Latest / New Teacher Talk / Ep 228: Activating the Village

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Ep 228: Activating the Village · New Teacher Talk

Welcome to New Teacher Talk.
I'm Beth Wilkins.
And I'm Anna Quinzio Zafran.
You've heard that it takes a village, but when you're new,
it's not always clear who is in your village or how to call
on them.
Families, colleagues, support staff, community partners,
they're all there,
and learning to activate them changes everything.
Today,
we are joined by Kelly Hamilton and Amy Livengood to talk
about activating the village,
how to build and lean on the network of people who help
your students thrive.
Let's get into it.
As current and former instructional coaches,
we heard a lot from new teachers who felt like they were
shouldering the successes and failures of every student and
everything themselves.
My name is Amie Livengood.
I am a current high school family and consumer science
teacher and former instructional coach.
And I'm Dr.
Kelli Hamilton,
a current instructional coach at a high school.
Today,
we will talk about how it does take a village and how to be
strategic about engaging the people in a child's life to
support them and you in your classroom.
We wanna provide you today with a plan for engaging that
village to support each and every student.
Okay, so let's set the stage.
It's the beginning of the school year,
and this is not just new teachers.
This is every single teacher, every single year,
every single class.
You start, you know, your first couple of weeks of school,
and pretty quickly it becomes obvious that there are some
students who are going to struggle.
And that could be they're struggling behaviorally,
that could be they're struggling emotionally,
they're struggling academically.
Whatever that is,
there are just some kids that you find you are spending
more time with and more time on just in that first couple
of weeks.
So we're gonna talk about how you can use the village to
help support that student,
that it doesn't have to just be you all by yourself.
The very first thing that I think you'll wanna do is
identify who those kids are.
You wanna make sure that you're really specific,
because in a class of 30,
it might seem like there are a lot of kids who are
struggling,
but it's really important for you to narrow it down
probably at first to, like,
the five kids that you are most concerned about.
So first things first, make a list.
Who are the kids that we're talking about?
And then the next thing that you need to do is identify
that student's village.
So the village can be multiple people, and actually,
it really should be multiple people.
It's you.
You are part of that village as their classroom teacher.
But outside of the school, you have their parents,
their guardians,
potentially coaches that would be in the school district or
potentially, uh, extracurricular, you know,
outside the school district, or same thing if they're in a,
a club, the advisor of that club.
There are special education teachers that are experts in
differentiation and identifying specific concerns that you
may have about a student,
the principals or assistant principals,
your counselors that you may have in your district or
building, the speech pathologist, social workers,
the nurse, and also their previous teachers.
Yeah.
So once you've identified who the village of that student
is, who are you gonna reach out to for support,
it's important to figure out what it is that you want from
each of those people.
From some of those people,
you might just want insight on the student.
So if you call a parent and you might just be looking for,
"Tell me about your son.
Tell me about the things that he likes.
Tell me about the things that he struggles with.
How has his schooling been previously?"
One, the word, Kelly, that I love-
Mm
...
to use when I'm talking to parents is insight.
You're asking them for insight around their child.
It's a neutral word that really shows that you are trying
to gather information,
and you're not coming to judge or attack.
Mm, good point.
So once you've decided which adults you need insight from,
you probably also wanna think about what are the actions
that you'd like to see.
What is it that you want the nurse to do if you contact her
as part of this child's village?
Once you've decided what do you need from each adult,
then it's time for you to start making contacts.
Amy,
what kind of things can I reasonably expect from some of
these people in the building and also people outside of the
building?
So like you said,
first line is always to go to the parent or guardian,
they are the expert on their child,
and to use that word insight when you're asking for
information about that child.
But then one source that I found really beneficial is the
child's previous teacher.
Mm-hmm.
Now, there's a couple things to go along with that, though.
People move districts.
Mm-hmm.
They retire.
Sure.
Or you have a student that's moved into the district.
I have been able to reach out to teachers from previous
districts when a child has moved in,
usually through that student telling me who their old
teacher was-
Mm-hmm
...
and me doing some sleuthing on Facebook and, uh,
the district websites.
But if it's in-district,
I have reached out to previous teachers,
and they're a wealth of knowledge because they don't always
have time to give full reports on every single student
they've had, but they know who their top concerns are.
And if you reach out to say, "Here are my top concerns,"
they can tell you the communications they had with their
parents about interventions they'd already tried,
and those things are not easily accessible in, like,
a district report, right?
We hear it straight from their mouth.
You know, at the secondary level,
one thing that I found kind of interesting is the
relationship between the student and either a coach or a
club advisor-
Mm-hmm
...
can sometimes be very powerful.
And in fact,
there was one athlete at the high school level who really
struggled both academically and behaviorally,
and it was her volleyball coach that she credited with
having a conversation with her about how far she could
pursue volleyball if she changed some of her current
actions.
Mm-hmm.
And if he hadn't been considered as part of her village,
you know,
he was the one who really turned it around for her.
So contacting him was invaluable in that situation.
Mm-hmm.
One thing we forgot to mention is that part of the village
is the student themselves.
Most students can tell you who they feel like they're close
to in the building or maybe who they would see as a
mentor.
So I had a student once,
and he was really struggling behaviorally, um,
but identified a security guard-
Mm-hmm
...
who they really, really liked.
And one thing that we kind of worked through was he would
sometimes go play basketball with this security guard if he
was having a hard day or needed some extra support.
So just asking the student, "Hey,
who do you connect with in this school?" And then bringing
them in as part of the village as well.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
And sometimes even if the child doesn't have specific--
maybe they don't have an IEP or a 504.
Mm-hmm.
Sometimes just looking for information from, say,
the special education teacher, for example, about-
Mm-hmm
...
you know,
what sort of accommodations have you made in the past or
you've seen successful with a student with this kind of
issue?
They can really give you some good insight, too,
as part of your village for who you can reach out to just
kind of get some ideas from.
Now, once you've made some contacts,
I think the most important thing is to be patient,
even though it's really difficult.
Mm-hmm.
When you're trying to help a student,
you wanna get them the help as fast as you can,
and you want it to make a difference as fast as it can.
Go through these steps.
You identify the kid.
You identify the village.
You decide what it is you want from each of the people in
the village, either insight or action.
You start making the contacts.
Now give it a couple of weeks.
Mm-hmm.
Let those things shake out.
You've contacted the nurse.
The nurse maybe then needs to get in contact with the
parent.
You've contacted the parent.
The parent now needs to talk to the student,
and then maybe that you see some fruits of that a,
a week later.
But it's also important to remember you need to keep
following up.
Mm-hmm.
So give it a couple of weeks, set yourself a deadline,
and then start making those contacts again.
Reassess.
How is it working?
What things have you seen that have been-- that's been
successful?
And then you can start reaching out again.
And for some students,
this might be your pattern for most of the school year.
But every time you reach out to that child's village,
you're helping give them more support,
and that will always be in the best interest of the
student.
And keep track.
So keep a record of the things that you are doing and the
contacts you're making,
different notes that people are giving you about that
student or progress they're making in other areas of the
school.
Mm-hmm.
Because then that student goes to the next grade level-
Mm-hmm
...
and now you are the village for that student.
Mm-hmm.
You have been advocating for them for nine months.
Mm-hmm.
And now that next teacher might need to contact you to find
out what you've done so that then they can keep going
forward from your work.
Once they're our student, they're always our student,
right?
Truth.
So I think that's a great plan for supporting our students
throughout the year.
And then, like Kelly said, it can be slow moving,
but as long as you keep at it,
you will make progress with that student and continue to be
an advocate for them.
And hopefully not feel so alone.
Like, you don't have to be the one who fixes everything.
You just wanna be the best advocate that you can be at the
time that you have a student.
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We want you to remember that your students are part of a
village,
and you can harness that village for their success.
But also, you are part of a village,
and you should never feel alone in our work.
Good luck, and thank you.
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