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I Like What You Like, You Like What I Like

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Watch on YouTube or listen on Anchor, or wherever podcasts are heard.

Small Bites Friday Five 2-26-21 

20-30m – Explore this article by David Palank to see how likely it is that halo bias influences your teaching (spoiler alert, a lot). Then choose two strategies to mitigate your own biases, like grading anonymously or ALWAYS using a written rubric. Finally, reflect on a time when the halo effect likely played a part in a decision you made.

15-20m – Start with your youngest learners using this rich well of art and literary projects. Mandisa’s website is designed for toddlers but the projects can be easily scaled up for PK-4.

10-15m – Use this Precious Children article from PBS to help you understand why teaching acceptance is important early on, then prepare at least one of the activities for your class or personal kids and grands. My favorite line, “If your group is not diverse, display images of diversity in your community or in U.S. society.”

5-10m – Review this Nielson Group article that explains halo bias and think about how it affects your teaching.

0-5m –  Write down 5 people you know who you attribute certain traits to. For example, Kevin is tall, he must play basketball; or My co-teacher is really pretty, she must have been popular in high school. Now, write down all the reasons your assumptions might be false.

Did you know that mirroring is a real thing in which people subconsciously mimic the affectations of those they like? And even among invertebrates, there is sexual mimicry in which one sex imitates the other sex to signal interest. If you are a scientist or social scientist, you are probably cringing right now. But for us lay persons, I think the gist is clear. Imitation is more than the sincerest form of flattery, it’s how we align ourselves with those we admire.

If we like someone, we also imitate, or at least buy into, their beliefs and values. And usually, if we believe one thing that they believe, we tend to believe it all. We also tend to minimize or write off any negatives or character flaws. Conversely, if we don’t like someone, we are likely to magnify their faults, disavowing them and whatever they stand for.

We see this play out in politics, but how does this play out in education? Well, in the hundred and one discretionary decisions you make daily, it can affect students in a million and one small and large ways. For example, if you like a student, you might be tempted to round up in grading, if you dislike a student, you may round down, or just not round up. If a student impresses you, you are likely to recommend them for awards, AP courses, write reference letters, etc. If you don’t particularly fancy them, you might write them a college letter, but will it be glowing? The adjectives you choose are more likely to be based on your feelings about the student than on performance or achievement.

We say, know better, do better. But that is more than a notion unless you are committed to being a reflective practitioner in a very real, honest-with-yourself-until-it-hurts way. If you really want to be a change agent and make education better, be willing to start by taking stock of your feelings about each student. Start by reading this article, reflecting on how this bias played out in your classroom today; then make plans to course correct.

That’s how real change begins, with you doing your best for each child in front of you. Make it concrete: Read, reflect, make your own plan to be more intentional in dealing with the students you support now.

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Dirty Laundry

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Watch on YouTube or listen on Anchor, or wherever podcasts are heard.

Small Bites Friday Five 2-19-21

20-30m – Watch Jay Smooth’s Media Literacy crash course that delves into media strategies, our reactions to those tricks and our biases. Watch them all if you have time. If not, watch #2, #4 and #5. These are great for you, but can also be watched with a class. 

15-20m – Read this Parent’s Guide to Media Literacy from the National Association for Media Literacy and Education (NAMLE). It features sample questions for analyzing media like who made it, why was it made and how might different people interpret it. It’s also in Spanish and even Greek, if you need it.

10-15m – Reflect on the information in the above document and jot down any personal tweaks you need to make in your own media consumption. Then consider send your favorite section or even a class sketchnote of your favorite section home to parents.

5-10m – Review this Time For Kids resource for use with younger students, or this Media Smarts Break the Fake resource that includes 4 easy ways to fact check and share with friends and family.

0-5m –  Learn the words dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and watch this Above the Noise video on the brain and fake news to learn how to circumvent the way our brains react to news. Probably best with 6-12th graders he says BS (the letters, not the words) in the video. Ooohhhh…

Something dark in human nature makes us like to watch others suffer. The lions and the Christians in the Coliseum; shoot ’em ups; shocking and bad news; social media rants. America’s Funniest Home Videos and even the rash of prank Tiktoks indulge our darker side, give us the opportunity to assure ourselves that we are not as bad off as those we ridicule.

Media takes advantage of that. A message is always crafted by one person with an agenda. From the early days of yellow journalism to today’s polarized news outlets, someone crafts messages to manipulate the masses. We don’t think of our democracy as being ruled by the messages of propaganda, but considering how polarized we are and how news is as much opinion, analysis and editorial content as anything else, we should think again. So much content is needed to fill up the current 24 hour thirst for dirty laundry that we have gotten used to opinion pieces being front page news and incendiary headlines being fact.

The only thing I would like you to do this week is to watch 5 minutes of news daily from an outlet you don’t usually watch. Refrain from making negative comments or judgments. Research what you hear, if you like. But work on tweaking your own media consumption habits so that when you teach civics and citizenship–which should happen daily– you will be able to teach your students to think critically, not to think like you.

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Never Too Late Pt. II

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Watch on YouTube or listen on Anchor or wherever podcasts are heard.

Small Bites Friday Five 2-12-21

20-30m – Explore the resources for teaching media literacy with these non-partisan Civics Renewal Network resources for 6-12. Choose one to use in your next class.

15-20m – Research the critical thinking standards for your content in your state. Teaching civic responsibility, citizenship, communication and critical thinking are connected to every content.

10-15m – Use this resource from Discovering Justice to help you teach principles of community and fairness to your K-5 students. There are also resources there for older students.

5-10m – If you have littles, or older kids with a sense of humor, use Sesame Street videos like these to ease into topics like conflict, feelings or social responsibility. Talk in general about what types of behaviors are not ok and how those behaviors are wrong even if someone we respect is doing them.

0-5m – Use 60 Second Civics for yourself or with your upper grade level students.

Please use this week to read or re-read last week’s blog. Teaching civic responsibility is not political, it’s our duty. Take a closer look at the resources, and I will be watching my Twitter and Insta DMs for any questions you might have.

Never Too Late Pt. II Read More »

Never Too Late

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Watch on YouTube or listen on Anchor or wherever podcasts are heard.

Small Bites Friday Five 2-5-20

20-30m – Explore 3 Steps to Civil Discourse in this 8-page socialstudies.org document containing strategies for grades 4-12. It’s intended for older students but many of the strategies can be adapted for younger classes. Begin with the first strategy, start with yourself.

15-20m – Read this Kristy Louden guest blog from Cult of Pedagogy on teaching argument, early, often, across content.

10-15m – Prepare lessons 2 and 3 from Naomi Drew and Christa Tinari’s Create a Culture of Kindness in Middle School document. Again, the lessons can be adapted for older and younger students.

5-10m – Prepare lesson 8 from the above document.

0-5m – Make a list of the 3 worst case scenarios and outcomes in case a discussion gets off track. Consider the actual probability of them happening and how you can prepare for each.

If you teach littles, it’s fairly easy to navigate the daily strife and disagreements of primary school life. Be kind, say you’re sorry, hug it out, or these days, air high five.

If you teach middles or above, the waters are murkier. Hormones and hatred seem to bloom, with “kindness matters” giving way to toxic online–and even f2f–behaviors. Getting students to buy into the whole “cool to be kind” thing is not an easy task, especially if you didn’t build strong class culture early on.

Still, as the Pinterest poster says, “we do hard things”. Difficult is not the same as impossible. Whether you require a talking stick, arguing only the argument you are personally against or writing in silence when topics are fraught with conflict, it’s never too late to remind students that citizenship, respect, civil disagreement are what keep groups strong. I tell my middles, “school is hard enough without making each other’s life more difficult. Only small people want to be responsible for someone else’s pain” It’s a start.

The impeachment trial is starting and it is imperative that you use the opportunity to teach students to respect each other’s right to have a different opinion. That starts with setting ground rules and being an active, but neutral facilitator.

We all know the adage about opinions; we all have them and they don’t always need to be heard. Students can learn to voice their own opinions without offering commentary on the opinions of others. Then, you can build from there. Students need to learn how to talk about sensitive issues and since we are educators, we teach. If we want to prepare our students for a world full of conflict beyond the classroom walls, we have to be ready to teach them how to respectfully navigate the waters of conflict within them.

Never Too Late Read More »

Words Get in the Way

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Watch on YouTube or listen on Anchor, or wherever podcasts are heard.

Small Bites Friday Five 1-29-21

20-30m – Go to Project Implicit and pick a test or two. Use the insights to guide you in mitigating behaviors grounded in bias.

15-20m – Explore this PBS site on American Eugenics. The ‘biological improvement of the German people’ was not as rare as we would like to think.

10-15m – Continue exploring the hyperlinks from the above site.  

5-10m – Read this American Bar Association article on bias in healthcare in the Black community. This is a good example of how systems are often biased (‘systemic racism’; ‘systemic inequity’).

0-5m – Just sit. The late poet laureate Maya Angelou advocated for a national day to just be. You might not be able to take the day but surely you can give yourself just 5 minutes to do absolutely nothing

Sometimes, we get so caught up in labels that we fail to tackle the actual issues. Words like White fragility or White supremacy are inflammatory and maybe even hurtful. I can understand that. Feeling accused never feels good, and it takes a big person to to take critique and look inward to see if there is some validity, and even more, some opportunity for growth.

If we can, let’s remove, for a moment, the tendency to bristle at words and phrases like racist, institutionalized racism, collusion, microaggression, white privilege, multiperspectivity or other terms that seek to address the deep and abiding problems in our country. What if we, instead, consider that institutions in America are designed to favor Whites.

There is compelling evidence that this is truth. The fact that only White males could vote for hundreds of years after our inception is one fact that supports the assertion that the country was not designed with equity for all in mind. Slavery and Jim Crow laws additionally point to the fact that only certain populations were included in the “all men are created equal” phrase. There is also the Manifest Destiny, the widely held cultural belief from the mid 1800s that White settlers were destined by God to take over all of North America. Never mind that there were many nations already inhabiting the land.

Colonization was big then, not only in America. But was it right? Was it just for the humans it has adversely impacted? Anti-racist “buzzwords” like those mentioned above can be painful to hear. But is that pain greater than the pain of those disenfranchised for centuries by the systems our country is built on?

Consider this: The US GDP is 21.43 trillion dollars, almost 10 trillion more than China, the country coming in second. How did we get to be that rich? Was it because we took land from others? Was it because Americans enslaved and trafficked humans to build wealth? In order to cause that kind of trauma to other humans, did we convince ourselves that they were less human than us, less capable of feeling pain? Less intelligent? Could it be possible, in the same way that we esteem our families over others, that we have allowed that devaluation of people who are not in ‘our group’ to continue?

I don’t have any answers. But I am asking you to stop and consider whether or not any of the above assertions might be grounded in truth. And if they are, how might that affect your classroom, campus or community?

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Easier Said Than Done

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Watch on YouTube or listen on Anchor or wherever podcasts are heard.

Small Bites Friday Five 1-22-21

20-30m – Watch this Anand Giridharadas Ted talk in which he calls us, “An America whose two halves learn again to strive, to plow, to forge, to dare together.”

15-20m – Listen to this podcast about the psychology behind belief in conspiracy theories and one man’s struggle with his own beliefs since 9/11.

10-15m – Listen to this NPR podcast about a boy whose family is being destroyed because of their divergent beliefs in conspiracy theories, and then reflect on how you, as an educator, could help him and others like him. Jot down or even post any good ideas you come up with.

5-10m – Read this End Slavery Now post about conspiracy theories and how they harm efforts to really save the children. Then read this Wired article from 17-year-old Sofia Barnett about her own experience.

0-5m – Read these 13 tips from the MIT Technology Review to help you meet your students—or even other adults—where they are. If you yourself have a strange feeling about something you believe, these strategies are also good to help you confront your own beliefs and biases.

Scroll through teacher Pinterests or walk through Back to School Classroom deco aisles and you will find them all: Kindness matters; In this classroom we laugh often, love hard; Choose kindness; Respect others; and on and on. As educators and as human beings we say we want kindness and respect above all else, but do our Pinterest feeds align with our social media feeds? Are you drawn to the posts bashing the idiocy of those who don’t believe what you believe?

If not, I hope January 6th was a wake up call. Wanting kindness is not enough. Posting pithy sayings and attending SEL PDs is not going to make for better classroom culture unless you decide to (here’s another pithy saying) be the change.

Your words build or your words destroy.

What did the words you said or wrote do today? Yes, it’s easier said, but it has to be done. Unless we are willing to change our thoughts and words, we have no hope of changing our class culture, and certainly no hope of leaving the world in better shape than we found it.

As you wonder how to broach sensitive subjects in your classroom, think about the basics. Have you made it a priority in your classroom to create a culture of belonging? Do your students know that intolerance and belittling one another will not be tolerated? Those conversations should be had during the first weeks of school, then spiraled back to often. What if every teacher made SEL not something to check off a list, but a real, daily priority? Would suicide rates go down? Would there be less bullying? Less truancy? My guess is yes to all of the above.

Yes, it is easier said than done. But if we explicitly teach kindness and respect, discussing what that looks like in diverse situations, we will begin to see a citizenry that knows how to disagree civilly.

One last pithy saying; The future of our world is in your classroom today. What an honor, what a responsibility. Now, what will you do with that power?

Easier Said Than Done Read More »

Who Are You?

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Or, to listen to SmallBites as a podcast during drivetime, click here.

Small Bites Friday Five 1-15-20:

20-30m – Listen to NYT The Daily’s reporter talk about the resurgence of white nationalist violence—violence that really never went away.

15-20m – Watch Grey’s anatomy and Station 19, both Shonda Rhimes shows, explore issues of race, bias and survival in the face of them. Both shows are on ABC, ABC Go and Hulu. Here’s an article on their relevance.

10-15m – Read Marcus Lu’s article on 50 categorized cognitive biases. Pay special attention to the one called “moral luck”. Reflect to see if you’ve been guilty of that, or any others.

5-10m – Read this Common Sense Media article about talking to students of all ages about recent current events. If you’re a fast reader, explore the comments and practice not getting angry. There is practice for both “sides”.

0-5m – Use this form to let me know what you are struggling with in trying to become a more inclusive educator and let’s start a dialogue. The cohort starts this month and there are a few spots left.

This week was supposed to be all about how to talk to children in times of civil unrest. Those of you who watch SmallBites know that I firmly believe we should strive to be one nation under God. However, I forgot that there are some folks, as much as I hate to admit it, who want that one nation to be a nation of Whites only. Many, who won’t quite go that far, believe that the nation should be at least whites only in power. That is, I’m sure, as difficult to read as it is for me to write.

In addition to my own son’s run-ins with White men who want him to go back to where he came from, I have seen people in power aid and abet insurrection and move us toward civil war. I have seen this country go from something I wanted to believe in to something I am almost afraid of. I know that as a Black person there is a certain lack of safety for me just by the virtue of my skin color. Did you know, for instance that Black and indigenous females are more likely to be targeted by human traffickers?

Still, I have been indoctrinated enough to believe that I’ll be ok. This is a democracy, and I will be OK. But is it? We’re no longer considered a full democracy, and there is evil in high places. Online spaces like Gab, Signal, Telegram and others are now quiet hubs for people who hate me to congregate and plan my demise. Sound dramatic? It might be. But– it may not be. I drove to Arkansas 2 years ago past a field where they were burning crosses. School districts have beefed up security because their students have been threatened on social media with kidnappings and lynchings. This is not a movie, this is America.

What does any of this have to do with teaching and learning? Everything.

If you believe that all your students have equitable opportunities for learning–and even for safety– you are misguided. Learn, read, research to find out whether your students really are safe. And if they feel unsafe, please, don’t try to convince them otherwise. You can, however, remind them that safety is a luxury but not a condition of success or even wellbeing. Read them the words of Maya Angelou. Let them know that there is a resilience in our spirit and that we will continue to rise. Tell that to your Black students, your Brown and indigenous students, students from sexual minorities and any other students who don’t fit the mold of insurrectionists. Mostly, tell them that you stand by them and that, although you may not know what it’s like to be in their shoes, you will walk beside them.

Who Are You? Read More »

Things’ll All Blow Over

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AP Photo of Capitol Siege on January 6th, 2021.

SmallBites Friday Five 1-08-21

Remember the Oklahoma Bombing.

Read about the escalating domestic terrorism problem.

Don’t forget to compare your news media and monitor bias with a site like All Sides Media.

Compare police response in summer Civil Rights protests to police response on January 6th. (Note: police response is the only comparison. Treasonous insurrection CANNOT be compared to civil rights protest.)

Did you know that, by all international standards, democracy is on the decline in the US?

I am supposed to be off this week, preparing to launch SmallBites into the Podcast sphere. But this week needs my presence:

The outrage over the recent insurrection on Capitol Hill has taken over every news cycle, every conversation. For now.

Monday, you will go back to school and concentrate on content, because, well, STAAR.

Soon, you will visit friends on relatives on Zoom, or maybe even in person.

You’ll grocery shop, clean your home, brush your teeth and plan your lessons. You’ll drink your favorite cuppa as this red hot memory cools.

The memories of what you’ve seen will fade; this will all blow over UNLESS you decide finally that enough is enough. If something in the news cycle outrages you, do something about it. Start a Twitter/Email campaign, donate, volunteer. But mostly, stop living from newscycle to newscycle. The issues do not go away just because nobody just died.

Whatever your role is in making the world a better place, step up and stay stepped up. You don’t have to do everything but you need to do something.

One way you can step up and be accountable is to come and learn with us. Join the SmallBites Interactive cohort to learn more about how this moment has been in the making for a while now, and how you can make small changes with big impact.

Things’ll All Blow Over Read More »

Good Riddance

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https://youtu.be/aHi-SdAaiAw?t=217
Replay the NYD live broadcast featuring original music from @SwissChrisOnBass and me!

Small Bites Friday Five NYE20:

To close out the year, here’s a look back at 5 of my favorite guest appearances;


Are Your Diversity Strategies Missing the Mark? Nine Ways to Get it Right with Cult of Pedagogy’s Jennifer Gonzalez (60m listen/5m read)

Where are you on your journey in understanding systemic racism? with Barbara Bray (25m listen).

Journeys to Belonging with Ilene Winokur (34 minutes).

Lesson Impossible with Aviva Levin (29 minute listen)

Make Learning Addictive with Brian Romero Smith Jr. (45 minute listen)

And some #SmallBites lagniappe: A Guide to Equity and Antiracism for Educators for Edutopia (4 minute read)

On New Year’s Eve, just after I turned 29, I married the love of my life and moved to Switzerland to begin a beautiful new adventure. Ten months later, I was choosing his tombstone as I tried to grasp the fact that there would be no 1st anniversary, no trip to the South Pacific, no growing old together.

I still remember the first NYE without him, the day that should have been our first anniversary. I knew then that the clock wasn’t counting down on my pain to provide me with a midnight balloon drop of shiny new feelings. “Joy comes in the morning” was not going to magically be my reality, not yet.

The dawn of 2021 is not going to be a magic panacea either.

Depressed yet? Don’t be. While that first New Year’s Day after an incredible loss did not kiss away all my boo boos, it kicked off a year that turned out to be one of the most incredible years of my life.

  • I learned that support comes from people and places I hadn’t even known were there.
  • I discovered that I really was stronger and more capable than I knew.
  • I found out that surviving loss is an incredible confidence builder.
  • I realized that there is joy to be found in even the most devastating times.

I also learned that tears are a renewable resource; I cried a lot that year. But in spring I planted fresh flowers on a grave in an Alpine village and as those flowers grew, so did I. I learned to be flexible, to ride the waves, sometimes crashing to shore. I learned to get up and try again. And again. I learned preparedness in a country where stores were only open a human 8 hours a day. I learned how to back up 250 feet down a mountain and how to survive in an avalanche. I learned that you have to use clothespins when you hang clothes on a line. I learned how to write lesson plans and design courses in German. I learned so many valuable things. In time, I learned how to use all those things to help others.

Tonight when the ball drops, not a lot will change. We take ourselves with us wherever we go. Education will still be inequitable, and politics will still be deeply flawed; people will still live with food and housing insecurity; COVID won’t disappear, the 2 million graves that the Coronavirus filled will still need flowers in the spring.

What can change is how we all approach this new year. Instead of celebrating the coming return to “normalcy”, let’s celebrate the opportunities we have to help others, learn new things, develop new skills; to survive hard times and help others to do the same.

This year won’t be easy, but we can one day look back on it–even the bad parts–and celebrate how much we grew. En guete Rutsch und Happy New Year.

Good Riddance Read More »

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

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Even though this year has been filled with trauma, loss and uncertainty for many, I want to take today just to stop and be grateful, to spend time with my family and do some drive-by and wave check-ins. I hope you will unplug and do the same.

If you have a hankering to learn, catch up on a few older episodes of Small Bites until January. Next week, episode 30, I will be live and on location for a special 2021 kickoff. Meanwhile, I wish you comfort in times of strife and the quiet confidence that comes in knowing that ‘trouble don’t last always’.

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