Stretching Your Learning Edges: Growing (Up) at Work

[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_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome back to the program my good friend, Jen Abrams. Jen is an experienced educator, author, and consultant who spent more than 26 years in public education prior to entering the consulting world where she works in education, healthcare, and corporate settings. And she's the author of five books, including Stretching Your Learning Edges, Growing Up at Work, which we're here to talk about today.

[00:42] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:44] SPEAKER_00:

Jen, welcome back.

[00:45] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Justin. Nice to see you. I can see you even though we're just actually curing each other.

[00:51] SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's great to reconnect again. And I'm so excited to talk about the new book because it's about ourselves, right? It's not necessarily about students or curriculum or coaching or those things that we might tend to think about. It's about ourselves. Take us into the purpose of the book, what you saw happening in the world that inspired you to write this book.

[01:12] SPEAKER_01:

Beautiful question. So I, as you so beautifully mentioned in the intro, was... In a school district for 26 years, I was a teacher. And at the time that I was a teacher, I was at a lot of meetings, right?

[01:28]

We were all at a lot of meetings as teachers. And I realized at that point that I didn't have a credential in how to talk to other adults. I had gotten a credential in how to teach kids. That adult to adult stuff was interesting and it wasn't part of what I had been interested in. And I like to spend my time in the classroom. And then I left, I became a new teacher coach.

[01:51]

And that really rang true that I needed a credential on how to talk effectively to adults. And so I studied coaching and facilitation and all of that and wrote a number of books on it. But I'm starting to really look at what's really out there right now in terms of collective efficacy, the importance of school culture, the importance, the team, the staff, the set of adults in a school really being able to work together in order to support students. And it occurred to me that not only did I need a little bit more guidance in terms of, I don't know, how to be a good group member and and how to sort of be a professional. But there was more to it.

[02:43]

There was more development that I felt that we could focus on with the adults. And once we're more, quote, grown up, which is sort of the point in the title, I think we could be better with each other to move a school or a staff or a team forward. And so that's where I called it stretching your learning edges growing up at work.

[03:08] SPEAKER_00:

And you've written in the past about generational issues. You have a book on understanding the different generations and what it means for people of different generations to work together. What do you see as some of the growing up tasks that people need to take kind of a developmental perspective? We're adults, we've learned how to walk, we've learned how to talk and so on. What are some of the developmental tasks in the workplace that you highlight in the book?

[03:32] SPEAKER_01:

It's interesting. There's nothing new under the sun and there's There's some foci that I think, I call them facets, that we, I think, need to look at in education. And there are so many reasons for this. We could get into each one and then have like an entire two-week class, right? The first one is know your identity. Know how your upbringing is.

[04:03]

impact your work, your classroom, your team engaging behaviors, know your limitations, know your biases, know about your worldview. That's one piece is to know our identity. The second one is to be able to suspend our certainty, to not just say my way is the right way, but to be really open to other people's ideas to say, what am I missing? I think that's something that we need a lot of. Third is to take responsibility. And I really look at that as a language piece, not just your work product, but this is really adult for me.

[04:45]

The idea that if I need help, how do I ask for it in purposeful ways, not just complain that people were fuzzy. or I don't even know what they want from me. If I have a concern, how do I express it as a concern and not a complaint? How do I have a hard conversation? How do I talk to my supervisor? Those are adult things.

[05:11]

And the last two have to do with engaging in reciprocity, which to me is every single time I believe that the person that I'm working with is a value add to me, And I believe it's my job to actually be a value add to them. And that's adult to adult, but that's part of my job description with families, with staff, with my team, that I need to show up in a way that's a value add. And then I have to build my resiliency. And those five pieces to me are developmental edges that I certainly, 30 plus years out from starting as a professional, and still stretching to be better at.

[05:57] SPEAKER_00:

So these are things that we work on throughout our lives, right? These are not, you know, as a new employee or as a first year teacher, we need to get squared away. This is not Harry Wong, the first days of school for personal development. But these are ongoing challenges for all of us, right?

[06:12] SPEAKER_01:

I absolutely agree with that. And they're ongoing, but they should be on the plate. See, that's what I think is most challenging for me is that people came into education and it was like, well, just be a professional educator, show up at your meeting, finish that email, show up at this thing and you're done. Then we kind of got into some strange things like make sure you wear pants on Zoom, make sure you don't eat somebody else's food in the refrigerator. I mean, people got into kind of some other stuff. That's not what I'm talking about.

[06:46]

We need to continue developing ourselves And I think we sort of stopped because we focused only on the classroom. And I think that if we also focused on our development as human beings, we would be better educators and just better teammates. And so, no, we're never done. But is it on our plate to even consider? Is it part of our professional growth plans? We talk about child development.

[07:18]

I want to bring adult development back into schools as well.

[07:21] SPEAKER_00:

Well, it strikes me as somewhat parallel to thinking about nutrition, right? Like we don't wake up in the morning thinking, how can nutrition be my top priority today? But when there's a problem with our nutrition, that's when we might get a wake-up call that there's a problem. And then we realize, oh, this is something that I should have been thinking about all along. What are some of the symptoms failing to keep this set of concerns on the plate? And you're the person, we should say, you're the person that people call when their teams definitely need some work on this.

[07:54]

So you see it. What do you see in these areas?

[07:57] SPEAKER_01:

I see people not having hard conversations in humane and growth-producing ways. I see people not able to sit and listen and get curious about other people's points of view. It's my way or the highway. I see people coming into meetings and they ooze their lack of psychological and emotional hygiene onto the team. whatever they were dealing with comes right into the meeting. They bring in unconscious things like, well, that's not how school should go.

[08:30]

My mother, blah, blah. You know, if it's not one thing, it's your mother, you know, and they didn't realize that this is impacting. So that identity piece, that certainty piece, blaming the boss and not having a hard conversation up Not realizing it was even part of their job to to be an effective group member because I've got class to be at. You know, I'm good in the classroom. So, you know, and then I get so fresh. Well, they're really good in the classroom.

[09:01]

They're toxic to the rest of the staff every time that they talk to them. But they're such a good teacher. And it's like, but that isn't OK. So those kinds of moments are the moments that I've been in when I'm not my biggest self. I'm not judging other people that I haven't pointed the finger back at me. I have been all of those people are my smaller selves.

[09:27]

And I thought, you know, we got to actually be bigger. And this time in the world is a moment of reset. a re-imagine. We're going to have to reboot when we come back together. There have been so many other things that are going on in the world. We can actually step back and say, you know what, we got to be bigger selves.

[09:49]

And when I say grow up, my up is in parentheses in my book. It's not a pejorative, like diminishing, like grow up. It's really honestly, let's grow up, develop ourselves at work and make that a part of what we actually should be doing. for the kids and for the rest of the school.

[10:11] SPEAKER_00:

Let's talk about resiliency, if we could, because I feel like there has been both a growing awareness of our need for self-care, to think about wellness, but also, I think, probably some overdue pushback on the idea of other people being able to rely on our resiliency. I want to be resilient for myself and for my own well-being, but I don't necessarily want you to count on me being resilient in order to... to be subject to whatever you you might have in mind for me i feel like we're at a we're at a tricky moment in history with with resiliency and i think we're starting to have some good conversations about what that means for students you know and and not put students in in that position where they they don't have the resources they need they you know we're demanding things of them but not supporting them how do we i guess draw on an earlier chapter you know take responsibility for resiliency without making it into this kind of you know survival of the fittest kind of kind of thing does that make sense

[11:09] SPEAKER_01:

My resiliency, I honor everybody who's been doing, I mean, the work right now on staff well-being. My colleague Elena Aguilar does amazing work on it. People do self-compassion work. I've been studying the idea of resiliency. What I need to do is exactly what you said, which is I have to work on growing my sort of soft front, you know, strong back. I have to work on managing my disappointment.

[11:41]

I need to manage grief. I need to be able to work with myself to be less. This is so it's so silly. oozy. I talk about like oozing my drama into the rest of the, I'm just, so I'm talking about building myself, not to not be vulnerable, not to not be real, not to, but to be able to say no, set boundaries, build a strong stomach, assess my fragile parts. I call it do sit-ups for your psyche, pay attention to that.

[12:20]

And then Also deal with disappointment and grief. I think that we don't sit with sadness. We don't acknowledge that everybody's got that. We don't, I don't know. I'm just, my resiliency isn't, I'm not against drinking water, working out. taking a mental health day, having an extreme self-care support team.

[12:47]

I've got all of that stuff.

[12:51]

The resilience I'm talking about is how do I stay strong for myself and be able to manage that edge so that I don't crumble? Because I think it's it's not going to be helpful for the school. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's what I'm really working at. And I think that there's lots of other ways to look at resiliency. I've got a list of, you know, how do you, do you pray? Do you work out?

[13:18]

Do you meditate? Do you, I mean, there's all of that. And then there's even just being more psychologically stable and regulated that I think is a strong sense of resiliency. You know how to Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. If you remember that from being young.

[13:38] SPEAKER_00:

I love it because, you know, and like, we never feel like doing that kind of thing. Like when we're tired, when we're feeling beat up, when we're in the middle of something stressful, nobody thinks, you know, what would be really great is if I could run 10 miles right now, or I could do, you know, it doesn't feel like the right prescription in the moment, but long-term, that's how we get to where we want to be is to do that kind of, you know,

[14:15] SPEAKER_01:

I've been doing a lot more meditating during this shelter in place. I've been doing a lot more mindfulness of sitting in solitude, being able to sit with my emotions, being able to sit by myself and no fun, absolutely no fun. But to me, it's a discipline, I guess. And you're right. So it's really about, do we have a discipline? I've been wondering actually, when we go back, In many of the meetings I've been in, that I've been on Zoom, that I'm in different communities, there are two to five minutes, maybe longer depending, of silence as we just gather ourselves before we join in for discussion.

[15:03]

We put our feet on the floor. We remember. We get back to ourselves. And I wonder if that could even happen when we come back to school with teams that people would say, okay, we've got a half hour to talk. You know, in this meeting, we got lots to quote cover. Let's just sit quietly with our feet on the floor for five minutes.

[15:28]

People would be like, excuse me, but I got to tell you that the person who'd show up after five minutes would be a better, calmer person. to do whatever the task is. And so that's sit-ups for your psyche right there. Can you sit still? I don't know. We'll see.

[15:47] SPEAKER_00:

So in addition to responsibility and resiliency, you talk about reciprocity. What does that mean in the workplace?

[15:55] SPEAKER_01:

For me in education, it is the piece that I and we merge. the I and the we, that we are a part of a we. We're a part of the group. We can't do anything big without the team. And we are responsible to be a, quote, value add to the team. And the team should also influence us in a positive way.

[16:26]

which means that when we get to the meetings that we're in, are we our best adult self? Do we have the skill sets to contribute? Have we sat still for two minutes, not brought our drama in, right, to actually be present at the meeting? And then do we engage with the other person as an equal? That is tricky business for some people who do not think that the other people can benefit them. And why should they go to the meeting?

[17:00]

And it's just about listening. And it's sort of like, what can we do to contribute, to engage in a more positive way? Sometimes it's listening. Sometimes it's saying something. But did we decide that being an adult in a team meeting was part of the job to begin with? And that's what I mean by engaging reciprocity.

[17:25]

So, because I can tell you that I was doing this work with some new teachers, honest to God, in Perth, Australia, online just this past, I don't know, a couple months ago. And they were like, no, that wasn't what we were told in our credential program. Nope. We were supposed to teach literacy or teach sixth grade or teach whatever. And I'm like, no, actually a part of your job is to be a value add to the school in every interaction you have. And they were like, Nope, nope, that wasn't in the credential program.

[17:56]

So I'm going to add it to the school. That's what you do.

[18:00] SPEAKER_00:

I feel like so much of this gets at the unarticulated reality that this is not individualistic work, right? Like the boxes that we walk into every morning, the individual classrooms, you know, give us the wrong idea that this is an individual profession where you go into your classroom, you shut the door, your students come to you and you do your thing. And that's what it means to be an educator. And I feel like we're finally starting to recognize that it doesn't work that way, that that fails to address some of the key skills that make us successful. And as you said at the very beginning, contribute to collective efficacy, right? Let's bring it back to that.

[18:39]

What does collective efficacy mean and how do we get more efficacious collectively by addressing these five facets?

[18:47] SPEAKER_01:

So I'm giggling because Jenny Donahue, my friend, written a number of books on collective efficacy. And it is John Hattie's meta-analysis says this is just the greatest effect size is if the adults feel that they together can do work that will contribute to student achievement. And I'm going to add well-being. that they have a greater chance of doing it, that the collective can be resourceful together to get work done, that there is a team to that. And there is an awareness of the joint work that we're doing. What's the goal that we're getting at?

[19:26]

Do we share and work together to do that? So do we have the skills to do that? Those are two key pieces, I think, to Bandura's work on personal and collective efficacy. But there are a couple others that Jenny didn't focus on as strongly that I'm interested in. One is, do you have influence with the team? And how do you build that?

[19:51]

As well as, what is the positive, effective state that team is living in and how do you contribute to that and so that's sort of where my work and and jenny's work then she focuses i believe justly in the collective purpose objective joint work goals and i'm saying who's the individual that shows up to participate in that and so If the person who shows up doesn't know themselves, can't suspend certainty, doesn't take responsibility for their language, didn't think it was their job to be in that group anyways, and then is hurt when other people are kind of, they don't have the stomach to manage them. That individual is too much in their mind or distracted by, I think, their own stuff to engage others.

[20:49]

in that joint work in a way that can really contribute. And so that's where collective efficacy in my work align, if that makes sense.

[20:58] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I wonder if we could talk about how to use this book with other people in a way that doesn't feel too pointed or like a punishment. Like I'm getting the sense that this is not a, here I got you something that you need. You know what I mean? Like this is delicate. So how do we do that?

[21:17] SPEAKER_01:

I think that the school needs to say, we are a learning ecosystem at all levels, not just the classroom, but as an organization. And to that end, we always know we need to vertically develop. We need to develop ourselves to be bigger, see more, be able to influence in a more capable way. We're always increasing. So the school itself or the team itself needs to set that aspiration, okay? It's not a gotcha.

[21:51]

It's not a diminishing thing to continue to develop oneself. So that's like the goal, okay? That's like the bigger picture. Then the team could decide in going through this work that self-assessments and team assessments that are at the end of the book, the group could say, you know, we're gonna work on, we've noticed we've got this one thing we wanna work on. let's go in and just focus on facet two. There are self-assessment, there are continuums, there are exercises.

[22:26]

Let's pick a few and just sort of work on it to just explore it and make it a third point. Meaning it's not interpersonal, like you need to work on this, you know, and Jen needs to work on this. It's, huh, this is where I'm at. How can I be, how can we develop? And The intent of this book is that you will be able to see challenges with a broader perspective. You will be able to not be subject to just the, I don't know, the things that are coming at you.

[23:00]

You'll be able to maybe be in more control. It's not a gotcha. It's actually a gift to develop. And now some people might say, oh, I don't have time for this. And then I would like to say, tell me about the challenges you're facing and what are you frustrated about? Oh, parents who do this.

[23:20]

Oh, I've not gotten my principal ship. They tell me I'm not this. My guess is that some of this development could support you. in not being so challenged by certain things, in feeling stronger about yourself and your contributions. So I think teams could do it. People could do it.

[23:42]

I've got people in departments that are not teams like grade levels, poor content departments, but admissions at independent schools. Different people are saying, let's grow ourselves so that we're better with each other so we can do our jobs more effectively.

[23:58] SPEAKER_00:

So the book is Stretching Your Learning Edges, Growing Up at Work. And Jen, if people want to learn more about the book or get in touch with you and talk about working together, where is the best place for them to go online?

[24:09] SPEAKER_01:

They should go to my website, which is www.jenniferabrams.com. And there they can find out about the book. the workshops. They can see a couple videos about it.

[24:25]

Lots of things if they are interested. And I want to stretch with people. As I always say, I write books that are a little bit bigger than me. I'm a size 8 shoe and they're a size 9 book. And so I'm always interested in people coming and stretching with me. So I look forward to hearing from everybody.

[24:45] SPEAKER_00:

Jen, thanks so much for joining me again on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

[24:50] Announcer:

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