Ki Sung is Managing Editor of Digital News at KQED. She is former Senior Editor of MindShift and worked at NPR before joining KQED in 2014.
By Ki Sung
A Leading School Shootings Researcher Says He Was Wrong
Shafia Zaloom: Sex Ed and Becoming the Askable Parent
Ross Greene: What if Bad Behavior Isn’t the Problem?
A Look Back at the Early Years of AI in Schools with MIT's TeachLab
Deborah Farmer Kris: How Awe Helps Us Flourish
Why Teens Love to Hang Out at the Library
When Teachers Learn a Complete View of Asian American History, Students Benefit
Finding Your Voice Isn't Just For Students. It's For Teachers, Too
Minnie Phan: A Young Girl and the Power of Art
Book Reading Goals for Young Readers with Traci Thomas
The Habits of 7 Highly Effective Schools
How We Made the Expanded KQED California Voter Guide
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"content": "\u003cp>Scientists rarely announce that one of their long-held ideas has failed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that is exactly what Ron Avi Astor, one of the nation’s leading scholars of school violence and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said before fellow researchers at the annual meeting in April of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We were wrong,” Astor told the audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For decades, Astor believed that improving school climate and reducing bullying would help prevent school shootings. He advised national policymakers and issued recommendations. Schools responded by investing heavily in social-emotional learning, restorative justice, trauma-informed care, counseling and other efforts to make schools safer and more welcoming.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those initiatives have benefited students in many ways. Fewer students report bringing guns or knives to school, and schools have generally become safer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But school shootings have not declined.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I’ve had a complete change” in my thinking, Astor told me in an interview after the conference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That shift came after he stepped back and looked at the evidence. During his AERA presentation, Astor showed a slide with two stark graphs. One traced a steady decline in students bringing weapons to California schools over the quarter century since the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. The other graph showed a sharp rise in school shootings across the nation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Diverging trends\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"922\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-2000x922.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66497\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-2000x922.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-160x74.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-768x354.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-1536x708.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-2048x944.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Divergent trends in student-reported weapon-related behavior and national school shooting incidents, 2001–2024. Panel A shows the percentage of California secondary school students (grades 7, 9, and 11) reporting four weapon-related behaviors in the California Healthy Kids Survey during academic years 2001–2024. All four indicators declined substantially over the study period. Panel B shows the annual count of school shooting incidents recorded in the K-12 School Shooting Database, which captures any incident in which a gun was brandished, fired, or a bullet struck school property in the United States. Key events and the COVID-19 disruption period (shaded) are annotated.\u003cbr>\u003cem>Source: A slide from Ron Avi Astor’s presentation during an \u003ca href=\"https://www.aera.net/Portals/38/Insider%20-%20April%2011_1.pdf\">AERA session\u003c/a> on April 11, 2026, “School Active Shooter Drills: Mitigating Risks to Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health – A Report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.”\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The graphs capture a painful realization. Astor says he and other researchers had misunderstood what was driving many school shootings.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Astor noted that many school shooters had been bullied, were bullies themselves or had experienced trauma, and he believed that shootings would decline if educators reduced bullying and strengthened relationships among students locally, one school building at a time. “We were adamant,” Astor said. “Let’s focus on prevention.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“What was missed, I believe, was that each shooter wanted to make sure that this was national,” Astor said. “Their number one audience was the media. That’s really clear to me now.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Astor now believes many perpetrators are driven by a desire for notoriety. Shooters study previous massacres, learn from online communities and seek the publicity that follows a mass attack.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Most of them are suicidal, and they decided to be homicidal so that they would be remembered,” Astor said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That new way of thinking has led him to a very different recommendation. Rather than focusing on prevention inside schools, Astor believes journalists and social media companies should adopt guidelines that reduce attention on perpetrators, delay publication of manifestos and videos, and focus more coverage on victims.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I’m not saying don’t do social-emotional or anti-gun” efforts, Astor said. “Those things are important. But if we want to see a reduction in school shootings, we need to work with the media.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Astor compares school shootings to suicide contagions or spates of terrorism, where extensive publicity can inspire copycats. He acknowledges that it’s a long shot to persuade social media companies or the dark web to change, and he cannot prove that changing will work to reduce school shootings. “But it’s worth a try,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What makes Astor’s argument noteworthy isn’t simply his new hypothesis. It’s his willingness to publicly abandon an old one after concluding that the evidence no longer supported it. It’s never easy to change course but Astor’s openness could save lives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-school-shootings/\">\u003cem>preventing school shootings\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-school-shootings/\">\u003cem>preventing school shootings\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Anti-bullying and social-emotional learning haven’t reduced school shootings. Minimizing public attention on shooters might.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Scientists rarely announce that one of their long-held ideas has failed.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that is exactly what Ron Avi Astor, one of the nation’s leading scholars of school violence and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said before fellow researchers at the annual meeting in April of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We were wrong,” Astor told the audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>For decades, Astor believed that improving school climate and reducing bullying would help prevent school shootings. He advised national policymakers and issued recommendations. Schools responded by investing heavily in social-emotional learning, restorative justice, trauma-informed care, counseling and other efforts to make schools safer and more welcoming.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Those initiatives have benefited students in many ways. Fewer students report bringing guns or knives to school, and schools have generally become safer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But school shootings have not declined.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I’ve had a complete change” in my thinking, Astor told me in an interview after the conference.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That shift came after he stepped back and looked at the evidence. During his AERA presentation, Astor showed a slide with two stark graphs. One traced a steady decline in students bringing weapons to California schools over the quarter century since the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. The other graph showed a sharp rise in school shootings across the nation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u003cstrong>Diverging trends\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"922\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-2000x922.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-66497\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-2000x922.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-160x74.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-768x354.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-1536x708.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/07/Weapons-in-schools-2048x944.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Divergent trends in student-reported weapon-related behavior and national school shooting incidents, 2001–2024. Panel A shows the percentage of California secondary school students (grades 7, 9, and 11) reporting four weapon-related behaviors in the California Healthy Kids Survey during academic years 2001–2024. All four indicators declined substantially over the study period. Panel B shows the annual count of school shooting incidents recorded in the K-12 School Shooting Database, which captures any incident in which a gun was brandished, fired, or a bullet struck school property in the United States. Key events and the COVID-19 disruption period (shaded) are annotated.\u003cbr>\u003cem>Source: A slide from Ron Avi Astor’s presentation during an \u003ca href=\"https://www.aera.net/Portals/38/Insider%20-%20April%2011_1.pdf\">AERA session\u003c/a> on April 11, 2026, “School Active Shooter Drills: Mitigating Risks to Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health – A Report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.”\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The graphs capture a painful realization. Astor says he and other researchers had misunderstood what was driving many school shootings.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Astor noted that many school shooters had been bullied, were bullies themselves or had experienced trauma, and he believed that shootings would decline if educators reduced bullying and strengthened relationships among students locally, one school building at a time. “We were adamant,” Astor said. “Let’s focus on prevention.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“What was missed, I believe, was that each shooter wanted to make sure that this was national,” Astor said. “Their number one audience was the media. That’s really clear to me now.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Astor now believes many perpetrators are driven by a desire for notoriety. Shooters study previous massacres, learn from online communities and seek the publicity that follows a mass attack.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Most of them are suicidal, and they decided to be homicidal so that they would be remembered,” Astor said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That new way of thinking has led him to a very different recommendation. Rather than focusing on prevention inside schools, Astor believes journalists and social media companies should adopt guidelines that reduce attention on perpetrators, delay publication of manifestos and videos, and focus more coverage on victims.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I’m not saying don’t do social-emotional or anti-gun” efforts, Astor said. “Those things are important. But if we want to see a reduction in school shootings, we need to work with the media.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Astor compares school shootings to suicide contagions or spates of terrorism, where extensive publicity can inspire copycats. He acknowledges that it’s a long shot to persuade social media companies or the dark web to change, and he cannot prove that changing will work to reduce school shootings. “But it’s worth a try,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What makes Astor’s argument noteworthy isn’t simply his new hypothesis. It’s his willingness to publicly abandon an old one after concluding that the evidence no longer supported it. It’s never easy to change course but Astor’s openness could save lives.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-school-shootings/\">\u003cem>preventing school shootings\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In this digital age, kids are surrounded by messages about gender and sexuality. But are parents creating the space for conversation and understanding? Health educator \u003ca href=\"https://www.shafiazaloom.com/\">Shafia Zaloom\u003c/a> has a new book, “\u003ca href=\"https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895570593/getting-real-about-sex-ed/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need\u003c/span>\u003c/a>,” that guides parents through different stages of development. Having a more contemporary understanding of sex ed can help parents become the “askable parent” when kids have questions about the world — such as how they want to be treated and how that extends to relationships — so they don’t have to rely so heavily on peers, social media and algorithms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC9462844781\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Welcome to the Mind Shift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’re going to get an update on sex ed in the United States., sex ed is no longer about just intercourse and preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Sexuality education is more nuanced and starts earlier in life. And biologically, that makes a lot of sense. But culturally, we may have a lot catching up to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My guest today is Shafia Zaloom. Health educator and author of \u003ca href=\"https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895570593/getting-real-about-sex-ed/\">Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need\u003c/a>. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Shafia Zaloom, welcome to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>You teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and you’re a high school health educator in San Francisco. You also work with schools across the country in states of all political leanings which you describe in your book Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For old timers like me, can you describe the evolution of sex education to sexuality education- What’s the difference and how are they taught differently?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, of course. So when it comes to sex education in particular, that’s mostly information-based and it’s really grounded in sort of medical health, sexual reproductive health, right? So it has to do with preventing unintended pregnancy, unwanted pregnancy. It has to deal with preventing passing of sexually transmitted infections. And it’s very sort of clinical and medical-based. It’s important.\u003cbr>\nBut sexuality education is a lot more holistic and it’s a lot nuanced and it includes a whole lot more. So not just the information, but what do you actually do with it and what’s the meaning we assign to it? It really has to do with… How we relate to ourselves and to the world, how we take care of others, how we treat others because that matters. And that’s really at the heart of comprehensive sexuality education. There’s an ethical aspect to it having to do with decision-making that promotes and encourages relationships grounded in mutual respect, empathy, and dignity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>As a health educator, you must get asked all kinds of questions by students of all ages. What are some of the most frequently asked questions you get from middle schoolers and teens?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>It is such a tremendous range, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years, right? So the questions have been the same for 30 years, and then other questions have sort of evolved and become different. And then there’s brand new stuff. And the brand new staff sometimes changes constantly because it’s within a context of digital spaces. And so it’s just super interesting, you know, for the younger kids from middle school. You know, they’ll just ask basic direct questions. What is this? What is that? How do I know if I like girls or boys? How do know if someone really has a crush on me? How do tell my best friend that I don’t like it when they’re always hugging me? You know questions like that that have sort of transcended time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have some kids now in middle school who are asking about pornography. Which is different because it’s so ubiquitous, it’s still accessible now, that I see more questions that are very specific to certain types of media and what they’re exposed to in media. You know, what is popping the cherry mean? What’s a grundle? What’s gooning? You know, all these different sort of, this different kind of language that exists in digital spaces that they’re expose to. And are sort of wrestling with to make meaning of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then as kids get older in high school, the stakes feel a lot higher. I get a lot like to shave or not to shave. How do I make it not hurt when I lose my virginity? Questions like when is it okay to have sex with someone? How do you know what real trust actually is? Really pretty important and intense questions that also reveal… These aren’t being discussed in other spaces, right? That this is one of the first times someone has asked them, you know, what are you curious about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And a lot of times too now, which is different from the past, kids are asking me to legitimize something. I heard that, or is it true that…” kind of questions having to do with what they’re exposed to in media, like “what’s a blue waffle? Can girls pee out of their vaginas?” Like there’s all kinds of different things that they’re exposed to that they are wondering about. Most of the time they’ll just Google, right? And so they get this information and then they have this intuitive response of like, I don’t know if that can actually be right. And then they ask it in class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Uh… That sounds way more complicated than I think the questions were asked in my sex ed class a long time ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom:\u003c/strong>\u003cem> [Laughter]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Um, how do you navigate that world? Or maybe the better question is how are the kids navigating? You mentioned they’re searching online, but it seems like an endless rabbit hole that could lead you to pretty dark places, especially at a very young age, because I saw this study that showed that kids are encountering porn. The average age that they encounter porn is 12, and it happens a lot at school just by clicking through links unassumingly. And so that’s what I wonder, like how do you think they’re navigating the space? You mentioned like parents, but what else are they doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I think more parents are trying to talk about these things, and modern parents, and good for them, yay, and we’re trying to get folks to talk about this more, but we’ll check the box around like, okay, I talk to my kids about consent, I talk my kid about STIs, I talk about birth control, things like that, if we’re talking about teenagers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then I have a kid come up to me to say, okay, I know the definition of consent, and my parents keep telling me, you know, I should respect women or I should respect whomever, whatever it may be. But what does that mean exactly? Right, like that’s the followup question that I’m now getting, what does that mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so I think that’s important. The Googling, absolutely, a lot of times pornography will come up. It’s a lot harder for kids to avoid coming across porn or sexually explicit material than it is not to these days. And so then that, you know, that’s a whole rabbit hole in of itself. And because we’re not providing, and in fact currently rolling back comprehensive sexuality education courses in schools, you know. Kids are turning to pornography. It’s become the default sex ed of this country. That’s like watching the Fast and the Furious to learn how to drive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so, you know, kids are looking for information from their friends. They’re looking to social media. They’re asking Google. And for parents, if you’re not talking to your kid about sexuality, you’re the only person not talking your kid about sexuality because their friends are, the internet is, you know all these different influencers who are out there. And so that’s why this conversation is so important, not only in learning spaces, but also at home, because parenting adults, a kid’s guardian is the primary sexuality educator in a child’s life. That has been true forever. I don’t know a single professional sexuality educator who doesn’t believe that. And it’s challenging. It’s really hard to keep up, especially if you haven’t had a positive experience with that education yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I think one of the most fascinating aspects of your book is that you lay out a lot of real life scenarios in school in very precise language. For example, I’ve never heard of the term, and I think it’s okay to say, clamper. Oh yeah. It’s probably in a category of behaviors that…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Mm-hmm\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> happened on school campuses or elsewhere outside of the school. Can you describe what that is and how you’ve addressed that in schools?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, for sure. So clamping, depending on what classroom you’re in, and this tends to start sort of young, right? In the case of my book, there’s a field trip and they’re walking upstairs in a museum. There are different terms for it too, euphemisms, like fish in the creek, clamping. You know, a lot of different ways by which kids will reference this behavior. You know the euphemism is supposed to make it humorous, which sort of excuses the. Inappropriate or aggressive behavior behind it. And it’s basically poking someone in the butt and in the butt crack in particular and thinking that that’s really funny. And I don’t know a lot of kids who actually think that is very funny, but this is also happening during a time when they’re negotiating social landscapes, social power and currency, and how we connect to and relate to each other and what kind of influence different kids have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in addressing that, there are two things we need to do, and sometimes there’s a third. If there’s kid who brings that to your attention, because sometimes there is, right? There’s the kid who will say, hey, this is going on. Did you see this? Did you know this? They go to the adult because they’re looking for some sort of help, because intuitively they know that this isn’t something that’s okay. And that kid needs to be recognized, right, because… When it comes to that dynamic, you know, the topic of snitching comes up, it’s really important to be very concrete about the difference between snitching, which is telling on someone on purpose to get them in trouble on purpose, and reporting, which is where you’re sharing information, asking for help trying to support community and righting a wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then you have two other things: You have the kid who actually experienced the clamp or the poke, the unwanted poking, and then you have the kid who actually did it. And so those are two kids, usually the kid who does it, it’s important to remove their audience. When we address these things publicly, it’s important to say something, to stand for what’s right, to hold people accountable to the guidelines you’ve set up in your classroom or amongst each other in your community. But we don’t want to go too far because for adolescents when we go too far in a public setting, they shut down because it feels shameful. And so what we want to do is say something so that people know oh okay the teacher is aware the the caretaking adult knows this is happening and so they’re going to take care of it but they’re also going to honor and respect that kids make mistakes and that we have the opportunity to learn from them so that we can be better people. And that’s what you’re going do in private right? That’s what you’re going to do with discretion, not secrecy. That’s different. But hold kids accountable in a way that honors privacy and the opportunity to become available to the learning and the guidance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that social learning is going to be critical. So we want to support the kid who experienced it, find out how they felt about it, how things are going, what kind of support they may need. The other kid, we’re doing something similar. And we really want to get behind that behavior to see what need is. They’re trying to meet by engaging in that behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Were they looking for connection? Were they are looking for affirmation through attention?, whether it was negative or positive, didn’t really matter for them, like, whatever it may have been, help them understand how their choice in making that, getting that need met actually didn’t serve them or anyone else. And it’s absolutely not acceptable. And so then what are the other options for them when they’re feeling that way to get those needs met, in a way that actually then affirms what they’re trying to figure out, how they’re in the classroom and how they are part of community?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And I guess that can also be applicable to other interactions one has with others in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Oh, 100%, yes. And it’s an opportunity to give, to impart a lesson to and to reinforce information, right? That very rarely do any of us, the first time we hear something, especially if we’re a young person, right, are we gonna remember, internalize, and make that a part of our practice? Practice is essential. That’s why kids are in school. And so that kid, it’s also an opportunity to review consent, bodily autonomy, asking permission, what accountability actually means, the value of community, what we’re actually going for in our relationships, who we wanna be. There’s a ton of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>But the scenario you describe is really detailed, as are a lot of incidents that are really uncomfortable or challenging. And I think what you do really well is lay out several raw descriptions of conflict you’ve heard about or seen on campus, including the use of slurs. And a lot those instances, when boundaries are crossed, you often end up with a student reply of, I was just joking or I didn’t mean it. So how do you address that seemingly common response to an infraction?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>That’s such a good question. You know, I think, so it’s so important when working with young people in particular that we get, that we recognize the behavior, that we hold them accountable, but that we also guide them to what’s behind the behavior. And I think that’s… The most important piece is when these things come up, because kids are in gender and sexuality school all the time, all day, every day, it’s constantly being modeled for them. They’re being socialized by all these different social institutions all the times, is that we guide them towards those universal values that we think are really important when it comes to relationships with others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what our culture teaches kids, because sex is everywhere and nowhere all at once. It’s something that a lot of people don’t have a lot practice talking about in really positive, productive, constructive ways. And so when it comes to kids, they’ve learned that when we talk about sex, if we veil it in humor, that we can get away with a lot behaviors. That if we didn’t veil them in humor, would definitely not be okay, that would be disrespectful, would be considered rude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this is a way by which sort of the sex stigmatization that has historically been a part of our culture continues and is perpetuated. So when talking with kids, it’s really important first that we not shame and this is the thing, most adults have been socialized to respond to issues of sexuality that would warrant, oh, I was just kidding, it’s not a big deal, I didn’t mean it that way, with some sort of shame, fear avoidance versus care, love, and affirmation. Because that’s the counter narrative, right, the care, love, and affirmation. And a lot of times kids, especially adolescents, are just mirroring and trying on navigating the gauntlet to adulthood of what they see in adult culture. So we have to help them understand. We have to contextualize it for them. We have to get behind the behavior to help understand the feelings that are there and what values we’re actually aspiring to. And the reason why that behavior actually erodes relationships and community versus affirms and builds them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I’m wondering if you can make a connection to being an adult by having these experiences early. How do they manifest in an adult’s life? And by experiences I mean standing up for yourself or communicating what you want or how you need to be treated and like entering into interactions with understanding instead of shame. I mean, you just mentioned many things here. So I guess generally like, you know, if somebody has this kind of experience, how does that project into their lives as an adult?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Well, what we understand and know about social learning is that one, it makes us available to feel socially connected, actually improves and cultivates the capacity for young people to learn effectively. What we also know about learning is that we need practice and it needs to be scaffolded over time in a developmentally appropriate way. And so when we take this on, you know, Freud said that the two most important things in life are work and love. And this is ultimately comprehensive sexuality education. You know, we forget this sometimes because of our history of stigmatizing it, is that this is about cultivating the capacity to love and be loved. And so that requires skills. It requires being attuned to yourself and others. You know, skills are something we have to practice and build over time. And so when you have someone who’s had the benefit of these skills, of this sort of reinforcement, the contextualizing, applying these skills and cultivating these capacities in different contexts across different experiences, you have some one who actually becomes more considerate of others, who’s able to be attuned to others and to themselves to act in ways that are ethical in terms of how we treat each other because that really matters, who can exercise empathy, who can ask for help when they need it, and who have the language and the practice to verbalize what they’re thinking and feeling when they need to ask for that, or when they see that others need it too and offer it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that’s a really important piece. I wanna make sure we don’t only focus on self. We really have to balance how we connect with ourselves as individuals with becoming community-minded and understanding the value of being socially connected and in community with other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So what tips do you have for parents who really struggle with their discomfort around talking about sexuality and relationships with their kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I mean, as much as we can is get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, which is such a valuable thing to model, right? That sometimes the hardest conversations are the most important ones to have in a relationship. And there are plenty of scripts and resources out there, some great books for having these conversations with young people across developmental stages in ways that are cognitively congruent. And so I would say it’s really important for a parent to educate themselves to find those resources that align with their values so that they can start early. And it’s never too late, I wanna say that too. And to provide their kid with medically accurate, credible information first and foremost. But the most important piece is actually the values stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So to get concrete around it, let’s say you’re in the car with your kid and you let them DJ for the ride. And a song comes on, you can simply drop a question, like, “huh, do you think this is about infatuation or authentic connection? Because I’m not really sure, you know?” It’s just a question like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or you’re watching as a family, you’re a watching a show, or you’re just watching something with your kid, or you heard they’re watching something, so you start to watch it too. And you talk about the characters like real people. And you say like, well, do you think that was wordless consent? Do you think that that was actually like a response that really honored and respected what they wanted or their right to make a decision or I noticed they changed their mind, you know, like that kind of a thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you’re not, you’re not launching, um, and you’re just collecting these beautiful moments that you scaffold over time, and then you can go back and you can sort of embellish and bedazzle and hang all kinds of beautiful things on the scaffolding, but it’s really important to get that foundational piece first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, becoming the askable parent means that we have our eyes and ears open, and for adolescents, a lot of times that’s not on our time, it’s on their time, right, like late at night or whatever else because their circadian rhythms have shifted. And we’re doing a lot values education in particular, you know, we want to make sure they have access to the medically accurate information, but then the values education and how we apply that information to interpersonal dynamics is going to be super important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so for kids, even saying, hey, I heard this podcast and there was this woman speaking about sexuality education. Are you getting any of that in school and in what ways? And how’s it been? What do you think about it? Kids love to, they have a keen sense of justice too. Could even say, she said this, do you think that’s true? Have you seen that come up? Do you think that would be valuable information?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those are the ways that I. I think parents can become askable when it comes to their kids. And it doesn’t mean being your kid’s friend. They really need a parent with boundaries and doing the hard stuff. And how do you get comfortable with being uncomfortable? Those sorts of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So I want to ask you, for maybe millennials, Gen Xers who grew up in a different era of sex ed, can you identify some myths about sexuality education that adults should consider unlearning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I think this is true of all adults, actually, just because it’s interesting, I think the stigmatizing aspect of sexuality has been perpetuated across its cyclical, right, generational cycles of this, and we really need to move away from that, and that requires people to work on themselves. And earlier you had asked about how can parents become askable parents, right? And get comfortable with this. And part of that’s a parent’s responsibility to do with other people their own age, right. Like your own friends, have conversations about this, practice having this conversation. The myths that are out there are that if we tell kids then they’re gonna go run out and do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no empirical evidence whatsoever. That tells us that’s the case. In fact, the inverse is true. And so, you know, that’s just when we’ve put political ideology above student health and perpetuated stigmatizing ideas around sexuality. All you have to do is look at the Dutch. I mean, they start age-appropriate sexuality education in preschool and kindergarten, and it follows them all up into adulthood. You know, their focus is really on responsibility and joy. Versus like disaster prevention, fear and avoidance. And so, and their young people are far more relational, their STI and unintended pregnancy rates are like some of the lowest in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, it’s really important that we understand…we spend more, we invest more in fire prevention and fire safety, like information and learning with young people than we do on sex ed. And when you give that education to kids, like, okay, here’s how we prevent fires or how we deal with them if there is one or whatever else they don’t go home and start making fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I tell young people that this is what adults believe, that if they acquire a sex education, they’re gonna run out and go start having sex, they look at me like I have three heads. And they’re offended. They’re like, really? And then they get funny and they’re like oh, think of all the other things that they tell us to do when they spend all this time trying to teach us and how we don’t do them. Right? Um, so I think that’s the biggest one is, uh, that if we tell them they’re automatically going to go out and do, um, because all the evidence and there’s tons of it, decades of it tells us that if engage in age appropriate comprehensive sexuality education as it’s meant to be, that all the things we hope for our kids, there’s a higher probability of that happening than the inverse, which people are afraid of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for all that context and guiding us to become the Askable parent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Thank you for having me and your interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Shafia Zaloom is the author of the recently published book, Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need. She’s a health educator who teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at a high school in San Francisco and consults schools across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Credits: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">In this digital age, kids are surrounded by messages about gender and sexuality. But are parents creating the space for conversation and understanding? Health educator \u003ca href=\"https://www.shafiazaloom.com/\">Shafia Zaloom\u003c/a> has a new book, “\u003ca href=\"https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895570593/getting-real-about-sex-ed/\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need\u003c/span>\u003c/a>,” that guides parents through different stages of development. Having a more contemporary understanding of sex ed can help parents become the “askable parent” when kids have questions about the world — such as how they want to be treated and how that extends to relationships — so they don’t have to rely so heavily on peers, social media and algorithms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC9462844781\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Welcome to the Mind Shift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’re going to get an update on sex ed in the United States., sex ed is no longer about just intercourse and preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Sexuality education is more nuanced and starts earlier in life. And biologically, that makes a lot of sense. But culturally, we may have a lot catching up to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My guest today is Shafia Zaloom. Health educator and author of \u003ca href=\"https://hep.gse.harvard.edu/9798895570593/getting-real-about-sex-ed/\">Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need\u003c/a>. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Shafia Zaloom, welcome to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>You teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and you’re a high school health educator in San Francisco. You also work with schools across the country in states of all political leanings which you describe in your book Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For old timers like me, can you describe the evolution of sex education to sexuality education- What’s the difference and how are they taught differently?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, of course. So when it comes to sex education in particular, that’s mostly information-based and it’s really grounded in sort of medical health, sexual reproductive health, right? So it has to do with preventing unintended pregnancy, unwanted pregnancy. It has to deal with preventing passing of sexually transmitted infections. And it’s very sort of clinical and medical-based. It’s important.\u003cbr>\nBut sexuality education is a lot more holistic and it’s a lot nuanced and it includes a whole lot more. So not just the information, but what do you actually do with it and what’s the meaning we assign to it? It really has to do with… How we relate to ourselves and to the world, how we take care of others, how we treat others because that matters. And that’s really at the heart of comprehensive sexuality education. There’s an ethical aspect to it having to do with decision-making that promotes and encourages relationships grounded in mutual respect, empathy, and dignity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>As a health educator, you must get asked all kinds of questions by students of all ages. What are some of the most frequently asked questions you get from middle schoolers and teens?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>It is such a tremendous range, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years, right? So the questions have been the same for 30 years, and then other questions have sort of evolved and become different. And then there’s brand new stuff. And the brand new staff sometimes changes constantly because it’s within a context of digital spaces. And so it’s just super interesting, you know, for the younger kids from middle school. You know, they’ll just ask basic direct questions. What is this? What is that? How do I know if I like girls or boys? How do know if someone really has a crush on me? How do tell my best friend that I don’t like it when they’re always hugging me? You know questions like that that have sort of transcended time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have some kids now in middle school who are asking about pornography. Which is different because it’s so ubiquitous, it’s still accessible now, that I see more questions that are very specific to certain types of media and what they’re exposed to in media. You know, what is popping the cherry mean? What’s a grundle? What’s gooning? You know, all these different sort of, this different kind of language that exists in digital spaces that they’re expose to. And are sort of wrestling with to make meaning of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then as kids get older in high school, the stakes feel a lot higher. I get a lot like to shave or not to shave. How do I make it not hurt when I lose my virginity? Questions like when is it okay to have sex with someone? How do you know what real trust actually is? Really pretty important and intense questions that also reveal… These aren’t being discussed in other spaces, right? That this is one of the first times someone has asked them, you know, what are you curious about?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And a lot of times too now, which is different from the past, kids are asking me to legitimize something. I heard that, or is it true that…” kind of questions having to do with what they’re exposed to in media, like “what’s a blue waffle? Can girls pee out of their vaginas?” Like there’s all kinds of different things that they’re exposed to that they are wondering about. Most of the time they’ll just Google, right? And so they get this information and then they have this intuitive response of like, I don’t know if that can actually be right. And then they ask it in class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Uh… That sounds way more complicated than I think the questions were asked in my sex ed class a long time ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom:\u003c/strong>\u003cem> [Laughter]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Um, how do you navigate that world? Or maybe the better question is how are the kids navigating? You mentioned they’re searching online, but it seems like an endless rabbit hole that could lead you to pretty dark places, especially at a very young age, because I saw this study that showed that kids are encountering porn. The average age that they encounter porn is 12, and it happens a lot at school just by clicking through links unassumingly. And so that’s what I wonder, like how do you think they’re navigating the space? You mentioned like parents, but what else are they doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I think more parents are trying to talk about these things, and modern parents, and good for them, yay, and we’re trying to get folks to talk about this more, but we’ll check the box around like, okay, I talk to my kids about consent, I talk my kid about STIs, I talk about birth control, things like that, if we’re talking about teenagers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then I have a kid come up to me to say, okay, I know the definition of consent, and my parents keep telling me, you know, I should respect women or I should respect whomever, whatever it may be. But what does that mean exactly? Right, like that’s the followup question that I’m now getting, what does that mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so I think that’s important. The Googling, absolutely, a lot of times pornography will come up. It’s a lot harder for kids to avoid coming across porn or sexually explicit material than it is not to these days. And so then that, you know, that’s a whole rabbit hole in of itself. And because we’re not providing, and in fact currently rolling back comprehensive sexuality education courses in schools, you know. Kids are turning to pornography. It’s become the default sex ed of this country. That’s like watching the Fast and the Furious to learn how to drive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so, you know, kids are looking for information from their friends. They’re looking to social media. They’re asking Google. And for parents, if you’re not talking to your kid about sexuality, you’re the only person not talking your kid about sexuality because their friends are, the internet is, you know all these different influencers who are out there. And so that’s why this conversation is so important, not only in learning spaces, but also at home, because parenting adults, a kid’s guardian is the primary sexuality educator in a child’s life. That has been true forever. I don’t know a single professional sexuality educator who doesn’t believe that. And it’s challenging. It’s really hard to keep up, especially if you haven’t had a positive experience with that education yourself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I think one of the most fascinating aspects of your book is that you lay out a lot of real life scenarios in school in very precise language. For example, I’ve never heard of the term, and I think it’s okay to say, clamper. Oh yeah. It’s probably in a category of behaviors that…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Mm-hmm\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> happened on school campuses or elsewhere outside of the school. Can you describe what that is and how you’ve addressed that in schools?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Yeah, for sure. So clamping, depending on what classroom you’re in, and this tends to start sort of young, right? In the case of my book, there’s a field trip and they’re walking upstairs in a museum. There are different terms for it too, euphemisms, like fish in the creek, clamping. You know, a lot of different ways by which kids will reference this behavior. You know the euphemism is supposed to make it humorous, which sort of excuses the. Inappropriate or aggressive behavior behind it. And it’s basically poking someone in the butt and in the butt crack in particular and thinking that that’s really funny. And I don’t know a lot of kids who actually think that is very funny, but this is also happening during a time when they’re negotiating social landscapes, social power and currency, and how we connect to and relate to each other and what kind of influence different kids have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in addressing that, there are two things we need to do, and sometimes there’s a third. If there’s kid who brings that to your attention, because sometimes there is, right? There’s the kid who will say, hey, this is going on. Did you see this? Did you know this? They go to the adult because they’re looking for some sort of help, because intuitively they know that this isn’t something that’s okay. And that kid needs to be recognized, right, because… When it comes to that dynamic, you know, the topic of snitching comes up, it’s really important to be very concrete about the difference between snitching, which is telling on someone on purpose to get them in trouble on purpose, and reporting, which is where you’re sharing information, asking for help trying to support community and righting a wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then you have two other things: You have the kid who actually experienced the clamp or the poke, the unwanted poking, and then you have the kid who actually did it. And so those are two kids, usually the kid who does it, it’s important to remove their audience. When we address these things publicly, it’s important to say something, to stand for what’s right, to hold people accountable to the guidelines you’ve set up in your classroom or amongst each other in your community. But we don’t want to go too far because for adolescents when we go too far in a public setting, they shut down because it feels shameful. And so what we want to do is say something so that people know oh okay the teacher is aware the the caretaking adult knows this is happening and so they’re going to take care of it but they’re also going to honor and respect that kids make mistakes and that we have the opportunity to learn from them so that we can be better people. And that’s what you’re going do in private right? That’s what you’re going to do with discretion, not secrecy. That’s different. But hold kids accountable in a way that honors privacy and the opportunity to become available to the learning and the guidance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that social learning is going to be critical. So we want to support the kid who experienced it, find out how they felt about it, how things are going, what kind of support they may need. The other kid, we’re doing something similar. And we really want to get behind that behavior to see what need is. They’re trying to meet by engaging in that behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Were they looking for connection? Were they are looking for affirmation through attention?, whether it was negative or positive, didn’t really matter for them, like, whatever it may have been, help them understand how their choice in making that, getting that need met actually didn’t serve them or anyone else. And it’s absolutely not acceptable. And so then what are the other options for them when they’re feeling that way to get those needs met, in a way that actually then affirms what they’re trying to figure out, how they’re in the classroom and how they are part of community?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And I guess that can also be applicable to other interactions one has with others in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Oh, 100%, yes. And it’s an opportunity to give, to impart a lesson to and to reinforce information, right? That very rarely do any of us, the first time we hear something, especially if we’re a young person, right, are we gonna remember, internalize, and make that a part of our practice? Practice is essential. That’s why kids are in school. And so that kid, it’s also an opportunity to review consent, bodily autonomy, asking permission, what accountability actually means, the value of community, what we’re actually going for in our relationships, who we wanna be. There’s a ton of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>But the scenario you describe is really detailed, as are a lot of incidents that are really uncomfortable or challenging. And I think what you do really well is lay out several raw descriptions of conflict you’ve heard about or seen on campus, including the use of slurs. And a lot those instances, when boundaries are crossed, you often end up with a student reply of, I was just joking or I didn’t mean it. So how do you address that seemingly common response to an infraction?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>That’s such a good question. You know, I think, so it’s so important when working with young people in particular that we get, that we recognize the behavior, that we hold them accountable, but that we also guide them to what’s behind the behavior. And I think that’s… The most important piece is when these things come up, because kids are in gender and sexuality school all the time, all day, every day, it’s constantly being modeled for them. They’re being socialized by all these different social institutions all the times, is that we guide them towards those universal values that we think are really important when it comes to relationships with others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what our culture teaches kids, because sex is everywhere and nowhere all at once. It’s something that a lot of people don’t have a lot practice talking about in really positive, productive, constructive ways. And so when it comes to kids, they’ve learned that when we talk about sex, if we veil it in humor, that we can get away with a lot behaviors. That if we didn’t veil them in humor, would definitely not be okay, that would be disrespectful, would be considered rude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this is a way by which sort of the sex stigmatization that has historically been a part of our culture continues and is perpetuated. So when talking with kids, it’s really important first that we not shame and this is the thing, most adults have been socialized to respond to issues of sexuality that would warrant, oh, I was just kidding, it’s not a big deal, I didn’t mean it that way, with some sort of shame, fear avoidance versus care, love, and affirmation. Because that’s the counter narrative, right, the care, love, and affirmation. And a lot of times kids, especially adolescents, are just mirroring and trying on navigating the gauntlet to adulthood of what they see in adult culture. So we have to help them understand. We have to contextualize it for them. We have to get behind the behavior to help understand the feelings that are there and what values we’re actually aspiring to. And the reason why that behavior actually erodes relationships and community versus affirms and builds them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I’m wondering if you can make a connection to being an adult by having these experiences early. How do they manifest in an adult’s life? And by experiences I mean standing up for yourself or communicating what you want or how you need to be treated and like entering into interactions with understanding instead of shame. I mean, you just mentioned many things here. So I guess generally like, you know, if somebody has this kind of experience, how does that project into their lives as an adult?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Well, what we understand and know about social learning is that one, it makes us available to feel socially connected, actually improves and cultivates the capacity for young people to learn effectively. What we also know about learning is that we need practice and it needs to be scaffolded over time in a developmentally appropriate way. And so when we take this on, you know, Freud said that the two most important things in life are work and love. And this is ultimately comprehensive sexuality education. You know, we forget this sometimes because of our history of stigmatizing it, is that this is about cultivating the capacity to love and be loved. And so that requires skills. It requires being attuned to yourself and others. You know, skills are something we have to practice and build over time. And so when you have someone who’s had the benefit of these skills, of this sort of reinforcement, the contextualizing, applying these skills and cultivating these capacities in different contexts across different experiences, you have some one who actually becomes more considerate of others, who’s able to be attuned to others and to themselves to act in ways that are ethical in terms of how we treat each other because that really matters, who can exercise empathy, who can ask for help when they need it, and who have the language and the practice to verbalize what they’re thinking and feeling when they need to ask for that, or when they see that others need it too and offer it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I think that’s a really important piece. I wanna make sure we don’t only focus on self. We really have to balance how we connect with ourselves as individuals with becoming community-minded and understanding the value of being socially connected and in community with other people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So what tips do you have for parents who really struggle with their discomfort around talking about sexuality and relationships with their kids?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I mean, as much as we can is get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, which is such a valuable thing to model, right? That sometimes the hardest conversations are the most important ones to have in a relationship. And there are plenty of scripts and resources out there, some great books for having these conversations with young people across developmental stages in ways that are cognitively congruent. And so I would say it’s really important for a parent to educate themselves to find those resources that align with their values so that they can start early. And it’s never too late, I wanna say that too. And to provide their kid with medically accurate, credible information first and foremost. But the most important piece is actually the values stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So to get concrete around it, let’s say you’re in the car with your kid and you let them DJ for the ride. And a song comes on, you can simply drop a question, like, “huh, do you think this is about infatuation or authentic connection? Because I’m not really sure, you know?” It’s just a question like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or you’re watching as a family, you’re a watching a show, or you’re just watching something with your kid, or you heard they’re watching something, so you start to watch it too. And you talk about the characters like real people. And you say like, well, do you think that was wordless consent? Do you think that that was actually like a response that really honored and respected what they wanted or their right to make a decision or I noticed they changed their mind, you know, like that kind of a thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And you’re not, you’re not launching, um, and you’re just collecting these beautiful moments that you scaffold over time, and then you can go back and you can sort of embellish and bedazzle and hang all kinds of beautiful things on the scaffolding, but it’s really important to get that foundational piece first.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, becoming the askable parent means that we have our eyes and ears open, and for adolescents, a lot of times that’s not on our time, it’s on their time, right, like late at night or whatever else because their circadian rhythms have shifted. And we’re doing a lot values education in particular, you know, we want to make sure they have access to the medically accurate information, but then the values education and how we apply that information to interpersonal dynamics is going to be super important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so for kids, even saying, hey, I heard this podcast and there was this woman speaking about sexuality education. Are you getting any of that in school and in what ways? And how’s it been? What do you think about it? Kids love to, they have a keen sense of justice too. Could even say, she said this, do you think that’s true? Have you seen that come up? Do you think that would be valuable information?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those are the ways that I. I think parents can become askable when it comes to their kids. And it doesn’t mean being your kid’s friend. They really need a parent with boundaries and doing the hard stuff. And how do you get comfortable with being uncomfortable? Those sorts of things.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So I want to ask you, for maybe millennials, Gen Xers who grew up in a different era of sex ed, can you identify some myths about sexuality education that adults should consider unlearning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>I think this is true of all adults, actually, just because it’s interesting, I think the stigmatizing aspect of sexuality has been perpetuated across its cyclical, right, generational cycles of this, and we really need to move away from that, and that requires people to work on themselves. And earlier you had asked about how can parents become askable parents, right? And get comfortable with this. And part of that’s a parent’s responsibility to do with other people their own age, right. Like your own friends, have conversations about this, practice having this conversation. The myths that are out there are that if we tell kids then they’re gonna go run out and do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no empirical evidence whatsoever. That tells us that’s the case. In fact, the inverse is true. And so, you know, that’s just when we’ve put political ideology above student health and perpetuated stigmatizing ideas around sexuality. All you have to do is look at the Dutch. I mean, they start age-appropriate sexuality education in preschool and kindergarten, and it follows them all up into adulthood. You know, their focus is really on responsibility and joy. Versus like disaster prevention, fear and avoidance. And so, and their young people are far more relational, their STI and unintended pregnancy rates are like some of the lowest in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, it’s really important that we understand…we spend more, we invest more in fire prevention and fire safety, like information and learning with young people than we do on sex ed. And when you give that education to kids, like, okay, here’s how we prevent fires or how we deal with them if there is one or whatever else they don’t go home and start making fires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When I tell young people that this is what adults believe, that if they acquire a sex education, they’re gonna run out and go start having sex, they look at me like I have three heads. And they’re offended. They’re like, really? And then they get funny and they’re like oh, think of all the other things that they tell us to do when they spend all this time trying to teach us and how we don’t do them. Right? Um, so I think that’s the biggest one is, uh, that if we tell them they’re automatically going to go out and do, um, because all the evidence and there’s tons of it, decades of it tells us that if engage in age appropriate comprehensive sexuality education as it’s meant to be, that all the things we hope for our kids, there’s a higher probability of that happening than the inverse, which people are afraid of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much for all that context and guiding us to become the Askable parent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shafia Zaloom: \u003c/strong>Thank you for having me and your interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Shafia Zaloom is the author of the recently published book, Getting Real About Sex Ed: What Today’s Students Need. She’s a health educator who teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at a high school in San Francisco and consults schools across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Credits: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ki Sung talks with clinical psychologist and author Ross Greene about why traditional discipline strategies often fail students, and what educators can do instead. Greene explains his \u003ca href=\"https://livesinthebalance.org/our-solution/\">Collaborative and Proactive Solutions\u003c/a> model, which shifts the focus away from rewards and punishments and toward identifying the unmet needs and unsolved problems behind student behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/4qsGTXLnmKs\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift podcast, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. There’s been no shortage of stories about what’s troubling kids today, the outbursts, the apathy, the mental health concerns. We’re seeing some signs of progress through solutions like limiting screen time and having more in real-life social interactions, but there are still students who need help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Kids-Who-Arent-Okay/Ross-W-Greene/9781668203903\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-66349\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/the-kids-who-arent-okay-9781668203903_lg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"265\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/the-kids-who-arent-okay-9781668203903_lg.jpg 265w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/the-kids-who-arent-okay-9781668203903_lg-160x242.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 265px) 100vw, 265px\">\u003c/a>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ross Greene developed the \u003ca href=\"https://livesinthebalance.org/our-solution/\">Collaborative and Proactive Solutions Model\u003c/a> to help all students, and it requires a different way of responding to students’ behavior. He’s the author of the recently published book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Kids-Who-Arent-Okay/Ross-W-Greene/9781668203903\">The Kids Who Aren’t Okay: The Urgent Case for Reimagining Support, Belonging, and Hope in Schools\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> He’s also the bestselling author of several other books, including The Explosive Child and Lost at School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Welcome, Dr. Greene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Thank you for inviting me to do this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for being here. Let’s talk first about what you describe as concerning behavior, the stuff that gets kids sent to the principal’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> You say concerning behavior is how kids communicate that they’re having difficulty meeting a particular expectation. Can you tell us more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I do say that all the time, and I wish everybody knew that. We’ve, we’ve all become accustomed to the cliche “All behavior is communication.” Somehow, it doesn’t translate for a lot of people that concerning behavior communicates that a kid is frustrated or distressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Concerning behavior is a frustration or distress response, and almost always, what the student is frustrated or distressed about is an expectation that they’re having difficulty meeting. Um, if all we pay attention to is the behavior, then we’re gonna be kinda narrow in what we can do, or… ’cause when you’re focused on behavior, all you can really do is try to modify it, and that’s usually accomplished through some mix of rewards and punishments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> But rewards and punishments, what a lot of people refer to as consequences, aren’t problem-solving strategies. So we have a lot of students who have experienced a lot of consequences and who are still doing poorly because the problems that are causing the behaviors that we’ve been busy consequencing often haven’t even been identified, let alone solved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Um, it’s kinda wild to hear you say that because I hear a lot of focus on the behavior. So what are you proposing we do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I am proposing that we de-emphasize our focus on behavior, and by the way, our focus on behavior Is all around us. We are, um… When we have a kid who’s struggling and communicating that they’re struggling through their behavior, we do behavior checklists, we do behavior observations, we do a functional behavior assessment all so that we can come up with a behavior plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> When a student is struggling in a classroom and communicate that through their concerning behavior, they get a discipline referral, and what the, the information that is mostly passed along to the people who are on the receiving end of those discipline referrals is the kid’s concerning behavior. And what they often do about it is give the kid consequences for their concerning behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> We need to instead, um, focus on the problems that are causing that behavior. I call them unsolved problems. The synonym for unsolved problem is unmet expectation. This includes things like stuff classroom teachers deal with every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Um, difficulty coming back into the classroom after recess, difficulty sitting next to Susie during circle time, difficulty completing the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math, difficulty agreeing with Billy on the rules of the four square game at recess, difficulty coming to school, difficulty coming to school on time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I could go on forever. Those are not typically the things people are talking about when they’re talking about a kid who’s struggling. They’re often talking about the kid’s concerning behavior and what they’re doing to try to modify it, and maybe even the diagnosis that captures those behaviors. We would be so much better off if we have an instrument that helps us identify their unsolved problems, and we do in the collaborative and proactive solutions model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> And if we were engaging students in the process of solving those problems, meaning collaboratively, and since we’re now out in front of those problems, having now finally identified them, the problem should also be proactive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I think there’s something huge in what you’re talking about solutions-wise in the word collaborative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> It sounds like you’re talking about including the student as well in how to move forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> That is so what I’m talking about. But I think a lot of adults, um, both in education, in education but also everywhere else, think it’s their job to divine what’s getting in the kid’s way and to divine what the solutions should be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> This is not that. Kids can be relied upon to help us understand what’s making it hard for them to meet a particular expectation. I’m often asked the question, “What makes you think the kid knows?” And my answer is, “i35 years of asking.” Kids can also be relied upon to, um, come up with solutions t- about what’s getting in the way of them meeting certain expectations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> So this model is moving us away from being completely adult-driven. The adult is the facilitator of a process in which kid and adult are working toward solutions together. That is very different from what typically goes on now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> One thing I had to kind of work a little extra on to better understand is your concepts of collaborative and proactive solutions, because I realize a lot of why we continue to do what we’re doing, right, looking for behaviors, uh, trying to work in a behavior-focused model, I think a lot of why we operate that way is, is rooted in our communication, you know, how we communicate with young people, which is not necessarily open-ended, you know, which is thinking more about why have you not done this thing that I asked you to do already with the consequences in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Um, so can you give us some examples of how people can communicate to get to that state of collaboration versus maybe how we typically communicate now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Well, very interesting question. You know, solving a problem collaboratively starts with identifying the problem that you want to solve with the kid, and although that sounds like sort of a given, it’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Mostly because we’re so focused on behavior that we often haven’t even identified the expectations a student is having difficulty reliably meeting. So we’ve gotta start with that, and the instrument that I was talking about is called the Assessment of Skills and Unsolved Problems, and it helps us memorialize every single expectation a particular student is having difficulty reliably meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> And we are now, for having done that, out in front of it, which means we don’t have to wait for the frustration response to occur before we intervene. So much of intervention, so much of what we’re training educators to do, so much of what we’re teaching kids is what to do once a kid is already becoming frustrated, and that’s late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> That’s crisis management. That’s not out in front of it. That’s waiting for the behavior to occur. Boy, does the game change when we proactively identify unsolved problems- That positions us to solve them proactively. Um, I’m always telling educators, being late is not a given. With some intentionality, with some commitment, with some imagination, we could be early instead of late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> So identifying unsolved problems is where the whole thing begins. It then continues with prioritizing the unsolved problems you’ve identified, because you’re not gonna be able to solve everything at once. Often we encourage educators to prioritize unsolved problems that are causing safety issues, because safety is a big deal in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> And then it’s time to start solving a problem collaboratively and proactively with a student. Um, what might that sound like? “I’ve noticed you’ve been having difficulty completing the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math. What’s up?” The caregiver just got the conversation going. The caregiver is now facilitating a problem-solving process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> The caregiver is not thinking about consequences, because the caregiver should know that consequences don’t solve any problems. Now we’re looking to the kid to help us understand what’s making it hard. Now, sometimes kids say something that feel like a showstopper, like, “I hate it.” But one of the other things the collaborative and proactive solutions model provides is how to drill for more information, how to probe, and the drilling strategy, there are eight of them that I would use in that circumstances, is simple reflective listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> “You hate it. Tell me more about that.” “It’s stupid.” Sounds like another showstopper, but it’s not. “It’s stupid.” Um, “I’m sorry, I’m still not exactly sure what you mean. What do you mean when you say it’s stupid?” “It’s stupid how you make me do math I don’t know how to do.” Are we starting to get some traction here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> We are. Do we need to continue probing? We do, because we don’t yet know what’s making it hard for the kid to complete the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math. But we do have a kid who’s now talking, and that is a wonderful thing. Um, eventually, and I’m thinking of a particular kid here, we learned that, uh, when the double-digit division problems in math were presented in words, as in word problems, they got completely stumped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> But when they could do it through, um, just doing out a division problem, they could do it just fine. Good. Now we know. That’s the first step of solving a problem collaboratively, curiosity, finding out what’s been getting in the kid’s way. The second step is the adult’s step. It’s their turn to say why they, um, think it’s important that the expectation Be met.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> And then in the third step, adult and kid are collaborating on a solution that’s going to address the concerns of both parties. Solved problems don’t cause frustration responses, only unsolved problems do. So when educators first hear about this process, and all I’ve given you is the basic outlines, the first thing they think about, and I completely understand why, is time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> They ask, “When does he think we’re going to do this?” But I could make a very persuasive argument for the fact that the reason we have no time is because we haven’t been doing this. We’ve been chasing after behavior day after day, same kids. It saves a lot of time to finally identify and solve the problems we’ve been chasing after all this time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Who was it that said, uh, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I don’t remember who it was, but they had a good point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> All right. Um, can I ask, in that instance with the math problem, what is the unproductive way to respond that you may have seen or heard about in classrooms?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Oh, thinking that the student’s failure to do the math is due to poor motivation, and then thinking that what this student really needs is more motivation. And that could go in a few different directions. It could sound like this: “Uh, Billy, if you do not get that math done before recess, you are not going out for recess.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Could be in the form of reward, “Billy, if you get that math done, you get XYZ reward.” Very common. Um, we still have no idea what’s making it hard for Billy to do the math. We’ve lost sight of the fact that we are not the first people who’ve tried to incentivize Billy to do things that are hard for him. Um, we’ve also lost sight of the fact that this is not the first time Billy’s had difficulty completing the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> It’s the 197th, which makes this an old unsolved problem. Um, if we punish Billy for something, for a problem that he is currently unable to overcome on his own, we heighten the likelihood that Billy will exhibit a frustration response. If we dangle a reward in front of Billy, and Billy is unable to achieve that award because Billy is not yet over, uh, uh, able to overcome that problem- We still run the risk of a frustration response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I’ve seen just as many frustration responses when a kid didn’t get an anticipated reward as I have in response to punishment. But the whole thing here is we still don’t have the slightest idea what’s making it hard for Billy to do the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math. And until we do, Billy’s still gonna struggle with that unsolved problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> It’s really fascinating to hear you describe the latter because that is far more common experience from my point of view than anyone having sat down and spent time identifying an unsolved problem. I like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Even when people sit down with the kid and talk to the kid, what they’re often talking with the kid about is their concerning behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Um, so you ran out of Mrs. Johnson’s classroom. Why’d you do that? And the answer that we most frequently get when people try to talk with kids about their frustration responses is, “I don’t know,” or the most primitive of defense mechanisms, “No, I didn’t.” Those conversations, generally speaking, go nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Conversations we have about helping kids understand what’s making it hard for them to meet an expectation, actually they’re the ones who are helping us understand, and working toward a solution that finally gets the problem solved so the frustration responses subside, that’s a beautiful thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> So as you said, “I don’t know,” or, you know, other things kids say like, “I don’t care,” I imagine adults also have a frustration response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Does this help get at the root of how adults respond as well?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Well, a lot of maladaptive adult frustration responses occur in the heat of the moment as well. Our goal is to get out of the heat of the moment. The heat of the moment, I can’t say this enough times, isn’t a given. I know the students are difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I get it. I know that there’s too many of them in a classroom. I get that too. But this would all be a whole lot easier, and it would be much better practice for both educators and kids if we were focused on the right thing. Now, that’s the heat of the moment part of educator frustration these days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> There’s a lot of reasons that educators should be frustrated these days. Um, I think we’ve made it a lot harder to be an educator over the last two to three decades, and yes, high-stakes testing, I’m staring at you, but that is not the only thing that has made it harder to be an educator. I’ve had many educators say to me, “They’ve taken all the humanity out of my job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> They’ve turned me into a test prep robot.” Um, zero tolerance policies, um, made it more difficult for me to find out what’s really going on with a kid because zero tolerance policies just tightened the vice grip and gave us an algorithm for applying consequences to certain behaviors. Um, we’ve made a lot of things harder on educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Let there be no doubt they aren’t paid anywhere nearly enough. Um, they don’t have time. So there’s a baseline level of frustration for a lot of educators these days. They often don’t feel safe in their classrooms. Um, I find that when we implement this model, it’s not just the frustration of kids that subside, it’s the frustration of educators as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Although I will say this: there’s nothing about this model that will help educators get paid what they deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that is the, a huge goal for so many people in order to better serve students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>we’re going to take a short break. We’ll be back with our guest Ross Greene, right after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So, you know, I’ve heard a lot of educators say, “Meet them where they’re at,” or, you know, a version of this is, “Teach the kid you have.” Um, but that’s not happening at a wide scale. Um, is it really hard to implement? Is it, uh, like what is it about schools that make it challenging to get to that point?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the other big focal points of the book is, um, the concept of developmental variability, which I don’t hear people talking about enough, especially in schools, but anywhere really. Um, developmental variability basically says what’s walking in the door is a bunch of individual differences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Developmental variability is just a fanciv- fancy way of saying every kid is different, and let there be no doubt that is what’s walking in every classroom. We’ve done kids and educators a tremendous disservice by saying, “Even with all that developmental variability, you gotta get every kid over the same line by the end of the school year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> How ludicrous, and educators told us that was ludicrous 30 years ago, and it’s just as ludicrous now. One of the points I make in the book is that every kid should be their own reference point. Teachers should feel free to have every kid be their own reference point for progress. That tells you that there is no line that everybody has to get over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> There’s no line. There’s just making sure that every student makes as much progress relative to where they started at the beginning in every school year, and we need to free teachers up to be able to do that. Um, that’s what differentiated instruction is about. That’s what personalized learning is about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Unfortunately, those things frequently don’t embed themselves into our practice. Every kid is their own reference point. The goal of good teaching is defined as meeting every kid where they’re at. Um, we need to free teachers up to be able to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> You know, one thing that I thought was really interesting about your book is, I, I think this is interesting because teachers are asked to do so much, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> They are, in many cases, social workers. Sometimes they’re stand-ins for parents. They’re just doing more and more all the time, and what you write is that you don’t want teachers to be diagnosing, to look at behavior and diagnose behavior. Um, can you tell me why that is? And, and I ask because there is so much emphasis on the behavior side of interacting with students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> So why, why do you want teachers to, you know, not act in that way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Well, because diagnoses don’t really tell you very much. Um, not very much that you don’t already know. Diagnoses are sometimes the gateway for a kid to get services. Diagnosis can sometimes be the gateway for a kid to get funding for those services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I’m a mental health professional, and I don’t find that diagnoses give me much useful information about a kid. Um, what gives me the useful information? What skills this kid is struggling with and what expectations this kid is having difficulty reliably meeting, and I get that information from the assessment of skills and unsolved problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Here’s a, um, I was speaking at a, uh, autism conference in Denmark pre-COVID, and a mother in my audience raised her hand very tentatively and said, “Yeah, but I found my daughter’s autism diagnosis to be very useful.” I said, “That’s good.” Then she thought about it for a second, and she said, “But I think what you’re saying-” “Is that my daughter’s autism diagnosis really doesn’t tell me anything about her specific skills or the specific expectations she’s having difficulty meeting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I said, “Right.” She thought about it a little bit more, and then she said, “And I think what you’re saying is that once I identify my daughter’s skills and unsolved problems, I’m going to find that I have information that is far more useful than her psychiatric diagnosis.” I said, “Probably.” Um, focusing on diagnoses focuses on, makes us focus on behavior, because if we look at the diagnostic criteria for the vast majority of childhood psychiatric disorders, what we’re going to find is a long list of behaviors, frustration responses, distress responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> So long as we’re focused on the behavior, we’re gonna be late every time, because behavior occurs after a kid is already having difficulty meeting a particular expectation. We’ve been waiting for behavior to occur. We need to start anticipating, identifying, and solving problems instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ross Greene, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me to do this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ross Greene is the author of the recently published book, The Kids Who Aren’t Okay: The Urgent Case for Reimagining Support, Belonging, and Hope in Schools. He’s also the author of other books, including The Explosive Child and Lost at School, and is the founding director of Lives in the Balance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ki Sung talks with clinical psychologist and author Ross Greene about why traditional discipline strategies often fail students, and what educators can do instead. Greene explains his \u003ca href=\"https://livesinthebalance.org/our-solution/\">Collaborative and Proactive Solutions\u003c/a> model, which shifts the focus away from rewards and punishments and toward identifying the unmet needs and unsolved problems behind student behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/4qsGTXLnmKs\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift podcast, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. There’s been no shortage of stories about what’s troubling kids today, the outbursts, the apathy, the mental health concerns. We’re seeing some signs of progress through solutions like limiting screen time and having more in real-life social interactions, but there are still students who need help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Kids-Who-Arent-Okay/Ross-W-Greene/9781668203903\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-66349\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/the-kids-who-arent-okay-9781668203903_lg.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"265\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/the-kids-who-arent-okay-9781668203903_lg.jpg 265w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2026/05/the-kids-who-arent-okay-9781668203903_lg-160x242.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 265px) 100vw, 265px\">\u003c/a>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ross Greene developed the \u003ca href=\"https://livesinthebalance.org/our-solution/\">Collaborative and Proactive Solutions Model\u003c/a> to help all students, and it requires a different way of responding to students’ behavior. He’s the author of the recently published book, \u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Kids-Who-Arent-Okay/Ross-W-Greene/9781668203903\">The Kids Who Aren’t Okay: The Urgent Case for Reimagining Support, Belonging, and Hope in Schools\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> He’s also the bestselling author of several other books, including The Explosive Child and Lost at School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Welcome, Dr. Greene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Thank you for inviting me to do this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for being here. Let’s talk first about what you describe as concerning behavior, the stuff that gets kids sent to the principal’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> You say concerning behavior is how kids communicate that they’re having difficulty meeting a particular expectation. Can you tell us more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I do say that all the time, and I wish everybody knew that. We’ve, we’ve all become accustomed to the cliche “All behavior is communication.” Somehow, it doesn’t translate for a lot of people that concerning behavior communicates that a kid is frustrated or distressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Concerning behavior is a frustration or distress response, and almost always, what the student is frustrated or distressed about is an expectation that they’re having difficulty meeting. Um, if all we pay attention to is the behavior, then we’re gonna be kinda narrow in what we can do, or… ’cause when you’re focused on behavior, all you can really do is try to modify it, and that’s usually accomplished through some mix of rewards and punishments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> But rewards and punishments, what a lot of people refer to as consequences, aren’t problem-solving strategies. So we have a lot of students who have experienced a lot of consequences and who are still doing poorly because the problems that are causing the behaviors that we’ve been busy consequencing often haven’t even been identified, let alone solved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Um, it’s kinda wild to hear you say that because I hear a lot of focus on the behavior. So what are you proposing we do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I am proposing that we de-emphasize our focus on behavior, and by the way, our focus on behavior Is all around us. We are, um… When we have a kid who’s struggling and communicating that they’re struggling through their behavior, we do behavior checklists, we do behavior observations, we do a functional behavior assessment all so that we can come up with a behavior plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> When a student is struggling in a classroom and communicate that through their concerning behavior, they get a discipline referral, and what the, the information that is mostly passed along to the people who are on the receiving end of those discipline referrals is the kid’s concerning behavior. And what they often do about it is give the kid consequences for their concerning behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> We need to instead, um, focus on the problems that are causing that behavior. I call them unsolved problems. The synonym for unsolved problem is unmet expectation. This includes things like stuff classroom teachers deal with every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Um, difficulty coming back into the classroom after recess, difficulty sitting next to Susie during circle time, difficulty completing the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math, difficulty agreeing with Billy on the rules of the four square game at recess, difficulty coming to school, difficulty coming to school on time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I could go on forever. Those are not typically the things people are talking about when they’re talking about a kid who’s struggling. They’re often talking about the kid’s concerning behavior and what they’re doing to try to modify it, and maybe even the diagnosis that captures those behaviors. We would be so much better off if we have an instrument that helps us identify their unsolved problems, and we do in the collaborative and proactive solutions model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> And if we were engaging students in the process of solving those problems, meaning collaboratively, and since we’re now out in front of those problems, having now finally identified them, the problem should also be proactive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I think there’s something huge in what you’re talking about solutions-wise in the word collaborative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> It sounds like you’re talking about including the student as well in how to move forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> That is so what I’m talking about. But I think a lot of adults, um, both in education, in education but also everywhere else, think it’s their job to divine what’s getting in the kid’s way and to divine what the solutions should be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> This is not that. Kids can be relied upon to help us understand what’s making it hard for them to meet a particular expectation. I’m often asked the question, “What makes you think the kid knows?” And my answer is, “i35 years of asking.” Kids can also be relied upon to, um, come up with solutions t- about what’s getting in the way of them meeting certain expectations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> So this model is moving us away from being completely adult-driven. The adult is the facilitator of a process in which kid and adult are working toward solutions together. That is very different from what typically goes on now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> One thing I had to kind of work a little extra on to better understand is your concepts of collaborative and proactive solutions, because I realize a lot of why we continue to do what we’re doing, right, looking for behaviors, uh, trying to work in a behavior-focused model, I think a lot of why we operate that way is, is rooted in our communication, you know, how we communicate with young people, which is not necessarily open-ended, you know, which is thinking more about why have you not done this thing that I asked you to do already with the consequences in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Um, so can you give us some examples of how people can communicate to get to that state of collaboration versus maybe how we typically communicate now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Well, very interesting question. You know, solving a problem collaboratively starts with identifying the problem that you want to solve with the kid, and although that sounds like sort of a given, it’s not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Mostly because we’re so focused on behavior that we often haven’t even identified the expectations a student is having difficulty reliably meeting. So we’ve gotta start with that, and the instrument that I was talking about is called the Assessment of Skills and Unsolved Problems, and it helps us memorialize every single expectation a particular student is having difficulty reliably meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> And we are now, for having done that, out in front of it, which means we don’t have to wait for the frustration response to occur before we intervene. So much of intervention, so much of what we’re training educators to do, so much of what we’re teaching kids is what to do once a kid is already becoming frustrated, and that’s late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> That’s crisis management. That’s not out in front of it. That’s waiting for the behavior to occur. Boy, does the game change when we proactively identify unsolved problems- That positions us to solve them proactively. Um, I’m always telling educators, being late is not a given. With some intentionality, with some commitment, with some imagination, we could be early instead of late.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> So identifying unsolved problems is where the whole thing begins. It then continues with prioritizing the unsolved problems you’ve identified, because you’re not gonna be able to solve everything at once. Often we encourage educators to prioritize unsolved problems that are causing safety issues, because safety is a big deal in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> And then it’s time to start solving a problem collaboratively and proactively with a student. Um, what might that sound like? “I’ve noticed you’ve been having difficulty completing the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math. What’s up?” The caregiver just got the conversation going. The caregiver is now facilitating a problem-solving process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> The caregiver is not thinking about consequences, because the caregiver should know that consequences don’t solve any problems. Now we’re looking to the kid to help us understand what’s making it hard. Now, sometimes kids say something that feel like a showstopper, like, “I hate it.” But one of the other things the collaborative and proactive solutions model provides is how to drill for more information, how to probe, and the drilling strategy, there are eight of them that I would use in that circumstances, is simple reflective listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> “You hate it. Tell me more about that.” “It’s stupid.” Sounds like another showstopper, but it’s not. “It’s stupid.” Um, “I’m sorry, I’m still not exactly sure what you mean. What do you mean when you say it’s stupid?” “It’s stupid how you make me do math I don’t know how to do.” Are we starting to get some traction here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> We are. Do we need to continue probing? We do, because we don’t yet know what’s making it hard for the kid to complete the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math. But we do have a kid who’s now talking, and that is a wonderful thing. Um, eventually, and I’m thinking of a particular kid here, we learned that, uh, when the double-digit division problems in math were presented in words, as in word problems, they got completely stumped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> But when they could do it through, um, just doing out a division problem, they could do it just fine. Good. Now we know. That’s the first step of solving a problem collaboratively, curiosity, finding out what’s been getting in the kid’s way. The second step is the adult’s step. It’s their turn to say why they, um, think it’s important that the expectation Be met.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> And then in the third step, adult and kid are collaborating on a solution that’s going to address the concerns of both parties. Solved problems don’t cause frustration responses, only unsolved problems do. So when educators first hear about this process, and all I’ve given you is the basic outlines, the first thing they think about, and I completely understand why, is time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> They ask, “When does he think we’re going to do this?” But I could make a very persuasive argument for the fact that the reason we have no time is because we haven’t been doing this. We’ve been chasing after behavior day after day, same kids. It saves a lot of time to finally identify and solve the problems we’ve been chasing after all this time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Who was it that said, uh, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I don’t remember who it was, but they had a good point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> All right. Um, can I ask, in that instance with the math problem, what is the unproductive way to respond that you may have seen or heard about in classrooms?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Oh, thinking that the student’s failure to do the math is due to poor motivation, and then thinking that what this student really needs is more motivation. And that could go in a few different directions. It could sound like this: “Uh, Billy, if you do not get that math done before recess, you are not going out for recess.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Could be in the form of reward, “Billy, if you get that math done, you get XYZ reward.” Very common. Um, we still have no idea what’s making it hard for Billy to do the math. We’ve lost sight of the fact that we are not the first people who’ve tried to incentivize Billy to do things that are hard for him. Um, we’ve also lost sight of the fact that this is not the first time Billy’s had difficulty completing the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> It’s the 197th, which makes this an old unsolved problem. Um, if we punish Billy for something, for a problem that he is currently unable to overcome on his own, we heighten the likelihood that Billy will exhibit a frustration response. If we dangle a reward in front of Billy, and Billy is unable to achieve that award because Billy is not yet over, uh, uh, able to overcome that problem- We still run the risk of a frustration response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I’ve seen just as many frustration responses when a kid didn’t get an anticipated reward as I have in response to punishment. But the whole thing here is we still don’t have the slightest idea what’s making it hard for Billy to do the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in math. And until we do, Billy’s still gonna struggle with that unsolved problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> It’s really fascinating to hear you describe the latter because that is far more common experience from my point of view than anyone having sat down and spent time identifying an unsolved problem. I like that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Even when people sit down with the kid and talk to the kid, what they’re often talking with the kid about is their concerning behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Um, so you ran out of Mrs. Johnson’s classroom. Why’d you do that? And the answer that we most frequently get when people try to talk with kids about their frustration responses is, “I don’t know,” or the most primitive of defense mechanisms, “No, I didn’t.” Those conversations, generally speaking, go nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Conversations we have about helping kids understand what’s making it hard for them to meet an expectation, actually they’re the ones who are helping us understand, and working toward a solution that finally gets the problem solved so the frustration responses subside, that’s a beautiful thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> So as you said, “I don’t know,” or, you know, other things kids say like, “I don’t care,” I imagine adults also have a frustration response.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Does this help get at the root of how adults respond as well?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Well, a lot of maladaptive adult frustration responses occur in the heat of the moment as well. Our goal is to get out of the heat of the moment. The heat of the moment, I can’t say this enough times, isn’t a given. I know the students are difficult.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I get it. I know that there’s too many of them in a classroom. I get that too. But this would all be a whole lot easier, and it would be much better practice for both educators and kids if we were focused on the right thing. Now, that’s the heat of the moment part of educator frustration these days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> There’s a lot of reasons that educators should be frustrated these days. Um, I think we’ve made it a lot harder to be an educator over the last two to three decades, and yes, high-stakes testing, I’m staring at you, but that is not the only thing that has made it harder to be an educator. I’ve had many educators say to me, “They’ve taken all the humanity out of my job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> They’ve turned me into a test prep robot.” Um, zero tolerance policies, um, made it more difficult for me to find out what’s really going on with a kid because zero tolerance policies just tightened the vice grip and gave us an algorithm for applying consequences to certain behaviors. Um, we’ve made a lot of things harder on educators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Let there be no doubt they aren’t paid anywhere nearly enough. Um, they don’t have time. So there’s a baseline level of frustration for a lot of educators these days. They often don’t feel safe in their classrooms. Um, I find that when we implement this model, it’s not just the frustration of kids that subside, it’s the frustration of educators as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Although I will say this: there’s nothing about this model that will help educators get paid what they deserve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that is the, a huge goal for so many people in order to better serve students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>we’re going to take a short break. We’ll be back with our guest Ross Greene, right after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>So, you know, I’ve heard a lot of educators say, “Meet them where they’re at,” or, you know, a version of this is, “Teach the kid you have.” Um, but that’s not happening at a wide scale. Um, is it really hard to implement? Is it, uh, like what is it about schools that make it challenging to get to that point?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> You know, one of the other big focal points of the book is, um, the concept of developmental variability, which I don’t hear people talking about enough, especially in schools, but anywhere really. Um, developmental variability basically says what’s walking in the door is a bunch of individual differences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Developmental variability is just a fanciv- fancy way of saying every kid is different, and let there be no doubt that is what’s walking in every classroom. We’ve done kids and educators a tremendous disservice by saying, “Even with all that developmental variability, you gotta get every kid over the same line by the end of the school year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> How ludicrous, and educators told us that was ludicrous 30 years ago, and it’s just as ludicrous now. One of the points I make in the book is that every kid should be their own reference point. Teachers should feel free to have every kid be their own reference point for progress. That tells you that there is no line that everybody has to get over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> There’s no line. There’s just making sure that every student makes as much progress relative to where they started at the beginning in every school year, and we need to free teachers up to be able to do that. Um, that’s what differentiated instruction is about. That’s what personalized learning is about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Unfortunately, those things frequently don’t embed themselves into our practice. Every kid is their own reference point. The goal of good teaching is defined as meeting every kid where they’re at. Um, we need to free teachers up to be able to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> You know, one thing that I thought was really interesting about your book is, I, I think this is interesting because teachers are asked to do so much, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> They are, in many cases, social workers. Sometimes they’re stand-ins for parents. They’re just doing more and more all the time, and what you write is that you don’t want teachers to be diagnosing, to look at behavior and diagnose behavior. Um, can you tell me why that is? And, and I ask because there is so much emphasis on the behavior side of interacting with students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> So why, why do you want teachers to, you know, not act in that way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Well, because diagnoses don’t really tell you very much. Um, not very much that you don’t already know. Diagnoses are sometimes the gateway for a kid to get services. Diagnosis can sometimes be the gateway for a kid to get funding for those services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I’m a mental health professional, and I don’t find that diagnoses give me much useful information about a kid. Um, what gives me the useful information? What skills this kid is struggling with and what expectations this kid is having difficulty reliably meeting, and I get that information from the assessment of skills and unsolved problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> Here’s a, um, I was speaking at a, uh, autism conference in Denmark pre-COVID, and a mother in my audience raised her hand very tentatively and said, “Yeah, but I found my daughter’s autism diagnosis to be very useful.” I said, “That’s good.” Then she thought about it for a second, and she said, “But I think what you’re saying-” “Is that my daughter’s autism diagnosis really doesn’t tell me anything about her specific skills or the specific expectations she’s having difficulty meeting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> I said, “Right.” She thought about it a little bit more, and then she said, “And I think what you’re saying is that once I identify my daughter’s skills and unsolved problems, I’m going to find that I have information that is far more useful than her psychiatric diagnosis.” I said, “Probably.” Um, focusing on diagnoses focuses on, makes us focus on behavior, because if we look at the diagnostic criteria for the vast majority of childhood psychiatric disorders, what we’re going to find is a long list of behaviors, frustration responses, distress responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> So long as we’re focused on the behavior, we’re gonna be late every time, because behavior occurs after a kid is already having difficulty meeting a particular expectation. We’ve been waiting for behavior to occur. We need to start anticipating, identifying, and solving problems instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ross Greene, thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ross Greene:\u003c/strong> My pleasure. Thanks for inviting me to do this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Dr. Ross Greene is the author of the recently published book, The Kids Who Aren’t Okay: The Urgent Case for Reimagining Support, Belonging, and Hope in Schools. He’s also the author of other books, including The Explosive Child and Lost at School, and is the founding director of Lives in the Balance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month MindShift is sharing an episode from MITs TeachLab podcast. Hosts Jessie Dukes and Justin Reich have interviewed teachers, school leaders and students about how the debut of ChatGPT and Generative AI is actually playing out in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve compiled their learnings into a mini series called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.teachlabpodcast.com/\">Homework Machine\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3473844164\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nKi Sung:\u003c/strong> Hey MindShift listeners, It’s Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’ve got a special episode to share with you. It’s from our friends at Teach Lab, a podcast about the art and craft of teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their mini series, called The Homework Machine, hosts Jesse Dukes and Justin Reich explore the reactions to AI when it first debuted as a strange new technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll let our friends from Teach Lab take it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Episode Transcript\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> This is the Teach Lab podcast, I’m Justin Reich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> And I’m Jesse Dukes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Devon O’Neil is a high school social studies teacher in Oregon. Back in 2021, after six years of teaching, she took 2 years off while her husband attended grad school. At MIT actually. And during her break from teaching, she worked designing classroom curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Which is a super cool experience, very different from being in the classroom, and also really reinforced that I wanted to be in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> When she was on her break, O’Neil missed two momentous years for schools. There was a pandemic, remote learning, hybrid learning, returning to school buildings. And when she went back to the classroom, in the fall of 2023, she said, there was some culture shock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> It was those two, like super crazy post-Covid years. So I come back, and it’s like, like those movies where the caveman, like defrost or whatever. And they’re like “what is this?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> It wasn’t just that her fellow teachers were harrowed and burned out, while she was fresh and energetic. She also noticed that the student work was, well, different from what she remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> I’d have these really well written paragraphs or snippets that are looked to be very well researched and all this, but not at all on topic. Grammar was off. Even the most brilliant 14-year-old still talks like a 14-year-old and still writes like a 14-year-old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So, the grammar was oddly good. O’Neil can see her students’ screens, and she sometimes watches them work. And, one day, she noticed they were using an unusual search engine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Bing! I was noticing a lot of them were using Bing. To Google stuff, see even to Google stuff. And I was like, that’s the weirdest choice. Who uses Bing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And then, one day, she was watching a student complete a writing assignment in a google doc. And poof, a whole well-written paragraph just appeared. Out of nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Like one minute it’s not there, and one minute it’s there. And, it said like “here are your results”. And they forgot to delete that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> And that’s when Devon realized her students were using ChatGPT to complete in class writing assignments. They would copy and paste the questions she would give them into Bing’s Copilot, which was a free way to use ChatGPT. Then, the students copied the answer, sometimes without any editing, right into their google document.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil: \u003c/strong>Which is kind of a rookie mistake, like if they’re going to cheat, you want them to cheat a little better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> We first talked to Devon in 2023, just a few weeks after she figured out what was going on. She says that since then, she’s gotten a lot more savvy about ChatGPT. But her experience speaks to how much can, and did, change in schools, in just a couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> In November of 2022, ChatGPT was launched as a free research preview of advanced generative AI, like a pilot, or beta version. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, especially text, but also images, videos, and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ChatGPT is the most famous example of generative AI. There are competitors like Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and the Chinese company, DeepSeek. And rather quickly, students figured out, ChatGPT was pretty good at doing their homework for them. Devon, out of school for two years, working on curriculum, had missed the arrival of the new homework machine. But her students had not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> The arrival of chatGPT, and then fairly quick upgrades with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 within a couple of years, has been the big story in education technology since the fall of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Waterfall of news stories]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 1: \u003c/strong>So how does it work? Students can drop an assignment into something like ChatGPT, click a button and their homework is done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 2: \u003c/strong>She is talking about ChatGPT. School districts like New York cities are banning it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 3: \u003c/strong>ChatGPT is the new artificial intelligence tool causing a stir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Schools have scrambled to figure out what to do about ChatGPT. Ban it? Embrace it? Teachers have scrambled to try to get ahead of the “cheating” problem, and to find ways in which AI can support education. Some Students have scrambled to figure out how to use AI without their teachers detecting it. And education technology companies have scrambled to create AI powered ed tech. And have made many promises about how generative AI will transform education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sal Khan:\u003c/strong> But I think we’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen, and the way we’re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> My career has been devoted to studying education technology. Over and over again, we’ve seen new technologies emerge in education, and the technology developers will promise, every time, that the new tech will transform and democratize education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sal Khan :\u003c/strong>That’s what’s about to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And while the technologies do sometimes help teachers and students, those big transformations to schools, they never happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> But there is something different about Chat GPT and other AI. Throughout history, most education technology has been adopted by schools, who hope it will help them do better work, teaching students. But Generative AI wasn’t invited into schools. Not for the most part. It crashed the party. Even if schools ban it from school laptops, students can often get around that ban, by using Bing, for example. Or they have their own laptop. Or they can access it on their mobile phone, which over 95% of teenagers have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, the kids have access to generative AI. And they’re using it, whether their teachers want them to, or not. That’s having a big impact on schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, a little about me, and this project. I am a journalist, and for the past year and a half, I’ve been working with Justin and other colleagues at MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab. We’ve interviewed over 85 teachers and school leaders, and over 35 students about how all of this is actually playing out in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve been hearing about why students cheat using AI, what teachers are doing to stop them, and how some teachers and students have found ChatGPT to be helpful for learning. And for the next several weeks, we’re going to share what we’ve learned with you in a mini series we’re calling the Homework Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And now, Jesse, who has immersed himself in this research, will be our host and guide for these episodes. Jesse, you can take it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Thanks Justin, but not so fast. We’re going to want your historical knowledge about educational technology to help us unpack and contextualize these stories. So stay close, and keep your mic handy. In fact, we’re going to hear from you again in this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Sounds good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Alright, well, let’s go back to A beginning: December of 2022. We’ll start with Steve Ouellette. He’s a technology director at the Westwood School district, southwest of Boston. His job includes keeping track of computers and software for the district, but also helping teachers think through how to use technology in their work. He remembers the exact moment he heard about generative AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> So I think it was, it was December 8th. And I was home sick with Covid. I got an email, I’m on a listserv, you know, with all the tech directors in Massachusetts and I got an email that said: Have AI write your next English paper. The sub caption was: Buckle up, here it comes. And someone had basically shared a video of this thing called ChatGPT, that was generating an essay about, I think it was about Raisin in the Sun. And I was like “What is going on here?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Watching the video, Ouellette says he immediately realized that this was a big deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that was, that was a moment. You know, I’ve been in this business since 1993 and I don’t remember having like, a really specific, like, reaction to something the way I did when I saw that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Ouellette emailed the district’s superintendent, and explained the situation to her. There was a new technological tool, available to students, that could do their schoolwork. Pretty effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> And she had no idea what it was. And I explained to her what it was and sent her a link and she shot back to me five minutes later and she’s like, yeah, we need to write about this. And so we, we felt, we both felt this sense of like, urgency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> The superintendent asked Ouellette to write a memo to the district’s teachers. Ouellette is a technology guy, and out of curiosity and excitement, he decided to experiment. Could ChatGPT draft the memo? He asked ChatGPT to write the first draft and sent it to the superintendent. She read it and told Ouellette, this is pretty formal language, it doesn’t sound like you. Make it more casual sounding. But Ouellette didn’t rewrite the memo himself. He prompted ChatGPT to revise the memo. And he told it: “Make it more conversational.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> I said, you need to write something funny about how, you know France was gonna win the World Cup. And it like, seamlessly incorporated a little like parenthetical thing about, oh by the way, France is gonna win the World Cup. And in the way it did, it was like magnificent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Here’s the memo ChatGPT wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ChatGPT: \u003c/strong> ChatGPT could also be used to help students learn other languages, such as Spanish or French (which, by the way, I think will win the 2022 World Cup). Imagine being able to have a conversation with ChatGPT in French and receiving instant corrections and feedback on your pronunciation and grammar. The possibilities are truly endless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Side note, I’m not that impressed with how ChatGPT did with that World Cup joke. It says that “French” will win the world cup, not “France”. But, that aside, they sent the memo out that Monday. Remember, this was December of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next few months, Ouellette formed an AI working group in the district. They brought in a guest speaker. They looked at academic policies. They talked to teachers and students. And by the summer of 2023, they had revised academic integrity guidelines as well as some basic training for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> The goal was to inform staff about what this stuff is, to let them know that there are guidelines, and that if they have students, you know, in grades eight or higher, they can use it with their students. But we also wanted to inform staff how to use it for themselves to make their own work more efficient. The theory behind that is if they’re using it, then they’ll be more informed to use it responsibly with their kids. And it’s nowhere near where what it needs to be. I’ll be the first to admit it, but we did something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> What Westwood did was quite a bit more than most districts. Last fall, a survey found only about one quarter of teachers said their school district had provided any guidance or professional development, about AI. That’s two years after the arrival of the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Westwood, the faculty learned about ChatGPT pretty early on. Likely before many of their students heard about it. That was NOT true for other schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> The First Time I heard about ChatGPT was in my English Class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>This is Nanki Kaur. She just graduated from American High School, in Fremont, California. And she heard about ChatGPT from another student back in the spring of 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> We were having a conversation about how we were going to approach our research paper assignment that was coming up, and you would have to pick an individual of American significance and prove why they were of American significance and what impact they had. And he was talking about how he just asked this AI platform about how his person of American Significance who was BLEEP, had an impact on America and he got a really strong thesis statement. And he said, I didn’t even have to do anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Now, I bleeped that last bit so this student won’t get in trouble.But the point here, Nanki says the thesis statement was actually pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> And we were all confused and we were like, what are you talking about? Like how did you not have to do anything and how do you have such a strong thesis statement? ’cause we were just learning how to write a thesis statement at that time. And he said, there’s this online platform, it’s driven by artificial intelligence and it just writes it for you and it’s, it’s really thorough.It’s really good. You guys should try it. And so that was the first time I heard about it and I was shocked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Nanki talked with our colleague Holly McDede, a reporter based in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Did you try it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I did go home and try it. Not for the same assignment, but I went home and I looked it up like Chat GPT, OpenAI, what is it? And then I asked it a couple questions like what is the weather like, and if I were to write a story about a certain situation,could you write me a story? And it actually answered all my prompts and it wrote me like a solid paragraph, and so I was shocked. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Nanki says she doesn’t know what the other student did with his thesis statement, but she has a guess:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I think he did turn it in and I don’t know what kind of disciplinary action he got because there wasn’t really much set in stone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Do you suspect he didn’t get any disciplinary action?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I do suspect that because he was oddly smug about how well he had done on that assignment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> As far as Nanki knows, that student didn’t get in any trouble. In fact, she’s not sure the teachers knew about ChatGPT at that point. And Nanki says that the school didn’t seem to catch on that students were using ChatGPT to cheat until the fall of 2023, the next school year. A whole year after ChatGPT launched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nanki says when they did realize what was happening, the school came down hard. Nanki’s AP English teacher held a special class meeting to present the new academic integrity policy, with a list of sanctions if students were caught using Chat GPT or other AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> Which included, zeros on the assignments or administrative disciplinary action. And if worse comes to worst, then it would be, suspensions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> At American High School Nanki says their policies didn’t just ban ChatGPT. Students were also told they couldn’t use Grammarly, the grammar check program, or similar AI tools that are often built into students’ browsers. But, the policies weren’t applied consistently. Nanki says her social studies teacher actually encouraged her to use AI for research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> Because she said, I think it’s a really good tool to get all the facts in one spot. Obviously, I’m gonna ask you guys to fact check and cross check, make sure that everything is correct. But I think it’s a really great, you know, tool for you guys to use so that you have everything in one place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Was that confusing for you or other students?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> It was confusing for me, personally because I was like, I just don’t want to use it at all. Like I don’t even care because I don’t need like this habit. I don’t want it on my computer. I don’t want it anywhere, like I just want it like away from me because I didn’t want to jeopardize any chance of having a good grade in that class or in any of my classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Some 3000 miles away from Nanki, another student had quite a different experience. Woody Goss was wrapping up 8th grade in a public school in the suburbs north of New York city when he spoke to us in the spring of 2024. He says his teachers didn’t really respond to the arrival of ChatGPT. And, that students used AI to get their schoolwork done in almost all of his classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says his science class was the worst. The students all have laptops, but the teacher sits in front of the class, and can’t see what’s on the screens. Woody sits in the back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> And you can see everybody’s screen and you can see ChatGPT spitting out the text, and you can see them copy and pasting it into their paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> You could literally see your fellow students using ChatGPT…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss: \u003c/strong> And copying and pasting it, yup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> If you could estimate how many people in a classroom of 20 students, how many were using it to cheat in the way you’re describing. How many would you say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> So I’d say that there’s 10 people in that class using it for everything like cheating on, the whole paper is AI, I’d say there’s another 5 that probably half of it’s written by AI, but they do actually read it through and go, “Gee, maybe I don’t wanna include the part that says ‘As a large language model…’” but they like read it through and copy parts and splice bits and do whatever. Then I’d say of, so you’ve got five remaining. I’d say probably 4 of that 5 do the paper legitimately. So there’s 4 people doing it legitimately, and then there’s another one that’s going, and I don’t know, they, it’s kind of a mix, like they plagiarized stuff, but it’s like a paragraph in their entire thing. And I would say, of those 4, I mean, unless you’ve got a really, not a super smart tech kid, I’d say probably all four of those are using AI in some way. It’s just using it appropriately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Woody says that some of his teachers were apparently totally oblivious to generative AI. But not his science teacher. She tried to encourage students to use it in a way that would help them learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> That teacher was really trying, she seemed to grasp the concept that there was AI being used, and she was like, we’re gonna learn how to use AI, legitimately and like how do we use it in our research? And everybody heard, oh, you can use AI in your paper. And they all didn’t actually listen to what she was saying. Please use it as like a secondary source. And they all went, “okay, I’m gonna use ChatGPT to write my paper. “\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Um, do you have any teachers who effectively managed this? You know, either in their…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> No, I have the science teacher really tried. She really, she did actually provide, unlike all the other teachers, she actually provided instruction like, Hey, here’s how we’re gonna use it. Everybody ignored it, but she did try, right? All my other teachers just flat out ignored it the whole year. Um, except for the ELA teacher who said, we’re all writing paper benchmarks, which was a nightmare. That was just…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Why, why was that a nightmare?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> Because I’d say for a lot of us, not, not even including AI, we’re all digital people on Chromebooks. We don’t, we don’t know how to write a paper benchmark, which you could argue is its own problem. But then you had a million kids yelling and screaming about that, because god forbid you have to write a paper benchmark. Eww.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So, according to Woody, his English teacher made the students write things out by hand, which actually did keep people from using ChatGPT. Although Woody thinks that created other problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some people have suggested that Woody doesn’t need to worry. According to him he’s doing his work legitimately. Assuming that’s true, and that the other students are using ChatGPT, then it’ll all come out in the wash. He’ll actually learn what he’s supposed to, and the others won’t, and eventually, that will be obvious, and give him an advantage. Maybe in getting into college, maybe on tests, maybe in life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Woody doesn’t see it that way. In his world. Grades matter. Students are under pressure. When students choose to cheat, that can impact how the teachers teach the material. And the pace of learning, which puts even more pressure on the students who are trying to do the work themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> I mean, it’s frustrating. It’s a compounding effect. I’d say at the beginning of the year, there weren’t a lot of students using AI, and I’d say it’s shifted as the pacing gets faster, then more kids feel like they need it ’cause they feel like they’re gonna fail if they don’t have it. So it piles on itself, and it also, I was never the fast worker in the class. I can do the work, but I’m like dyslexic anyway, so it takes me forever to do the work anyway. I’d say the number of people not using it, like the number of people holding out and being like, “I’m gonna do my work legitimately” is going down because it’s just, there’s no room for, especially in the district where I am, where a lot of, we’re very grade grubby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s expected, like you gotta have an A in every class. So everybody is, “I gotta get that A, I gotta get this assignment in on time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> All right. I’d like to bring Justin Reich back to the program. Justin has studied technology in schools over the decades, and he can help us make sense of the stories we just heard. Welcome back Justin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me, Jesse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So the interviews that I shared took place over a year ago, and we’re now coming up on 3 years since ChatGPT was unveiled in November of 2022. So I’m curious what overall reactions you’re having as you listen back to these stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Well, the first thing it makes me think of is something that we’ve talked about before, which is just this idea of instantaneous arrival is so unusual for an education technology. I mean, the joke we make sometimes is that, you know, “no kid ever dragged their own smart board into a classroom”. Typically education technology was purchased by schools, and that meant the schools could have at least something of a plan before they gave all their teachers online grade books, or they bought all their kids’ Chromebooks, or they bought all their kids’ iPads, or whatever else it is. But there is zero time for planning. There’s zero time for preparation. You know, Steve Ouellette says, “This is urgent”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s just, there’s something which is happening right now and we need to deal with it. And then schools have really different capacities to deal with that. So an affluent place like Westwood, where they probably have recovered pretty well from the pandemic where things are feeling like they’re back on track, they probably have plenty of resources to hire substitute teachers, you know, the population of kids they serve have all kinds of challenges, but not nearly, the challenges they might encounter in some of their urban neighborhoods nearby or rural neighborhoods out west. They’re in a good place to be able to say, “Oh, we’ve, I’ve got some extra time to be able to manage this. Like, let’s get started.” Let’s, you know, teachers have extra time to be on the working group, “Let’s get started working on this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For, at other places, many, many schools in November 2022, in the spring of 2023, were still drowning in the challenges of chronic absenteeism of learning, loss of school that felt like it really hadn’t bounced back yet. And so this new thing shows up, and not every school in the country is on the same footing in figuring out how to deal with it. But of course, even if a school doesn’t have an institutional plan to deal with it, every teacher has to deal with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Ms O’Neill walks into her classroom and all of her students are using Bing. And she goes, well, you know, Bing! Bing is the web browser that you use to download Google Chrome, so you can never have to use Bing again. Why are all my students using Bing on a Chromebook? Like none of this makes sense. And what a great story, to remind us how significantly and quickly things changed and how there was no choice to postpone this. There was no way to say, ah, “ we’ll just buy, maybe we’ll buy the smart boards, but we’ll buy them next year, or we’ll buy them two years after that. Let’s just work on other stuff for now.” You, as an educator, had this in your classroom and had to decide what you were gonna do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Well, speaking of no option to postpone, I wanna play you something that Sam Altman said about all of this back in 2023. You know that Sam Altman was one of the founders of OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT. And he’s the CEO. You may remember he was actually ousted from the company briefly and then reinstated in an episode they’re now calling the blip, and one thing he’s gotten some criticism for is just releasing new versions of ChatGPT out into the world, arguably without a lot of thought about what impact that might have or without a lot of support for institutions like schools that might be impacted by AI. And in 2023, the hosts of the New York Times podcast, Hard Fork asked him about that. And here’s what he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam Altman:\u003c/strong> You know, one example that I mean is instructive because it was the first and the loudest is what happened with ChatGPT and education. Days, at least weeks. But I think days after the release of ChatGPT school districts were like falling all over themselves to ban ChatGPT. And that didn’t really surprise us, like that we could have predicted and did predict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thing that happened after that quickly was, you know, like weeks to months, was school districts and teachers saying, Hey, actually we made a mistake and this is really important part of the future of education and the benefits far outweigh the downside. And not only are we banning it, we’re encouraging our teachers to make use of it in the classroom. We’re encouraging our students to get really good at this tool because it’s gonna be part of the way people live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, you know, then there was like a big discussion about what, what the kind of path forward should be. And that is just not something that could have happened without releasing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>So Justin, you were paying pretty close attention in 2022 and 2023 when ChatGPT was first unleashed upon schools. Do you think Altman’s account is historically accurate?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich: \u003c/strong>Well, I actually got to hear Sam Altman give some version of this because he came to MIT, not long after November, 2022, gave a talk that was facilitated by Sally Kornbluth, our president. And he said something along the lines, I think the question was something like, you know, where are there big wins for ChatGPT? And he was like, well, education’s a slam dunk. This is a place where very obviously, we’re seeing benefits, not really seeing any downsides. Things are just immediately improving society. So this is gonna be a fast win for us. And yeah, you know, it’s, it’s delusional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not at all connected to what is actually happening in reality in schools. I’m sure some of it is, if I built a technology product, I’d be pretty excited to hear the voices of people who are happy with it. You know, people in powerful places don’t always have great sources of information about what happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes : \u003c/strong>And, and everything he says has a kind of factual basis to it, but it adds up to a kind of orderly picture of what happens, that to me doesn’t really reflect the chaos that educators were experiencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Also, if you just know something about schools, this idea that, like, “as soon as it was released they were all doing something”, it’s like, no, that’s not how schools work. And then “really quickly after doing it, they reverse themselves” and you’re like, no, you do not under- like, schools are carrier fleets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Schools are super tankers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich: \u003c/strong>Schools are super tankers. Like when they turn, they turn slowly and they turn with inertia. And when they go back it takes a lot of time to move that backwards, but even just in the handful of stories that we heard,we heard from a couple of students, one teacher who said there was nothing happening in their schools. It wasn’t being banned, it wasn’t being encouraged. Teachers were kind of figuring out on their own what to do with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I mean, if you talk to teachers and students, it’s not very hard to get stories where you get the sense of like, oh, this is not an unambiguously good thing. Like this is making Nanki nervous because pretty clearly students are using this to bypass their learning in ways that they shouldn’t. Woody is really concerned that his classes are moving faster than they’re supposed to because teachers are getting the wrong feedback. From students because students, instead of doing the work and doing the learning and figuring things out, are just copying, pasting questions from ChatGPT into their assignments and this, and Woody is trying to, is telling us he’s trying to do the right thing and this isn’t working here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even Steve, who’s in like the best possible circumstances, a really experienced, really talented tech director with a really supportive superintendent, really supportive community, cool things happening in their schools. As much good work as he’s doing, I think he still feels like, that he’s just barely taking the first steps that might be needed to get his hands wrapped around this thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and in fact, I actually played that Sam Altman tape for him and you know, he, and arguably what Sam Altman describes most closely resembles Westwood and Steve Ouellette, like of all the people we heard from, his story is the closest to Sam Altman’s account of what happened. But this, this is what he had to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette: \u003c/strong>Not to highlight Westwood, but when I talk to my peers in neighboring districts, no one’s doing anything. Like they’re just starting to create, think about creating guidelines. And so, we’re kind of just like building the plane, you know, while we fly it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> For the next 6 episodes, we’re going to hear stories of building the plane as we fly it. We’ll hear from the teachers who are struggling to prevent their students from using ChatGPT to bypass learning and thinking; We’ll talk with students about why they turn to AI to get their work done, and what it feels like to be falsely accused of using AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And we’ll hear from teachers, students, and school leaders who have found ways to use AI to help them teach or learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in our next episode, what even is generative AI? And why does the so-called “jagged frontier” of this technology make it so challenging when it shows up in schools?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It doesn’t think, it doesn’t understand, it predicts one word at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>That’s next time on the Homework Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was produced by me, Jesse Dukes. We had editing from Ruxandra Guidi and Alexandra Salomon. Reporting and research from Holly McDede, Natasha Esteves, Andrew Meriwether, and Chris Bagg. Sound design and music supervision by Steven Jackson. Production support from Yebu Ji. Data analysis from Manee Ngozi Nnamani and Manasa Kudumu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Josh Sheldon, Camila Lee, Liz Hutner, and Eric Klopfer. Administrative support from Jessica Rondon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research and reporting you heard in this episode was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the Kapor Foundation, the Jameel World Education Lab, the Social and Ethical Responsibility of Computing Initiative at MIT, and the RAISE initiative, Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education also at MIT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, we had support from Google’s Academic Research Awards program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Homework Machine is a production of the Teaching Systems Lab, Justin Reich Director, the lab is located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more commonly known to the world as MIT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://teachlabpodcast.com/\">teachlabpodcast.com\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://tsl.mit.edu/AI\">tsl.mit.edu/AI\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>That was The Homework Machine from MIT’s Teachlab podcast.\u003cbr>\nYou can find the whole series wherever you get your podcasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll be back next month with a brand new episode of Mindshift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This month MindShift is sharing an episode from MITs TeachLab podcast. Hosts Jessie Dukes and Justin Reich have interviewed teachers, school leaders and students about how the debut of ChatGPT and Generative AI is actually playing out in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve compiled their learnings into a mini series called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.teachlabpodcast.com/\">Homework Machine\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3473844164\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nKi Sung:\u003c/strong> Hey MindShift listeners, It’s Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today we’ve got a special episode to share with you. It’s from our friends at Teach Lab, a podcast about the art and craft of teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In their mini series, called The Homework Machine, hosts Jesse Dukes and Justin Reich explore the reactions to AI when it first debuted as a strange new technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll let our friends from Teach Lab take it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Episode Transcript\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> This is the Teach Lab podcast, I’m Justin Reich.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> And I’m Jesse Dukes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Devon O’Neil is a high school social studies teacher in Oregon. Back in 2021, after six years of teaching, she took 2 years off while her husband attended grad school. At MIT actually. And during her break from teaching, she worked designing classroom curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Which is a super cool experience, very different from being in the classroom, and also really reinforced that I wanted to be in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> When she was on her break, O’Neil missed two momentous years for schools. There was a pandemic, remote learning, hybrid learning, returning to school buildings. And when she went back to the classroom, in the fall of 2023, she said, there was some culture shock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> It was those two, like super crazy post-Covid years. So I come back, and it’s like, like those movies where the caveman, like defrost or whatever. And they’re like “what is this?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> It wasn’t just that her fellow teachers were harrowed and burned out, while she was fresh and energetic. She also noticed that the student work was, well, different from what she remembered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> I’d have these really well written paragraphs or snippets that are looked to be very well researched and all this, but not at all on topic. Grammar was off. Even the most brilliant 14-year-old still talks like a 14-year-old and still writes like a 14-year-old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So, the grammar was oddly good. O’Neil can see her students’ screens, and she sometimes watches them work. And, one day, she noticed they were using an unusual search engine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Bing! I was noticing a lot of them were using Bing. To Google stuff, see even to Google stuff. And I was like, that’s the weirdest choice. Who uses Bing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And then, one day, she was watching a student complete a writing assignment in a google doc. And poof, a whole well-written paragraph just appeared. Out of nowhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil:\u003c/strong> Like one minute it’s not there, and one minute it’s there. And, it said like “here are your results”. And they forgot to delete that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> And that’s when Devon realized her students were using ChatGPT to complete in class writing assignments. They would copy and paste the questions she would give them into Bing’s Copilot, which was a free way to use ChatGPT. Then, the students copied the answer, sometimes without any editing, right into their google document.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Devon O’Neil: \u003c/strong>Which is kind of a rookie mistake, like if they’re going to cheat, you want them to cheat a little better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> We first talked to Devon in 2023, just a few weeks after she figured out what was going on. She says that since then, she’s gotten a lot more savvy about ChatGPT. But her experience speaks to how much can, and did, change in schools, in just a couple of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> In November of 2022, ChatGPT was launched as a free research preview of advanced generative AI, like a pilot, or beta version. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, especially text, but also images, videos, and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ChatGPT is the most famous example of generative AI. There are competitors like Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and the Chinese company, DeepSeek. And rather quickly, students figured out, ChatGPT was pretty good at doing their homework for them. Devon, out of school for two years, working on curriculum, had missed the arrival of the new homework machine. But her students had not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> The arrival of chatGPT, and then fairly quick upgrades with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 within a couple of years, has been the big story in education technology since the fall of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Waterfall of news stories]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 1: \u003c/strong>So how does it work? Students can drop an assignment into something like ChatGPT, click a button and their homework is done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 2: \u003c/strong>She is talking about ChatGPT. School districts like New York cities are banning it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News anchor 3: \u003c/strong>ChatGPT is the new artificial intelligence tool causing a stir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Schools have scrambled to figure out what to do about ChatGPT. Ban it? Embrace it? Teachers have scrambled to try to get ahead of the “cheating” problem, and to find ways in which AI can support education. Some Students have scrambled to figure out how to use AI without their teachers detecting it. And education technology companies have scrambled to create AI powered ed tech. And have made many promises about how generative AI will transform education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sal Khan:\u003c/strong> But I think we’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen, and the way we’re going to do that is by giving every student on the planet an artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> My career has been devoted to studying education technology. Over and over again, we’ve seen new technologies emerge in education, and the technology developers will promise, every time, that the new tech will transform and democratize education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sal Khan :\u003c/strong>That’s what’s about to happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And while the technologies do sometimes help teachers and students, those big transformations to schools, they never happen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> But there is something different about Chat GPT and other AI. Throughout history, most education technology has been adopted by schools, who hope it will help them do better work, teaching students. But Generative AI wasn’t invited into schools. Not for the most part. It crashed the party. Even if schools ban it from school laptops, students can often get around that ban, by using Bing, for example. Or they have their own laptop. Or they can access it on their mobile phone, which over 95% of teenagers have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, the kids have access to generative AI. And they’re using it, whether their teachers want them to, or not. That’s having a big impact on schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, a little about me, and this project. I am a journalist, and for the past year and a half, I’ve been working with Justin and other colleagues at MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab. We’ve interviewed over 85 teachers and school leaders, and over 35 students about how all of this is actually playing out in schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’ve been hearing about why students cheat using AI, what teachers are doing to stop them, and how some teachers and students have found ChatGPT to be helpful for learning. And for the next several weeks, we’re going to share what we’ve learned with you in a mini series we’re calling the Homework Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> And now, Jesse, who has immersed himself in this research, will be our host and guide for these episodes. Jesse, you can take it from here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Thanks Justin, but not so fast. We’re going to want your historical knowledge about educational technology to help us unpack and contextualize these stories. So stay close, and keep your mic handy. In fact, we’re going to hear from you again in this episode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Sounds good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Alright, well, let’s go back to A beginning: December of 2022. We’ll start with Steve Ouellette. He’s a technology director at the Westwood School district, southwest of Boston. His job includes keeping track of computers and software for the district, but also helping teachers think through how to use technology in their work. He remembers the exact moment he heard about generative AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> So I think it was, it was December 8th. And I was home sick with Covid. I got an email, I’m on a listserv, you know, with all the tech directors in Massachusetts and I got an email that said: Have AI write your next English paper. The sub caption was: Buckle up, here it comes. And someone had basically shared a video of this thing called ChatGPT, that was generating an essay about, I think it was about Raisin in the Sun. And I was like “What is going on here?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Watching the video, Ouellette says he immediately realized that this was a big deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> Yeah, that was, that was a moment. You know, I’ve been in this business since 1993 and I don’t remember having like, a really specific, like, reaction to something the way I did when I saw that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Ouellette emailed the district’s superintendent, and explained the situation to her. There was a new technological tool, available to students, that could do their schoolwork. Pretty effectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> And she had no idea what it was. And I explained to her what it was and sent her a link and she shot back to me five minutes later and she’s like, yeah, we need to write about this. And so we, we felt, we both felt this sense of like, urgency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> The superintendent asked Ouellette to write a memo to the district’s teachers. Ouellette is a technology guy, and out of curiosity and excitement, he decided to experiment. Could ChatGPT draft the memo? He asked ChatGPT to write the first draft and sent it to the superintendent. She read it and told Ouellette, this is pretty formal language, it doesn’t sound like you. Make it more casual sounding. But Ouellette didn’t rewrite the memo himself. He prompted ChatGPT to revise the memo. And he told it: “Make it more conversational.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> I said, you need to write something funny about how, you know France was gonna win the World Cup. And it like, seamlessly incorporated a little like parenthetical thing about, oh by the way, France is gonna win the World Cup. And in the way it did, it was like magnificent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Here’s the memo ChatGPT wrote:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>ChatGPT: \u003c/strong> ChatGPT could also be used to help students learn other languages, such as Spanish or French (which, by the way, I think will win the 2022 World Cup). Imagine being able to have a conversation with ChatGPT in French and receiving instant corrections and feedback on your pronunciation and grammar. The possibilities are truly endless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Side note, I’m not that impressed with how ChatGPT did with that World Cup joke. It says that “French” will win the world cup, not “France”. But, that aside, they sent the memo out that Monday. Remember, this was December of 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the next few months, Ouellette formed an AI working group in the district. They brought in a guest speaker. They looked at academic policies. They talked to teachers and students. And by the summer of 2023, they had revised academic integrity guidelines as well as some basic training for teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette:\u003c/strong> The goal was to inform staff about what this stuff is, to let them know that there are guidelines, and that if they have students, you know, in grades eight or higher, they can use it with their students. But we also wanted to inform staff how to use it for themselves to make their own work more efficient. The theory behind that is if they’re using it, then they’ll be more informed to use it responsibly with their kids. And it’s nowhere near where what it needs to be. I’ll be the first to admit it, but we did something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> What Westwood did was quite a bit more than most districts. Last fall, a survey found only about one quarter of teachers said their school district had provided any guidance or professional development, about AI. That’s two years after the arrival of the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Westwood, the faculty learned about ChatGPT pretty early on. Likely before many of their students heard about it. That was NOT true for other schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> The First Time I heard about ChatGPT was in my English Class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>This is Nanki Kaur. She just graduated from American High School, in Fremont, California. And she heard about ChatGPT from another student back in the spring of 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> We were having a conversation about how we were going to approach our research paper assignment that was coming up, and you would have to pick an individual of American significance and prove why they were of American significance and what impact they had. And he was talking about how he just asked this AI platform about how his person of American Significance who was BLEEP, had an impact on America and he got a really strong thesis statement. And he said, I didn’t even have to do anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Now, I bleeped that last bit so this student won’t get in trouble.But the point here, Nanki says the thesis statement was actually pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> And we were all confused and we were like, what are you talking about? Like how did you not have to do anything and how do you have such a strong thesis statement? ’cause we were just learning how to write a thesis statement at that time. And he said, there’s this online platform, it’s driven by artificial intelligence and it just writes it for you and it’s, it’s really thorough.It’s really good. You guys should try it. And so that was the first time I heard about it and I was shocked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Nanki talked with our colleague Holly McDede, a reporter based in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Did you try it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I did go home and try it. Not for the same assignment, but I went home and I looked it up like Chat GPT, OpenAI, what is it? And then I asked it a couple questions like what is the weather like, and if I were to write a story about a certain situation,could you write me a story? And it actually answered all my prompts and it wrote me like a solid paragraph, and so I was shocked. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Nanki says she doesn’t know what the other student did with his thesis statement, but she has a guess:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I think he did turn it in and I don’t know what kind of disciplinary action he got because there wasn’t really much set in stone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Do you suspect he didn’t get any disciplinary action?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> I do suspect that because he was oddly smug about how well he had done on that assignment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> As far as Nanki knows, that student didn’t get in any trouble. In fact, she’s not sure the teachers knew about ChatGPT at that point. And Nanki says that the school didn’t seem to catch on that students were using ChatGPT to cheat until the fall of 2023, the next school year. A whole year after ChatGPT launched.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Nanki says when they did realize what was happening, the school came down hard. Nanki’s AP English teacher held a special class meeting to present the new academic integrity policy, with a list of sanctions if students were caught using Chat GPT or other AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> Which included, zeros on the assignments or administrative disciplinary action. And if worse comes to worst, then it would be, suspensions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> At American High School Nanki says their policies didn’t just ban ChatGPT. Students were also told they couldn’t use Grammarly, the grammar check program, or similar AI tools that are often built into students’ browsers. But, the policies weren’t applied consistently. Nanki says her social studies teacher actually encouraged her to use AI for research.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> Because she said, I think it’s a really good tool to get all the facts in one spot. Obviously, I’m gonna ask you guys to fact check and cross check, make sure that everything is correct. But I think it’s a really great, you know, tool for you guys to use so that you have everything in one place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Holly McDede:\u003c/strong> Was that confusing for you or other students?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nanki Kaur:\u003c/strong> It was confusing for me, personally because I was like, I just don’t want to use it at all. Like I don’t even care because I don’t need like this habit. I don’t want it on my computer. I don’t want it anywhere, like I just want it like away from me because I didn’t want to jeopardize any chance of having a good grade in that class or in any of my classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Some 3000 miles away from Nanki, another student had quite a different experience. Woody Goss was wrapping up 8th grade in a public school in the suburbs north of New York city when he spoke to us in the spring of 2024. He says his teachers didn’t really respond to the arrival of ChatGPT. And, that students used AI to get their schoolwork done in almost all of his classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He says his science class was the worst. The students all have laptops, but the teacher sits in front of the class, and can’t see what’s on the screens. Woody sits in the back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> And you can see everybody’s screen and you can see ChatGPT spitting out the text, and you can see them copy and pasting it into their paper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> You could literally see your fellow students using ChatGPT…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss: \u003c/strong> And copying and pasting it, yup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> If you could estimate how many people in a classroom of 20 students, how many were using it to cheat in the way you’re describing. How many would you say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> So I’d say that there’s 10 people in that class using it for everything like cheating on, the whole paper is AI, I’d say there’s another 5 that probably half of it’s written by AI, but they do actually read it through and go, “Gee, maybe I don’t wanna include the part that says ‘As a large language model…’” but they like read it through and copy parts and splice bits and do whatever. Then I’d say of, so you’ve got five remaining. I’d say probably 4 of that 5 do the paper legitimately. So there’s 4 people doing it legitimately, and then there’s another one that’s going, and I don’t know, they, it’s kind of a mix, like they plagiarized stuff, but it’s like a paragraph in their entire thing. And I would say, of those 4, I mean, unless you’ve got a really, not a super smart tech kid, I’d say probably all four of those are using AI in some way. It’s just using it appropriately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>Woody says that some of his teachers were apparently totally oblivious to generative AI. But not his science teacher. She tried to encourage students to use it in a way that would help them learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> That teacher was really trying, she seemed to grasp the concept that there was AI being used, and she was like, we’re gonna learn how to use AI, legitimately and like how do we use it in our research? And everybody heard, oh, you can use AI in your paper. And they all didn’t actually listen to what she was saying. Please use it as like a secondary source. And they all went, “okay, I’m gonna use ChatGPT to write my paper. “\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Um, do you have any teachers who effectively managed this? You know, either in their…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> No, I have the science teacher really tried. She really, she did actually provide, unlike all the other teachers, she actually provided instruction like, Hey, here’s how we’re gonna use it. Everybody ignored it, but she did try, right? All my other teachers just flat out ignored it the whole year. Um, except for the ELA teacher who said, we’re all writing paper benchmarks, which was a nightmare. That was just…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Why, why was that a nightmare?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> Because I’d say for a lot of us, not, not even including AI, we’re all digital people on Chromebooks. We don’t, we don’t know how to write a paper benchmark, which you could argue is its own problem. But then you had a million kids yelling and screaming about that, because god forbid you have to write a paper benchmark. Eww.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So, according to Woody, his English teacher made the students write things out by hand, which actually did keep people from using ChatGPT. Although Woody thinks that created other problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some people have suggested that Woody doesn’t need to worry. According to him he’s doing his work legitimately. Assuming that’s true, and that the other students are using ChatGPT, then it’ll all come out in the wash. He’ll actually learn what he’s supposed to, and the others won’t, and eventually, that will be obvious, and give him an advantage. Maybe in getting into college, maybe on tests, maybe in life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Woody doesn’t see it that way. In his world. Grades matter. Students are under pressure. When students choose to cheat, that can impact how the teachers teach the material. And the pace of learning, which puts even more pressure on the students who are trying to do the work themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Woody Goss:\u003c/strong> I mean, it’s frustrating. It’s a compounding effect. I’d say at the beginning of the year, there weren’t a lot of students using AI, and I’d say it’s shifted as the pacing gets faster, then more kids feel like they need it ’cause they feel like they’re gonna fail if they don’t have it. So it piles on itself, and it also, I was never the fast worker in the class. I can do the work, but I’m like dyslexic anyway, so it takes me forever to do the work anyway. I’d say the number of people not using it, like the number of people holding out and being like, “I’m gonna do my work legitimately” is going down because it’s just, there’s no room for, especially in the district where I am, where a lot of, we’re very grade grubby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s expected, like you gotta have an A in every class. So everybody is, “I gotta get that A, I gotta get this assignment in on time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> All right. I’d like to bring Justin Reich back to the program. Justin has studied technology in schools over the decades, and he can help us make sense of the stories we just heard. Welcome back Justin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Thanks for having me, Jesse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> So the interviews that I shared took place over a year ago, and we’re now coming up on 3 years since ChatGPT was unveiled in November of 2022. So I’m curious what overall reactions you’re having as you listen back to these stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Well, the first thing it makes me think of is something that we’ve talked about before, which is just this idea of instantaneous arrival is so unusual for an education technology. I mean, the joke we make sometimes is that, you know, “no kid ever dragged their own smart board into a classroom”. Typically education technology was purchased by schools, and that meant the schools could have at least something of a plan before they gave all their teachers online grade books, or they bought all their kids’ Chromebooks, or they bought all their kids’ iPads, or whatever else it is. But there is zero time for planning. There’s zero time for preparation. You know, Steve Ouellette says, “This is urgent”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s just, there’s something which is happening right now and we need to deal with it. And then schools have really different capacities to deal with that. So an affluent place like Westwood, where they probably have recovered pretty well from the pandemic where things are feeling like they’re back on track, they probably have plenty of resources to hire substitute teachers, you know, the population of kids they serve have all kinds of challenges, but not nearly, the challenges they might encounter in some of their urban neighborhoods nearby or rural neighborhoods out west. They’re in a good place to be able to say, “Oh, we’ve, I’ve got some extra time to be able to manage this. Like, let’s get started.” Let’s, you know, teachers have extra time to be on the working group, “Let’s get started working on this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For, at other places, many, many schools in November 2022, in the spring of 2023, were still drowning in the challenges of chronic absenteeism of learning, loss of school that felt like it really hadn’t bounced back yet. And so this new thing shows up, and not every school in the country is on the same footing in figuring out how to deal with it. But of course, even if a school doesn’t have an institutional plan to deal with it, every teacher has to deal with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Ms O’Neill walks into her classroom and all of her students are using Bing. And she goes, well, you know, Bing! Bing is the web browser that you use to download Google Chrome, so you can never have to use Bing again. Why are all my students using Bing on a Chromebook? Like none of this makes sense. And what a great story, to remind us how significantly and quickly things changed and how there was no choice to postpone this. There was no way to say, ah, “ we’ll just buy, maybe we’ll buy the smart boards, but we’ll buy them next year, or we’ll buy them two years after that. Let’s just work on other stuff for now.” You, as an educator, had this in your classroom and had to decide what you were gonna do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Well, speaking of no option to postpone, I wanna play you something that Sam Altman said about all of this back in 2023. You know that Sam Altman was one of the founders of OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT. And he’s the CEO. You may remember he was actually ousted from the company briefly and then reinstated in an episode they’re now calling the blip, and one thing he’s gotten some criticism for is just releasing new versions of ChatGPT out into the world, arguably without a lot of thought about what impact that might have or without a lot of support for institutions like schools that might be impacted by AI. And in 2023, the hosts of the New York Times podcast, Hard Fork asked him about that. And here’s what he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam Altman:\u003c/strong> You know, one example that I mean is instructive because it was the first and the loudest is what happened with ChatGPT and education. Days, at least weeks. But I think days after the release of ChatGPT school districts were like falling all over themselves to ban ChatGPT. And that didn’t really surprise us, like that we could have predicted and did predict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thing that happened after that quickly was, you know, like weeks to months, was school districts and teachers saying, Hey, actually we made a mistake and this is really important part of the future of education and the benefits far outweigh the downside. And not only are we banning it, we’re encouraging our teachers to make use of it in the classroom. We’re encouraging our students to get really good at this tool because it’s gonna be part of the way people live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, you know, then there was like a big discussion about what, what the kind of path forward should be. And that is just not something that could have happened without releasing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>So Justin, you were paying pretty close attention in 2022 and 2023 when ChatGPT was first unleashed upon schools. Do you think Altman’s account is historically accurate?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich: \u003c/strong>Well, I actually got to hear Sam Altman give some version of this because he came to MIT, not long after November, 2022, gave a talk that was facilitated by Sally Kornbluth, our president. And he said something along the lines, I think the question was something like, you know, where are there big wins for ChatGPT? And he was like, well, education’s a slam dunk. This is a place where very obviously, we’re seeing benefits, not really seeing any downsides. Things are just immediately improving society. So this is gonna be a fast win for us. And yeah, you know, it’s, it’s delusional.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not at all connected to what is actually happening in reality in schools. I’m sure some of it is, if I built a technology product, I’d be pretty excited to hear the voices of people who are happy with it. You know, people in powerful places don’t always have great sources of information about what happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes : \u003c/strong>And, and everything he says has a kind of factual basis to it, but it adds up to a kind of orderly picture of what happens, that to me doesn’t really reflect the chaos that educators were experiencing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich:\u003c/strong> Also, if you just know something about schools, this idea that, like, “as soon as it was released they were all doing something”, it’s like, no, that’s not how schools work. And then “really quickly after doing it, they reverse themselves” and you’re like, no, you do not under- like, schools are carrier fleets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Schools are super tankers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Justin Reich: \u003c/strong>Schools are super tankers. Like when they turn, they turn slowly and they turn with inertia. And when they go back it takes a lot of time to move that backwards, but even just in the handful of stories that we heard,we heard from a couple of students, one teacher who said there was nothing happening in their schools. It wasn’t being banned, it wasn’t being encouraged. Teachers were kind of figuring out on their own what to do with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I mean, if you talk to teachers and students, it’s not very hard to get stories where you get the sense of like, oh, this is not an unambiguously good thing. Like this is making Nanki nervous because pretty clearly students are using this to bypass their learning in ways that they shouldn’t. Woody is really concerned that his classes are moving faster than they’re supposed to because teachers are getting the wrong feedback. From students because students, instead of doing the work and doing the learning and figuring things out, are just copying, pasting questions from ChatGPT into their assignments and this, and Woody is trying to, is telling us he’s trying to do the right thing and this isn’t working here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even Steve, who’s in like the best possible circumstances, a really experienced, really talented tech director with a really supportive superintendent, really supportive community, cool things happening in their schools. As much good work as he’s doing, I think he still feels like, that he’s just barely taking the first steps that might be needed to get his hands wrapped around this thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and in fact, I actually played that Sam Altman tape for him and you know, he, and arguably what Sam Altman describes most closely resembles Westwood and Steve Ouellette, like of all the people we heard from, his story is the closest to Sam Altman’s account of what happened. But this, this is what he had to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Steve Ouellette: \u003c/strong>Not to highlight Westwood, but when I talk to my peers in neighboring districts, no one’s doing anything. Like they’re just starting to create, think about creating guidelines. And so, we’re kind of just like building the plane, you know, while we fly it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes:\u003c/strong> For the next 6 episodes, we’re going to hear stories of building the plane as we fly it. We’ll hear from the teachers who are struggling to prevent their students from using ChatGPT to bypass learning and thinking; We’ll talk with students about why they turn to AI to get their work done, and what it feels like to be falsely accused of using AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And we’ll hear from teachers, students, and school leaders who have found ways to use AI to help them teach or learn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in our next episode, what even is generative AI? And why does the so-called “jagged frontier” of this technology make it so challenging when it shows up in schools?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It doesn’t think, it doesn’t understand, it predicts one word at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jesse Dukes: \u003c/strong>That’s next time on the Homework Machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This episode was produced by me, Jesse Dukes. We had editing from Ruxandra Guidi and Alexandra Salomon. Reporting and research from Holly McDede, Natasha Esteves, Andrew Meriwether, and Chris Bagg. Sound design and music supervision by Steven Jackson. Production support from Yebu Ji. Data analysis from Manee Ngozi Nnamani and Manasa Kudumu.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Josh Sheldon, Camila Lee, Liz Hutner, and Eric Klopfer. Administrative support from Jessica Rondon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research and reporting you heard in this episode was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the Kapor Foundation, the Jameel World Education Lab, the Social and Ethical Responsibility of Computing Initiative at MIT, and the RAISE initiative, Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education also at MIT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, we had support from Google’s Academic Research Awards program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Homework Machine is a production of the Teaching Systems Lab, Justin Reich Director, the lab is located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more commonly known to the world as MIT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://teachlabpodcast.com/\">teachlabpodcast.com\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://tsl.mit.edu/AI\">tsl.mit.edu/AI\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>That was The Homework Machine from MIT’s Teachlab podcast.\u003cbr>\nYou can find the whole series wherever you get your podcasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ll be back next month with a brand new episode of Mindshift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, educators and academics have studied many aspects of how students learn. The role of grit, resilience and growth mindset, for example, have been closely studied and strategies to develop them widely shared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, the connection between \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/45201/why-emotions-are-integral-to-learning\">emotions and learning\u003c/a> has acquired more attention, as has the role of \u003ca href=\"https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf\">awe in human development\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>K-12 educator Deborah Farmer Kris wrote about the benefits of awe in our daily lives in her book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive,\u003c/a>” and joined the MindShift Podcast to talk about her surprising findings. She also has tips on how to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65520/how-experiencing-wonder-helps-kids-learn\"> cultivate awe in children and adults\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as someone who has taught for two decades, she has advice on what educators can do to find the wonder in subjects they teach several times a day, year over year, to a large number of students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC9148141574\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. Today I’m speaking to longtime MindShift contributor Debra Farmer Kris. She’s a child development expert and author of the book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive\u003c/a>.” During the depths of pandemic-era parenting, Deborah Farmer Kris discovered that awe is an often overlooked but powerful emotion. We’ll discuss how parents and educators can use awe to drive engagement with classroom materials and connection with the world around us. That conversation, coming up right after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Let’s start by diving right into the title of your book, “Raising Awe Seekers.” We hear the word awe and its variations like awesome all the time, but let’s take a step back and have you define for us what awe is and why it’s important for human development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> So first awe is an emotion, and that is important because as an emotion, it is something we can feel, uh, and we can recognize when we’re feeling it. And so when you look at emotions, um, you have kind of your core four, like happy, mad, sad, scared, and you have variations of those. So underneath mad, you might have irate or frustrated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Awe is more of a subset of surprise and a is what you feel when you encounter something that is vast. That is, um, wondrous, that is beyond your ordinary frame of reference. You might see something new that moves you, that touches you, that excites you. And the way researchers often talk about how you know you’re feeling it is things like, uh, chills or goosebumps for some people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, maybe your eyes involuntarily spring you with tears, uh, the sound. Wow. Or whoa, you know, you have somebody choose a half court shot and it goes in and people aren’t saying That was an amazing shot. Now they’re making a all guttural sound of Wow. And I think for children as a, as an educator and as a parent, I would put in that category, this wide eyes that it’s almost like they want to absorb what they’re seeing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The really neat thing about this particular emotion is that there is a wealth of research, uh, about 25 years now, most of it out of the \u003ca href=\"https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/awe\">Greater Good Science Center at University of California Berkeley\u003c/a>,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>and it turns out that, most good things we want for our kids from, uh, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/38260/whats-going-on-inside-the-brain-of-a-curious-child\">curiosity and cognitive development\u003c/a> to a sense of mental and emotional wellness, to a sense of connectedness, awe supports all of those outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> it’s interesting that the research has been out for 25 years or around for 25 years because, you know, we see a lot of different types of behaviors getting academic and media scrutiny, like, you know, the popular ones :grit, resilience, anxiety, growth, mindset, but all doesn’t quite get as much attention. Do you know why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> You know, I think there wasn’t really the popularized book for the moment, you know, \u003ca href=\"https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf\">Dacher Keltner\u003c/a>, who’s the main researcher on this, one of the lead ones, a year and a half ago, came out with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Awe-Science-Everyday-Wonder-Transform/dp/1984879685\">wonderful book\u003c/a> that has been getting more press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think awe is beginning to have a bit of a moment now. But before then you had to kind of be like me, the, the kind of the nerd looking through the journals and looking through the articles and, you know, I was always kind of, because I write for Mind Shift and other sources on the lookout for good research that could be translated, for teachers and parents. And so while it was there, it really hadn’t had its, um, you know it, it’s social moment yet, and I think hopefully we’re at the beginnings of that right now\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> What does awe have to do with, say, being able to pay attention in class, especially for kids who are overscheduled or have a high amount of screen time?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm. So where awe is really helpful. Academically is that it is highly correlated with curiosity. And one thing we know about curiosity from reams of research is that curiosity is a key indicator of academic success. ’cause it relates to internal motivation. I mean, think about it. You have curious about something, you want to learn it, you’re motivated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, and so the link between awe and curiosity is just really tight because you see something you don’t understand. And awe is often related to this wow moment of, you know, I’m, I’m looking at these stars and I’m wondering, I have these, I, I wish I knew more. And that feeling, that curiosity is what propels kids to, to want to learn. And one of the really cool pieces of research that I describe in the book was that when you’re curious about something, it actually primes the brain to remember things. And I, I think about this often with very young children, how you might have a 4-year-old who can memorize the names of all the dinosaurs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So they might be talking about the diplodocus. But they might be struggling with some of their other more basic vocabulary, but because their interest level is so high, they are primed to remember. And so really deep learning often happens at this intersection of, you know, of focus and interest. And so, um, one of the things they have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have also found is that when the brain is primed with curiosity on wonder that even say 30 minutes later when you’re engaged in an activity that’s not as interesting, not as awe inspiring, your brain is still primed to learn. And so that gets me thinking about how it maybe a class is organized, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So am I doing something at the beginning of class that’s really capturing the imagination or the wonder, um, or the curiosity of students, uh. To prime their brain to remember something that later in the class may be important, but not necessarily as, um, wondrous for them. And so I think this is an interesting way for us to think about students who may not be as engaged,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they’re not as engaged in everything, can we find the one thing? Can we find the thing that excites them, that sparks that awe, that lights them up, and use that as kind of a foundation for other academic learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I wanna talk about parents real quick. Um, when you talk about wonder, I don’t know if I have time for it, because we’re literally so busy. Um, what is the benefit of making the time to wonder, um, how should I exercise restraint in not wanting to rush, Um, tell me how to restrain myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> So researching awe has absolutely in subtle but profound ways transformed how I parent my kids, um, partly because it has made me more attentive to the world around me. Many of the sources of awe are deeply tied to our sensory system, so sounds, sight, smells, what we’re taking in. One of the great things about awe that you, you don’t need to go to the Sistine Chapel or the Grand Canyon, that it’s a very everyday ordinary emotion, and it’s more about putting ourselves in, in the path of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So for me as a parent, the first thing I had to do was make sure I was making some space for it myself. And the simplest way I, I did this, um, was by adopting, um, one of the practices from research, which was taking an a walk. Now I have a dog, so I am outside with the dog at least three times a day, usually morning, midday, and evening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I made the decision that one of those. Times I was outside, even for five or 10 minutes, I would not have my phone on, I would not be listening to music. I would just be paying attention. I’d be looking up, uh, I would be looking at the trees. Um, and I, I, I literally call it my awe walk, right? Five minutes a day, 10 minutes a day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I noticed that. Over the course of nearly two years now, this has transformed my relationship with my neighborhood. And I don’t just mean my neighbors, although being outside has helped me connect with them. But the trees, the, the birds who I really didn’t even notice were in the neighborhood. And now I can identify so many of them, the, the changing of the seasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, and then I made the very conscious decision as a parent that when I did notice these things, I was going to be more active about sharing them. Uh, and that means that, you know, if I hear a story that of say a human being kind or brave, which is a key source of awe and wonder. Um, I’m gonna talk to my kids about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, if I see a really beautiful sunset, I am going to be the mom who says, come out and look. Just the other day we were driving home and there was a incredible double rainbow. And I pulled over, I was driving my son home from piano lessons and behind me another parent pulled over with their four or 5-year-old and the two of us were standing out there with our two children in the drizzling rain looking at this gorgeous rainbow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I just, you know, thought this was a moment where it’s gonna take me two minutes longer to get home, but this will be something my child remembers where typically a drive home you don’t remember. so it, it’s really not about the big experience, it’s about the little moments in the day of the song, the what you see, the smell that you pause, you notice, and then you take the next step to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uh, because one of the things I have found slowly over time is that because I do so much sharing of my awe moments, and Itry to just be super authentic in how I do it, because I. Do love sharing and talking to my kids. They are much more likely to share them with me, to tell me their stories or to send me the picture they find or the song they think I will like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so for me, it becomes almost this very authentic way of just sharing our day together and paying attention to what lights me up and what lights my kids up. And yes, that requires a little bit of slowing down, but it doesn’t require. You know, this is gonna be a day of no screens and nothing, or we’re gonna get, take an entirely unplugged vacation for a week, which none of us have the time or resources to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> It’s quite, um. Uh, contrast I think to maybe how our brains are wired to think about only bad things that are very sticky or, um, uh, the worst things that can happen to us. I think a lot of us are just inclined to, um, you know, think negatively, um, and dwell on those things, but seeing the beautiful positive things in the world, um, may also provide a more accurate. Picture or depiction of our daily lives that there are beautiful wonder, wonderful things around us if we just take the time, uh, time to look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yeah, sometimes I describe awe as the ultimate and emotion. So, you know, awe is different than gratitude. Gratitude is actually, um, it can be quite a cerebral. Emotion where you think back and even though in the moment you didn’t appreciate it, now you do and you’re grateful for that. Um, awe is very involuntary emotion, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You see something beautiful, you feel it. And you know, for me, I call it the “and” emotion because you know, I may be having a really tough day and I’m disturbed by something on the news and just before coming up here, Ki, there was this mass of robins, um, outside that was chattering so loudly. I didn’t actually think they were robins because it was midday. And normally they’re not as that loud midday. And I pulled out my Merlin app to see what they were, and I’m watching them hovering. And I’m wondering, like, I actually Googled, like, why would there be the swarm of Robin’s midday? Um, and it was just a, a brief moment where it was. Again, this, you know, the world is difficult. The world is messy. The world is complicated, and people are doing brave, kind, wonderful things every day. And there are artists making incredible works that will move us. And there’s a natural world out there that is. You know, still full of such mystery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it’s not, you know, as somebody would talk about toxic positivity saying, you know, just look on the bright side, it’s more of just acknowledging that you can have a difficult day and, you know, taking a step outside, taking a deep breath and hearing that bird song or getting that text from a friend who brings you a moment of, of, of warmth and kindness. Um, those moments can coexist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> So speaking of bird song or something that has that resonant rhythm, um, you interviewed Dacher Keltner of UC, Berkeley, and he had some advice on finding awe that you wrote about a. In your book, uh, can you read to me what his advice was?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yes, I actually structure it like a poem, uh, in the book. And while I was interviewing him, he was actually out on a walk, which I find quite lovely. And so I said to him, you know, what is your best advice for finding awe? And this is what he said. How do you find awe? You allow unstructured time. How do you find awe?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You wander, you drift through. You take a walk with no aim. How do you find awe? You slow things down. You allow for mystery and open questions rather than test driven answers, you allow people to engage in the humanities of dance and visual art and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That really is beautiful. so let’s break it down a little bit. Uh, you have spent 20 years as a K to 12 teacher. What does awe look like for the different age groups? for elementary years, the middle school years, or maybe even the high school years?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> That’s a great question, and I think to answer this, I, I first need to just very briefly talk about the sources because some of these sources will look different at different ages. So when you think about. General categories where people find awe. You have nature and music, the arts, big questions, big ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uh, that feeling of belonging and this, uh, this life cycle. And of course kinda human goodness. So people being kind and brave, and I think at different ages, different of those take priorities. So, you know, for a 4-year-old, one of the things they’re really driven by are why questions. You know, why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, there’s some research. That shows, depending on the source, that four year olds can ask, you know, between kind of 70 and a hundred questions a day. Uh, and if you’re raising a kid that age that may actually feel like, you know, a low estimate, but they’re really trying to understand their world and so they’re constantly asking questions, engaging with their world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so. That’s really exciting and, and in fact, one of the challenges I think for educators and parents are how do you get high schoolers to still want to have that sense of wonder and engagement with their world? You know, when your kids are hitting the, the middle of high school years, the. The wonder of belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, there’s a, an expression from Émile Durkheim called Collective Effervescence. Um, that is really key because they want to be part of a group. And collective effervescence basically means that you’re part of a group that is doing, uh, engaged harmoniously toward a common good cause. And so you might think of a sports team or a choral group, or even a Model UN or d and d or robotics club where people are working together toward this common aim, and that feels really good. Um, so when kids, especially teenagers, don’t find that they’re missing out on a. A source of wonder that they’re actually biologically primed for, because this is an age where they’re pulling away from parents and looking to be part of a peer group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so that becomes a really important thing to help kids navigate. How do you find the in-person, peer group?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Um, I think. You know, for any age group being out in nature, um, engaging with art, finding music that speaks to them and that may change dramatically their musical tastes. Um. Those are all kind of ready-made sources of awe that we can be tapping into as, as teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things I really love about the whole developmental range of childhood is that interest change and that what makes them tick, what lights them up, change, and, um I’ve taught almost every grade K through 12, and really one of my favorites is middle school, partly because it’s such a time of intense change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think for parents and educators, it can feel tricky when it looks like they are, um, letting go of things that used to make them happy with sources of awe and, and, and wonder for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it might look like they’re just getting jaded or cynical when in fact they’re undergoing a very natural transition into. Perhaps what is going to be the new face. And so being patient with them and kind of going with it and getting curious, um, have practicing some radical curiosity about, okay, so your kid doesn’t really like soccer anymore after all these years on a, you know, soccer squad, but it looks like they might be interested in joining, um, a drama troupe. And so I’m gonna take a deep breath and go with that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or there might be a sticky time in between where they don’t know who their friend group is and what their interests are. But that is such a great identity formation time, and I feel like awe and wonder are a great tool for parents during that identity formation because if you can start just paying attention to, okay, so what is sparking their interests? What does light them up? What? Where can I see that their eyes did grow wide? And maybe we explore that a little bit. Maybe it sticks, maybe it doesn’t, and that’s okay. But these are all pathways in to mental wellness, emotional wellness, and even academic growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That sounds like great advice and you cited, uh, Benjamin Bloom’s research, I believe, when describing that spark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yeah\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Um, and parents, you know, encouraging kids along that path. Uh. I do have a question for you, for educators. What amazes me whenever I observe teachers in the classroom is how they can be still enthusiastic teaching the same topic, bringing the sense of awe to 30 different kids six times a day for the many, many years they’ve been teaching. How do awe and wonder continue to exist in a classroom when one might get a little tired of doing the same thing over and over again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> I love that question. I was an English teacher for years as well as an elementary school teacher. And I, I think between reflecting on my own teaching experience. And now this research, I had a bit of an aha moment\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>uh, what kept it fresh was watching my students first encounter with it. their moments of awe, I remember a student coming in and we had just finished Taylor two cities, and she came in and she was crying and she was angry and she threw the book down. She had finished the book in the hallway and she said. It’s not supposed to end this way. And I thought, you know, I’ve read this book a dozen times, but for the first time here, she’s experiencing this emotional catharsis of seeing this kind of final sacrifice of the, the protagonist of this book. And, um, you know, that’s a really exciting thing as a teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, I, I write about my freshman year in college ’cause it’s still so transformational to me. I had this professor who took us out of the classroom. He was an education professor, but he took us to the Museum of Fine Arts. He took us to the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum in Boston. And, um. At one point, uh, you know, I, it was several weeks later I was reading, uh, I, I went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner to, to do some homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was cold in Boston. It was a beautiful courtyard. Um, and he ended up capturing a picture of, of me reading something and giving that to me as a gift. This kind of emblem of, you know, me reading a book in an art museum. And I actually kept that picture in my classroom for years as kind of this reminder of a teacher who saw me, a teacher, introduced me to beauty, uh, and that that was the type, even though I didn’t have the word awe for it at the time, it was absolutely what drew me back to that place. Um, and so I knew almost intuitively that that was the emotion that I wanted to connect with, with the students. And so, you know, if I am bored with what I’m teaching, I need to freshen it up a little bit. Um, but it may be that I just. I also need to tune into the kids in front of me in a way that what sparks me is their spark, um, more than the content itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I think what I’m hearing you say is awe is this connective feeling that motivates you, motivates the students, um, and maybe motivates a lot of people to shape their worlds into something different than what they had before or had been expecting for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> I think that’s fair because one of the characteristics of awe is what scientists call the small self, uh, which is when you know. I think about this with teenagers where they, they think everybody’s staring at them. Uh, I think a lot of adults feel that too, right? I, I made a mistake. Everybody’s thinking about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And anything that helps you zoom out and get a broader perspective, uh, is something that can help quiet that kind of internal chatter that we have, um, and just kind of realign. Our understanding of the world and our place in it. And one of my favorite pieces of research, uh, and I, I share this with kids a lot and they love it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Um, it, it was conducted at uc, Berkeley, and there’s a science building, which from the back is really a nondescript brick building. Nothing particularly awe inspiring about that architecture. But if you turn your body around, there’s this grove of, um, old growth trees. And so the researchers had their subjects one by one come out and either face the nondescript brick building or face the beautiful grove of trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then after a span of time, somebody else in the study, unbeknownst to the test subject, wanders by and drops things. And they were measuring like, well, who’s gonna help the stranger pick up their things? And it turns out. At a statistically significant level, those who were staring at the trees, uh, were more likely to help a stranger than those staring at a brick building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what I love about the study is that it’s just, it’s such a metaphor for life in the sense that we can be standing in the exact same place. Right, the same circumstances, but where we direct our gaze, um, what we choose to see also can increase our sense of connectedness, um, to people around us. And one of the other things we know is that, um performing acts of kindness, right? That is a boost to wellbeing as well. Uh, that when somebody is feeling lonely or down or depressed, that acts of service turned out to be a really, really effective and powerful intervention. And so, you know, I. Researchers speculate. Why have we evolved to feel this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because all feelings have functions, right? Disgust is there because we don’t want to eat the rotten chicken and fear motivates us to avoid danger. Uh, so the hypothesis is that awe is designed to help us um be more connected to our communities, um, to kind of bind people toward a common purpose, right? If you know, I, I think about the eclipse and how I was near the path of totality and how the entire neighborhood came out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here we are, the whole neighborhood staring up at the sky together. Like these are moments. Um. You think of all the people who, who go to a World Series game, um, to cheer together that are, are binding us as a community. And those are things that help us with wellbeing and even survival. And so that’s, that’s a hypothesis and it’s, it’s one I, I think we should continue to explore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Deborah, thanks so much for bringing awe to our attention. I hope that just by bringing this topic into the world or sharing it more with a wider audience, that more people create this positive impact to create a better world. It sounds like we’re already on our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Debra Farmer Kris is a child development expert and author of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers, how The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive\u003c/a>.” She’s also a longtime MindShift contributor who’s written a lot about emotion so I encourage you to look up those stories. And she also works for PBS Kids as a show consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also check out her children’s book series “All the Time” and “I See You”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In recent years, educators and academics have studied many aspects of how students learn. The role of grit, resilience and growth mindset, for example, have been closely studied and strategies to develop them widely shared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, the connection between \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/45201/why-emotions-are-integral-to-learning\">emotions and learning\u003c/a> has acquired more attention, as has the role of \u003ca href=\"https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf\">awe in human development\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>K-12 educator Deborah Farmer Kris wrote about the benefits of awe in our daily lives in her book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive,\u003c/a>” and joined the MindShift Podcast to talk about her surprising findings. She also has tips on how to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65520/how-experiencing-wonder-helps-kids-learn\"> cultivate awe in children and adults\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as someone who has taught for two decades, she has advice on what educators can do to find the wonder in subjects they teach several times a day, year over year, to a large number of students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. Today I’m speaking to longtime MindShift contributor Debra Farmer Kris. She’s a child development expert and author of the book, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers: How The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive\u003c/a>.” During the depths of pandemic-era parenting, Deborah Farmer Kris discovered that awe is an often overlooked but powerful emotion. We’ll discuss how parents and educators can use awe to drive engagement with classroom materials and connection with the world around us. That conversation, coming up right after this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Let’s start by diving right into the title of your book, “Raising Awe Seekers.” We hear the word awe and its variations like awesome all the time, but let’s take a step back and have you define for us what awe is and why it’s important for human development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> So first awe is an emotion, and that is important because as an emotion, it is something we can feel, uh, and we can recognize when we’re feeling it. And so when you look at emotions, um, you have kind of your core four, like happy, mad, sad, scared, and you have variations of those. So underneath mad, you might have irate or frustrated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Awe is more of a subset of surprise and a is what you feel when you encounter something that is vast. That is, um, wondrous, that is beyond your ordinary frame of reference. You might see something new that moves you, that touches you, that excites you. And the way researchers often talk about how you know you’re feeling it is things like, uh, chills or goosebumps for some people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, maybe your eyes involuntarily spring you with tears, uh, the sound. Wow. Or whoa, you know, you have somebody choose a half court shot and it goes in and people aren’t saying That was an amazing shot. Now they’re making a all guttural sound of Wow. And I think for children as a, as an educator and as a parent, I would put in that category, this wide eyes that it’s almost like they want to absorb what they’re seeing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The really neat thing about this particular emotion is that there is a wealth of research, uh, about 25 years now, most of it out of the \u003ca href=\"https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/awe\">Greater Good Science Center at University of California Berkeley\u003c/a>,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>and it turns out that, most good things we want for our kids from, uh, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/38260/whats-going-on-inside-the-brain-of-a-curious-child\">curiosity and cognitive development\u003c/a> to a sense of mental and emotional wellness, to a sense of connectedness, awe supports all of those outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> it’s interesting that the research has been out for 25 years or around for 25 years because, you know, we see a lot of different types of behaviors getting academic and media scrutiny, like, you know, the popular ones :grit, resilience, anxiety, growth, mindset, but all doesn’t quite get as much attention. Do you know why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> You know, I think there wasn’t really the popularized book for the moment, you know, \u003ca href=\"https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Awe_FINAL.pdf\">Dacher Keltner\u003c/a>, who’s the main researcher on this, one of the lead ones, a year and a half ago, came out with a \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Awe-Science-Everyday-Wonder-Transform/dp/1984879685\">wonderful book\u003c/a> that has been getting more press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think awe is beginning to have a bit of a moment now. But before then you had to kind of be like me, the, the kind of the nerd looking through the journals and looking through the articles and, you know, I was always kind of, because I write for Mind Shift and other sources on the lookout for good research that could be translated, for teachers and parents. And so while it was there, it really hadn’t had its, um, you know it, it’s social moment yet, and I think hopefully we’re at the beginnings of that right now\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> What does awe have to do with, say, being able to pay attention in class, especially for kids who are overscheduled or have a high amount of screen time?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm. So where awe is really helpful. Academically is that it is highly correlated with curiosity. And one thing we know about curiosity from reams of research is that curiosity is a key indicator of academic success. ’cause it relates to internal motivation. I mean, think about it. You have curious about something, you want to learn it, you’re motivated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, and so the link between awe and curiosity is just really tight because you see something you don’t understand. And awe is often related to this wow moment of, you know, I’m, I’m looking at these stars and I’m wondering, I have these, I, I wish I knew more. And that feeling, that curiosity is what propels kids to, to want to learn. And one of the really cool pieces of research that I describe in the book was that when you’re curious about something, it actually primes the brain to remember things. And I, I think about this often with very young children, how you might have a 4-year-old who can memorize the names of all the dinosaurs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So they might be talking about the diplodocus. But they might be struggling with some of their other more basic vocabulary, but because their interest level is so high, they are primed to remember. And so really deep learning often happens at this intersection of, you know, of focus and interest. And so, um, one of the things they have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers have also found is that when the brain is primed with curiosity on wonder that even say 30 minutes later when you’re engaged in an activity that’s not as interesting, not as awe inspiring, your brain is still primed to learn. And so that gets me thinking about how it maybe a class is organized, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So am I doing something at the beginning of class that’s really capturing the imagination or the wonder, um, or the curiosity of students, uh. To prime their brain to remember something that later in the class may be important, but not necessarily as, um, wondrous for them. And so I think this is an interesting way for us to think about students who may not be as engaged,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they’re not as engaged in everything, can we find the one thing? Can we find the thing that excites them, that sparks that awe, that lights them up, and use that as kind of a foundation for other academic learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I wanna talk about parents real quick. Um, when you talk about wonder, I don’t know if I have time for it, because we’re literally so busy. Um, what is the benefit of making the time to wonder, um, how should I exercise restraint in not wanting to rush, Um, tell me how to restrain myself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> So researching awe has absolutely in subtle but profound ways transformed how I parent my kids, um, partly because it has made me more attentive to the world around me. Many of the sources of awe are deeply tied to our sensory system, so sounds, sight, smells, what we’re taking in. One of the great things about awe that you, you don’t need to go to the Sistine Chapel or the Grand Canyon, that it’s a very everyday ordinary emotion, and it’s more about putting ourselves in, in the path of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So for me as a parent, the first thing I had to do was make sure I was making some space for it myself. And the simplest way I, I did this, um, was by adopting, um, one of the practices from research, which was taking an a walk. Now I have a dog, so I am outside with the dog at least three times a day, usually morning, midday, and evening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I made the decision that one of those. Times I was outside, even for five or 10 minutes, I would not have my phone on, I would not be listening to music. I would just be paying attention. I’d be looking up, uh, I would be looking at the trees. Um, and I, I, I literally call it my awe walk, right? Five minutes a day, 10 minutes a day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I noticed that. Over the course of nearly two years now, this has transformed my relationship with my neighborhood. And I don’t just mean my neighbors, although being outside has helped me connect with them. But the trees, the, the birds who I really didn’t even notice were in the neighborhood. And now I can identify so many of them, the, the changing of the seasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, and then I made the very conscious decision as a parent that when I did notice these things, I was going to be more active about sharing them. Uh, and that means that, you know, if I hear a story that of say a human being kind or brave, which is a key source of awe and wonder. Um, I’m gonna talk to my kids about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, if I see a really beautiful sunset, I am going to be the mom who says, come out and look. Just the other day we were driving home and there was a incredible double rainbow. And I pulled over, I was driving my son home from piano lessons and behind me another parent pulled over with their four or 5-year-old and the two of us were standing out there with our two children in the drizzling rain looking at this gorgeous rainbow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I just, you know, thought this was a moment where it’s gonna take me two minutes longer to get home, but this will be something my child remembers where typically a drive home you don’t remember. so it, it’s really not about the big experience, it’s about the little moments in the day of the song, the what you see, the smell that you pause, you notice, and then you take the next step to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uh, because one of the things I have found slowly over time is that because I do so much sharing of my awe moments, and Itry to just be super authentic in how I do it, because I. Do love sharing and talking to my kids. They are much more likely to share them with me, to tell me their stories or to send me the picture they find or the song they think I will like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so for me, it becomes almost this very authentic way of just sharing our day together and paying attention to what lights me up and what lights my kids up. And yes, that requires a little bit of slowing down, but it doesn’t require. You know, this is gonna be a day of no screens and nothing, or we’re gonna get, take an entirely unplugged vacation for a week, which none of us have the time or resources to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> It’s quite, um. Uh, contrast I think to maybe how our brains are wired to think about only bad things that are very sticky or, um, uh, the worst things that can happen to us. I think a lot of us are just inclined to, um, you know, think negatively, um, and dwell on those things, but seeing the beautiful positive things in the world, um, may also provide a more accurate. Picture or depiction of our daily lives that there are beautiful wonder, wonderful things around us if we just take the time, uh, time to look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yeah, sometimes I describe awe as the ultimate and emotion. So, you know, awe is different than gratitude. Gratitude is actually, um, it can be quite a cerebral. Emotion where you think back and even though in the moment you didn’t appreciate it, now you do and you’re grateful for that. Um, awe is very involuntary emotion, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You see something beautiful, you feel it. And you know, for me, I call it the “and” emotion because you know, I may be having a really tough day and I’m disturbed by something on the news and just before coming up here, Ki, there was this mass of robins, um, outside that was chattering so loudly. I didn’t actually think they were robins because it was midday. And normally they’re not as that loud midday. And I pulled out my Merlin app to see what they were, and I’m watching them hovering. And I’m wondering, like, I actually Googled, like, why would there be the swarm of Robin’s midday? Um, and it was just a, a brief moment where it was. Again, this, you know, the world is difficult. The world is messy. The world is complicated, and people are doing brave, kind, wonderful things every day. And there are artists making incredible works that will move us. And there’s a natural world out there that is. You know, still full of such mystery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it’s not, you know, as somebody would talk about toxic positivity saying, you know, just look on the bright side, it’s more of just acknowledging that you can have a difficult day and, you know, taking a step outside, taking a deep breath and hearing that bird song or getting that text from a friend who brings you a moment of, of, of warmth and kindness. Um, those moments can coexist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> So speaking of bird song or something that has that resonant rhythm, um, you interviewed Dacher Keltner of UC, Berkeley, and he had some advice on finding awe that you wrote about a. In your book, uh, can you read to me what his advice was?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yes, I actually structure it like a poem, uh, in the book. And while I was interviewing him, he was actually out on a walk, which I find quite lovely. And so I said to him, you know, what is your best advice for finding awe? And this is what he said. How do you find awe? You allow unstructured time. How do you find awe?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You wander, you drift through. You take a walk with no aim. How do you find awe? You slow things down. You allow for mystery and open questions rather than test driven answers, you allow people to engage in the humanities of dance and visual art and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That really is beautiful. so let’s break it down a little bit. Uh, you have spent 20 years as a K to 12 teacher. What does awe look like for the different age groups? for elementary years, the middle school years, or maybe even the high school years?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> That’s a great question, and I think to answer this, I, I first need to just very briefly talk about the sources because some of these sources will look different at different ages. So when you think about. General categories where people find awe. You have nature and music, the arts, big questions, big ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uh, that feeling of belonging and this, uh, this life cycle. And of course kinda human goodness. So people being kind and brave, and I think at different ages, different of those take priorities. So, you know, for a 4-year-old, one of the things they’re really driven by are why questions. You know, why is this happening?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, there’s some research. That shows, depending on the source, that four year olds can ask, you know, between kind of 70 and a hundred questions a day. Uh, and if you’re raising a kid that age that may actually feel like, you know, a low estimate, but they’re really trying to understand their world and so they’re constantly asking questions, engaging with their world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so. That’s really exciting and, and in fact, one of the challenges I think for educators and parents are how do you get high schoolers to still want to have that sense of wonder and engagement with their world? You know, when your kids are hitting the, the middle of high school years, the. The wonder of belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, there’s a, an expression from Émile Durkheim called Collective Effervescence. Um, that is really key because they want to be part of a group. And collective effervescence basically means that you’re part of a group that is doing, uh, engaged harmoniously toward a common good cause. And so you might think of a sports team or a choral group, or even a Model UN or d and d or robotics club where people are working together toward this common aim, and that feels really good. Um, so when kids, especially teenagers, don’t find that they’re missing out on a. A source of wonder that they’re actually biologically primed for, because this is an age where they’re pulling away from parents and looking to be part of a peer group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so that becomes a really important thing to help kids navigate. How do you find the in-person, peer group?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Um, I think. You know, for any age group being out in nature, um, engaging with art, finding music that speaks to them and that may change dramatically their musical tastes. Um. Those are all kind of ready-made sources of awe that we can be tapping into as, as teachers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the things I really love about the whole developmental range of childhood is that interest change and that what makes them tick, what lights them up, change, and, um I’ve taught almost every grade K through 12, and really one of my favorites is middle school, partly because it’s such a time of intense change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I think for parents and educators, it can feel tricky when it looks like they are, um, letting go of things that used to make them happy with sources of awe and, and, and wonder for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it might look like they’re just getting jaded or cynical when in fact they’re undergoing a very natural transition into. Perhaps what is going to be the new face. And so being patient with them and kind of going with it and getting curious, um, have practicing some radical curiosity about, okay, so your kid doesn’t really like soccer anymore after all these years on a, you know, soccer squad, but it looks like they might be interested in joining, um, a drama troupe. And so I’m gonna take a deep breath and go with that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Or there might be a sticky time in between where they don’t know who their friend group is and what their interests are. But that is such a great identity formation time, and I feel like awe and wonder are a great tool for parents during that identity formation because if you can start just paying attention to, okay, so what is sparking their interests? What does light them up? What? Where can I see that their eyes did grow wide? And maybe we explore that a little bit. Maybe it sticks, maybe it doesn’t, and that’s okay. But these are all pathways in to mental wellness, emotional wellness, and even academic growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That sounds like great advice and you cited, uh, Benjamin Bloom’s research, I believe, when describing that spark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Yeah\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Um, and parents, you know, encouraging kids along that path. Uh. I do have a question for you, for educators. What amazes me whenever I observe teachers in the classroom is how they can be still enthusiastic teaching the same topic, bringing the sense of awe to 30 different kids six times a day for the many, many years they’ve been teaching. How do awe and wonder continue to exist in a classroom when one might get a little tired of doing the same thing over and over again?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> I love that question. I was an English teacher for years as well as an elementary school teacher. And I, I think between reflecting on my own teaching experience. And now this research, I had a bit of an aha moment\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>uh, what kept it fresh was watching my students first encounter with it. their moments of awe, I remember a student coming in and we had just finished Taylor two cities, and she came in and she was crying and she was angry and she threw the book down. She had finished the book in the hallway and she said. It’s not supposed to end this way. And I thought, you know, I’ve read this book a dozen times, but for the first time here, she’s experiencing this emotional catharsis of seeing this kind of final sacrifice of the, the protagonist of this book. And, um, you know, that’s a really exciting thing as a teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You know, I, I write about my freshman year in college ’cause it’s still so transformational to me. I had this professor who took us out of the classroom. He was an education professor, but he took us to the Museum of Fine Arts. He took us to the Isabella Stewart Garden Museum in Boston. And, um. At one point, uh, you know, I, it was several weeks later I was reading, uh, I, I went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner to, to do some homework.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was cold in Boston. It was a beautiful courtyard. Um, and he ended up capturing a picture of, of me reading something and giving that to me as a gift. This kind of emblem of, you know, me reading a book in an art museum. And I actually kept that picture in my classroom for years as kind of this reminder of a teacher who saw me, a teacher, introduced me to beauty, uh, and that that was the type, even though I didn’t have the word awe for it at the time, it was absolutely what drew me back to that place. Um, and so I knew almost intuitively that that was the emotion that I wanted to connect with, with the students. And so, you know, if I am bored with what I’m teaching, I need to freshen it up a little bit. Um, but it may be that I just. I also need to tune into the kids in front of me in a way that what sparks me is their spark, um, more than the content itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I think what I’m hearing you say is awe is this connective feeling that motivates you, motivates the students, um, and maybe motivates a lot of people to shape their worlds into something different than what they had before or had been expecting for themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> I think that’s fair because one of the characteristics of awe is what scientists call the small self, uh, which is when you know. I think about this with teenagers where they, they think everybody’s staring at them. Uh, I think a lot of adults feel that too, right? I, I made a mistake. Everybody’s thinking about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And anything that helps you zoom out and get a broader perspective, uh, is something that can help quiet that kind of internal chatter that we have, um, and just kind of realign. Our understanding of the world and our place in it. And one of my favorite pieces of research, uh, and I, I share this with kids a lot and they love it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>Um, it, it was conducted at uc, Berkeley, and there’s a science building, which from the back is really a nondescript brick building. Nothing particularly awe inspiring about that architecture. But if you turn your body around, there’s this grove of, um, old growth trees. And so the researchers had their subjects one by one come out and either face the nondescript brick building or face the beautiful grove of trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then after a span of time, somebody else in the study, unbeknownst to the test subject, wanders by and drops things. And they were measuring like, well, who’s gonna help the stranger pick up their things? And it turns out. At a statistically significant level, those who were staring at the trees, uh, were more likely to help a stranger than those staring at a brick building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And what I love about the study is that it’s just, it’s such a metaphor for life in the sense that we can be standing in the exact same place. Right, the same circumstances, but where we direct our gaze, um, what we choose to see also can increase our sense of connectedness, um, to people around us. And one of the other things we know is that, um performing acts of kindness, right? That is a boost to wellbeing as well. Uh, that when somebody is feeling lonely or down or depressed, that acts of service turned out to be a really, really effective and powerful intervention. And so, you know, I. Researchers speculate. Why have we evolved to feel this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because all feelings have functions, right? Disgust is there because we don’t want to eat the rotten chicken and fear motivates us to avoid danger. Uh, so the hypothesis is that awe is designed to help us um be more connected to our communities, um, to kind of bind people toward a common purpose, right? If you know, I, I think about the eclipse and how I was near the path of totality and how the entire neighborhood came out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And here we are, the whole neighborhood staring up at the sky together. Like these are moments. Um. You think of all the people who, who go to a World Series game, um, to cheer together that are, are binding us as a community. And those are things that help us with wellbeing and even survival. And so that’s, that’s a hypothesis and it’s, it’s one I, I think we should continue to explore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Deborah, thanks so much for bringing awe to our attention. I hope that just by bringing this topic into the world or sharing it more with a wider audience, that more people create this positive impact to create a better world. It sounds like we’re already on our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Deborah Farmer Kris :\u003c/strong> Thanks so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Debra Farmer Kris is a child development expert and author of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.teachercreatedmaterials.com/products/raising-awe-seekers-how-the-science-of-wonder-helps-our-kids-thrive-153673\">Raising Awe Seekers, how The Science of Wonder Helps our Kids Thrive\u003c/a>.” She’s also a longtime MindShift contributor who’s written a lot about emotion so I encourage you to look up those stories. And she also works for PBS Kids as a show consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also check out her children’s book series “All the Time” and “I See You”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65821\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1290px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65821\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561.jpg\" alt=\"Teen opening record player with crate of records at his feet.\" width=\"1290\" height=\"2275\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561.jpg 1290w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561-160x282.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561-768x1354.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561-871x1536.jpg 871w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561-1161x2048.jpg 1161w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Student Shane Solis plays a record at The Mix, the teen-only section of the San Francisco Public Library main branch. \u003ccite>(Ki Sung/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public libraries have made significant transformations over the past decade to better serve community needs in the wake of technological and social change. Now, as public school funding faces an uncertain future, how will libraries step in? We’ll talk to some library kids who go to teen-only spaces after school and hear about how librarians are working hard to meet their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3269390167\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, there is a really cool place where teens love to hang out; no parents are allowed. There is no fee for admission but you gotta be checked in. What is this place?\u003cbr>\nIt’s \u003ca href=\"https://sfpl.org/teens/the-mix\">The Mix,\u003c/a> the teen only space inside the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Student Maelynn likes the hands-on activities\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maelynn: \u003c/strong>I just paint a canvas or I make, like, some bracelets, which is really cool to me. And then also, they have, like, video games, which is cool because I love playing Mario Kart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: 14-year-old Adam likes to make online content, after he finishes his homework, of course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adam: \u003c/strong>I just record gameplay sometimes with my voice and it’s really fun because I’m pretty good at it, but and the games I like to play just makes me happy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maelynn: \u003c/strong>Like I don’t ever hear nobody say like oh We’re gonna hang out at library. It’s just be like, oh, I’m gonna hang out at The Mix but also not many people know about The Mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: The Mix has its own entrance on the second floor of the library. Inside there’s everything you can imagine to foster creativity. There’s a room with 3-d printers, sewing machines, mannequins and cabinets full of art supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are two soundproof rooms with instruments where teens can make studio quality music recordings, podcasts or make green screen videos. There are tables for playing games like dungeons and dragons, a “carpet garden” lounge area for chilling or scrolling on phones; nooks with seating for large and small groups; a row of computers for playing video games; and of course bookshelves full of manga.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While I’m there, I see teens occupying every section of The Mix doing activities or just happily hanging out\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On today’s episode of the MindShift Podcast, you’ll hear about how three libraries have transformed their services to create third spaces, that are neither home nor school, where teens can flourish. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: In order to understand The Mix in San Francisco, you have to go back in time to 2009 in Chicago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: That was when Chicago Public Libraries embarked on a bold plan through a program called YOUMedia. It was part of a broader initiative called \u003ca href=\"https://www.macfound.org/programs/pastwork/learning/\">Digital Media and Learning\u003c/a>. YOUMedia was designed to give students access to tech and digital media while in a safe environment with trusted adult mentors. Remember, this was in an era when there were fewer computers with WiFi at home for kids, so having these services at libraries made a lot of sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea was to lean into tech and build a bridge between letting teens do what they want, and making sure teens are in a positive environment. And it was a really new idea at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to teach digital media skills, educators tried a structured curriculum similar to school but found that that wasn’t widely popular with youth.\u003cbr>\nSo they rolled out workshop models that teens could explore at their own pace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eric Brown who helped conduct research about YOUmedia’s impact, explained how staff gets teens to engage with technology, during a 2013 seminar:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Brown:\u003c/strong> they’re not forcing it down your throat. It’s a good place that gives you the option. You can pursue it or you can just chill. And you pursue it when you’re ready. And that’s very much the ethos of teens who go to YOU media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>:The YOUmedia model was so successful that the Chicago Public Library system expanded it to \u003ca href=\"https://www.chipublib.org/programs-and-partnerships/youmedia/\">29 branch locations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other library systems around the country soon followed their example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teens will always keep you on your toes. So being on the look out for what they need is something librarians are always focused on. And in New York, they saw one of those needs emerge recently. Here’s Siva Ramakrishnan, director of young adult services at the New York Public Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Siva Ramakrishnan: \u003c/strong>The pandemic really like brought into sharp relief the need for spaces where teens can build community again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Siva Ramakrishnan: \u003c/strong>After all of that isolation, you know, it was such a difficult and weird and for many teens like traumatic time, right? And so at NYPL, we have done a number of things.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nSiva Ramakrishnan: \u003c/strong>So one is that we have really invested in our spaces. This is kind of a, you know, historically a trend in libraries nationwide is that often there isn’t a space that is actually reserved for teenagers, right? Just historically there might be a general children’s area and that tends to skew, fairly young and adorable, right? But then there’s an adult area, right? And that tends to be very quiet with adults who are like in deep focus, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siva Ramakrishnan: So we have really engaged in work over the past few years in carving out spaces in our libraries that are for teens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: What’s important is that the library isn’t just a space, but offers programming. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nypl.org/blog/2024/05/01/siva-ramakrishnan-and-steven-mahoney-receive-movers-shakers-honor-library-journal\">And in the new york public library’s teen centers, that are in several branches all over the city, they focus on\u003c/a> programs that teach civic engagement, college and career readiness along with cool things like how to run a 3d printer or facilitate a banned book club, or how to organize fashion design boot camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Siva Ramakrishnan:\u003c/strong> We actually see a ton of teens across our libraries. NYPL has like over 90 neighborhood libraries. And like last school year in summer, we saw almost 120,000 teens who chose after a super long day at school to come to the library to their local branch and to participate in an after school program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Critics of teen spaces that focus on things other than literacy can take heart because there’s one really fascinating upside about the teens in New York. According to Ramakrishnan, they’re not only coming to the library more, these teens actually read more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Doreen:\u003c/strong> Hmm, There are so many types of different media that we consume now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: That’s Doreen, a New York Public Library student ambassador whose job is to tutor kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Doreen: \u003c/strong>I think that people perceive reading only as books or physical books. I know a lot of people who read on their Kindles or me personally, I have a heavy book bag. I take my iPad and I download a PDF of my book or my textbook and I read through there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MUSIC\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: It turns out, being IN a library can help facilitate reading even if your original reason for showing up is totally unrelated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Back in San Francisco at The Mix, student library ambassador Shane Macias considers his current relationship with reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shane: \u003c/strong>Like I’ve checked out books and taken books that were there, they get for free. I read them at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: The Mix really reinvented what a library could be to its community. But when it started about a decade ago, the concept behind a teen space also ran counter to a traditional understanding of libraries as a place that houses books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Hannan: \u003c/strong>Some people were against this project in the community and voiced concern, like this sounds like a rec center and a daycare center for teenagers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: That’s Eric Hannan, a librarian who helped start The Mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Hannan: \u003c/strong>And I’ve worked in libraries 35 years, that isn’t what libraries are supposed to do, but often it ends up being part of your job that you have what we used to call latchkey kids in the library after school, they have nowhere to go, both parents working or single parent working, they go chill in the libraries. So they’re gonna be there anyway, so we might as well kind of cater to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: In order to cater to teens, the library got input from them. \u003ca href=\"https://youmedia.org/blog/in-san-francisco-teens-design-a-living-room-for-high-tech-learning-at-the-public-library/\">a board of advising youth (bay) weighed in and designed the San Francisco space around the idea of HoMaGo (ho-mah-go), an acronum for hang out, mess around, geek out. This board got final say on specific aspects of the space\u003c/a> like furniture preferences, programming and they even advocated for a dedicated bathroom in the mix. For Shane, a teen-designed space fits the bill.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nShane:\u003c/strong> I’d say to have space like this is very important because for me, in school and other libraries I’ve went to, I was either stuck with adults or little kids, which wasn’t uncomfortable, but it’s like, I wasn’t around people my age, so it felt really awkward and I guess did feel uncomfortable. It just kind of bothered me why the teens don’t have many places to go. Like, obviously we can go chill at the park or go back home but sometimes maybe we want more, I’d say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: It turns out, as more libraries act as community centers for teens, they are meeting needs that schools, among other institutions, are unable to serve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Hannan: \u003c/strong>The Library has a big role to play in helping teens in particular adapt to stress, stressors in life, be they political or, you know, biological COVID or just developmental. They’re just going through a unique time that is very short in their life, six or seven-ish years. And there’s a lot libraries can do to help ease some of the pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_65821\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1290px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65821\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561.jpg\" alt=\"Teen opening record player with crate of records at his feet.\" width=\"1290\" height=\"2275\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561.jpg 1290w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561-160x282.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561-768x1354.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561-871x1536.jpg 871w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2025/09/IMG_8561-1161x2048.jpg 1161w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Student Shane Solis plays a record at The Mix, the teen-only section of the San Francisco Public Library main branch. \u003ccite>(Ki Sung/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public libraries have made significant transformations over the past decade to better serve community needs in the wake of technological and social change. Now, as public school funding faces an uncertain future, how will libraries step in? We’ll talk to some library kids who go to teen-only spaces after school and hear about how librarians are working hard to meet their needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3269390167\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, there is a really cool place where teens love to hang out; no parents are allowed. There is no fee for admission but you gotta be checked in. What is this place?\u003cbr>\nIt’s \u003ca href=\"https://sfpl.org/teens/the-mix\">The Mix,\u003c/a> the teen only space inside the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Student Maelynn likes the hands-on activities\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maelynn: \u003c/strong>I just paint a canvas or I make, like, some bracelets, which is really cool to me. And then also, they have, like, video games, which is cool because I love playing Mario Kart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: 14-year-old Adam likes to make online content, after he finishes his homework, of course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Adam: \u003c/strong>I just record gameplay sometimes with my voice and it’s really fun because I’m pretty good at it, but and the games I like to play just makes me happy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maelynn: \u003c/strong>Like I don’t ever hear nobody say like oh We’re gonna hang out at library. It’s just be like, oh, I’m gonna hang out at The Mix but also not many people know about The Mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: The Mix has its own entrance on the second floor of the library. Inside there’s everything you can imagine to foster creativity. There’s a room with 3-d printers, sewing machines, mannequins and cabinets full of art supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are two soundproof rooms with instruments where teens can make studio quality music recordings, podcasts or make green screen videos. There are tables for playing games like dungeons and dragons, a “carpet garden” lounge area for chilling or scrolling on phones; nooks with seating for large and small groups; a row of computers for playing video games; and of course bookshelves full of manga.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While I’m there, I see teens occupying every section of The Mix doing activities or just happily hanging out\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On today’s episode of the MindShift Podcast, you’ll hear about how three libraries have transformed their services to create third spaces, that are neither home nor school, where teens can flourish. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: In order to understand The Mix in San Francisco, you have to go back in time to 2009 in Chicago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: That was when Chicago Public Libraries embarked on a bold plan through a program called YOUMedia. It was part of a broader initiative called \u003ca href=\"https://www.macfound.org/programs/pastwork/learning/\">Digital Media and Learning\u003c/a>. YOUMedia was designed to give students access to tech and digital media while in a safe environment with trusted adult mentors. Remember, this was in an era when there were fewer computers with WiFi at home for kids, so having these services at libraries made a lot of sense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea was to lean into tech and build a bridge between letting teens do what they want, and making sure teens are in a positive environment. And it was a really new idea at the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to teach digital media skills, educators tried a structured curriculum similar to school but found that that wasn’t widely popular with youth.\u003cbr>\nSo they rolled out workshop models that teens could explore at their own pace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eric Brown who helped conduct research about YOUmedia’s impact, explained how staff gets teens to engage with technology, during a 2013 seminar:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Brown:\u003c/strong> they’re not forcing it down your throat. It’s a good place that gives you the option. You can pursue it or you can just chill. And you pursue it when you’re ready. And that’s very much the ethos of teens who go to YOU media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>:The YOUmedia model was so successful that the Chicago Public Library system expanded it to \u003ca href=\"https://www.chipublib.org/programs-and-partnerships/youmedia/\">29 branch locations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other library systems around the country soon followed their example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But teens will always keep you on your toes. So being on the look out for what they need is something librarians are always focused on. And in New York, they saw one of those needs emerge recently. Here’s Siva Ramakrishnan, director of young adult services at the New York Public Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Siva Ramakrishnan: \u003c/strong>The pandemic really like brought into sharp relief the need for spaces where teens can build community again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Siva Ramakrishnan: \u003c/strong>After all of that isolation, you know, it was such a difficult and weird and for many teens like traumatic time, right? And so at NYPL, we have done a number of things.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nSiva Ramakrishnan: \u003c/strong>So one is that we have really invested in our spaces. This is kind of a, you know, historically a trend in libraries nationwide is that often there isn’t a space that is actually reserved for teenagers, right? Just historically there might be a general children’s area and that tends to skew, fairly young and adorable, right? But then there’s an adult area, right? And that tends to be very quiet with adults who are like in deep focus, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siva Ramakrishnan: So we have really engaged in work over the past few years in carving out spaces in our libraries that are for teens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: What’s important is that the library isn’t just a space, but offers programming. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nypl.org/blog/2024/05/01/siva-ramakrishnan-and-steven-mahoney-receive-movers-shakers-honor-library-journal\">And in the new york public library’s teen centers, that are in several branches all over the city, they focus on\u003c/a> programs that teach civic engagement, college and career readiness along with cool things like how to run a 3d printer or facilitate a banned book club, or how to organize fashion design boot camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Siva Ramakrishnan:\u003c/strong> We actually see a ton of teens across our libraries. NYPL has like over 90 neighborhood libraries. And like last school year in summer, we saw almost 120,000 teens who chose after a super long day at school to come to the library to their local branch and to participate in an after school program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Critics of teen spaces that focus on things other than literacy can take heart because there’s one really fascinating upside about the teens in New York. According to Ramakrishnan, they’re not only coming to the library more, these teens actually read more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Doreen:\u003c/strong> Hmm, There are so many types of different media that we consume now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: That’s Doreen, a New York Public Library student ambassador whose job is to tutor kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Doreen: \u003c/strong>I think that people perceive reading only as books or physical books. I know a lot of people who read on their Kindles or me personally, I have a heavy book bag. I take my iPad and I download a PDF of my book or my textbook and I read through there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>MUSIC\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: It turns out, being IN a library can help facilitate reading even if your original reason for showing up is totally unrelated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Back in San Francisco at The Mix, student library ambassador Shane Macias considers his current relationship with reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shane: \u003c/strong>Like I’ve checked out books and taken books that were there, they get for free. I read them at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: The Mix really reinvented what a library could be to its community. But when it started about a decade ago, the concept behind a teen space also ran counter to a traditional understanding of libraries as a place that houses books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Hannan: \u003c/strong>Some people were against this project in the community and voiced concern, like this sounds like a rec center and a daycare center for teenagers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: That’s Eric Hannan, a librarian who helped start The Mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Hannan: \u003c/strong>And I’ve worked in libraries 35 years, that isn’t what libraries are supposed to do, but often it ends up being part of your job that you have what we used to call latchkey kids in the library after school, they have nowhere to go, both parents working or single parent working, they go chill in the libraries. So they’re gonna be there anyway, so we might as well kind of cater to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: In order to cater to teens, the library got input from them. \u003ca href=\"https://youmedia.org/blog/in-san-francisco-teens-design-a-living-room-for-high-tech-learning-at-the-public-library/\">a board of advising youth (bay) weighed in and designed the San Francisco space around the idea of HoMaGo (ho-mah-go), an acronum for hang out, mess around, geek out. This board got final say on specific aspects of the space\u003c/a> like furniture preferences, programming and they even advocated for a dedicated bathroom in the mix. For Shane, a teen-designed space fits the bill.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nShane:\u003c/strong> I’d say to have space like this is very important because for me, in school and other libraries I’ve went to, I was either stuck with adults or little kids, which wasn’t uncomfortable, but it’s like, I wasn’t around people my age, so it felt really awkward and I guess did feel uncomfortable. It just kind of bothered me why the teens don’t have many places to go. Like, obviously we can go chill at the park or go back home but sometimes maybe we want more, I’d say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: It turns out, as more libraries act as community centers for teens, they are meeting needs that schools, among other institutions, are unable to serve.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Hannan: \u003c/strong>The Library has a big role to play in helping teens in particular adapt to stress, stressors in life, be they political or, you know, biological COVID or just developmental. They’re just going through a unique time that is very short in their life, six or seven-ish years. And there’s a lot libraries can do to help ease some of the pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/view/historyfrogedu/home\">Karalee Wong Nakatsuka\u003c/a> has been a history teacher at the same middle school in Arcadia – a community with a population that’s \u003ca href=\"https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0602462-arcadia-ca/\">57% Asian\u003c/a> – since 1990. She had felt well-versed in American history throughout much of her career, but it wasn’t until a pivotal year in the lives of so many that she developed an even deeper understanding of Asian American history: 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spread of COVID-19 and the anti-China sentiment that ensued spilled over to Asian Americans. There was also the murder of George Floyd, which was enabled by an Asian American police \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/officer-who-stood-george-floyd-died-asian-american-we-need-n1221311\">officer\u003c/a>. Asian elders were being targeted with violence, including one 84-year-old man who was \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/12/966940217/anger-and-fear-as-asian-american-seniors-targeted-in-bay-area-attacks\">pushed\u003c/a> to his death. In 2021, six women of Asian descent were killed in the Atlanta spa shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4056354895\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lack of understanding of the Asian American experience propelled Nakatsuka to contribute to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gilderlehrman.org/professional-development/summer-pd/neh-summer-institute/pacific-crossings-asian-american-pacific-islander-histories\">summer program\u003c/a> to help 36 middle and high school teachers teach the richness of AAPI history. The program became a welcome resource, especially for Asian American students who were not learning about AAPI history at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen to the latest episode of the MindShift podcast to learn about how students are learning about the broader contributions of Asian Americans and their activism and what that means for civic engagement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4056354895\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Today, I want to take you to a middle school in a Los Angeles suburb so you can meet Karalee Wong Nakatsuka, an 8th grade history teacher at First Avenue Middle School. I visited back in May, which marked the beginning of a very special month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Morning. Happy AANHPI Heritage Month. No Phones!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Ms. Nakatsuka, greeting students at the door, was especially enthusiastic for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I’ve known her for about a year now, and let me tell you she is very passionate about her work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, we’re talking about citizenship and remember Joanne Furman says citizenship is about belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>This lesson is about a Chinese American man named Wong Kim Ark. Before this year, most people hadn’t heard of him. But anyone born in the United States over the past 127 years – has him and the 14th amendment to thank for U.S. citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Wong Kim Ark was born of Chinese immigrants. And he says, I am an American, right? And they’re challenged, they test him whether or not he can be in America. And what do they say? They say no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Wong, with the support of the Chinese community in San Francisco, fought for HIS AND their right to citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>But he challenges it, goes to the Supreme Court, and they say what? Yes, you are an American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>But Asian Americans like Wong Kim Ark, and their activism, are rarely remembered. Students may spend a lot of time on social media, but he doesn’t pop up on anyone’s feed. I asked some of Karalee’s students about times they’ve discussed AAPI history outside of her class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>I think in seventh grade I might have like heard the term once or twice,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong> I never really like understood it. I think the first time I actually started learning about it was in Ms. Nakatsuka’s class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>Like, we did Black history, obviously, and white history. And then also Native American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student:\u003c/strong> I think in Virginia when I grew up, I was surrounded by like an all white school and we did learn a lot about, like slavery and Black history but we never learned about anything like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> These students are surrounded by information because they have phones and have social media. But AAPI history? That’s a tougher subject to learn about. Even in their Asian American families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>My parents immigrated here and I was born in India. I feel like overall, we just never really have the chance to talk about other races and AAPI history. We just are more secluded, so that’s why it was for me a big deal when we actually started learning about more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Coming up, what inspired one teacher to speak up about AAPI History. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Karalee Nakatsuka has been teaching history since 1990, and brings her own personal history to the subject.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chinese exclusion is my jam, because when my grandfather came, he was a paper son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Meaning, he came to this country by asserting that he was a relative of someone already in the United States. Up until the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, specific immigrant groups weren’t targeted by exclusionary laws – anyone who showed up in this country just did so. But laws specifically excluding people of Chinese descent made impossible things like civic participation, justice, police protection, fair wages, home ownership. Adding to that, there were racist killings and calls for mass deportations all fanned by the media, pitting low wage workers against one another –\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>I, myself, because I didn’t understand history as well as I hope I understand it better now, like I’m talking with my students, like seeing the patterns, remembering– I mean, I’ve been teaching Chinese exclusion, I think probably from the beginning, but then connecting those lines and connecting to the present, that these view of the perpetual foreigners, view of yellow peril, these attitudes are still there and it’s really hard to shake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Despite her family history, Nakatsuka didn’t just learn how to teach AAPI history overnight. She didn’t instinctively know how to do this. It required professional development and a professional network – something she acquired only in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several programs throughout the country that will train teachers on certain eras of US history – the early colonial period, the American revolution, the civil rights movement. However…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong:\u003c/strong> The reality is there’s very little training in Asian American history generally,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That’s Jane Hong, a professor of history at Occidental College.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong :\u003c/strong> When you get to Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander histories, there’s even less training and even fewer opportunities and resources I think, for teachers, especially teachers outside of Hawaii, kind of the West, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>For context about her own school experience, Professor Hong grew up in a vibrant Asian American community on the East Coast\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I don’t think I learned any Asian American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I did take AP US History. The AP US history exam does cover the kind of greatest hits version of Asian American history so the Chinese Exclusion Act Japanese American incarceration and that might be it right it’s really those two topics and then sometimes right the Spanish American War and so the US colonization of the Philippines but even those topics don’t go really deep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Last year, she hosted a two-week training for about 36 middle and high school teachers on how to teach AAPI history. It was held at Occidental College as a pilot program. So, Why did she develop this program?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers, like students, benefit from having a facilitated experience when learning about any topic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> In Hong’s training, teaching strategies are taught alongside history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teachers read books, visited historic sites and watched sections of documentary films, such as “Free Chol Soo Lee.” The documentary is about a wrongly convicted Korean American man whom police insisted was a Chinatown gang member in the 1970s. The documentary is also about the Asian American activism that helped eventually free him from prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teacher Karalee Nakatsuka helped as a master teacher in Hong’s training. She realized she needed something like this after a pivotal year in the lives of so many: 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>While the murder of George Floyd sparked a racial reckoning, AAPI hate was steeply rising. Asian Americans were blamed for COVID, Asian elders were pushed violently on sidewalks, sometimes to their death. Others onto subway tracks and killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>My kids were, during the pandemic, someone yelled Wuhan at them when they were in the store with my husband, with their dad, and like, I thought we were in a very safe neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And then, the Atlanta spa shootings happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsclip sound\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>In March 2021, A white gunman killed 8 people, 6 of them women of Asian descent. Investigators said the killings weren’t racially motivated, but that’s not how Asian American women perceived it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And across the country, all these teachers across, because I had met these really, really cool people important people, history people, civics people, and they reached out to me from across the country saying, are you okay? And I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m okay. You should reach out to your other AAPI folks.” But then I was… I was like, I’m not okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>After a series of exchanges with professional friends, Karalee took action. She became more visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> This is not normal Karalee. This is what Karalee normally does. But I felt so compelled to use my voice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>She also became more outspoken about her experience. Like on the Let’s K12 Better Podcast with host Amber Coleman Mortley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amber Coleman Mortley:\u003c/strong> Does anyone else I just want to jump in on the question that I had posed or.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> I’ll speak up. When you say empathy, that’s like one of my favorite words. And that’s huge because after Atlanta, people, it’s just all these wounds that we’ve had that have been festering that we don’t look at. I mean that as Asians, we are like taught, put your head down and just do everything and do it the best, do it better, because we always have to prove ourselves. And so we just live our lives and that’s just how it is. But we’ve been really introspective. And we’ve suffered microaggressions and harms and we just kind of keep on going. But after Atlanta, we’re like, maybe we need to speak up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And there was a letter written to colleagues – which a lot of Asian American women did at the time – in an attempt for understanding from their community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>…and I said, I just want to let you know what it’s like to be Asian- American during this time. And if I read that letter now, it feels very personal, it feels very raw and sharing just experiences of getting the wrong report card for my kid because they’re giving it to the Asian parent or my You know, different things, people mixing up Asian American people. So all those things came together to just make me feel like, hey, I need to respond. So also in my classroom, I said I need to, I need to teach anti-Asian hate. And these are all things that I don’t remember being formally taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Karalee’s passion for AAPI history soon got an even bigger audience. She was already a Gilda Lehrman California history teacher of the year. But then she spoke out at more conferences and webinars and ran a professional community. She was featured in the New York Times and Time Magazine. She wrote a book called “Bringing History and Civics to Life,” which centers student empathy in lessons about people in American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Back in her classroom, history from the 1800s feels contemporary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Okay, so in the 1870s, what is the attitude towards the Chinese after the railroad is already built? They’re villains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> They’re villains. What else? They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking over our country. We don’t want them, right? And as a result of this anti-Chinese sentiment from across the country, they decide, okay, we’re going to exclude the Chinese. So 1882, Chinese Exclusion Act. All Chinese are excluded. But was the 14th Amendment still written in 1882? Yeah, it was written in 1868. So what do we do about that birthright citizenship thing? And they challenge it under Wong Kim Ark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The 1800s is relevant again because of the executive order signed by President Trump in his second term to redefine birthright citizenship. This executive order is making its way through the courts right now AND upends the 127-year old application of birthright citizenship as granting U.S. citizenship to individuals born within the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nakatsuka uses the news to make history more relatable through an exercise. She starts by showing slides and video clips to help explain the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> On his first day in office, President Donald Trump sent an executive order to end universal birthright citizenship and limit it at birth to people with at least one parent who is a permanent resident or citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>The president wants to grant citizenship based on the parents’ immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Trump’s move could upend a 120-year-old Supreme Court precedent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Nakasutka has the students apply the executive order to real or fictitious people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Get out your post-it notes and look at what Trump is saying about who is allowed to be in America\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>She then asks her students to write down those names, while she takes a poster and draws two columns: a “yes” column and a “no” column.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>So if according to the Trump order, your person can be in America, that’s a yes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Would that person be a citizen under the executive order? Or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And according to His executive order, your person would not be, they have to have one parent who’s a permanent resident or citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>The students discuss among themselves the people they chose and what category they fall into. Then, while the students start putting their Post-it notes in the yes or no columns, Nakatsuka shares insights about herself about who in her family would be considered a citizen under the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>So a lot of no’s are like my mom, like my mom wouldn’t have been able to be a citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Does this order affect us? Yeah, it does. I mean it depends on people that you that you that you chose, right? so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump, Trump’s birthright order, if it was back when my mom was being born, my all my uncles and aunties wouldn’t be here, then I wouldn’t be here if they weren’t allowed to be citizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Nakatsuka reminds them about the central question in this activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>You might know some friends, it might be your parents, right? And so that birthright citizen order is just like how we looked at the past. Who’s allowed to be here, who’s not allowed to be here? Who belongs in America, who is part of the we? Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Some of the students’ post-its under the NOs, as in, no, they wouldn’t be citizens under the executive order are “mom,” “dad,” “My friends” and “Wong Kim Ark.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the root of this lesson in history, though, is a lesson students can apply every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Alright, so citizenship is about belonging. What kind of America do we want to be? And we’ve been talking about that from the beginning, right? In the beginning , who is the we?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Learning about AAPI history has broader implications, Here’s professor Jane Hong again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong:\u003c/strong> Because of Asian American’s very specific history of being excluded from US citizenship, learning how much it took for folks to be able to engage kind of in the political process but also just in society more generally, knowing that history I would hope would inspire them to take advantage of the the rights and the privileges that they do have knowing how many people have fought and died for their right to do so like for me that that’s one of the most kind of weighty and important lessons of US history\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And this understanding isn’t just about AAPI history, but all American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I think the more you understand about your own history and where you fit into kind of larger American society, the more likely it is that you will feel some kind of connection and desire to engage in like what you might call civic society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>About a dozen states have requirements to make AAPI history part of the curriculum in K-12 schools. If you’re looking for ways to learn more about AAPI history, Jane Hong has a couple of resources for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>One docuseries that I always recommend is the Asian-Americans docuseries on PBS. It’s five episodes, covers a long expanse of Asian-American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Her second resource recommendation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>The AAPI multimedia textbook that’s published and being published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. It is a massive enterprise with really dozens and dozens of historians, scholars from across the United States and the world. It’s peer reviewed, so everything that’s written by folks is peer reviewed by other experts in the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> For Jane and others committed to Asian American Pacific Islander history, the hope is that the complexity of American history is better understood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. This episode was made possible by the Stuart Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/view/historyfrogedu/home\">Karalee Wong Nakatsuka\u003c/a> has been a history teacher at the same middle school in Arcadia – a community with a population that’s \u003ca href=\"https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0602462-arcadia-ca/\">57% Asian\u003c/a> – since 1990. She had felt well-versed in American history throughout much of her career, but it wasn’t until a pivotal year in the lives of so many that she developed an even deeper understanding of Asian American history: 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The spread of COVID-19 and the anti-China sentiment that ensued spilled over to Asian Americans. There was also the murder of George Floyd, which was enabled by an Asian American police \u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/officer-who-stood-george-floyd-died-asian-american-we-need-n1221311\">officer\u003c/a>. Asian elders were being targeted with violence, including one 84-year-old man who was \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/02/12/966940217/anger-and-fear-as-asian-american-seniors-targeted-in-bay-area-attacks\">pushed\u003c/a> to his death. In 2021, six women of Asian descent were killed in the Atlanta spa shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4056354895\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lack of understanding of the Asian American experience propelled Nakatsuka to contribute to a \u003ca href=\"https://www.gilderlehrman.org/professional-development/summer-pd/neh-summer-institute/pacific-crossings-asian-american-pacific-islander-histories\">summer program\u003c/a> to help 36 middle and high school teachers teach the richness of AAPI history. The program became a welcome resource, especially for Asian American students who were not learning about AAPI history at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Listen to the latest episode of the MindShift podcast to learn about how students are learning about the broader contributions of Asian Americans and their activism and what that means for civic engagement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4056354895\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Today, I want to take you to a middle school in a Los Angeles suburb so you can meet Karalee Wong Nakatsuka, an 8th grade history teacher at First Avenue Middle School. I visited back in May, which marked the beginning of a very special month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Morning. Happy AANHPI Heritage Month. No Phones!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Ms. Nakatsuka, greeting students at the door, was especially enthusiastic for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I’ve known her for about a year now, and let me tell you she is very passionate about her work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, we’re talking about citizenship and remember Joanne Furman says citizenship is about belonging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>This lesson is about a Chinese American man named Wong Kim Ark. Before this year, most people hadn’t heard of him. But anyone born in the United States over the past 127 years – has him and the 14th amendment to thank for U.S. citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Wong Kim Ark was born of Chinese immigrants. And he says, I am an American, right? And they’re challenged, they test him whether or not he can be in America. And what do they say? They say no.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Wong, with the support of the Chinese community in San Francisco, fought for HIS AND their right to citizenship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>But he challenges it, goes to the Supreme Court, and they say what? Yes, you are an American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>But Asian Americans like Wong Kim Ark, and their activism, are rarely remembered. Students may spend a lot of time on social media, but he doesn’t pop up on anyone’s feed. I asked some of Karalee’s students about times they’ve discussed AAPI history outside of her class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>I think in seventh grade I might have like heard the term once or twice,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong> I never really like understood it. I think the first time I actually started learning about it was in Ms. Nakatsuka’s class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>Like, we did Black history, obviously, and white history. And then also Native American.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student:\u003c/strong> I think in Virginia when I grew up, I was surrounded by like an all white school and we did learn a lot about, like slavery and Black history but we never learned about anything like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> These students are surrounded by information because they have phones and have social media. But AAPI history? That’s a tougher subject to learn about. Even in their Asian American families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Student: \u003c/strong>My parents immigrated here and I was born in India. I feel like overall, we just never really have the chance to talk about other races and AAPI history. We just are more secluded, so that’s why it was for me a big deal when we actually started learning about more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Coming up, what inspired one teacher to speak up about AAPI History. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Karalee Nakatsuka has been teaching history since 1990, and brings her own personal history to the subject.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chinese exclusion is my jam, because when my grandfather came, he was a paper son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Meaning, he came to this country by asserting that he was a relative of someone already in the United States. Up until the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, specific immigrant groups weren’t targeted by exclusionary laws – anyone who showed up in this country just did so. But laws specifically excluding people of Chinese descent made impossible things like civic participation, justice, police protection, fair wages, home ownership. Adding to that, there were racist killings and calls for mass deportations all fanned by the media, pitting low wage workers against one another –\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>I, myself, because I didn’t understand history as well as I hope I understand it better now, like I’m talking with my students, like seeing the patterns, remembering– I mean, I’ve been teaching Chinese exclusion, I think probably from the beginning, but then connecting those lines and connecting to the present, that these view of the perpetual foreigners, view of yellow peril, these attitudes are still there and it’s really hard to shake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Despite her family history, Nakatsuka didn’t just learn how to teach AAPI history overnight. She didn’t instinctively know how to do this. It required professional development and a professional network – something she acquired only in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are several programs throughout the country that will train teachers on certain eras of US history – the early colonial period, the American revolution, the civil rights movement. However…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong:\u003c/strong> The reality is there’s very little training in Asian American history generally,\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> That’s Jane Hong, a professor of history at Occidental College.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong :\u003c/strong> When you get to Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander histories, there’s even less training and even fewer opportunities and resources I think, for teachers, especially teachers outside of Hawaii, kind of the West, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>For context about her own school experience, Professor Hong grew up in a vibrant Asian American community on the East Coast\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I don’t think I learned any Asian American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I did take AP US History. The AP US history exam does cover the kind of greatest hits version of Asian American history so the Chinese Exclusion Act Japanese American incarceration and that might be it right it’s really those two topics and then sometimes right the Spanish American War and so the US colonization of the Philippines but even those topics don’t go really deep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Last year, she hosted a two-week training for about 36 middle and high school teachers on how to teach AAPI history. It was held at Occidental College as a pilot program. So, Why did she develop this program?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers, like students, benefit from having a facilitated experience when learning about any topic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> In Hong’s training, teaching strategies are taught alongside history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The teachers read books, visited historic sites and watched sections of documentary films, such as “Free Chol Soo Lee.” The documentary is about a wrongly convicted Korean American man whom police insisted was a Chinatown gang member in the 1970s. The documentary is also about the Asian American activism that helped eventually free him from prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teacher Karalee Nakatsuka helped as a master teacher in Hong’s training. She realized she needed something like this after a pivotal year in the lives of so many: 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>While the murder of George Floyd sparked a racial reckoning, AAPI hate was steeply rising. Asian Americans were blamed for COVID, Asian elders were pushed violently on sidewalks, sometimes to their death. Others onto subway tracks and killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>My kids were, during the pandemic, someone yelled Wuhan at them when they were in the store with my husband, with their dad, and like, I thought we were in a very safe neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And then, the Atlanta spa shootings happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsclip sound\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>In March 2021, A white gunman killed 8 people, 6 of them women of Asian descent. Investigators said the killings weren’t racially motivated, but that’s not how Asian American women perceived it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And across the country, all these teachers across, because I had met these really, really cool people important people, history people, civics people, and they reached out to me from across the country saying, are you okay? And I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m okay. You should reach out to your other AAPI folks.” But then I was… I was like, I’m not okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>After a series of exchanges with professional friends, Karalee took action. She became more visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> This is not normal Karalee. This is what Karalee normally does. But I felt so compelled to use my voice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>She also became more outspoken about her experience. Like on the Let’s K12 Better Podcast with host Amber Coleman Mortley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Amber Coleman Mortley:\u003c/strong> Does anyone else I just want to jump in on the question that I had posed or.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> I’ll speak up. When you say empathy, that’s like one of my favorite words. And that’s huge because after Atlanta, people, it’s just all these wounds that we’ve had that have been festering that we don’t look at. I mean that as Asians, we are like taught, put your head down and just do everything and do it the best, do it better, because we always have to prove ourselves. And so we just live our lives and that’s just how it is. But we’ve been really introspective. And we’ve suffered microaggressions and harms and we just kind of keep on going. But after Atlanta, we’re like, maybe we need to speak up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And there was a letter written to colleagues – which a lot of Asian American women did at the time – in an attempt for understanding from their community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>…and I said, I just want to let you know what it’s like to be Asian- American during this time. And if I read that letter now, it feels very personal, it feels very raw and sharing just experiences of getting the wrong report card for my kid because they’re giving it to the Asian parent or my You know, different things, people mixing up Asian American people. So all those things came together to just make me feel like, hey, I need to respond. So also in my classroom, I said I need to, I need to teach anti-Asian hate. And these are all things that I don’t remember being formally taught.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Karalee’s passion for AAPI history soon got an even bigger audience. She was already a Gilda Lehrman California history teacher of the year. But then she spoke out at more conferences and webinars and ran a professional community. She was featured in the New York Times and Time Magazine. She wrote a book called “Bringing History and Civics to Life,” which centers student empathy in lessons about people in American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Back in her classroom, history from the 1800s feels contemporary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Okay, so in the 1870s, what is the attitude towards the Chinese after the railroad is already built? They’re villains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> They’re villains. What else? They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking over our country. We don’t want them, right? And as a result of this anti-Chinese sentiment from across the country, they decide, okay, we’re going to exclude the Chinese. So 1882, Chinese Exclusion Act. All Chinese are excluded. But was the 14th Amendment still written in 1882? Yeah, it was written in 1868. So what do we do about that birthright citizenship thing? And they challenge it under Wong Kim Ark.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The 1800s is relevant again because of the executive order signed by President Trump in his second term to redefine birthright citizenship. This executive order is making its way through the courts right now AND upends the 127-year old application of birthright citizenship as granting U.S. citizenship to individuals born within the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nakatsuka uses the news to make history more relatable through an exercise. She starts by showing slides and video clips to help explain the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka:\u003c/strong> On his first day in office, President Donald Trump sent an executive order to end universal birthright citizenship and limit it at birth to people with at least one parent who is a permanent resident or citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>The president wants to grant citizenship based on the parents’ immigration status.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Trump’s move could upend a 120-year-old Supreme Court precedent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Nakasutka has the students apply the executive order to real or fictitious people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Get out your post-it notes and look at what Trump is saying about who is allowed to be in America\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>She then asks her students to write down those names, while she takes a poster and draws two columns: a “yes” column and a “no” column.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>So if according to the Trump order, your person can be in America, that’s a yes\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Would that person be a citizen under the executive order? Or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>And according to His executive order, your person would not be, they have to have one parent who’s a permanent resident or citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>The students discuss among themselves the people they chose and what category they fall into. Then, while the students start putting their Post-it notes in the yes or no columns, Nakatsuka shares insights about herself about who in her family would be considered a citizen under the executive order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>So a lot of no’s are like my mom, like my mom wouldn’t have been able to be a citizen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Does this order affect us? Yeah, it does. I mean it depends on people that you that you that you chose, right? so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump, Trump’s birthright order, if it was back when my mom was being born, my all my uncles and aunties wouldn’t be here, then I wouldn’t be here if they weren’t allowed to be citizens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Nakatsuka reminds them about the central question in this activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>You might know some friends, it might be your parents, right? And so that birthright citizen order is just like how we looked at the past. Who’s allowed to be here, who’s not allowed to be here? Who belongs in America, who is part of the we? Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Some of the students’ post-its under the NOs, as in, no, they wouldn’t be citizens under the executive order are “mom,” “dad,” “My friends” and “Wong Kim Ark.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the root of this lesson in history, though, is a lesson students can apply every day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Karalee Nakatsuka: \u003c/strong>Alright, so citizenship is about belonging. What kind of America do we want to be? And we’ve been talking about that from the beginning, right? In the beginning , who is the we?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Learning about AAPI history has broader implications, Here’s professor Jane Hong again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong:\u003c/strong> Because of Asian American’s very specific history of being excluded from US citizenship, learning how much it took for folks to be able to engage kind of in the political process but also just in society more generally, knowing that history I would hope would inspire them to take advantage of the the rights and the privileges that they do have knowing how many people have fought and died for their right to do so like for me that that’s one of the most kind of weighty and important lessons of US history\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And this understanding isn’t just about AAPI history, but all American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>I think the more you understand about your own history and where you fit into kind of larger American society, the more likely it is that you will feel some kind of connection and desire to engage in like what you might call civic society.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>About a dozen states have requirements to make AAPI history part of the curriculum in K-12 schools. If you’re looking for ways to learn more about AAPI history, Jane Hong has a couple of resources for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>One docuseries that I always recommend is the Asian-Americans docuseries on PBS. It’s five episodes, covers a long expanse of Asian-American history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Her second resource recommendation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jane Hong: \u003c/strong>The AAPI multimedia textbook that’s published and being published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. It is a massive enterprise with really dozens and dozens of historians, scholars from across the United States and the world. It’s peer reviewed, so everything that’s written by folks is peer reviewed by other experts in the field.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> For Jane and others committed to Asian American Pacific Islander history, the hope is that the complexity of American history is better understood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson-Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Jen Chien is our head of podcasts. Katie Sprenger is podcast operations manager and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor in chief. We receive additional support from Maha Sanad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. This episode was made possible by the Stuart Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening to MindShift.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jessica Lifshitz noticed a shift in the writing stamina of her fifth graders in recent years. Students weren’t connecting to text-heavy personal narratives in the way that they used to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She couldn’t pinpoint the reason for this steady decline in writing stamina, but the disconnect was clear. “Our kids are just having a harder time writing longer pieces compared to what they used to be able to do,” said Lifshitz, who has been teaching for 21 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking at examples of writing and storytelling is an important element of building students’ literacy and writing skills. Since her students were struggling with the existing material, she decided to do something different: have her students rely on themselves and their voices for that narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, Lifshitz decided to introduce the first writing unit of the year using “\u003ca href=\"https://themoth.org/\">The Moth\u003c/a>,” the popular podcast, public radio program and event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students spent six weeks listening to, watching, developing, writing and eventually recording their own stories. The unit was a success; it sparked the young readers’ and writers’ storytelling abilities and offered lessons in empathy, courage and multi-modal literacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We certainly practice [responding to prompts about short readings] in other ways, but I also wanted to just bring the joy of storytelling back to kids,” said Lifshitz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an age where writing in school is often focused on fulfilling standardized test requirements, personal narrative writing units can offer a more personalized approach to literacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Personal Narrative Unit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lifshitz starts the unit by introducing her students to examples of personal narratives from The Moth’s archives. The fifth graders then sample more of the pre-approved stories on their own. As the students listened to the stories, watched the videos and read the transcripts, they worked on annotating the text and answered questions like: What is this story about? How can this story help others?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then students brainstormed stories from their own lives and shared these stories with their peers. Lifshitz said the energy from her students during the brainstorming was palpable and resulted in stories with titles like, “When Petsitting Goes Wrong,” “The Hardest Math Problem” and “Grandpa and Grandma Day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once each student landed on a story they wanted to develop further, they mapped them out using a graphic organizer and studied four storytelling strategies. “Snapshots” describe in detail things that could be seen; “Thought-shots” describe the thoughts and emotions that the writer was experiencing; “Exploding important moments” magnified significant parts of the story; And “Adding in reflection” encouraged students to share a lesson that their story could teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, Lifshitz reflected on her own journey using The Moth in our latest episode of the MindShift Podcast. She describes the community of teachers she developed as she started sharing her own teaching stories with the world, and the difference it made in reigniting her excitement with teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As my voice found an audience, as our stories formed the basis for a strong community, my teaching began to change and I began to grow, and writing was such a huge part of that for me,” Lifshitz said in the podcast. “Maybe that is why storytelling is so important to me, because it was this storytelling that allowed me to connect with audiences, to develop community, to be challenged, to be exposed to others in the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8799077194\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Moth Model\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Lifshitz developed her own unit, \u003ca href=\"https://themoth.org/the-moths-education-program\">The Moth has a curriculum for K-12 teachers\u003c/a> who are a part of their Teacher’s Lounge program. The Moth also hosts in-person afterschool and summer programs for teens, as well as virtual workshops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s rare for teens to find a space where they are free to tell their own stories, uninterrupted, for five minutes “unless you’re talking to the internet in a void,” said Ana Stern, The Moth’s senior manager of education. At the end of the eight-week sessions, the teens share their stories for the whole group. The “slam,” as they call it, is also recorded. The recordings are given to each student and they get to decide what they want to do with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some teens perform their story at the slam and never look at the recording again, said Stern, and that’s okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Stern, building a community comes first because storytelling can be a vulnerable experience. “We really spend a lot of time concentrating on building as brave and as safe a space as possible,” she said. And the program encourages students to lead with curiosity and withhold judgement when giving peer-to-peer feedback, she continued. Often, by the end of the eight-week program Stern hears feedback from students like, “I never thought my story would matter” and “I never thought I had anything to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Through the workshop, they’re realizing not only do they have something to say, but they have folks who want to hear them as well,” said Stern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8799077194\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to MindShift, the podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung, and with me today is MindShift reporter Marlena Jackson-Retondo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Hi, Ki.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Hi, Marlena. So you have a story today that’s about writing, but it’s really about something else. Tell us more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I’m here to tell you about a teacher named Jessica Lifshitz. Jessica has been teaching for two decades, but over time, she began to notice a shift in the writing stamina of her fifth graders. They were petering out and not really interested in writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Struggling with student engagement, that sounds like a really familiar problem teachers have, especially post pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Yeah, students weren’t connecting to traditional writing prompts for personal narratives in the way that they used to. Like how did the student spend their summer? What was their favorite memory? Something was missing, both from the text prompts and the student assignments, so she out an idea from the moth. In the moth, adults perform their stories in front of a live audience, usually about three stories per episode, and these stories are grouped by themes like timeless love, football, and grocery trips.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jess’s students read their moth-style stories about fifth grade stuff, with titles like When Pet Sitting Goes Wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker: \u003c/strong>When I got into the backyard, I couldn’t find the pit bull. I was just like, oh my god, oh god, oh my God, oh God, Oh my God.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo\u003c/strong>: Grandpa and grandma day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker: \u003c/strong>Grandma always makes the best lunches. Cucumbers, mango, watermelon, tuna, croissants, grapes. I would put it all on my plate and start making food monsters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo\u003c/strong>: And the hardest math problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker:\u003c/strong> Once, when I was doing math, my teacher introduced me to an indescribably hard math problem. If my head had a fuse, like where a bomb would be, it would blow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>We’ll tell you why Jessica wanted to do this after the break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer: \u003c/strong>Support for MindShift comes from Landmark College. Landmark college’s fully online certificate in learning differences and neurodiversity provides educators with research-based skills and strategies that improve learning outcomes for neurodivergent students. Earn up to 15 graduate level credits and specialize in one of the following areas, post-secondary disability services, executive function, or autism on campus or online. Learn more at landmark.edu slash certificate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Teacher Jessica Lifshitz does something special in her classroom. Instead of having her students respond to boring writing prompts on paper, she has them tell stories about their lives to each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Okay Marlena, that sounds great. So what’s the real reason Jess has her students do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Well, I thought we’d get a little meta, so I asked Jess Lifshitz to do something a little different for you, our listeners. I asked just to tell the story of why she came to teach her students about narrative storytelling all of the month. She performed her piece in front of a tiny audience live near Chicago. Please welcome Jess Lifshitz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lifshitz:\u003c/strong> My students are storytellers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their stories fill the spaces in which we learn. And when I think of my storytellers, I think of one student in particular. She is a master storyteller and her name is Lucy. Every morning we begin our days with a check-in question, a quick way to ease into our morning, a way for everyone to have their voice heard before we dig into the harder work of the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The questions are simple. What is the thing you are most proud of or what is your biggest fear?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Lucy, she turns every answer into an adventure. Like the time when the question asked about your scariest moment. And Lucy launched into the ordeal that ensued when her dog ran away and she searched her entire neighborhood to find her only to return home and find her dog waiting for her in the backyard. Or the time she was answering a question about the worst injury you’ve ever had and it turned into a five minute retelling. Or the time she was wrapped in a mermaid blanket and turned over in her bed and fell directly onto her humidifier, smacking her face and leaving her with a permanent scar on her cheek.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is rarely a day that goes by where she doesn’t give us all a good story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now I’ve been a teacher for more than 20 years. In those 20 years, I have heard my share of childhood adventures told through the dramatic voices of my students. But in those 20 years, I have also had to read the often dry words of those same students as they write in response to the boring prompts that we are required to assign from time to time. You know the kind. Prompts like, ‘What is something you did this summer?’ Or ‘What is an important moment you spent with someone you love?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t know what it is, but something about those prompts just sucks the soul out of a story. All that heart, all that voice that students like Lucy naturally pour into their stories seems to disappear when they are asked to write those same stories out for an assignment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And after 20 years of watching the joy slip out of a story, I decided that I needed to do something to try to recapture the energy that filled my students’ stories when they were not writing for an an assignment, I wanted their classroom writing to be filled with the same kind of energy that filled every one of Lucy’s stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I began to wrestle with how to bring this joy back to my students and to their stories, I started to think about my own history with writing. When I was a kid, I never saw myself as a writer. I saw writing as something I had to do, a task that I had complete. But at a certain point in my life, that changed. At some point, writing became a way for me to process the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing brought me peace. Writing became so much more than a task. It became a way to connect with myself and with others. Writing become a way for me to form community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So when did that happen? For me, that transformation occurred when I started to write about my life as a fifth grade literacy teacher. This was in the days when the internet was a kinder place, when blogging wasn’t a career, when we weren’t worried about being influencers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this amazing thing happened through my writing. In a time when I felt isolated as a teacher, stagnant and bored with the teaching I was doing, I found others who opened up a whole new world for me through the sharing of their stories. I read the stories of others and they inspired me to think about teaching in a whole way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As my voice found an audience, as our stories formed the basis for a strong community, my teaching began to change and I began to grow. And writing was such a huge part of that for me. Maybe that is why storytelling is so important to me, because it was this storytelling that allowed me to connect with audiences, to develop community, to be challenged, to be exposed to others in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was fine until I learned what else was out there. And then I became better because of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That is what I wanted for my students. I wanted my students to see storytelling as a way to connect with others. As a way to feel less alone in this world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I started to think about how to cultivate the same kind of experience for my students. And I kept thinking about the role that an audience plays in our storytelling. When our stories have a place to land, a place where they matter and can cause others to see the world in a new or different way, that is when our stories feel the most worthwhile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in all those boring writing prompts, the only audience my students saw for their stories was me, their teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I needed to find a way to give them an audience beyond just me and to make their stories matter. And as I started to think about telling stories for an audience, my mind began to wander to one of my favorite public radio podcasts, the Moth Radio Hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How many times did I sat in my car at the end of a long day needing to hear the end of a Moth radio hour story? Sometimes those driveway moments were filled with laughter and sometimes with tears, but every one of those moments had one thing in common, a compelling story told in front of an audience that caused me to feel something in connection with the person telling the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was those thoughts of the purpose of storytelling and of the Moth radio hour that led me to the realization that this year, my fifth graders and I would start our writing year with our very own Moth story hour. We would find a way to tell our stories, to use our stories to connect us, to learn from one another’s stories and to build our classroom community on the foundation of the stories that we would share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have a lot of hopes for my students and I had a lot hopes of what a Moth Story Hour might be able to do for my student and for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let me share a few of those hopes with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hope number one. In a world where far too much of the writing we ask our students to do in school is connected to the tests that they will take, it is my hope that my students can find a way to use writing to connect us to each other instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hope number two, it is hope that if my students are able to feel the ways in which writing can serve a genuine purpose, that it can make them better, they will see the other benefits of writing on their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And finally, hope number three is really a hope for myself and my fellow educators. In order for our students to be able to feel the ways in which writing can serve these genuine purposes, we as educators must have the freedom to craft for our student the kinds of writing experiences that cultivate those possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And for me and for my fifth grade students, the Moth story hour was just that kind of experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> That was Jess Lifshitz, a fifth grade teacher near Chicago. When I talked with her earlier this year, she said that this revamped writing unit not only allowed her students to connect with their own stories, but also help them develop empathy for one another. And who doesn’t love that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Sounds like a happy ending. Thanks Marlena for sharing that story with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>That was MindShift reporter Marlena Jackson-Retondo. We’ll bring you more ideas and innovations from experts in education and beyond. Hit follow on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss a thing. The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nima Gobier, Marlena Jackson- Retondo, and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, and Maha Sanad. MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students spent six weeks listening to, watching, developing, writing and eventually recording their own stories. The unit was a success; it sparked the young readers’ and writers’ storytelling abilities and offered lessons in empathy, courage and multi-modal literacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We certainly practice [responding to prompts about short readings] in other ways, but I also wanted to just bring the joy of storytelling back to kids,” said Lifshitz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an age where writing in school is often focused on fulfilling standardized test requirements, personal narrative writing units can offer a more personalized approach to literacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Personal Narrative Unit\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lifshitz starts the unit by introducing her students to examples of personal narratives from The Moth’s archives. The fifth graders then sample more of the pre-approved stories on their own. As the students listened to the stories, watched the videos and read the transcripts, they worked on annotating the text and answered questions like: What is this story about? How can this story help others?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then students brainstormed stories from their own lives and shared these stories with their peers. Lifshitz said the energy from her students during the brainstorming was palpable and resulted in stories with titles like, “When Petsitting Goes Wrong,” “The Hardest Math Problem” and “Grandpa and Grandma Day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once each student landed on a story they wanted to develop further, they mapped them out using a graphic organizer and studied four storytelling strategies. “Snapshots” describe in detail things that could be seen; “Thought-shots” describe the thoughts and emotions that the writer was experiencing; “Exploding important moments” magnified significant parts of the story; And “Adding in reflection” encouraged students to share a lesson that their story could teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additionally, Lifshitz reflected on her own journey using The Moth in our latest episode of the MindShift Podcast. She describes the community of teachers she developed as she started sharing her own teaching stories with the world, and the difference it made in reigniting her excitement with teaching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As my voice found an audience, as our stories formed the basis for a strong community, my teaching began to change and I began to grow, and writing was such a huge part of that for me,” Lifshitz said in the podcast. “Maybe that is why storytelling is so important to me, because it was this storytelling that allowed me to connect with audiences, to develop community, to be challenged, to be exposed to others in the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8799077194\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Moth Model\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Lifshitz developed her own unit, \u003ca href=\"https://themoth.org/the-moths-education-program\">The Moth has a curriculum for K-12 teachers\u003c/a> who are a part of their Teacher’s Lounge program. The Moth also hosts in-person afterschool and summer programs for teens, as well as virtual workshops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s rare for teens to find a space where they are free to tell their own stories, uninterrupted, for five minutes “unless you’re talking to the internet in a void,” said Ana Stern, The Moth’s senior manager of education. At the end of the eight-week sessions, the teens share their stories for the whole group. The “slam,” as they call it, is also recorded. The recordings are given to each student and they get to decide what they want to do with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some teens perform their story at the slam and never look at the recording again, said Stern, and that’s okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Stern, building a community comes first because storytelling can be a vulnerable experience. “We really spend a lot of time concentrating on building as brave and as safe a space as possible,” she said. And the program encourages students to lead with curiosity and withhold judgement when giving peer-to-peer feedback, she continued. Often, by the end of the eight-week program Stern hears feedback from students like, “I never thought my story would matter” and “I never thought I had anything to say.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Through the workshop, they’re realizing not only do they have something to say, but they have folks who want to hear them as well,” said Stern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8799077194\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Welcome to MindShift, the podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung, and with me today is MindShift reporter Marlena Jackson-Retondo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Hi, Ki.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Hi, Marlena. So you have a story today that’s about writing, but it’s really about something else. Tell us more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>Yeah, I’m here to tell you about a teacher named Jessica Lifshitz. Jessica has been teaching for two decades, but over time, she began to notice a shift in the writing stamina of her fifth graders. They were petering out and not really interested in writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Struggling with student engagement, that sounds like a really familiar problem teachers have, especially post pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Yeah, students weren’t connecting to traditional writing prompts for personal narratives in the way that they used to. Like how did the student spend their summer? What was their favorite memory? Something was missing, both from the text prompts and the student assignments, so she out an idea from the moth. In the moth, adults perform their stories in front of a live audience, usually about three stories per episode, and these stories are grouped by themes like timeless love, football, and grocery trips.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jess’s students read their moth-style stories about fifth grade stuff, with titles like When Pet Sitting Goes Wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker: \u003c/strong>When I got into the backyard, I couldn’t find the pit bull. I was just like, oh my god, oh god, oh my God, oh God, Oh my God.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo\u003c/strong>: Grandpa and grandma day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker: \u003c/strong>Grandma always makes the best lunches. Cucumbers, mango, watermelon, tuna, croissants, grapes. I would put it all on my plate and start making food monsters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo\u003c/strong>: And the hardest math problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Speaker:\u003c/strong> Once, when I was doing math, my teacher introduced me to an indescribably hard math problem. If my head had a fuse, like where a bomb would be, it would blow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/strong>We’ll tell you why Jessica wanted to do this after the break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Announcer: \u003c/strong>Support for MindShift comes from Landmark College. Landmark college’s fully online certificate in learning differences and neurodiversity provides educators with research-based skills and strategies that improve learning outcomes for neurodivergent students. Earn up to 15 graduate level credits and specialize in one of the following areas, post-secondary disability services, executive function, or autism on campus or online. Learn more at landmark.edu slash certificate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Teacher Jessica Lifshitz does something special in her classroom. Instead of having her students respond to boring writing prompts on paper, she has them tell stories about their lives to each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Okay Marlena, that sounds great. So what’s the real reason Jess has her students do this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> Well, I thought we’d get a little meta, so I asked Jess Lifshitz to do something a little different for you, our listeners. I asked just to tell the story of why she came to teach her students about narrative storytelling all of the month. She performed her piece in front of a tiny audience live near Chicago. Please welcome Jess Lifshitz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Lifshitz:\u003c/strong> My students are storytellers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their stories fill the spaces in which we learn. And when I think of my storytellers, I think of one student in particular. She is a master storyteller and her name is Lucy. Every morning we begin our days with a check-in question, a quick way to ease into our morning, a way for everyone to have their voice heard before we dig into the harder work of the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The questions are simple. What is the thing you are most proud of or what is your biggest fear?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Lucy, she turns every answer into an adventure. Like the time when the question asked about your scariest moment. And Lucy launched into the ordeal that ensued when her dog ran away and she searched her entire neighborhood to find her only to return home and find her dog waiting for her in the backyard. Or the time she was answering a question about the worst injury you’ve ever had and it turned into a five minute retelling. Or the time she was wrapped in a mermaid blanket and turned over in her bed and fell directly onto her humidifier, smacking her face and leaving her with a permanent scar on her cheek.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is rarely a day that goes by where she doesn’t give us all a good story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now I’ve been a teacher for more than 20 years. In those 20 years, I have heard my share of childhood adventures told through the dramatic voices of my students. But in those 20 years, I have also had to read the often dry words of those same students as they write in response to the boring prompts that we are required to assign from time to time. You know the kind. Prompts like, ‘What is something you did this summer?’ Or ‘What is an important moment you spent with someone you love?’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I don’t know what it is, but something about those prompts just sucks the soul out of a story. All that heart, all that voice that students like Lucy naturally pour into their stories seems to disappear when they are asked to write those same stories out for an assignment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And after 20 years of watching the joy slip out of a story, I decided that I needed to do something to try to recapture the energy that filled my students’ stories when they were not writing for an an assignment, I wanted their classroom writing to be filled with the same kind of energy that filled every one of Lucy’s stories.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I began to wrestle with how to bring this joy back to my students and to their stories, I started to think about my own history with writing. When I was a kid, I never saw myself as a writer. I saw writing as something I had to do, a task that I had complete. But at a certain point in my life, that changed. At some point, writing became a way for me to process the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing brought me peace. Writing became so much more than a task. It became a way to connect with myself and with others. Writing become a way for me to form community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So when did that happen? For me, that transformation occurred when I started to write about my life as a fifth grade literacy teacher. This was in the days when the internet was a kinder place, when blogging wasn’t a career, when we weren’t worried about being influencers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this amazing thing happened through my writing. In a time when I felt isolated as a teacher, stagnant and bored with the teaching I was doing, I found others who opened up a whole new world for me through the sharing of their stories. I read the stories of others and they inspired me to think about teaching in a whole way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As my voice found an audience, as our stories formed the basis for a strong community, my teaching began to change and I began to grow. And writing was such a huge part of that for me. Maybe that is why storytelling is so important to me, because it was this storytelling that allowed me to connect with audiences, to develop community, to be challenged, to be exposed to others in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I was fine until I learned what else was out there. And then I became better because of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That is what I wanted for my students. I wanted my students to see storytelling as a way to connect with others. As a way to feel less alone in this world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I started to think about how to cultivate the same kind of experience for my students. And I kept thinking about the role that an audience plays in our storytelling. When our stories have a place to land, a place where they matter and can cause others to see the world in a new or different way, that is when our stories feel the most worthwhile.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in all those boring writing prompts, the only audience my students saw for their stories was me, their teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I needed to find a way to give them an audience beyond just me and to make their stories matter. And as I started to think about telling stories for an audience, my mind began to wander to one of my favorite public radio podcasts, the Moth Radio Hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How many times did I sat in my car at the end of a long day needing to hear the end of a Moth radio hour story? Sometimes those driveway moments were filled with laughter and sometimes with tears, but every one of those moments had one thing in common, a compelling story told in front of an audience that caused me to feel something in connection with the person telling the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was those thoughts of the purpose of storytelling and of the Moth radio hour that led me to the realization that this year, my fifth graders and I would start our writing year with our very own Moth story hour. We would find a way to tell our stories, to use our stories to connect us, to learn from one another’s stories and to build our classroom community on the foundation of the stories that we would share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have a lot of hopes for my students and I had a lot hopes of what a Moth Story Hour might be able to do for my student and for me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let me share a few of those hopes with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hope number one. In a world where far too much of the writing we ask our students to do in school is connected to the tests that they will take, it is my hope that my students can find a way to use writing to connect us to each other instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hope number two, it is hope that if my students are able to feel the ways in which writing can serve a genuine purpose, that it can make them better, they will see the other benefits of writing on their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And finally, hope number three is really a hope for myself and my fellow educators. In order for our students to be able to feel the ways in which writing can serve these genuine purposes, we as educators must have the freedom to craft for our student the kinds of writing experiences that cultivate those possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And for me and for my fifth grade students, the Moth story hour was just that kind of experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> That was Jess Lifshitz, a fifth grade teacher near Chicago. When I talked with her earlier this year, she said that this revamped writing unit not only allowed her students to connect with their own stories, but also help them develop empathy for one another. And who doesn’t love that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Sounds like a happy ending. Thanks Marlena for sharing that story with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Marlena Jackson-Retondo:\u003c/strong> You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>That was MindShift reporter Marlena Jackson-Retondo. We’ll bring you more ideas and innovations from experts in education and beyond. Hit follow on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss a thing. The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nima Gobier, Marlena Jackson- Retondo, and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, and Maha Sanad. MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.minniephan.com/\">Minnie Phan\u003c/a> has been honing her craft for many years, but her journey to becoming an artist meant better understanding herself, her heritage and her family. On the MindShift Podcast, she discussed how the Vietnamese diaspora inspired her to pursue art. She also shares what motivated her to create the book “\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735246/simone-by-viet-thanh-nguyen-illustrated-by-minnie-phan/\">Simone\u003c/a>” with Pulitzer-prize winning author \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735246/simone-by-viet-thanh-nguyen-illustrated-by-minnie-phan/\">Viet Thanh Nguyen\u003c/a>. The book follows a young child who has to evacuate her home because of a wildfire. In the process, she learns about how her mother had to evacuate her home when she lived in Vietnam because of a flood. The book also shares how kids can process displacement and see who is helping them during tough times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3930425690\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phan also shared some of her favorite books by Vietnamese American authors:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://www.muonthivan.com/p/wishes.html\">Wishes\u003c/a>,” by Muon Thi Van and Victo Ngai\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29936927-the-best-we-could-do\">The Best We Could Do\u003c/a>,” by Thi Bui\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602718/the-magic-fish-by-trung-le-nguyen/\">The Magic Fish\u003c/a>,” by Trung Le Nguyen\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250809728/familystyle/\">“Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam\u003c/a>,” by Thien Pham\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://threeroomspress.com/product/my-vietnam-your-vietnam-by-christina-vo-and-nghia-m-vo/\">My Vietnam, Your Vietnam\u003c/a>,” by Christina Vo and Nghia M. Vo\u003cbr>\n[aside postID=mindshift_50874 hero=’https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2018/03/iStock-696810722-1180×787.jpg’]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung : \u003c/strong>Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. This month marks 50 years since the fall of Saigon, the end of the Vietnam War. And while the Vietnamese-American community here has flourished and grown, their representation in children’s books is catching up with the population. In today’s episode, we’ll hear from children’s book illustrator Minnie Phan, who illustrated the book, Simone. The story of Simone is set in California and brings to life some of the decisions a young girl is forced to make when evacuating her home because of a wildfire. Minnie Phan illustrated the book, but the text of the story was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Minnie Phan, welcome to Mind Shift. Tell us about your book, Simone, and what inspired you to tell this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Hi, it’s so great to be here. I’m thrilled. It’s an honor. And Simone actually came from 2020 during a very intense time for I think everyone across the globe where especially especially in the Bay Area where we had not just the pandemic but the wildfires as well. So as I’m processing and and going through the motions I was leaning into myself as an adult I was leading into what I’ve always which was drawing and painting and writing. And I thought, what are kids doing? And I had a feeling kids were doing the exact same thing. They were drawing and writing and recording, reflecting. And so I wrote a short book about wildfires and this experience of this little girl who is trying to understand the world through her sketchbook. I pitched it to my agent and she said, I love the art, but the story is somewhere, it’s not quite there yet. Do you wanna work with a writer? in, you know, I guess I’ve got guts because I suddenly said, I know a writer and I suggested, I suggested Viet Thanh Nguyen who I met 10 years ago and he’s one of my literary heroes and I was there at the launch of The Sympathizer before it won the Pulitzer and I followed his career for almost a decade over and I just always knew that one day I wanted to work with him. So when this opportunity came up, I said, try to ask Viet. And I remember before any editors or publishers or any contracts, anything happened, Viet got the email from his agent about my project and Viet said, call me. So I call him, I pitch him this wordless storybook, this word less storyboard. And, I swear in that moment, I thought, I bombed, I blew it, he’s never gonna work with me. And then 20 minutes later, I got an email and he said, Okay, let’s go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Congrats on landing such a big fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>My family’s from a fishing village, so I’ve got it in my bones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Awesome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>So, I often pitch the book as a young girl facing intergenerational… experiences with climate change. But Viet often says, I think it’s more about a young girl and the power of art and how art is used to connect with herself and other people. Because the book is more than just about this terrifying fire that threatens her home. It’s about how she’s able to connect with other people who are going through similar experiences by saying, hey, draw with me, tell me your story. Let’s draw your house. What does it look like? Do you want to go home? What does your home look like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I do love that contrast maybe between the kids’ experience versus the adults because there is one page where adults are using big words that kids may have seen. But this is really about processing events that happen in kids’ lives that may be out of their control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Absolutely, for sure. I mean, I’m thinking about, can I go into my favorite children’s book?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Okay. I’m think about when I was a kid, I actually did not read very much. My parents are like many Vietnamese immigrants, refugees from Vietnam, specifically central Vietnam. And I remember I didn’t really have very many avenues for for communication, connection, understanding, but there was one book that I remember so clearly. I’m gonna read the title. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. And I remember, so clearly, picking up this book and saying, this is how I feel on a really bad day. This is how feel. And it didn’t matter, really, what happened that day, but it was that I could connect and identify what was going on. And that was because of a picture book. You know, my parents and I… We didn’t have a very strong shared language. I moved a lot as a kid in the Bay Area. I was born in Stockton, but went to five elementary schools all over the Bay Area. So I didn’t have a lot of stable connections, but I always had books, drawing, writing, and sketchbooks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> To be honest, this is inspiring to me because I think there are a lot of educators who do teach students who have struggles communicating with their parents, who maybe are the translator for their family, translating very important documents, who move from place to place, don’t ever really feel settled. So this is really great to hear your reflection on your personal experience and help other kids access that as well through this book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Absolutely. Representation is vital to my work, of course, but really, I think the core of why I do what I do is to connect with my inner child, which I think all of us have within. And I think, the closer you are to your inner child the better you are able to make media and art for children, because you really understand the experience. Being a kid is both joyful and beautiful and exciting and fun, of cause, but I think adults underplay, underappreciate the deep. feelings that children have, the deep ability that children are capable of. Not many people go through growing up in a refugee immigrant family. It’s a lonely experience, and it’s scary. But I did it, and so many millions of other have. And I think that’s also why we need art in the Vietnamese diaspora, because it captures this experience that is truly unique and special. And I could go into my journey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung \u003c/strong>: Yeah, let’s hear it. I know you just got back from a big trip to Japan and Korea, is that right? And a few years ago you had also gone to Vietnam. Can you talk about your travels?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Okay, yeah, this is big, we’re gonna get into it. So, I mentioned I’ve moved a lot as a kid, five elementary schools. I actually ended up going to high school in Pleasanton and I struggled a lot in high school. I almost didn’t graduate, I had a terrible GPA and I was just in the wrong crowd. But my art teacher really saw something in me and he believed in me. Shout out to Mr. Doyle at Amateur Valley High, He’s phenomenal. changed my life. He really showed me what art could do and I found passion and meaning and direction and so I applied to art school my senior year and I got a full-ride scholarship to California College of the Arts. And I remember it broke my parents heart. They were so upset they couldn’t believe it even if it was a full- ride scholarship to a private art school. They felt that I was choosing hunger in a way where They did not choose hunger. It was forced upon them. My parents grew up in central Vietnam in a small village in a province called Quang Thi, which I’m so sorry to the Vietnamese people listening. I know my Vietnamese is not good, but that’s okay. But they’re from a small fishing village. And my mother had to drop out of school when she was in third grade. My father, when he was in fifth grade, because they were surviving a famine, war. They’ve lost loved ones. Hunger was not an option. It was a reality. And so when I chose art school, all they could see was she’s choosing a difficult life. But they did not understand at that moment that what I was choosing was to tell our stories, was to heal so many of the intergenerational wounds or at least attempt to heal through a chorus of artists’ voices, the wounds that the Vietnamese diaspora across the globe has. And it has been a beautiful journey. I think my life wouldn’t be what it is if I didn’t go to art school. When I was a junior at CCA, I won a scholarship that was no strings attached money. I could do anything, pay tuition, get art supplies. And I decided to go to Vietnam for the first time by myself. Three weeks, I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never been on a plane alone before and I’d ever been to a rural place, a developing country, I’ve never met so many family members. But I had to, I have to because my parents really just wanted to lift us up economically in a safe place where we didn’t have to worry about. disease, war, et cetera. But I wanted to know, who am I? Who are we? How do we get here? Why are we here? And there’s so many things that we did not learn in school, in high school, et cetera. So I had to really, I think I wanted to be brave and do hard things. And that experience changed my life. I was 21 and I met so many kind relatives. People were so sweet and I saw wealth inequality and poverty at a scale I’d never experienced before. But I also saw love and joy and affection in a way that only a village, a true village could provide. And also, The experience humanized my parents because my parents were so upset about my choice to go to art school. But when I went to Vietnam, I was staying at the home of my parents, my mother’s childhood home, and I suddenly could see, I could suddenly see her little kid feet running through the sand. And I remember this elder came to visit the house and she had lost her sight and she actually had raised my mother when my grandmother had died. And this woman, she lifts her hands and she touches my face and she goes, I know who this is. This is Tay’s daughter. I know her. And so then I suddenly had this opportunity to ask, what was my mother like when she was a girl? What was she like when was little? There were suddenly so many avenues and I needed that healing. And I think I could not make it through or be there at that place if I weren’t an artist, seeing the world through an artist’s lens. I was there to bear witness to the lives of the people around me and also my own life. It really changed me going back to Vietnam. I came back and I think I held a lot more forgiveness and understanding and love for my parents and my family best they could do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I know teenage years are hard for everybody, but when you’re able to look at the longer arc of a relationship, those moments of recovery, right, of healing can be so beneficial in the longer term. So I’m glad you had that experience. And the art that you make is also how people can recall and process their experiences. So you’re imprinting your message on to. kids and adults as well when they go through the hardship and think about how to recover from that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan:\u003c/strong> Hmm. Yeah, it’s interesting. Actually, I think the going so thinking about the picture book space as specifically about diversity and representation. I Think the most successful books are the ones that capture The child experience or the experience of an individual in that moment I’ve noticed a few directions in the picturebook Community that’s about diversity or diverse picture books one is the writer healing a trauma, the really specific things that they wish they had seen when they were a kid. And they want this book to exist because it’s important. And it’s like, if this book exists now, my younger child self can have it. And I think there are also other books where it’s specifically about the experience of the kid. I also illustrated a book called The Yellow Aoi with Han Bui. And the Aoi, that’s… Al-Yai. Al-yai. OK. And that book was about another metaphor for intergenerational connection about a young girl who finds her mother’s al-yaj and dances in it and then tears it, and she feels so bad. But an essential part of that book is forgiveness. I think that’s part of the healing that I think kids want to hear, like it’s OK to make mistakes. It’s OK. And so I think those are the stories that I really, really connect with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and breaking something of your parents or tearing something that is always terrifying as a kid. Definitely. Okay, so what books can you recommend that feature Vietnamese American characters?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan:\u003c/strong> Oh, there’s so many. I really love the book Wishes. I believe that one’s by Monty. And I also I love, I loved The Best We Could Do by Tee Bui. It’s been my North star. I actually met Tee when she was still working on it and I was there at the launch of her book and it’s just been so beautiful seeing the reception to her graphic novel. And also I feel like we’re in a I’m in a sance right now. I see creative power, cultural power, building in the Vietnamese community. And I love it, I love. And Viet talks about this often, narrative plentitude, for us to have many, many voices and to eventually go beyond the pain and trauma of war, which of course is vital and important and must be honored. But for us, to move forward as individuals and as a community, we have to see beyond the heartache, the pain and see the potential, the joy, the future. And so much of our future is in our young people who get to have so many opportunities that we and our parents didn’t get to have, but they get right this second. Any other books you want to recommend? Yeah. Oh, let’s see. There’s the Magic Fish, which is about coming out and being queer. There’s Family Style about food. Oh, there’s a great, really interesting book called My Vietnam, Your Vietnam by Christina Vo, or Vo. And it’s It’s told, this is actually maybe more of an adult book, but it’s her perspective of living in Vietnam and her father’s experience of living in Vietnam. So it’s both of their experiences living abroad and the book eventually converges in the center where they meet. It’s very interesting. It’s like a dual memoir. Oh, you know what? I wanna give a big shout out. I wanna to give a shout out UN, UNFAM, UNfam. So when I graduated art school, I was brand new to the field. I had no examples of Vietnamese people in the arts. And I was browsing spectator books in Oakland one day and I picked up this book and I just loved the art. It was watercolors. It was playful. It was cute. And it was just so good. I believe it was Vampirina Ballerina. but I picked it up and I suddenly saw the name and it was a Vietnamese name, the last name Pham. And it was such a beautiful, inspiring moment where I remember saying, if she can do it, I can do. And actually I had this beautiful full circle moment where I was on stage with her last year at the Viet Book Fest, presented by Vala. And I got to tell her the story and it was just beautiful that she was a trailblazer. She’s a Vietnamese American illustrator and writer making it happen. If my 18 year old self could see her and just know that even though my community has no idea what I’m pursuing, it is possible. I can be an artist. And I hope whoever’s listening to this, it really does not give up telling their story, making art, being creative. And if you see your little, if you your little making art and being creative, let that flourish. It’s gonna show up in so many different ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Those are great recommendations. I hope that more kids and parents read those books. I hope they see themselves in the stories and also embody what gives them joy. And at every age, art is that, and it can unlock so many other experiences, much like what you have learned throughout your career. So thank you, Minnie Phan, for being here with us on Mind Shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Minnie Phan is a children’s book illustrator who recently published Simone with Viet Thanh Nguyen, and she’s a writer and artist based in Oakland. We’ll bring you more ideas and innovations from experts in education and beyond. Hit follow on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss a thing. The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nima Gobier, Marlena Jackson-Retondo, and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hamburg. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Springer, Maha Sanad, and Holly Kernan. MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. Thank you so much for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Artist \u003ca href=\"https://www.minniephan.com/\">Minnie Phan\u003c/a> has been honing her craft for many years, but her journey to becoming an artist meant better understanding herself, her heritage and her family. On the MindShift Podcast, she discussed how the Vietnamese diaspora inspired her to pursue art. She also shares what motivated her to create the book “\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735246/simone-by-viet-thanh-nguyen-illustrated-by-minnie-phan/\">Simone\u003c/a>” with Pulitzer-prize winning author \u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735246/simone-by-viet-thanh-nguyen-illustrated-by-minnie-phan/\">Viet Thanh Nguyen\u003c/a>. The book follows a young child who has to evacuate her home because of a wildfire. In the process, she learns about how her mother had to evacuate her home when she lived in Vietnam because of a flood. The book also shares how kids can process displacement and see who is helping them during tough times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3930425690\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Phan also shared some of her favorite books by Vietnamese American authors:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"https://www.muonthivan.com/p/wishes.html\">Wishes\u003c/a>,” by Muon Thi Van and Victo Ngai\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung : \u003c/strong>Welcome to the MindShift Podcast where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. This month marks 50 years since the fall of Saigon, the end of the Vietnam War. And while the Vietnamese-American community here has flourished and grown, their representation in children’s books is catching up with the population. In today’s episode, we’ll hear from children’s book illustrator Minnie Phan, who illustrated the book, Simone. The story of Simone is set in California and brings to life some of the decisions a young girl is forced to make when evacuating her home because of a wildfire. Minnie Phan illustrated the book, but the text of the story was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Minnie Phan, welcome to Mind Shift. Tell us about your book, Simone, and what inspired you to tell this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Hi, it’s so great to be here. I’m thrilled. It’s an honor. And Simone actually came from 2020 during a very intense time for I think everyone across the globe where especially especially in the Bay Area where we had not just the pandemic but the wildfires as well. So as I’m processing and and going through the motions I was leaning into myself as an adult I was leading into what I’ve always which was drawing and painting and writing. And I thought, what are kids doing? And I had a feeling kids were doing the exact same thing. They were drawing and writing and recording, reflecting. And so I wrote a short book about wildfires and this experience of this little girl who is trying to understand the world through her sketchbook. I pitched it to my agent and she said, I love the art, but the story is somewhere, it’s not quite there yet. Do you wanna work with a writer? in, you know, I guess I’ve got guts because I suddenly said, I know a writer and I suggested, I suggested Viet Thanh Nguyen who I met 10 years ago and he’s one of my literary heroes and I was there at the launch of The Sympathizer before it won the Pulitzer and I followed his career for almost a decade over and I just always knew that one day I wanted to work with him. So when this opportunity came up, I said, try to ask Viet. And I remember before any editors or publishers or any contracts, anything happened, Viet got the email from his agent about my project and Viet said, call me. So I call him, I pitch him this wordless storybook, this word less storyboard. And, I swear in that moment, I thought, I bombed, I blew it, he’s never gonna work with me. And then 20 minutes later, I got an email and he said, Okay, let’s go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Congrats on landing such a big fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>My family’s from a fishing village, so I’ve got it in my bones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Awesome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>So, I often pitch the book as a young girl facing intergenerational… experiences with climate change. But Viet often says, I think it’s more about a young girl and the power of art and how art is used to connect with herself and other people. Because the book is more than just about this terrifying fire that threatens her home. It’s about how she’s able to connect with other people who are going through similar experiences by saying, hey, draw with me, tell me your story. Let’s draw your house. What does it look like? Do you want to go home? What does your home look like?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>I do love that contrast maybe between the kids’ experience versus the adults because there is one page where adults are using big words that kids may have seen. But this is really about processing events that happen in kids’ lives that may be out of their control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Absolutely, for sure. I mean, I’m thinking about, can I go into my favorite children’s book?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Okay. I’m think about when I was a kid, I actually did not read very much. My parents are like many Vietnamese immigrants, refugees from Vietnam, specifically central Vietnam. And I remember I didn’t really have very many avenues for for communication, connection, understanding, but there was one book that I remember so clearly. I’m gonna read the title. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. And I remember, so clearly, picking up this book and saying, this is how I feel on a really bad day. This is how feel. And it didn’t matter, really, what happened that day, but it was that I could connect and identify what was going on. And that was because of a picture book. You know, my parents and I… We didn’t have a very strong shared language. I moved a lot as a kid in the Bay Area. I was born in Stockton, but went to five elementary schools all over the Bay Area. So I didn’t have a lot of stable connections, but I always had books, drawing, writing, and sketchbooks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> To be honest, this is inspiring to me because I think there are a lot of educators who do teach students who have struggles communicating with their parents, who maybe are the translator for their family, translating very important documents, who move from place to place, don’t ever really feel settled. So this is really great to hear your reflection on your personal experience and help other kids access that as well through this book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Absolutely. Representation is vital to my work, of course, but really, I think the core of why I do what I do is to connect with my inner child, which I think all of us have within. And I think, the closer you are to your inner child the better you are able to make media and art for children, because you really understand the experience. Being a kid is both joyful and beautiful and exciting and fun, of cause, but I think adults underplay, underappreciate the deep. feelings that children have, the deep ability that children are capable of. Not many people go through growing up in a refugee immigrant family. It’s a lonely experience, and it’s scary. But I did it, and so many millions of other have. And I think that’s also why we need art in the Vietnamese diaspora, because it captures this experience that is truly unique and special. And I could go into my journey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung \u003c/strong>: Yeah, let’s hear it. I know you just got back from a big trip to Japan and Korea, is that right? And a few years ago you had also gone to Vietnam. Can you talk about your travels?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Okay, yeah, this is big, we’re gonna get into it. So, I mentioned I’ve moved a lot as a kid, five elementary schools. I actually ended up going to high school in Pleasanton and I struggled a lot in high school. I almost didn’t graduate, I had a terrible GPA and I was just in the wrong crowd. But my art teacher really saw something in me and he believed in me. Shout out to Mr. Doyle at Amateur Valley High, He’s phenomenal. changed my life. He really showed me what art could do and I found passion and meaning and direction and so I applied to art school my senior year and I got a full-ride scholarship to California College of the Arts. And I remember it broke my parents heart. They were so upset they couldn’t believe it even if it was a full- ride scholarship to a private art school. They felt that I was choosing hunger in a way where They did not choose hunger. It was forced upon them. My parents grew up in central Vietnam in a small village in a province called Quang Thi, which I’m so sorry to the Vietnamese people listening. I know my Vietnamese is not good, but that’s okay. But they’re from a small fishing village. And my mother had to drop out of school when she was in third grade. My father, when he was in fifth grade, because they were surviving a famine, war. They’ve lost loved ones. Hunger was not an option. It was a reality. And so when I chose art school, all they could see was she’s choosing a difficult life. But they did not understand at that moment that what I was choosing was to tell our stories, was to heal so many of the intergenerational wounds or at least attempt to heal through a chorus of artists’ voices, the wounds that the Vietnamese diaspora across the globe has. And it has been a beautiful journey. I think my life wouldn’t be what it is if I didn’t go to art school. When I was a junior at CCA, I won a scholarship that was no strings attached money. I could do anything, pay tuition, get art supplies. And I decided to go to Vietnam for the first time by myself. Three weeks, I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never been on a plane alone before and I’d ever been to a rural place, a developing country, I’ve never met so many family members. But I had to, I have to because my parents really just wanted to lift us up economically in a safe place where we didn’t have to worry about. disease, war, et cetera. But I wanted to know, who am I? Who are we? How do we get here? Why are we here? And there’s so many things that we did not learn in school, in high school, et cetera. So I had to really, I think I wanted to be brave and do hard things. And that experience changed my life. I was 21 and I met so many kind relatives. People were so sweet and I saw wealth inequality and poverty at a scale I’d never experienced before. But I also saw love and joy and affection in a way that only a village, a true village could provide. And also, The experience humanized my parents because my parents were so upset about my choice to go to art school. But when I went to Vietnam, I was staying at the home of my parents, my mother’s childhood home, and I suddenly could see, I could suddenly see her little kid feet running through the sand. And I remember this elder came to visit the house and she had lost her sight and she actually had raised my mother when my grandmother had died. And this woman, she lifts her hands and she touches my face and she goes, I know who this is. This is Tay’s daughter. I know her. And so then I suddenly had this opportunity to ask, what was my mother like when she was a girl? What was she like when was little? There were suddenly so many avenues and I needed that healing. And I think I could not make it through or be there at that place if I weren’t an artist, seeing the world through an artist’s lens. I was there to bear witness to the lives of the people around me and also my own life. It really changed me going back to Vietnam. I came back and I think I held a lot more forgiveness and understanding and love for my parents and my family best they could do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I know teenage years are hard for everybody, but when you’re able to look at the longer arc of a relationship, those moments of recovery, right, of healing can be so beneficial in the longer term. So I’m glad you had that experience. And the art that you make is also how people can recall and process their experiences. So you’re imprinting your message on to. kids and adults as well when they go through the hardship and think about how to recover from that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan:\u003c/strong> Hmm. Yeah, it’s interesting. Actually, I think the going so thinking about the picture book space as specifically about diversity and representation. I Think the most successful books are the ones that capture The child experience or the experience of an individual in that moment I’ve noticed a few directions in the picturebook Community that’s about diversity or diverse picture books one is the writer healing a trauma, the really specific things that they wish they had seen when they were a kid. And they want this book to exist because it’s important. And it’s like, if this book exists now, my younger child self can have it. And I think there are also other books where it’s specifically about the experience of the kid. I also illustrated a book called The Yellow Aoi with Han Bui. And the Aoi, that’s… Al-Yai. Al-yai. OK. And that book was about another metaphor for intergenerational connection about a young girl who finds her mother’s al-yaj and dances in it and then tears it, and she feels so bad. But an essential part of that book is forgiveness. I think that’s part of the healing that I think kids want to hear, like it’s OK to make mistakes. It’s OK. And so I think those are the stories that I really, really connect with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and breaking something of your parents or tearing something that is always terrifying as a kid. Definitely. Okay, so what books can you recommend that feature Vietnamese American characters?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan:\u003c/strong> Oh, there’s so many. I really love the book Wishes. I believe that one’s by Monty. And I also I love, I loved The Best We Could Do by Tee Bui. It’s been my North star. I actually met Tee when she was still working on it and I was there at the launch of her book and it’s just been so beautiful seeing the reception to her graphic novel. And also I feel like we’re in a I’m in a sance right now. I see creative power, cultural power, building in the Vietnamese community. And I love it, I love. And Viet talks about this often, narrative plentitude, for us to have many, many voices and to eventually go beyond the pain and trauma of war, which of course is vital and important and must be honored. But for us, to move forward as individuals and as a community, we have to see beyond the heartache, the pain and see the potential, the joy, the future. And so much of our future is in our young people who get to have so many opportunities that we and our parents didn’t get to have, but they get right this second. Any other books you want to recommend? Yeah. Oh, let’s see. There’s the Magic Fish, which is about coming out and being queer. There’s Family Style about food. Oh, there’s a great, really interesting book called My Vietnam, Your Vietnam by Christina Vo, or Vo. And it’s It’s told, this is actually maybe more of an adult book, but it’s her perspective of living in Vietnam and her father’s experience of living in Vietnam. So it’s both of their experiences living abroad and the book eventually converges in the center where they meet. It’s very interesting. It’s like a dual memoir. Oh, you know what? I wanna give a big shout out. I wanna to give a shout out UN, UNFAM, UNfam. So when I graduated art school, I was brand new to the field. I had no examples of Vietnamese people in the arts. And I was browsing spectator books in Oakland one day and I picked up this book and I just loved the art. It was watercolors. It was playful. It was cute. And it was just so good. I believe it was Vampirina Ballerina. but I picked it up and I suddenly saw the name and it was a Vietnamese name, the last name Pham. And it was such a beautiful, inspiring moment where I remember saying, if she can do it, I can do. And actually I had this beautiful full circle moment where I was on stage with her last year at the Viet Book Fest, presented by Vala. And I got to tell her the story and it was just beautiful that she was a trailblazer. She’s a Vietnamese American illustrator and writer making it happen. If my 18 year old self could see her and just know that even though my community has no idea what I’m pursuing, it is possible. I can be an artist. And I hope whoever’s listening to this, it really does not give up telling their story, making art, being creative. And if you see your little, if you your little making art and being creative, let that flourish. It’s gonna show up in so many different ways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Those are great recommendations. I hope that more kids and parents read those books. I hope they see themselves in the stories and also embody what gives them joy. And at every age, art is that, and it can unlock so many other experiences, much like what you have learned throughout your career. So thank you, Minnie Phan, for being here with us on Mind Shift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Minnie Phan: \u003c/strong>Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung\u003c/strong>: Minnie Phan is a children’s book illustrator who recently published Simone with Viet Thanh Nguyen, and she’s a writer and artist based in Oakland. We’ll bring you more ideas and innovations from experts in education and beyond. Hit follow on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss a thing. The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nima Gobier, Marlena Jackson-Retondo, and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hamburg. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Springer, Maha Sanad, and Holly Kernan. MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. Thank you so much for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>As host of \u003ca href=\"https://www.thestackspodcast.com/\">The Stacks\u003c/a> podcast and book club, Traci Thomas reads a lot of books, mostly for adults. So when it’s time to read with her young children, she finds herself learning new things about old classics, like “Charlotte’s Web.” Listen to the latest episode of the MindShift Podcast to hear how Thomas sources books suggestions, and what books she hopes her kids read when they’re older.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2847341218\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Welcome to the Mind Shift podcast, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. Today, we are going to talk about books for young readers with Tracy Thomas. She’s the host of the Stacks podcast which is all about books and the people who read and write them. She’s interviewed so many great authors, every week, and has a book club, newsletter and Discord with avid readers. We’ll hear about some books she’s reading with her young kids and what she hopes they read in the future. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BREAK\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Traci Thomas, you read a lot of books, and in your podcast, you also talk about a book you’re reading with your twin boys – the minis as you call them. I don’t know if you’re done with that book, but tell me about your experience reading it with your kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yes. So I call my kids the mini stacks. They are almost five now, identical twin boys. And we are reading Charlotte’s Web, which was one of my favorite books as a kid. And we started reading it out loud, chapter by chapter. We’re not super far. And there’s about, I think, 35 chapters in the book. So we’re around chapter five right now. Some nights we just read a picture book. But it’s been really special because I wasn’t sure they were old enough to read a chapter book. And they’re loving it. When they’re at the end of each chapter, I say to them, So what happened? And they’ll say they were going to get rid of the pig because he was small, but the girl kept them. So it’s been really fun to kind of listen to them as they take in one of my absolute favorite books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And why is it a favorite of yours? What is your memory of Charlotte’s Web?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> So my memory as a child of Charlotte’s Web was just that. I loved the characters. I loved Charlotte, I loved Wilbur. I loved the mouse so much. The rat who eats the Smorgasbord, which is like my favorite word that I learned from a book as a child. And I also loved the friendship at the center of it. And then I went back and reread it as an adult a few years ago. And I’ve decided it is this great feminist manifesto, which I was sort of surprised by in my rereading, how much I was impacted by Charlotte and Fern and how they got stuff done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I’m going to have to go back and read that book with that with an eye on that as well. So thanks for putting that out. So Tracy, what do you look for in a children’s book? Are you looking at Amazon rankings buzz from a top ten list or thinking about the classics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> So when I go to the bookstore to buy children’s books, I’m always asking the booksellers what they’re into. I read mostly adult books, but obviously now that I have children, I do read a quite a bit of children’s books and it’s not my, you know, my lane professionally. So I’m relying on librarians, booksellers. There’s a great Instagram account called \u003ca href=\"https://hereweeread.com/\">Here Wee Read\u003c/a>. It’s run by Charnaie Gordon, and she focuses on reading children’s books that are by diverse ranges of authors, whether that’s racially ability, wise, gender, all of these things. And I rely on her a lot to kind of put me on to stuff that’s coming or stuff that’s brand new. I’m rarely looking at Amazon lists. I’m mostly relying on people that I know in my community, whether that’s a librarian or a bookseller or friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Great. And I think you’re a millennial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas: \u003c/strong>I am.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I’m in Gen X.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And as parents, you know, we get to make up for our own childhoods, Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas: \u003c/strong>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And at least, like, try to make sure our kids have what was missing from our own upbringing. That’s why I bought a lot of Linda Sue Park books. How are you doing that with the book choices you make?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> That’s so interesting. You know, I. I had a really lovely childhood. My parents did a really good job of reading to me and also always reading around me. So I don’t really think about it as making up for my childhood. But I do think that, you know, as a I’m sort of an elder millennial, I guess we were we were reading a lot of books that were canonical that were written by white men and didn’t deal with the stories of people from marginalized backgrounds. And so I do think that I’m always sort of looking towards that. A thing that I have noticed with children’s books, especially the picture books, is that sometimes you’ll get a picture book and you’ll look at the cover and there will be a Black child on the cover. And I’m like, my gosh, a book about a Black kid by Black people. And then you flip to the back to see who the authors are and there’s no picture. And then you Google them and you’re like, these are white people writing books about Black children, which isn’t inherently bad or wrong. But it is an interesting trend that I’ve noticed in the children’s book space because there is this need for diverse books. So that’s something that I’m really more focused on, is making sure that I’m finding stories that are, you know, own voices stories, stories about groups of people by those groups of people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And I used to know the stat off the top of my head. I think it was University of Wisconsin. There’s a children’s book organization there. And they had a stat that showed I think it was like the racial ethnic breakdown of children’s book characters and that animals had a big representation, whereas, like people of color, were highly marginal, marginalized compared to the rest of the population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> And also, even when the when the protagonists of children’s books are non-humans, they’re almost always male. They’re almost always like boy dragons or boy donkeys or boy rocks or whatever the the object is or the animal is. And so that’s another thing that’s sort of lacking. I don’t have a study for that. This is more of just something that I’ve noticed as I’m reading and I’m seeing the pronouns and I’m like, why is this unicorn a boy? Why is this, you know, grocery store cart a boy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I hope that organization explores that as well. So thank you for pointing that out. Obviously, you love books. So am I correct in assuming you’re stockpiling books for when your kids are older say like middle grades? Or do you have like a long, very long wish list in your notes?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> I have this community called the Stacks Pack, and there’s so many wonderful educators and parents in that community and we have a thread on our Discord for kids book recommendations. So I have been paying attention to the middle grade suggestions, and I know as I get closer and closer, I will be adding to this list. But it’s a pretty small list so far, I have to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>What what books are you thinking of? What, what popped out that made it to your list?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/td/podcast/ep-345-the-fear-of-vulnerability-with-jason-reynolds/id1362164483?i=1000676767473\">Jason Reynolds\u003c/a>, is my fave. I love him. He’s been on the show a few times, most recently in November. And he’s got this book\u003cem> Look Both Ways\u003c/em>, which I have read, but I cannot wait to read it to my children. It’s a it’s a short story collection, really, about ten different stories about kids who he calls the walkers. And those are kids who walk to school. And it’s all about their journeys after school headed home. And it is so sweet and so tender and it made me cry, which is hard to do. So that’s one. And he’s got a few other middle grade books that I’m excited about. I know Nick Stone has some middle grade books that I want to check out as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And what about like when they’re older, like teenagers? What what what are you thinking about for teenagers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So I definitely have read a lot more Y.A. books for that sort of older teen age range. And you know, as I mentioned before, I’m always really excited about Own Voices stories because I think as a parent I can only do so much and I can only provide so much information and I can try to teach them how to be empathetic and show them, you know, my experiences. But I think especially as they get into that teen age, relying on the books to kind of open up their eyes to what’s bigger and what’s possible. So I’m always looking at own voices, stories, especially at that age group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I also have a passion for nonfiction and there’s not a lot of nonfiction for young adult readers. There’s sort of some nonfiction stuff like National Geographic-y kind of books for that middle grade age of like, here’s every fact you need to know about a swordfish. But when it gets to be that middle grade and they’re looking for more of a narrative nonfiction, there’s not a ton. But some of the books that I have flagged that I really, really hope my kids will be interested in, there’s a book called \u003cem>The 57 Bus\u003c/em> by Dashka Slater, which is about a crime that happened in my hometown of Oakland, California, where a child lit another child who was non-binary on fire on the 57 bus. And it’s all about sort of what happened between these two kids, but also about gender and about race and sort of sociopolitical implications of the geography of Oakland. And it’s a really great book so I’m hoping my kids will read that one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The one thing I appreciated about that book is it’s set in a place that you are familiar with. And, you know, maybe that’s something that people can get from local library or bookseller recommendations, you know, books that students can see where they live in the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, other books, other nonfiction that pops into my head for young adults is there’s an author named Paula Yoo, and she just released a book called \u003cem>Rising from the Ashes\u003c/em>, which is all about the 1992 uprisings in Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney King and the acquittal of the people who beat him. And she wrote another book about a hate crime that took place in the 80s in Michigan called, it’s about Vincent Chen and it’s called \u003cem>From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry\u003c/em>. And both of these books are such beautiful history, narrative, nonfiction. They are for young readers. I devoured both of them and was just so taken by them. And I really, really hope and also these also have really strong senses of place, Los Angeles and in Detroit. And they also really contextualize the time. And I think especially, you know, as I get older and I start to read about history that took place before I was born and I think, wow, how come nobody taught me about this? I hope that my kids will find books like these for themselves to learn about times before they were alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Tracy, you’ve interviewed hundreds of authors, maybe thousands, and I’m sure like no matter the genre, the topic of their experiences with reading, you know, as they were children growing up comes up. What are some books or experiences you’ve heard, identified that have inspired those authors to be creative and share their stories with the world?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I have interviewed a lot of people. Not quite a thousand, not yet, but maybe we’ll get there. One of the things that I find really interesting about the show and what keeps me doing it every single week for the last seven, almost seven years, is that writers come to the work in so many different ways and they have such different relationships to books, which has actually made me feel better about being a parent, thinking, Well, if my kid isn’t into reading now, that doesn’t mean that they’re not ever going to get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Someone like Jason Reynolds, he famously has talked about how he’d never read a book until he was an adult. He has gone back since and read. And then there’s also Mitchell Jackson, who’s a Pulitzer Prize winner. He also said he never read books growing up and he’s now, you know, reads books as an adult, but he reads them in a really different way. He’s reading them for craft and looking at it in a way that maybe it isn’t. He said he’s never read a book for pleasure. That’s how he said it, which I thought was really interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then on the flip side, you know, there’s hundreds of authors who have been on the show who talked about being voracious readers as children who have such strong memories of going to the library as kids. I’m thinking of Professor Eve Dunbar, who is a teacher of African-American literature at Vassar, and she talked about how the library basically raised her. Her parents took her there instead of getting her a babysitter. And she would sit and she would read. And she talked about reading so many books for children. But also as she got older, finding a love for adult books, which I could really relate to because I read a lot of adult books as a kid and I found so much excitement in both the sort of taboo nature of that, but also in the ability to sort of expand what I was allowed to read. So many authors have talked about loving Charlotte’s Web along with me, but also the books of Roald Dahl have been really impactful for people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People have talked about reading the same books over and over and over. This idea of a comfort read which was sort of foreign to me. I don’t really reread books from my childhood. And people also talk a lot on my show about hating the books they are assigned as kids, hating books like Catcher in the Rye or Moby Dick. And I think that’s really fun and exciting, too, because I hope that young people feel comfortable in having strong opinions about literature, whether it’s things that they love or hate and that, you know, the adults in their lives, the teachers, the parents, caregivers, whoever, are encouraging them to have strong and full opinions about books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> If you were to focus on the love of reading, where do you think that comes from based on all these interviews you’ve done, like, where does that spark come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> I think it comes from a lot of different places for different people. I think some people love getting lost in the story. I think some people love the possibility of something they’ve never heard of, like that unfolding in front of their eyes as they’re reading. I think some people love words like truly just from a young age, love sentences and the way that words feel and move and are able to communicate things. And I think for some people, books are a way to build community, right? Like getting to know your librarian or getting to talk about books with a fellow classmate or in the classroom, getting to have these debates. So I think it can come from a lot of different places, and I think that’s good. I think that sometimes we get bogged down in this idea that books are one thing for everybody, and I think that the love of it can come from so many different places and that it can change over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And I think that’s why you’ve encouraged, you know, manga and audio books, different ways of interacting with text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yeah, for sure. I know that people have a lot of strong opinions about what is reading and what isn’t reading. I believe that it’s all reading. I believe that it’s all good. I think we have to meet, especially for young people, I think we have to meet kids where they are. There’s a lot of conversation right now around kids aren’t reading enough. They’re not reading full length novels in school. There was just an article about that. And I think part of it is that A, their parents, us, we’re on our phones all the time. Why would they think that reading is something fun to do, whenever they look over at their caregivers and they’re on a device, right? So that’s part one. And I think part two is that we yuck their yum. We tell them that graphic novel is that’s not really reading. Those are just pictures. And I think that’s so dismissive and disrespectful not only to kids and their taste, but also to the authors and illustrators who create these fantastic books. I think many kids, all of us have different learning styles. Some people are auditory. Some people can learn really well with their eyes. And I think limiting reading to being something that can only be done off of a page, out of a physical thing is is not fair to kids who maybe don’t like to read off of the page, but then discovered they love books if they have the opportunity to listen to them. So I encourage it all. I think it’s all reading and I think that parents sometimes have to just let their kids like what they like because once they discover that they do like graphic novels, that’s going to open up the world to them in a whole new way. And maybe it will lead them to read books that don’t have illustrations, or maybe it will lead them to find even more exciting graphic books as they get older, and that that whole genre sort of develops and matures for adult readers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Last question. Is there a book you hope someone gets for you this holiday season?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> My gosh. You’re asking the question that everyone in my family wants to know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are, the true answer is no. I have so many books in my home and I don’t need anybody to get me a book. But I love cookbooks and I don’t cover a lot of cookbooks on my podcast, so I don’t get a lot of cookbooks sent to me. So I think that if someone in my family went out and was cookbook shopping, maybe they could find me something that would be really exciting to me. Maybe there’s a book, an older book by Claire Saffitz called \u003cem>Dessert Person \u003c/em>that I’ve always wanted, and I just never buy it for myself because again, I don’t need more books and I probably don’t need to be spending time all day baking. But that’s a that’s a cookbook that I sort of sneakily would love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Can I make a cookbook recommendation? Yes. To you. Okay. So America’s Test Kitchen has a great line of children’s cookbooks. And I find the recipes a lot simpler. Like, you know, and findable. Right? It’s narrowed down to, I don’t know, like 150, a couple hundred recipes. Whereas like, the adult cookbooks are just massive and it’s too much. It’s overwhelming. And like the kids stuff, you know, the portions are good and it’s not fancy. It gets the job done. So America’s Test Kitchen Kids section.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Okay, I have to tell you this. Those cookbooks are those books have been bandied about in our Discord under the children’s book recommendation tab. Someone was asking for cookbooks for kids. So I’m telling you, the stacks pack my community. They, they know a good kids book. So I love that you’re vouching for them. Now. I’m like, okay, I have to get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Highly recommend. All right. Tracy, thank you so much for sharing about your podcast, your experiences and a little bit about your author interviews that I hope everyone goes and take a listen to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Tracy Thomas is the host and founder of The Stacks. It’s a podcast, book club, newsletter, Discord, and an overall experience. You can hear her also on NPR and Be Yours here and now. We’ll bring you more ideas and innovations from experts in education and beyond. Hit follow on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss a thing. The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad and Holly Kernan. MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. Thank you for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As host of \u003ca href=\"https://www.thestackspodcast.com/\">The Stacks\u003c/a> podcast and book club, Traci Thomas reads a lot of books, mostly for adults. So when it’s time to read with her young children, she finds herself learning new things about old classics, like “Charlotte’s Web.” Listen to the latest episode of the MindShift Podcast to hear how Thomas sources books suggestions, and what books she hopes her kids read when they’re older.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2847341218\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Welcome to the Mind Shift podcast, where we explore the future of learning and how we raise our kids. I’m Ki Sung. Today, we are going to talk about books for young readers with Tracy Thomas. She’s the host of the Stacks podcast which is all about books and the people who read and write them. She’s interviewed so many great authors, every week, and has a book club, newsletter and Discord with avid readers. We’ll hear about some books she’s reading with her young kids and what she hopes they read in the future. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>BREAK\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Traci Thomas, you read a lot of books, and in your podcast, you also talk about a book you’re reading with your twin boys – the minis as you call them. I don’t know if you’re done with that book, but tell me about your experience reading it with your kids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yes. So I call my kids the mini stacks. They are almost five now, identical twin boys. And we are reading Charlotte’s Web, which was one of my favorite books as a kid. And we started reading it out loud, chapter by chapter. We’re not super far. And there’s about, I think, 35 chapters in the book. So we’re around chapter five right now. Some nights we just read a picture book. But it’s been really special because I wasn’t sure they were old enough to read a chapter book. And they’re loving it. When they’re at the end of each chapter, I say to them, So what happened? And they’ll say they were going to get rid of the pig because he was small, but the girl kept them. So it’s been really fun to kind of listen to them as they take in one of my absolute favorite books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And why is it a favorite of yours? What is your memory of Charlotte’s Web?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> So my memory as a child of Charlotte’s Web was just that. I loved the characters. I loved Charlotte, I loved Wilbur. I loved the mouse so much. The rat who eats the Smorgasbord, which is like my favorite word that I learned from a book as a child. And I also loved the friendship at the center of it. And then I went back and reread it as an adult a few years ago. And I’ve decided it is this great feminist manifesto, which I was sort of surprised by in my rereading, how much I was impacted by Charlotte and Fern and how they got stuff done.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I’m going to have to go back and read that book with that with an eye on that as well. So thanks for putting that out. So Tracy, what do you look for in a children’s book? Are you looking at Amazon rankings buzz from a top ten list or thinking about the classics?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> So when I go to the bookstore to buy children’s books, I’m always asking the booksellers what they’re into. I read mostly adult books, but obviously now that I have children, I do read a quite a bit of children’s books and it’s not my, you know, my lane professionally. So I’m relying on librarians, booksellers. There’s a great Instagram account called \u003ca href=\"https://hereweeread.com/\">Here Wee Read\u003c/a>. It’s run by Charnaie Gordon, and she focuses on reading children’s books that are by diverse ranges of authors, whether that’s racially ability, wise, gender, all of these things. And I rely on her a lot to kind of put me on to stuff that’s coming or stuff that’s brand new. I’m rarely looking at Amazon lists. I’m mostly relying on people that I know in my community, whether that’s a librarian or a bookseller or friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>Great. And I think you’re a millennial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas: \u003c/strong>I am.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I’m in Gen X.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And as parents, you know, we get to make up for our own childhoods, Right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas: \u003c/strong>Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>And at least, like, try to make sure our kids have what was missing from our own upbringing. That’s why I bought a lot of Linda Sue Park books. How are you doing that with the book choices you make?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> That’s so interesting. You know, I. I had a really lovely childhood. My parents did a really good job of reading to me and also always reading around me. So I don’t really think about it as making up for my childhood. But I do think that, you know, as a I’m sort of an elder millennial, I guess we were we were reading a lot of books that were canonical that were written by white men and didn’t deal with the stories of people from marginalized backgrounds. And so I do think that I’m always sort of looking towards that. A thing that I have noticed with children’s books, especially the picture books, is that sometimes you’ll get a picture book and you’ll look at the cover and there will be a Black child on the cover. And I’m like, my gosh, a book about a Black kid by Black people. And then you flip to the back to see who the authors are and there’s no picture. And then you Google them and you’re like, these are white people writing books about Black children, which isn’t inherently bad or wrong. But it is an interesting trend that I’ve noticed in the children’s book space because there is this need for diverse books. So that’s something that I’m really more focused on, is making sure that I’m finding stories that are, you know, own voices stories, stories about groups of people by those groups of people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And I used to know the stat off the top of my head. I think it was University of Wisconsin. There’s a children’s book organization there. And they had a stat that showed I think it was like the racial ethnic breakdown of children’s book characters and that animals had a big representation, whereas, like people of color, were highly marginal, marginalized compared to the rest of the population.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> And also, even when the when the protagonists of children’s books are non-humans, they’re almost always male. They’re almost always like boy dragons or boy donkeys or boy rocks or whatever the the object is or the animal is. And so that’s another thing that’s sort of lacking. I don’t have a study for that. This is more of just something that I’ve noticed as I’m reading and I’m seeing the pronouns and I’m like, why is this unicorn a boy? Why is this, you know, grocery store cart a boy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> I hope that organization explores that as well. So thank you for pointing that out. Obviously, you love books. So am I correct in assuming you’re stockpiling books for when your kids are older say like middle grades? Or do you have like a long, very long wish list in your notes?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> I have this community called the Stacks Pack, and there’s so many wonderful educators and parents in that community and we have a thread on our Discord for kids book recommendations. So I have been paying attention to the middle grade suggestions, and I know as I get closer and closer, I will be adding to this list. But it’s a pretty small list so far, I have to say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung: \u003c/strong>What what books are you thinking of? What, what popped out that made it to your list?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> \u003ca href=\"https://podcasts.apple.com/td/podcast/ep-345-the-fear-of-vulnerability-with-jason-reynolds/id1362164483?i=1000676767473\">Jason Reynolds\u003c/a>, is my fave. I love him. He’s been on the show a few times, most recently in November. And he’s got this book\u003cem> Look Both Ways\u003c/em>, which I have read, but I cannot wait to read it to my children. It’s a it’s a short story collection, really, about ten different stories about kids who he calls the walkers. And those are kids who walk to school. And it’s all about their journeys after school headed home. And it is so sweet and so tender and it made me cry, which is hard to do. So that’s one. And he’s got a few other middle grade books that I’m excited about. I know Nick Stone has some middle grade books that I want to check out as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And what about like when they’re older, like teenagers? What what what are you thinking about for teenagers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So I definitely have read a lot more Y.A. books for that sort of older teen age range. And you know, as I mentioned before, I’m always really excited about Own Voices stories because I think as a parent I can only do so much and I can only provide so much information and I can try to teach them how to be empathetic and show them, you know, my experiences. But I think especially as they get into that teen age, relying on the books to kind of open up their eyes to what’s bigger and what’s possible. So I’m always looking at own voices, stories, especially at that age group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But I also have a passion for nonfiction and there’s not a lot of nonfiction for young adult readers. There’s sort of some nonfiction stuff like National Geographic-y kind of books for that middle grade age of like, here’s every fact you need to know about a swordfish. But when it gets to be that middle grade and they’re looking for more of a narrative nonfiction, there’s not a ton. But some of the books that I have flagged that I really, really hope my kids will be interested in, there’s a book called \u003cem>The 57 Bus\u003c/em> by Dashka Slater, which is about a crime that happened in my hometown of Oakland, California, where a child lit another child who was non-binary on fire on the 57 bus. And it’s all about sort of what happened between these two kids, but also about gender and about race and sort of sociopolitical implications of the geography of Oakland. And it’s a really great book so I’m hoping my kids will read that one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> The one thing I appreciated about that book is it’s set in a place that you are familiar with. And, you know, maybe that’s something that people can get from local library or bookseller recommendations, you know, books that students can see where they live in the story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, other books, other nonfiction that pops into my head for young adults is there’s an author named Paula Yoo, and she just released a book called \u003cem>Rising from the Ashes\u003c/em>, which is all about the 1992 uprisings in Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney King and the acquittal of the people who beat him. And she wrote another book about a hate crime that took place in the 80s in Michigan called, it’s about Vincent Chen and it’s called \u003cem>From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry\u003c/em>. And both of these books are such beautiful history, narrative, nonfiction. They are for young readers. I devoured both of them and was just so taken by them. And I really, really hope and also these also have really strong senses of place, Los Angeles and in Detroit. And they also really contextualize the time. And I think especially, you know, as I get older and I start to read about history that took place before I was born and I think, wow, how come nobody taught me about this? I hope that my kids will find books like these for themselves to learn about times before they were alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Tracy, you’ve interviewed hundreds of authors, maybe thousands, and I’m sure like no matter the genre, the topic of their experiences with reading, you know, as they were children growing up comes up. What are some books or experiences you’ve heard, identified that have inspired those authors to be creative and share their stories with the world?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I have interviewed a lot of people. Not quite a thousand, not yet, but maybe we’ll get there. One of the things that I find really interesting about the show and what keeps me doing it every single week for the last seven, almost seven years, is that writers come to the work in so many different ways and they have such different relationships to books, which has actually made me feel better about being a parent, thinking, Well, if my kid isn’t into reading now, that doesn’t mean that they’re not ever going to get there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Someone like Jason Reynolds, he famously has talked about how he’d never read a book until he was an adult. He has gone back since and read. And then there’s also Mitchell Jackson, who’s a Pulitzer Prize winner. He also said he never read books growing up and he’s now, you know, reads books as an adult, but he reads them in a really different way. He’s reading them for craft and looking at it in a way that maybe it isn’t. He said he’s never read a book for pleasure. That’s how he said it, which I thought was really interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then on the flip side, you know, there’s hundreds of authors who have been on the show who talked about being voracious readers as children who have such strong memories of going to the library as kids. I’m thinking of Professor Eve Dunbar, who is a teacher of African-American literature at Vassar, and she talked about how the library basically raised her. Her parents took her there instead of getting her a babysitter. And she would sit and she would read. And she talked about reading so many books for children. But also as she got older, finding a love for adult books, which I could really relate to because I read a lot of adult books as a kid and I found so much excitement in both the sort of taboo nature of that, but also in the ability to sort of expand what I was allowed to read. So many authors have talked about loving Charlotte’s Web along with me, but also the books of Roald Dahl have been really impactful for people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People have talked about reading the same books over and over and over. This idea of a comfort read which was sort of foreign to me. I don’t really reread books from my childhood. And people also talk a lot on my show about hating the books they are assigned as kids, hating books like Catcher in the Rye or Moby Dick. And I think that’s really fun and exciting, too, because I hope that young people feel comfortable in having strong opinions about literature, whether it’s things that they love or hate and that, you know, the adults in their lives, the teachers, the parents, caregivers, whoever, are encouraging them to have strong and full opinions about books.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> If you were to focus on the love of reading, where do you think that comes from based on all these interviews you’ve done, like, where does that spark come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> I think it comes from a lot of different places for different people. I think some people love getting lost in the story. I think some people love the possibility of something they’ve never heard of, like that unfolding in front of their eyes as they’re reading. I think some people love words like truly just from a young age, love sentences and the way that words feel and move and are able to communicate things. And I think for some people, books are a way to build community, right? Like getting to know your librarian or getting to talk about books with a fellow classmate or in the classroom, getting to have these debates. So I think it can come from a lot of different places, and I think that’s good. I think that sometimes we get bogged down in this idea that books are one thing for everybody, and I think that the love of it can come from so many different places and that it can change over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> And I think that’s why you’ve encouraged, you know, manga and audio books, different ways of interacting with text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Yeah, for sure. I know that people have a lot of strong opinions about what is reading and what isn’t reading. I believe that it’s all reading. I believe that it’s all good. I think we have to meet, especially for young people, I think we have to meet kids where they are. There’s a lot of conversation right now around kids aren’t reading enough. They’re not reading full length novels in school. There was just an article about that. And I think part of it is that A, their parents, us, we’re on our phones all the time. Why would they think that reading is something fun to do, whenever they look over at their caregivers and they’re on a device, right? So that’s part one. And I think part two is that we yuck their yum. We tell them that graphic novel is that’s not really reading. Those are just pictures. And I think that’s so dismissive and disrespectful not only to kids and their taste, but also to the authors and illustrators who create these fantastic books. I think many kids, all of us have different learning styles. Some people are auditory. Some people can learn really well with their eyes. And I think limiting reading to being something that can only be done off of a page, out of a physical thing is is not fair to kids who maybe don’t like to read off of the page, but then discovered they love books if they have the opportunity to listen to them. So I encourage it all. I think it’s all reading and I think that parents sometimes have to just let their kids like what they like because once they discover that they do like graphic novels, that’s going to open up the world to them in a whole new way. And maybe it will lead them to read books that don’t have illustrations, or maybe it will lead them to find even more exciting graphic books as they get older, and that that whole genre sort of develops and matures for adult readers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Last question. Is there a book you hope someone gets for you this holiday season?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> My gosh. You’re asking the question that everyone in my family wants to know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are, the true answer is no. I have so many books in my home and I don’t need anybody to get me a book. But I love cookbooks and I don’t cover a lot of cookbooks on my podcast, so I don’t get a lot of cookbooks sent to me. So I think that if someone in my family went out and was cookbook shopping, maybe they could find me something that would be really exciting to me. Maybe there’s a book, an older book by Claire Saffitz called \u003cem>Dessert Person \u003c/em>that I’ve always wanted, and I just never buy it for myself because again, I don’t need more books and I probably don’t need to be spending time all day baking. But that’s a that’s a cookbook that I sort of sneakily would love.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Can I make a cookbook recommendation? Yes. To you. Okay. So America’s Test Kitchen has a great line of children’s cookbooks. And I find the recipes a lot simpler. Like, you know, and findable. Right? It’s narrowed down to, I don’t know, like 150, a couple hundred recipes. Whereas like, the adult cookbooks are just massive and it’s too much. It’s overwhelming. And like the kids stuff, you know, the portions are good and it’s not fancy. It gets the job done. So America’s Test Kitchen Kids section.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Okay, I have to tell you this. Those cookbooks are those books have been bandied about in our Discord under the children’s book recommendation tab. Someone was asking for cookbooks for kids. So I’m telling you, the stacks pack my community. They, they know a good kids book. So I love that you’re vouching for them. Now. I’m like, okay, I have to get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Highly recommend. All right. Tracy, thank you so much for sharing about your podcast, your experiences and a little bit about your author interviews that I hope everyone goes and take a listen to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Traci Thomas:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ki Sung:\u003c/strong> Tracy Thomas is the host and founder of The Stacks. It’s a podcast, book club, newsletter, Discord, and an overall experience. You can hear her also on NPR and Be Yours here and now. We’ll bring you more ideas and innovations from experts in education and beyond. Hit follow on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss a thing. The MindShift team includes me, Ki Sung, Nimah Gobir, Marlena Jackson Retondo and Marnette Federis. Our editor is Chris Hambrick. Seth Samuel is our sound designer. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad and Holly Kernan. MindShift is supported in part by the generosity of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and members of KQED. Thank you for listening.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Everybody is trying to find ways to help students catch up after the pandemic. One \u003ca href=\"https://tntp.org/publication/the-opportunity-makers/\">new data analysis\u003c/a> suggests some promising ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://tntp.org/\">TNTP\u003c/a>, a nonprofit based in New York that advocates for improving K-12 education, wanted to identify schools that are the most effective at helping kids recover academically and understand what those schools are doing differently. These are not schools where students post the highest test scores, but schools where kids learn more each school year than students typically do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TNTP researchers plunged into a giant pool of data housed at \u003ca href=\"https://edopportunity.org/\">Stanford University \u003c/a> that tracked hundreds of millions of students’ scores on state tests at more than half the elementary and middle schools in the nation from 2009 to 2018. The researchers found that at 28,000 of the 51,000 elementary and middle schools in the database, students entered third grade or middle school below grade level. TNTP calculated that the top 5 percent of these start-behind schools – 1,345 of them – were helping students learn at least 1.3 year’s worth of material every year, based on how test scores improved as students progressed from grade to grade. In other words, the students at the top 5 percent of the start-behind schools learned the equivalent of an extra full year or more of math and reading every three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Growing at this rate allows most students to catch up to grade level during their time in school,” concluded the \u003ca href=\"https://tntp.org/publication/the-opportunity-makers/\">report\u003c/a>, which was released in September 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous researchers conducted a similar analysis in \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/educational-opportunity-early-and-middle-childhood-using-full-population-administrative-data-study-variation-place-and-age\">2017 with whole school districts\u003c/a> instead of individual schools. In that study, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/upshot/a-better-way-to-compare-public-schools.html\">Chicago emerged as\u003c/a> the nation’s most effective school district. Like the schools in the 2024 analysis, Chicago didn’t post the highest test scores, but its students were progressing the most each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are many schools that are effective at helping students learn, even in high-poverty communities,” said Sean Reardon, a Stanford sociologist who was part of the team that developed the Stanford Education Data Archive. “The TNTP report uses our data to identify some of them and then digs in to understand what makes them particularly effective. This is exactly what we hoped people would do with the data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TNTP did identify seven of the 1,345 highly effective schools that it selected to study in depth. Only one of the seven schools had a majority Black population, reflecting the fact that Black students are underrepresented at the most effective schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The seven schools ranged widely. Some were large. Some were small. Some were city schools with many Hispanic students. Others were mostly white, rural schools. They used different instructional materials and did a lot of things differently, but TNTP teased out three traits that it thought these schools had in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Seven of the 1,345 schools where students started behind but made large learning gains over a decade from 2009 to 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_64791\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-64791 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"408\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map-800x334.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map-160x67.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map-768x321.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Red dots represent the seven schools that TNTP named and studied in depth. Green dots represent all 1,345 schools that TNTP identified as producing large annual gains in learning for students who entered school behind grade level. Source: TNTP Opportunity Makers report 2024.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What we found was not a silver-bullet solution, a perfect curriculum, or a rockstar principal,” the report said. “Instead, these schools shared a commitment to doing three core things well: they create a culture of belonging, deliver consistent grade-level instruction, and build a coherent instructional program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to TNTP’s classroom observations, students received good or strong instruction in nine out of 10 classrooms. “Across all classrooms, the steady accumulation of good lessons—not unattainably perfect ones—sets trajectory-changing schools apart,” the report said, contrasting this consistent level of “good” with \u003ca href=\"https://opportunitymyth.tntp.org/\">its earlier observation\u003c/a> that most U.S. schools have some good teaching, but there is a lot of variation from one classroom to the next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to good instruction, TNTP said that students in these seven schools were receiving grade-level content in their English and math classes although most students were behind. Teachers in each school used the same shared curriculum. According to the TNTP report, only about a third of elementary school teachers nationwide say they “mostly use” the curriculum adopted by their school. At Trousdale County Elementary in Tennessee, one of the exemplar schools, 80 percent of teachers said they did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many education advocates are pushing for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/events/the-case-for-curriculum-reform/\">adoption of better curriculum as a lever to improve schools\u003c/a>, “It’s possible to get trajectory-changing results without a perfect curriculum,” TNTP wrote in its report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers also had regular, scheduled sessions to collaborate, discuss their instruction, and note what did and did not work. “Everyone holds the same high expectations and works together to improve,” the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The schools also gave students extra instruction to fill knowledge gaps and extra practice to solidify their skills. These extra support classes, called “intervention blocks,” are now commonplace at many low-income schools, but TNTP noted one major difference at the seven schools they studied. The intervention blocks were connected to what students were learning in their main classrooms. That requires school leaders to make sure that interventionists, classroom aides and the main classroom teachers have time to talk and collaborate during the school day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These seven schools all had strong principals. Although many of the principals came and left during the decade that TNTP studied, the schools maintained strong results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The seven schools also emphasized student-teacher relationships and built a caring community. At Brightwood, a small charter school in Washington, D.C., that serves an immigrant population, staff members try to learn the names of every student and to be collectively responsible for both their academics and well-being. During one staff meeting, teachers wrote more than 250 student names on giant pads of paper. Teachers put check marks by each child they felt like they had a genuine relationship with and then brainstormed ways to reach the students without checks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At New Heights Academy Charter School in New York City, each teacher contacts 10 parents a week—by text, email, or phone—and logs the calls in a journal. Teachers don’t just call when something goes wrong. They also reach out to parents to talk about an “A” on a test, academic improvement, or good attendance, the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s always risky to highlight what successful schools are doing because other educators might be tempted to just copy ideas. But TNTP warns that every school is different. What works in one place might not in another. The organization’s advice for schools is to change one practice at a time, perhaps starting with a category that the school is already pretty good at, and improve it. TNTP warns against trying to change too many things at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TNTP’s view is that any school can become a highly effective school, and that there aren’t particular educational philosophies or materials that a school must use to accomplish this rare feat. A lot of it is simply about increasing communication among teachers, between teachers and students, and with families. It’s a bit like weight-loss diets that don’t dictate which foods you can and cannot eat, as long as you eat less and exercise more. It’s the basic principles that matter most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at (212) 678-3595 or barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-tntp-effective-schools/\">\u003cem>how to catch up at school\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was written by Jill Barshay and produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/special-reports/higher-education/\">The Hechinger Report\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/proofpoints/\">\u003cem>Proof Points\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> and other \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/\">\u003cem>Hechinger newsletters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Everybody is trying to find ways to help students catch up after the pandemic. One \u003ca href=\"https://tntp.org/publication/the-opportunity-makers/\">new data analysis\u003c/a> suggests some promising ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://tntp.org/\">TNTP\u003c/a>, a nonprofit based in New York that advocates for improving K-12 education, wanted to identify schools that are the most effective at helping kids recover academically and understand what those schools are doing differently. These are not schools where students post the highest test scores, but schools where kids learn more each school year than students typically do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TNTP researchers plunged into a giant pool of data housed at \u003ca href=\"https://edopportunity.org/\">Stanford University \u003c/a> that tracked hundreds of millions of students’ scores on state tests at more than half the elementary and middle schools in the nation from 2009 to 2018. The researchers found that at 28,000 of the 51,000 elementary and middle schools in the database, students entered third grade or middle school below grade level. TNTP calculated that the top 5 percent of these start-behind schools – 1,345 of them – were helping students learn at least 1.3 year’s worth of material every year, based on how test scores improved as students progressed from grade to grade. In other words, the students at the top 5 percent of the start-behind schools learned the equivalent of an extra full year or more of math and reading every three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Growing at this rate allows most students to catch up to grade level during their time in school,” concluded the \u003ca href=\"https://tntp.org/publication/the-opportunity-makers/\">report\u003c/a>, which was released in September 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Previous researchers conducted a similar analysis in \u003ca href=\"https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/educational-opportunity-early-and-middle-childhood-using-full-population-administrative-data-study-variation-place-and-age\">2017 with whole school districts\u003c/a> instead of individual schools. In that study, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/upshot/a-better-way-to-compare-public-schools.html\">Chicago emerged as\u003c/a> the nation’s most effective school district. Like the schools in the 2024 analysis, Chicago didn’t post the highest test scores, but its students were progressing the most each year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are many schools that are effective at helping students learn, even in high-poverty communities,” said Sean Reardon, a Stanford sociologist who was part of the team that developed the Stanford Education Data Archive. “The TNTP report uses our data to identify some of them and then digs in to understand what makes them particularly effective. This is exactly what we hoped people would do with the data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TNTP did identify seven of the 1,345 highly effective schools that it selected to study in depth. Only one of the seven schools had a majority Black population, reflecting the fact that Black students are underrepresented at the most effective schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The seven schools ranged widely. Some were large. Some were small. Some were city schools with many Hispanic students. Others were mostly white, rural schools. They used different instructional materials and did a lot of things differently, but TNTP teased out three traits that it thought these schools had in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Seven of the 1,345 schools where students started behind but made large learning gains over a decade from 2009 to 2018\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_64791\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 977px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-64791 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"977\" height=\"408\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map.png 977w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map-800x334.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map-160x67.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2024/09/TNTP-Map-768x321.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 977px) 100vw, 977px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Red dots represent the seven schools that TNTP named and studied in depth. Green dots represent all 1,345 schools that TNTP identified as producing large annual gains in learning for students who entered school behind grade level. Source: TNTP Opportunity Makers report 2024.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“What we found was not a silver-bullet solution, a perfect curriculum, or a rockstar principal,” the report said. “Instead, these schools shared a commitment to doing three core things well: they create a culture of belonging, deliver consistent grade-level instruction, and build a coherent instructional program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to TNTP’s classroom observations, students received good or strong instruction in nine out of 10 classrooms. “Across all classrooms, the steady accumulation of good lessons—not unattainably perfect ones—sets trajectory-changing schools apart,” the report said, contrasting this consistent level of “good” with \u003ca href=\"https://opportunitymyth.tntp.org/\">its earlier observation\u003c/a> that most U.S. schools have some good teaching, but there is a lot of variation from one classroom to the next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to good instruction, TNTP said that students in these seven schools were receiving grade-level content in their English and math classes although most students were behind. Teachers in each school used the same shared curriculum. According to the TNTP report, only about a third of elementary school teachers nationwide say they “mostly use” the curriculum adopted by their school. At Trousdale County Elementary in Tennessee, one of the exemplar schools, 80 percent of teachers said they did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many education advocates are pushing for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.aei.org/events/the-case-for-curriculum-reform/\">adoption of better curriculum as a lever to improve schools\u003c/a>, “It’s possible to get trajectory-changing results without a perfect curriculum,” TNTP wrote in its report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Teachers also had regular, scheduled sessions to collaborate, discuss their instruction, and note what did and did not work. “Everyone holds the same high expectations and works together to improve,” the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The schools also gave students extra instruction to fill knowledge gaps and extra practice to solidify their skills. These extra support classes, called “intervention blocks,” are now commonplace at many low-income schools, but TNTP noted one major difference at the seven schools they studied. The intervention blocks were connected to what students were learning in their main classrooms. That requires school leaders to make sure that interventionists, classroom aides and the main classroom teachers have time to talk and collaborate during the school day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These seven schools all had strong principals. Although many of the principals came and left during the decade that TNTP studied, the schools maintained strong results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The seven schools also emphasized student-teacher relationships and built a caring community. At Brightwood, a small charter school in Washington, D.C., that serves an immigrant population, staff members try to learn the names of every student and to be collectively responsible for both their academics and well-being. During one staff meeting, teachers wrote more than 250 student names on giant pads of paper. Teachers put check marks by each child they felt like they had a genuine relationship with and then brainstormed ways to reach the students without checks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At New Heights Academy Charter School in New York City, each teacher contacts 10 parents a week—by text, email, or phone—and logs the calls in a journal. Teachers don’t just call when something goes wrong. They also reach out to parents to talk about an “A” on a test, academic improvement, or good attendance, the report said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s always risky to highlight what successful schools are doing because other educators might be tempted to just copy ideas. But TNTP warns that every school is different. What works in one place might not in another. The organization’s advice for schools is to change one practice at a time, perhaps starting with a category that the school is already pretty good at, and improve it. TNTP warns against trying to change too many things at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>TNTP’s view is that any school can become a highly effective school, and that there aren’t particular educational philosophies or materials that a school must use to accomplish this rare feat. A lot of it is simply about increasing communication among teachers, between teachers and students, and with families. It’s a bit like weight-loss diets that don’t dictate which foods you can and cannot eat, as long as you eat less and exercise more. It’s the basic principles that matter most.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Contact staff writer \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/author/jill-barshay/\">\u003cem>Jill Barshay\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> at (212) 678-3595 or barshay@hechingerreport.org\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>KQED’s award-winning voter guide is back — this year with information on \u003ci>every\u003c/i> race in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED staffers are committed to making information about the election easy to understand, accessible and free for the public. We have a team of about 100 reporters, editors and producers working to inform you about the measures and candidates you’ll vote on in the 2024 November general election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-12005203\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/Screen-Shot-2024-09-18-at-10.35.05-AM.png\" alt=\"A screenshot of the KQED Voter Guide\" width=\"293\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/Screen-Shot-2024-09-18-at-10.35.05-AM.png 846w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/Screen-Shot-2024-09-18-at-10.35.05-AM-800x548.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/Screen-Shot-2024-09-18-at-10.35.05-AM-160x110.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px\">\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide\">The KQED Voter Guide\u003c/a> continues to serve you information about California-wide contests, including the 10 state ballot propositions and the U.S. Senate race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, we are also including every local election in all nine Bay Area counties for the first time. That means we have information about every controversial measure, every school board race, every city or town council race and every local supervisorial and legislative race to help you become a better-informed voter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The KQED team has been listening to your feedback. And we are now covering all local elections because you told us you want more details about local measures and contests for which reliable information can be difficult to find.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We adhere to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/about/code-ethics\">KQED’s code of ethics\u003c/a>, which means our news staff are prohibited from contributing to electoral candidates or campaigns in any way. Why? Because we are committed to ensuring there are no conflicts of interest in the information we bring to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This voter guide takes about six months to create but builds on the work we do every election. Our team fanned out across the Bay Area to interview candidates and gather documents filed with each county’s elections office. We then worked to make the information that appeared in the voter guide relevant and easy to use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, you’ll see in some local races, there are no candidate statements. That’s because local elections officials are still processing some statements, or the candidate didn’t reply to our interview request in time. As we continue covering every race in the nine counties, we hope to hear more from everyone in our local communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And once polls are closed on election night, be sure to come back to KQED.org so you can see real-time results and find out which candidates won and which measures passed.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>KQED’s award-winning voter guide is back — this year with information on \u003ci>every\u003c/i> race in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KQED staffers are committed to making information about the election easy to understand, accessible and free for the public. We have a team of about 100 reporters, editors and producers working to inform you about the measures and candidates you’ll vote on in the 2024 November general election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-12005203\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/Screen-Shot-2024-09-18-at-10.35.05-AM.png\" alt=\"A screenshot of the KQED Voter Guide\" width=\"293\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/Screen-Shot-2024-09-18-at-10.35.05-AM.png 846w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/Screen-Shot-2024-09-18-at-10.35.05-AM-800x548.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/Screen-Shot-2024-09-18-at-10.35.05-AM-160x110.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px\">\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide\">The KQED Voter Guide\u003c/a> continues to serve you information about California-wide contests, including the 10 state ballot propositions and the U.S. Senate race.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plus, we are also including every local election in all nine Bay Area counties for the first time. That means we have information about every controversial measure, every school board race, every city or town council race and every local supervisorial and legislative race to help you become a better-informed voter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The KQED team has been listening to your feedback. And we are now covering all local elections because you told us you want more details about local measures and contests for which reliable information can be difficult to find.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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