S.2, Ep. 5: Leading Through Listening with Eric Sobotta and Erahm Christopher

Superintendent Eric Sobotta of the Reardan-Edwall School District in Washington State was moved to tears when he saw the film, "LISTEN" by Erahm Christopher, so much so that he flew Christopher into his district all the way from Montreal not once, but four times. The goal was to begin employing the power of listening across his district and to help his staff, building leaders, teachers and even the community understand why listening is not only the right path forward for them, but for the future of education.

"Outliers in Education" is a project of CEE, The Center for Educational Effectiveness. Find out more at effectiveness.org.

Produced by Jamie Howell at Howell at the Moon Productions.

Transcript

AD VO: 0:00

outliers in education is brought to you by CEE, the Center for Educational Effectiveness, better data, better decisions, better schools. To find out more visit effectiveness.org.

Eric Price: 0:15

Listening can save lives listening can change the future. Listening can save humanity think I'm overstating it will then listen in. And we'll explain more on this episode of Outliers and Education.

AD VO: 0:28

I think we really need to change how we look at what we do in schools. everything that we do as educators, it just comes back to people. I love it even when it's hard, especially when it's hard. Ultimately, I mean, this is about what's best for kids.

Eric Price: 0:44

Welcome, everybody. I'm Eric price here with my good friend and Sultan of podcasts summation. Eric Bowles from the Center for educational effectiveness. Mosey what's the word? Well, apparently

Erich Bolz: 0:55

The word is Sultan. Yes. Which I think deviates a little bit from our intended purpose today, which is the word is actually I would say listen, wouldn't you EP

Eric Price: 1:04

I agree wholeheartedly? Yeah, I think today taking a look back at some of our listening pieces. Like it's, it's a big thing for me, because I think this idea of listening besides data, you know, some of those big things that move me as an educator and as administrator, this is what I would say maybe the top five things that has really moved me about what's important in education, right.

Erich Bolz: 1:24

I couldn't agree more. And I think since we had Arabs differ on last time talking about the whole context around listen on episode 19. It's been a huge growth area. For me, I've been on a really, really steep learning curve. Since I left public education in 2020. I think this has been my biggest area of of growth, really grateful for Aaron for really spurring all that thinking and helping me make some of those BrightLink connections. And let's get to the pedigree here a little bit. We, as I mentioned, had Arum on in an earlier episode, Episode 19, of outliers and education, featuring, among other things, his work on the feature film also entitled, listen, released in 2017. And he provided us an awful lot to reflect upon, I connected with the fact that he describes himself as a provocateur, really, in the very best sense of the word and believes that in his words, we can't change how people behave unless we change how they feel. And then the connection to my work, much of what Aaron focuses on in his work is measured by us at the Center for educational effectiveness. Yeah,

Eric Price: 2:23

and I think Aaron has done a ton of work in school districts around our country, as well as in Canada. And, and some of the work that he's done is with Eric Sobota, who is Superintendent in kind of the northern part of Washington State in the Reardon, Ed wall school district right here. And I really am stoked about this conversation. Really, that's the about how can we as educators better serve our students who I think are really needing something different in the way in which we're providing education. Welcome to the show. Glad to have you guys.

Eric Sobotta: 2:59

Glad to be here.

Erahm Christopher: 3:00

Thank you. Yeah. Pleasure to be back.

Eric Price: 3:02

So Arum and then Mr. Sobota, we've got three Eric's on the show. So you can be you know, Eric S. So when we talk about getting to reared in Washington, Aaron, what brought you there? And then Eric, you want to talk about what actually happened when you brought Aram to your school district.

Erahm Christopher: 3:18

So what I've noticed about my work is that a film screening is what brings me places. And that's really how I ended up and reared in the wonderful organization, air alliance for innovative education reform out of Spokane actually held a virtual screening during COVID. And I facilitated a post screening discussion over I think it was zoom. And that became kind of, I guess, the introduction into the Washington State. And that's how I got connected to Eric, because I believe Eric was on that particular screening and a part of that discussion. And he reached out to me shortly after that happen,

Erich Bolz: 4:02

and Eric Sobota, What compelled you to bring Arum your direction?

Eric Sobotta: 4:06

Yeah, we, during the pandemic, if I can just start there. You know, I was hired as a superintendent the day before Governor Inslee shut down education in Washington State. Timing, right. Yeah. So, Reardon hired me on a Thursday, Governor Inslee, shut down education on a Friday and then fast forwarding to the in right in the height of the pandemic, students were struggling. And what I was getting frustrated with was the state of Washington, in my opinion, wasn't really listening. What I ended up doing within I think within a week, maybe it was to was watching his film, listen in my office, and I just was bawling my eyes out. And I knew at that point, this could be a tool and then after I talked to Arum knew that it was the right direction to go with our school district and using that as a catalyst for the work that We've been doing, you know, the past couple years.

Eric Price: 5:02

So when we take a look at what actually happened, Aaron, when you went to Reardon, what would you say? What occurred when you had some of that work there? What did you notice? Well,

Erahm Christopher: 5:15

I distinctly remember the the Zoom comments conversation that Eric and I had, and it was focused on some of the challenges that he was facing. And as he stated earlier, he had just arrived at the district. And I think that the number one issue that we were talking about was buy in buy in from his staff, from the students from the community about the this concept of mental health, mental health awareness, and really understanding how paying attention differently to ourselves to each other to our community and the culture, how it can shape, essentially a school in a good way. And so before we even knew to start talking about the film, and how it could be used, we really started talking about some of the challenges that he saw in the community about just bringing the attention to well being and mental health. And then essentially, we discussed a strategy to use the film as kind of the Trojan horse to open up that conversation. And really put everybody kind of on the same playing field, and getting them into a space where they were listening to each other through that interactive facilitated discussion that I do after the film. And from that point, what I think is really key is that everybody starts to understand that they don't feel alone. And from that point, you can start doing the work

Eric Price: 6:41

Sobota there are not for many superintendents that I think would enter into this world of listening and emotional well being at the depth that I think you have done. What have you noticed about? We've got soups that are listening, principals are listening. What have you noticed about some of the maybe difficulties and some of the really great things that have happened?

Eric Sobotta: 7:04

Yeah, well, you kind of mentioned it in your your intro EP about how you've prioritized this work, in my opinion, it's the most important thing we can be doing it. I don't know. I think it cuts right to the heart of the real and most important work we should be doing in today's society. And Aaron brought up the buy in piece, you know, and that, that is difficult sometimes. But I think what it comes down to maybe is we say and Reardon I guess I'll say it this way we say in Reardon, we want all students to be known loved and learning. And I do think we have buy in on that. So then you have to ask yourself, well, if we're going to know our students, how can we do that without listening to them? Like it's the number one thing we can be doing to know them, which then obviously leads to loving them? And, you know, and if you're, if you're kind of on the fence or a naysayer, you know, I'd say, well, listening, at a minimum is going to keep our school safer. Right? And I guess, as in regard to learning and learning to your full potential. How about, you know, we've got a middle school principal, that is meeting with the students that have, you know, they're the red students on the map test, so to speak, right? And she's calling a man, you know, one by one. And I think in the past, I think in my kind of leadership style would be okay, tiered intervention, we got to, you know, RTI, MTSS, we just kind of go right to those systems. But as she's meeting with these students and listening to their stories, it's like, well, they don't need a tiered intervention, they need a loving and caring adult that's gonna connect with them and mentor them and walk with them on this journey. I mean, it's a whole different mindset. And what I what I appreciate about this, this work is it's not a program. It's, it's just a way of being and doing things. It's not it's not, you know, a curriculum or a program we're implementing, it's like, no, this is how we're going to do business.

Eric Price: 8:58

Is that hard? Do you think for leaders to not have a program because you're asking them to be people? Is that is that a difficult ask?

Eric Sobotta: 9:05

It's an extremely difficult task. Tell us why. I think if it this is just my experience, and I'm this way too, as a human being is I just want linear, I want I want to follow the steps and see the results. I want to quantify. I don't want messy, I just tell me what to do. And let me do it, which works great

Eric Price: 9:27

marriage to right.

Eric Sobotta: 9:33

But this really does cut to the heart of you know, what we should be doing and in education today, because it's relational, it it's relational. And it in my opinion, it takes the student voice idea to a whole different level what what you're saying is an errand feel free to jump in here because what I heard from Aram there's a lot of things that draw me to Aram in this work. But the one one thing he said one time he was here and I think we've had him in rear now for two I am in the past 14 months. One thing he said was education is about developing human beings. And if we can wrap our mind around that idea, and I would add, you know, partnering with parents in the community and developing human beings, but if the work is to develop human beings, that means that every human being has dignity and worth. And we're gonna listen to students not not from a systems approach necessarily, but from a you have individually extreme worth to, to me, and to our school community and our broader community. Because you are who you are. And that's the work that it's messy, because then you carry the burden when they do start to talk to you. You've carried the burden of those stories, and you want to respond to them. You know, I guess I'm rambling a lot. But the ironic part about this podcast right now is on the other side of this wall. In my office here, we have a group of community members and staff members that are on part two of Youth Mental Health First Aid through the ESD. And how that came to be was when Aaron came the first time he came to Reardon, we did a full staff screening, an active listening work kind of processing work after the screening. Well, that night, we had a community screening. And that included, you know, the mayor and the police chief, and we had community leaders at that screening. Well, there's a pastor here in town and the Presbyterian Church, Katie, Pastor Katie, and she is now you know, periodically meeting with community members around how do we move the work forward. And what we found was we have a group of community members that want to listen to kids, but then they're saying, well, now what, Aaron, what's going through

Eric Price: 11:46

your head with that piece of now we've listened, and now we've got this burden?

Erahm Christopher: 11:52

Well, I want to go back to one thing that Eric said in the beginning, and it was about this mindset, how that mindset had to change. And I think that's the most important thing from the beginning is that shift in perspective, we have to start with showing people a perspective of themselves and others that maybe they have never looked or been taught how to see me or see hear or think or feel before. And and that's the one thing that I think allows this work to be possible, is to focus on that first, rather than just trying to cram some other program with a with a nice name, or that's based on, you know, some some data that came back, it's, it's, it's focusing on the human element and understanding that everybody has a different upbringing, experience, culture, maybe it's trauma things in their life, that have created a perspective of how they see themselves in the world around them. And so we need to start with that point. First, to get them to see something differently, and then start to focus on, on delivering skills, and experiences that further that perspective. And I think what what you know what I'm hearing from Eric, and I just gotta say, you know, Eric, it's been such a pleasure and an honor to work with him, because he is constantly widening that perspective. He is basically the door is open, and it stays open. It is basically, you know, there's no rock by the door to hold it from closing. It's basically got cables and ties to be hold it open. And he's and he's waiting in it.

Eric Price: 13:34

And is that unusual? Is that an unusual response?

Erahm Christopher: 13:36

Completely unusual! Because I think like what Eric said about that, that linear quick fix, okay, if I do a it's going to lead to be that's, that is not how he programmed system. Yes. Yeah. I mean, that might have worked years ago, maybe. But life is different now. And human beings are different now. And we need to recognize those differences. And we need to learn to adapt. I mean, developing resiliency and grit comes from adaptation. And that's what that's what Eric is doing in his community. He's teaching them and providing the space for them to adapt and grow resilient and stronger together. And it starts with teaching everybody to pay attention differently. And then once you give people that skill, they can never go back. It's it's like, you know, it's it's like as if you have a pinhole and you say, if you look in through this hole, you're gonna see something that you've never seen before. After you see it, you can't look at the world the same anymore. And that's why you know, my film was called listen the program, programming books. I hate that word, but I'll say it because some people like to hear it. Everything is called listen, to anchor it in a simple concept that you will know Ever hear the world the same again? And that's what I think Eric is doing in his community, is he's making sure that anytime someone says, are you listening to me? Or did you listen to that? It triggers a recollection of all of the experiences, trainings, whatever is being taught around that subject, that keeps them seeing the world differently.

Eric Sobotta: 15:26

You know, I guess I would just add, I'm at a place right now, where I've been reflecting a lot on that I need to do a better job listening to staff, I, I've done better this year than last year, I think, but I'm, I'm you know, these open every other week, I'm doing an open door meeting and things like that, but our staff, I think what I can do better in my leadership right now is to model for our students, what's this looks like, you know, with, with, with our staff listening to each other, and then, you know, in my kind of first circle is with our leadership team. And so I introduced this idea at at our last leadership team meeting about, hey, what do you guys think about bringing your story like writing down your story? And, and, you know, the, the highlights, and in five minutes or less, you know, telling us about you like, let's, let's dive deeper together. And we did that my last organization? Yeah. And dove really deep. And it was extremely impactful. And so anyway, we're just trying to process that because there has to be a high level of trust for that to happen. But if we're gonna, if we're going to do the real work together, we've got to, it's just, it's got to happen.

Eric Price: 16:35

Yeah. And it's got to, you have to model that right before they're gonna know what to do with their folks. Right? We're gonna take short break, but and you can see this one coming from a mile away, keep listening, and we'll be right back with more from outliers in education.

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Eric Price: 17:54

Welcome back, everybody. We're talking with Superintendent Eric Sobota of the Reardon, Ed wall School District, and award winning filmmaker Aaron Christopher.

Erich Bolz: 18:03

Wanting to shift gears a little bit in this winter, really an unspeakable event happened in Reardon, involving a student gun involved fatality. And Eric, how is the work helped with Aram helped you as you work through and continued to work through steering that not only the school district, but you've taken an incredibly active role in the community and steering the community through this tragedy?

Eric Sobotta: 18:28

There's a couple couple things, I guess, around that one is, you know, when I went to the students service, the speaker did an amazing eulogy kind of chronicling, you know, the student's life. And I thought, you know, just on a personal level, I knew the tip of the iceberg, on on that story. And it was challenging and convicting. At the same time, I guess it highlights, you know, how, how many students in our district Do I just know that tip of the iceberg about, you could say, well, that's a superintendent Shouldn't you know, and but in a district to 750 students, I really feel like I, I do need to do a better job. So I guess I would start with that. Right. That tragedy and included, there were five boys at the house when that happened. And so I think we're still processing that and a whole host of different ways. I think that the listening work that we've done to this point, has done nothing but help that situation. And there's a couple of examples, I guess that and one is the connections we've made with with throughout the region around this work. One local school district medical Lake brought a team of folks, the ESD we have our own staff here that were able to respond but the this is gonna be this is a long, long, you know, kind of the long game scenario here where where we'll continue to unpack this situation. I think the come Unity. I think our mayor, in particular, is a leader that embraces the work and, and wants the community to come together. And so we had a community meeting a few weeks after the tragedy, not specifically focused on the tragedy, but things like this tragedy have not happened in the rear, they really haven't. And so it was something that community needed to process together. And actually, just this Monday, we've had another planning meeting for a second community meeting, again, not specific to the tragedy, but coming together to just talk about the community. And and what what we want the future to look like. So I think that kind of culture and climate around listening to each other, and trying to understand how we're all you know, different processing together. I don't know, it's just hard. It's hard to really process right now.

Erich Bolz: 20:56

Yeah. Okay. Eric, thank you for sharing that. And, Aaron, what have you noticed from, from as an outsider?

Erahm Christopher: 21:04

Well, when I think about the experience in Reardon, I, I think about the moments from the very first screening with the staff, the discussion, the community. And then after each one of those experiences, I debriefed with Eric, I remember sitting in his office at his conference table, and asking, What did you see, hear think and feel what and, and he would say to me, like, what, how did you think it went? I said, we really that's a question for you, because you know, your community better than I do. So tell me what you saw. And he and we would talk about what we what we saw what we heard, what we thought, what we felt. And then that became the always the foundation for the next step. Said, and I asked, Well, okay, what do you see as the obstacle now that we need to overcome? And so what was so I think, for me, so wonderful about the experience, is that each experience that we created, we built the next one on what we paid attention to

Eric Price: 22:11

just listening to their input and respond

Erahm Christopher: 22:13

exactly, it's almost like using the whole concept as the ideation process. And that's why I can't be a program, because the response from every group is different. And so when I remember very clearly, when we were planning the next step, actually, after we did the staff and the community, then we went to a group of leadership students, and we collected data there, and we sat down and say, What did you see here, think or feel. And then after that step, he said, we'll look at the beginning of the school year, I'm going to do an address for the staff. And he said, I'd like to bring your back. What What would you like to do? And I said, Well, what do you want to accomplish with this? And he said, Well, I think you could do a keynote. And we could do some breakout sessions. And I said, Okay, great. Well, here's what I think we could do with the breakout says, Let's do the individual groups. And let's focus go back to those initial challenges. And let's focus on individual obstacles that they had surface that had surfaced through the the each individual's to be basically keep that concept of the buy in, always top of mind. And so Eric gave me that that space, to basically anchor the objective in the intentions in the in the opening talk. And then I met with the bus drivers, I met with a secondary, I met with the the high school, and then gave each of those groups the space to freely talk. And it was an awesome experience, because it got pretty heated. And it but it was completely open and honest. And everyone felt comfortable through that process. And I'm rambling a bit, but I want to give you kind of an overview of how what we did throughout every step of the way was reflect and build and strategize and make sure that there was always progress being made. And where we're at now is we're doing the exact same thing with the students. When last time I was there, we gave that space to the students. And I told the principal Jolin, I said, and she gave me carte blanche, which was amazing. She says this is how much time you're going to have. And I said, Well, this is what I want to accomplish. I want to understand what their mindset is. And I want to see if we can shift it. And in the beginning, they didn't want to be there. I would say 75% of those students were like, I'm only here to get out of class, or hey, yeah, and by the end, they were like, I want to do this work. And then we brought in a group of middle school students to say, Okay, I want to see how you do it. And that intention was clear. Could we shift the mindset of those middle school students in just an hour's time, and these high school students did. And so, I guess to kind of summarize As this, the entire work that we've been doing at Reardon has been a slow burn intentional strategy focused on every challenge as we meet it. But to strengthen the community every step of the way, and take stock and whether that's actually happening. And if it's not happening, then we need to recalibrate the strategy.

Eric Price: 25:22

And you only know as you get feedback from folks, right, what are the problems and or is it working? Right?

Erahm Christopher: 25:27

And the listening has to be a part of the entire process. It's the core, and most people would say, well, that's too simple. But it is just that simple. The hardest part is being consistent constantly.

Eric Price: 25:39

Well, now that brings us to this place of I think more and more districts and communities are experiencing some of these difficulties. And and I think right now in our climate and education, it is difficult no matter where you are. So if you're going to speak to leaders, educational leaders in this climate that we are in post pandemic, and I think a place where we have a lack of student mental health. What kind of advice would you give leaders in this climate?

Erahm Christopher: 26:11

Well, I think you and boldly talked a lot about this, and Eric's a huge advocate for student voice. And I think a lot of people interpret what that means differently. And really, just giving the students a voice is one step. actually listening to that voice and paying attention. And seeing hearing thinking and feeling is another step. And so I think the very first step is creating a safe space for that to happen. And that's why I designed the film. This is the film is supposed to be the catalyst for that. And when you do that, just sit back and listen,

Eric Price: 26:49

your film, listen, for those of us that don't know that. Yeah, exactly. And

Erahm Christopher: 26:53

I'm not trying to sell the film. I'm just saying that that's why I designed it is to make it easier for people to create that space. Good example, I think I mentioned it earlier. I've got a district up in Washington, just on Friday, they're doing a PD day, and they're using the film. And so how many PD days we'll sit down and watch a two hour film and then just have a conversation. But what happens in that that safe space is because it's a shared experience you are creating, it's like watching a horror film together. You know, psychologists have proven if you want to get closer to someone really quick, go watch a scary movie together. That's why that's usually a movie that people take dates on. Because when you have a scary experience, you're more likely to grab someone's hand cuddle because you're scared.

Eric Price: 27:43

Hey, I wish I would have known that in high school Erahm, crap.

Erahm Christopher: 27:46

There's science, right? Listen, does that too, in a sense, it creates an experience. And when it's over you, you go, Oh, my gosh, did you see here feet can feel that. And people don't even have to talk during the film. It's the emotional changes that happen that make you realize that everybody is feeling the same way as those events are happening. And by the end, they are ready to talk. And that's how I believe you create that safe space, and then you just pay attention. And then what's I think beautiful, is that that conversation becomes an experience in itself. Because you do not forget the stories that are told, because what usually starts to happen is people connect to the characters in the film, because of the experience that they've had in their own life. And when they start sharing those experiences, that whole community starts to understand the people in that room differently. That's the window. Wow. Yeah, I'd

Eric Price: 28:50

never thought of it that way. Yeah, that's incredible. As we look at students, and staff and administrators leadership, in today's climate, where do you both see hope for education?

Erahm Christopher: 29:05

I see it in champions like Eric, I see it in people that take the have the courage to create that safe space for that conversation to happen, and let people say, how they think and feel there are so many schools, districts, educators, superintendents, teachers, that are afraid of what someone might say, but what are they afraid of? Suicide, self harm, sexual abuse,

Eric Price: 29:35

cutting, just just not knowing what to do when those come up?

Erahm Christopher: 29:38

Exactly. They don't know how to respond. And I look at you know, the the first thing that happens when and I think I said this on the last time I was on is that, you know, when a student comes up to me or even adult and they they're having an emotional reaction to maybe what they experienced in the film and and they start crying in the the response that usually comes is I'm sorry, that's is what they say. And I say you never have to apologize for feeling. We need to change our culture. And Eric is doing the work to do that. And that is where I have hope. When you when you meet people that are working in schools that are focusing on the human element of education, and teaching humans that maybe not we're not brought up in an environment that we're taught those those skills to feel comfortable sharing how they feel and think that's where I get excited and hopeful. Yeah,

Eric Price: 30:35

Mr. Sobota.

Eric Sobotta: 30:37

I really appreciate him saying that. And I feel a super unqualified and humbled to be even on a podcast talking about this because we're, we're just starting the journey and Rearden, I guess what how I would answer your question, Eric, is I don't I have zero hope in our government. Zero. So if you're looking for a solution from the state legislature, or the government or things like that, to solve our societal problems, I can't even wrap my head around. Author Margaret Wheatley talks about this collapse of society, she talks about these islands of sanity that we need to create. And I totally buy into that. It's like, what's our circles that were involved in? And how can we create an island of sanity in the midst of what's going on in our society. And so and I think part of it's my own story, in a sense, where I did not have a great experience in school, and I was going down the wrong path. And my parents sent me to Seattle, between my junior and senior year when I came back, I deserve a athletic suspension for some bad choices I made. And the football coach at the time, Tom Oswald was a singular adult that changed the trajectory of my life, one guy, and he didn't even have to say anything. He just had to notice me. And he had to notice that I wasn't a bad kid. And I had some, some gifts. I mean, they were hard to get to, because you have to see through the behavior. Yeah, right. But he ended up not very athletic. And he, by the end of the season had gave me a coach's award, maybe a team captain totally changed my took, I caught three passes that football suit, I dropped three and I caught three. And then I was not even. But here's a guy, and this is part of the listening work, is he noticed, he observed he saw through that, and that, I guess that's the catalyst The hope is, and these adults and Reardon and other places that see through behavior, and they are doing this real work, because the elephant in the room, for those that don't have that perspective, the elephant in the room is if my job if I look at it as hey, I'm here to teach these academic standards. And, you know, to get my kids to pass this academic test, but at the same time that students dying inside, and is depressed and anxious. And all these things that all I'm focused on is the academic standards, we're totally missing the mark. And that teacher knows that. That teacher knows that, but may not know what to do about it. That's right. And that, and that's the work, right. That's the ongoing work of developing human beings. Wow, we definitely have to be focused on academics. But we're missing the mark, if that's our sole focus in education. In fact, our primary work needs to be listening to students, because that's the building block for everything else. Everything. Yeah, not just social emotional learning everything.

Eric Price: 33:35

Right. And if we don't have that we can't get to the learning part of it. Yeah. Wow, there's so much that we've just gone through. And I know there's a lot that we could be discussing. But this is that time in the show where we're going to move to bowles's incredible gift of summarization. But this one might be challenging. What do you got? As far as the summary for us?

Erich Bolz: 33:57

Well, challenging I'm I'm trying to summarize with a guy who made the film listen, I think this is the I think this is the highest level of challenge. So you know, being a being a myopic, middle aged individual. I wanted to start with myself just lots of personal growth since Erin was on with us in Episode 19, and making brightline connections to what it actually looks like to it. And I mean this in the best possible sense to institutionalize student voice inside of schools. And I really think if you haven't listened to Episode 19, it might be a great precursor context for this. For the podcasts that you're probably have already listened to now, Aaron's film screening the film really caused Eric Sobota to want to provide support to students in response to really a lack of good response to students in the pandemic. And of course, listening to students as we're as we're learning this job, one joueur huge brightline connection, especially as Eric talked about, staff and trying to model this for his staff, his leadership team, to chuck and Suzanne Textilene and Suzanne Gertz is where Back in episode 10, and the power of one on one questions and and just their whole concept being really underpinned on relational trust, so, you know, some bright lines to what works for big people, you know, works with our relationships with the, with the developing people as well. Listening is a way of being it's not a program programs are linear and relationships are not Community Learning Mental Health First day today in Reardon, how powerful is that? And Eric talked about the burden as, as we learn the magnitude of of child suffering, and the statistics are out there, they're easy to come by. And as we really learn that magnitude inside of a locale, we now have the burden of care. And I've certainly seen that as a school leader on the academic side, when we, when we actually recognize how many of our students have literacy issues. There's this pent up collective I want to do something about it. But I don't know what to do. So when Eric talked about the burden that that really resonated as well, Erin made an incredible point around life is different. Now, life is just different now for our kids. We've never had mental health concerns like we have right now. So I think again, something to really understand on a baseline. I just love the term adapting and listening leads to adapting. When we think again about Chuck and Suzanne's work, they talk about the power of perceptual data and creating context. And that context that students create for us should allow us to not allow us it should compel us to adapt our situations to better serve, administer to student needs, leaders model listening by listening to staff, the tragedy and reared and shined a light on what we know about students is just the tip of the iceberg. And I'm gonna come back to that piece a little bit more as, as I conclude here, listening builds upon itself, an ideation process cannot be quantified into a program that that came through loud and clear, can't be said enough. I loved how Aram just succinctly basically summarized the action research cycle, we all struggle to get our heads around it education, with three really powerful verbs react, build, strategize, and then making the brightline connection to our work. Like I said, right up front, I think our items in our student es data, especially the SEL items, are powerful places to begin to identify. And I don't mean this in any sort of I mean, this authentically student points of pain and then asking those questions and creating that ideation, those iterations that then lead to adapting the conditions to better serve and minister to kids. This isn't a quick fix, there are no quick fixes. This is a this is a process and listening is is the core of this process moving forward. And by the way, in education, we know that all great work comes from things that aren't quick fixes. So this is absolutely in line with what we know, learn that there's some neurological basis for scary movies being really great for state opportunities. Just felt like we needed to get that in there to lighten it up a little tiny bit as we went, when we talked about elevating student voice. I think as educators we get caught up in the activities which can detract from the listening. So it's always back to are we listening to students, and then hope and I completely agree have huge regard for Eric as a person, Eric Sobota, as a person and a professional, not that I don't have huge regard for you as well, EP just wanted to clarify the right Eric. And that, you know, Eric, being a champion for this provides us all hope, and that, you know, Arum talking about never, never needing to apologize for for feeling. And using this to create an island of sanity, as Eric referenced a literary work Eric Sobota. And then really remembering that one adult can change the trajectory of a student's life. I think that was a beautiful way to wrap this up. And and it really relates to the whole rest of the thing. There was a football coach somewhere back in Eric's abode has passed to was able to break through that tip of the iceberg, and and change his life and look at what a difference that's making for us now. So that may be the longest summary in the history of the world. Our producer, is nodding his head. Brevity is not my strong suit, but I didn't know how to shorten that there were so many important things to take away. I, I would I would like to, you know, flip it back to you all and say, Hey, what did I miss?

Eric Price: 39:04

Eric, and Aram, anything that we missed in that summary?

Erahm Christopher: 39:07

Well, nothing that you missed, but I want to just add on kind of a moving forward because, you know, we came on together because of the work that Eric and I are doing and I've learned so much from from how he approaches his his work and the people that he's working with. And where we're at moving forward. I mentioned that connecting back with the students and understanding their their obstacles. And now what we're doing next is working with connecting the students to the staff on a consistent basis. And so the high school is going to be allocating 45 minutes every day, to this practice. And that's the one word that that I didn't use that I kept wanting bosey to put in there and it was because it wasn't stated as I feel like we need to change the word program to a practice Because when it becomes a practice, it's something that's never done. You know, and, and what's what's blows my mind when you really think about practice in schools, right? You think about sports, you think about any type of training, even multiplication tables, you know, I've got, I've got a 10 year old. And when she learned her table, we got to practice the tables. But we don't practice human skills. And it blows my mind because we do the practice in football, basketball, to prepare for the game, right? But the practice is never enough. You got to keep doing that. And life is the biggest game that we will ever play. And this practice is the most important practice that we need to do.

Eric Price: 40:48

That's, that's fantastic. Something that we know we can do, we just got to get better at by having more and more repetitions of Yeah, I just wanted

Erich Bolz: 40:57

to make a recommendation to our producer that we scratch my summary and just go with Aaron's

Eric Price: 41:04

Sobotta anything that you've got to add on my man?

Eric Sobotta: 41:07

Well, just the last piece like because, you know, you'll have educators listening to this, as you know, the the next steps and like Aaron said, we've got a high school principal that's behind this work and staff that want to implement it, we're probably going to call a connections class or an invitation to listen, we don't want to mandate it. But we know that we have staff and students that that want to continue the work and build a course around that. And provide that space for active listening, right. So we also have this community group that's meeting right now our bus drivers are an amazing group that that continues, actually, we have five of them over here on the other side of the wall, doing this Youth Mental Health First Aid when they when students center the bus, we do a zones of regulation. So the bus drivers know how they're doing, we continue to work with our different groups of staff. And then I have got a Wellness Advisory, I've got 20 students that we do a monthly advisory to me superintendent advisory and we're going to be putting together a short film for our staff around and we're working on that actually in May, with two questions. One is you know it, the first question is, or kind of the prompt is I what I wish the staff knew about my week, what my week looks like. And then the second prompt is what I want staff to remember about me when I graduate. And we're going to have students answer those questions. And then my advisory, I'll read them on camera, and we'll see how that goes. So there's just a, you know, I guess the last thing that would be like a dream that I'm going after is a summer school program that we could caught we could actually look at, there's a local university, the director did her her doctorial work around this happiness index. And I'm really interested on quantifying the work that we're doing holistically. You know, I we love our E survey, we do some internal surveys around connection with a trusting and caring adult. The next piece of this might be this, this idea of a happiness, and I would call it a well being hers was happiness. But let's find a holistic wellness tool that we can start to quantify the work that we're doing. So anyway, we're in discussions with a local university on that right now, too. So I just wanted to add, you know, kind of the next steps of of this, and I would call it a journey, you know, for our school district.

Eric Price: 43:31

Well, I think all of this comes back to moving away from program and systems and things to be done. And Aaron, what you're getting back to this idea of practicing relationships, right? It's just practice, we need kids to have those good solid relationships, maybe just one adult, but just those solid relationships of an adult loving listening to a kid. Wow. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. I think what a powerful set of ideas and potential practices that we should be doing, I think, every day in our schools.

Erahm Christopher: 44:04

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and thank you both for being the champions of creating these safe spaces for champions like Eric to be on and share what they're doing.

Eric Sobotta: 44:13

Thanks so much, guys.

Erich Bolz: 44:14

And thanks to you all for joining us today on outliers in education. You can find this episode more anywhere you listen to your favorite podcast, or visit us online at affected miss.org. Until next time, this has been outliers and education.

AD VO: 44:33

If you'd like to find out how to gather the data you need to help drive positive change in your school or district. Take a moment to visit C E The Center for Educational effectiveness@effectiveness.org Better data, better decisions, better schools effectiveness.org