Latest / Math Therapy / How to follow the curriculum without selling your soul

Transcript

How to follow the curriculum without selling your soul · Math Therapy

• 0:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: I always say we're not all teachers of math, but we're all teachers of math attitudes, You believing in your students and making it clear that you think that they can make movement on their math journey speaks louder than any curriculum you're using, and you are already doing that.
• 0:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: So take a moment to celebrate your progress, and take a moment to make a list of all of the stones that you can move this week and next week, even if you can't move that mountain.
• 0:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Math Therapy, and this one has been a long time coming.
• 0:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, the school year is underway, and I know, because you guys have messaged me, that some of you are already feeling discouraged.
• 0:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: You're already feeling like,"Oh my God, I feel like I can't do any of the stuff I wanna do in my classroom.
• 0:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: I feel like all of the professional development and learning and reading I've done over the summer is just, like, out the window because I'm being forced to use a curriculum that I hate, and all that anyone cares about are test scores, and I feel like I can't do anything I wanna do." This episode is for you.
• 1:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: If that is what you're feeling, this episode is directly a piggyback off of my interview with Chase.
• 1:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you guys have been listening for a while, you know what I'm talking about.
• 1:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: Back in June, I interviewed Chase Orton in front of a live studio audience, and it was a heated episode.
• 1:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: It got twice as many listens as any other episode in Math Therapy history.
• 1:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: The clip I posted has gone viral.
• 1:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is now at almost 300,000 views on Instagram, and there are thousands of comments on Instagram and TikTok.
• 1:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Teachers saying they have never felt more seen than they felt while listening to my interview with Chase Orton, because that interview was about exactly this, the feeling that your hands are tied, you're being forced to use a curriculum you don't believe in, and all anyone cares about around you are test scores, and you're feeling like,"What the F am I supposed to do right now?
• 1:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because what I care about is helping my students build a healthier relationship with math.
• 1:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: What I care about is my students feeling they belong, they feel safe, they feel like they can change, they feel hopeful, and it feels like everything that's happening in my classroom and in my school is counterproductive to those things that I want.
• 2:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: What do I do?" Now, in my episode with Chase, we argue the entire time about how it's even possible to use a curriculum you don't believe in and, you know, exist within the red tape of some of our systems, while also helping students foster a beautiful math identity.
• 2:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: And in that episode, Chase argued that the only way to do it is go completely rogue and throw the curriculum out the window, and I argued that there must be another way.
• 2:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now, the most beautiful thing happened when I posted that episode and clips online.
• 2:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thousands of you responded.
• 2:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: I have emails, I have DMs, I have messages, I have comments of educators being like,"Hey, I know how you feel.
• 2:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: I've been there, and I have found a way.
• 2:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Here is my secret." So today, I want to give you hope.
• 2:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: I want this to be a message of hope to anyone who is already feeling discouraged, that you can do it, and I'm gonna share five strategies to find the middle way, the middle path, the way to exist in this system on top of this mountain where our schools are built, and to slowly but steadily move the stones that are movable.
• 3:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: While even though you can't, like, dig up the entire mountain, you can't excavate the entire thing, you can move those stones.
• 3:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: And all of this is based on, this one time I heard Brian Buckhalter say,"If you can't move a mountain, move a stone." And you guys, thousands of you guys, have given me ideas of stones educators can move every single day, even when their classroom is built on top of that mountain.
• 3:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: So let's get into it.
• 3:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: First, let's start by defining our terms.
• 3:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: What do I mean by the middle path?
• 3:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Chase and I talked about it a lot in our episode.
• 3:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: By the way, if you haven't heard that episode yet, the link is in the show notes.
• 3:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: Go listen to it after this.
• 3:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: You don't need to listen to it to listen to this episode.
• 3:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you wanna listen to them in order, go listen to that one first, and then come back here.
• 3:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: The middle path or middle way is a core concept in Buddhism and philosophy that means, like, a balanced life that avoids extremes, right?
• 4:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's the middle path.
• 4:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's the balance.
• 4:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not, like, complete indulgence, and it's not complete denial, It's basically refraining from going from one extreme to the other.
• 4:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Education often presents teachers with two extremes, right?
• 4:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like in education, we're often forced to choose, and that's kind of what Chase was saying.
• 4:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: He was saying it feels like we're forced to choose.
• 4:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: Choose between what?
• 4:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Being like a rogue rebel educator and ignoring everything, throwing everything to the wind, and being like,"I'm just gonna run this classroom the exact way I want to.
• 4:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm gonna pay attention to nothing outside of these classroom walls." Or being like a compliant curriculum robot.
• 4:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: Those are basically our choices, right?
• 4:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: It feels like it's either like you follow the curriculum with fidelity or you like throw caution to the wind and like toss the book out the window But how do we honor reality without surrendering our humanity, right?
• 4:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, the reality is that we don't all wanna get fired, right?
• 4:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Because if we all got fired, then who would do the work, right?
• 5:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: So, like, we don't all wanna get fired, but we often have curriculum that we don't really believe in and that doesn't do what we're hoping to actually do for our students.
• 5:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: So how do we find the middle path?
• 5:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I believe there's a way, and you guys believe there's a way.
• 5:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: Strategy number one to find the middle path: move stones, not mountains.
• 5:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: When we think about moving a mountain, it feels impossible, but we are all, first of all, moving stones every day.
• 5:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: You're already doing it.
• 5:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are already moving stones.
• 5:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: I want you to actually focus on the stones that you are moving in- instead of the mountain that feels immovable Education conversations usually focus on mountains, right?
• 5:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like standardized testing, curriculum mandates, district policies, political decisions, things you have no control over, and that can feel very overwhelming.
• 5:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: But what are the things you can control amidst all that chaos that's happening with or without you?
• 5:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, I wanna read you guys a post by Kari Zitter, okay?
• 5:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: She posted this on LinkedIn about this episode.
• 6:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: She wrote an entire beautiful post, but this is the part that stood out to me, so I'm gonna read it to you.
• 6:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: She wrote,"This morning after listening to your episode, the one thought that really stuck with me was,'If you can't move the mountain, move a stone.' As I get ready to begin a new chapter in my career, I think about math reform and how I can inspire, encourage, and support teachers when it's all so overwhelming, and it's overwhelming because so much of education reform talk focuses on the mountain, the mountain being systems, testing, policies, and teachers have no control and feel it's impossible to shift these.
• 6:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: But Chase and Vanessa, you reminded us that the stones matter, too.
• 6:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Here's what a stone might look like.
• 6:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number one, building in five minutes for students to talk about their thinking before jumping to the answer." I'm gonna interrupt Kari right now and say, regardless of what curriculum you have, you can do this.
• 6:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is a stone you can move.
• 6:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Next stone,"Choosing one non-curricular task that sparks curiosity instead of compliance.
• 6:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number three, creating a moment of joy that tells a kid you belong here, even on a day full of standards to cover.
• 7:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: We know in our hearts that these small moments add up.
• 7:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: We know that this is how we can move the dial every day in our own classrooms, even when the mountain doesn't seem to budge." Honestly, it's so beautiful, and it's so true, and those are just three things.
• 7:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: I want you guys to think about all the stones you're moving every day.
• 7:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: I love that last one, creating a moment of joy for a student.
• 7:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: No matter what curriculum you're using, you can create a moment of joy for a student.
• 7:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can give a student a specific and timely compliment.
• 7:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can validate their thinking.
• 7:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can find ways to let them know that they belong, right?
• 7:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: All of those things matter.
• 7:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Regardless of whether or not the mountain is moving, that stone is yours to control.
• 7:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: The next thing you can do to help find the middle path is use the curriculum, babe.
• 7:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Don't let it use you.
• 7:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so Stephanie Keith Baysinger emailed me, a teacher I do not know but now do.
• 7:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Love her, such good vibes, and she emailed me to talk about how she uses the curriculum.
• 7:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now, I have to tell you guys, this was a major theme in a lot of the comments I saw on Instagram, right?
• 8:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Where teachers being like,"Listen, we get it.
• 8:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: We have to use curriculums we don't believe in and don't like, but let me tell you this, this is how I use it.
• 8:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I think that's really, really important.
• 8:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: The curriculum is a tool.
• 8:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm gonna actually back up and say, to me, I know this is different, but this is almost like calculators.
• 8:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, there is a way to use a calculator that is harmful to math learning, and there is a way to use a calculator that is productive to math learning.
• 8:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is a tool, right?
• 8:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: So we get to choose how to use that tool, and a lot of the comments I was getting were like,"Yeah, here are the things about the curriculum I use, so I'm still using it, but I use it in a way that is powerful to me." There's a false narrative that, like, we either have to follow the curriculum blindly with fidelity.
• 8:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: You know what I mean?
• 8:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, we have to just do exactly what it says, no free will, no thought, or we throw the whole thing out and reinvent the wheel ourselves.
• 9:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: But here's the middle way, and it comes from Stephanie Keith Basinger.
• 9:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: She writes:"my teaching philosophy is not a choice between the rogue disruptor or the mindless drone.
• 9:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is a homogenous blend of rigorous strategy, content knowledge, and community building, and a healthy splash of subversiveness.
• 9:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: My subversiveness is related to time constraints.
• 9:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: There isn't enough time to do every activity in the curriculum, and for effective learning, I have to let students drive the conversation.
• 9:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: When I let the curriculum pace run the lesson, my focus shifts from helping students deeply understand concepts to simply getting it done.
• 9:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: I experienced that chaos this past year, and it only added to the math anxiety of our classroom community.
• 9:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: I've realized that I don't need to reinvent the wheel.
• 9:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: I use the curriculum for materials, but I now see that it doesn't have to control my order of operations i'm officially dumping the sage on the stage identity and fully embracing the guide on the side framework.
• 9:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Start with you do by letting students engage in problem-solving activities where they talk about what they know, and their strengths and gaps will show in the process.
• 10:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: This allows me to intervene in the moment during tier one while the gears are still oiled and rolling, theoretically dismissing the need to pull students out for remediation later.
• 10:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: The secret to this shift is building a community where students feel safe enough to discuss what they know and try uncomfortable things." So, like, basically what she's saying there is use the curriculum as a resource, but keep your professional judgment.
• 10:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: And I love how she's basically saying,"I just start with a small group discussion," or,"I start by getting them to do something." Right?
• 10:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, start with you do.
• 10:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let them engage in a problem-solving task that has to do with what you're about to teach.
• 10:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: They'll show you what they know and what they don't know, and from there, you can decide what you need to focus on, right?
• 10:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: That way, you're not doing every single thing, some of which may be unnecessary, and you know where to spend most of your efforts.
• 10:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: So I really, really love that.
• 10:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: And some things you can do, like, yes, you're gonna use your curriculum.
• 10:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can change the launch.
• 10:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can change the way you launch that task.
• 10:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can change the way you start the lesson, and maybe you change it by a you-do activity where students are just doing something on their own.
• 11:03
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're discussing a concept.
• 11:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're solving a problem on their own, so you can see what's up within the first five minutes of class before you start the lesson.
• 11:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Another thing you can do is change the discussion.
• 11:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: And add student thinking before the instruction, right?
• 11:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: So you're still using the curriculum, but you're changing the way it's delivered.
• 11:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: You guys know if you listen to my interview with Allison Mello, who I am obsessed with and love, go listen to that interview because she talks about how the curriculum is the chicken, and you are the spice.
• 11:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: I, I mean, she puts it better than that.
• 11:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: The point is, it's like, yeah, we have this chicken, but there's a million ways to cook it.
• 11:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can still serve the chicken, but you can serve it in a bland, ugh, way.
• 11:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: That would probably be me because, like, I've yet to cook, like, a juicy chicken breast.
• 11:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, I just throw it in the air fryer, and it's always gross.
• 11:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Or a good way, a delicious way, and that's, that's all about you, babe.
• 11:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's about you and your expertise and bringing that to that chicken The curriculum can be your resource without becoming your identity.
• 11:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay?
• 11:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: So that's number two.
• 11:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Second way to find the middle path.
• 12:00
  Vanessa Vakharia: Third way, protect the first five minutes.
• 12:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Honestly, this is a thing.
• 12:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Fine, whatever.
• 12:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let's imagine your class is 50 minutes.
• 12:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: 45 minutes is gonna be curriculum-driven.
• 12:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: The first five minutes, you can do whatever you want.
• 12:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: You have five minutes to do whatever you want, and that first five minutes is going to set the tone.
• 12:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: I actually just recorded an episode about this, and I shared one of my top three strategies to do the first week of math class, and one of those is about what you do the first five minutes of class.
• 12:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: And my strategy there was upgrading your attendance routine.
• 12:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: Go listen to that episode if you wanna hear more about it.
• 12:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: But it was about how we can use our attendance check as a way to name all students, to, to ask them a question, to hear an answer, and to validate their response.
• 12:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: But literally, in the first five minutes, you can do something like that.
• 12:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: But also, you can use the first five minutes to get students thinking.
• 12:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now, I will say, in upgrading our attendance routine by asking a question to a student.
• 12:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: So for example, a student walks in the room, you're doing your attendance check.
• 12:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: You say,"Hey, Sophie, nice to see you today.
• 13:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Would you rather live without your computer or your phone?" They say an answer.
• 13:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: You check them as here.
• 13:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: They go sit down.
• 13:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: That took three seconds.
• 13:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: You've said their name.
• 13:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: You've acknowledged they're in the room.
• 13:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: You've asked them a question, which means they've had to think.
• 13:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're already thinking.
• 13:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: You've acknowledged their response, and you've validated their response by saying,"Great answer," or,"Me too," or,"That's so inter-" Whatever.
• 13:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Five minutes, the first five minutes of class, students need to be thinking.
• 13:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: I don't care what they're doing.
• 13:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, I do.
• 13:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: But it needs to be something where they are actively thinking That can be a notice and wonder.
• 13:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: It can be a would you rather.
• 13:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: It can be talk to a partner about the shape you see on the board right now.
• 13:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Whatever you're doing allow them time to think, and bonus if you allow them time to talk either to the group or in a small partner situation.
• 13:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are using their voice.
• 13:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are using their minds.
• 13:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: They are thinking.
• 13:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're already active.
• 13:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: They're motivated because they are being valued, and they're actually doing something, and they're engaged.
• 13:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: And now when you go to layer in your lesson, they're already primed and ready to go If you can't change the whole lesson, change the opening.
• 14:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay?
• 14:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's strategy number three, protecting the first five minutes.
• 14:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is helping you get closer to the middle path, right?
• 14:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: That first five minutes is so valuable.
• 14:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: It gives students a whole bunch of things that they need before you get into the curriculum stuff Number four, community is not a distraction from achievement.
• 14:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: Focus on building your community.
• 14:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, this is a big one.
• 14:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: I want you guys to think about community.
• 14:32
  Vanessa Vakharia: How often...
• 14:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Y- actually, actually, I've got a great story about this.
• 14:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: I went to a fitness class today I hated it.
• 14:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: I hated it because it was really, really hard.
• 14:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: Okay?
• 14:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: I go to this place that's like, it's in an infrared sauna.
• 14:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: I don't understand these places, okay?
• 14:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: This like h- everything's heated now.
• 14:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: I don't know why we have to be so hot, but it's like a fitness class in like a heated room because apparently it's gonna help us like sweat out toxins.
• 14:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think the whole thing's bullshit personally, and I'm like,"I don't need to be like working out in a room that's fucking 38 degrees," which by the way is like 100 something in Fahrenheit, okay, guys?
• 15:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, why do I need to be doing that?
• 15:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: Whatever, fine.
• 15:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm there.
• 15:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm doing it.
• 15:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: There's 10 of us in the class, and the teacher was kind of mean.
• 15:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, she was like...
• 15:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: Honestly, I did get an amazing workout, so I'll say that, but she kept being like,"The clock stops as soon as somebody stops." Like we're in the middle of doing like, I don't even know what we were doing, like jump squats, and she's like,"Okay, we're doing like 30 of these." And so like we're doing them, and then like someone would have to take a break because it's like you're doing 30 jump squats in a heated room, and then she'd be like,"As soon as someone stops, we reset the count," which is actually bullying and very rude.
• 15:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Imagine you did that in math class.
• 15:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Never do that in math class.
• 15:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: But we all would look at each other and like roll our eyes and be like,"Oh my God," and like we had each other's backs and like, you know what I mean?
• 15:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, everyone in the room was kind of like,"Oh my God, this teacher's fucking insane." And even though the class like s- was really hard and insane, at the end, we all felt good because we did it.
• 15:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: But what got us through this like kind of brutal class was us all being together, right?
• 16:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: And being like,"Oh my God, do you think this teacher is insane?
• 16:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think she's insane." Okay.
• 16:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm realizing this is a weird metaphor because we don't want all your students bonding because they think you're insane, so I get how this is now sounding bizarro.
• 16:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: But like, you know what I'm saying?
• 16:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: My point is that when we have a sense of community, hard things become easier, right?
• 16:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Like, that's why w- we have classes for things.
• 16:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's why we have art class.
• 16:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's why people go do yoga together.
• 16:31
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's why we have running groups and running clubs.
• 16:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is why we have walking circles, right?
• 16:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's because, hey, it's easier to do hard things when we've got each other's backs and we've got a community behind us.
• 16:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: So you are going to create community in your classroom Remember, Stephanie said in her email that the secret to her shift was building a community where students feel safe enough to discuss what they know and try uncomfortable things.
• 16:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's what we're trying to do here.
• 16:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Regardless of what curriculum you're using, you can do that, I promise you.
• 17:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not belonging or achievement.
• 17:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not community or rigor.
• 17:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's not relationships or results.
• 17:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can have both.
• 17:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: We can have belonging and achievement.
• 17:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: We can have community and rigor.
• 17:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: We can have relationships and results.
• 17:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is a false dichotomy that has been set up.
• 17:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: We can bust that right now So think about what you're gonna do to build community in your classroom, right?
• 17:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: Maybe it is during that first five minutes of student thinking, you're going to randomly group students into groups of three, so they're all getting a chance to know each other and talk together.
• 17:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Maybe you're gonna create a classroom agreement.
• 17:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Actually, listen to my episode, Three Things to Do During the First Week of School to Change Everything.
• 17:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: Listen to that, because in there I talk about creating a classroom agreement, and I have a free download for you.
• 17:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: Go to that episode, hit the link in the show notes.
• 17:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: But let me give you a little summary right now.
• 17:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: A classroom agreement is essentially a co-creation we make with our classroom that's a- all about what we wanna see in the class.
• 18:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: We ask our students,"What are things that would make you feel good in this class?
• 18:05
  Vanessa Vakharia: What are things you don't wanna see in this class?
• 18:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: What are some experiences with math you would like to not repeat?
• 18:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: What are some rules and parameters that would help you feel good participating?" We crowdsource those from the classroom.
• 18:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: We create a living, breathing document that we all live by every day.
• 18:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's a great way to create community.
• 18:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Whatever you choose to do, just remember, community building is one of the most important things you can do.
• 18:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: When you have a culture of math therapy in your classroom, even when you are studying for a test, even when you're doing a timed assessment, even when you're doing things that have traditionally stressed kids out or maybe led to some math anxiety, they feel safer, they feel like they belong, they feel like they can try, they feel like if they make a mistake, it's not that big a deal, which kind of changes the temperature.
• 18:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: It turns it down, and it changes everything.
• 18:49
  Vanessa Vakharia: So community building trumps curriculum every single time.
• 18:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you can have both.
• 18:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: The middle path, there it is.
• 18:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: And finally, strategy number five, redefine success.
• 19:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: Again, regard- I know I keep saying this, but I'm like, regardless of what curriculum you're using, you get to define success.
• 19:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: You get to do it.
• 19:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: You get to set the tone that, you know what success looks like in this classroom?
• 19:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: It looks like making progress.
• 19:14
  Vanessa Vakharia: It looks like taking a risk.
• 19:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: It looks like helping somebody else.
• 19:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: It looks like learning something you did not know before, regardless of when you learn it.
• 19:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: It looks like you failing a test and a month later understanding that concept.
• 19:25
  Vanessa Vakharia: It looks like you writing a test on finding the common denominator and completely failing it, and then writing a test on adding fractions and completely failing it.
• 19:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yet, in that adding fractions test, you got every single common denominator right, and I'm gonna give you 10 gold stars even though I can't improve your grade.
• 19:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: Or you know what else I'm gonna do?
• 19:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: I'm gonna let you rewrite that common denominators test.
• 19:44
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know you guys, some of you now are gonna be like,"We're not allowed to do that." But, like, can you do that?
• 19:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: Think about it.
• 19:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Chase did something really amazing in our session together.
• 19:53
  Vanessa Vakharia: He asked the audience to answer this question.
• 19:56
  Vanessa Vakharia: He said,"Fill in the blank: It's a great day of teaching when..." And then educators answered, and here's what some of them said:"It's a great day of teaching when someone laughs.
• 20:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's a great day of teaching when a student feels confident.
• 20:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's a great day of teaching when a student expresses curiosity.
• 20:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's a great day of teaching when I see my students collaborating.
• 20:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: It's a great day of teaching when I see my students take a risk." If benchmark data disappeared tomorrow, how would you know you had a great day?
• 20:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: How would students know that they had a great day?
• 20:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Take those things and formalize them a bit more.
• 20:29
  Vanessa Vakharia: How can we help students feel successful when they show confidence, when they show curiosity, when they model risk-taking.
• 20:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: The middle path is doing this, right?
• 20:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is finding ways to celebrate those things, celebrating joy, celebrating student voice, celebrating those things you believe in.
• 20:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: And how do you celebrate them?
• 20:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: Well, we can't grade them all.
• 20:50
  Vanessa Vakharia: It would be great if we could.
• 20:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: And you know what?
• 20:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Fi- you can find sneaky ways to grade them.
• 20:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can find sneaky ways.
• 20:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you are allowed retests, if you can find a way to allow students to retake tests, that is a great way to celebrate and encourage progress and growth, right?
• 21:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: If you can do that, you are showing your students that you value those things.
• 21:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: Now, we can't grade everything, and we all have different red tape by which we're bound.
• 21:16
  Vanessa Vakharia: But it might be a compliment.
• 21:17
  Vanessa Vakharia: It might be a sticker.
• 21:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: It might be pulling a student aside and being like,"I really love that you did this.
• 21:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: This is a huge deal, and I'm seeing this progress." Like, or,"This is amazing," or like,"I love how you took that risk today." Like, you can do that.
• 21:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Again, no matter what curriculum you're using, you can let a student know that you think they're successful, and you can set the stage for what things you honor in your classroom, for what things you celebrate.
• 21:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: You can celebrate whatever you want.
• 21:42
  Vanessa Vakharia: No one can tell you what to celebrate.
• 21:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: No one can tell you when you're allowed to pop a confetti cannon.
• 21:46
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's actually not true.
• 21:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: I've been told multiple times not to pop a confetti cannon, and there are signs in basically every single bar in Toronto saying,"No confetti, no glitter," because of our band, Goodnight Sunrise, because we popped one too many confetti cannons, and no one wanted to clean it up.
• 22:01
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's not the point.
• 22:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Remember, what we measure grows.
• 22:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: Yes, we're measuring improvement on math skills, but we're also wanting to measure those other things.
• 22:09
  Vanessa Vakharia: We wanna show students that we think confidence, joy, helping one another, risk-taking, productive struggle, making mistakes, like all of that stuff, we wanna show them that we think it's valuable, and we think that they are a success when they do any of those things.
• 22:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: So find ways to do that, right?
• 22:24
  Vanessa Vakharia: Find ways to do that.
• 22:26
  Vanessa Vakharia: I know it's not simple, and I know that many of us feel so frustrated and confused and hopeless and like, we're just, uh, uh, like we can't move this mountain.
• 22:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: But I hope you guys are seeing all the stones you can and are moving.
• 22:40
  Vanessa Vakharia: I think I wanna emphasize the stones you are moving, right?
• 22:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are creating moments of joy for students.
• 22:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are showing them that they belong.
• 22:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are celebrating their progress.
• 22:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are giving them these moments where they're like,"Oh my God, math doesn't suck," or,"Wow, I never thought I was gonna get that." Those things matter.
• 22:55
  Vanessa Vakharia: I always say we're not all teachers of math, but we're all teachers of math attitudes, and I think that really applies right now, right?
• 23:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: You believing in your students and making it clear that you think that they can make movement on their math journey speaks louder than any curriculum you're using, and you are already doing that.
• 23:13
  Vanessa Vakharia: So please take a moment to celebrate your progress, and take a moment to make a list of all of the stones that you can move this week and next week, even if you can't move that mountain.
• 23:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Quick little recap because so much just happened.
• 23:30
  Vanessa Vakharia: Remember, to find the middle path, even when you feel like your hands are tied, I want you to remember these five things.
• 23:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number one, move stones, not mountains.
• 23:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: Make a list of those stones.
• 23:41
  Vanessa Vakharia: You're moving them, and you're gonna continue to move them.
• 23:43
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number two, use the curriculum.
• 23:45
  Vanessa Vakharia: Don't let it use you.
• 23:47
  Vanessa Vakharia: Use it as a resource.
• 23:48
  Vanessa Vakharia: Use it as the chicken, but bring your own spice.
• 23:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: Spice that shit up.
• 23:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number three, protect the first five minutes.
• 23:54
  Vanessa Vakharia: Make the first five minutes yours to do whatever you want with.
• 23:57
  Vanessa Vakharia: No curriculum for the first five minutes.
• 23:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: Make it all about student thinking, curiosity, wonder, joy, whatever's important to you.
• 24:02
  Vanessa Vakharia: Number four, remember, community is not a distraction from achievement.
• 24:06
  Vanessa Vakharia: Work on that community piece.
• 24:08
  Vanessa Vakharia: Find ways to build a strong community and math therapy culture in your classroom.
• 24:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: And number five, redefine success and celebrate it.
• 24:15
  Vanessa Vakharia: This goes not just for your students, but for you.
• 24:19
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you guys so much for being here.
• 24:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: Thank you for listening.
• 24:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: Remember to hit the link in the show notes to listen to that episode with Chase Orton if you haven't already, because then you'll see where all of this stemmed from.
• 24:28
  Vanessa Vakharia: I wanna end this episode by reading a comment I got on Instagram shortly after posting about my episode with Chase back in June.
• 24:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: "Believe in yourself and believe in your students.
• 24:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: There will always be outside noise, competing priorities, and parts of the system you can't control, but every day you walk into your classroom, you still have power, the power to ask thoughtful questions, trust your professional judgment, and make choices that put students first.
• 24:51
  Vanessa Vakharia: You don't have to move the entire mountain.
• 24:52
  Vanessa Vakharia: Just keep showing up, keep standing up for what your students need, and keep creating the kind of classroom you know they deserve.
• 24:58
  Vanessa Vakharia: That's not a small thing.
• 24:59
  Vanessa Vakharia: That is how change begins." Thank you guys so much for the work you do every day.
• 25:04
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is appreciated by everyone more than you know.
• 25:07
  Vanessa Vakharia: It is appreciated by me, and most of all, it makes a difference.
• 25:10
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are having an impact.
• 25:11
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are amazing.
• 25:12
  Vanessa Vakharia: You are incredible, and I know that you are doing all of this against all the odds, so thank you.
• 25:18
  Vanessa Vakharia: Keep on fighting the good fight.
• 25:20
  Vanessa Vakharia: There is a middle way.
• 25:21
  Vanessa Vakharia: I strongly believe it.
• 25:22
  Vanessa Vakharia: Chase, if you're listening and you disagree with me, I'm ready for round two, I do believe there's a middle way.
• 25:27
  Vanessa Vakharia: Fight me, but actually, non-violence, and thank you guys so much for listening.
• 25:33
  Vanessa Vakharia: I can't wait to hear from you.
• 25:34
  Vanessa Vakharia: Text the podcast.
• 25:35
  Vanessa Vakharia: Let me know what you think.
• 25:36
  Vanessa Vakharia: Happy back to school.
• 25:37
  Vanessa Vakharia: Love you.
• 25:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: You're incredible.
• 25:38
  Vanessa Vakharia: There's no one like you.
• 25:39
  Vanessa Vakharia: See you next week, same time, same channel.