Back to school: Expert tips when little kids make big transitions (re-broadcast)

Dan Schwartz (00:00):

Hello, everyone. I am still Dan Schwartz. Denise and I are getting fresh episodes ready to drop very soon. But today, we're bringing back a conversation from the School's In archive. This conversation feels especially relevant for the start of a new school year. This episode originally aired in August 2018, but the content is still timely, especially for families and teachers who are starting to think about how to set up young children for success in the early years of school. We take a look at tangible ways to prepare children and their teachers for elementary school, ranging from early learning environments to the skills and supports that matter the most. It's a thoughtful conversation about how we can make those important first years count. So, we hope you enjoy the episode and we will see you in September for an exciting new lineup of guests and topics.

Denise Pope (00:53):

Welcome to School's In, your go-to podcast for cutting edge insights in learning. From early education to lifelong development, we dive into trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners of all ages.

(01:09):

I'm Denise Pope, Senior Lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Education, and co-founder of Challenge Success.

Dan Schwartz (01:16):

And I'm Dan Schwartz, I'm the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the Faculty Director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.

Denise Pope (01:26):

Together, we bring you expert perspectives and conversations to help you stay curious, inspired, and informed.

Dan Schwartz (01:34):

Denise, "First day of school" Pope.

Denise Pope (01:36):

First day, it doesn't feel like the first day of school.

Dan Schwartz (01:40):

But for many, it is. And every day is the first day of the rest of your school life. Did that work? Did that work?

Denise Pope (01:44):

That worked. That totally works.

Dan Schwartz (01:46):

That worked.

Denise Pope (01:46):

So we can replay the show, yes.

Dan Schwartz (01:48):

Oh, so do you remember the first day of school for your firstborn child, and what you were thinking besides, will this school get my kid into Stanford?

Denise Pope (01:57):

Oh yeah, because that's for sure what I was thinking.

Dan Schwartz (01:59):

[inaudible 00:02:00].

Denise Pope (02:00):

I do remember the first day of school for my first child. The school was kind of different and had um, they sent us in the mail a little picture of a hand, a little paper hand that was laminated, and there were two of them. So I was supposed to wear the hand with a little red string around my neck, and then my oldest daughter was supposed to wear the hand with a little string around her neck, and then-

Dan Schwartz (02:25):

In case you couldn't recognize her?

Denise Pope (02:26):

No, so this is where the brilliance comes in. So we went and they do a little welcome with the parents, and then we were supposed to wave our hands goodbye. And at that time, the parents were all supposed to leave at the same time, and the kids were waving goodbye to us like, "It's okay, mom, I'm good." Right? So people were leaving in tears and everything and it was pretty emotional, but I liked the fact that they had this ceremony to understand the gravitas of the day, and they had thought through a nice sort of waving goodbye like, "I got this, mom. I'm going to wave my hand." And she knew what she was supposed to do, right? So, it kind of worked.

Dan Schwartz (03:07):

So, that happened when I took my son to college.

Denise Pope (03:09):

You wore a little hand around your neck?

Dan Schwartz (03:12):

Sort of. They had a whole routine, because basically there's all these parents that are babbling. This is the end, they're about to be empty nesters, it's the longest their kid- And they actually brought a faculty member out to talk to the parents and the faculty member was basically a comedian. And he told jokes for like 45 minutes while the kids all got put away in their dorm rooms. And then there was like the kids had to, kids, they're pretty old now, had to go off. And there was just one moment where there's like a handshake and then separate.

Denise Pope (03:42):

Right, a quick hug. They did that with my kids' colleges as well. Yeah. Did you cry though at kindergarten? Was that hard for you?

Dan Schwartz (03:48):

Oh, I was a single parent going to graduate school in New York City. And my kid's finally old enough so I get him out of the daycare that was being by the woman in the apartment who had lots of kids, and I leave him and in this basically it was like a dark hallway and he was middle in the line holding his giraffe. And I remember, and then I just walked away and just kept looking in the dark to see how it was going. At the end of the first day, he came back happy. So, it was all good.

Denise Pope (04:22):

Then it's good.

Dan Schwartz (04:23):

But yeah, no, it's heartbreaking.

Denise Pope (04:24):

It's hard.

Dan Schwartz (04:25):

It's heartbreaking. And then the strange thing is, is pretty soon they start coming home and they're talking about things and you don't actually know where that idea came from. When they, was really young, I know where every idea my child had came from.

Denise Pope (04:37):

Right, right. Absolutely. All of a sudden there's an outside influence on your child that you have no idea if it came from peers or teachers or what. I remember feeling that was a really weird feeling. I knew everything about this kid and then all of a sudden I'm not there for a big chunk of her life. It was a weird feeling.

Dan Schwartz (04:56):

Yeah, yeah. And fortunately, he had a giraffe.

Denise Pope (05:00):

He had his lovey, his little lovey animal. No, that's nice.

Dan Schwartz (05:03):

So, you've worked in this space for a long time. What are some of the questions that parents have, walking?

Denise Pope (05:10):

I get asked a whole bunch of questions... And I'm not an elementary school specialist, so.

Dan Schwartz (05:15):

Well, we have one.

Denise Pope (05:15):

Yes, we do.

Dan Schwartz (05:16):

Just by chance, a coincidence we have one.

Denise Pope (05:18):

We do. So we're going to ask these questions to Ira Lit, so I'm going to go ahead and introduce Ira.

(05:24):

Ira is a professor here at Stanford Graduate School of Education. He's the Director of our Elementary Teacher Education Program. So he helps prepare Stanford students to be teachers in kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms. He was an elementary school teacher himself. He actually taught kindergarten, third grade, fifth grade, preschool. So, he is really the expert on elementary. And he's the author of a really cool book called The Bus Kids: Children's Experience with Voluntary Desegregation. So, welcome Ira.

Ira Lit (05:58):

Thanks for having me.

Dan Schwartz (05:59):

Welcome, welcome.

Denise Pope (06:00):

So Ira, I do get asked a bunch of these questions, my guess is you get asked them as well. And the one that just always people say to me is, "How do you choose a school? How do you know the best school to choose for your kid?" And I know some people don't have the luxury of choosing the school, but with a lot of programs now with charter schools and magnets and independent schools, more and more choice is happening. So, what's the best advice you can give to someone for how to choose a school?

Ira Lit (06:27):

A big question, and I do get asked it quite often. Let me step back for a second, because I have to acknowledge that the story sharing that you both offered and you brought some tears to my eyes as I was imagining you bringing your own children to schools. As a former kindergarten teacher and as a parent, I've of course experienced some really similar experiences myself.

Dan Schwartz (06:49):

I bet.

Ira Lit (06:49):

That transition bringing your young children off to school is a really big one for parents and for children, especially if it's your first or your last.

Dan Schwartz (06:57):

Oh, your last.

Ira Lit (07:00):

Those are the moments for parents where they're more anxious, nervous, emotional than their own kids, because they're really significant markers in the life of a family where you're either bringing your children into this institution where they really are responsible for taking care of your kids for a long period of time, or when you're really... I mean, you mentioned empty nesting, Dan, but this is another version of empty nesting, when your last kid goes off to elementary school. That whole period of life as a family has changed in a significant way. So anyway, that brought back memories for me as a parent, but also as a teacher. Yeah.

Dan Schwartz (07:32):

So do any of the empty nesters shut the door and stand out and scream in enjoy? It's like, "I can go to the gym now," or?

Ira Lit (07:41):

I suspect that there are some active party planners amongst the parents and families. I hear less about that because they don't need me for that. As a teacher and as an educator, I hear more from the ones who are emotionally charged about this in a way where they may need some support, which... So, I'll try to be good and answer your actual questions.

(08:02):

I do get asked a lot about what are the ways that parents and families can think about options when they have them, and I do think Denise, your setup is really important, which is that not all members of our society have this opportunity to have any say in the matter and any choice. So the first thing I usually offer to parents is just that, an acknowledgement that some of us have opportunity and choice and privilege, and we need to be thoughtful about that. I think it's important for a couple of reasons.

(08:30):

So the first is that schools do a lot of things, but in a broad way, schools focus on individual needs and opportunities for our families and our kids, like how to serve us as individuals, but schools are also in service of society at large. And so I would like for all of the families, all the parents, but also the community members to recognize both of those things. So for those of us that have some say in the matter, have some choice to acknowledge that we also have some responsibilities. And so as we take advantage of choice, we also think about how that implicates the larger aims of school.

Dan Schwartz (09:04):

So, connect the dots for me.

Ira Lit (09:06):

Yeah. So if I'm a family member and I have... So a very broad based, if I get to decide where to buy a house, I have enough money to buy a house, that's the basic way where families really get to choose where to send their kids to school. Recognize that that has implications for the others who don't have that choice. And so, if I'm choosing to move to Palo Alto because I've heard that their schools are fabulous and I want to send my kids to those schools, what about the families who don't have that opportunity? Can I set aside some resources to contribute to a local library, to an education fund in a school district where my kids don't go to? Just some inclination towards a broader view.

(09:44):

And I think most of the families that I talk to haven't thought about that, but also appreciate it if it's offered in a kind of gentle but thoughtful way to recognize that we... It's kind of the JFK orientation, ask not what my school can do for me, but what I can do for my schools. I'd like it if more people were thinking about that kind of larger picture. All right, but your basic question is, what can I do for my kids?

Denise Pope (10:06):

Yeah. Someone wants to know, really. Yes, we're with you, totally, and-

Ira Lit (10:12):

Yeah. So I think there's a couple of important things to keep in mind when you have the opportunity to ask this question.

(10:17):

So first is, are there really essential things that my child needs? So for some of us, I mean, you shared about your children, I have two children in schools. They're really different. One of them is a ready-made kid for school, high flyer, always loves school, always has succeeded in school. And I have another child who has some significant special needs. School's a really tough place for him and it's a tough place on him. So for each of them, they need some different kinds of things. What I typically ask parents first is, "Is there something special that your kid needs that a school might be able to support you with that you can't do? Not what are all the things, what's a thing?" So if you can identify one particular thing that you really value that you as a family can't offer to your kids but a school might, it'd be great if you could find a school that could do that reasonably well. Even for my-

Dan Schwartz (11:07):

[inaudible 00:11:08].

Ira Lit (11:08):

Go ahead.

Dan Schwartz (11:09):

Really smart, it's really smart. I mean, it's-

Denise Pope (11:10):

Ira is really smart.

Dan Schwartz (11:11):

No, I knew this. We have learned, don't praise the person for intelligence. I was saying the idea was smart, not Ira was smart.

Denise Pope (11:17):

Ah, touche, touche.

Ira Lit (11:21):

What do you find engaging about it? Well, how does it work? Because I'm usually the provider, not the recipient.

Dan Schwartz (11:26):

Because it suddenly gives me a frame. It's a tractable question, as opposed to, I want to make sure the teachers are nice, I want to make sure the textbooks are good, I want his friends to be clean or whatever. It's like, what is it that the school can bring to bear that I as a parent probably can't provide as well? It's a great way to think about it.

Denise Pope (11:47):

So, you answered that question really well. I'm going to give you-

Dan Schwartz (11:50):

A-plus.

Denise Pope (11:51):

An A-plus, yes, because we grade. This is a quiz, this is a test.

Ira Lit (11:55):

I know this is a quiz and a conversation together. Excellent, I'm looking forward to my final grade at the end.

Denise Pope (11:56):

Yeah, exactly.

Dan Schwartz (11:57):

It's called a raise

Ira Lit (11:57):

Even better.

Denise Pope (12:00):

So, what is the best way to prepare a kid for the first day of school? You said you've got kids who are different, I've got kids who are different. Not everyone is totally excited counting down the days and going to run into the classroom. What's your best advice for that?

Ira Lit (12:15):

Yeah. This is probably the second most frequent question I get asked by parents, families, but I'm going to do the typical academic thing and I'm going to turn the question around a little bit, because I really think that the most important thing is for schools, for teachers in particular, the folks I work with on a daily basis to be thinking about, how can we be ready for all the kids who are coming to us? I mean, that's the responsibility of the teacher and the school, and we need to take all comers and do really well by all of them.

(12:41):

And so, I'm a little skeptical about the orientation to be asking, "How can we get all the kids ready for school?" School has to be ready for all the kids. And there's a lot of things that we can do in schools to open our mind and broaden our palette so that we can be ready to help children who might already be reading when they enter kindergarten, and children who haven't looked at the alphabet yet and can't write their name, and help all of them succeed to the best of their ability and to be included in ways that make schooling an exciting and vibrant place for them. So, I think that really is important. I don't want families to forget about that. I really don't want teachers to forget about that, because if we just focus on, what is all the stuff kids need to do in order to get ready for us, it limits our view about what we're going to do if they don't have all those things.

Dan Schwartz (13:27):

Although it is the number one question I get from undergraduates.

Ira Lit (13:32):

From undergrad?

Denise Pope (13:32):

From undergrad?

Dan Schwartz (13:33):

Yeah, undergraduates send me emails and say, "What can I do that will prepare me to get into graduate school?"

Ira Lit (13:39):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (13:39):

Oh, so any kind of transition is tough.

Dan Schwartz (13:42):

Sure, right.

Denise Pope (13:42):

Right? Any kind of transition is tough, but I like Ira's framing. And by the way, that is hard on a teacher to know that you're going to have a kid who may be reading almost Harry Potter level stuff, and a kid who doesn't know the alphabet, doesn't know how to spell.

Dan Schwartz (13:55):

Right.

Denise Pope (13:56):

Boy, that's hard.

Ira Lit (13:57):

It's hard, but it's inevitable, and so I think we do a disservice both to the teachers and to the students if we don't orient them in that direction. I think there's a lot of things that we actually do when we've built this institution of school that leads us in that direction. I mean, starting with the age graded orientation to schooling. I mean, we talk about first grade and second grade and kindergarten as if it's a thing, and if those folks come to us with very particular talents and skills and prior experiences, but really it's just a random collection of individuals somewhat close in age who have a very diverse set of backgrounds and experiences and tools, and we've got to be ready to help all of them.

Denise Pope (14:34):

Yeah. One of my favorite Elliot Eisner lines is that, "We educate kids by litter for no apparent reason." It's just a great line, and both Ira and I studied with Elliot.

Ira Lit (14:45):

Yeah. Elliot's in the back of my head all the time.

Denise Pope (14:45):

All the time.

Ira Lit (14:45):

Including in this conversation.

Denise Pope (14:45):

Absolutely.

Ira Lit (14:45):

Yeah.

Denise Pope (14:49):

And one thing before we move on to another question around this day one question, is I know a trend that's become a little bit more popular is home visits, where the teachers go before the kids come to whatever, preschool, kindergarten, whatever, actually go to the home and visit the family and visit the kid.

Dan Schwartz (15:06):

Oh my God.

Denise Pope (15:07):

Why is that?

Dan Schwartz (15:08):

Oh, I would so have to clean the bathroom.

Denise Pope (15:10):

Yes, you would have to-

Dan Schwartz (15:10):

The kitchen.

Denise Pope (15:12):

And you would have to clean the house.

Dan Schwartz (15:13):

Yes.

Denise Pope (15:14):

I'm sure many people do, but Ira, what do you think of that?

Ira Lit (15:18):

Yeah, I think with some proper training and support, I think it's a fabulous idea for a variety of reasons. We actually work with our pre-service teachers in STEP Elementary, to do a lot of thinking about the kinds of relationships they're going to build with families in support of their students, because they're a key element in this equation in terms of their student success. So, it's very important that teachers in schools are building positive, productive, proactive relationships with the other adults that are significant in these children's lives. One useful and important way is taking the connections out of school. Most of what we ask for parents is very school oriented and school focused. It almost always happens on school grounds, right? It's on our turf, it's in the ways we do business, it's on the time schedule that we do business. There's some reasonableness to that because that's when we're doing our business.

(16:06):

That said, if they're really partners, we got to do some of the work on their terms and on their turf. There are good, important things to keep in mind. There's often cultural and language barriers that we're bridging. There may be geographical barriers that we're bridging if we're sending our teachers into homes of others, so we have to be thoughtful about how to do that. You want to make it an offer, not a demand. Some folks, say Dan, might not be excited to have me come visit his home and may not have time to clean his bathroom, but I could meet him at his favorite local coffee shop to talk about his family and his aspirations for his child in a way that he's comfortable, without making him come to my office and my school classroom where the sort of power dynamic is all in my favor.

Dan Schwartz (16:46):

My son's mother would not let me meet with his teachers.

Denise Pope (16:49):

What? Ever? What?

Dan Schwartz (16:50):

Yeah. Well, because it turns out that I study in this area, I'm kind of an expert, and she knew I would start challenging the teachers and-

Denise Pope (17:00):

Oh, you'd be intimidating to them.

Dan Schwartz (17:02):

Or annoying.

Denise Pope (17:03):

Or annoying.

Dan Schwartz (17:04):

And then suddenly the teacher's like, "Boy, turns out your kid's annoying too."

Denise Pope (17:09):

Oh my God. So, you didn't go to parent teacher conferences, or?

Dan Schwartz (17:13):

Sometimes I did, but for the most part, I was blocked from doing that.

Denise Pope (17:17):

Fascinating.

Ira Lit (17:18):

And did that work out well for your son?

Denise Pope (17:23):

Was that helpful?

Ira Lit (17:24):

Was that a useful strategy? I mean, maybe she was giving you awfully good advice.

Dan Schwartz (17:28):

My son's life success is like a C minus because I didn't get to... no.

Denise Pope (17:32):

Oh, that is so not true. That is so not true.

(17:42):

Ira, we have one that I get asked a lot, I'm sure you probably do too, which is, a parent who is worried that their kid is going into either kindergarten or first or maybe even second, and they're not reading yet. And it's like, what is the age that I absolutely have to make sure my kid is reading by so they will be a success in life?

Ira Lit (18:00):

That is a really common question. It's a hard one to answer with certainty. As a way to maybe help parents feel a little bit more comfort and confidence, what I would say is one, to recognize that you have a lot of useful resources. So, that's what your teachers in your school is for. If you're feeling uncertain about where your child is with their progress in any subject area, reading or otherwise, ask your teacher. If you want a second opinion, ask another teacher. And I think that can help give you some reassurance. It's not all a contest and a race. Children grow and develop at different paces. They learn to walk at different ages, they learn to talk at different ages, they learn to read at different ages. And so we also want to keep that in mind, that children are each on their own path. Of course, we want them all to be successful.

(18:44):

Very broadly speaking, most children learn how to read around first grade, around age seven. It's part of why historically the curriculum has focused on reading in first grade. My wife was a longtime first grade teacher. She liked to say, "I love teaching first grade because I get to take credit for all the children learning how to read when they're ready." We have moved the curriculum in such a way, there's a more focus on early literacy in kindergarten, even in pre-K. There are children who can make good progress towards early reading at earlier ages, but it's more challenging for a lot of children because they're not developmentally ready. So, I think that's heightened some anxiety on the part of some parents. They certainly don't need to be able to read by the time they enter kindergarten, that's the job of their schools and their teacher.

Denise Pope (19:28):

I know that as a parent, you see other kids reading, and this happened to me with one of my kids where everyone else was reading and this particular child was not reading, and to the point where I was thinking, when should I worry? So how do you answer that question? When should you worry? When are you maybe not catching dyslexia, or I don't know. I guess it's the same answer, you have the resources around you, but.

Ira Lit (19:54):

I do think at some basic level it's the same answer. I think for most folks, if they're worried, then that's an indication that you should be having some conversations with others. And you have a wide range of resources. Pediatricians are really well-informed about typical developmental markers, including academic ones. So they're actually a really excellent resource, and in part because they don't see your child on a daily basis and they're tracking growth and development. So they'll let you know if they're seeing some things that are of concern, but those are good kinds of questions to bring with you. And then there's other community resources, if you really have a worry around a specific learning need or developmental disability, there are outside resources that you might be able to go to, whether it's a foundation or a nonprofit or specialist who can give you some indications and clues as to whether you need to do some more serious evaluations and assessments of your child.

(20:47):

And that really tracks my own personal experience with our youngest, where both my wife and I are educators, we both focus on early childhood. We have a lot of knowledge, and still there's plenty of things we didn't know. We're flexible about thinking about the developmental growth of our child, but learning to speak was slow, some of the behaviors were just different. And then so we asked the preschool teachers and we asked others and eventually we found our way to a language specialist who did some assessments and then they pointed us in the direction of some other specialists. And that helped us move forward in this journey to understand what was working and not working for our child, and to try to seek the resources that would be helpful for him.

Dan Schwartz (21:29):

So, I'm a teacher. I'm listening to one of the great teacher educators in the world, you.

Denise Pope (21:36):

In case you didn't catch that.

Dan Schwartz (21:38):

I'm not actually a teacher, but you are one of the great teacher educators in the world. So, give me a tip. Give me something new that I might not have learned when I was in school getting my teacher education training.

Ira Lit (21:50):

One of the things that I think about when people are puzzling over ways to make significant advances in their practice or in the field as a whole, I think we have an unhealthy orientation to finding a silver bullet, a holy grail. What is the magical thing that is going to uplift either my practice, my classroom, my school, this entire system that's imperfect? I think that orientation to the work does great harm to the overall efforts that we have in order to try to build systems that better serve a wider range, a more diverse range of students. So, that's where I would start is, don't look for the holy grail. At some very basic level it's, what are the foundational elements about what we know about what works for effectively working with children's families and communities, and which of those things can I really shore up in order to enhance what it is that I do for a broader reach of the students that I serve?

(22:45):

So without knowing anything about this teacher, this hypothetical teacher that we're talking about, one of the things that I might puzzle over with that person is, who are the students that you think you're not reaching right now? Are they the children who are slower academically, they're having trouble with early reading? Are they the students who had a jump on all the curriculum you had in mind for them? They're ready for the next grade you had in mind, and so they're on a hold mode in your classroom. Is it students with a different kind of cultural background than yours? Is it folks who are... Think about that puzzle and then try to imagine what are the resources you can bring to bear in order to help those kids thrive, as well as the kids who are really high-flying in your classroom. That would be a way that I would want to imagine with this teacher.

Dan Schwartz (23:32):

So when I taught, in Alaska I taught pretty much every subject, six through 12, which means I had the same kids all the way through. And so you would think, that must be great, because you get to work with these kids in every subject and boy, do you understand them, but there's this one kid I could not reach, and he had nowhere to go besides me.

Denise Pope (23:52):

And he was so bummed that he had to have you every single year? Was that what you're-

Dan Schwartz (23:57):

Not just every single year, but six hours a day, and he had no... and I could not figure out how to improve my practice to reach this kid. So, your point resonates.

Ira Lit (24:06):

Yeah. Well, I think part of your challenge probably was you were in a context where you were a little bit more isolated and probably had fewer colleagues to draw from, right?

Dan Schwartz (24:15):

Yeah. You had to fly 400 miles in a plane to get there.

Denise Pope (24:17):

[inaudible 00:24:19].

Ira Lit (24:19):

Not to date, you were also pre-internet, so you probably couldn't Skype with some others too.

Dan Schwartz (24:20):

That's right.

Denise Pope (24:20):

So I have a question and this might be hard, but I'm going to ask it anyway. If you had to design an excellent unit in elementary school, would you design it in a single discipline? Would it be interdisciplinary? Would it be project-based? What's your preference of mode here for what you think works the best, or is that an impossible question?

Dan Schwartz (24:50):

So, let me make that a little more concrete.

Denise Pope (24:53):

Yes.

Dan Schwartz (24:53):

Is that okay?

Denise Pope (24:54):

Yes.

Dan Schwartz (24:54):

Okay, thank you, boss. There's a school where on the roof of the building they had a sandbox, and in the sandbox they created an archeological dig, they put things around. And it dominated, it was the main source of instruction for like four and a half months in every area. So they would measure how far things were apart, so that'd be the kind of the math, and then they'd find cooking utensils and so they would start to figure out how they must have eaten. And it organized everything. Is this a great idea or is it just like maybe you have a bunch of kids who don't really like archeological digs and you've blown it?

Ira Lit (25:30):

Yeah. Well, I think to respond to both of your questions, I think first and foremost, there's more than one way to success in teaching and learning and I think we just have to keep that in mind. So, I've seen flourishing examples of curriculum in schools that look really different from one another. And I think that's exciting, actually. It gives us a lot of opportunities as educators, both to be working in places where we're excited and engaged, but also where our students are excited and engaged. I can offer two different examples and approaches of schools that I've had the opportunity to work with in the last couple of years through a research project I was doing in New York. And there's some common themes, in that they both really committed to the vision of education that they had. I think that's important. And the vision was deep and thoughtful. It was not superficial, it was not the most in thing. So those things are really important, but they were different.

(26:19):

So the first is a school that was really committed and focused on inclusive education. It was part of their primary objective, their core mission. They did a lot of training and support of one another. So, and by inclusive education, I meant, what's the broadest range of children with a wide set of needs, particularly students with special needs, special education students, that could be taught effectively in the classroom with more typically developing students? And the model they were using was co-teaching. So in every one of the classrooms, they had two educators, at least one who especially trained as an education specialist to work with special needs children, but they both collectively worked with all of the children in their classroom. This allowed them to think really carefully about what were the needs again, high-flying, different interests, specific challenges of all the kids in their classroom, and meet them by breaking them up into smaller groups, by having supportive instructional context and so on. So that was a really lovely, beautiful way to take a school, include as many students as possible and help them all succeed.

(27:21):

Another school that I worked with was an arts focused, project oriented school, where they really did teach all of the subjects in some of these kind of extensive, intensive models, but really authentic. I mean, one of the things that's important is that it's real and that it's deep. So in a lot of schools, a project means everybody comes home with the same-

Denise Pope (27:42):

Fourth grade mission building.

Ira Lit (27:44):

Oh, don't get me started on the mission, that'll be a whole nother, it'll be a whole nother one.

Dan Schwartz (27:47):

Wait, wait. This is, I use like gingerbread cookies and icing?

Denise Pope (27:55):

To build the mission? Yeah, this is a problem of yeah... that's a whole-

Ira Lit (27:58):

Well, so I have a fabulous graduate student, Harper Keenan, whose dissertation was just around this topic and you should read his work. It's really exciting and it exposes some of the problems with this particular project. That to me is not authentic project-based learning, but can you imagine a set of first graders who over the course of a year wrote and produced their own play. This is a school that's blocks from Broadway, so they're out in the community. They're interviewing folks who worked on Broadway with the lighting, they bring into their classroom performing artists. Right? They take advantage of their local community and the context. They learn about all the ins and outs. Of course, you've got to read and write in order to write a script. You've got to learn how to do mathematics in order to build a budget so you know how much money you have for the scenery and how much to charge for tickets. And over the course of the year, the students produced a really fabulous play.

Denise Pope (28:51):

Okay. Well, as you've heard, school can be pretty exciting, especially in elementary school. We are so lucky to have had an expert here answering all our questions. Thank you, Ira, for this wonderful episode. And thanks to all of you for listening to School's Inn. Be sure to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you tune in. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (29:14):

And I am Dan Schwartz.