Latest / The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders / There Are No Deficits Here with Lauren Wells

Transcript

There Are No Deficits Here with Lauren Wells · The Authority Podcast — Expert Insights and Fresh Ideas for Education Leaders

• Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in, everybody. You are listening to the Authority Podcast on the BE Podcast Network. It's a pleasure, as always, to have you with us, and I'm really especially pleased that you're here today for this conversation, which we're going to be diving deeper into various angles of educational equity and opportunity, and it's going to be a great conversation. My guest is Dr. Lauren Wells. She is an educator, researcher, and community organizer whose work centers on comprehensive systemic Culturally responsive and collaborative approaches to educational and social change. In 2009, Lauren became the director of the broader, bolder approach to education at the Metropolitan [00:01:00] Center for Urban Education at NYU, where she led the design implementation of a major school transformation initiative in Newark called the Newark Global Village School Zone. This reform has had a lasting impact on the educational landscape of Newark. It's part of what we'll discuss in this interview as well. She has also served as the Chief Education Officer for Mayor Roz Baraka in the city of Newark, where she led education policy and developed initiatives on behalf of the city, and as a professor of education at the University of Southern California, Montclair State University, and American University. She is currently an assistant professor at Kean University. Also in New Jersey and founder of Creed Strategies, a community of consultants whose core mission is to use their knowledge, experience, and resources to work alongside educators and communities to ignite conditions for equity and justice. So that's the background. Her book is, There Are No Deficits Here: Disrupting Anti Blackness in Education. It is published by Corwin. Lauren, welcome to the show. Lauren Wells: Thank [00:02:00] you. It is a delight to be here with you. I love my book and I love talking about it. So I am excited to see where this conversation today goes. Ross Romano: Excellent. Yeah. Let's dive right into it. And I think a Good place to start is maybe the background, right, of. anti blackness in education, like the the historical, systemic infrastructure, such as it is, that exists you know, and that's right there in the title of the book, right, to sort of contextualize that for listeners and say, like, this is where we're coming from, this is what we're talking about today. (ad here) Lauren Wells: Wow. So the background is centuries old. And for me, when I when I think about what education has or has not meant to black people in America. How it has been legally denied how [00:03:00] learning to read, to write, right, to use those tools for liberation the cost was death, mutilation, and other forms of torture and severe punishment. For me, that's where, right, the root of anti blackness in education begins. And then you could take a historical walk through all of the ways that even prior to the Civil War, Carter G. Woodson writes a book about what education was like for Black people how churches were creating educational systems, schools, etc. How Black people were creating their own learning communities. You can talk about how during enslavement Black people risked everything to come into community together to learn, to read so that they could have [00:04:00] some control over their condition in the world. And then we can talk about how schooling systems were developed after the civil war, during reconstruction, the role that black people played, the will that black people paid, played in raising money and building schools and how that really is at the core of the educational system in the South. And how that isn't even talked about when we learn about the history of education we can walk through segregated schools, which my mother attended I attended a segregated high school, which I talked a little bit about the book and was part of desegregation litigation. When I was in high school, we can come up to 2024 and the important work that comes out of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, right, that describes for us the conditions of school segregation that exists in the U. S. [00:05:00] today. But also, and equally as important to the segregated conditions are the opportunities that are provided. The way that education is conceptualized, designed, and delivered to all of us in general to narrate stories that exclude the voices of Black people and as a result tell inaccurate histories and how Black students in particular encounter education in the classroom. in classrooms and schools across this country. So there are deep roots of anti blackness in learning and the opportunity to learn that are societal and that flow from social inequality, oppressive systems into our educational system. And from my point of view, are there to contribute to the [00:06:00] continuation of the social reality and hierarchies and roles that exist? Ross Romano: Is this, Like history well, history up to the present, right? But is it typically, like, taught at all in pre service programs there, I mean, there's, of course, many educators in all parts of the country who work in schools with many black students, right, but whether they're in cities or otherwise and they are Working within the system that's been created, working a lot of times within schools that are basically under resourced by design, right? And they they see what's in front of their face and what they're personal experiences with it, but do they, have they received any kind of other than if they sought it on their own education on deeper, like, roots of that? And if not, like, how [00:07:00] is that, how could it be beneficial? Lauren Wells: So no systemically and systematically, no. Of course, there are professors, right, and teacher educators. And universities all across the country who create and tailor courses so that this becomes a part of the pre service learning that teachers are exposed to I would say even in leadership programs there is, there is an incomplete. attention to understanding the historical context of what education is and how leadership plays a role in creating inequitable learning opportunities to students. And I think an inadequate and insufficient attention paid to really understanding what equity is and what it enables to lead. [00:08:00] from an equity standpoint. So the benefit of that is that it gives you a more complete picture of Black people as intellectual beings that doesn't begin with a picture of enslavement, right? I think universally, and part of the conversations that. are happening nationally around critical race theory ethnic studies programs, African American studies courses, et cetera really bring into focus the question of where do you begin to talk about the history of black people and This is not new, right? This is part of the ethnic studies movements. My mother, when she was a college student, was active in protests to bring Black studies to campuses. So this question of what are the contributions of Black people historically has been with us. [00:09:00] I think part of the, I don't know, challenge, dismay, disappointment anger is that we're still having this conversation today in a way that demonstrates that the pieces of gains that have been made are being eroded and have been eroded to such an extent that you know, I was teaching a course of undergraduate students once, and we were talking about Segregation and they were just like mystified and I said, so when you guys have athletic events, right, when you have a football game. And the teams line up on the field and you've got the black team and the white team. What does that say to you? And they're like, well, it's not segregation, right? So there is no understanding of the ways in which policies personal [00:10:00] choices that we make about where we live and where we send our kids to school contribute to these isolated learning environments where. Students of different backgrounds are not having the cross cultural, cross racial cross class interactions that are necessary in order to really create the conditions for meaningful knowledge and understanding of each other. And it's hard for me to extract that from. What it is we are or are not teaching those who go into classrooms and then they get into classrooms, right? And you can't teach what you don't know, you can't teach what you haven't been exposed to, and then it becomes into the question of, okay, so now what does in service training look like? What does professional development look like? What does it look like [00:11:00] for teachers? What does it look like for social workers, for guidance counselors, for school leaders? What does it look like for the support staff that work in your buildings? And is it at all intended to create community and to bring about relational dynamics where there is a real sense of belonging to an educational environment? Where every person in that space is understood as, to use Goldie Muhammad's language, a genius and to be seen as someone who is more than potential, but that is I, there was a colleague of mine, Patrick Kamanian, who teaches at Cal State, I think right where everybody in front of you is [00:12:00] potentially a Malcolm X, or potentially a Rumi, or potentially a Phyllis Wheatley, or potentially a Gwendolyn Brooks, or Toni Morrison, or Maya Angelou. How does that change the way in which you go about the work that you're doing? If you automatically see, that is who is in front of you. And I think having complete pictures of our historical context is important to building educators who have the knowledge and the desire to scratch beneath the surface. Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah, and then I think that leads nicely into the concept you write about that school reform, school improvement is this ongoing thing this language, this initiative but that the fixes associated with these initiatives typically [00:13:00] hinge on deficit beliefs, right? And it kind of, to me, I was thinking in my head about. It's sort of this kind of deficit approach being kind of a, almost sort of a bottom up, like, let's find what the with the big problems here and just try to patch them, right? If it's a, if it's a building, let's find where there's leaks and just try to like fix those leaks versus saying, look, this entire structure is compromised. You need to just like tear it down and rebuild it the way it should be from the top down. Right. And also the concept of sort of. You know, we talk about like backwards mapping and instruction, right? But what about backwards mapping in aspiration, right? Like, what is our aspiration for what our learners can become? And let's work backward from there to think about how they get there versus saying, Oh, we have. 30 percent [00:14:00] proficiency on this exam and we need to get to 60 percent or whatever. And let's just figure out how to get from here to there. And then we've totally cut off that last 40 percent from even being in view because it's coming at it from the deficit approach of just looking at you know, like the status quo is worse than we want it to be. How do we get it to some minimum acceptable level? However, somebody decides to determine and define that, right? And then there's just no, and that's, infiltrates the psyche of every individual in that building, educator, student, and otherwise, right? But this is the thing that many of these you talked about intentions, right? It's like many of these well intentioned educators are given resources and environment and ecosystems and stuff such that then they start [00:15:00] like seeing it as this is the way it is and it's not ultimately like It doesn't even leave open the possibility of great things. But anyway, you know more about this than me. But yeah, what, like, what, when we talk about these school improvement being built on these deficit beliefs you know, what does that look like? Lauren Wells: Well I would say that it starts before anyone decides to be an educator, right? That it is part of how we are socialized to see ourselves and each other and our interactions with each other as members of this. society. And so by the time you get to an in service or pre service learning experience where you're going down the pathway to become an educator, this view of black [00:16:00] students as less than, as deficient, As incapable, as unmotivated, as dangerous, right, have been instilled in the psyche and I'm not suggesting, although I do think it's necessary, I'm not suggesting that what we should be doing right here in this conversation is around this social Reformation, which is a whole entire other project. what I am offering is to say, as teachers, educators, as school leaders, as district leaders, as professors of education and leadership, knowing right, that when undergraduate students arrived to us to begin the pathway to becoming a teacher, they've had all of this [00:17:00] socialization. That in no way prepares them to encounter black students, black communities, black educators as their human equivalents. What is it that we need to do in our process to disrupt, mitigate, and give them other lenses through which to see and interact with the students in the communities where they are going to be teaching? And I think that it's possible. I think that it's, I know that it's hard work. I know that all of us are exposed to the same deficit beliefs. Every individual who enters a school of education, at the undergraduate or graduate level has been through television, through media, through their own educational process, through the things that happen in [00:18:00] families. Exposed to deficit beliefs about black people that is a universal experience. It's everywhere. It is on the TV. It is on the billboards. It is in the newspaper. It is in the data. It is how the day in the day, how the data is interpreted. And what the newspaper stories tell us, right? So we can make, I think, a pretty general assumption that On a continuum, students arrive to us with various degrees to which those beliefs are deeply embedded and haven't been challenged in their subconscious and conscious thinking. And I think universally, whether whoever you're teaching, that it is important for in your training process for you to have encounters that challenge you to unseat those beliefs. So that we can create learning environments [00:19:00] where black students have the opportunity to thrive and where white students and Asian students and Latino students are exposed to, where you have the capacity to expose those students. To different narratives about black students, and I think that's universal for all of us in education to really have the capacity and develop the will to expose our students to narratives that do not reinforce dominant narratives about deficits in black people and other people of color. Ross Romano: Yeah, I thought the, actually the first, That's the very first sentence in the foreword that Yvette Jackson wrote was pretty good contextualization for a lot of this. It says, Cognitive and Neuroscience substantiate that we are all wired with the innate propensity for the [00:20:00] development of strengths. And then she continues to say that you'll notice that a lot of language like this or language around thriving high achieving is like noticeably absent from the mission statement of you know, schools and districts that are you Not necessarily looking at it through this lens, right? And that this would be, I mean, cause this seems like it would be a really good foundational starting point for looking at every learner and saying, okay, everybody, this is what every student can be, and this is what everybody wants. Innately, self actualization, making meaningful contributions, being great at something, whatever that is, right, finding out what their strengths are, finding out what their interests are, and if I'm looking at each, I'm going to help everybody figure out what that [00:21:00] is but that presumably a deficit model or a or a prejudicial model would say, this is going to be the exception rather than the rule. Yeah, we're going to have a couple of students who clearly are like this, but most of them won't be. (ad here) Ross Romano: What's the hard look in the mirror, I guess? That individual, I mean, it's not limited to educators, right? Everybody individual, let's say stakeholders in the education system, anybody who has anything to do with it has to look in the mirror and say, like, am I understanding this? Am I understanding the truth of this? Believing this? putting it into action or am I not, right? Am I maybe saying these words but my actions or my attitudes show that I don't really think it's so, Lauren Wells: Well so Dr. J. Baxton, just, she's, she is my whole entire heart, that woman. [00:22:00] I've, I have learned so much from her and just appreciate everything that she has contributed, right, to, to my own development and to her affirmation of my intellect and my intelligence. capabilities and my contribution to the world and to education as a black woman. But you know, I'm glad that you went in that direction because the second thing that I wanted to say is that all of what we're talking about really is about who we are in the work, right? And who, how, who we are when we arrive. and who it is that we need to become in order to be educators that create what I call emancipatory educational ecosystems. And that, that look at ourselves is very much about when I look [00:23:00] at my action, right? When I look at and so it's interesting because I do this in a couple kinds of ways. One is just in my every day outside of school, right? Because that's a whole different lens. And two, our belief systems and how they're operating in interactions that have nothing to do with who we are as professionals. And then there's what is happening inside of the classroom. And so I do a lot of like experimentation with myself to really understand what is some of the subconscious programming that's operating. So, for example, when I'm in a grocery store, And I am walking around with my cart. On a side note, I think people walk around the grocery store exactly like they drive like with short stops and all that kind of stuff and no turn signals. But anyway, I I pay attention to who do I say excuse me to? Who says [00:24:00] excuse me to me? Who don't I say excuse me to? Who do I get impatient with? Right? When I'm at a red light. I'm paying attention to kind of like, how do I react when I'm cut off? Do I react differently when different people cut me off? Who do I hold the door for when I'm walking through a door? Who don't I hold the door for? Who holds the door for me? All of those kinds of things, right? Like they give you some insight into what's operating in your thinking out there, which I think is useful information you're bringing into the classroom. And then when you get into the classroom, it's a similar type of. What are my actions, right? Like, what did I do today? Who did I call on? Who didn't I call on? And just creating a database, if you will, not, I'm not talking about like crazy Excel spreadsheets or anything, but just some informal data collection about yourself and your actions and the patterns that you see. And then [00:25:00] putting those patterns into conversation with what you say you believe and seeing if those patterns bear out your beliefs. then if they don't, what is that space in between and getting in there and doing that work as a, just an individual human being? I think school leaders this is important to them and it's possible to do that at a collective level. You know, to have, to bring individual aggregation of data together into a collective to say, okay here's what we're observing about what we're actually doing in this school. Here's what we have written down over here. Here's what I've heard in our PD sessions. Here's what you said to me on the side. Here's what I say. Is there alignment? Where is there disalignment? And that's a way to really get into this space [00:26:00] to kind of unpack what it is the deficit beliefs that you have are, how they're operating and how they're showing up in practice. You can also look for affirmation, right, that you are doing things that are, nurturing and supportive and uplifting and affirming and that draw out the historical and cultural knowledge of students and that affirms students in your classroom. So it's not an either or, it's just that you don't really know until you start to take a look at what you're doing from a more normative space and not the just the technical. Okay, well, we're going to provide PD on differentiation because of X, Y, and Z that we've observed. But what is underlying the behaviors that you're observing so that you can provide support to get into [00:27:00] the mental models and the consciousness that is driving the instructional choices that you're making, the content choices that you're making. The way that you build relationships with students, across staff, with community, etc, etc. So, that to me is where the work begins. I don't think that it necessarily has to begin or should begin at a universal level. Obviously there are places of readiness. This Right. And I do think that it's important for people working in schools to have their own models of what transform personal, professional transformation look like when they're in interaction so that you can create a school culture that is about the intellectual propensity of everyone in the building. Ross Romano: Yeah, Lauren Wells: cannot [00:28:00] expect people to do things that they have not learned or have not experienced. There are going to be those exceptions, right, because exceptions exist in the professional space as well. But if we don't create the conditions for everyone to become a learner collectively and work towards collectively the space that we want to create, then we can't reasonably expect people to go there on their own because there's nothing in the technical educational ecosystem, if you will, that is supporting us to move in that direction. In fact, there's a, everything is there that is containing us in the status quo and actually pushing us. In the opposite direction. Ross Romano: you've done lots of research on of this and everything that leads into the approaches that we'll be talking about. Are there [00:29:00] particular things that stand out from what you've You know, found and uncovered and concluded through your research that like specifically tied into areas where you realized you had an incomplete understanding from just your direct personal experience, or even a, maybe a understanding that you decided was wrong. I mean, overgeneralize their own experience. And but there's. We see a certain slice of it and that part's really important, I think because people who have not had any direct experience with any of these dynamics, right, have a hard time wrapping their heads around it, but also you've seen this whole broader perspective or through that research, I don't, I'm wondering just if there's anything in particular that that you realized that it just really changed your thinking. Lauren Wells: [00:30:00] So I, I mean, I think that the realization is that everyone is beyond assumptions. And I think it's just a mirror question that engage, so that engaging any person, right? A lot of. So there is conversation and research and work that folk that is like, so laser focused on students. Like, this is what we want students to do. And my, and I try to push it up a level, right? To say if we want these outcomes from students, this is what we as adults need to be in our various roles. and how those roles relate to each other. And what I think is, and what I, what is, I think is so important and what has been an aha moment for me and what I often honestly feel [00:31:00] intention with because there is, because I think it is important right now for Black kids to be in places where there is no ambiguity about their value and belonging. But the reality is that The same kind of environment that I'm talking about creating for students has to be created for us in the work as well, right? And we cannot expect people to take hard, incisive, internal looks within and contribute that to a process of change. If it is not held in a container that allows for growth, and I say that, and I know that it is extraordinarily hard to do. When you know that there [00:32:00] are individuals in various roles that are directly contributing to harmful conditions in. And in a learning environment. And so the aha is it's necessary to do that because you want people, right? Just are wiring, right? The neuroscience will tell us that no one is going to make themselves vulnerable in a place where there are alarm systems. is going off, right? That's just, we cannot expect that to happen. But that we also need to be working in such a way that those, where there is harm being created, that there are processes in place to immediately and directly support the sources of those harm, of that harm. And to take whatever steps are necessary to [00:33:00] remediate and address those attitudes, behaviors, and practices so that they are not harming children and that can look like a lot of different ways. It could look like team teaching it could look like More dosages of support and observation, but that to me is an important aha, if you will, in observing what this looks like and what is actually necessary to get to the place that at least I envision for For black students and for all students. And I do say, right, we are talking about all students, which is why it is important to talk specifically about black students because generally black students are not included in the all of opportunity and value of dignity. Ross Romano: So as far as an [00:34:00] approach that works ecosystems, I think I mentioned the word earlier. But so this new paradigm this looking at schools and the learning environments as ecosystems. I guess what's the what and why of that? What's that all about? Why why is that approach what's working? Lauren Wells: Well, the. The why, the what or the why? Well, I'm going to answer this and it'll answer one of those two questions. So there's this sort of idea that I have encountered throughout my own education experience, my work as a teacher and my academic training, that schools are just like these. You go into the schoolhouse and you take advantage of the opportunity and you leave. And you do well, right? Like schools are neutralized from everything that is happening around them. And [00:35:00] from my observations, from what the data says, from the sociology data on education, that's just simply not true. What is happening, right? Joel Spring writes about the impacts of all of these, right, social, political, historical factors on the development of schooling over time. And so I think that that is part of the why, is that we have to very purposefully and intentionally understand how the systems beliefs and cultural dynamics that we exist in shape the purposes and practices of schooling in general, and then we have to look specifically where we are and understand how those dynamics are playing out locally.[00:36:00] to influence and determine what is happening in our classrooms, schools, and districts. So, that's the why. Another part of the why, the, I'll go to the what. The what is we understand that ecosystems are these interrelated parts, right, that contribute to the whole and the functioning of the whole. That play their individual role and that have an impact on the other parts in the ecosystem. And so that's the what. The teacher has a role, a teacher has a classroom, the teacher impacts that classroom, but that teacher and that classroom invariably affect that grade level. Right? And that grade level affects that school. And so it allows us to. It allows us to become this is not language, it allows us, here's a word, laser focused. That's not one of the words that I would typically use, but I think [00:37:00] people can wrap their heads around that particular piece of jargon in the educational landscape. It allows us to become laser focused on how the individual parts are functioning, and how they are interacting with each other, and thus, how that bends. influences the whole. So that is the why and the what. And it allows us to look very specifically at a classroom as an ecosystem, at a grade level as an ecosystem, as a department as an ecosystem, and to really see what are the factors within each of those places that are affecting that particular Subsystem within the larger ecosystem. But then how are they affecting each other? And what does that mean for us in totality? Ross Romano: So, so if you take like, for example the newer global [00:38:00] village school zone, like, are there certain things that would illustrate in practice, like tangibly how this looks different or functions differently from what's typical? Lauren Wells: Well, yeah, so the Global Village School Zone had a very short lifespan. But we accomplished a lot in this period of time. So it was 2009 to 2012. And it was seven schools that became a A whole, if you will. So six K 8 schools and a high school and all of the K 8 schools fed into Central High School and what happened in this process was the schools did not choose to be a part of the process. And so when it began, there was a lot of confusion, distrust disbelief, right? We've been here before. [00:39:00] Things have been brought to us. This is going to come and go just like everything else. And they, given how they had been operating before, very solid individual identity. So they were not operating as the Newark Global Village School Zone. They were seven schools in the Central Ward of Newark. That did what they did with some communication between the principals, but nothing that was intentionally and explicitly organized to help them understand what was happening in each of the individual schools and how that influenced what ultimately happened at the high school and how they could help each other be better. So the process was a three year long process that ended due to leadership changes. But during that time, the schools developed the identity of the [00:40:00] Newark Global Village School Zone. That was a name that the principals gave to the initiative, which was initially started as the broader Boulder approach to education which was a reform initiative created by Pedro Noguera. Helen Ladd and a few other researchers that was really a policy agenda to, to spur thinking and innovation around more collaborative systemic changes to the, what happens around the school and what happens inside of the school. And so they named themselves, right? So that in and of itself is an indicator that a new identity. Had formed. But within the Newark Global Village School Zone, the schools still remain the individual schools. And what changed was the shared thinking about practice. about [00:41:00] communication. Very often in, in Newark and many other cities, there's a lot of mobility between schools. So these schools would share some of the same students throughout the year. So they started talking to each other about students. There was shared professional developments. They looked at data collectively to understand what the individual patterns happening. In their school set about what was happening across all of them. The principals began to pool resources to support professional development, right? If you're bringing somebody in to do PD for 100 teachers versus 200 teachers for a day, And they're all third grade teachers. It's the same costs. Why not everybody come to the PD? So it increased the opportunity to provide different kinds of professional development to teachers. Alfred Tatum came in and did professional development around Black [00:42:00] Boys in Reading. We had Grant Wiggins come in and do understanding by design professional development. Pam Allen from Lit Life and her team of people work in Central High School supporting the English teachers there around different strategies to support English and writing at the high school level. I mean, there was just a spectrum of things that happened. But they all began to happen collaboratively through the individual leaders of these schools, understanding what their specific needs were, but also how those specific needs related to each other collectively, and ultimately the whole the eighth graders started to come to the high school. To build relationships and to just have a high school experience before ninth [00:43:00] grade. We did collective reading, stop, drop, and read, where for a day, everybody just read and books were giving out. So it was a very collectivist approach to Thinking about the needs of student learning and supporting staff and schools to have the resources, whether they were grants or whether it was professional learning to create those conditions for students. A Ross Romano: So I have two more questions and this, these might be the real challenging ones. In say one to two sentences, how would you describe the, a school leader who's equipped to, to change their school in in these substantive ways? Lauren Wells: school leader who is equipped to change their school in these ways has. [00:44:00] examined their beliefs and practices, understands what their operating belief system is, knows what their knowledge gaps are, and because of that is able to translate and transfer that process to a school. Now there's a lot that I left out there, so I don't like, there's a whole lot of other things that school leaders need to know. I'm going to say that. But when I think about how it is someone can begin to mobilize a process like this I think that that is, those are three conditions that are necessary. And they are able to demonstrate learning and what their learning process is. So that it allows their staff to see [00:45:00] them as a vulnerable, imperfect person. This Ross Romano: And so to tie it together, so let's say if you had nationwide jurisdiction to do whatever you wanted, you can't do magic, so you can't magically change anybody's attitudes or beliefs, you can only affect that through magic. Experience, but to either implement any type of program to change the model or structure of schools or to you could choose one, one thing that would make the most positive impact on the system to eliminate. The you know, the title of the book, There Are No Deficits Here, is based on that students don't have deficits, but the system [00:46:00] does. So, to eliminate those problems What would it be? What do you think would make the biggest impact on the profession or the system of schools or the experience that students are having with their education? Lauren Wells: is in the real world or is my imaginary? Ross Romano: You can imagine it. You just can't do magic, but any, it can be anything, anything that is, that could potentially be done with you know, with money and resources and human So Lauren Wells: You know what happens is you get race to the top, you get SIG rants, right? You get all of these things and they are designed based on underlying concepts and practices, right? So I would. Take Yolanda Seely Ruiz's work around racial literacies, my book and my work around emancipatory educational [00:47:00] ecosystem, and Yvette Jackson's work around pedagogy of confidence, and I would build some sort of federally initiated SIG process, and we call it a different name, and give schools money, bring them in, and put these things into operation with the resources. To help them happen. And that's in, I don't know, maybe it's a blend of the real world and what I would like to see happen. But, that's as close as I can get to kind of conceptualizing something, beyond Surface scratching and individualistically centered happening at the federal level, right, because it is so much focused on competition and meritocracy as core drivers of what quote unquote school reform looks like. [00:48:00] So I would, and there might be other pieces that were included, but I would really look at what is out there that is, like, that is normatively challenging what education looks like and what we understand it to be in the purpose of and use those things to create something that provides the opportunity. for schools to transform in this kind of way. Ross Romano: it might involve cloning, but otherwise it's straightforward. I think so. It works. Listeners, you could find the book. There are no deficits here from Corwin or wherever you get your books. You can also learn more at Lauren's website, creedstrategies. com. Anything else that people should check out either on your website or any other resources? Lauren Wells: I, my Instagram is docwells. That's me. It's also my Twitter. I'm not so good at Twitter. I'm a little bit better at Instagram. [00:49:00] So you can see what I'm up to there. This was fun. I appreciate the conversation and I appreciate sort of the An unexpected set of questions to challenge my own thinking about my own work. Ross Romano: Well, hopefully unexpected in a good way. Lauren Wells: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ross Romano: All right, everybody, yeah, check that out. We'll put the links below to the website where you can find the book where you can learn more about Lauren's other work and her social media. And so check all of those out and please also do subscribe to the authority if you're not already for more author interviews coming your way every week. Dr. Lauren Wells, thanks so much for being on the show. Lauren Wells: Thank you so much for inviting me. I really enjoyed it.