Mrvaudrey

Author: mrvaudrey

  • Timeline of Whiteness

    It’s 2020. I’m white.

    Even though I’m no expert on capital-R Race in Education, I want to model a willingness to be publicly accountable. As Dr. Ibram X. Kendi said in this podcast:

    If the heartbeat of racism is denial, then the heartbeat of anti-racism is confession. To be anti-racist is to admit when we are being racist.

    There are probably a lot of ways that I’ve been racist in my life and not noticed it, which I was pondering when I saw Marian’s tweet:

    I’m unafraid of admitting things that make me look bad, apologizing, and doing better. I’m on a journey to be anti-racist, and that means admitting when I’ve been racist. If sharing my journey makes it easier for other educators to start talking about racism in schools, then my vulnerability is worth it.

    So here are all the memories I can think of when I was aware of my race as a white person, including some that deserve apology. Strap in:

    5 years old: I make friends with a kid who lives nearby my Grammybs house. I tell her, bI was invited for dinner with the Brown family.b Later, she finds out that the family name is Thompson, but they were the only “brown” family I knew.

    3rd grade: I hear my first racist joke and retell it at home. One parent chuckles, the other one says it wasn’t funny. I didn’t understand why it was supposed to be funny in the first place.

    4th grade: Our rural elementary school has one black kid and 300-some white kids. Justin had mocha skin and curly hair and was also the fastest runner in my class. My friend Brian lost the race to Justin, and when he sat next to me on the bus that day, he said, “Justin is such a n*****.”

    5th grade: Still in that small, rural school, my music teacher stops class to turn on the TV to see the OJ verdict. Later that week, Ibm certain I heard the term ball-black juryb several times.

    9th grade: I transfer to the big high school in the next city over. We sit alphabetically in class, and the Tullous twins always sit near me. They wear the du-rags and baggy pants that were common in the late 90s. One day, they show me the latest issue of Vibe magazine, featuring musicians and actors Ibd never seen. I realize there is a whole culture I know nothing about, but I make no effort to learn more.

    11th grade: On 9/11, my friend from drumline walked the halls yelling, “Osama must die! (points at a student) Do you know Osama?” I never saw a teacher correct him.

    Freshman in college: multiple times at parties or gatherings, I tell my friends, bIbm not afraid to describe somebodybs race! White skin, dark skin, brown eyes, blue eyes; skin color is just a physical description to me. Itbs not a bad thing! I don’t see race, I just see people.b

    Sophomore in college: I grow my hair out in an attempt to get my straight hair to form dreadlocks. bI have such hair envy for black people,b I say. bI wish I could have dreadlocks or an Afro.b

    Junior in college: I secure a scholarship to play drums in the Gospel Choir, and for the first time, I am in a room with more non-white people than white people. If I made any inappropriate comments, none of the other musicians ever pushed back. They were probably pretty good at ignoring white nonsense at my private, Christian university.

    First-year teaching: I have a student in class whose behavior I struggle to redirect. During the year, she gets louder and more foul (likely due to my weak attempts to manage the class). After a parent meeting, one of my colleagues says, “What’s the point? She’s just going to be a gang member anyway. All these little monsters are.”

    Fourth-year teaching: One of my seniors is constantly disruptive in my class. One day, I change his seat to move him away from his friend, and he responds, bYeah, of course you move me to the back of the bus.b
    Ibm shocked, then pissed, and I kick him out of class.

    Sixth-year teaching: The day before my 8th-graders have a test on the Quadratic Formula, I mix up my review game with pictures of Asian people and ask them to name if the person is Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. Eliah, who is very proud of her Filipino heritage, says, bMr. Vaudrey, thatbs racist!b
    I reply, bHow is that racist? Ibm not saying anything bad about them!b
    She doesnbt respond.

    Seventh-year teaching: My fourth period is a handful. One day, Deon and Keisha arrive late from lunch, and I send them straight to the office. I probably made some comment like “You’ve used up my grace by being so disruptive every day.” The following year, I read Dr. Chris Emdin’s book and am horrified to learn that what I viewed as “respectful” behavior was based on my whiteness and what made me feel respected. Deon and Keisha were “loud” but rarely rude, and “disruptive” was thinly-veiled racism.

    Second-year Instructional Coach: During a district-office activity, we are telling the HR department what we want in the new Superintendent. I write “less white people” on a Post-It note and stick it on the board. My boss pulls me aside afterward and we discuss advocating in a way that creates change (and doesn’t make the only black guy in the room uncomfortable, since everyone thinks he wrote the Post-It).

    Third-year Instructional Coach: My spouse wants to move into a “good” neighborhood, near one of the schools that’s an 8 or a 9 on the real-estate websites. I ask her to define what “good” school means, citing that the website with the same name is super-problematic. We end up moving to a great house in a middle-class neighborhood, and our kids attend school with a variety of different ethnicities. My daughter’s 7th birthday was the most ethnically-diverse gathering in our family’s history.

    Fifth-year consultant: Immediately after wrapping a keynote speech where I reference the problematic suspension and expulsion rates of non-white students, one of the attendees points out that every stock photo on my slides includes only white students. I thank her for pointing it out and immediately fix that slideshow and update my process for finding stock photos.

    Fourth-year Instructional Coach: I’m still getting gigs speaking to teachers, so I begin to work in discussion about race, privilege, equity, and other squirmy topics into my keynote addresses. The people who need to hear this message are unlikely to enter the room intentionally, but they won’t walk out if I start talking about race in a workshop about bravery or warm-ups or whatever. (More here)

    First-year Admin: I email out a copy of our revised Dress Code to all staff at the middle-school, where Ibm one of the Assistant Principals. Months later, the only black staffer notes that it was inappropriate to name specific hairstyles when I encouraged teachers to be aware of their classroom policies. Following the script in White Fragility, I thank her for telling me, apologize for the impact of my language, and ask what else she noticed about my behavior that is problematic.

    Later that year, the police question a boy without his parents present, and once they arrive, do not ask for consent before recording. My unease turned to panic as I realized what was happening, and I made sure to sit near the boy during questioning and insist the parents were present before we proceed. The parents still thank me every time we see each other, but the cop and my boss were both unhappy with me that day.

    “Vaudrey… what’s the point of this?”

    I’m no expert in Anti-Racism, but I hope that owning my entire journey will encourage other white folks to do the same. Join me; let’s get uncomfortable together.

    If it means that we’re better prepared to support students, it’s completely worth it.

    ~Matt “Admitting Where I’ve Been Racist” Vaudrey

    NOTE: It’s possible I’m being racist in some of these retellings. Let me know in the comments; by posting this publicly, I’m welcoming correction.

  • Drive-Through Promotion

    So COVID19 has destroyed your plans to make eighth-graders feel special? Your whole staff is wearing masks and avoiding hugs, but you still want to celebrate your eighth-grade students as they go up to the high school?

    Not to worry! This helpful blog post will show you how to make a meaningful Drive-Through ceremony that’s fun, easy, and still celebrates students during the Quarantine.

    The drive-through promotion ceremony for Lone Hill Middle School went very well: 281 families showed up with 362 cars, filling up the whole two hours. If our success can be shared with y’all, even better.

    To get in the mood, play this video as you read:

    Prep

    First, I planned a route.

    This was shared with families and community members multiple times via email, posted on the school website, and even relayed in video form, so there was no doubt about “Where do I go?”

    Next, I made a committee composed of staff and parents, and we planned how to make the ceremony safe, fun, and a celebration. We came up with this:

    Order of Operations

    Cars turn onto the south driveway, the student’s name clearly printed on the passenger’s side of the windshield. Along the driveway (red station) are the safety guidelines:

    1. Stay in your car
    2. Keep your windows up
    3. Masks only needed if the windows are down

    “Wow, Vaudrey. You’re really going to kick people out if they roll down their windows to wave at their favorite teacher?”

    I posted the safety expectations, but we were unwilling to enforce conduct at a parade, so nobody was reprimanded and everyone was safe.
    Even the family who arrived with their 8th-grader seated on the back of the convertible.
    Like a state senator during election year.

    After the rules area (red station), cars proceeded to the blue station, where two staff took down student names onto a shared Google Doc. That Doc served as the parade order, and was viewable by the Announcing Station (DJ Kyle) and the Certificate Station at the end.

    Cars then turned north through the volleyball courts toward an enormous balloon arch and our favorite local DJ playing Pomp and Circumstance.

    As the car approached the arch, one of the counselors announced the student’s name off the shared Doc (which you can hear on video). On the passenger’s side, most of our staff lined up in masks, blew bubbles, rang cowbells, and some even made signs (that we strung up the basketball hoops using some rock-climbing gear).

    View this post on Instagram

    Congrats!

    A post shared by Lone Hill Middle School (@lonehill_lions) on

    After the Cheer Section, cars turned west again toward the Distribution Station, where the team had checked the shared Doc to see which student was approaching next, then prepared that student’s certificate and awards. (It didn’t surprise me that Alicia volunteered for that station so she could address each student and shout “Congratulations!” through a cracked car window. I had to remind her to drink water as she sprinted, red-faced and smiling behind her mask, from car to car.)

    Then the family turned right out of the staff parking lot onto Covina Blvd and drove off toward summer (at least until Victory Lap next week, where they will return their textbooks and clean out the PE locker).

    Parade Maintenance

    Every twenty minutes, we took a break so teachers could hydrate, sit down, and prevent “cheer fatigue.” I stood in the bottom south-east corner of the map with my radio, pausing cars and telling them, “We’re taking a two minute rest, so the staff can be fresh when they cheer for you.” Every family was fine with that, none complained.

    Additionally, I took laps back and forth from my cooler and offered waters and sunscreen to staff. The new principal also showed up with ice cream, which is a definite way to buy my affection. More than half of them stayed late to pack up tables and EZ-up shades and scraps of balloons before crawling, exhausted and sweaty into our cars to go home for a cold beverage.

    Next Year

    During the committee discussion, we had concerns about our families from the local RV park and foster home. “What if families don’t have cars?”

    We aren’t the only ones worried about this:

    We had a full plan in-place for families who wanted to walk the route, but I wish we’d have been more intentional about assuring them it was encouraged.

    We had let our fear of COVID19 prevent us from being public about encouraging “walkers.”

    Solution: Next year, we should reach out to families that live in those areas to ask if they’re coming, assuring them that they’re welcome whether or not they actually drive. An RSVP would let us know who isn’t planning to come, and we could reach out to them personally.

    Initially, we had planned to check student names against our master list and give stickers or decals for any honors they had earned (CJSF, Lion of the Year, 4.0 GPA), but we scrapped the idea. Decorating cars with honor cords or stickers or whatever might piss off some parents. Plus, it would create a bottleneck as each student’s name is checked against a huge list to see which honors they get.

    Solution: Mail the decorations home a week before, with instructions “Include this honor on your car when you drive through!”

    Also, I had intended to call the local papers that morning to invite them to drive through, but I was more busy with prep than I thought, and it just didn’t happen.

    Solution: Call them a few days before, silly!

    The only issue we had that day was toward the end of the two hours, a little bit of traffic making the right turn out of the parking lot onto Covina Blvd. We weren’t able to get Sheriff’s Deputies to direct traffic due to the Black Lives Matter protests.

    Solution: Have a deputy on Covina Blvd to keep traffic moving.

    It was a great time, and I am super proud of how smoothly it went. If you want to try that with your school, feel free to email or tweet me with your questions.

    ~Matt “CongratulationsThanksForComingWindowsUpPlease” Vaudrey

    UPDATE 29 June 2020: For the Video Promotion (which was posted a few hours before the Drive-Through, I should have added subtitles in Spanish. The emails auto-translated, but I wish I’d have included subtitulos en espaC1ol para la gente que no leen el ingC)s.

  • Admin Report Card – December 2019

    “Be brave! Take a grand risk! Let your students grade you!”

    superhero woman flexing her bicep with a big smile and her cape hanging behind her

    Dozens of times, I’ve said those words in a workshop, a keynote, or a Google Slam, proclaiming the benefits of real, honest feedback from the students we serve.

    Each time I b as a teacher b gave the Teacher Report Card, I took the results with a grain of salt. Of course, Keyonna would give me low marks since she was kicked out of class the day before.

    As an Instructional Coach, the feedback was overwhelmingly glowing and positive, since I was the problem-solver who never had to stick around long enough to make a mistake or a tough decision. “Of course, Vaudrey is helpful and delightful!” the Coach Report Card said.

    Then I became a school administrator. I knew b in theory b that I would struggle at first, that there would be many hard lessons, and that I would likely make rookie mistakes that hurt the feelings of my staff.

    Reading their feedback on the first Admin Report Card was hard, probably because my ego had been padded with the Coach Report Card for the last five years. Wincing through the narratives, I found four themes, presented here with examples from my staff’s submissions.*

    Energetic

    Your energy and smile are such a treat!
    You energy has always been the best part of you. It is infectious and I appreciate that you seem to have it no matter what kind of day it has been.
    You have a positive attitude and seem to love being here.
    You check in with kind words and positivity.

    Too Nice

    Maybe you’re too nice to the kids sometimes? Sometimes they deserve a harsher consequence than they seem to get.
    Sometimes students who display poor behavior have been allowed to get away with it.
    You need to be tougher with discipline.

    Dismissive & Condescending

    You should really try to get to know us on a deeper level.
    You may hear what I tell you, but you don’t act upon it.
    Sometimes [you make me feel] as if I’m not even there.
    PLEASE make a real effort to not be so dismissive. We are all educated adults and deserve your respect.

    Good Listener

    You make me feel comfortable.
    Valued. Heard.
    You make me feel important.
    You’re readily available to talk.
    I’ve never felt like he feels he is better than any other person.

    Presenting all of my Report Card responses to the staff in a packet (and the other administrators’ responses, too) generated a lot of feelings on the staff. For our teachers, the most frustrating lines from the packets were “mean and bullshit.” This was in stark contrast to the constructive feedback that was kind, but accurate.

    During our chats the rest of the day, I sketched up…

    *ahem*

    The Feedback Matrix

    Quadrant I (blue region, kind and accurate) is the most helpful feedback. An example from back in my teacher days said, “You sometimes ignore me, even if I raise my hand. You always call on the same smart kids and I feel like I’m not needed.”

    Kind, but accurate. It gave me clear actions I could take to get improve in my profession (and I did).

    Loads of our staff were very supportive in shouting down the comments from Quadrant III (gray region, mean bullshit), saying, “Those people are just toxic, and you’re not likely to win their approval ever.”

    My hope is to move people from Quadrants II (green region, mean and accurate) and IV (pink region, kind and bullshit) into Quadrant I.

    If a staff filled out the Report Card with kind bullshit (“You’re doing great! Keep it up! You’ve got a hard job!”), then they could be encouraged to be more accurate. Seeing the Admin team acknowledge the areas for growth might encourage the staff to be more honest with us.

    Additionally, some people who were accurate and mean (“The office discipline is a waste of everyone’s time. I wish Vaudrey would do his job!”). Hopefully, they were encouraged to be more kind with their accurate feedback (once they saw all the meanness put together).

    Regardless, it was a helluva day.

    a man giving a deep sigh and slow exhale, his cheeks puffed out, holding a marker
    image: Health Essentials

    If you’re an administrator considering this, I offer three suggestions:

    1.) Read every line

    After sharing my results with the staff, a few teachers came up to dismiss specific lines in my feedback.
    “Vaudrey’s a racist? Really? That’s total bullshit.”

    My response was something like, “Thank you, but even if that person was trying to hurt my feelings, I’m looking for the grain of truth in every submission. It’s very likely that person knew that accusation would hurt the most, but I still reflected on it, looking for places to do better.”

    2.) Highlight the results

    The other assistant principal gave me this idea; highlighting results that hovered around a certain theme. I highlighted of my “Energetic and positive” comments with yellow, so I could see patterns and (in theory) figure out what percentage of the results.

    I think researchers call this “coding for Qualitative Analysis,” but I just called it “making sense and looking for themes.”

    If you choose to ask for feedback like this, it will be easy to dwell on the lines that hurt the most. First, go through your submissions (or spreadsheet) and highlight the happy ones. It’ll be easier to stomach the painful stuff if you remember that a lot of students/staff think you’re doing great.

    3.) Share your reflection

    When I was a teacher, I would ask students about the themes I saw in their responses. “Many of you said that I only call on the same few people. What are some ways that you think I could do a better job?” My students not only had loads of ideas that I had never considered (many from other teachers on campus), but also felt more comfortable in my class, knowing that I was willing to learn and grow alongside them.

    At our staff meeting this week, several staff said they were impressed at our bravery and vulnerability, sharing our feedback with everybody, warts and all.

    Hopefully, we’ll look back on that time as a moment where the whole staff began to be more vulnerable with each other and grow together.

    ~Matt “Energetic, Kind, Condescending, Listener” Vaudrey

    *We were very clear with the staff that it was anonymous and they should let loose on us. To that end, I’ve respected their privacy here by paraphrasing and re-writing the themes. In past years on this site, I’ve published the results unedited, but that wouldn’t be fair to my staff for this year.

    UPDATE: 22 May 2021 – If you want to modify that Feedback Matrix, click here to make your own copy.

  • Better Mullets

    When I go back in time to read journal entries in blog posts from that first year teaching, chuckle, sigh, and cringe.

    Most often, though, itbs cringe.

    a girl wincing, like she stepped on something painful or squishy

    A few years back, I crossed paths with Eli Luberoff, CEO of the graphing calculator and activity builder called Desmos. As we crossed the lobby and took the escalator together, he gave me the short version of the workshop he was set to give later that day. He said something like,

    Itbs difficult to predict the face of technology or education 10 years from now, and in my hubris, I submitted a workshop that does both. Even in the last eight months, those predictions have changed. When I look back on myself five years ago, I think, ‘Man, I didn’t know anything! And Ibm sure that five years from now, I will look back on my views today and say the same thing. We have to grow so quickly.

    Since that lobby at a math conference, Eli and the Desmos team have dug even deeper into making graphs more accessible for students with visual and auditory disabilities, making their staff practices more inclusive, and taking a stand on difficult social issues that frighten some teachers.

    Bravery in the face of vulnerability has been a theme for the last couple years of my professional growth. Ibve been a school administrator for a little over a month, and every day is full of new challenges and new ideas.

    So when I was tagged in a tweet last week, I wasnbt very surprised. Like everything else in education, The Mullet Ratio requires evolution, modification, and critique. I’ve seen colleagues who are too invested in something to see issues with it, and I want to build stamina with hard topics.

    So.

    If you find content on this blog or my Twitter feed or my speaking arrangements that is problematic, insensitive, or just weird, this serves as an open license to offer your input and be heard.

    This is how we get better: by looking back on our practice and exclaiming,

    ‘Man, I didn’t know anything!’

    ~Matt bI know a little more today than I did yesterdayb Vaudrey

    P.S. – Attendees at the CMC-South Conference next month will get a front row seat for Mullet Ratio and just how serious I’m taking this claim. Join us on Saturday at 9:30 in Mojave!

  • Other Stuff I Do

    For years, I had a classroom. It was Vaudrey’s Room, even when I wasn’t in it; the space was tied to me as the main person.

    Then I had a desk that was most-often unoccupied, as I traveled my district supporting teachers in their spaces.

    Now there’s an office with my name on it. That hasn’t happened before, and it’s taking some adjusting, but I like it.

    Running parallel to that progression is my side-hustle; consulting with teachers and districts across the country, sharing resources and ideas with them.

    The space is someone else’s class, or an auditorium, gym, Multi-Purpose Room, or board room, and I’m just a visitor.

    “Visitor” is a good description for these gigs. I’m sitting on the airport floor in Bozeman, Montana, after two days of working with every teacher in the rural district of Belgrade, MT.

    Since most of my day-job (Dean of Students at Lone Hill Middle School) deals with private stuff I can’t discuss here, this post will focus on a key moment from the last couple days spent 1000 miles away.

    Julie 1

    “Will this lecture have anything for us? We teach Reading.” Julie and her teammate had unfolded a cafeteria table in the back of the room instead of sitting near to the front, where I had laid out paper and markers.

    “Maybe!” I replied, ever the optimist and looking to make an ally right away. “What brings you here?”

    “Our principal sent us. We… (she looked back and forth) … didn’t really have a choice.”

    Big smile. “Well, I’m glad you’re here! We’re focusing mostly on math activities and practices to support them, and your voice is definitely welcome. Feel free to keep to yourself here and participate if you want.”

    Julie visibly relaxed, “Oh, thank God. We really don’t like math.”

    I stood with a sneaky smile, “Not yet, but we’re just getting started.”

    Julie was quickly won over by the Estimation tasks and discussion-based prompts of Would You Rather, Fraction Talks, and Which One Doesn’t Belong? I caught her setting aside her chapter books and jotting notes and ideas down on paper. Soon, she was chatting animatedly with her seatmates and venturing to other tables.

    It probably helped that I was explicit in my prompt to, “Stand when you hear the music and share with someone you haven’t yet spoken to.”

    As they packed up to leave, she handed me a sketch. “We think there’s a place for these in our class, too.”

    Soon, the morning was over and everyone packed up to leave. As usual, there were some follow-up questions about the book and my promise of lifetime tech-support. I managed to catch Julie before she left and coach her aside from her partner.

    “Julie! Lemme talk to you for a sec.”

    She looked cautious, but joined me on the side of the cafeteria, away from the earshot of her teammates.

    “Julie, you started the day declaring that you had nothing to offer, but you were an active participant today, and your insights were very helpful.
    I think… and you may not agree… I think you have a lot to offer the math classroom.”

    She rolled her eyes, “Yeah, okay. You’ve never seen me teach.”

    I made super-strong eye contact and lowered my voice. “Julie, I don’t mean to tout my resume here, but I’ve taught this stuff all over the country. Not all teachers are as brave as you, willing to take a risk where they don’t feel comfortable.”

    Her eyes went wide. “Uh-oh. You’re recruiting me, aren’t you?” She turned and pretended to walk away.

    “Yep! There’s a lot of promise for your math class, and to prove that I believe in you, here’s a copy of my book. Well done today.” I handed her the book and she paused.

    I wonder how many people have told her that she could be a “mathy” person.

    ~Matt “Youth Pastor” Vaudrey

    *Of course that’s not her real name.

  • Dean of Students

    Dear Diary,

    I am a school administrator now!

    You can relax, Diary; Ibm not breaking up with you. Blogging has been a sizeable part of my life and career, and I wouldnbt be the reflective, growth-focused educator that I am without you listening to my thoughts for the last thirteen years.

    The last five years as Instructional Technology Coach serving the staff at Lone Hill Middle School have prepared me very well to be the Dean of Students at Lone Hill Middle School:

    b> Wiring projectors
    b> Configuring Apple TV resolution
    b> Gradebook support
    b> Tracking down work orders for email passwords
    b> Gathering data reports to place students in appropriate math classes

    Much like adding garlic to a dish, there is an underlying flavor in all of my teacher interactions: a power differential that wasnbt there before, even when I was a coach and bjust a teacher like you, but without students.b My relationship with the teachers on campus is a little different now.

    A dish of garlic shrimp, garnished with parsley.
    image: Dinner at the Zoo

    Sure, they all still know they can ask me for support with anything; Ibve given my cell number away to a dozen new people this week, and Ibve had staff drop by my new office and ask for my input, just because we know each other.

    Diary, it is my sincere hope for the year that my desire to serve my staff and students softens the blow for any hard conversations. I care deeply about getting all students and staff what they need to be successful, and that care has only gotten stronger in the last 13 years.

    It’s been two days with students and I’m already finding my place on staff.

    It turns out that unbridled enthusiasm and treating everyone with respect makes me a pretty good fit.

    Story of the week: After the study hall period (called PAW, the last period of the day), a brand-new baby 6th grader asked me: “Excuse me. After my PAW class, where do I go?”

    Me: Honey, school is out. You go home.

    (Big smile) “Oh! Okay! Thanks!”

    ~Matt “Wait… what’s a Dean?” Vaudrey

    “It’s like an Assistant Principal, but I don’t work all summer… Yes, just like Ms. KT the Assistant Principal… it’s pronounced VAH-dree…Yes, you can call me Mr. V.”

  • Big Shifts, Little Trainings

    There’s a 100% chance that I’m paraphrasing this idea from someone, but it was a half-baked idea we discussed over lunch, and I’m expanding it here.

    <triumphant voice>

    The Biggest Challenge in Effective Professional Development

    When getting a group of Educators in the room for P.D. (Professional Development), there are three forces at play.

    1.) What the administrator or director thinks is necessary.
    2.) What the teacher thinks is necessary.
    3.) What the trainer or consultant thinks is necessary.

    In a dream sequence, the teachers and administrators both have a shared idea of the work, and they bring in an expert to help them make progress.

    three people pulling the same chain, which is attached to a weight

    Sometimes those three things are all pulling in different directions; I’ve definitely sat in trainings where I wanted practical classroom management strategies, the administrator wanted to raise math achievement, and the presenter had a litany of software tools to show me.

    three people holding chains, pulling in three different directions

    Not much progress was made.

    Robert Kaplinsky notes (and cites some research) about how Teachers don’t often get the amount of P.D. they want/need, and it’s not a stretch to suggest that neither Teachers nor Admin are aware of that research (I definitely wasn’t).

    As a classroom teacher, I was often confident that I understood best what we needed. After all, we’re the ones in the classroom with our kids all the time.

    Sometimes the teachers and administrator are united in what they want, but the presenter…

    b+ might have some new research to share,
    b+might extend the idea past what the teachers and admin were expecting,
    b+or they might be all excited about a fresh idea and completely ignore the contract they signed with the school.

    You know… hypothetically.

    two people holding a chain, pulling against a person holding the other end of the chain.

    When I’m consulting with a district or speaking at an event, I’m most often the person on the right in the image above; trying to convince a room of people that they’ll like what I’m cooking, even though it’s not what they ordered.

    a pile of pasta with peas and parmesan.
    “Yeah, I know you ordered a bacon burger, but this is better for you in the long run and you’ll be glad to got it. Trust me; we’ve just met and I don’t know anything about you.”

    Here’s an example: earlier this month, I kicked off day two of #AddItUp in St. Louis, and my keynote focused on bravery and transparency in risk-taking.

    I gave lots of research backing up my idea, concrete examples of how to encourage risk-taking, and some free takeaways so teachers could start being braver.

    And.

    I bookended the teacher-stuff with a lot of hard topics for white folks to think about.

    b+Students of color are suspended and expelled more frequently than their white peers, beginning before Kindergarten.
    b+If we aren’t brave with stuff we don’t understand, we’ll never get better, and that includes interacting with race relations.
    b+We must model bravery for students and staff, and that means failing publicly because growth is important. Watch me as I do that exact thing.

    Consensus is hard, and it’s rare to get 100% agreement, even with a school site that serves the same population of students. If we wait until everyone is ready, we’ll be too late.

    Quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: "The time is always right to do what is right."

    And yeah, I lured my audience to the auditorium to discuss risk, then offered input on whiteness, a dish they didn’t order.

    It’s my hope that they will be more interested in the dish after seeing it. Maybe not today, but eventually.

    My role as a P.D. provider is to smush big-picture change (Equity, racism, special education) into accessible topics (bravery, Appetizers, Desmos). On conference applications, I don’t often mention those big-picture topics, but I sure as hell will mention them once y’all are in the room.*

    Equally important is a humility on my part; I must be open to the idea that I’m pulling hard on something that isn’t important, but I think it is.
    Gotta keep listening.

    That’d be a good sticker to put on a laptop.

    ~Matt “Keep Listening” Vaudrey

    P.S. If you have research or ideas about this kind of thing, I recommend you hop into this thread with author and education expert Ilana Horn, who has much more academic chops than I do about this (and about everything).

    *If you’re an administrator or conference-application reader, and the above post sounds like a bait-and-switch, ask yourself; how many workshops that explicitly mention the hard topics are you supporting?
    Most often, it’s zero, so that’s why I smush equity into a workshop on warm-up activities.

  • Bulwarks and Blessings

    Yesterday was Pickle’s last day of school as a kindergartener.

    The night before, I was folding laundry after the kids were asleep, and I heard her burst into tears. I found her sitting up in her big-kid bed weeping.

    Me: Pickle, whatbs wrong?
    Pickle: *sniff* I donbt want to leave my class! I love my teacher so much!

    I am nearly finished BrenC) Brownbs book on empathy, shame, leadership, and vulnerability, so I know the best move here is to just give Pickle a hug and sit with her in her sadness. She cried on my shoulder for 15 minutes, then I suggested, bDo you want to write your teacher a letter or draw her a picture?”

    She did, and it was adorable. Rainbows and holding hands and the words, bI love you soooooo much!!!” written in crayon.

    I really hope Pickle loves school this much for the rest of her career. Thatbs what I want for every child, for them to love school and be sad when itbs over.

    To that end, I gave every effort to end the school year sensitive, caring, and warm, since I know those feelings will be carried by my students the entire summer.

    There are two things I do at the end of every school year, both of which are easily replicated by you to finish strong this year.

    1. Teacher report card

    I blog about this quite a bit, so Ibll be brief: this is a great way to get honest feedback from your students about how your class feels to your students. You’ll likely get some feedback to make some tweaks as you dwell and dream during the student-free time.

    At the same time, you will get some warm fuzzies to carry you out the door and affirm that you did something right this year.

    If you’d like your own link, click here for teachers, click here for coaches, and click here for admin.

    2. End-of-the-year blessing

    I support the separation of church and state, and still I recognize the power of ceremony in public school.

    Graduation, promotion, signing day, and a field trip to the local theme park are all rights of passage to signal something important.

    In old-school Christianity, we called this a bulwark or a Ebenezer.

    In Education, we call this a benchmark.

    In either case, itbs important for students to feel a moment.

    To that end, I try and end the year with my own benchmark/Ebenezer, by giving my students a blessing on their way out the door.

    image: On The Line Ministries

    Note: This can be super creepy have done poorly. Proceed at your own risk.

    Herebs how I did it the last time I had a class:

    bIn some cultures, when people are leaving to do new things, they are given a blessing or a commission or some encouragement…

    Some cultures place hands on the shoulders of the person whobs leaving, but there are too many of you, so Ibll just do this…”

    I hold my hands out over them, palms down.

    bMay you be passionate problem-solvers and curious critics. May you be loyal to your friends, obedient to people in charge, friendly to strangers, and kind to those in need. May you be safe, healthy, loved, and happy, and may you become more of those things every day. May you every day become a better version of yourself.”

    Paraphrased from this blog post in 2014

    NOTE: I would definitely tweak the “obedient to people in charge” part, now that I’m more skeptical of the inequitable power systems inherent in the school system. Probably add something like, “May you be brave and confident when faced with powerful foes,” or something.

    I watched Patricia do a blessing with her class of seniors, and almost all of them bowed their head for some reason. Adolescents are often more clever than we give them credit for, and many can sense when something is important.

    Or they grew up in the church and can sense something sacred.

    However you end the year, keep in mind one thing:

    Our students will carry with themball summerbhow they feel about our classes, so make sure you suck it up and end with something positive.

    ~Matt Vaudrey

    P.S. I’ve been sitting-in full-time as the Assistant Principal at one of my middle schools. Ibve been lingering and shadowing and learning and supporting at the site for a while now, and now that Nadia had her baby, I’ll be taking over her desk until she returns.

    More to come.

  • Phases

    I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and I’m writing to share some of the thoughts that have interrupted my nights.

    Phase One

    My last several blog posts all orbit around a central theme;

    What kind of impact do I want to have on the field of Education?

    I’ve had a few thousand students pass through my rosters, and for many of them, my impact was limited to just the math. There is a handful of them who find me on Facebook or Twitter, but I made a real-life impact on very few of them.

    a pepperoni pizza from Round Table Pizza with the logo in the bottom right
    Pictured: Adequate for a specific time or event, but not outside of that

    Phase Two

    Phase two of my career has been focused on Adults. I’ve been the Ed/Tech Instructional Coach in Bonita for the last five years, and that’s coming to an amicable end next month. (More on that here.)

    During that five years, I’ve traveled the country, encouraging teachers and asking some hard questions about our craft. It’s been exciting and empowering.

    But there are limitations to how effective I can be as a consultant.

    a fancy chocolate milkshake
    Pictured: Glamorous, but unfulfilling in the long-term

    Phase Three

    So here’s what I want next:

    I want to be back on a school site and part of a staff.
    I want to know some students and parents by name.
    I want to be responsible for incremental growth over time.
    I want to help students and staff feel included and heard.
    I want to shine a light on practices that are hurting students from marginalized populations.

    a turkey and cheese sandwich on hearty bread with lettuce, tomato, and cheese all visible.
    Pictured: Sustaining and sustainable

    Andbif by some miracle, I can check all those boxesbI want a pony.

    That might be the most accessible goal on the list.

    For the last week or so, I’ve been spending a few hours a day on the campus of one of my middle schools, shadowing the Assistant Principal.

    It’s been absolutely nothing like I thought.

    What does the AP do?

    In my book of Education, I thought I had accurately written the chapter on What An Assistant Principal Does On A School Site.

    The first day of shadowingband every day sincebI have rewritten lines and crossed out sentences and scribbled in the margins of that chapter. I have realized that I actually know very little about what the AP does.

    The secretary and I had this exchange yesterday:

    Secretary: How’s your day going?
    Me: Great!
    Secretary: Having fun?
    Me: Nope! But learning a lot!

    a bowl of shrimp pad thai, with noodles, shrimp, several types of vegetables and garnish all visible.
    Pictured: Way more involved than I thought, with way more ingredients, but doable

    Shadowing the Middle School AP has been great; she’s had me investigate lunchtime fights, run reports for state testing, and tackle the Master Schedule with her. She’s excellent at her job and is quite good at helping me learn it.

    And within all those complex skill sets, there’s a sense of compassion and a focus on students that keeps me interested in the position.

    All those staff in the front office care deeply about getting kids what they need to be successful. Just like I did when I was a classroom teacher*.

    Being a school administrator is way more complex and way more exhausting than I thought. And I still wanna do it.

    Even if it’s months or years before I feel effective.
    Even if I stumble and do it wrong.
    Even if it’s not as glamorous as being Mr. Keynote Speaker.

    I want to be a school administrator.

    ~Matt “Mister… Bahdri?” Vaudrey

    *and if I don’t find an Assistant Principal job, I will be back in the class next year. More on that in a future post.

  • Peas in a Pod

    This year, teachers and principals on every elementary site in my district have asked me about 3Act Math. After a dozen demo lessons, many of them have delivered lessons in their classes.

    In all the demos, I’ve pointed people to three places:

    • Graham Fletcher’s database of K-5 tasks for 3Act Math Tasks
    • This worksheet I cobbled together from several #MTBOS sources (script on page 3 for teachers who need hand-holding).
    • Dan Meyer’s description of 3Act Math and how it works.
    • A YouTube playlist with all the videos is linked at the bottom of this post.

    Cheryl Demus of Allen Avenue Elementary School teaches Kindergarten, bravely charges into new ideas and learning, is confident in her ability to run a class well, and regularly takes on student teachers from nearby universities.

    Of course, as the Instructional Coach, I don’t have favorite teachers and serve all my staff equally.
    So I’ll just say that Cheryl’s class is one I’d be thrilled to enroll my kids into.

    For those unfamiliar with the 3Act Math task, I’ll give brief rundowns as we go (videos at the end).

    Act One – the Hook

    Peas in a Pod (Act 1) from Graham Fletcher on Vimeo.

    Start with the media and get students asking questions. This is the time to make sure all students can get on board, which means we don’t zip to the math too quickly.

    For me, that means starting with,

    “Tell your neighbor what you’re thinking right now,”

    before asking,

    “What do you notice and what do you wonder?”

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzWbHXNq1Pk]

    As you’ll notice in the video, I treat the student comment, “I notice there are hands in the video,” with the same degree of interest as “I wonder how many peas in all of the pods.” It’s important for Act One to celebrate all student responses, and this is most clear at the K-2 level, where most of the responses are hot nonsense.

    It’s highly unusual for a student to suggest a question so close to the one that I want. Most of the time, the teacher has to fake it with something like,

    “Wanna know what I heard walking around? I heard people asking, [the central question I want them to ask]. Show me a thumbs-up if you were wondering that, too.”

    Of course, the whole room raises a thumbs-up, because sure now they’re wondering that, too.

    Graham Fletcher (author of this task and many others) calls this, “co-creating the question.” I call it “nudging students when they need a nudge, but letting them wander for a bit first.”

    You know your class; you know how much wandering is helpful.

    Number Line

    The addition of the barbell on the worksheet (which I totally copied from Andrew Stadel, author of Estimation180) provides two important scaffolds that include all students.

    1.) Little students have number sense that’s all over the place. A guess that’s too high and a guess that’s too low help them to fine-tune their guesses. I’ve seen many Kindergarten teachers ask, “Is 400 a reasonable guess?”

    To a six-year-old? Of course it is.

    Tracy Zager notes in her fantastic book that intuition, like any skill or muscle, can be strengthened by practicing. So if we want better Number Sense and more reasonable answers, we must give students a chance to practice reasonableness.

    Note the questions around 3:30.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKseaFya0zs]

    Did you catch the spot where 6-year-olds think that “between” and “middle” are synonyms? Adorable. My inner high-school teacher took a seething breath and muttered, “SMP6.”

    Act Two – the Journey

    Once we’ve established a central question, now we need more information to answer it.

    “What are some clues that would help answer that question?”

    or

    “What information might be helpful to figure out ______”

    This was a great snapshot for how messy Act Two can be with little ones. In the playlist below, videos 5 through 7 are all dealing with Act Two.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apqp8dLWWqM&list=PLuXQQj0Y_GB7J63yPYsVte__6KCHKX3Jo&index=5]

    I just realized that Graham (the author) made Act Two media from a Word Document download so that anybody can scaffold for their class. Here’s how it looks:

    Thankfully, Cheryl had advised me to ask, “What math can we do here to answer our question?” As soon as we got too deep in the weeds looking for bugs, I caved and pulled that question out.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apqp8dLWWqM]

    Now, Math Teachers can testify that I’m not subtle using confusion as my default mood for classroom moves with little ones:

    • What was that number for? I got lost.
    • Where did this number come from?
    • Wait, so to do [operation], we should [casual language]?
    • I think I get it, someone explain that a different way.
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apqp8dLWWqM]

    There’s a spot in there when students start yelling, “six” out of nowhere. I asked Cheryl what that was about.
    “You do your twos wrong,” she smiled and pointed to the correct two in foot-high cardboard.

    Apparently, kids this age still flip (reflect) their letters and numbers, and my curly 2 looks like a flipped 6.

    Andbafter probably 15 minutes of peas and pods and additionbwe arrived at 17 peas.

    Time to check our work.

    Act Three – the Reveal

    Peas in a Pod (Act 3) from Graham Fletcher on Vimeo.

    After Act Three, many students didn’t quite get that we were correct with our math, so Mr. Vaudrey choral counted and injected surprise and excitement and I’m kinda glad there’s no footage.

    I love surprise and excitement, but I’m not sure how I could have better tied the answer to the process.

    Possibly because the process is way more important to me.

    Stuff I’ll Change For Next Time

    In Part 6, I asked Kindergarteners to count silently in their mind. That might be the record for “Greenest Move the Middle School Teacher Tried With Kindergarteners.”

    Big picture, the pace was blisteringly fast when I rewatched the footage. The teacher had no issue, but I’ll bet a coding of student responses would reveal my attention going to about 1/3 of the students.

    I didn’t check for EL students or students with processing delays, but it’s safe to say that the “good math” students in my lesson where the fastest and the loudest. Ouch.

    Related to that idea; I’m being reminded how difficult it can be for me to implement equitable practices without some kind of a system. If I just trust myself with, “I know the research and I know bias is a problem,” there’s a good chance I’ll just do the same kind of teaching y’all saw in Video 6.

    UPDATE: After reading this post, Cheryl weighed in with another sentence frame she likes to use:

    I’m hearing a lot from the same people, and I would love to hear what someone else thinks.

    What Else?

    Primary grade teachers, I know y’all have some feedback for me.

    Let’s have it. I wouldn’t post all this if I wasn’t looking to get better.

    ~Matt “Curly Two” Vaudrey

    UPDATE: 22 April 2019 – Later that day, a screw popped out of the teacher chair. Students were convinced it was because the “big man” sat in it.

    And here’s a playlist with all the videos:


    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzWbHXNq1Pk&list=PLuXQQj0Y_GB7J63yPYsVte__6KCHKX3Jo]