Building the Resilient School: Overcoming the Effects of Poverty With a Culture of Hope

[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_02:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Dr. Bob Barr and Dr. Emily Gibson. Bob and Emily are the authors of two books together. Their first book, Building a Culture of Hope, won Learning Magazine's Teacher Choice Award for Professional Development. And we're here today to talk about their new book, Building the Resilient School, Overcoming the Effects of Poverty with a Culture of Hope.

[00:37] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:40] SPEAKER_02:

Bob and Emily, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thank you. Thank you. Very nice to be here. I want to start by asking why this book and why now? Why, as educators, do we need to think about building resilience, building resilience as a school, building resilience in our students?

[00:57]

Why is that a consideration and a concern for educators right now?

[01:02] SPEAKER_00:

I might start. For the last 30, maybe 40 years, educators, especially educational researchers, have been searching for to build a model for effective schools for children and youth who have been impacted by poverty. And it's been like a tsunami of research, wave after wave of high quality research that has been based on actual research of high poverty, high performing schools. And we've received good research in one area, and then in another area, but there had not been a model to pull all the pieces together. And we believe that the resilient school concept, the idea of, we've had great research on resilient children, resilient individuals, but no one had conceived of the idea of a resilient school.

[02:05]

That is a school that could be successful in spite of all sorts of adverse experiences and situations. And so we believe that the resilient school pulled all the pieces together and lo and behold, at least for us, they all fit together in this concept of resilient school. And Emily will probably want to add to that.

[02:29] SPEAKER_01:

As an educator working in high poverty schools since 1992 and a it's really evident that focusing on student assets and what they have rather than a deficit model is far more effective. And by focusing on resilience, we're focusing on that core capacity of individuals to bounce back from adversity. And the beauty is that we've learned that you can teach resilience and that it's not a finite characteristic you're either born with or not. And that's where our schools come in because it is through those protective factors, internal and external, that we can help our students become resilient and able to bounce back from all the things, the research in trauma right now, ACEs, everything that's coming out and showing us that there are real impacts of living in poverty.

[03:28]

And sometimes it can feel like our hands are tied, you know, that sphere of influence. And so by focusing on resilience and understanding that this is in our sphere of influence to really help children.

[03:41] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, let's talk about that kind of central tension. around what we do control and what we don't control. I'm glad you mentioned ACE scores, Emily, and I'll refer our listeners to my previous interview with Dr. Nadine Bark-Harris. So I think it's critical for us as educators to recognize that while there are limits on how much we can control about a student's life outside of school, there are also incredible things being done across the profession that may never have occurred to us that we could put in place to build that resilience and to provide some of those protective factors. What are some things that you're seeing schools do that may kind of transcend those limits of what we feel like we're able to do as educators?

[04:24] SPEAKER_00:

You know, one of the things that the school districts that we have been working with, they begin to identify that it didn't matter how good the instructional program, no matter how good the curriculum was, no matter how well the teachers were, if you had everything in place, There are many, a huge percentage of our children that are so impacted by poverty that they never get to school. These children miss a month of school each year. And so not only are we trying to identify our curriculum instruction, our teachers, but suddenly school districts begin to turn and say, what can we do that we've never done before to try to get kids to school and have them ready to learn? as we've heard in our interviews all over, that how can I teach multiplication tables?

[05:19]

How can I teach children to read when they're hungry, when they're cold, when they're afraid? And so more and more schools, it's been truly a grassroots movement. There's not a program out of Washington, D.C. There's only one state that ever passed a policy. Schools begin to develop community outreach programs And each one is different.

[05:44]

Many of them have food banks. Many of them have clothing closets. They have washers. They have dryers. They coordinate. And the beauty of what's happening is the school is only a coordinator of these efforts.

[06:00]

They don't try to provide these services. They go into the community and find social service, government agencies who are already addressing these needs. of families, and the school becomes the coordinating center. Emily coined it better than anybody. The school has become the first responders to poverty in so many of our communities.

[06:25] SPEAKER_01:

So I've worked in several districts that have implemented these community school models, and they're named many different things. And what I see is that when families are able to get their basic human needs met, like Bob said, food and clothes and, you know, their electricity bills coming due and they, you know, got laid off. And so we help find help for getting utility bills paid, et cetera. When those things are met, there is less stress in the family and there's more ability to focus on learning. And we emphasize that, you know, families care about their kids. It's not that they don't care.

[07:13]

And it's really, really hard to raise families right now in this country. There's a lot of barriers to success and to comfort. And so... by coordinating all these services that are going on.

[07:29]

I remember one person said, you know, we try to find the families to offer this help, but we can't access them. And the school acts as this wonderful coordinating hub, a centralized location where everybody can get what they need. And when schools do that, they then start to become that hub of the community that our neighborhood schools used to be. And it just strengthens everybody. And teachers talk about how, you know, when they see a need, this child doesn't have a coat or they're coming to school dirty all the time. They now know what to do.

[08:04]

You know, they let their coordinator know this family might need some help. And that coordinator who has built up extreme trust with the families through communicating and outreach and listening, you know, they can call up and say, hey, you know, we were wondering, is everything okay? And it just brings everybody together for the common goal of helping these kids feel comfortable and safe and have their needs met so that they can learn.

[08:36] SPEAKER_00:

My neighborhood school in Boise, Idaho is Garfield Elementary, just around the corner. And they have one of these community outreach centers. And the first time I walked in, the room was filled with African women who were there taking a class. And I said, what kind of class is it? It's how to prepare your income tax. And I said, why did you offer that?

[08:58]

Said, the mothers asked for that. There's a food bank. They've got everything that the parents would need. And the wonderful thing is they had tax experts volunteer their time to come in and help the parents. And at the end of the tax period, So many of them got several thousand dollars tax refunds that they would have never received without this help. I'd add one other thing.

[09:29]

Absenteeism is a huge problem, and that family mobility is the other one. The end of the month, you can't pay your bills, and the families move on. They move on again. By the time a family's moved two or three times, The kids just give up. They know they're not going to be here very long. And so these community outreach centers operating out of a local public school through the housing authority and through other agencies do everything possible to keep those families in their community going to their school.

[10:02] SPEAKER_01:

If I could add something to that, when we're talking about spheres of influence and how it's really hard as educators to be faced with so many things that are out of our control. And when we have these community resource centers that are available, it really helps staff. To feel like they can focus on what is in their sphere of influence instead of going home and worrying about, you know, the housing situations of their children and what's happening. They can focus on the learning much, much more. And it really helps us let go of those things that we can't do anything about.

[10:40] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I think that that idea of partnership and that idea of. My role has certain boundaries on it. I'm probably not going to leave my classroom in the middle of the day and go driving out the neighborhood looking for a student who's not in school. But it is a priority to me to get that child in school and to connect that family with resources that can help them solve the challenges that are making it difficult. I'm thinking about just all the different agencies and charitable organizations and public entities that are committed to solving those problems.

[11:16]

But as you said, may need help identifying the students who need that help, the families who need that support, and seeing the opportunities available. that maybe are very visible to teachers and educators. So I wanted to ask within the school, you know, if some of this is not, you know, again, the teacher cannot leave the classroom, go to the student's house in the middle of the day. Who are some of the key players within the school who can build some of those bridges and start to connect families with those community resources? What have you seen work in the schools that you've partnered with?

[11:47] SPEAKER_01:

So in the school I'm currently at, we have our English language learner, teacher and she's very critical resource, a very critical resource in reaching out to families and building that trust and connection. We have our, what we call fan advocate. And so in Ben Lapine schools are called family access network advocates. And so that person reaches out to families and is, I mean, They Bob talks about they just have an internal Rolodex in their brain of all the people and resources and connections and they just kind of find who they need to talk to. So those two people are the primary coordinators of parental outreach. And then our principal is is absolutely amazing at supporting the work that they do and fostering like family visits and reaching out to the community.

[12:46] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I want to be sure we have some time to talk about Emily as has done an incredible job identifying a new area that nobody else has been talking about in terms of how do we develop effective schools to teach poor kids. One is curriculum and instruction, teach the academic part. Number two is the social-emotional needs of kids, and that's been well documented. We've done a good job with that. The third is the community school that we've been talking about. But the last piece of it, And it's out of out of Emily's marvelous research are the needs of teachers in high poverty districts.

[13:27]

And I'd love for Emily to talk about that a bit.

[13:30] SPEAKER_01:

I'm so glad you asked that question because I think it's a missing piece in the school improvement process. narrative and that is that the people that do this work the educators and the principals and the staff who work in schools are deeply impacted by working in communities where there's a lot of trauma and part of it is that sphere of influence when you're faced constantly with things that you cannot do anything about but you can see the impact we like other first responders we walk into that trauma We go into care and we need to really focus on the fact that that secondary trauma and even the primary trauma of actually, you know, having students out of control in your classroom and needing to do room clears and respond to those physical and verbal outbursts, that impacts us.

[14:28]

And In the book, we talk about how when people experience trauma who are first responders, the actions that are taken to support them, they're pulled out of the field. they're not cleared to go back in until a psychologist or someone has said, okay, you're ready to go back in. No, we have to go back in that same day. And often we have to go back in and work with that same student that same day. There isn't enough acknowledgement of the impact of that trauma. And so I dove in deeply into that side of the research out there and found some amazing studies that have been done on the importance of supporting teachers and all staff, supporting their relational needs and their professional needs to make sure that they're going to stay around.

[15:22]

Because attrition right now for both building leaders and for teachers is incredibly high. And that loss of expertise and heart is just debilitating for our schools.

[15:35] SPEAKER_00:

We've talked to teachers all over the country who will say, I can't do any more. I've got a family. I've got a church. I've got a life. I can't do it anymore. And then the other side of that is that I don't know how long I can continue to do this.

[15:50]

And so the debilitating effects of working with high poverty kids day in and day out, day in and day out, demands a degree of support that we've never really talked much about in public education.

[16:06] SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I'm thinking especially about turnover, you know, and the tendency for people to kind of burn out and move on and maybe You know, find a job in a, you know, a less demanding environment, which, of course, creates these dynamics where the neediest students are caught by the newest teachers, the least experienced teachers and teachers kind of migrate into, you know, quote unquote, cushier jobs because of the, you know, the pressure that that, you know, that that difficulty creates. So with the framework of resilience in mind, what are some things that schools have done to really take that challenge seriously and say, if we're going to serve our students well over the long term, we need to keep our people over the long term. And if we're going to keep our people, we need to keep them healthy. We need to build their resilience. What are schools doing on that front, knowing that some of the challenges are inherent to the work?

[17:01]

We're going to have students who have a bad day. and do it in front of us, and we have got to figure out what exactly that means for us. What have you seen from the field?

[17:11] SPEAKER_00:

One of the most important things is developing a shared system of belief in the school where people think and understand we're in this together. We share a core basic optimism about our children and their learning. We call that building a school culture of hope. And we now know that all institutions have cultures. And we now have seen schools who have gone to work and built that culture of hope. And I suspect it's similar to a military platoon where people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the group.

[17:57]

And it's out of that kind of strong bond of togetherness that not only provide strength for the teachers and the administrators, but it has a positive, powerful effect on the children and youth who are being taught.

[18:16] SPEAKER_01:

I would add to that that in the research I was doing, there are two aspects of teacher retention and staff retention, and that's job satisfaction and morale. And I used to think that job satisfaction and morale were the same thing. And I've learned that in the studies I was reading that job satisfaction is your perception that you're able to – To fulfill your vision of what it means to be a teacher or to be a principal and in your current situation. So it's your how am I feeling right now about my ability to do the work that I want to do and have the relationships I want to have with my students and colleagues. And morale is your perception of whether you're going to be able to. to fulfill your vision in the future.

[19:09]

So I might be really, really happy with my current situation, but I see some things happening, some policies coming down the line, some changes that are coming that are going to impact. Maybe I'm going to be reassigned to a different school. Maybe the curriculum is going to change, and I might feel that I won't be able to. Or if I'm a new teacher starting out, I might not be realizing my vision yet. But I have high morale because I believe I'm going to be able to. So we shared some information about how building leaders can be assessing, you know, the job satisfaction, morale of their staff, and then ideas for what you can do if there's gaps.

[19:51]

But I think the most important thing building off what Bob said is that We have to recognize the reality of that trauma and just talking about it and recognizing it takes a lot of it off our shoulders. When we know we're all in this together. Yes, this is hard. And here's what we're going to do about it. It makes it much easier to continue. And when we're part of a team.

[20:13]

My current school right now is a huge example of that because our administrators work so hard to treat us the way they want us to treat our students. And they take incredible care of us. And just little things like when we were locked down and teaching from home and One day I look out my window and there's a sign in my lawn facing my window that says, you inspire every day. They had come around and put one of those on every single staff member's lawn. And so just the thought and care that leaders give to their staff is echoed by what staff does with their students. So leaders are a critical piece of helping with that attrition rate and helping people feel like they can stay.

[21:00] SPEAKER_02:

Emily, I love what you said there about treating staff like you want them to treat students and that almost kind of a forward-looking golden rule of caring for people and building that resilience. I want to ask while we're kind of on this topic about the idea of expectations and attitude, because I think part of what's a little bit demoralizing over time to people is when we can't fulfill that vision of our success the way we want to, like when we really do our best and we want to see our students succeed, but we get discouraged by the ways that we fall short and the ways that our students don't necessarily always achieve our highest aspirations for them. Help us think about that problem of expectations, because obviously, you know, we know that it's critically important to have high expectations for our students.

[21:53]

And to see that sometimes work and sometimes not, you know, can be, I think, very demoralizing.

[22:01] SPEAKER_01:

My first reaction to that is what we found, and it's echoed in the neurological research and ACEs research as well, that the social emotional aspects of living and growing are prerequisites for academic learning. And when we communicate that to teachers and let them know that sense of belonging, you know, that sense of optimism and hope and communicating and being social, that that is important. in many ways, more important than the actual academics. Eric Jensen says that, you know, hope and optimism are more important than IQ or your SAT scores for success in life. And it makes sense because if you have hope, that's the belief that you can make your

[22:56]

you know, your dreams and your ideas come true, you know, that you have the capacity to do it and you're going to work harder if you do believe that. And so when we go and work with a school and share that information and people just go, Oh, Because number one, focusing on those social emotional assets feels good. That's why many of us get into teaching and learning in the first place is because of those relationships and seeing that spark in kids' eyes. And when we know that if we focus on that first, we're filling our buckets, we're filling our kids' buckets, and it really helps us focus on the actual task of learning. So I totally agree that when we have expectations that are placed on us that are not meetable, such as you must be at this bar by this time and the consequences are punitive, as we found during some prior education programs that were put in place, that that morale decreases and we start to lose people.

[24:00] SPEAKER_00:

Back to the, so many of the principals will say to us, It takes about three years for a new principal to begin to truly assemble a staff at a school that shares a sense of optimism and hope for their kids. And what we've learned is that you don't mix messages to go to the kids. You want those messages of hope and high expectation to start with a bus driver, the custodian, the the cafeteria crew, the teachers, the administrator. You want to surround kids with a high expectation and belief of hope for the future that they can do this. We've talked to little kids and one had a t-shirt on that said, I'm smart. And I said, are you smart?

[24:52]

And he said, oh yes, I'm smart. And I said, how do you know you're smart? And he thought for a minute and he said, You know, my teacher just kept telling me, you're smart, you're smart, you can do this. And his face lit up and he said, and one day I became smart. So it's a marvel to see when you walk into a school where everyone is on the same page with all these high expectations, all this optimism for the students and their future.

[25:23] SPEAKER_01:

We've been talking a lot lately in our district about fixed mindsets and growth mindsets. And that optimism and hope is very much a growth mindset. And when we look at students, like in the work that I do, I have a sensory lab where I work with kids who are struggling in class. And they come in and at first they're just waiting to see what they're supposed to do, many of them. And I'll put an item in front of them you know, a ball that rolls and lights up or does something and they'll say, what's it for? And I'll go, I don't know.

[25:58]

Why don't you see what you can do with it? And pretty soon, you know, they just relax because they're not feeling like they have to fit in this box. And they start coming to me in the lab and they go, okay, I've been thinking about it. I want to take, you know, this pad and this yoga ball. And I want to see if we can do X, Y, and Z. It's like, all right, go for it.

[26:19]

You know, and they start planning things. And when we can bring that into our academic studies as well, where things are open ended and students are able to, you know, pursue their passions, understanding that we may not see the results right here and now, but we're planting seeds. And when we trust kids and that undeniable thirst for learning and for, you know, having agency in our lives, you never know where it's going to go. and teachers are peddlers of hope. Who was it that said that? One of my favorite authors, Herb Kohl.

[26:56] SPEAKER_00:

Once again, it's such a sad time to be dealing with the topics we've talked about today because they're now rather secondary with this pandemic sweeping across. But we hope that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We hope there's a tomorrow. We hope that there will be a time when schools will resume and our kids and their families that are most in need will receive the support of their local school.

[27:29] SPEAKER_01:

I would like to mention that in the beginning of the book, we focus on the reality of poverty in this country. And a lot of pushback from some folks in the review process about including such a deep dive into what it is to live in poverty in this country. And I fought pretty hard to keep it in and eventually twisted Bob's arm to where he was like, yep, This needs to stay in because I think it's important to understand our our public schools are pretty much a white middle class institution. And we know that fostering belonging is critical for kids to find success. And when as as poor kids walk in the door, me being one of them. And we walk into this place where we sense that we don't belong.

[28:22]

We have to recognize that, that that is there. And by educating ourselves and understanding what our students are facing, I know that you interviewed Paul Gorski and his work has greatly influenced the work that we do. And that idea that our families and our children are doing the best they can And those implicit biases of our culture about class and about poverty are very damaging. And we can look at those and make sure that we're not judging our families and our students based on their socioeconomic status. So I think it's an important section to understand the reality of living in this country right now for many of our families.

[29:16]

The other last thing I'd say is that during our pivot to distance learning, what we found, which is a wonderful bit of support for the work that Bob and I have done, is that those classrooms and schools that fostered a high degree of belonging and community in their schools and classrooms, found that more kids and more families stayed engaged during that distance learning process. I talked to teachers at other schools that didn't have as much of that and they struggled to get kids to sign in and to stay connected. But our families and students stayed and we did some things like we had a virtual bingo night where everybody logged in and played bingo on a Facebook feed.

[30:07]

We did our virtual Olympics still and did a virtual talent show and did many things to try and continue that sense of community and belonging. And that was amazing to watch.

[30:22] SPEAKER_02:

So the book is Building the Resilient School, Overcoming the Effects of Poverty with a Culture of Hope. Emily Gibson and Bob Barr, thanks so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. Thank you very much. Thank you for having us.

[30:34] Announcer:

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