Starting A Movement: Building Culture from the Inside Out in Professional Learning Communities

[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 program my colleague, Ken Williams. Ken is a husband, father, and nationally recognized trainer, speaker, coach, and consultant in leadership and school culture. A practitioner for nearly three decades, Ken led the improvement efforts at two schools by leveraging the professional learning communities at work process. And he is the author of Starting a Movement, Building Culture from the Inside Out in Professional Learning Communities. Through his company, Unfold the Soul, Ken is skilled in joining the why of the work to the how of the work. He's known for his powerful and engaging combinations of heart, humor, and hammer.

[00:49]

And while his style is inspirational and motivational, he's also known as a status quo disruptor, warm demander, and an unapologetic identifier of elephants in the room. He is the author of the new book, Ruthless Equity, which we're here to talk about today.

[01:05] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[01:08] SPEAKER_01:

Ken, welcome back to Principal Center Radio. Thank you, good brother. I appreciate it. It's an honor. Well, Ken, let's start right off the bat with talking about what ruthless equity means. We've heard a lot about equity in the last couple of years, kind of a buildup, and then just a torrent of talk in our profession and in the culture more broadly about equity.

[01:27]

What prompted you to write this book at this time?

[01:30] SPEAKER_00:

Well, equity has been around forever. Like you mentioned, with the social justice movement and all those events kind of converging, equity, it was on the tip of everyone's tongue. And in education, like any place else, my first fear is that whatever's hot now is going to be a fad. And equity is the last thing we need to be a fad. And so I wanted to capitalize on the fact that I've been doing equity work for 20 years. I mean, the PLC initiative is an equity initiative at its core.

[02:02]

And I also wanted to clear the air of some of the ambiguity around equity. And that prompted me to write this book that really focused on what equity looked like in practice. You know, how do you go from the head to the heart to the hands and actually make things happen?

[02:21] SPEAKER_01:

You know, I think one of the things that has really spiked and then also generated some backlash in more recent months is around the rhetoric. You know, I think there's been a lot of rhetoric about equity and then a lot of rhetoric in reaction to the rhetoric about equity. What's going on in America when it comes to the rhetoric and how does this book fit into that?

[02:43] SPEAKER_00:

we've got a lot going on yeah you know it's it's to me uh one i'm gonna say up front i'm not i just happen to not be political i just have no patience for it um so i'm not political if there were a party called the pragmatic party that's what i'd be a member of i just i like to go what makes sense i actually like to think and i don't care who says what makes sense i just want things to make sense that said the the equity push in education started to mirror what our political system looked like, you know, outside the walls of school. I mean, we became kind of a microcosm of our macrocosmic world, which is full of narratives and rhetoric and talk. And then the people, groups, citizens who are supposed to be impacted by this talk are never affected positively.

[03:36]

You know, it's all this talk that hovers above them. And I started to find out happening with equity. A lot of ambiguity. I think it's a mistake when equity is automatically attached to issues of race. I do acknowledge that if issues of race bring equity issues to the surface, that's great. But equity is not a race issue.

[03:56]

Equity applies to everyone. And so I was... All parts excited that equity is on the tip of everyone's tongue and frustrated because it was going in 15,000 different directions. Unfortunately, what happens in education often is, you know, we scratch the surface of things, but then when things get a little bit uncomfortable, we revert to.

[04:19]

So I saw equity going in two different directions. One I call selequity and the other one, cosmequity. Selequity is when we, I found us in schools trying to address from inside the school building, global issues of institutional racism and white supremacy and the patriarchy. All these things that I acknowledge may actually exist and need to be addressed. while looking past the real tangible equity policies and practices that we could actually change in effect, right? So we're yelling about white supremacy and we've still got tons of kids being taught below grade level the entire year.

[04:59]

We're yelling about the patriarchy and microaggressions and bias while these same educators turn around and create yet one more low group to stack and track kids all day long. These are equity issues. You know, we don't do enough to tie belongingness and inclusion to equity, right? So you got kids coming into your school every day, you know, teachers commiserating at the door instead of greeting students by name. We don't have cultures where kids feel like they belong. And yet we keep looking out the window way past our porch to try to address issues that we know we're not going to affect.

[05:39]

Put it this way. I know litter is an issue in the world, right? Pollution is an issue. I can get on a bullhorn and yell about it all day long. Or...

[05:48]

When I walk into, it happened to be the bowling alley the other day, and I saw a plastic bottle on the ground, a Gatorade bottle. I can pick it up. I picked it up and I threw it in the trash. That's my contribution. I'm chewing gum. I'm going to throw it in the trash instead of the ground.

[06:03]

The other issue is cosmequity. And that's where we make these cosmetic attempts at addressing equity without addressing the real issue. So adding... books of color to your library is a nice gesture.

[06:18]

But if the equitable practices, instructional practices don't change and they're not addressed, that's a cosmetic issue. Talking about more people than Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King during February is a nice gesture. But if it doesn't ultimately lead to a change in equitable practices, then it's cosmetic at best. So ruthless equity addresses belongingness, inclusion, and the instructional side of equity, things we can affect tomorrow.

[06:51] SPEAKER_01:

You say in one of the early chapters that the more ambiguous we are, the less accountable we have to be. And in hearing the rhetoric vastly outpace the change in practice, it makes a certain amount of sense that it's easier to talk than it is to take action, right? Absolutely.

[07:12] SPEAKER_00:

People are oppressed. Kids need more. We've got to give attention to schools that are struggling. I mean, we can shout out problems all day long. But until we're willing to sit down and look at what's happening on our porch, in our kitchen, it's all for naught. One of the issues that I take teachers and leaders through when I work with them through professional development, I was doing this long before the equity movement, is the issue of high levels of learning for all.

[07:41]

It's a wonderful phrase. It looks good on a T-shirt. It wears well on a lanyard. All those things. But I take a moment when I'm contracted to work with them and I have every educator on a post-it write down the definition of high levels of learning from a curricular perspective. And then I have them stand up and find a partner and share the definition with a partner.

[08:05]

And I have a prize for any pair that has the exact same definition in the end. And I've done this with 10,000 educators and I've not had one pair stand. Now, I'm quick to say, that's not an indictment on us as educators. It's more of that definitions like that usually happen to us, right? We don't ever engage and discuss them. But to me, if one of the foundations of our mission is to ensure high levels of learning for all kids, and we don't have a solid definition of high levels of learning, then we're back to it being subjective, ambiguous, and it places us back to square one with a more flowery vocabulary and good intent.

[08:49]

So we look to actually give teeth to the definition so that we have a place to go, like eliminate the rhetoric, try to shut out the narratives that are going on and really get the things that are tangible and measurable so that we can actually move the needle on equity. And that's the root of ruthless equity. It doesn't cover every aspect of equity out here, but the practices, the examination, the reflection, and the mindset that will move the needle

[09:19] SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and it's been interesting to see how as the rhetoric has advanced and the pushback against some of that rhetoric has popped up as well. It almost seems to me like we're asking for trouble for no real gain if our main goals are rhetorical, right? If we're doing what you're talking about and actually changing things and not worrying too much about how we talk about it or what we say about it, then we're probably not going to encounter the controversy, the resistance, the people screaming at us at school board meetings. We can just do the work, make the changes that need to be made and not obsess too much about language. I mean, that to me has been one of the wildest things in this whole last year or two is just the amount of anger and effort spent on language. Do you have any insight into why we get distracted with language like that?

[10:12]

I mean, to me, it's just amazing.

[10:15] SPEAKER_00:

So I think about that great question and that great observation. I believe in context. So from my perspective, when... we address equity issues and we attach them to issues of race and culture.

[10:27]

And those are definite possibilities. We can show the data. When you walk into a room and look at a group of teachers and say, you are full of bias and you have racist tendencies, out of nowhere, because equity's hot right now, people, you gotta put them on the defensive, on the defensive. When you get teachers and leaders coached up in equitable practice, and when they engage in that practice, and then we notice patterns that show that our students who don't speak English as a first language are lagging behind, Or we got kids from that side of town languishing behind. That's context. You have data and context and hopefully a solution.

[11:10]

No one wants quote unquote coaching when there's no evidence that they need coaching. And especially if it feels like an attack. And that's so much to me where it was coming from. We just invent these words, microaggressions, which are real. But to walk into a room and just like, you know, you are suffering from microaggressions and you have real issues of racial bias. Without providing context, without providing any kind of solutions, it puts people on the defensive.

[11:37]

And I think that's where a lot of that language is coming around. And listen, I'm not super versed in the whole 1619, what we should now teach in schools. Honest to God, we have so many issues with growth and fixed mindset as it relates to equity. I've been addressing those. I don't need to add anything yet because if we're providing every stakeholder in our classrooms, equitable practice, a lot of this to me is going to take care of itself. And so I think we complicate the issues by not addressing what's already on our plate.

[12:12]

And then we want to add other things to it, which through the language, you know, starts fire and fury. And then the real issues, again, that we can address right now, they get swept under or they get ignored because people are angry.

[12:30] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Ken, I'm very excited to kind of move beyond rhetoric and to talk about practice, to talk about what we can actually do differently to advance equity in our schools. Let's start with a definition, though. How do you define equity?

[12:42] SPEAKER_00:

Here's how I define it, and I appreciate you asking. In a culture of belonging and inclusion, organizing to provide students what they need, when they need it, with urgency to master essential learning outcomes. Every learning endeavor has essential learning outcomes. There are things in every learning endeavor that we want every learner to master. You know, so this remote's got eight buttons on it. And if we decide every seventh grade has got to walk out knowing how to make this, then our work is to ensure because we've just we talked to eighth grade.

[13:20]

We have an ideal profile of what we want every student to walk out knowing how to do when they leave high school. And part of that is mastering the creation of this small remote, which has eight buttons on it. What that means at that point is, once we decide this is essential, there is no can they or can't they. There is no can he learn it or can't he learn it. There's only how will we get them there. Now, at the same time, I acknowledge that some students are going to ascend and learn how to make this remote, which has 27 buttons on it.

[13:56]

Some students are gonna master this, some aren't, and that's okay. Some students are going to separate themselves and master this one. This one is available, but we didn't deem it essential. The one we deemed essential, there are essential learning outcomes in every course in every content area. And to provide equity, we have to identify those first. And once we identify those, along with other outcomes they have to learn, we have to ensure every student walks out with those.

[14:27]

And that's the root of equity. is finding that place where all students have to go and then growing students to it, and then some are gonna grow through it. Without that practice, without identifying where every student has to go, high levels of learning as a definition, equity as a definition is gonna be left to each individual person. And I get to decide what Justin can and cannot learn. And what's high levels for Justin may not be high levels for Amy. which puts us with all good intention back to where we started with bias, right?

[15:05]

Unfair expectations, underestimating kids, all those things. And so equity takes the pressure off of me trying to figure out what I believe you're capable of. It takes all that pressure off. And it makes clear to me what it is Justin must know and be able to do by the time he leaves my care.

[15:25] SPEAKER_01:

It strikes me as a very different definition from the idea of potential. Like we hear even some schools have as their mission statement to help every student reach their potential. And then we see our role as educators as judging the potential of every student and then helping them make progress toward that potential. But, you know, that's going to vary. And, oh, those poor kids over there. And, you know, that poor kid lives on the wrong side of the tracks.

[15:52]

We think of it as differentiation, but it's differentiation in the expected outcomes, not differentiated in how we get to the same outcomes, you know, that we see as essential for everybody.

[16:03] SPEAKER_00:

You are exactly right. And in chapter six of Ruthless Equity, I address what I call the low expectations of highest individual potential, which is a It's a polysyllabic, super fancy way of setting us back to square one. You know? So one of the activities I do with teachers is, when I have them in a room, because it sounds great. Or when you read those mission statements, helping kids achieve their highest individual potential. We want to maximize the potential of every student.

[16:37]

It sounds really good. It really does sound good. Until... And I'll tell you first where this is rooted in.

[16:45]

You know, I've been in education 30 years and I had a former student contact me out of nowhere. And I wouldn't say, you know, if you look at concentric circles, you know, there are students that were pretty close to you as you, when you taught and then, you know, she wasn't like in the inner circle. You know, I mean, we regrouped classes and she was a homeroom from another class. So not a close student, but someone I knew.

[17:10]

And She's talking to me today. She's a teacher of students with special needs. And just from talking with her, I can tell she's phenomenal. Whoa. Like she is 15 minutes in, I could tell if I were a principal, like I'd hire her if I had no jobs available. And I was just like, we're gonna figure it out.

[17:29]

Like you're that good. And then I felt a wave of embarrassment come over me because I started to recall what I thought of her quote unquote potential as a student. And not that I had her set up to be homeless and drug addled and low motivation, but I certainly didn't have this picture drawn out. And at that moment, that moment, I got a chill. A chill came over my body because I said to myself, man, suppose I really acted on what I thought her potential was. Like suppose I really spent a lot of time on that, trying to guide people where I thought they should go and not go.

[18:12]

And I realized at that moment, a student's potential is none of my damn business. It's none of my business. My business is to provide them a buffet of options, right? To ensure essentials and provide them with a buffet of options that if they light on some and need some more guidance, I can provide it. But highest individual potential is none of my business. None.

[18:38]

And I bring that home to teachers in professional learning. I'll pair them up. And I think this activity is in the book as well. I pair them up. I have listed 10 look fors, 10 master teacher look fors, 10 descriptors and a Likert scale under each one, right? From one to seven, never to always.

[19:05]

And then I have them pair up with someone who they know, who they work with. They write that teammate's name. So for you and me, I'd have your name at the top of my paper. And then individually and privately, I am to then go through each of those 10 descriptors and decide your potential for mastering each of those master teacher look fors and it is when i do this in pd it is the most uncomfortable two or three minutes ever and i tell teachers you can't put sevens for everything don't don't don't do that you've got to judge that teacher's potential and they don't like it they feel the discomfort And I think it kind of drives home this idea that our job is not to figure out what a kid's potential is. It's to ensure mastery of essential learning outcomes. And for some, they're going to master more.

[19:57]

But the kid's going to guide that, right? So we want to be careful. It's a real slippery slope. Trying to decide on someone's potential is a real slippery slope. And even though it sounds good, we've got to stay away from it.

[20:09] SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think that's a good segue into defining the ruthless aspect of ruthless equity, because ruthless is one of those kind of cutthroat words, kind of some tough language there. What do we need to be ruthless with in our pursuit of equity?

[20:26] SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Thank you for asking, because I get the question all the time.

[20:33]

So we just... this past summer came out of the summer Olympics and then more recently the winter Olympics.

[20:43]

When I think of ruthlessness, I use the Olympic Olympic athletes as an example. Is that, you know, outside of the events, one of the coolest things is when they do the background profiles and you know, you, you hear about when he was nine, he was playing hockey and getting up at four 30 in the morning. And they went to practice from five to seven, came home and showered and was on the school bus at seven 45. And then, you know, all those things and the sacrifices. And what I concluded is that to be excellent at anything, You can't give your time, attention, and focus to everything. You can't.

[21:22]

And when you think about Olympic athletes, they sacrifice some things. They have to be ruthless about the things that matter in the service of their Olympic pursuits. And they have to be equally ruthless about the things that don't. They've gotta cut away the things that don't matter. And they've gotta give their time, attention, and focus to what matters. And that's what excellence is about.

[21:47]

So you think about your own life, if there's something you consider yourself excellent at, you had to make some sacrifices, whether it's how much television you watched or how much time you spent outside or how much time you spend reading and researching and practicing, repetition over and over again, all those things. There's a rootlessness to it. You're building the principal center. I mean, you built this thing from scratch, from the ground up. There were sacrifices you had to make. And so excellence requires ruthlessness and equity requires it as well.

[22:22]

Because there are 17 things flying at you, landing on your shoulder and telling you why kids can't and why teachers can't and why leaders can't. There are a ton of distractions in your ear about what kids can and cannot do. And you've gotta be ruthless enough to turn away from those things and focus on the practices that matter. And so there's a ruthlessness to excellence and there's a ruthlessness to equity. For leaders, you can't let air in about why kids can't. You can't let any air in about the neighborhood we live in.

[23:00]

My mantra was this, I understand that this is a grind and teachers get worn down and need an outlet. But my message was clear. You can come drop off any frustrations you want in this office. And when you're frustrated and stuck, I'm your chief hunter-gatherer. I will hunt and gather anything you need to do this work, the right work. I can't do excuses.

[23:24]

I can't engage in the wrong work. But if you tell me something you need to do the right work, I will move hell and high water to get it. And so that's a way of being able to empathize with the frustration that of the pursuit of excellence without acquiescing to excuses. So just tell me what you need. I'm chief hunter gatherer, I will go get it for you. And so you gotta be ruthless about that.

[23:51]

And in terms of teachers, they've gotta be ruthless about equity. Once you decide, Once you get clear on what's essential, that means it's essential for every kid. That's what essential means. Essential relieves you from that burden of figuring out who can and who can't. And you've got to be ruthless about that. The last element of ruthlessness I'll talk about is, I tell teams all the time, this work is 50% mindset and 50% execution.

[24:14]

You know you've arrived to that mindset place when you don't care where the answer comes from, you just want the answer. When you don't care where the answer comes from, You just want the answer. When you get to that place, you know you're humming. That's an element of ruthlessness. When people are afraid to walk down your hallway for fear you're going to call them into this meeting because you saw a kid hanging out with that person two days ago and you wonder if that person's got an answer. When people want to take the long way around the building to the bathroom, because they know if they walk by your classroom where your team is meeting, there's a chance they're going to get pulled into that meeting because you're looking for answers no matter where they come from.

[24:54]

That's ruthlessness.

[24:56] SPEAKER_01:

Love it. So a ruthlessness in attacking the barriers to helping all students master the essential knowledge and skills. So, so when we say it that way, I'm sure nobody really has a problem with that. Like this sounds great. Why is this hard though? Like, why do we get sidetracked?

[25:12]

What do we do instead of that, that for some reason is tempting? Because like hearing you describe it, I can't imagine anybody saying, no, no, I don't think we should do that. Where do we get sidetracked and why is this hard despite its obvious appeal?

[25:26] SPEAKER_00:

So I call it like when quotes beat reality, there's a wonderful quote, Maya Angelou made it famous, but I think it's Louise Hay. Like what other people say about you is none of your business and you wanna hover above that, right? I'm not gonna let what people say about me You know, sidetrack me until you get wind of what somebody said about you. And then you want to go and engage them in ways that will pull you both down into the pig pen and the mud. Right. Or it occupies too much of your time and you find yourself distracted or feeling frustrated.

[25:54]

Things like ruthless equity quotes, mantras that we have. Their greatest use is when we are catching hell. See, it's when the work gets hard. So I do these micro learning videos. I have a couple of hundred of them and I put them out a few times a week on social media. And one of them is called, I Know Your Melvins.

[26:12]

And the crux of it is this. I can talk about ruthless equity all morning and then we take a break. And I have teachers and leaders come up to me and say, ooh, that sounds really good. I mean, everything you said makes sense. But I know what they're thinking. And I say this in the video.

[26:26]

In the back of your mind, I know you're thinking, well, he don't know Melvin. I know Melvin. Well, if he knew Melvin, it would be different for Melvin. See, we start thinking that our situation, the kids we serve, serve as an excuse, except for these kids. But what I've made sure that I engage in, I only engage in universal practice. That's what I do.

[26:47]

See, I engage in a practice that works if you work it. urban, suburban, rural, extra rural, all white, all black, all brown, mixed up, doesn't matter. That's why I can go into any situation, any demographic, because I deal in human nature. And I know that If we start making excuses, well, that sounds good, but except if he had Justin, he would think differently. No, no, it applies to Justin as well. So that's one, when the work gets tough.

[27:17]

The second thing I think we struggle with is interdependence. Like we need accountability. And in most schools, teams aren't set up to hold each other accountable. We put people together who do the same job and we think that's what makes them a team. It doesn't. You see, I was...

[27:34]

I was scrambling at the last minute to get here on time for our interview because I knew this, your podcast today was dependent upon me. You provided me a link because you couldn't do this episode without me, right? And I couldn't do it without you. So there's some accountability there, right? There's accountability. You see, our teams aren't set up to need one another.

[28:00]

They're set up to like one another and work together and do stuff together. And some teams just naturally gel into those interdependent teams that hold each other accountable, that set themselves up to actually need each other. But since we don't set our teams up that way, it is tough to hold each other accountable. And you need accountability when it comes to doing these, any educational endeavor that involves all. All kids must learn this. All kids must master this standard.

[28:28]

It requires us to collaborate effectively. And collaborating effectively is more than sharing lesson plans and sharing a lesson and encouraging one another. It's also looking to that person next to you and knowing that this goal cannot be accomplished without our collective effort. But the bottom line of your question is, We often revert back to what's most comfortable when things get tough. And that's why we gotta be in an environment where everyone is in on this. You can't be, as for leaders, you can't be ruthless at these grade levels and these departments and not others, right?

[29:05]

Like a great organization, a great business that delivers with their service culture or product, we gotta be all in, if not an attitude in the beginning, in practice. which will then lead to a change in attitudes. So it's when things get tough, man. Things get tough, we run into that kid, and instead of leaning into the discomfort of, I don't have all the answers, or I taught this this way last year, and it worked, and it's not working with this kid, we lean back into what we knew, which was, I mean, if he knew Justin, then he wouldn't say those things. And that's why you'd be ruthless about it with love.

[29:41] SPEAKER_01:

I want to ask about dismantling if we could, because when I saw this word in the book, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I said, oh no, dismantling. That is the word that people use when they're about to say something extremely vague that they can't control at all. Like, oh, we need to dismantle like a terrible attitude that a lot of people in our culture have. Like we need to dismantle something that's totally beyond our control. Like that's typically what people mean by dismantling. And then I read what you actually wrote And I thought, this is the only correct way to use this word.

[30:12]

I want to talk about some of those specific systems that you tend to see over and over again in schools that are serving as enemies of equity that we as educators need to dismantle. We need to stop doing certain things. We need to end certain practices. What are some of those that you see most often?

[30:27] SPEAKER_00:

So let's go back to that example when I held up the little remote with eight buttons and we said every seventh grade students got to walk out knowing how to make this because if they don't they got no shot in eighth grade they they have to be able to make this right so in order for that to happen we got to make sure that every seventh grader is taught to this grade level standard or better right you have to make this remote or a more complex one to have any chance now With that in mind, how do, and I had this happen recently, my seventh grade team told me, we got five low groups. How is that gonna be possible if you've got one class section working at grade level and four others, you know, modified, foundational, almost, but you're not there group, modified, modified, you're almost there, we encourage you.

[31:20]

I mean, we're not sure, but you're gonna get there one day group. We keep creating the low groups. So we got four sections of seventh grade being taught below grade level. What chance do they ever have at this essential? See, again, I want to work with universal practice. I don't want to do feelings.

[31:37]

I don't want to do nuance. If every student has to engage, not be exposed to, but engage in grade level or better content. then the existence of sections that teach kids below grade level the entire year flies in the face of equity. It flies in the face of equity. So I offer some tangible strategies, some really solid teacher examples of what it looks like when you're working with students who perhaps are below grade level, but you've got to get them to a grade level or better. Students have no shot.

[32:17]

So that's one of the practices that, again, on the one hand, we know Carol Dweck's work better than she does. I mean, we're correcting her at her keynotes. We know her growth. Girl, that's on page 63, that graph you were talking about, not 65. I mean, we know her stuff better than she does. We got more t-shirts with growth and fixed mindset, and yet we keep reverting back to those practices.

[32:38]

And so that's one we have to dismantle. Not because of my sense of justice, not because of anything except there's no way for every kid to master grade level standards if they're taught below grade level all year long. And we're not even talking about the social emotional side of it, which is when you overhear a teacher refer to you as low, right? Or you know based on how you're organized that you're in that group. What it does to your psyche? Does it dim your brilliance?

[33:09]

You know, am I going to get the best from you? I'm going to be working at a conference this Wednesday, and that's going to be my opening activity is I'm going to ability group the audience and then ask them how they feel about that. And is there any chance I'm going to get your best today? And did this perhaps dim your brilliance that I have you looking for a dot on the back of your name tags? Green dots are the high group. Blue dots, the average group.

[33:33]

Red dots, the low group. Because this is something that we're so comfortable with kids. We're so comfortable talking about a high, medium, and low and making judgments on their level of intelligence when really it's about us. And this last thing I'll say about it, those grouping practices are all about what we think we see in kids, but that's never the issue. The best teachers we've ever known, the best teachers we've ever had, the best teachers we've ever hired, assume nothing, prepare for everything, and they base learning based on the standard. They stand at that door on day one and tell kids that they're brilliant and they're going to be awesome and it's going to be a great year.

[34:16]

They're not basing it on what they see in kids. You can't see that day one. They're basing it on when they look to the left and they look to their right and they see their teammates. They know between them and their teammates, they have the goods to bring kids' brilliance forth. See, the best teachers understand that learning is based on them, not the kid. Them, not the kid.

[34:40] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Ken, we could keep talking about this all day, but I really want to encourage people to pick up the book and to start engaging in this work themselves and to get in touch with you to continue the conversation. So the book is Ruthless Equity. And Ken, if people want to learn more about your work or get in touch with you, where should they go online?

[34:58] SPEAKER_00:

You can go to UnfoldTheSoul.com. You can go to RuthlessEquity.com, and the book is available on my website or on Amazon. And please follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter at UnfoldTheSoul.

[35:11]

And it's the same for LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook, UnfoldTheSoul.

[35:15] SPEAKER_01:

And I would definitely recommend that everyone check out your short videos that you share, just brief insights that can be quickly consumed and thought about for weeks at a time. So keep up the great work. And thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.

[35:31] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, bro. Thank you.

[35:32] Announcer:

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