Episode 26: Zooming In on Personalized Learning
How to reach Paul:
Transcription:
(Transcribed by kayla.r.fainer@gmail.com)
Melissa Milner 00:09
Hi, this is Melissa Milner. Welcome to The Teacher As... podcast. The goal of this weekly podcast is to help you explore your passions and learn from others in education and beyond to better your teaching. The Teacher As... podcast will highlight innovative practices and uncommon parallels in education.
In this Zooming In episode, I chat with Paul Emerich France. We zoom in on personalized learning and meeting students where they are. Enjoy.
Welcome to The Teacher As..., Paul.
Paul Emerich France 00:41
Well, thanks so much for having me.
Melissa Milner 00:43
There's so much I want to talk to you about. what do you want The Teacher As... listeners to know about you?
Paul Emerich France 00:48
Oh, that's a great question. I want people to know that I'm a reflective teacher and a reflective person. I think that's very central to who I am. And I think it's really central to the way that I teach. I'm not the kind of person that does something just because someone tells me to do it. Every person, every philosophy, every pedagogy has its strengths, right? But I also think every person, every pedagogy, every way of thinking about teaching and learning is flawed in some way. And so I am just critical of everything that I hear and everything that I learn.
And sometimes that gets me into trouble on social media, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it really pushes things forward. So I, too, am that. I'm flawed, as well. And I am really just here trying to do my best and trying to play a productive role in helping us forge a new vision for teaching and learning. Because there's so much that's happening right now that's not working and that's disenfranchising people.
And I think our responsibility, as a collective group of educators, is to find the places where we're missing kids or where we're leaving people out and fix that. So I that's really central to who I am and what's important to me.
Melissa Milner 02:11
Great. So what are those places that you see are really failing? And what's your vision for fixing them?
Paul Emerich France 02:18
I think when we're talking about what's not working, we have to talk about who things aren't working for. And I do touch on this in both of my books, actually, that for a vast majority of neurotypical, straight, cisgender, white students, the education system actually works just fine. Because it was built for them. And the education system wasn't really built, or it doesn't have structures in it that directly support students of color, low income students, LGBTQ+ students. Sometimes even girls are left out of certain conversations.
And so I think what we have to do is consistently look at who are the marginalized populations in our schools and in our education system, and look at what their needs are specifically. And do an evaluation of what are the structures in our system that are preventing them from getting what they need. I wish I could wave my magic wand and do one thing and meet the needs of everybody. But I think it starts with what I said before, which is reflecting on what we're doing and looking to see if it's truly working.
In my new book, I write a little bit about white supremacy. And before I talk about this, I want to first acknowledge that I'm a white man, writing about white supremacy. And in order to write about white supremacy, I am citing the work of people of color who've been talking about this for longer than I have been talking about it, in some cases longer than I've even been alive. So I want to start there and acknowledge that. But I also think it's important that white people are engaging with this, finding ways that it applies to their own lives. And that's what I'm doing when I'm talking about white supremacy in the context of pedagogy.
So someone shared this resource with me earlier this year. It's The Characteristics of White Supremacy by Kenneth Jones. And I believe their name is pronounced Tema Okun. And so there are these characteristics of white supremacy in it. Basically, it just defines these characteristics. And I think this was originally created for more of a business setting. So it helps you see sort of how this pops up in the workplace. But I started to think about it in terms of pedagogy and where those characteristics show up in our pedagogy.
And it's things like paternalism. Paternalism is the tendency to hover over someone or make decisions on their behalf because there's something, either conscious or subconscious, that makes you think that they can't do it for themselves. Either/or thinking is a characteristic of white supremacy. So it's either this or that. There's no room for nuance or gray in the middle. There's the idea that there's only one right way. That's a characteristic of white supremacy.
So I took these and sort of applied them to pedagogy. And it was a really interesting thought exercise to see where they pop up in our teaching. And I think that that's a really good place for teachers to start, is what sorts of messages, implicit messages or explicit messages, am I sending through my pedagogy? Am I sending my kids the message that I need to hover over them and micromanage them? That's paternalism, right? Am I sending kids the message that learning is about choosing the right answer? That's very either/or thinking or very only one right way.
And I think if we use the characteristics of white supremacy as a framework, we can see that our pedagogy is inherently white supremacist and inherently racist in some ways. And that, actually, like I said, just could be a really great place for teachers to start reflecting and changing one little thing at a time.
I think one of the hardest things about being a teacher in this very flawed system is that we fall into that, we've got to change the whole system at once or there's no use changing at all. And I don't think that's true. I think we can make small changes to our pedagogy, in hopes that the small changes eventually add up to a much larger scale change.
Melissa Milner 06:37
I've been doing a lot of work plugging into the Build Math Minds site and Christina Tondevold's work. It really is equity. Hers is centered around math. But opening up those questions, making math more of a creative venture instead of this is the one way to get this one answer. Just what you were talking about, just being able to have girls feeling confident in math and have discussions about many different ways to approach a problem. And I assume that can be done in any subject area.
Paul Emerich France 07:20
Yeah, absolutely. I'm a very big proponent of Jo Boaler's way of-- or her suggestions around that. And it's this idea called complex instruction, which totally can be applied to really any subject. The whole idea of complex instruction, really, is grounded in equity. And it's grounded in proactively treating issues related to status. So it's not really about, who are the high kids and who are the low kids in the classroom. It's about, how do we get everybody talking together, so that you break down those barriers.
And so many of our pedagogies, whether explicitly or implicitly, they end up tracking kids or siphoning them off into groups, which is a place where, again, we can see those characteristics of white supremacy pop up. It becomes more about competition and quantitative progress than it does about collaboration and community, just the collective human experience of learning.
Yeah, I talk about and I write about humanity quite a bit, because I feel like we've sort of lost sight of that. And we've lost sight of the humanity in the subjects that we teach in school. I love to teach in math, specifically, since you brought up math. I love to teach about ancient number systems. And at first, it sounds like a really nerdy thing to teach about.
But one of the reasons I like to teach about it is because-- and whenever I say this to kids for the first, they're just like, oh, I never thought about it that way. Math is a language that people came up with a long time ago to be able to communicate about things like what their crop yield was. And to think that humans created this whole system of numbers and calculations out of nothing out of a really clear, tangible need, that's actually really cool when you think about it that way. I'm even talking about the Egyptian number system or the Babylonian or the Mayan number system.
Even just showing kids, do you know why our number system is based off of 10s? And then I hold up my hands, and they're like, oh, we have 10 fingers. That's why! Yeah, 10 isn't some random number. It's actually really related to our bodies and who we are. And I think we just lose sight of that when we just focus on having them sort of repetitively solve problems and just calculating up their scores. It's no surprise why kids are turned off to academics when we teach them in a way that is so devoid of the purpose and the humanity in academics.
Melissa Milner 10:11
Absolutely. The why is so important. So there's been a couple times where I totally relate to this. Because when we were doing order of operations, I used to teach fifth grade. The history of why order of operations came into being, it's like, everybody was doing it in different orders, and they were getting different answers. Necessity is the mother of invention.
So mathematicians were very creative. They wanted to get their calculations done and out of the way, so they can be creative with their math. Math is all around you. And it's actually really creative to solve problems and to have systems that that make life easier.
Paul Emerich France 10:51
That's a really hard thing to change on your own. It's also a hard thing when most teachers grew up-- I mean, I don't know how you grew up or the way you learned when you were a kid.
Melissa Milner 11:04
Oh, I'm old.
Paul Emerich France 11:07
Well, when I was a kid, which seems like a long time ago now, we learned in a very traditional way. No one was teaching me about ancient number systems or why math is important. It was very just like, here's your workbook page for the day. And I had great teachers. It's not an indictment of any of my teachers. I loved my teachers growing up. But it's hard to lead that paradigm shift while teaching kids when we were taught in a way that was the antithesis of what we're trying to--
Melissa Milner 11:36
Right. I don't know if you're familiar with Christina Tondevold's work. But she literally calls herself the recovering traditionalist. I'm not doing things the traditional way anymore. I'm pulling from whatever resource will help my students. And I'm not dedicated to the textbook as the only resource, just other ways to reach students that's just more equitable and more fun.
Paul Emerich France 12:06
Well, yeah, and I think there's something intrinsically motivating for a child when you meet them where they are. And I know people use that term a lot. So I want to define that more. Teaching through problem solving in math or in a project based task, since there isn't one way to do it, students are able to show their preferred method for doing something.
And not only does that give them some agency and some autonomy in academic tasks, but it also is a really great assessment for teachers to see what's in their toolbox, or what's the tool that they're apt to use first. And that's one of the things I like about it so much. I love teaching writing. It's one of my favorite subjects to teach actually. And a lot of the students I work with now, I work with a lot with a lot of them on writing in particular, the one on one students that is.
It's kind of nice to be sort of liberated from the classroom in a way. Because I truly can say-- what I do with my one on one students is say, I want you to journal in between our sessions. So I want you to write. I really don't care what you write about. Write about whatever you want to write about. And then bring it to me. And then I'm able to see really authentically where they are with their writing. And even with seemingly boring things like capitalization, punctuation, spelling, grammar, that sort of stuff, I can see where they are and just meet them right there.
So it's not like I come to our sessions with an agenda and say, well, today we're going to learn about this. Because I decided we're going to learn about this today. It's let me look at your writing. Let me see what's in here. Let me look at your strengths. And then let's identify some challenges. And let's work on those today.
And it just creates, I feel like, more of a feel of partnership, as opposed to, again, that paternalistic relationship where I'm hovering over them. And I'm deciding everything that we're learning about. They can bring challenges to me. And I think that's cool and empowering.
Melissa Milner 14:04
Very cool. Were you teaching in the classroom? What grades? You wrote your books. Are you still teaching in the classroom? Are you just doing one on one tutoring? How do you find remote teaching compared to being in person? And any ideas about that?
Paul Emerich France 14:20
Yeah, so this is my 11th year as a teacher. I spent the first 10 years in the classroom. I spent 4 years in public school in the suburbs of Chicago. And I taught fourth and fifth grade there, a fourth and fifth grade loop. So I had the kids for two years, which I absolutely loved. Some of my favorite teaching memories are from those two years, or those four years, I should say.
And then I moved to San Francisco, And I worked for an education technology startup company and network of micro schools. And we were all about personalized learning there. And that was kind of the inspiration for my first book, actually, which is called Reclaiming Personalized Learning. And in that, I really advocate for what I call humanized personalization as opposed to dehumanized personalization. And that was where I really started thinking about humanization and humanity. And it became apparent to me how devoid our school system is of that.
And so then after a couple years there, I moved back to Chicago. And I worked for a private school here for about three years. And I decided to leave in July, because I, quite frankly, just didn't really feel safe going back to school. And I was really disappointed with the ways in which teacher voice was being heard as we were coming up with a plan for going back to school. The reality is right now that things aren't exactly safe out there.
And my opinion is that if you're gonna go back to school in person, I understand the reasons why. I understand the equity concerns. If you're going to do that, you have to make sure that teachers are protected. And part of teachers feeling protected is hearing their voices, and hearing their concerns, and giving them the tools they need to keep themselves, and their students, and their families safe.
So I decided to leave the classroom. Hopefully it's temporary. But I started my own business. And I finished writing my second book, which is called Humanizing Distance Learning, which comes out in just a couple of weeks actually. And so now I work with a lot of students one on one. And I have a couple of pods, some of which are virtual and one of which is in person.
So to answer your question about virtual teaching, there's definitely barriers there. Sometimes the technology doesn't work. I should definitely acknowledge the fact that I'm working with predominantly affluent students. And so they have high speed internet. They have their devices at home and everything. So we don't have those barriers.
But from a pedagogical standpoint, it can be challenging sometimes to not have a child right next to you. And I think, in some ways, it's challenging, because there's something to be said about being able to just point to something or model it by writing in a notebook or using tactile, concrete manipulatives. But I also think that it's challenged me in some ways. And this sort of alludes to what the book is about. I can be a bit paternalistic in my pedagogy, where I do things for them that I shouldn't be doing for them. I think we're all guilty of that at some point or another.
Melissa Milner 17:36
Yes, definitely. It's a teacher thing.
Paul Emerich France 17:39
Yeah. And I think that teaching through a screen, while I'm not endorsing it, is a staple in 21st century pedagogy. It has really challenged me and helped me see the places where I would kind of go in and just sort of fix it for them. And the thing is, all of us know that that's not the right thing to do. And all of us know that when we do that, we're more so solving a problem for ourselves and not actually serving our kids. But we do it anyway, because that's how we were taught growing up and because we've developed habits where we do that.
So for me, I think the big learning that's come away from distance teaching or virtual teaching has been this really meaningful reflection on how much I'm doing for my students, why I'm doing it, and where I can sort of cut some of those things out.
Melissa Milner 18:36
Yeah. Due to health reasons, I am home. I'm teaching remotely. Luckily, I'm co-teaching this year. So my co-teacher is in, and I'm home. And we're on Zoom, and then we're going into breakout rooms. But yeah, we're really working on the kids and fostering that independence. And it is. It's challenging. I miss the classroom. This is my 30th year of teaching, and I'm not doing it in a classroom, and it's really weird.
So what are you zooming in on right now? Are you going to do another book? Or is it just mostly planning for your teaching?
[ZOOMING IN SOUNDBITE]
Paul Emerich France 19:17
So I'm really focused on the release of the book, which is in a couple weeks. And I think we have an opportunity here. I know there's a lot of really crummy things going on right now. And I don't think we should overlook that or even decenter that.
But I think there's also room to talk about, well, what are the current problems in education? How are we seeing them manifest themselves or even pronounce themselves in this era of distance learning? What can we do to change it? So that's what I'm really focused on from a writing standpoint right now. I'm really focused on, how can I be a partner with teachers around the country to create a new vision for teaching and learning, where we are a little bit more mindful of our pedagogy.
And then on the other side of it, I am working with students one on one and in pods. And I'm really glad that I was able to stay connected to kids this year. Because that was one of my big worries, stopping teaching in a classroom, is that I would not be working with kids anymore. And I love doing that, you know? So I would say those are my two areas of focus. It's staying connected to kids and also doing my part in terms of creating this new vision for teaching and learning moving forward.
Melissa Milner 20:37
Amazing. I met you on Twitter. Is that the best place for people to reach you if they want to learn more about you and your book and the work you do?
Paul Emerich France 20:46
Yeah, so I'm on Twitter at @paul_emerich. I'm also on Instagram at @paul_emerich. And then my website is paulemerich.com. And I do my best to blog as often as I can. I just put out an article on Edutopia today. And I write for EdSurge sometimes, as well. So I can be found in lots of places. And I love connecting with teachers, so please feel free to reach out at any time.
Melissa Milner 21:13
Awesome. My last question, a lot of people struggle with this one, but I'm going to ask it anyway, because I love it. What's your favorite movie, and why?
Paul Emerich France 21:24
That was not what I was expecting. I was like-- OK, let me think for a second. I know what my favorite movie is. It's so embarrassing. My favorite movie is Titanic. It will always be.
Melissa Milner 21:40
Your heart will go on.
Paul Emerich France 21:42
Yeah, that's right. It will always go on. I've always loved that movie. I think it was either my 9th or my 10th birthday. That was the thing I wanted to do. I wanted to go and see Titanic. And so my dad took me. What kind of kid-- I don't know. Yeah.
So that's my favorite movie. Every so often, I have to be in a mood to watch it. It's very long. It's very good. And there's one point, one moment where Rose is in one of the lifeboats. And she's being--
Melissa Milner 22:17
Lowered.
Paul Emerich France 22:18
Yeah, yes.
Melissa Milner 22:20
Oh, and the eyes.
Paul Emerich France 22:21
And the fireworks. And I'm just like crying my eyes out every single time. You would think after this many times seeing it, it wouldn't affect me anymore. But every single time, it gets me.
Melissa Milner 22:31
And then she jumps out of the boat, so she could be with him.
Paul Emerich France 22:35
I couldn't go. I couldn't go, Jack. Good question.
Melissa Milner 22:39
And then the action! I mean, the action gets really good, too. There's a lot in that movie.
Paul Emerich France 22:45
There is, yeah. What's your favorite movie?
Melissa Milner 22:48
Oh, gosh, Jaws.
Paul Emerich France 22:52
Nice.
Melissa Milner 22:52
I'm really old. But it's a pretty strong metaphor for teamwork and working together. And I kind of like it, because these are three very different men on a boat. And they figure out a way to find things in common and work together. And I like that.
Paul Emerich France 23:11
I love that.
Melissa Milner 23:12
This was really great. Thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me, Paul.
Paul Emerich France 23:15
My pleasure. Thanks for reaching out. I appreciate it.
Melissa Milner 23:18
If you enjoyed this episode, and have not done so already, please hit the subscribe button for The Teacher As... podcast so you can get future episodes. I would love for you to leave a review and a rating, as well, if you have time. For my blog, transcripts of this episode and links to any resources mentioned, visit my website at www.theteacheras.com. You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram @melissabmilner. And I hope you check out The Teacher As... Facebook page for episode updates.
I am sending a special thanks to Linda and Lester Fleishman, my mom and dad, for being so supportive. They are the voices you hear in the Zooming In soundbite. And my dad composed and performed the background music you are listening to right now. My intro music was "Upbeat Party" by Scott Holmes.
So what are you zooming in on? I would love to hear from you. My hope is that we all share what we are doing in the classroom in order to teach, remind, affirm and inspire each other. Thanks for listening. And that's a wrap!