 

• Outcomes young adult reengagement programs hope to achieve,
• Strategy/approach(s) reengagement programs deploy to reengage young adults and accomplish successful outcomes,
• How reengagement programs adapt their services and approach in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and
• Paths forward to
  • review and reform policies that were not designed to address the specific needs and contexts of reengagement programs and have been shown to have a negative impact on reengagement,
  • design reengagement programs to facilitate “going above and beyond” support that does not burden staff, recognizes the nonlinear nature of the reengagement path, includes monetary support for program participants, and better incorporates program participants’ voice, and
  • improve young adults support in the K–12 system to reduce the number of young adults requiring reengagement programs.

Teacher Perceptions of Implementation Climate Related to Feasibility of Schoolwide Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports

Excerpts from the LtC interview with Catherine M. Corbin, University of Washington, Maria L. Hugh, University of Kansas, Mark G. Ehrhart, University of Central Florida, Jill Locke, University of Washington, Chayna Davis, University of Washington, Eric C. Brown, University of Miami, Clayton R. Cook, Character Strong, Aaron R. Lyon, University of Washington

There are several things we hope our work will convey. We hope researchers take away how influential specific aspects of the school implementation context (e.g., implementation climate) can be related to implementation outcomes (e.g., feasibility). Importantly, we must examine both shared and individual educator perceptions of the school implementation context. There are statistical and conceptual reasons to take this approach.

First, school implementation climate is an organizational construct operationalized by aggregating teachers’ individual perceptions of it. This means that school implementation climate includes variance among teachers and schools. Not examining or accounting for these different sources of variation (e.g., clustered standard errors, multilevel modeling) means that we will not know whether some or all results pertain to school implementation climate or teachers’ perceptions of it. This type of ambiguity can lead to interventions that target the school when an intervention targeting teachers may have been more appropriate or vice-versa.

“School implementation climate only gets better by strengthening individual perceptions of it.”

implementation context is necessary for improving it—school implementation climate, for example, only gets better by strengthening individual perceptions of it. This means we need to understand how individual perceptions of the school implementation context are related to various implementation outcomes to effectively intervene. We also hope that practitioners see the inherent value of this work to improve students’ educational outcomes. Practitioners live the challenges associated with school-based EBP implementation. Depending on their role (e.g., teacher, principal), they are uniquely situated to either intervene to improve it or report on aspects of their implementation context that need improvement.

While we have much to learn about how the implementation context develops and exerts influence, schools can take action immediately. For example, embedding school implementation climate into implementation data collection would allow schools to link their implementation progress monitoring with aspects of the climate known to influence EBP implementation. Research-practice partnerships may be key in supporting schools to set up the systems necessary to describe and then influence different aspects of the implementation context.

Finally, those who make and/or influence policy are essential to supporting organizational change at scale. For example, school districts have an important role to play in supporting the implementation context of individual schools. Are funds available to build out and/or maintain the data infrastructure needed to monitor EBP implementation? Are schools staffed to build strong implementation teams (e.g., EBP specialist, staff with extensive EBP implementation experience, implementation coach) and/or are staff schedules organized to include time dedicated to supporting EBP implementation (e.g., progress monitoring, reviewing data, creating and updating implementation plans)? Is professional development available to support school leader and teacher knowledge and skills surrounding effective organizational change as it relates to EBP implementation? These are all things that state, local, and district policy can exert direct influence on.

The affective dimension of inspections for educational change and improvement: Insights from Chilean low-performing schools

Excerpts from the LtC interview with Álvaro González, Universidad Catolica Silva Henriquez

Interestingly, I have found in my research that the portrayal of policies as “de-humanized” instruments or systems renders invisible the people who design and deliver such policies, and who have their own concerns about their impact on low-performing and disadvantaged schools and the communities they serve. Moreover, teachers and leaders are not mere “implementers” of policies aimed at their schools, but become policy actors themselves, translating and negotiating meaning and priorities between their communities and state or national policy. There are both cognitive and affective responses from both sets of actors that might determine the extent to which policies are translated into practice, producing real consequences on the lives of people who are in these contexts.

teachers and leaders are not mere “implementers” of policies aimed at their schools, but become policy actors themselves, translating and negotiating meaning and priorities between their communities and state or national policy.

I illustrate this point in my presentation by addressing the affective dimension of inspections for educational change and improvement. Inspections are a type of performance-based accountability (PBA) policy instrument to evaluate schools’ performance and deliver feedback. This paper explores the affective dimension of inspection based on a qualitative case study of three low-performing public schools in Chile, from a policy enactment perspective, to understand actors’ positionality and assimilation of performance feedback. Results indicate that emotional reactions to the performance evaluation (like anger, indifference, shame or challenge) and relational aspects (like negotiation, compliance or dismissing) before and during the inspection visit offer insights as to what extent the performance feedback offered to them was assimilated in their change and improvement efforts. This has implications to understand how and under what conditions low-performing schools can initiate and sustain improvement processes beyond a technical-rational perspective, connecting with the emotional and relational aspects of educational change.

References:

Aspen Institute. (2019). The state of opportunity youth research: Early lessons from five multi-site evaluations of OY programs and collaboratives. https://aspencommunitysolutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019_9_3-AspenFCS-OYES-Issue-Brief.pdf

Bangser, M. (2013). Reconnecting disconnected young adults: The early experience of Project Rise. (Policy Brief). MDRC. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED545463

Hynes, M. (2014). Don’t call them dropouts: Understanding the experiences of young people who leave high school before graduation. A report from America’s Promise Alliance and its Center for Promise at Tufts University. America’s Promise Alliance

Crumé, H. J., Martinez, D., Yohalem, N., Yoshizumi, A. (2020). Creating paths for change: Understanding student disengagement and reengagement. Seattle, WA: Community Center for Education Results. https://roadmapproject.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/02/Creating-Paths-for-Change-Understanding-Student-Disengagement-and-Reengagement.pdf

Lewis, K. (2020). A decade undone: Youth disconnection in the age of coronavirus. New York: Measure of America, Social Science Research Council.

This week, IEN shares the fourth in a series of posts featuring presenters from the Educational Change Special Interest Group sessions at the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association.  This post features presenters from two sessions, one titled: Engaging Educators in Equity-Focused Change and the other titled: STEM and Sustainable Development Goals. Excerpts include responses to the question: “What are some of the ideas you hope the field of Educational Change and the audience at AERA can learn from your work related to practice, policy, and scholarship?” Part 1 of this series featured presenters from the session titled: Transforming Education and Teacher Education: Technologies, Pedagogies, and Practice. Part 2 of this series featured presenters from the session titled: Conditions Conducive to Learning that Promote Ed Change. Part 3 of this series featured presenters from the session titled: Networks in Education and Change. The full interviews can be found on the LtC website. The LtC series is produced by Alex Lamb.

“Contradictions, Niceness, and Accountability: A Content Analysis of an Urban District’s Leaders’ Perspectives on Racial Equity Transformation”

Excerpts from the LtC interview with Patricia M. Virella, Montclair State University

I hope they can learn how change research isn’t merely about uncovering problems and finding solutions. Instead, change requires uncomfortable conversations, vulnerability, and pushing through to the other side. I also hope that given the majority of scholars in the field of education research are White and cis gender, more take on the challenge of infusing equity-oriented practices. As a Black Puerto Rican woman, this work is critical to my own identity, but also, doing this can be demanding.

Additionally, if we want to have actual Educational Change, it’s not going to come just from scholarly articles. It will come from working hand in hand with school districts, scholars being reflective about their own privilege and positionality, AND listening to what schools need. In my work, I see that there are great things happening in schools across the United States. Yet, there appears to be a “fix-it” mentality in scholarship without inquiring what schools need or are already doing. I hope that my scholarship lifts the veil on change and shows the way it is happening in some school districts.

Another example of what I hope the field and audience can learn is how to position their work towards social justice. I deliberately draft my findings using Huffman and Tracy’s (2018) work on writing findings using a social justice lens. There is so much scholarship that problematizes urban communities and how to fix them, when, in reality, the fix is to align yourself to White normative practices. I want my work to elevate narratives that show how dope urban communities are and how beautiful they are. When I read scholarship that perpetuates a negative view, it reminds me of Robin D.G. Kelley’s book “Yo’ Mama’s Dysfunktional!” where he explains that researchers who went into urban areas to produce the nation at risk report already had their minds made up before they conducted their research. I see the same in scholarship. I love when there is a focus on joy, inclusive culture, and showing how we are not dysfunctional.

Last, I hope my works shows that one needs to be vulnerable to change anything in education. I do not know it all, none of us do. So, we have to show a level of vulnerability in this work. If you do not know, ask. Do not assume just because you read Derrick Bell or Gloria Ladson-Billings that you now know what the urban or Black or LatinX experience is. Instead, inquire. Ask.

“Self-efficacy within Cultural Representation of Latino Teachers Moving into the Administrative Pipeline”

Excerpts from the LtC interview with LeAnne Salazar-Montoya, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Kristin Kew, New Mexico State University, and David Wade, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

It is our intent to share examples of potential problems of practice and offer suggested research-based approaches that can positively support practitioner strategies for leadership, influencing policies that will amplify the importance of inclusive and culturally relevant and responsive approaches in schools. We love the works of Solórzano and Yosso (2022) and Tara Yosso (2005) in that she focuses on community and cultural capitals from a Latina/o critical race theory stance and challenges traditional epistemologies that are white hegemonic in nature. We see the resistant capital of Yosso’s (2005) work in the form of resilience in our research on the border (Kew & Fellus, 2022). Historically, the practice, policy, and research in the field of educational change and with the Educational Change SIG has been international in nature (Hargreaves et. al., 2016). We see the field engaging more and more in critical research and transformative resistance that questions traditional grammars of schooling such as the value of testing and test taking, teacher centered classrooms, and balkanization of subject matter and grades (Kew, 2018). Our work embraces educational change research from a critical perspective, and we feel that we are among scholars in this SIG who will move this agenda forward to ensure more equitable and inclusive schooling and educational leadership.

The Educational Change SIG founder, Andy Hargreaves, stated in one of his TED Talks (2016) in Canada that we should take off with the wind, not using the resistance of the wind as an obstacle but as an opportunity. We see the trajectory of the educational change field as one that moves us towards embracing community and cultural capitals of diverse groups, keeping some of the classic research in the field while rethinking or abandoning aspects of past literature that create inequitable social structures, practices, and discourses. One of our favorite authors on the borderland, Gloria Anzaldua stated, “If we have been gagged and disempowered by theories, we can also be loosened and empowered by theories” (Anzaldua, 1990, xxvi).

In our work we use a combination of critical race theory and feminist theories. In our AERA presentation, we will share some of the gender barriers, power differentials, the value that Latina Superintendents in New Mexico found in trusted networks and mentors, and how they maintain a sense of direction for themselves and their districts. Aligned with the AERA 2023 call for papers, our presentation shares not only the findings of our research study but also the value we gained as women researchers conducting portraiture.

“Assessing a Comprehensive School Reform in Pursuit of Student Success in Math, English, and Science Performance“

Excerpts from the LtC interview with Xiaozhou Ding, Dickinson College, Danqing Yin, University of Kansas, and Rong Zhang, University of Alabama

As a team of three accomplished scholars, Xiaozhou Ding brings a background in quantitative economics research with a focus on education. Danqing Yin’s expertise lies in education policy research utilizing qualitative and quantitative methods, driven by a passion for uncovering educational challenges and devising solutions. Rong Zhang, with a background in research on educational
leadership, is enthusiastic about exploring educational topics and advancing educational methods.

We have been avid learners of change literature and have kept up with innovative approaches and reforms in our fields. Our academic journey has been marked by a continuous exploration of education reforms. From Tyack and Cuban’s (1995) seminal work, “Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform,” which illuminated the challenges of bringing about change in education, to more recent literature that continues to shape current reform initiatives such as “Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing” (Margolis, 2017), “Organizing Schools for Improvement” (Bryk et al., 2010), and “What Works May Hurt: Side Effects in Education” (Zhao, 2018), these readings have given us a deeper understanding of systemic inequities in specific areas of education, the drawbacks of one-size-fits-all systems, and the importance of using evaluations with caution.

With the findings from our project, we hope to shed light on how school leaders contribute to successful educational changes based on the evidence we found from the Kansas Can School Redesign Project. To be more specific, using the causal inference methods, we discovered that the Kansans Can School Redesign Project significantly increased eighth-grade students’ science achievement. Hopefully, with more data, we will find the key factors influencing Kansas students and schools (e.g., on student behavior, social-emotional learning, etc.). We hope to provide promising evidence for future school reforms in other districts.

“Hyukshin Schools in Korea: Educational Change Toward Whole Person Education“

Excerpts from the LtC interview with Dean Stanton, Wortham, and Clara Shim, Dr. Deoksoon Kim, Dr. Dennis Shirley, Hailey Shin, Boston College

The central idea of our research is that teachers play a foundational role in sustainable educational change, particularly in the case of Hyukshin schools. Educational change occurs best when teachers take a leading role, working with leaders, parents, and students to make improvements in the schools. Hyukshin schools are enacting educational change with teachers leading the way. The bottom-up Hyuksin Schools movement is led by teachers and administrators who are passionate about ensuring student well-being. Hyukshin school teachers play a crucial role in leading the paradigm shift that is diversifying definitions of student success, forming horizontal relationships with students, and establishing a collaborative school community in which multiple voices are heard.

Our research also explores how educational change cannot occur without societal change. At the same time as Hyukshin schools are moving toward whole-person education, Korean society, and particularly parents, push in the opposite direction –overemphasizing academic achievement and narrow professional success. Although broader Korean society has recently begun acknowledging the need for whole-person education in the 21st century, the society still prioritizes academic performance over whole-person education. The Hyukshin School movement is making some progress at the margins. But more educators, policymakers, and parents will have to join such movements for broader social change to take hold. In Korea, and elsewhere around the world, the tension between whole-person development and narrow academic achievement will continue to manifest.

STEM Education Addressing Sustainable Development Goals: Building Global Competencies to Co- Construct an Agenda of Consequence

Excerpts from the LtC interview with Elizabeth C Kurucz, University of Guelph, Catherine Hands, Brock University, Emily Krysten Spencer-Mueller, Wilfrid Laurier University, Asfiya Taji, Wilfrid Laurier University, Karin Archer, Let’s Talk Science, Nadine Gudz, York University

Now more than ever, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are being recognized as a priority for education to ensure both personal and national success (Let’s Talk Science [LTS], 2019). A recent review of international and Canadian policy
recommendations indicates the need for graduates in the STEM disciplines and broader STEM fields to meet societal demands, and systemic educational change from developing specific domain knowledge to developing global competencies (LTS, 2019). Toward this end, we hope to convey to the audience a collaborative strategy for operationalizing policy recommendations for a greater focus on STEM programs.

The primary purpose of this year’s presentation is to highlight promising practices for implementing educational change. It provides academics, practitioners (school leaders and teachers), and policy makers with insight into new ways to develop and evaluate innovative curriculum that responds to an evolving landscape and encourages both individual and societal well-being. Co-
constructing an innovative STEM program including UN SDGs, responds to AERA’s call to collaboratively advance agendas of consequence that support goals of social and environmental justice. In doing so, we work toward addressing the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development’s Education 2030 question: “How can instructional systems effectively develop the
knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed for students to positively impact society and flourish in this uncertain future?” (OECD, 2018), which we suspect is a focal question for many SIG members.

This research contributes to educational change, and school-community relations literature. It involved designing and evaluating an innovative model of high school education focused on developing future-ready learners. We believe the collaborative ways in which students, teachers, school and district administrators, as well as community members and academics worked together throughout this project to develop and implement the initiative provides new insights and direction for further investigation.

References

Love, B. L. (2019). We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom. Beacon Press.

Huffman, T., & Tracy, S. J. (2018). Making claims that matter: Heuristics for theoretical and social impact in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(8), 558-570.

Kelley, R. D. (1998). Yo’mama’s disfunktional!: Fighting the culture wars in urban America. Beacon Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. J. (1999). Chapter 7: Preparing teachers for diverse student populations: A critical race theory perspective. Review of research in education, 24(1), 211-247.

Anzaldúa G (2012) Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza. Aunt Lute Books.

Gil, R.M. & Vazquez, C.I. (1996). The Maria paradox: How Latinas can merge old world traditions with new world self-esteem. Publisher’s Putnam’s Sons.

Hargreaves, A., Stone-Johnson, C., Kew, K. (2016). Education reform and school change. Obo in Education. Doi:10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0014 https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756810/obo-9780199756810-0014.xml?rskey=VuvEQA&result=3&q=kew#firstMatch

Kew, K. (2018, April). Traditional secondary schooling in the United States: A brief history of educational change over time. International Journal of Education and Social Science, 5(3), 33-45. https://www.rootindexing.com/journal/international-journal-of-education-and-social-science–2/

Kew, K., & Fellus, O. (2022). Borderland education beyond frontiers: Policy, community, and educational change during times of crisis. Policy Futures in Education, 20(4), 417-432. https://doi.org/10.1177/14782103221076642

Let’s Talk Science. (2019). Spotlight on science learning: A review of recent international and Canadian policy recommendations extended version. Let’s Talk Science. https://canada2067.ca/app/uploads/2019/07/LTS_Evolution-of-STEM-extended.pdf

OECD. (2018). The future of education and skills. Education 2030. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/education/2030/E2
030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf

Salazar-Montoya, L. & Kew, K. (2020). Latina superintendents in New Mexico and their glass ceilings. School Leadership Review, 13(1). https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/slr/vol13/iss1/1

Solórzano, D.G. & T.J. Yosso. (2002). “Critical Race methodology: Counterstorytelling as an analytical framework for educational research.” Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44

Yosso, Tara J. (2005). “Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth” (PDF). Race Ethnicity and Education, 8 (1): 69–91 doi:10.1080/1361332052000341006. S2C ID 34658106.

In the final part of this three-part interview, Jacek Pyżalski talks about how Polish educators have responded to the influx of refugees caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine. In Part 1, Pyżalski provides an overview of the school closures in Poland and how the education system responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.  In Part 2, Pyżalski talks specifically about student and teacher wellbeing. Jacek Pyżalski is is the Professor in the Faculty of Educational Studies (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan). He is experienced in researching the problems connected to social and educational aspects of ICT usage by children and adolescents. He was a pioneer in Poland in the field of cyberbullying research, and he has extensively studied the impact of remote education in crisis on the wellbeing of students, teachers and parents.

Thomas Hatch: Let’s turn to how the Polish education system has responded to the thousands of students and families fleeing Russia’s war on Ukraine. Roughly how many students joined Polish schools?

Jacek Pyżalski: I think there were about 200,000 at the peak but it was changing rapidly. Some of the students disappeared after two weeks and moved somewhere else. Headmasters had problems figuring out whether someone was still a student of the school or not, because people were just moving without information. It was a kind of chaos, particularly in the very beginning. Now it’s less in many cases. When I talk to the school headmasters, they say, “at the peak we had sixty students, but now we’ve got fourteen” or something like that. It’s still a lot, but it decreased dramatically. We are now facing some new problems Because we have finished with what you could call the “first stage,” now it’s a problem of stabilizing the situation. We are at a stage where we have to take care to respond systemically.

Jacek Pyżalski

Thomas Hatch: But what I learned on my visit to Poland is that the problem was even more complex: a third of the Ukrainian students were in the Polish schools, but maybe two-thirds were in Poland, but they were still learning remotely in their schools in Ukraine and never went to the Polish schools?

Jacek Pyżalski: Yes. A lot of young people from the Ukraine are at least partly using distance education because the  Ukrainian Government prepared remote education for those students who fled to the other countries. Some of them are also doing parallel study in the Polish schools at the same time they are still students in the Ukrainian formal remote system. But also even before the war, we had a big migration from Ukraine, but it was economic. A lot of these Ukrainians and some who came with this recent wave want to stay. They chose Poland as the final destination for a long period. They want to stay here and to work here. But then there are others who treat Polish schools mostly as the place where someone takes care of their children. They still care more about the Ukrainian system, and they do not really engage in Polish learning. This makes it hard to improve the quality of education for the others who want to stay. It’s a problem. One thing in this situation is education, the other thing is humanitarian aid, and it’s not easy to distinguish both priorities. There is not an easy solution for this –still Polish teachers and schools do their best.

One thing in this situation is education, the other thing is humanitarian aid, and it’s not easy to distinguish both priorities. There is not an easy solution for this.

Thomas Hatch: So you said to me before that now there needs to be a system response, but what kind of system response are people working on, or do you think is required?

Jacek Pyżalski: I think it’s still not at the stage that they are working on. They made some adjustments to the exams so that some part of the exam will be in Ukrainian and things like this. We already have preparation classes so before you go to the normal classes you can learn the Polish language to make it easier to participate in the educational activities. There are also adjustments in the social welfare system. So it’s a lot of things. Of course, it’s always not enough. It’s always a problem for any country to adjust to that scale of migration in that short time.

I can tell you about some really radical situations. For example, there is a small village where there is work growing fruit. They had a really small school with one hundred students. And then, in one moment, the school has three hundred people. Two hundred are from the Ukraine who came with their parents who wanted to work there. You cannot imagine and prepare for such situations. You cannot imagine how many challenges like this pop up from Monday to Tuesday. So we have to accept that it is not easy to organize a response to the extent that people want.

Thomas Hatch: That’s fascinating. Even in the US, where some schools are taking in significant numbers of refugees from the border, it’s nothing like the scale that you’re talking about. Has there been any effort to work with Ukrainian teachers who also left their homeland?

Jacek Pyżalski: We’ve got it in our laws that we can employ Ukrainian teachers and we employ them, in some cases, as support teachers in classes where there are Ukrainian students. They serve as language assistants or cultural assistants. So in a lot of schools there are two teachers; they act as a bridge between the Polish teachers and the Ukrainian students to help them adjust and to help them fully use the Polish educational system. Also, some people, like mental health professionals and psychologists, were also employed in Polish educational institutions to help the children, particularly with traumatic disorders and things like this.

Thomas Hatch: In the US, especially with the school closures, one of the things we’ve seen is a proliferation of schools: parents and others created private schools or micro schools or camps. Has there been any of that kind of activity outside the public school system to provide specific programs, private schools or other kinds of schools for Ukrainian students?

Jacek Pyżalski: Not for Ukrainian students. We have this movement like everywhere for Polish students with private schools and home education, but I haven’t heard about such initiatives that weren’t public initiatives. I think it was mostly in the public arena.

Thomas Hatch: Are there any specific innovations or promising practices that you’ve seen to help work with Ukrainian students or to integrate refugees into the Polish education system? 

Jacek Pyżalski: There were a lot! Some small things and also systems things. But what was the issue here in Poland? In a short time, a lot of people fled. In a short time, because we observed this in 71 schools, there were 5-6% of schools that have really increased in size because it was not equally distributed among those young people who came. They came to big cities and the places where they could find work. In some schools there were 1-2 persons coming, or nobody, and in 6% of schools there could be a 40% increase in the school population in one month. Those people are speaking another language; many are having psychological problems because, even if they were not touched by the war directly, they’ve got close family in the war and things like this. There’s also the shock of moving to another country. Some people moved without anything, just having everything in one backpack. So it was a big shock. We also surveyed about 100 teachers, 60% of the teachers said before this they had no children from other countries at all. So having so many children at one time, in many cases for people who had never worked in a multicultural classroom, it’s not easy (Together in the classroom: Children from Ukraine in Polish schools – potentials and challenges in building a multicultural school in the context of the war in Ukraine: Teachers’ perspective).

60% of the teachers said before this they had no children from other countries at all. So having so many children at one time, in many cases for people who had never worked in a multicultural classroom, it’s not easy.

But you ask me about specific things, small things, and I can give you multiple examples. For example, some schools used the Ukrainian labels for the school rooms like the toilet and the kitchen. Young people feel welcomed when they see their mother tongue on the labels. Also the Ukrainian teachers made cards for all the school staff, the technical and administrative staff, so they can speak at least some Ukrainian, and they can communicate with young people. Also, when teachers organize group work, they would mix the children so that the children are doing tasks together no matter their nationality and they have to communicate and cooperate.

In terms of bigger things, we should review the work of the School with Class Foundation who produced educational materials for the schools and students. For example, they made cards with Ukrainian and Polish language that the students could play with. But, overall, there was a big mobilization of the Polish population. It was astonishing, and it was something really heartwarming: people were not just providing materials and physical things, they were also providing support and inviting people to their homes. It was a really big thing.

There was a big mobilization of the Polish population. It was astonishing, and it was something really heartwarming: people were not just providing materials and physical things, they were also providing support and inviting people to their homes.

Thomas Hatch: Anything we haven’t covered that you wanted to share about the situation in Poland, or how Poland’s responded, or how it compares to other countries?

Jacek Pyżalski: A lot! We could talk for the whole day. But what I would like to emphasize is that we have to remember the wellbeing of teachers. We talked about the Covid crisis, about emergency remote education, and we also talked about the humanitarian crisis, this migration crisis. But actually for the teachers, these crises are so close to each other. Normally there is a crisis, and there is the normal situation. But again, can we talk about “normal” when we jump from crisis to crisis? What is our reference point? Nobody knows.

Can we talk about “normal” when we jump from crisis to crisis? What is our reference point? Nobody knows.

I saw your book, the book about the education we need and in times you cannot predict, and for me this is the issue. How should we deal with a world that is so impossible to predict? We have no reference points, so we can’t. We don’t prepare ourselves for crisis, for peacetime and for crisis. We need to respond to a permanent crisis. How do we teach for a permanent crisis? There are more questions than answers. I know this is a challenge, but if you ask me for really clear answers, I would surrender.

Thomas Hatch: But despite your understanding of the challenges and the difficulties, you strike me as someone who is also profoundly engaged and optimistic about what is possible.  What gives you hope at this point?

Jacek Pyżalski: I believe in education. I believe in knowledge. That’s why I’m advocating for and conducting so much research  that is at least to some extent translated into practice.. Even if you have no time to get prepared, I believe that we should start from really knowing what’s going on, not just guessing what is needed.

References

Ryzalski, J., Luczynska, A., Kata, G., Plichta, P., & Wieslaw, P. (2022). Together in the classroom: Children from Ukraine in Polish schools. Modern Education Discourses, 5 (2022).