I used to think _____. Now I think _____.
Chapter 12: Staying in community through the challenges
Happy Sunday!
Welcome to the concluding post from our fall book study of Alex Shevrin Venet’s Becoming and Everyday Changemaker: Healing and Justice at School. If you are interested in following along with our reflections from the book study, I’ve linked them below.
Each post provides a brief summary of the week’s chapter, a reflection, and a series of discussion questions designed to spark conversation in the comments. Feel free to jump in at any point! You can also find our entire fall reading schedule and vision.
Chapter 1: Messy Scares Me (And That Might Be a Problem as a Teacher)
Chapter 2: I'm exhausted!
Chapter 3: When SMART Goals Aren't That Smart
Chapter 4: What if?
Chapter 5: A Space Between Fear and Hope
Chapter 6: Ripples to Create Change
Chapter 7: Why Slowing Down as a Teacher is So Ridiculously Hard
Chapter 8: One Plus One Equals Three
Chapter 9: What I Look For To Understand My Own Classroom
Chapter 10: Being Human Together
Chapter 11: Can what works for "me" scale to "we"?
Summary
In this final chapter of Alex Shevrin Venet’s Becoming and Everyday Changemaker: Healing and Justice at School we revisit teachers Oriana and Drew as they consider how to respond to pushback in their respective schools. Oriana has been working with her grade-level team to change their discipline practices. At the opening of Chapter 12, Oriana overhears a staff room conversation complaining about a letter from the superintendent outlining various district changes, including discontinuing any Halloween and Christmas-themed celebrations. As expected, there is resistance.
Resistance to change comes from many places. For some, there is fear that change means a loss of the familiar status quo. For others, resistance to change is a sign of a deeper reaction to the loss of institutional power such as white supremacy. Since change is multifaceted, Venet explains that addressing resistance to change, cannot be just one thing. In some cases, one can strategize to meet people where they are and work to help them adopt a particular mindset. However, unfortunately, there will be some who refuse to shift their mindset and will continue to resist any change efforts they disagree with, even if current practices are harmful to students. In these cases, Venet offers a few structures that help to navigate resistance and harm.
When people ask me why I left the classroom to become an instructional coach, the stock answer give is, I was ready for a change. I had been a classroom teacher for thirteen years, and I was eager for something different; a new challenge. However, a more accurate truth was that I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of change happening in my school building. I was an active member of our school’s equity team. I was advocating for structural changes both in our grade level, and in the school. I was piloting various pedagogical practices in my classroom, trying to be innovative, but more importantly, desperately trying to model for my colleagues that teaching and learning does not have to look the same way it did 30 years ago. I was in my mid-20s and zealous in my efforts to singlehandedly change the status quo.
Unfortunately, with each passing year, I was hitting the same obstacles: more senior teachers had a larger say in school policies; administration was reticent to go against the viewpoints of veteran teachers; No Child Left Behind (NCLB) forced the school district to focus more and more on lesson standardization and standardized testing; harmful and inequitable practices continued without accountability. So, when an offer came to leave the classroom and work with other teachers in other schools, I jumped at the chance. Here would be my opportunity to scale real change throughout the district. I was soon to learn that scaling pedagogical practices that I felt were best for students across multiple schools, was a very big and complicated challenge.1
During a six-year period, I traveled between 44 elementary schools, helping teachers to be more creative and innovative in their classrooms. Under the guise of STEM and Project-Based Learning education, I sought to show teachers that teaching didn’t have to be standardized and learning should not be impersonal.
In the vast majority of cases, teachers just needed permission to experiment with straying from their standardized curricula. There was so much fear of what might happen if they didn’t follow the curriculum or incorporated project-based learning. The more I shared what teachers were doing, the more I thought I was actively working to innovate our school district. At best, though, I helped create pockets of innovation where teachers were quietly teaching differently. What went wrong?
I have learned a great deal about navigating change from reading Becoming and Everyday Changemaker. I used to think that if I just showcased all the reasons for change (i.e.: higher student morale, more enjoyable teaching and learning experiences, better application of content to the real world, narrowing closing opportunity gaps for vulnerable and marginalized students), teachers would jump on board my bandwagon. Now I think that real change requires community and shared responsibility.
As I read this last chapter, I realized that my change efforts failed because, as hard as I tried, I was unable to connect my vision for change with a larger sense of community. The nature of edtech and STEM lead to perceptions of fads and disposability. Even when grounded in equity and social justice, my efforts to create change failed.
A mentor once told me, the farther you get away from students in the classroom, the less impact you have. I vowed that if I ever returned to the classroom, I would focus on rehumanizing the classroom learning experiences for my students. I would double-down on equity, justice, and healing in the name of my students. I would do this unapologetically and bring along as many colleagues as I could in my journey.
Fast forward to today. I work hard to create a classroom that sits apart from the standardized status quo of other classrooms. My classroom is a place where my students can be their whole selves; a learning environment where they can recuperate from the traumas of previous classrooms. My classroom is seen as irritating to some teachers and inviting to all students because of the unconditional community I foster within my four walls. My students know that I care about them, even when they are obstinate and uncooperative. No one is disposable in my classroom.
Slowly, I’ve honed my pedagogies for teaching and learning. Without realizing it, I’ve now become a veteran teacher faced with difficult decisions about change efforts in our district. Do I teach a reading curriculum with fidelity even though the pacing is unrealistic and the program is culturally destructive to students? How do I speak up when I hear, like Oriana, teachers making harmful comments about their students?
I used to think that I could facilitate change efforts alone. Now I know that, like Drew, I need to slow down and lean into relationships with my students and colleagues alike. I’ve learned how to use my sphere of influence to guide reluctant colleagues away from resistance and harm and toward justice and equity. I’ve learned that “accountability happens in relationships” (249), and that it is more important to reconnect to a shared vision of equity, healing, and justice than it is to force progress.
I’ve been teaching long enough to know that there is no such thing as the perfect school building, classroom, grade-level team, administrator, or teacher. Teaching is a bold and meaningful act. It is hard. It takes a lot of emotional energy and vulnerability. This is why when change occurs, many teachers can feel threatened; they may feel like they are being forced to change their identities. Throughout Becoming an Everyday Changemaker, Venet reminds us that “change is hard and emotional” (229). There are no secret steps to success. Change toward social justice, equity, and healing in schools requires perseverance and community. I used to think that I could do it all on my own. Now I know that I can be love and move through change by practicing unconditional community. That’s the whole point.
Now it’s your turn!
Share your thoughts, questions, or anything you’d like about Chapter 12 in the comments. The above discussion questions are just a guide. Feel free to share how this chapter resonates with you and your own experiences as a changemaker.
On Monday, December 30, Marcus Luther, Alex Shevrin Venet, and I will be chatting on The Broken Copier about Becoming an Everyday Changemaker. Be sure to tune in!
“When it comes to adults, it can be a little more difficult to extend that type of “pre-forgiveness” to borrow a term from my friend Mathew Portell. But unconditional positive regard does not mean releasing people from responsibility for their actions or agreeing with everything they do or say. Instead, it means recognizing that “if you truly love someone, you would hold them accountable for the harm they are causing” (Haga, 2020, p. 131) and that holding someone accountable can be done with everyone’s dignity and inherent value intact.”
This quote from Chapter 12 I literally want to print out and read over and over again. I also find it difficult to forgive adults and yet it’s also so important.
Her point about 1) first making sure any harm is stopped right away 2) engaging in conversation
is such a helpful and practical way to think about how to approach difficult yet crucial conversations with adults in our community. It’s literally what will help us to become everyday changemakers.
So grateful for this reading experience! Although I’d been wanting to read this for a long time, this gave me the push and the community I needed in order to read it. Taking it slowly and in conversation was really the most effective - and fun! - way for me to read this.
Will you guys be doing another read in 2025??
Happy New Year! 🥳
Love this!!!