March 10, 2025 • 60 mins
The Ultimate Guide to Conflict Management for School Leaders
In this episode of The Elemental Educator Podcast, host Tyler Comeau welcomes Dr. Jen Schwanke—deputy superintendent, author, and educational leadership expert—to explore how empathy, grounded values, and bold decision-making shape strong school leaders. Jen shares her journey from teaching to leadership, discusses the power of quotes and wisdom in leadership, and offers insights on navigating adversity and implementing change in schools. Learn how to lead with calm and intentionality, support educators through conflict management, and build a culture where values and collaboration drive success.
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Connect with Guest and Resources: X: @jenschwanke instagram: @drjenschwanke website: jenschwanke.com email jen@jenschwanke.com https://www.ascd.org/people/jen-schwanke https://www.amazon.ca/stores/Jen-Schwanke/author/B0B6MZ1T28
Engagement Question: What’s your go-to strategy for staying grounded during challenging times? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Timecodes:
0:00 - Introduction
8:05 - Grounded Moments
18:40 - Headwinds and Tailwinds
30:45 - Ripples of Change
43:05 - Spark or Burn
52:45 - Listener Questions
#LeadershipInEducation #SchoolCulture #ConflictManagement #EmpathyInLeadership #GroundedValues #TeacherSupport #TheElementalEducator #TylerComeau #JenSchwanke
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:46):
Alchemists, welcome to the Elemental Educator podcast.
I'm your host, Tyler, and thank you so much for joining our community for anotherincredible connection.
If you're here for the first time, welcome to a place where we redefine leadership andchallenge the status quo.
Take a minute before continuing the episode to follow our YouTube at Elemental underscoreeducator, where we'll upload all our videos and additional leadership content meant for
(01:08):
anyone looking to grow.
For those returning alchemists, take some time to expand our community and share thisplatform with one other person today.
I'm so thankful for your passion and dedication to being better together.
Now get ready to let the alchemy of education ignite your passion for learning.
Today, I'm thrilled to connect with Jen, an EdD and an educator for almost three decades,teaching or leading at all levels.
(01:31):
She's the author of four books published by ASCD, including the most recent, ThePrincipals Guide to Conflict Management, and has published hundreds of articles in various
education publications.
In addition to providing professional development to districts in the areas of schoolclimate, personnel and instructional leadership, Jen presents at conferences for ASCD,
(01:53):
NAESP, NASSP and AASA, along with various states and local educational organizations.
She's the co-host of the Popular Principal Matters podcast and an instructor ineducational administration at the Ohio State University and Miami University of Ohio.
Dr.
Schwanke currently serves as a deputy superintendent in Ohio.
(02:16):
Welcome to the Elemental Educator podcast, Jen.
It is a pleasure to have you here with us today.
Thank you so much.
It's an honor to be here, Tyler, and I'm looking forward to a good, fun conversation.
And as I said before pressing record, we are trying a new model today.
We'll see how it goes.
I think it's gonna be fun.
So let's just get right into it.
And I'm trying to think back.
(02:37):
think it was recently we crossed paths.
I reached out to you over social media and just said, hey, you have a cool story.
I'm excited to hear it.
And I wanna start with the bigger question right now, which is how did you get to whereyou are right now?
A lot of it was accidental.
(03:00):
And I say that with a laugh, but it really is true.
I I wasn't even going to be a teacher.
I wasn't, and I certainly wasn't going to be a school leader or a district leader.
That was not in the cards.
I wanted to write books and go to New York City and live a literary life.
And then, you know, life happens and twists and turns you don't expect come.
(03:22):
along the way.
And so after college, I had actually graduated from college early and I went home andbartended for a couple years.
it was a dark time in my life, but I would also say it was a time where I learned so manyskills that I use every day today.
Like I always joke, if you can throw a dude out of a bar, you can run a school.
(03:48):
I kind of found my footing and went back to graduate school and got my teaching licenseand I taught language arts and I just loved it.
I taught middle school and to me that was such a purpose driven way to live my life.
And after seven years or so, I was ready to start leadership.
(04:08):
And so I served as an assistant principal and a principal for 17 years.
And I always say that was kind of the...
That was the real work that I loved and I loved supporting teachers.
I found such value and validation in making sure I stayed tied to the work in theclassrooms.
(04:31):
And then I, you know, along the way I thought, you know, wait, I do love to write and I dolove to talk to people and I love to mentor and guide new teachers and new principals.
And so I wrote a book that ASCD picked up.
And then I wrote another one and another one and it's been a lot of fun.
I'm so honored to have that opportunity in my career to be able to, through words andthrough just showing up to work with people, to be able to challenge their thinking and
(05:03):
provide just some insight and ideas.
And a little plug for you here because AASCD is such a nice publisher when it comes topicking up educators, picking up leaders and putting those books out there.
With your books, where can people access them if they would like to purchase them?
Well, thank you for the plug.
(05:24):
I appreciate that.
They can find the books on the ASCD website, especially members will get a little bit of adiscount.
And then they're also, of course, available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
And so there's four books.
My most recent is really resounding, or excuse me, guess, resonating with listeners.
And that's The Principle's Guide to Conflict Management.
(05:45):
It has become readily apparent to me that principals are really struggling with.
their role, most people don't want the role of kind of being the mediator and thefacilitator of conflict.
And I'm talking conflict with students, with parents, with teachers, and in between all ofthose.
But I also have some work, you know, I wrote a book for new principals, one for trying torevitalize your principalship.
(06:08):
You know, lot of principals have done it a long time and they're tired.
It's, you know, they're veterans and they don't necessarily have the energy to.
want to kind of rethink how they do things, but that's what that book is about.
And then there's another one about how principals can support and motivate teachersbecause that book was actually written after COVID and it was again a dark time in
(06:29):
education where we were struggling to find our way.
hopefully those speak to your listeners and they can be found really wherever you getbooks.
And there has been a big shift in expectations of leaders in the last five years, amassive shift in what's expected of them to be able to do, to be able to handle, to be
(06:49):
able to take on.
And one of the best ways to try to put it into somebody's perspective, and this is veryrelevant in the province I'm in right now, it might not be relevant where you're listening
to, there is a new curriculum that has been rolling out over the last two years and
The intent is regardless of how long you've taught where you've taught what it looks like,you're rolling out with the new curriculum.
(07:11):
And that's a huge change for somebody that's been teaching with the same curriculum for20, 25 years.
The same would apply to somebody in leadership or any organization, even outside ofeducation, where you have done the same thing consistently for 15 to 20 years.
And it might have been working.
It might have not, but now a shift is happening.
where there is a new wave of how we should be leading, a new wave of how we should becommunicating.
(07:36):
And that can be a very tough thing to pick up and alluding a little bit to the burnoutside of things.
That's maybe where everything might be stemming from, where we're seeing people gettingmore tired in these jobs, where we're seeing people that need more support in these jobs.
So definitely consider checking out one of Jen's books.
You can find them on Amazon, which is super nice.
The ASCD Direct-to-Consumer is an awesome quality to have.
(07:58):
And with that, we're actually gonna move on to one of our new parts of the episode, whichis grounded moments.
Rooted in wisdom, driven by purpose, welcome to grounded moments.
And to build some momentum here, I want to start by asking you, what's one thing groundingyou in what you do today?
(08:26):
Well, I am a, I love this segment.
I really think this is important because staying grounded these days is critical to calmand intentional leadership.
One of the things that grounds me is a quote that I heard along the way, and I apologizeif I'm not attributing it to the right person, but the quote is, if there isn't a
(08:49):
solution, it's not a problem, it's just a fact.
And here's why that grounds me.
I early on in my career, I would spend so much time gnashing my teeth, you know, trying tofind a solution, trying to fix, trying to control.
And I looked at myself as a failure if I couldn't solve something.
(09:10):
And that is such a wasted emotion, right?
Frustration at unsolvable problems.
And this isn't to say we should just throw up our hands and say, well, there's no fixingthis.
Because a lot of times there is a
There are options or there are different pathways we can take.
are different opportunities that come with problems.
But there are times things are what they are.
(09:32):
And I'm going to reference what you just talked about actually.
Where I live, there also are curriculum changes that are coming down as mandates that arereally challenging teachers and leaders for two reasons.
One is what you referenced, they're new and they're requiring a whole different mindset, awhole different approach.
(09:52):
The other reason that they're
problematic for a lot of people is they don't philosophically align with what that teacheror leader believes is best.
Okay, that in itself, there's not a solution to that.
So it's just a fact.
It's something that we're going to have to accept and work around.
(10:13):
And so I think about that though, in terms of working with people, in terms of managing afacility.
in terms of connecting with a community.
Sometimes we spend way, way, way too much of our energy and efforts trying to solve orcontrol something that isn't solvable or controllable.
It's just a fact.
(10:34):
And so that means we just have to skip all of that nonsense and start working around it orworking with it and making the best that we can of that opportunity.
I love that.
And if there isn't a solution, it's not a problem, it's a fact.
We'll put a site in that, we'll reference it in our show notes.
(10:56):
How did you find the quote in the first place?
gosh.
I don't even know.
wish I, I wish I could.
Here's the thing that you need to know about me, Tyler.
I am a, I am a quote person.
I love them.
I have, when you and I were prepping for this episode, you had asked me, you know, what'sa quote that grounds you?
And I thought, well, goodness, where do I start?
(11:17):
so I think I was supposed to give you one, but the other one that I do that I think of alot, and I don't remember where I first heard it is the most important person that
somebody said to me, who's the most important person in a room?
And I felt like I was being set up with that question because I hate in education, I hatethe hierarchical system that drives us.
(11:37):
think it can be, you know, some people are very career bound and so they are in a positionof leadership because they scrapped and fought for it and, you know, probably kicked a few
people in the face on their way, but they don't necessarily know the work or they don'tunderstand people.
And so, you know, you can have a room where the most important person is the leastrespected.
(11:59):
the most important person is the least knowledgeable.
And that can be incredibly toxic because that's a room everybody knows that the hierarchy,and I'm using air quotes there, that the hierarchy is not fair, is not earned, and isn't
gonna get you anywhere.
And so I heard this quote and it says, and it is that the most important person in theroom is the person who's solving a problem.
(12:24):
I love this because when you get
groups of people together, whatever problem it is you're trying to work through.
If everybody's sitting around wringing their hands and saying, gosh, there's nothing wecan do about this, then nothing's happening.
And I want to acknowledge to listeners that I realize I'm saying two different thingshere, that sometimes it's not a problem, it's just a fact.
(12:47):
And then I'm saying you gotta solve the problem.
But I think both things are true.
You have to identify what you do have influence on, where your zone of control is.
And the person who says, let's get to it.
Let's think about who this affects and why it affects them and what we can do to make thisa positive.
That's the person to me that's the most important.
And I feel strongly about this because I think in education we have a real problem withageism on both sides.
(13:12):
We dismiss people that have been around a long time as old and archaic and washed up andbrand new people too.
We're like, they're just a kid.
They don't know yet.
That implies there's a sweet spot in education, whether it's teaching or leading, whereyou actually are effective and deserve to be heard.
(13:33):
And I really want to push back against that.
Because I think, again, whoever is willing and able and inspiring in solving a problem isthe one that we really need to listen to.
And that's one of the things that I've always pushed for, especially in my role early as ateacher too, because I am pretty young and I am in administration, but it's always been,
it doesn't matter how long you've been in the game, it matters what you bring to the gameand it matters what you're able to do.
(13:57):
And thank you so much for sharing and going so deep into these quotes.
I started Grounded Moments because I noticed when I was interviewing guests, a lot of thetimes we would bring up a quote that we loved and I thought it would be great.
if we grounded those quotes into our earth element, which is all about those roots andthat value we believe in.
Two quotes that I frequently have used throughout the show are, you think you can orcan't, you're probably right.
(14:22):
And it's about establishing that belief in the system, belief in yourself and belief inthe others that we can actually do these things if we put our minds to it.
And high standards is an act of love, where low standards is actually an act of empathy.
And...
It's so important to come back to those moments and to come back to your quotes, like themost important person in the room is the person who's solving a problem and then use them
(14:46):
not just as words that get thrown on a wall, but let them guide us.
so with that, how did these quotes or these moments actually show up in your workflow?
Well, that's a great question because I think that's the key, right?
We can quote one another and we can put up signs in our office all day long, but unlesswe're using them to ground us and be the roots of our work, then it's just pretty words
(15:10):
put together.
I use them like the quote, if there's not a solution, if there isn't a solution, it's nota problem, it's a fact.
That helps me when I find myself circling or I'm leading a group of people and we'retalking and we're just saying the same thing over and over and we're bemoaning the
person or the entity that got us here.
We're just mad, right?
(15:30):
And then I will tell myself, Jen, you're getting nowhere.
So maybe where you're circling, that's just a fact.
So then I will literally say out loud, okay, this is, this has felt really good to get outall of our feelings, but we're not being productive.
So let's think about what the actual solvable problem is and let's get to work on that.
(15:53):
And in that sense, I have,
Combine the two quotes.
I have acknowledged what the facts are, and I have temporarily named myself the mostimportant person in the room because I'm going to solve the problem.
And then I open my arms and let it go and find out who else in that room, whether it'sjust one other person or 30 people, might next be the most important person because that
(16:14):
might be the next idea, the next proposal.
And by looking at it this way, it empowers the entire room because
We can all be important in different moments, right?
can be 30 important people in one single conversation, whoever it is that's going to solvethe problem.
(16:38):
I love that.
Most important person is the person solving the problem.
And you can have multiple people that are the most important person in the room.
Jen, have you heard of an elevator pitch before?
All right, and for the audience, we're gonna give Jen 10 to 20 seconds here to kind ofpitch this idea to you about essentially taking on this value, which is so clearly rooted
(17:03):
in an idea of collaboration and.
a value of just trying to be better and a value of connection and a value of maybeexperience a bit and what you can bring to the table and share.
So with our audience in your elevator pitch, my question is why is this important to them?
(17:25):
Leadership is such an honor and a privilege.
And the reason that is true is we are in the muck.
We're in the swamp of the work.
And with that, we get such hard problems to solve handed to us.
But we also get such joy and satisfaction, whether it's from the students, know, theresponse that they give to a
(17:55):
initiative or a problem that's been solved or just supporting the people around us.
Education is a people business.
Leadership is a people business.
And I look at it as a privilege.
The minute we start looking at looking at it as drudgery and you know I have to then welose our ability to inspire.
So I want to be someone who inspires and shines a light on the good parts of this work.
(18:21):
I love that, sold me on it.
I'm ready to jump in and dive into your content and unpack it.
That's grounded moments.
I loved that segment.
That was a lot of fun.
We're gonna transition though from the earth element, talking about our values, gettinginto our next segment, headwinds and tailwinds.
(18:49):
Through storms and surges, discover the lessons from headwinds and tailwinds, where wefocus on the challenges that test us and the forces that help us move forward.
First, let's set the stage.
Jen, can you share a time when you faced significant adversity and what was happening andhow did it feel in that moment?
(19:09):
Well, you know, like all people, I've faced a lot of diversity.
I'm 51 years old.
That's a lot of years to face adversity.
And this is professional and personal.
So I have joked before that I feel like I dabbled with every possible mental illness outthere, the most prevalent being anxiety.
Because I'm a worrier, I've always been a pleaser.
(19:32):
And that has many implications on my professional life.
And one time that I paced
that I faced a lot of adversity was when I felt like I was at a crossroads in my owncareer.
And the reason I'm gonna talk about this one is this is a show about educationalleadership and being a leader.
(19:54):
But I want to be very clear that personal adversity that we face feeds directly into ourprofessional adversity.
and resilience in our personal lives with our children, with our parents, with ourfriends, with our housing decisions, our finances, all of that are the hidden symptoms of
(20:20):
what happens with us professionally.
So I really want to acknowledge that.
I'm always happy to talk about my personal journey, but I want to make it tangible througha professional challenge.
I had been a principal for a long time and there was a job I really, really wanted and itwas a job leading principals.
And I spent several weeks, maybe months, dreaming about this job.
(20:45):
I told a few trusted friends about this.
I really, really wanted it and I didn't get it.
And I didn't get it for a lot of reasons, one of which was my interview is terrible.
I am a terrible interviewer.
And I can, to this moment, remember the day I got the phone call and it was a...
The person who called me did a great job, empathetic, kind, understanding, but all I heardwas no.
(21:09):
And when we hear no, personally or professionally, there's a lot to unpack there.
You know, I'm not good enough, I never was good enough, I'm an imposter, no one cares whatI think, is it because I'm a woman?
Is it because I talk too much?
Is it because I don't talk enough?
Is it because I have made the wrong people mad along the way?
You start to go down.
(21:31):
this terrible dark rabbit hole of good enough.
And it takes a lot of hard work to dig out of that.
That's a difficult spot to be because I have been in a position too where I've put my namein for something and I wasn't the successful applicant.
And you have to build that resilience and that mental toughness to say just because youdidn't get it doesn't mean you weren't a good fit for the position.
(21:58):
There are so many factors that could play into why that position was given to somebodyelse.
Maybe they already had somebody in mind.
maybe like we said, we might not give the best interview.
I feel like I'm the opposite to that, where if I can get my foot in the door and have aconversation with somebody, my odds are usually a little bit better for me than if I don't
even get looked at, right?
(22:18):
And so my biggest challenge, very similar though, is getting that initial piece ofrecognition for somebody to reach out and say, hey, we wanna hear more of that.
We wanna hear that story.
And so what was your turning point?
Because that's a heavy blow when you put months putting in...
effort and thought and even dreaming of something that you think you really want to do andit doesn't happen.
(22:42):
What was your turning point where you moved on from that?
Right.
Well, there's two important lessons that I took out of it.
One was at that point in my career, I had spent about 15 years interviewing people andcalling them and telling them they didn't get a job.
And I was like, you I'm really sorry.
We're just going in a different direction.
And when people had an emotional reaction, I'd be like, please, seriously, you just didn'tget a job.
(23:05):
What's the big deal?
This was like a slap in the face because I realized that sometimes my, my approach or myunderstanding of the
identity crisis this can cause had been, I had been not valuing that.
So I think my assumption that other people should be tougher when in fact I wasn't toughall along in this scenario just was a good wake up call.
(23:36):
Now, how did I recover?
I think I did get stronger.
I think I did get more resilient and I did
really have to examine what's in my area of control.
This job wasn't mine.
Whether I deserved it or not, in my own mind or in the mind of the people who made thedecision, was really irrelevant.
(23:58):
It wasn't my path.
It wasn't my place or time.
And I started to think about, you know, there's this theory out there when you want to buya house and if you don't get the house, there's a reason you didn't get the house.
and then you get the other house you want, you live in it and it's your home.
I really believe that.
looking back, it's a beautiful, beautiful sight from the rear view mirror.
(24:20):
Looking back, it wasn't the right job.
It wasn't the right time.
And my devastation was an important part of my journey because it was high time I groundmyself in more empathy with other people and their hopes and dreams.
And it was also high time that I recognized
(24:41):
you know, you, you don't always get what you want and there's good reasons for that.
And you kind of allude to my next question a bit here, which is everyone needs an anchorto stay grounded during adversity and you know, not getting a dream position, not getting
a job, not even getting an interview or a foot in the door is some significant adversity.
(25:03):
What did you actually ground yourself in in that moment?
We talked about how this was maybe a modest moment, maybe a humbling moment.
What did you seek to?
to stay grounded and to know that the next job you applied for was the right job.
When I, I love that question.
I love that question because where I've forced, and I haven't thought about this in theseterms, so I appreciate the opportunity to reframe this in my own mind as I complete the
(25:30):
thought.
You have to stick around in who you are, who you really are.
And so I took some time and said, okay, who am I if I am not this new title, which clearlyI'm not because I didn't get the job, if I'm not that, who am I?
And so I spent.
time, um, you know, a lot of long runs, a lot of, um, early morning reflections, um,walking the dog thinking about, what does matter to me?
(25:56):
Because if my career isn't going to go the way I thought, what is, what does this lifemean?
Right.
And what it meant to me, the answers that I found are, I want to be thought of as kindand, and a connector.
I want to be a awesome mom.
I want to be an incredible wife.
(26:17):
I want to breathe the air.
I want to see the sun.
I want to not hustle too hard that I, that I wake up and I'm, and it's over and I'm oldand it's done.
So I think it, it forced me to look in a mirror and see who I was and what I wanted to be.
And I don't mean to overemphasize this, but it, because it happened in a very passive andalmost,
(26:43):
unidentifiable process, but it forced me to think about my own internal legacy and what Iwas going to be proud of going forward.
And it wasn't having a business card with a certain title on it.
It was who I, who I wanted to be every day when I wake up.
And I love that because it rooted yourself back into that earth element, that value of whoyou stand for and what you do.
(27:07):
Now, truth be told, if you had got that job, it probably would have been a greatexperience.
You would have loved it because it was rooted so much in something you stand for.
But because you weren't connected to the job and you were connected to the value, it was alot easier to bounce back, move on.
And then once another position came, that was another leadership opportunity.
The move was just as easy because again, it was rooted in the value.
(27:30):
not the job.
So
right.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
It's and it goes back to where the roots are.
But remember, you know, we're talking about roots.
And when you think about a tree, you don't see the roots at all.
They're not visible.
All we see is what's above the ground.
And that's what I was seeing.
And so it forced me, this experience forced me to say, all right, what am I not seeing?
(27:52):
And let's dig into those.
And that's actually a really good snippet for leaders out there is when we talk about whatpeople value, more often than not, we won't see it in the workplace unless we actively try
to discover it.
And wherever you are, whether it's education, whether it's not an education, you can haveconversations with people to try to unpack what their values are.
(28:15):
And it's really powerful if you take the initiatives that your company, your organization,your classroom is trying to do.
and you start to align it with the values of the people in the room.
Well, exactly.
And I think it forces a different level of intellectual understanding about a situation.
(28:35):
I have found I'm much better these days at really listening to people's words and thenthrowing the words away and seeing what they're trying to say to me.
So an example is something that many school leaders hear a lot is a parent sayingsomething along the lines of, you will not talk to my child when I'm not there.
And many leaders have this reaction like, yes, I will.
(28:58):
or that you can't tell me how I'm gonna run my school, that kind of thing.
But if you listen to that and you take away the words, what you hear, what's really beingsaid to you is, I'm scared for my child.
I'm scared my child won't be able to speak his or her truth and be heard.
And so there's a lot you can unpack there.
(29:19):
From a sentence that didn't say that, you can hear emotion.
and anxiety and be the person who says, okay, I hear you.
What I think you're actually telling me is that you're worried that if I talk to yourchild when you're not here, something will happen that you won't be able to fix.
(29:41):
And a parent will say, yes, that's exactly right.
Okay, let's solve that problem then.
We're not gonna solve the problem of whether or not I'm gonna call you every time I talkto your kid.
We're gonna solve the problem that's really in front of us.
And for people facing their own headwinds, which could be similar to the example you justshared, what's one thing you would recommend people do to keep moving forward despite that
(30:03):
storm?
Well, I think this is the oldest advice in the book.
It came from my grandparents and their grandparents probably, is when there's adversity,you just do the next right thing.
And that's a commonly used phrase in the recovery community, but also in a lot of otherareas.
(30:25):
And that is, when you don't know what to do, just do the next right thing.
And maybe that's just get up and brush your teeth and.
put your work clothes on.
Or maybe it is find someone to be kind to.
Maybe it is getting, you know, tackling a stack of to-dos that you've been putting off.
Whatever the next right thing is, if you do it, you will feel, you will start to getmomentum.
(30:47):
You'll feel glad for yourself and glad for the impact that your decision had on the world.
And it will help you get going in the right direction.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
And speaking of the next right thing, it is time to segue away from our air element andtalking about the adversity and go to the next right thing, which is our water element
(31:09):
talking about change.
Small shifts, big waves, this is ripples of change where we dive into the power ofembracing change and making waves that last.
So Jen, what's a recent change that you have had to embrace or lead?
(31:35):
Well, I have so many, I have so many because it is a time of great change in education.
There are a lot of changes in legislation.
There are a lot of changes in curriculum and a lot of cries for help from educators aboutstudent mental health and support through the community.
(31:56):
but let me get to your question.
A recent change that I have been part of was the implementation of a program providingmore
social workers in our schools.
And there is no doubt that this is much needed.
It is a program and a process that will provide more mental health support for studentsand families.
(32:18):
The problem is it's very expensive.
And no one wants to pay for schools these days.
In the US, the funding system varies by state.
by all measures, it's problematic.
And so when you move to solve a problem, it creates a problem in another area.
(32:39):
And so that's been something I'm part of.
Another one that I'm part of and probably is more relatable to all your listenership isthe implementation of large-scale curriculum programs.
In my district and in our state, we were given a mandate from the state, and that was toimplement a phonics-based literacy program.
(33:02):
And the reason this was, this is a challenge is I think if you lined up a thousand peopleand asked what they thought about it, you would get a thousand different answers.
And all of their answers will root back to their own reading experience.
Learning to read is an emotional and intimate process.
And everyone thinks they know how it should be done because it happened to them once.
(33:26):
And you have to, I had to be able to
tease through all those and then for lack of a better analogy, put them aside and thinkabout what we needed to do for the student sitting in front of us.
And speaking of that with implementing a new phonics based curriculum, implementing changeoften comes down to two key moments.
(33:48):
The first step that you take in the final move that makes it stick.
What was your first step and are you at that last step?
We are, yes, we are at that last step.
So the first step for me personally was realizing this was going to happen, it was goingto be a mandate, and I had a choice, fight it or embrace it.
(34:09):
And this goes back to the original grounding quote where if there's not a solution, inthis case, ignoring the mandate, then it's not a problem, it's a fact.
And so I wasn't able to ignore it.
Okay, great, let's move forward.
Then I had to tease out my own bias.
I had been trained as a literacy expert.
(34:29):
I thought I knew exactly what I believed in, how we should teach all of the nation'schildren.
But the fact was millions of people were weighing in on this.
And the decision had been made.
And so I had to get on board and figure out how my own personal understanding aboutliteracy instruction fit with the mandate.
(34:52):
And I found it did.
I found it really did.
I expected to have kind of a mea culpa moment where I had done some damage or I had beenso wrong or been so right or whatever.
But I found that at the end of the day, you just want kids to be able to read and you wantthem to love reading and you want them to be able to both understand how language is built
(35:16):
letter by letter and have students love doing it.
And all of those things can live together.
At the same time, and I think this is important for all educators to understand, literacyis changing because the world in which literacy lives is changing.
There have been studies that say that children and adults read 100,000 words a day,100,000 words a day, but they are in, you know, 150 words at a time or 15 words at a time.
(35:49):
We're not, people aren't sitting down and reading long books.
Now I can sit here and really cry about that because I think it's important we read books,long books, the grapes of wrath, you know, to kill a mockingbird, to read all of those,
but it's not happening in many cases.
So I can be mad about that and pout about it and talk about how this next generation isgoing to ruin everything.
(36:09):
Or I can believe as I do that the world is going to change and, we have to ride the wavewith it.
I love that you threw that in there, have to ride the wave with it.
And it's even more powerful that your answer brought it back to your earth element,brought it back to your air element on adversity.
(36:30):
And that whole idea about you can choose to fight it or you can choose to embrace it.
And neither one could be a good choice or a bad choice.
It depends what you're gonna root the value in behind it.
Because if you chose to fight it,
people are gonna ask you why.
Why are you choosing to fight this?
And you need to have that rooted in something other than just it's different, right?
(36:51):
And so the result is we're going to embrace this.
Why?
Well, because this is something that I can actually see myself supporting other people inand helping them lead and helping them grow and helping them develop and create these
things.
That's the beauty of our job is we get the ability to try to make people excited aboutchange instead of fearing it, which is something that you did.
(37:12):
when that change came to you, might've said, whoa, this is big, but how can I make itwork?
which brings it to, know, that change can either create positive momentum or unexpectedsetbacks.
What was a ripple effect you maybe didn't see coming?
And it can be from a different story.
Well, I'm going to merge several situations together.
(37:34):
And that is the ability to ask yourself, well, wait, maybe I'm wrong.
That's really powerful, right?
We are hardwired as children to go into the world with confidence and identity andconvictions.
And we are hardwired to fight back if those are challenged.
(37:57):
But I find that when I pause and entertain the idea that I might be wrong or I might nothave all the information, that pause can be monumental.
If I barge forward and assume that I'm right and my job is to convince everyone else whyI'm right and they're wrong, I not only lose respect, but I waste a lot of time.
(38:23):
That question, you know,
wait, maybe I'm wrong or maybe I don't have all the information I need can open up many,many, many opportunities for growth.
So, you know, I think about all the times where I have been given some information and Ithink, well, I know exactly what this is.
(38:45):
And if I pause and say, well, wait, do you?
Then that just gives me not only humility, but
a much clearer lens.
It's like cleaning off your glasses.
You think, well, now I can see because you, you've asked yourself to, be more humble and,to find the places you don't actually know what you're talking about.
(39:07):
Absolutely, and people often worry that change won't last.
So with all of that, what's one thing you did to make sure that this change became a partof culture rather than just a trend?
Right.
That is so true.
That is a, it is a fair outcry from many educators, which is, you know, this is a flash inthe pan.
(39:27):
It's going to go away.
I've seen this before and I've said those things and I think they're true.
You know, I've, I say often education is a pendulum.
It goes here, it goes back, it goes here, it goes back.
And, where I feel like I am right now is accepting that pendulum.
(39:48):
except that it's going to continue to swing and not be mad about that.
It doesn't mean that it's wrong.
So here's just one silly, silly little example that I have seen happen multiple times.
there's, well, let's just talk about, about history and education.
There's, I actually wrote my dissertation on this, that education trends are a response toa nation's anxiety.
(40:14):
And if we think about that, we think about times in history where things have been really,really bad or really, really uncertain.
And when that happens, everyone as a society looks to the schools because the instinct isfix this for the next generation.
And so then the microscope goes on the schools.
We saw this in COVID.
COVID was a problem.
(40:34):
People felt uncertain and unsafe.
And so they looked at schools.
What are the schools doing?
they're doing it wrong, why is this school closing and that school's not?
And all the energy anxiety was targeted at schools.
And so at that time, it was easy to think that the changes we were making were going tofundamentally change school.
(40:58):
We came out of it and realized that isn't actually true.
People go back to what's comfortable and what works or what they thought worked.
And
a lot of the changes that we have implemented during and coming out of COVID are beingcalled flashes in the pan, know, this isn't going to last, but it's up to the leader to
(41:20):
say, well, what does need to stay?
What changes do we need to make?
And then, and this is the critical part, is revisiting those, talking about them, shiningthe light on them, letting go of things that we don't need to hang on to anymore and being
very clear and transparent about that.
know, things like, don't, we're not, that's not where we are anymore.
We're moving forward.
(41:41):
So I realize that's really vague.
I could dig more into it if we have more time, but as a leader, it is identifying trulythe direction you want to go and continuing to revisit.
And the most important part of that is if you want something to stick, it needs to be doneconsistently.
That doesn't necessarily mean every day, but you and the team that you're trying to workwith, there needs to be an active intent that it's going to be revisited.
(42:10):
It's going to continually be talked about.
And it's even more powerful if it's not just the one leader in the room.
continually bringing it up, if you can get to a point where the people around you arebringing it up, now you know you've started to put something into culture, right?
So something as simple as when you have a gathering, are you all sitting together or issomebody off in the corner or what does that look like?
(42:33):
If you consistently make a point of saying, when we gather, we sit together, your team,you'll know when it's a part of culture, when your team starts to acknowledge that you're
sitting together.
or when somebody doesn't or somebody's new, and for the first time they're told as a team,when we meet, we sit together, right?
Something as simple as that.
That's just a minor example, but segueing from minor example to maybe something bigger,we're gonna transition here from our water element on change to our fire element, which
(43:05):
talks about the decision-making process.
Ignite your ideas and face the flames.
This is Spark or Burn, where we talk about bold decisions, big risks, and the fires thateither spark success or burn lessons into our memory.
(43:25):
So Jen, can you tell us about a time when you made a bold leadership decision or took amajor risk?
And what was the spark behind it that made you say, I have to go for this?
Right, well that's a, I'm actually going to talk about a personal example here, but itdoes tie very much professionally.
And I love, let me tell you why I love this question, because not only the metaphor offire and of burning something, but out of ashes comes new growth.
(43:54):
And this wasn't burning something down, but it did certainly light a spark.
And that was the decision to pursue
doctorate for myself.
Now that sounds very navel-gazing, sounds like I'm just talking about how great I am, butI'm telling you this was a tough, tough decision because I do like learning, but I was at
(44:17):
the time really perhaps overextended, but I decided to take the risk and I thought, well,you know, the worst case is this doesn't work and I can't do it.
I just can't do it, which to me would be a pretty significant reckoning with myself.
Now here's why I think it was important that I did.
I went into this wanting to get a degree, three letters after my name.
(44:39):
What I found was the learning at that point in my career, I was more ready than ever tolearn what from others.
And what I learned was about schools and about the history of education and why thesystems and structures are in place.
And what came out of that was,
(45:00):
a fundamental change in the way I look at things.
I have spent my career saying, it's all about the people, people first.
Take care of the people, everything else will follow.
Now, I do believe that to be true, but not completely.
I believe that people can fail if there are not the right systems in place, if there arenot the right structures in place.
(45:20):
And so here's a great example.
You could have an amazing principle, the best people-driven
thoughtful, empathetic, compassionate, knowledgeable, educated principal on earth leadinga school.
But if there's not, for example, support from district leadership, if there is a tendencyof kids to be nasty and unkind to each other and there's no system to fix that, if there's
(45:49):
not culture, that principal, that amazing principal is going to burn out, feel small and
un-incapable and leave.
so systems actually, I have come to see Trump people because people need systems to exceland grow within them.
(46:10):
There are many in the US, for example, there are some horrific passive things that havehappened in housing decisions decades ago that have enormous implications on how there is
an imbalance of wealth and opportunity
within our school systems.
I didn't really understand that until I took this risk, lit the spark, if you will, andopened up the space for me to learn about it.
(46:38):
And that has made me a much more well-rounded leader and human being, I believe.
And this is relevant because we're talking about education and I hope people listeningthat aren't in education are pulling something from this too.
The idea we frequently say, are we a system of schools or are we a school system?
(46:59):
And when you become a school system or an organization system instead of a system oforganizations, then that's when you can start to create that alignment.
And you know what?
You're so right on the doctorate.
I'm in mine right now and the best
part of being in it has been the connections that I get to make with the people along theway of going through it.
(47:22):
I went into it wanting to learn, wanting to grow.
You know, the three letters that go at the end are not as cool as the two letters that getto go at the front after as well, they say.
So there's some motivation on that side for sure.
But a big part of it was I wanted to do the best that I could do to do the best for othersbecause I'm very rooted in wanting to
(47:43):
to do service and wanting to help and wanting to see people grow because I value love,value generosity, I value empathy, right?
Which are probably very similar things that you value as well, which is what's led you tothe position you're at.
Now, my question for you is this might not work here because we're talking about adoctorate, but what was at stake for you?
And maybe it will.
What was at stake for you if it didn't work out?
(48:06):
Did it feel like an all or nothing moment?
Yes.
that's such a great question.
I remember taking a walk with my husband.
said, Hey, I think I want to do this.
And he outlined all the reasons.
was a terrible idea.
And it was financially.
It seemed like a terrible idea.
The time my kids were little, they weren't little.
They were, you know, middle school.
He's like, how are you going to do this?
(48:26):
And I said, I don't know, but I really want to.
And he said, great, we're in, let's do it.
And you know, the fact that he was willing to look at it as a team, as a family decision,
was certainly helpful, but it was something I don't think I would have been able to letgo.
It was just in me.
And I have a couple of friends that have said to me, oh, just would never even, thoughtwouldn't occur to me, which to me tells me it was a very personalized and personal
(48:54):
decision to do it.
And I'm so grateful I did.
It wasn't in the end about the letters attached to my name.
It wasn't about the opportunities that would or would not come.
It was about the way I...
I challenged my own belief systems.
And back to the importance of systems, just a quick example, and this kind of ties to whatyou said.
(49:16):
I had spent two decades saying, as a principal, you hire good people and get out of theirway, and everything will be fine.
No, you hire good people and then you support them.
You have a system where new people get the information and the structural organizationthat they need to excel.
Both have to be true.
And so to make a decision to educate yourself, whether it's going to cause financial andtime constraints, you have to decide whether that value is there.
(49:49):
And for me, it really was.
It isn't for everybody.
This is certainly a question about my own spark and burn, right?
But I guess what I'm saying to listeners is whatever your thing is, whatever that burn inyour belly is,
Whether it's to go on a trip or to learn a new skill or to rest more, whatever it is,you've got to acknowledge that voice inside of you because it usually means there's
(50:15):
something, there's a rock that needs lifted and you gotta see what's under it.
And I love that we've spent so much time talking about, you know, grounded elements andheadwinds and tailwinds, and we're rooting everything back to our values and what we stand
for.
And we asked the question, why did you choose to do it?
And you said, I just really want to, right?
I love that.
You know, and sometimes that's so true.
(50:37):
And, and what we don't realize is one of, one of my most powerful yet annoying things todo to people, it's called the five whys.
And it's just repetitively asking why, right?
So if your response to me was, just really want to, I would have kept hounding you withwhys until we got to a value of something that said, this is the route that's going to
(50:58):
actually hold it through.
And you know, my kids are both under three right now, but I foresee I'm going to be themost annoying dad because I know when they're older and they want something, I'm going to
ask them why repetitively until we get to a value, because I want to know that the thingthey want is something that's going to genuinely stick around as well.
when it comes to all of that.
(51:19):
And your last segment here talking about bold decisions, you know, they can beintimidating deciding to do this.
That's a very intimidating choice.
And that's why you have conversations about it.
How would you encourage the audience to build that risk taking muscle?
Well, I'm going to tie to what you just said, actually.
When we ask why, that's such a strong question, but we have to be very, very careful thatthe answer isn't rejected, that we don't reject the answer because it doesn't align with
(51:51):
our why.
So this is a silly little example, but it reminds me, like I've always been a runner.
And I remember clearly my parents saying to once, why?
And my brother saying, I don't run unless someone's chasing me.
Why would you run?
And so when I, my answers would, would have fallen on deaf ears for them.
but, but they, my family would be like, well, okay, I hear your why I hear it's yourvalue, not necessarily mine at all.
(52:18):
seems absolutely bananas to me, but, okay.
It's a Y it's a value for you.
And so, you know, I tell, I say all of that because I think it's so easy to want to putother people in the boxes we've created.
And sometimes an answer like, because I want to, or because I feel like it's important,can be a very strong value.
(52:40):
And that's why making bold decisions, as long as they don't hurt other people or they'reirresponsible, I think a why can be just what it is.
which is so great to hear and to reinforce and to put out there.
I don't have a clip or a segment for this last section, so I should probably look atmaking one.
(53:03):
But as we wrap up with the elements, one of the things that I wanted to embed into all ofmy shows is listener questions.
And without any audio, without any little jingle here, maybe I'll go manually add one inafter the show.
You know what?
No, it's raw.
We're gonna do it here.
Listener questions, you asked, we're answering.
It's time for listener questions.
I put it out on my social media for anybody that wanted to connect with whoever I'm on theshow with next.
(53:28):
They have no clue who was coming up next.
And I just said, if you have a question that you would like us to ask and bring up anddiscuss, send it my way and I'll bring it up to the table here.
So with that, we have to set the premise that some of these questions might not have ananswer.
So we'll see where they go.
Okay, so let me...
(53:51):
How do we overcome the problems in education when it comes to disengaged kids and parents?
Well, that's a big one.
That's a whole show, my friend.
But what I hear, again, remember I talked about stripping behind, stripping the words andgetting to the real problem.
So an easy answer would be put some parent engagement nights, have your teachers reach outmore, send a newsletter through S'more.
(54:18):
It's really pretty.
That's not the question that's being asked here.
The question that's being asked here is from someone who's frustrated because they feellike they're working alone or a school that's frustrated because they feel like they're
working alone.
But
Let me tie this back to the quote.
If there's not a solution, it's not a problem, it's just a fact.
If you're working in a school where parents can't, and I'm very carefully not using theword won't, they can't engage at the level you want them to.
(54:48):
Stop gnashing your teeth and banging your head against the wall.
By trying to guilt trip parents or students into being engaged at a different level isjust going to cause confusion.
So I would urge this listener to say, what do you, what do you really want?
Do you want more people at your back to parent nights?
Okay.
(55:09):
That's a goal.
Get some people together and think about how to do that.
But people might not be coming because they don't see value in it.
So how are you going to bring value?
take away the quick fixes, take away the, personal insult that you feel every time itdoesn't.
(55:29):
engagement doesn't meet your expectations and think about what it is that your parents andstudents do have the capacity to give and how you can make it match with what you think is
best for the kids.
And if the question is intended from a way of not so much engagement by physically beingin the building, but supporting things that you're trying to do in your classroom by
(55:50):
actioning them at home, that's a whole nother level to unpack.
And like you said yourself, this can be an entire show.
We could do an entire episode.
We could do an entire season talking about engagement of parents and engagement ofcommunity and engagement of kids.
I would lean to the side of you need to lean on your team as well.
And we talk about, you know, we talked about it earlier, that idea of consistency.
(56:14):
It needs to be consistently stated, not just from a classroom teacher, but from aleadership team, from all classroom teachers and from kids coming home.
You need to get that buy in where this is something important.
I need your help with this.
And follow through.
I often hear, you know, I really, I really struggle with X, Y and Zed.
(56:35):
Have you talked to X, Y, Zed?
And the answer is no.
And if it is, yes, it's when was the last time and it turns out it was a month and a halfago and we need to revisit that conversation.
So it's the consistency.
Right.
And I know we're running short on time.
I don't want to bore listeners, but I'm thinking about a conversation I had with a teacher10 years ago or so.
And this is under the umbrella of be careful what you wish for.
(56:56):
This teacher was so mad.
She's like, my, have 30 kids in my class.
16 parents haven't even looked at the report card.
They haven't even logged in.
And I said, great, let's get them to log in.
So she hosted something, I think it got them in, got them all in.
Well, guess what?
Then they logged in and then they were all over her.
Cause why haven't you updated grades?
I know you had a test two hours ago.
(57:17):
Why isn't the grade in there?
So then she's created a whole different problem.
Micro managing parents, right?
They wanted to know, she had trained them to worry and be anxious about every singlehomework grade.
Then she had a different problem on her hands.
So we have to be very thoughtful.
And this is where your point about bringing a team together.
(57:38):
What do we really want here?
We're so mad about something we're seeing.
Is that really what we're frustrated about?
you know, what, what is our intended outcome?
And let's talk about it.
Let's not just be a one man show trying to identify and solve that problem.
And went so deep into that question that I wish I had time to do more and unfortunately,no, it's okay.
(58:01):
I love it.
It's so good.
We don't have the time because we're already getting close to the hour episode here.
So I'm gonna save a few of my other listener questions for my next ones.
I have another interview tomorrow.
So it's good timing that I get to bring another one up.
What I'll do with these, think, is I'll leave them on the show for the audience.
but I'm also going to clip it and send it to the person that asked the question so theyget the answer specifically.
(58:23):
So please know that if you are listening and you do have questions, this is a momentthat's dedicated for us to collaborate without you being the direct brunt of the show
coming in and having that conversation.
Sometimes it's nice to just hear an external conversation.
And with that, Jen, it has been such a pleasure connecting with you.
How can our audience connect more?
(58:44):
Absolutely, absolutely.
They can get to go to my website at jenschwanke.com.
There's a way there that you can fill out a form and email me and you can also follow meon LinkedIn and Instagram and Twitter and I will be in Winnipeg this summer at presenting
at a conference.
So please come and see me actually not this summer.
(59:06):
I think it's May.
So I've had the privilege of coming to Canada the last three summers and working withschool groups and
every time my husband's nervous because I always want to move there and stay.
find it beautiful and the people just so incredibly lovely.
yeah, find me there.
And I just want to thank you, Tyler.
It's been so fun.
I love talking about this stuff.
(59:27):
And I have to bite my tongue whenever we talk about Winnipeg, because I'm a diehardWinnipeg Jets fan.
I love hockey.
I love the NHL.
That's my team.
So I'm going to leave it at that and say we're first in the league at the point of thispodcast.
I hope I didn't jinx it and see where we're going from there.
But you know what, alchemists, as we wrap up our episode, I want to take a moment andshare my appreciation for your listenership.
You're the reason we're here.
You're the inspiration for the show.
(59:48):
And I hope that our journey today sparked some points of interest for you.
To dive deeper, make sure that you should.
To dive deeper, make sure you subscribe to our monthly newsletter for scholarly insights,actionable strategies, and in-depth analysis of each episode.
Just reach out in our Instagram DMs for a link.
And Jen, thank you so much again for taking time out of your schedule to connect,collaborate, and empower us all through your lived experiences.
(01:00:12):
Anytime, anytime and best wishes to all of you and hope to see you all at some point alongthe way.
Alchemists, welcome to the Elemental Educator podcast.
I'm your host, Tyler, and thank you so much for joining our community for anotherincredible connection.
If you're here for the first time, welcome to a place where we redefine leadership andchallenge the status quo.
Take a minute before continuing the episode to follow our YouTube at Elemental underscoreeducator, where we'll upload all our videos and additional leadership content meant for
(01:08):
anyone looking to grow.
For those returning alchemists, take some time to expand our community and share thisplatform with one other person today.
I'm so thankful for your passion and dedication to being better together.
Now get ready to let the alchemy of education ignite your passion for learning.
Today, I'm thrilled to connect with Jen, an EdD and an educator for almost three decades,teaching or leading at all levels.
(01:31):
She's the author of four books published by ASCD, including the most recent, ThePrincipals Guide to Conflict Management, and has published hundreds of articles in various
education publications.
In addition to providing professional development to districts in the areas of schoolclimate, personnel and instructional leadership, Jen presents at conferences for ASCD,
(01:53):
NAESP, NASSP and AASA, along with various states and local educational organizations.
She's the co-host of the Popular Principal Matters podcast and an instructor ineducational administration at the Ohio State University and Miami University of Ohio.
Dr.
Schwanke currently serves as a deputy superintendent in Ohio.
(02:16):
Welcome to the Elemental Educator podcast, Jen.
It is a pleasure to have you here with us today.
Thank you so much.
It's an honor to be here, Tyler, and I'm looking forward to a good, fun conversation.
And as I said before pressing record, we are trying a new model today.
We'll see how it goes.
I think it's gonna be fun.
So let's just get right into it.
And I'm trying to think back.
(02:37):
think it was recently we crossed paths.
I reached out to you over social media and just said, hey, you have a cool story.
I'm excited to hear it.
And I wanna start with the bigger question right now, which is how did you get to whereyou are right now?
A lot of it was accidental.
(03:00):
And I say that with a laugh, but it really is true.
I I wasn't even going to be a teacher.
I wasn't, and I certainly wasn't going to be a school leader or a district leader.
That was not in the cards.
I wanted to write books and go to New York City and live a literary life.
And then, you know, life happens and twists and turns you don't expect come.
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along the way.
And so after college, I had actually graduated from college early and I went home andbartended for a couple years.
it was a dark time in my life, but I would also say it was a time where I learned so manyskills that I use every day today.
Like I always joke, if you can throw a dude out of a bar, you can run a school.
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I kind of found my footing and went back to graduate school and got my teaching licenseand I taught language arts and I just loved it.
I taught middle school and to me that was such a purpose driven way to live my life.
And after seven years or so, I was ready to start leadership.
(04:08):
And so I served as an assistant principal and a principal for 17 years.
And I always say that was kind of the...
That was the real work that I loved and I loved supporting teachers.
I found such value and validation in making sure I stayed tied to the work in theclassrooms.
(04:31):
And then I, you know, along the way I thought, you know, wait, I do love to write and I dolove to talk to people and I love to mentor and guide new teachers and new principals.
And so I wrote a book that ASCD picked up.
And then I wrote another one and another one and it's been a lot of fun.
I'm so honored to have that opportunity in my career to be able to, through words andthrough just showing up to work with people, to be able to challenge their thinking and
(05:03):
provide just some insight and ideas.
And a little plug for you here because AASCD is such a nice publisher when it comes topicking up educators, picking up leaders and putting those books out there.
With your books, where can people access them if they would like to purchase them?
Well, thank you for the plug.
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I appreciate that.
They can find the books on the ASCD website, especially members will get a little bit of adiscount.
And then they're also, of course, available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
And so there's four books.
My most recent is really resounding, or excuse me, guess, resonating with listeners.
And that's The Principle's Guide to Conflict Management.
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It has become readily apparent to me that principals are really struggling with.
their role, most people don't want the role of kind of being the mediator and thefacilitator of conflict.
And I'm talking conflict with students, with parents, with teachers, and in between all ofthose.
But I also have some work, you know, I wrote a book for new principals, one for trying torevitalize your principalship.
(06:08):
You know, lot of principals have done it a long time and they're tired.
It's, you know, they're veterans and they don't necessarily have the energy to.
want to kind of rethink how they do things, but that's what that book is about.
And then there's another one about how principals can support and motivate teachersbecause that book was actually written after COVID and it was again a dark time in
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education where we were struggling to find our way.
hopefully those speak to your listeners and they can be found really wherever you getbooks.
And there has been a big shift in expectations of leaders in the last five years, amassive shift in what's expected of them to be able to do, to be able to handle, to be
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able to take on.
And one of the best ways to try to put it into somebody's perspective, and this is veryrelevant in the province I'm in right now, it might not be relevant where you're listening
to, there is a new curriculum that has been rolling out over the last two years and
The intent is regardless of how long you've taught where you've taught what it looks like,you're rolling out with the new curriculum.
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And that's a huge change for somebody that's been teaching with the same curriculum for20, 25 years.
The same would apply to somebody in leadership or any organization, even outside ofeducation, where you have done the same thing consistently for 15 to 20 years.
And it might have been working.
It might have not, but now a shift is happening.
where there is a new wave of how we should be leading, a new wave of how we should becommunicating.
(07:36):
And that can be a very tough thing to pick up and alluding a little bit to the burnoutside of things.
That's maybe where everything might be stemming from, where we're seeing people gettingmore tired in these jobs, where we're seeing people that need more support in these jobs.
So definitely consider checking out one of Jen's books.
You can find them on Amazon, which is super nice.
The ASCD Direct-to-Consumer is an awesome quality to have.
(07:58):
And with that, we're actually gonna move on to one of our new parts of the episode, whichis grounded moments.
Rooted in wisdom, driven by purpose, welcome to grounded moments.
And to build some momentum here, I want to start by asking you, what's one thing groundingyou in what you do today?
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Well, I am a, I love this segment.
I really think this is important because staying grounded these days is critical to calmand intentional leadership.
One of the things that grounds me is a quote that I heard along the way, and I apologizeif I'm not attributing it to the right person, but the quote is, if there isn't a
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solution, it's not a problem, it's just a fact.
And here's why that grounds me.
I early on in my career, I would spend so much time gnashing my teeth, you know, trying tofind a solution, trying to fix, trying to control.
And I looked at myself as a failure if I couldn't solve something.
(09:10):
And that is such a wasted emotion, right?
Frustration at unsolvable problems.
And this isn't to say we should just throw up our hands and say, well, there's no fixingthis.
Because a lot of times there is a
There are options or there are different pathways we can take.
are different opportunities that come with problems.
But there are times things are what they are.
(09:32):
And I'm going to reference what you just talked about actually.
Where I live, there also are curriculum changes that are coming down as mandates that arereally challenging teachers and leaders for two reasons.
One is what you referenced, they're new and they're requiring a whole different mindset, awhole different approach.
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The other reason that they're
problematic for a lot of people is they don't philosophically align with what that teacheror leader believes is best.
Okay, that in itself, there's not a solution to that.
So it's just a fact.
It's something that we're going to have to accept and work around.
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And so I think about that though, in terms of working with people, in terms of managing afacility.
in terms of connecting with a community.
Sometimes we spend way, way, way too much of our energy and efforts trying to solve orcontrol something that isn't solvable or controllable.
It's just a fact.
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And so that means we just have to skip all of that nonsense and start working around it orworking with it and making the best that we can of that opportunity.
I love that.
And if there isn't a solution, it's not a problem, it's a fact.
We'll put a site in that, we'll reference it in our show notes.
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How did you find the quote in the first place?
gosh.
I don't even know.
wish I, I wish I could.
Here's the thing that you need to know about me, Tyler.
I am a, I am a quote person.
I love them.
I have, when you and I were prepping for this episode, you had asked me, you know, what'sa quote that grounds you?
And I thought, well, goodness, where do I start?
(11:17):
so I think I was supposed to give you one, but the other one that I do that I think of alot, and I don't remember where I first heard it is the most important person that
somebody said to me, who's the most important person in a room?
And I felt like I was being set up with that question because I hate in education, I hatethe hierarchical system that drives us.
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think it can be, you know, some people are very career bound and so they are in a positionof leadership because they scrapped and fought for it and, you know, probably kicked a few
people in the face on their way, but they don't necessarily know the work or they don'tunderstand people.
And so, you know, you can have a room where the most important person is the leastrespected.
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the most important person is the least knowledgeable.
And that can be incredibly toxic because that's a room everybody knows that the hierarchy,and I'm using air quotes there, that the hierarchy is not fair, is not earned, and isn't
gonna get you anywhere.
And so I heard this quote and it says, and it is that the most important person in theroom is the person who's solving a problem.
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I love this because when you get
groups of people together, whatever problem it is you're trying to work through.
If everybody's sitting around wringing their hands and saying, gosh, there's nothing wecan do about this, then nothing's happening.
And I want to acknowledge to listeners that I realize I'm saying two different thingshere, that sometimes it's not a problem, it's just a fact.
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And then I'm saying you gotta solve the problem.
But I think both things are true.
You have to identify what you do have influence on, where your zone of control is.
And the person who says, let's get to it.
Let's think about who this affects and why it affects them and what we can do to make thisa positive.
That's the person to me that's the most important.
And I feel strongly about this because I think in education we have a real problem withageism on both sides.
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We dismiss people that have been around a long time as old and archaic and washed up andbrand new people too.
We're like, they're just a kid.
They don't know yet.
That implies there's a sweet spot in education, whether it's teaching or leading, whereyou actually are effective and deserve to be heard.
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And I really want to push back against that.
Because I think, again, whoever is willing and able and inspiring in solving a problem isthe one that we really need to listen to.
And that's one of the things that I've always pushed for, especially in my role early as ateacher too, because I am pretty young and I am in administration, but it's always been,
it doesn't matter how long you've been in the game, it matters what you bring to the gameand it matters what you're able to do.
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And thank you so much for sharing and going so deep into these quotes.
I started Grounded Moments because I noticed when I was interviewing guests, a lot of thetimes we would bring up a quote that we loved and I thought it would be great.
if we grounded those quotes into our earth element, which is all about those roots andthat value we believe in.
Two quotes that I frequently have used throughout the show are, you think you can orcan't, you're probably right.
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And it's about establishing that belief in the system, belief in yourself and belief inthe others that we can actually do these things if we put our minds to it.
And high standards is an act of love, where low standards is actually an act of empathy.
And...
It's so important to come back to those moments and to come back to your quotes, like themost important person in the room is the person who's solving a problem and then use them
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not just as words that get thrown on a wall, but let them guide us.
so with that, how did these quotes or these moments actually show up in your workflow?
Well, that's a great question because I think that's the key, right?
We can quote one another and we can put up signs in our office all day long, but unlesswe're using them to ground us and be the roots of our work, then it's just pretty words
(15:10):
put together.
I use them like the quote, if there's not a solution, if there isn't a solution, it's nota problem, it's a fact.
That helps me when I find myself circling or I'm leading a group of people and we'retalking and we're just saying the same thing over and over and we're bemoaning the
person or the entity that got us here.
We're just mad, right?
(15:30):
And then I will tell myself, Jen, you're getting nowhere.
So maybe where you're circling, that's just a fact.
So then I will literally say out loud, okay, this is, this has felt really good to get outall of our feelings, but we're not being productive.
So let's think about what the actual solvable problem is and let's get to work on that.
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And in that sense, I have,
Combine the two quotes.
I have acknowledged what the facts are, and I have temporarily named myself the mostimportant person in the room because I'm going to solve the problem.
And then I open my arms and let it go and find out who else in that room, whether it'sjust one other person or 30 people, might next be the most important person because that
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might be the next idea, the next proposal.
And by looking at it this way, it empowers the entire room because
We can all be important in different moments, right?
can be 30 important people in one single conversation, whoever it is that's going to solvethe problem.
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I love that.
Most important person is the person solving the problem.
And you can have multiple people that are the most important person in the room.
Jen, have you heard of an elevator pitch before?
All right, and for the audience, we're gonna give Jen 10 to 20 seconds here to kind ofpitch this idea to you about essentially taking on this value, which is so clearly rooted
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in an idea of collaboration and.
a value of just trying to be better and a value of connection and a value of maybeexperience a bit and what you can bring to the table and share.
So with our audience in your elevator pitch, my question is why is this important to them?
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Leadership is such an honor and a privilege.
And the reason that is true is we are in the muck.
We're in the swamp of the work.
And with that, we get such hard problems to solve handed to us.
But we also get such joy and satisfaction, whether it's from the students, know, theresponse that they give to a
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initiative or a problem that's been solved or just supporting the people around us.
Education is a people business.
Leadership is a people business.
And I look at it as a privilege.
The minute we start looking at looking at it as drudgery and you know I have to then welose our ability to inspire.
So I want to be someone who inspires and shines a light on the good parts of this work.
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I love that, sold me on it.
I'm ready to jump in and dive into your content and unpack it.
That's grounded moments.
I loved that segment.
That was a lot of fun.
We're gonna transition though from the earth element, talking about our values, gettinginto our next segment, headwinds and tailwinds.
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Through storms and surges, discover the lessons from headwinds and tailwinds, where wefocus on the challenges that test us and the forces that help us move forward.
First, let's set the stage.
Jen, can you share a time when you faced significant adversity and what was happening andhow did it feel in that moment?
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Well, you know, like all people, I've faced a lot of diversity.
I'm 51 years old.
That's a lot of years to face adversity.
And this is professional and personal.
So I have joked before that I feel like I dabbled with every possible mental illness outthere, the most prevalent being anxiety.
Because I'm a worrier, I've always been a pleaser.
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And that has many implications on my professional life.
And one time that I paced
that I faced a lot of adversity was when I felt like I was at a crossroads in my owncareer.
And the reason I'm gonna talk about this one is this is a show about educationalleadership and being a leader.
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But I want to be very clear that personal adversity that we face feeds directly into ourprofessional adversity.
and resilience in our personal lives with our children, with our parents, with ourfriends, with our housing decisions, our finances, all of that are the hidden symptoms of
(20:20):
what happens with us professionally.
So I really want to acknowledge that.
I'm always happy to talk about my personal journey, but I want to make it tangible througha professional challenge.
I had been a principal for a long time and there was a job I really, really wanted and itwas a job leading principals.
And I spent several weeks, maybe months, dreaming about this job.
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I told a few trusted friends about this.
I really, really wanted it and I didn't get it.
And I didn't get it for a lot of reasons, one of which was my interview is terrible.
I am a terrible interviewer.
And I can, to this moment, remember the day I got the phone call and it was a...
The person who called me did a great job, empathetic, kind, understanding, but all I heardwas no.
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And when we hear no, personally or professionally, there's a lot to unpack there.
You know, I'm not good enough, I never was good enough, I'm an imposter, no one cares whatI think, is it because I'm a woman?
Is it because I talk too much?
Is it because I don't talk enough?
Is it because I have made the wrong people mad along the way?
You start to go down.
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this terrible dark rabbit hole of good enough.
And it takes a lot of hard work to dig out of that.
That's a difficult spot to be because I have been in a position too where I've put my namein for something and I wasn't the successful applicant.
And you have to build that resilience and that mental toughness to say just because youdidn't get it doesn't mean you weren't a good fit for the position.
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There are so many factors that could play into why that position was given to somebodyelse.
Maybe they already had somebody in mind.
maybe like we said, we might not give the best interview.
I feel like I'm the opposite to that, where if I can get my foot in the door and have aconversation with somebody, my odds are usually a little bit better for me than if I don't
even get looked at, right?
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And so my biggest challenge, very similar though, is getting that initial piece ofrecognition for somebody to reach out and say, hey, we wanna hear more of that.
We wanna hear that story.
And so what was your turning point?
Because that's a heavy blow when you put months putting in...
effort and thought and even dreaming of something that you think you really want to do andit doesn't happen.
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What was your turning point where you moved on from that?
Right.
Well, there's two important lessons that I took out of it.
One was at that point in my career, I had spent about 15 years interviewing people andcalling them and telling them they didn't get a job.
And I was like, you I'm really sorry.
We're just going in a different direction.
And when people had an emotional reaction, I'd be like, please, seriously, you just didn'tget a job.
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What's the big deal?
This was like a slap in the face because I realized that sometimes my, my approach or myunderstanding of the
identity crisis this can cause had been, I had been not valuing that.
So I think my assumption that other people should be tougher when in fact I wasn't toughall along in this scenario just was a good wake up call.
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Now, how did I recover?
I think I did get stronger.
I think I did get more resilient and I did
really have to examine what's in my area of control.
This job wasn't mine.
Whether I deserved it or not, in my own mind or in the mind of the people who made thedecision, was really irrelevant.
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It wasn't my path.
It wasn't my place or time.
And I started to think about, you know, there's this theory out there when you want to buya house and if you don't get the house, there's a reason you didn't get the house.
and then you get the other house you want, you live in it and it's your home.
I really believe that.
looking back, it's a beautiful, beautiful sight from the rear view mirror.
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Looking back, it wasn't the right job.
It wasn't the right time.
And my devastation was an important part of my journey because it was high time I groundmyself in more empathy with other people and their hopes and dreams.
And it was also high time that I recognized
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you know, you, you don't always get what you want and there's good reasons for that.
And you kind of allude to my next question a bit here, which is everyone needs an anchorto stay grounded during adversity and you know, not getting a dream position, not getting
a job, not even getting an interview or a foot in the door is some significant adversity.
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What did you actually ground yourself in in that moment?
We talked about how this was maybe a modest moment, maybe a humbling moment.
What did you seek to?
to stay grounded and to know that the next job you applied for was the right job.
When I, I love that question.
I love that question because where I've forced, and I haven't thought about this in theseterms, so I appreciate the opportunity to reframe this in my own mind as I complete the
(25:30):
thought.
You have to stick around in who you are, who you really are.
And so I took some time and said, okay, who am I if I am not this new title, which clearlyI'm not because I didn't get the job, if I'm not that, who am I?
And so I spent.
time, um, you know, a lot of long runs, a lot of, um, early morning reflections, um,walking the dog thinking about, what does matter to me?
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Because if my career isn't going to go the way I thought, what is, what does this lifemean?
Right.
And what it meant to me, the answers that I found are, I want to be thought of as kindand, and a connector.
I want to be a awesome mom.
I want to be an incredible wife.
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I want to breathe the air.
I want to see the sun.
I want to not hustle too hard that I, that I wake up and I'm, and it's over and I'm oldand it's done.
So I think it, it forced me to look in a mirror and see who I was and what I wanted to be.
And I don't mean to overemphasize this, but it, because it happened in a very passive andalmost,
(26:43):
unidentifiable process, but it forced me to think about my own internal legacy and what Iwas going to be proud of going forward.
And it wasn't having a business card with a certain title on it.
It was who I, who I wanted to be every day when I wake up.
And I love that because it rooted yourself back into that earth element, that value of whoyou stand for and what you do.
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Now, truth be told, if you had got that job, it probably would have been a greatexperience.
You would have loved it because it was rooted so much in something you stand for.
But because you weren't connected to the job and you were connected to the value, it was alot easier to bounce back, move on.
And then once another position came, that was another leadership opportunity.
The move was just as easy because again, it was rooted in the value.
(27:30):
not the job.
So
right.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
It's and it goes back to where the roots are.
But remember, you know, we're talking about roots.
And when you think about a tree, you don't see the roots at all.
They're not visible.
All we see is what's above the ground.
And that's what I was seeing.
And so it forced me, this experience forced me to say, all right, what am I not seeing?
(27:52):
And let's dig into those.
And that's actually a really good snippet for leaders out there is when we talk about whatpeople value, more often than not, we won't see it in the workplace unless we actively try
to discover it.
And wherever you are, whether it's education, whether it's not an education, you can haveconversations with people to try to unpack what their values are.
(28:15):
And it's really powerful if you take the initiatives that your company, your organization,your classroom is trying to do.
and you start to align it with the values of the people in the room.
Well, exactly.
And I think it forces a different level of intellectual understanding about a situation.
(28:35):
I have found I'm much better these days at really listening to people's words and thenthrowing the words away and seeing what they're trying to say to me.
So an example is something that many school leaders hear a lot is a parent sayingsomething along the lines of, you will not talk to my child when I'm not there.
And many leaders have this reaction like, yes, I will.
(28:58):
or that you can't tell me how I'm gonna run my school, that kind of thing.
But if you listen to that and you take away the words, what you hear, what's really beingsaid to you is, I'm scared for my child.
I'm scared my child won't be able to speak his or her truth and be heard.
And so there's a lot you can unpack there.
(29:19):
From a sentence that didn't say that, you can hear emotion.
and anxiety and be the person who says, okay, I hear you.
What I think you're actually telling me is that you're worried that if I talk to yourchild when you're not here, something will happen that you won't be able to fix.
(29:41):
And a parent will say, yes, that's exactly right.
Okay, let's solve that problem then.
We're not gonna solve the problem of whether or not I'm gonna call you every time I talkto your kid.
We're gonna solve the problem that's really in front of us.
And for people facing their own headwinds, which could be similar to the example you justshared, what's one thing you would recommend people do to keep moving forward despite that
(30:03):
storm?
Well, I think this is the oldest advice in the book.
It came from my grandparents and their grandparents probably, is when there's adversity,you just do the next right thing.
And that's a commonly used phrase in the recovery community, but also in a lot of otherareas.
(30:25):
And that is, when you don't know what to do, just do the next right thing.
And maybe that's just get up and brush your teeth and.
put your work clothes on.
Or maybe it is find someone to be kind to.
Maybe it is getting, you know, tackling a stack of to-dos that you've been putting off.
Whatever the next right thing is, if you do it, you will feel, you will start to getmomentum.
(30:47):
You'll feel glad for yourself and glad for the impact that your decision had on the world.
And it will help you get going in the right direction.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
And speaking of the next right thing, it is time to segue away from our air element andtalking about the adversity and go to the next right thing, which is our water element
(31:09):
talking about change.
Small shifts, big waves, this is ripples of change where we dive into the power ofembracing change and making waves that last.
So Jen, what's a recent change that you have had to embrace or lead?
(31:35):
Well, I have so many, I have so many because it is a time of great change in education.
There are a lot of changes in legislation.
There are a lot of changes in curriculum and a lot of cries for help from educators aboutstudent mental health and support through the community.
(31:56):
but let me get to your question.
A recent change that I have been part of was the implementation of a program providingmore
social workers in our schools.
And there is no doubt that this is much needed.
It is a program and a process that will provide more mental health support for studentsand families.
(32:18):
The problem is it's very expensive.
And no one wants to pay for schools these days.
In the US, the funding system varies by state.
by all measures, it's problematic.
And so when you move to solve a problem, it creates a problem in another area.
(32:39):
And so that's been something I'm part of.
Another one that I'm part of and probably is more relatable to all your listenership isthe implementation of large-scale curriculum programs.
In my district and in our state, we were given a mandate from the state, and that was toimplement a phonics-based literacy program.
(33:02):
And the reason this was, this is a challenge is I think if you lined up a thousand peopleand asked what they thought about it, you would get a thousand different answers.
And all of their answers will root back to their own reading experience.
Learning to read is an emotional and intimate process.
And everyone thinks they know how it should be done because it happened to them once.
(33:26):
And you have to, I had to be able to
tease through all those and then for lack of a better analogy, put them aside and thinkabout what we needed to do for the student sitting in front of us.
And speaking of that with implementing a new phonics based curriculum, implementing changeoften comes down to two key moments.
(33:48):
The first step that you take in the final move that makes it stick.
What was your first step and are you at that last step?
We are, yes, we are at that last step.
So the first step for me personally was realizing this was going to happen, it was goingto be a mandate, and I had a choice, fight it or embrace it.
(34:09):
And this goes back to the original grounding quote where if there's not a solution, inthis case, ignoring the mandate, then it's not a problem, it's a fact.
And so I wasn't able to ignore it.
Okay, great, let's move forward.
Then I had to tease out my own bias.
I had been trained as a literacy expert.
(34:29):
I thought I knew exactly what I believed in, how we should teach all of the nation'schildren.
But the fact was millions of people were weighing in on this.
And the decision had been made.
And so I had to get on board and figure out how my own personal understanding aboutliteracy instruction fit with the mandate.
(34:52):
And I found it did.
I found it really did.
I expected to have kind of a mea culpa moment where I had done some damage or I had beenso wrong or been so right or whatever.
But I found that at the end of the day, you just want kids to be able to read and you wantthem to love reading and you want them to be able to both understand how language is built
(35:16):
letter by letter and have students love doing it.
And all of those things can live together.
At the same time, and I think this is important for all educators to understand, literacyis changing because the world in which literacy lives is changing.
There have been studies that say that children and adults read 100,000 words a day,100,000 words a day, but they are in, you know, 150 words at a time or 15 words at a time.
(35:49):
We're not, people aren't sitting down and reading long books.
Now I can sit here and really cry about that because I think it's important we read books,long books, the grapes of wrath, you know, to kill a mockingbird, to read all of those,
but it's not happening in many cases.
So I can be mad about that and pout about it and talk about how this next generation isgoing to ruin everything.
(36:09):
Or I can believe as I do that the world is going to change and, we have to ride the wavewith it.
I love that you threw that in there, have to ride the wave with it.
And it's even more powerful that your answer brought it back to your earth element,brought it back to your air element on adversity.
(36:30):
And that whole idea about you can choose to fight it or you can choose to embrace it.
And neither one could be a good choice or a bad choice.
It depends what you're gonna root the value in behind it.
Because if you chose to fight it,
people are gonna ask you why.
Why are you choosing to fight this?
And you need to have that rooted in something other than just it's different, right?
(36:51):
And so the result is we're going to embrace this.
Why?
Well, because this is something that I can actually see myself supporting other people inand helping them lead and helping them grow and helping them develop and create these
things.
That's the beauty of our job is we get the ability to try to make people excited aboutchange instead of fearing it, which is something that you did.
(37:12):
when that change came to you, might've said, whoa, this is big, but how can I make itwork?
which brings it to, know, that change can either create positive momentum or unexpectedsetbacks.
What was a ripple effect you maybe didn't see coming?
And it can be from a different story.
Well, I'm going to merge several situations together.
(37:34):
And that is the ability to ask yourself, well, wait, maybe I'm wrong.
That's really powerful, right?
We are hardwired as children to go into the world with confidence and identity andconvictions.
And we are hardwired to fight back if those are challenged.
(37:57):
But I find that when I pause and entertain the idea that I might be wrong or I might nothave all the information, that pause can be monumental.
If I barge forward and assume that I'm right and my job is to convince everyone else whyI'm right and they're wrong, I not only lose respect, but I waste a lot of time.
(38:23):
That question, you know,
wait, maybe I'm wrong or maybe I don't have all the information I need can open up many,many, many opportunities for growth.
So, you know, I think about all the times where I have been given some information and Ithink, well, I know exactly what this is.
(38:45):
And if I pause and say, well, wait, do you?
Then that just gives me not only humility, but
a much clearer lens.
It's like cleaning off your glasses.
You think, well, now I can see because you, you've asked yourself to, be more humble and,to find the places you don't actually know what you're talking about.
(39:07):
Absolutely, and people often worry that change won't last.
So with all of that, what's one thing you did to make sure that this change became a partof culture rather than just a trend?
Right.
That is so true.
That is a, it is a fair outcry from many educators, which is, you know, this is a flash inthe pan.
(39:27):
It's going to go away.
I've seen this before and I've said those things and I think they're true.
You know, I've, I say often education is a pendulum.
It goes here, it goes back, it goes here, it goes back.
And, where I feel like I am right now is accepting that pendulum.
(39:48):
except that it's going to continue to swing and not be mad about that.
It doesn't mean that it's wrong.
So here's just one silly, silly little example that I have seen happen multiple times.
there's, well, let's just talk about, about history and education.
There's, I actually wrote my dissertation on this, that education trends are a response toa nation's anxiety.
(40:14):
And if we think about that, we think about times in history where things have been really,really bad or really, really uncertain.
And when that happens, everyone as a society looks to the schools because the instinct isfix this for the next generation.
And so then the microscope goes on the schools.
We saw this in COVID.
COVID was a problem.
(40:34):
People felt uncertain and unsafe.
And so they looked at schools.
What are the schools doing?
they're doing it wrong, why is this school closing and that school's not?
And all the energy anxiety was targeted at schools.
And so at that time, it was easy to think that the changes we were making were going tofundamentally change school.
(40:58):
We came out of it and realized that isn't actually true.
People go back to what's comfortable and what works or what they thought worked.
And
a lot of the changes that we have implemented during and coming out of COVID are beingcalled flashes in the pan, know, this isn't going to last, but it's up to the leader to
(41:20):
say, well, what does need to stay?
What changes do we need to make?
And then, and this is the critical part, is revisiting those, talking about them, shiningthe light on them, letting go of things that we don't need to hang on to anymore and being
very clear and transparent about that.
know, things like, don't, we're not, that's not where we are anymore.
We're moving forward.
(41:41):
So I realize that's really vague.
I could dig more into it if we have more time, but as a leader, it is identifying trulythe direction you want to go and continuing to revisit.
And the most important part of that is if you want something to stick, it needs to be doneconsistently.
That doesn't necessarily mean every day, but you and the team that you're trying to workwith, there needs to be an active intent that it's going to be revisited.
(42:10):
It's going to continually be talked about.
And it's even more powerful if it's not just the one leader in the room.
continually bringing it up, if you can get to a point where the people around you arebringing it up, now you know you've started to put something into culture, right?
So something as simple as when you have a gathering, are you all sitting together or issomebody off in the corner or what does that look like?
(42:33):
If you consistently make a point of saying, when we gather, we sit together, your team,you'll know when it's a part of culture, when your team starts to acknowledge that you're
sitting together.
or when somebody doesn't or somebody's new, and for the first time they're told as a team,when we meet, we sit together, right?
Something as simple as that.
That's just a minor example, but segueing from minor example to maybe something bigger,we're gonna transition here from our water element on change to our fire element, which
(43:05):
talks about the decision-making process.
Ignite your ideas and face the flames.
This is Spark or Burn, where we talk about bold decisions, big risks, and the fires thateither spark success or burn lessons into our memory.
(43:25):
So Jen, can you tell us about a time when you made a bold leadership decision or took amajor risk?
And what was the spark behind it that made you say, I have to go for this?
Right, well that's a, I'm actually going to talk about a personal example here, but itdoes tie very much professionally.
And I love, let me tell you why I love this question, because not only the metaphor offire and of burning something, but out of ashes comes new growth.
(43:54):
And this wasn't burning something down, but it did certainly light a spark.
And that was the decision to pursue
doctorate for myself.
Now that sounds very navel-gazing, sounds like I'm just talking about how great I am, butI'm telling you this was a tough, tough decision because I do like learning, but I was at
(44:17):
the time really perhaps overextended, but I decided to take the risk and I thought, well,you know, the worst case is this doesn't work and I can't do it.
I just can't do it, which to me would be a pretty significant reckoning with myself.
Now here's why I think it was important that I did.
I went into this wanting to get a degree, three letters after my name.
(44:39):
What I found was the learning at that point in my career, I was more ready than ever tolearn what from others.
And what I learned was about schools and about the history of education and why thesystems and structures are in place.
And what came out of that was,
(45:00):
a fundamental change in the way I look at things.
I have spent my career saying, it's all about the people, people first.
Take care of the people, everything else will follow.
Now, I do believe that to be true, but not completely.
I believe that people can fail if there are not the right systems in place, if there arenot the right structures in place.
(45:20):
And so here's a great example.
You could have an amazing principle, the best people-driven
thoughtful, empathetic, compassionate, knowledgeable, educated principal on earth leadinga school.
But if there's not, for example, support from district leadership, if there is a tendencyof kids to be nasty and unkind to each other and there's no system to fix that, if there's
(45:49):
not culture, that principal, that amazing principal is going to burn out, feel small and
un-incapable and leave.
so systems actually, I have come to see Trump people because people need systems to exceland grow within them.
(46:10):
There are many in the US, for example, there are some horrific passive things that havehappened in housing decisions decades ago that have enormous implications on how there is
an imbalance of wealth and opportunity
within our school systems.
I didn't really understand that until I took this risk, lit the spark, if you will, andopened up the space for me to learn about it.
(46:38):
And that has made me a much more well-rounded leader and human being, I believe.
And this is relevant because we're talking about education and I hope people listeningthat aren't in education are pulling something from this too.
The idea we frequently say, are we a system of schools or are we a school system?
(46:59):
And when you become a school system or an organization system instead of a system oforganizations, then that's when you can start to create that alignment.
And you know what?
You're so right on the doctorate.
I'm in mine right now and the best
part of being in it has been the connections that I get to make with the people along theway of going through it.
(47:22):
I went into it wanting to learn, wanting to grow.
You know, the three letters that go at the end are not as cool as the two letters that getto go at the front after as well, they say.
So there's some motivation on that side for sure.
But a big part of it was I wanted to do the best that I could do to do the best for othersbecause I'm very rooted in wanting to
(47:43):
to do service and wanting to help and wanting to see people grow because I value love,value generosity, I value empathy, right?
Which are probably very similar things that you value as well, which is what's led you tothe position you're at.
Now, my question for you is this might not work here because we're talking about adoctorate, but what was at stake for you?
And maybe it will.
What was at stake for you if it didn't work out?
(48:06):
Did it feel like an all or nothing moment?
Yes.
that's such a great question.
I remember taking a walk with my husband.
said, Hey, I think I want to do this.
And he outlined all the reasons.
was a terrible idea.
And it was financially.
It seemed like a terrible idea.
The time my kids were little, they weren't little.
They were, you know, middle school.
He's like, how are you going to do this?
(48:26):
And I said, I don't know, but I really want to.
And he said, great, we're in, let's do it.
And you know, the fact that he was willing to look at it as a team, as a family decision,
was certainly helpful, but it was something I don't think I would have been able to letgo.
It was just in me.
And I have a couple of friends that have said to me, oh, just would never even, thoughtwouldn't occur to me, which to me tells me it was a very personalized and personal
(48:54):
decision to do it.
And I'm so grateful I did.
It wasn't in the end about the letters attached to my name.
It wasn't about the opportunities that would or would not come.
It was about the way I...
I challenged my own belief systems.
And back to the importance of systems, just a quick example, and this kind of ties to whatyou said.
(49:16):
I had spent two decades saying, as a principal, you hire good people and get out of theirway, and everything will be fine.
No, you hire good people and then you support them.
You have a system where new people get the information and the structural organizationthat they need to excel.
Both have to be true.
And so to make a decision to educate yourself, whether it's going to cause financial andtime constraints, you have to decide whether that value is there.
(49:49):
And for me, it really was.
It isn't for everybody.
This is certainly a question about my own spark and burn, right?
But I guess what I'm saying to listeners is whatever your thing is, whatever that burn inyour belly is,
Whether it's to go on a trip or to learn a new skill or to rest more, whatever it is,you've got to acknowledge that voice inside of you because it usually means there's
(50:15):
something, there's a rock that needs lifted and you gotta see what's under it.
And I love that we've spent so much time talking about, you know, grounded elements andheadwinds and tailwinds, and we're rooting everything back to our values and what we stand
for.
And we asked the question, why did you choose to do it?
And you said, I just really want to, right?
I love that.
You know, and sometimes that's so true.
(50:37):
And, and what we don't realize is one of, one of my most powerful yet annoying things todo to people, it's called the five whys.
And it's just repetitively asking why, right?
So if your response to me was, just really want to, I would have kept hounding you withwhys until we got to a value of something that said, this is the route that's going to
(50:58):
actually hold it through.
And you know, my kids are both under three right now, but I foresee I'm going to be themost annoying dad because I know when they're older and they want something, I'm going to
ask them why repetitively until we get to a value, because I want to know that the thingthey want is something that's going to genuinely stick around as well.
when it comes to all of that.
(51:19):
And your last segment here talking about bold decisions, you know, they can beintimidating deciding to do this.
That's a very intimidating choice.
And that's why you have conversations about it.
How would you encourage the audience to build that risk taking muscle?
Well, I'm going to tie to what you just said, actually.
When we ask why, that's such a strong question, but we have to be very, very careful thatthe answer isn't rejected, that we don't reject the answer because it doesn't align with
(51:51):
our why.
So this is a silly little example, but it reminds me, like I've always been a runner.
And I remember clearly my parents saying to once, why?
And my brother saying, I don't run unless someone's chasing me.
Why would you run?
And so when I, my answers would, would have fallen on deaf ears for them.
but, but they, my family would be like, well, okay, I hear your why I hear it's yourvalue, not necessarily mine at all.
(52:18):
seems absolutely bananas to me, but, okay.
It's a Y it's a value for you.
And so, you know, I tell, I say all of that because I think it's so easy to want to putother people in the boxes we've created.
And sometimes an answer like, because I want to, or because I feel like it's important,can be a very strong value.
(52:40):
And that's why making bold decisions, as long as they don't hurt other people or they'reirresponsible, I think a why can be just what it is.
which is so great to hear and to reinforce and to put out there.
I don't have a clip or a segment for this last section, so I should probably look atmaking one.
(53:03):
But as we wrap up with the elements, one of the things that I wanted to embed into all ofmy shows is listener questions.
And without any audio, without any little jingle here, maybe I'll go manually add one inafter the show.
You know what?
No, it's raw.
We're gonna do it here.
Listener questions, you asked, we're answering.
It's time for listener questions.
I put it out on my social media for anybody that wanted to connect with whoever I'm on theshow with next.
(53:28):
They have no clue who was coming up next.
And I just said, if you have a question that you would like us to ask and bring up anddiscuss, send it my way and I'll bring it up to the table here.
So with that, we have to set the premise that some of these questions might not have ananswer.
So we'll see where they go.
Okay, so let me...
(53:51):
How do we overcome the problems in education when it comes to disengaged kids and parents?
Well, that's a big one.
That's a whole show, my friend.
But what I hear, again, remember I talked about stripping behind, stripping the words andgetting to the real problem.
So an easy answer would be put some parent engagement nights, have your teachers reach outmore, send a newsletter through S'more.
(54:18):
It's really pretty.
That's not the question that's being asked here.
The question that's being asked here is from someone who's frustrated because they feellike they're working alone or a school that's frustrated because they feel like they're
working alone.
But
Let me tie this back to the quote.
If there's not a solution, it's not a problem, it's just a fact.
If you're working in a school where parents can't, and I'm very carefully not using theword won't, they can't engage at the level you want them to.
(54:48):
Stop gnashing your teeth and banging your head against the wall.
By trying to guilt trip parents or students into being engaged at a different level isjust going to cause confusion.
So I would urge this listener to say, what do you, what do you really want?
Do you want more people at your back to parent nights?
Okay.
(55:09):
That's a goal.
Get some people together and think about how to do that.
But people might not be coming because they don't see value in it.
So how are you going to bring value?
take away the quick fixes, take away the, personal insult that you feel every time itdoesn't.
(55:29):
engagement doesn't meet your expectations and think about what it is that your parents andstudents do have the capacity to give and how you can make it match with what you think is
best for the kids.
And if the question is intended from a way of not so much engagement by physically beingin the building, but supporting things that you're trying to do in your classroom by
(55:50):
actioning them at home, that's a whole nother level to unpack.
And like you said yourself, this can be an entire show.
We could do an entire episode.
We could do an entire season talking about engagement of parents and engagement ofcommunity and engagement of kids.
I would lean to the side of you need to lean on your team as well.
And we talk about, you know, we talked about it earlier, that idea of consistency.
(56:14):
It needs to be consistently stated, not just from a classroom teacher, but from aleadership team, from all classroom teachers and from kids coming home.
You need to get that buy in where this is something important.
I need your help with this.
And follow through.
I often hear, you know, I really, I really struggle with X, Y and Zed.
(56:35):
Have you talked to X, Y, Zed?
And the answer is no.
And if it is, yes, it's when was the last time and it turns out it was a month and a halfago and we need to revisit that conversation.
So it's the consistency.
Right.
And I know we're running short on time.
I don't want to bore listeners, but I'm thinking about a conversation I had with a teacher10 years ago or so.
And this is under the umbrella of be careful what you wish for.
(56:56):
This teacher was so mad.
She's like, my, have 30 kids in my class.
16 parents haven't even looked at the report card.
They haven't even logged in.
And I said, great, let's get them to log in.
So she hosted something, I think it got them in, got them all in.
Well, guess what?
Then they logged in and then they were all over her.
Cause why haven't you updated grades?
I know you had a test two hours ago.
(57:17):
Why isn't the grade in there?
So then she's created a whole different problem.
Micro managing parents, right?
They wanted to know, she had trained them to worry and be anxious about every singlehomework grade.
Then she had a different problem on her hands.
So we have to be very thoughtful.
And this is where your point about bringing a team together.
(57:38):
What do we really want here?
We're so mad about something we're seeing.
Is that really what we're frustrated about?
you know, what, what is our intended outcome?
And let's talk about it.
Let's not just be a one man show trying to identify and solve that problem.
And went so deep into that question that I wish I had time to do more and unfortunately,no, it's okay.
(58:01):
I love it.
It's so good.
We don't have the time because we're already getting close to the hour episode here.
So I'm gonna save a few of my other listener questions for my next ones.
I have another interview tomorrow.
So it's good timing that I get to bring another one up.
What I'll do with these, think, is I'll leave them on the show for the audience.
but I'm also going to clip it and send it to the person that asked the question so theyget the answer specifically.
(58:23):
So please know that if you are listening and you do have questions, this is a momentthat's dedicated for us to collaborate without you being the direct brunt of the show
coming in and having that conversation.
Sometimes it's nice to just hear an external conversation.
And with that, Jen, it has been such a pleasure connecting with you.
How can our audience connect more?
(58:44):
Absolutely, absolutely.
They can get to go to my website at jenschwanke.com.
There's a way there that you can fill out a form and email me and you can also follow meon LinkedIn and Instagram and Twitter and I will be in Winnipeg this summer at presenting
at a conference.
So please come and see me actually not this summer.
(59:06):
I think it's May.
So I've had the privilege of coming to Canada the last three summers and working withschool groups and
every time my husband's nervous because I always want to move there and stay.
find it beautiful and the people just so incredibly lovely.
yeah, find me there.
And I just want to thank you, Tyler.
It's been so fun.
I love talking about this stuff.
(59:27):
And I have to bite my tongue whenever we talk about Winnipeg, because I'm a diehardWinnipeg Jets fan.
I love hockey.
I love the NHL.
That's my team.
So I'm going to leave it at that and say we're first in the league at the point of thispodcast.
I hope I didn't jinx it and see where we're going from there.
But you know what, alchemists, as we wrap up our episode, I want to take a moment andshare my appreciation for your listenership.
You're the reason we're here.
You're the inspiration for the show.
(59:48):
And I hope that our journey today sparked some points of interest for you.
To dive deeper, make sure that you should.
To dive deeper, make sure you subscribe to our monthly newsletter for scholarly insights,actionable strategies, and in-depth analysis of each episode.
Just reach out in our Instagram DMs for a link.
And Jen, thank you so much again for taking time out of your schedule to connect,collaborate, and empower us all through your lived experiences.
(01:00:12):
Anytime, anytime and best wishes to all of you and hope to see you all at some point alongthe way.
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