Conversation Inspiration

4/25/2021

Ideas by Shannon Helgeson, Suzette Rowen, Tami Rhea, & Natalia Benjamin (consolidated and framed by Heather M. F. Lyke)

In Adam Grant’s recent Taken for Granted episode, “Jane Goodall on Leadership Lessons from Primates” (released March 1, 2021), Goodall shares that “at some point in our evolution we developed this way of speaking with words so that we can teach children about things that aren't present. We can gather together and discuss something--people from different views--and that is what I believe led to this explosive development of our intellect.” Likewise, Sir Jony Ive of Apple is often quoted for noting that “the best ideas start as conversations.”

After each session spent recording a new podcast episode, Mike Carolan, Nick Truxal, and I gather together in one of our offices or via a video call, and these follow-ups often begin with a version of the phrase “I learned so much.”

There is a creative energy and a passion for new ideas that often comes from the collaboration and conversation between individuals. For our podcast team, that is what makes the time devoted to our efforts more than worth every minute spent. This is also the root of why our team walked away with so many new ideas and revitalized energy after our discussion with four of Minnesota’s 2021 Teacher of the Year nominees.

For the full conversation and elaboration on each of the above resources be sure to listen to the full podcast discussion (released April 27, 2021).

Snapshot of a Collegial Conversation

In our conversation with our four Minnesota Teacher of the Year nominees, three threads of focus soon emerged, despite being braided together. We sorted them here:

Cultural Exploration and Understanding:
One clear thread that came up during our conversations was a desire to expand one’s personal understanding of bias, racism, and cultures other than one’s own. Some of the resources shared were:

Zaragosa Vargas’s book Crucible of Struggle: A History of Mexican Americans from Colonial Times to the Present Era
Bettina Love’s book We Want to Do More than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom and her Teaching to Thrive podcast that she co-hosts with Chelsey Culley-Love
Jason Reynolds’ Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You—especially the audio version.
Alan Brennert’s Moloka’i

Instructional Coaching:
Two professionals in the field come up often, including in this conversation, when talking about teacher leadership—specifically in the area of instructional coaching. A portion of our conversation kept circling back to the works of Jim Knight and Elena Aguilar.

Inspiration from Outside Education:
It may be hard to believe, but educators do take breaks from time to time—spread our wings outside our field. That said, we never fly too far from the tree of education that roots us to the profession, often discovering ideas and tools that lead us back to the field we love. Such as was found with:

Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How.
Scott Ellsworth’s The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball’s Lost Triumph
Mark Barden’s A Beautiful Constraint: How To Transform Your Limitations Into Advantages, and Why It's Everyone's Business
Dessa’s memoir Our Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Carly Israel’s memoir Seconds and Inches

Bringing Conversations into Classrooms

These types of collaborations may happen more organically in our collegial world, seeing as adults have often developed the skills needed to listen, to build off of others, and to see the future potential of a conversational thread. That said, we all learned these skills somewhere.

Rich conversations need to happen in classrooms too. As Goodall noted, it is in conversations where the “explosive development of our intellect” comes into play. There is a thirst for learning that happens naturally and sporadically when we bounce ideas off of each other: in podcast conversations and in classrooms.

If you’re looking for ideas for increasing student growth, learning, and passion through conversation collaboration, consider digging into these resources:

Terry Heick’s Teach Thought article, “20 Types Of Questions For Teaching Critical Thinking”
Larry Ferlazzo’s Education Week article, “Integrating Critical Thinking Into the Classroom”
Matt Goldman’s Ted Talk, “The Search for ‘Ah ha’ Moments”

Knowing that “the best ideas start as conversations,” we encourage educators to model conversational learning by participating in these opportunities often, as well as creating a space for such learning in our own schools and classrooms.

Teachers of the Year
with Shannon Helgeson, Suzette Rowen, Tami Rhea, & Natalia Benjamin | 4.26.2021
We have the pleasure of digging into innovation, inspiration, and influances with four of Minnesota's Teacher of the Year Nominees.

Shannon Helgeson is an instructional coach with Winona Area Public Schools with prior experience as a classroom social studies teacher.
Suzette Rowen, a master of reading and science, is a kindergarten teacher for Dover-Eyota Schools, coordinates district relicensure and the school woods.
Tami Rhea is the K-12 Media Specialist for Dover-Eyota Schools, coordinates STEM Village for SE MN, and teaches coding to secondary students.
Natalia Benjamin is an EL and Ethnic Studies teacher for the Rochester Public Schools and a Cultural Competency trainer for Education Minnesota.
Heather M. F. Lyke is the Teaching & Learning Specialist for Dover-Eyota Schools and author of numerous articles focusing on quality education.