Multiplication Nation

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome back to the podcast Tom Hirke and Alex Kajitani, who have joined me several times individually and now for the first time together to talk about their new book, You're a Teacher Now, What's Next?, Tom has been an educator since 1983 in a career that spanned all grade levels and many roles in public education, including teacher, administrator, district leader, Department of Education project leader, and executive director. A prolific author and consultant, his expertise in RTI, MTSS, intervention, assessment, and many other topics make him a highly sought-after speaker, and he's the author of more than 20 books. Alex Kajitani is a past California Teacher of the Year and finalist for National Teacher of the Year. He is the founder of Multiplication Nation and the author of several books on topics including teaching, parenting, and mathematics instruction.

[01:05]

And he travels widely to speak with educators around the world and is the author of five books, the latest of which is with Tom. You're a teacher now. What's next?

[01:16] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[01:19] SPEAKER_01:

Tom and Alex, welcome back to Principal Center Radio.

[01:21] SPEAKER_02:

Thanks for having us. What an honor.

[01:23] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, always great to be with you, Justin. And have a great time listening to the podcast, the variety of guests you get on. And for us to be able to contribute something to your audience is always an honor for us.

[01:34] SPEAKER_01:

Well, likewise, it's an honor to have you here, and I'm excited that you are turning your focus to supporting new teachers because we have seen just a huge influx of new teachers into the profession, often through alternative pathways, a lot of people changing careers and finding that this is a very different type of career than perhaps what they had previously, or even perhaps what they expected when they initially began to enter the profession. So as you sat down to work together on this book, What did you see happening in the profession that indicated to you what new teachers need, and how does that show up in the book?

[02:12] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's a great question. You know, it really happened organically. I had spent the past couple of years really in classrooms coaching new teachers. Just like you said, some of them had come through the traditional credential program. Some of them had just sort of taken the job and been thrown in, and the district said, hey, we'll train you along the way. Don't worry.

[02:32]

You'll be okay. And So, you know, I was in these classes working with all of these different teachers. And as we would discuss the lesson that they just did or where they needed help and things like that, the same sort of questions kept on coming up among these new teachers, regardless of how well trained that they had been. And in talking with Tom, we sort of. noticed that the same questions were coming up, whether Tom was working with teachers in Canada, or I was here in California, questions like, how do I build relationships with students? Or how do I manage my classroom?

[03:07]

How do I set up my classroom so that it runs effectively? How do I deal with parents and build this relationship with parents? And how do I even know when they've learned anything? And through these conversations with Tom and these shared experiences, we really took the critical questions that we noticed new teachers were asking us. And then we really sought to take our experience, take our wisdom and the wisdom of other teachers who'd been there and put it in a really fun, easily digestible format, which is really this book.

[03:38] SPEAKER_00:

And, you know, to follow up on your comment, Justin, you know, as we travel and again, through every part of Canada, the United States, I think between the two of us, we've touched everywhere. We are seeing this increasing shortage. Now, it's interesting because I think there was the prediction that demographic data was there. I think one of the collateral damage pieces of the pandemic was that it accelerated some of the folks departures. I think some people just were close enough and they said, you know what, I don't need all of this is way too stressful. I don't know when it's going to end.

[04:09]

So maybe it's time. And so I think we got this accelerated sort of boost of people leaving without having enough adequate people to come in. So there was that part of it. Then it's getting back to a lot of the basics, right? A lot of the questions, as Alec just alluded to, how do I organize my class, right? What does a good lesson look like?

[04:32]

How do I take care of myself? What's been fascinating for us in the book, you know, designed for a particular audience is we've had veteran teachers reach out and say, I know I was supposed to pass the book along to the teacher that I'm mentoring, but I kept it. Because I'm finding a whole lot of reminders for me now about what maybe I got away from. So it's had this sort of secondary effect and impact around looking at what you, your audience, would say are the foundational aspects of being an educator here today.

[05:04] SPEAKER_01:

It's interesting to think about some of those fundamentals because I would say in recent years, there has been a trend of asserting that the best way to do something is the opposite of the way that it's always been done. And of course, that's a great way to sell books. That's a great way to kind of distinguish yourself as an expert is to challenge the conventional wisdom and to say the opposite. Where did you find that the conventional wisdom on these questions holds up pretty well because certainly the conventional wisdom is not always correct but when it comes to those basics sometimes they are the basics for a reason these are you know some kind of time-tested things that have worked for generations what were some places where you do concur with you know maybe some of the conventional wisdom

[05:49] SPEAKER_00:

I think one of the things that first brought Alex and I together is we both have a very strong foundational belief in the effectiveness of relationship building, right? And so I think I've yet to meet a kid that's connected that disappoints. This is year 44 for me in education. So I think that foundational aspect, if I go throughout my career, that's the piece. Now, what's the change? It's not just building the relationship, right?

[06:17]

It's leveraging that successful relationship to get to. Organizational structure. Look, you can't go in and just wing it. Even if we talk about some of the new technologies, the new approaches, you still have to have a bit of a basic plan in place. Structurally, what does your classroom look like? Foundationally, it still means you've got to have some degree of organization.

[06:39]

Kindergarten teachers, bless their hearts, would not survive if they did not have routines from moment one. Now, no matter how free-spirited our parenting may be becoming, you know, this embracing of, that's foundational, right? So those aspects continue to be percolating in the book, and I think in what we would define as effective teaching practice.

[07:02] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I would add to that, just kind of building on what Tom said also, that need for a well-managed, well-run classroom is absolutely critical. The ability of a teacher to be able to go in and say, okay, these are the most critical procedures and routines that I want my students to be able to do is something that this book hopefully really sort of lays out exactly how to teach them, what those procedures are, as well as why to teach them. Because When a new teacher especially is standing there trying to get the class to move forward together as a class, but the procedures are not in place, it just ends up being really, really frustrating. And so that need to just really provide a well-structured, well-run classroom, I think, is really critical. And that's something that's, you know, been around for, like you said, forever.

[07:52]

As long as I can remember, certainly. The other thing on top of that is no kid, no student, especially now, wants to sit through a really boring lesson. I mean, that was true 24 years ago when I started, even longer ago when Tom started. And it's especially true now, especially...

[08:10]

as we're competing with cell phones and technology and all of the other amazing things that can distract us. And so the book really dedicates a chapter to how do I make my lessons engaging? I mean, as adults, we don't want to sit through anything boring, especially these days when we've got all these other exciting things we can look at. And so for me, that was something that's also really important and really stands the test of time is how do we create engaging lessons? Because like I said, no one wants to sit there bored.

[08:39] SPEAKER_01:

I wonder if we might next jump to the end of the book, Chapter 8, where you discuss self-care. How do I take care of myself as an educator? And I feel like this is one area, one topic, where our thinking as a profession has evolved from a mindset of self-sacrifice, of doing whatever it takes, of working as hard as possible, to realizing that we also need to think about sustainability, that we need to take seriously the risk of burnout and approach this career as one that is sustainable. So what do you What ideas do you share with teachers in chapter eight on taking care of yourself?

[09:21] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know, it is. I think you're absolutely right, Justin. We've done and I'll include myself in this. We've done a terrible job in our profession of self-care. We still to this day, as I go and work with folks on the content of the book, still have this notion that self-care means selfish. Right.

[09:37]

And instead of self-care actually means health care. I'm so encouraged by the fact that we can now talk about mental health in a much more positive light, not the hushed whispers that used to go on. We're still troubled in this profession by one of the startling stats that speaks to how half the teachers leave within the first five years. now listen i it's never just a simple a equals b kind of analysis but i think there is something there that says wow you know do we are we exercising some sort of self-care i think one of the positives that came out of the pandemic was people recognized that maybe they were healthier better because they had a different way of doing school Right. You know, this ties into our first comment around maybe some of them just decided they couldn't go back to that grind because we've set it up to be a grind.

[10:33]

So in it, we talk about some strategies around what you need to do to make sure you are exercising self-care. There's always the caution, right? I don't want to stress you and say, hey, you better get better at self-care because now I've just done the opposite of. So we give some choices, you know, where to begin. We highlight a lot of the work of our colleague, Tina Bogren. who does some great work around personal health and around self-care.

[10:58]

So there are some of her tools are in the book. But really, I think it begins with absolutely taking that first step and saying, hey, wait a minute now. I've got to be important in this equation, right? My own health and mental wellness. You know, my daughter is at the beginning part of her career. You know, she's come home and she said, look, Dad, I can't do what you did.

[11:18]

I'm not going to be coaching all these different teams and spending all of this time. And it's like, yeah, you might be on to something. Right. I think I can look back and say I did too much because I wanted to get in. And so how do we begin now to say this is OK? Now, equally, as we know with everything, there's a line now where maybe you're going to use this to not do as much as you need to do.

[11:43]

Right. So where is that gray area?

[11:45] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I'll add to that. Self-care is nice and self-care is critical, but we also don't, like Tom kind of alluded to, we don't want self-care to be one more thing you have to do, right? I was working with some teachers in Nevada recently, and they were telling me how their principal was really into self-care. And so what he did was he assigned them all to do a 90-minute online module on the importance of self-care, right? And so it's like...

[12:12]

We don't want it to be one more thing. And what we really want to do is also sort of evolve from self-care to caring for each other. And that is something that I think is really critical. And so one of the most simple yet profound tips that we give in the book, especially for new teachers, is that the best thing that you can do is surround yourself with other great people, right? And be really wise about the people that you surround yourself with. When you surround yourself with highly motivated teachers, you put yourself directly in the path of you know, being a highly motivated teacher.

[12:44]

And of course, the opposite of that is true, too, when you decide to surround yourself with somebody who isn't highly motivated. And so it really comes down to, you know, not only taking care of yourself, but also, you know, hopefully forming a culture, whether it's in your department, in your school or wherever it needs to be, where we're really looking out for each other as well, because that's, I think, a big one that that will keep teachers coming back.

[13:07] SPEAKER_01:

Let's talk a little bit more about some of the fundamentals of teaching, if we could, you know, thinking about the learning curve that new teachers go through in their first weeks and months and years on the job. What are some of the key issues you chose to address in the middle of the book?

[13:25] SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, one of the things I think that is often a really important part of a new teacher's, you know, the approach and the way that they sort of go through the year that we're often not talking about is how they are interacting with and dealing with parents and guardians and a lot of the students' families and things like that. We all know like it only takes one irate parent to really sort of mess up the work that we're doing. So one of the things that we really offer strategies on is how do you connect with parents, not just when there's a problem and you've got to call home. One of the great ideas that we include in the book is that we learned from another teacher is every Friday, the teacher that I've talked to every Friday, she just sends home an email to all the parents called three questions. And it's just three questions that parents can ask their students or their children about, you know, whatever was discussed or whatever was covered the week before.

[14:22]

Doesn't need to be a question that where they needed to have been in class. Right. But just sort of general questions that parents can ask their students to just kind of You know, build a relationship with the students, continue the learning at home. What it does is it prevents, you know, how was your day? Good. What did you do at school?

[14:38]

Nothing. Right. But it gives parents some specific questions that they can ask. You know, hey, I heard that you were learning about fractions today. How do you use fractions in your life? Right.

[14:47]

And just kind of getting those sort of fundamental, like good questions in there that parents can ask. What we found, you know, parents really want to be involved, but they don't necessarily have teaching degrees. So that's one of the things. The other thing that I think that we really try to look at is this issue of assessment, not on, you know, a super deep level, but on a level that is really appropriate and important for new teachers. One of the things that, you know, we really look at, how do I know that my students have learned, right? How do I actually, like, I gave them the test, maybe they did well, maybe they didn't do well, or I asked them the question and everyone kind of sat there quietly.

[15:25]

And so how can we really look at how students have learned? And so we're really encouraging new teachers to just, you know, really look for the evidence, really look at what it is that the students are saying, really looking at the data and then really sort of trying to, you know, giving them some ways that they can really understand, okay, my students have learned because I, you know, I've got this evidence that they've learned. Tom, you want to speak more on that?

[15:51] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know, so the other pieces we talk about in addition to those, you know, we talk about who should you get to know in your school, right? I remember the first time I walked in and one of the key people we say you should get to know is the custodian, right? Like, You know, so many things that are tied up in the knowledge that individual has that nobody ever tells you you should. Right. Well, there's a person.

[16:15]

Right. Your colleagues within the support staff. So many other people that we think are critical to you being a successful educator that maybe aren't. you know, ever talked about aren't the first people you think you should reach out to. So there's a section on that. Structure of a classroom.

[16:35]

I know sometimes, again, we want to get into where kids get to, yeah, but what are you doing to get that organization from moment one? The power of learning every kid's name. You know this. I mean, all three of us have a last name that probably gets mispronounced as much as it gets pronounced correctly. Well, that's part of our identities. Right.

[16:54]

And so when we sometimes say to kids, hey, you know what, your first name or your last name is just too difficult. I'm just going to call you JB. Well, the kid's never going to say, hey, no, don't. It's awkward in the moment, but we strip away identity. We strip away part of who they are. Right.

[17:10]

So there's a bunch of little tips like that that I don't think we don't think get covered in the traditional sort of get ready to be a teacher preparations.

[17:21] SPEAKER_01:

Speaking of what is and what isn't covered in teacher preparation or alternative teacher preparation, I know you have a chapter on behavior and behavior is often a challenge. And I think we're at a particular moment in our profession where there are some forces that are colliding to make behavior a particular challenge. What's your advice for new teachers on how to manage student behavior and get students to behave in ways that are productive for getting along in the classroom and for learning?

[17:50] SPEAKER_00:

And again, I think you're bang on, Justin, in terms of this is another one of those collateral damages, I think, of the time of the pandemic where we got away from it. I think as a general sort of expectation, what I've not seen enough of is I don't think we've been intentional in our return to school to carefully instruct. You know, the bottom line, basic piece that we're trying to get across in this book is this. You have to teach it just like you teach academics. In fact, if you haven't taught it, why are you expecting to see it? And I know it's difficult, particularly as kids go up through the system.

[18:24]

Right. But first things first, respond to the evidence. What's the evidence telling you? Evidence is saying Tom does not know how to not call out in class because he does it every day. Your response currently isn't working. So now how do we structure that as a lesson?

[18:40]

Again, did you break it down? Did you say, look, we're built on a foundation of respect. One of the ways we demonstrate respect is when one person is talking, the rest of us are listening. Did we take the time? Right. And I often get the pushback, Tom, that sounds way more involved.

[18:56]

Sometimes I just need relief. I need to get Justin out of the class to the office. OK, let's talk about time then, because here's what I know. Your interaction with Justin in class today did not have a very short spell. It was a longer interval because you talked to the kid, talked back. You talked to the kid.

[19:15]

You escalated. Clock's ticking. You sent the kid to the office. Don't you have to go talk to leadership in the office? Clock's ticking. Do you have to phone home now?

[19:24]

Clock's ticking. Do you have to welcome back that kid to class? Clock's ticking. Look, all of that time, I guarantee you, is more time than effective instruction would have taken. Good teaching takes time. Poor, ineffective teaching takes even more time.

[19:41]

We just don't recognize it because we got the temporary relief. So as we get back to, we've got to rebuild. Look, I'm one of eight kids. If you left us home to our own devices, we were not nice human beings. We did not act school appropriately. We did not use appropriate language.

[20:01]

Simply opening up and saying, hey, come back, would not have been an effective strategy.

[20:06] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I will also say, one of my favorite strategies that we share in the behavior chapter is something that took me years to learn. And the strategy and the advice is really not to take it personally, right? To not take a student's behavior personally. For years, for my first few years, a student would behave badly or not like I wanted them to in class. And I would think that it was a reflection on me. And I would take it so personally and I would get so mad at the student.

[20:33]

And then... It wasn't until I went and observed some other teachers' classrooms, my second year of teaching, and I would see the same students who were in my class, it was middle school, so students would go to different teachers. I'd see the same student in another class, and one of two things was happening. They would either be totally behaving badly in that class, and I thought, wow, it's not just me, it's actually more to do a lot of times with the student, or they would totally be behaving really well in another teacher's class and then i could go okay wait a minute maybe i actually do have some control here what is that teacher doing that the students not acting in their class like they are in mind and so seeing behavior as data seeing behavior as good information seeing behavior as a good starting place

[21:23]

To me, that was mind-blowing and something that a lot of new teachers are really struggling with is that ability to go in and say, okay, students acting this way, I don't have to take it personally. I can just deal with it instead. And that's one of my favorite pieces of advice in the entire book.

[21:40] SPEAKER_01:

It's fascinating to see middle school students in different contexts. If you ever have a chance to go see your students in someone else's class, so much is different. Maybe their peer group is different. Maybe the way that teacher runs their classroom is different. And I think especially when it comes to peer observations, I've been thinking a lot lately about how leaders set up peer observations for new teachers. Often it's very difficult to figure out what a colleague is doing differently to get different results with the same students because we tend to see students as kind of fixed, like this kid is just a difficult kid or this kid is just a bad kid.

[22:18]

And if we realize like they're actually a different person in every class as they go throughout the day, we can look at our own practice and say, where do I have some opportunities to set this kid up for success and give them the conditions that are going to get better results out of them, knowing that they're a kid, things ebb and flow throughout the day, and we don't need to take every ebb and flow of their behavior personally. I think that's good advice.

[22:43] SPEAKER_00:

I'm willing to concede that it may well be a content piece. A kid loves math more than they love writing. That's okay. I should still be willing to talk, observe a colleague to say, now, what part of, is there something I can extract? Because I get it. The kid's coming to math saying, wow, I hate this subject.

[23:01]

Or, you know, I love this subject compared to another. Well, what did we find out when we observe? Is there something I can bring into that might give that kid a bit of a hook, right? Do I get annoyed by doodling or do I get fascinated by doodling? I think every kid has something they're passionate about. We got to find that and then bring something of that into our instruction, regardless of the content or the year level.

[23:29] SPEAKER_01:

So Tom and Alex, you cover quite a bit of ground for new teachers. I wanted to ask about some perhaps different users of this book. How do you envision both new teachers themselves, but also people who support new teachers using this book, whether that's a mentor, a colleague, or perhaps a coach or administrator working with a new teacher?

[23:51] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's a great question. To begin with, I mean, the dedication of this book is specifically for those who work with new teachers. Tom and I, as new teachers, we benefited tremendously from the people who are willing to take the time to support us. And so that's really who we've dedicated the book to. And so I can only tell you what the new teacher mentors have been telling us, which is that not only does the book give them a structure from which they can approach the new teachers in terms of, breaking down what they need to cover with new teachers, where they need support, things like that. But it actually gives them some real, immediately implementable tips that they can use within each of the chapters.

[24:33]

We structure each chapter basically based on one of the questions, one of the critical questions that the new teachers were asking us and that we were covering with them. If a new teacher support provider takes this book, it will give them an outline, a format with which they can really discuss each sort of critical component of teaching and what the teacher is going to need. But at the same time, it's going to give them real ideas that they can use immediately. And that's something that was really important to both of us was that they have, you know, essentially a playbook of real things they can implement online. you know, immediately. And hopefully we've done our best also to structure the questions in the order that new teachers are starting to think about them.

[25:17]

You know, first thing you're thinking about is, OK, you walk into your classroom. What am I going to put on these walls? How am I going to set up these desks all the way through, as we talked about earlier? OK, how am I going to take care of myself so that I make it not just through the month, but through the year and then come back for next year as well?

[25:34] SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know, the feel that we've tried to create in the book, the vibe is as if You know, a couple of teachers sitting down, having a conversation, right? These are some points that might come up. These are some ideas. These are some reflections. Ideally, we also hope that post-secondary institutions will pick this up and use it as a teaching tool.

[25:52]

I think we can all think about those areas that maybe need to be different in pre-service teacher programs. And, you know, to the points that were made earlier, we've now got a lot of people accelerating into the teaching profession who may not have gone through and got a four-year education degree. They may have come from all great. We need to welcome all these people. So this might be a tool that serves to bridge some of that content gap that we talk directly with teachers. They say, I wish I would have learned that or...

[26:24] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it wore my heart. We heard from a principal who said that she basically just keeps a stack of the book next to her desk. And when she hires somebody, she just basically says, we're so glad you're going to be a part of our community. Here's a book, start with this. And so not only is that teacher walking out, feeling good about the job that they're about to embark on, but they're walking out with an actual resource that they can immediately start reading to get ready, whether it's in august at the beginning of the school year or as we all know what's coming you know in november december january people get hired mid-year so it's like to us just something you can immediately hand someone where if they're not sure where to start they can just start with the book and really start tapping into what they need to do so the book is you're a teacher now what's next tom and alex thank you so much for joining me on principal center radio it's been a pleasure thanks again for having us always a pleasure justin thanks so much

[27:20] Announcer:

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