May 24, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, I'm incredibly excited to be joined by two amazing people: my fantastic co-host, Jenn David-Lang, who's also stepping in as a guest today, and the one and only Kim Marshall! We're diving into a topic that feels more important than ever right now: supporting new teachers. It's something I'm seeing firsthand as my daughter navigates her first year teaching, and believe me, it's a challenge.
That's why we're shining a spotlight on the brand-new, absolutely invaluable section on the bestofmarshallmemo.org website. Jenn and Kim have curated the most powerful, practical insights from thousands of articles specifically to help new educators, and the best part? It's all available for free!
We get into the nitty-gritty of what new teachers really need to succeed. We discuss everything from crucial steps like onboarding and thoughtful scheduling to helping new teachers build resilience, tackle tough classroom management situations, and the vital role of teacher teams in combating isolation. My biggest hope is that the resources we discuss will help these dedicated new teachers, who face such immense challenges, not just get through their first years, but truly thrive and make a lasting career in this essential profession.
Don't miss this conversation—and seriously, go check out the free resources at bestofmarshallmemo.org!
Thank you for tuning in! If you have questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes—including great non-education books with lessons for school leaders—email us at Dr.mike.doughty@gmail.com. Please consider leaving a rating and review on Spotify or iTunes to support the show. Every bit helps! And if you found this episode helpful, share it with your colleagues.
Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Contact Mike directly at Dr.mike.doughty@gmail.com. To explore insightful summaries of top leadership books, connect with Jenn David-Lang at Jenn@TheMainIdea.net or visit TheMainIdea.net.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Mike Doughty (00:07):
Welcome back, everybody to The School Leadership Show.
Trying something new here today.
Little little, little.
Video.
Action.
Hi Jenn.
Jenn David-Lang (00:15):
Hi Mike.
I'm here as Cobos today.
Also two new things.
Dr. Mike Doughty (00:19):
Two new things, and we also have with us.
Many of you might recognize Kim Marshall.
How you doing, Kim?
Very good.
We, we never get totalk and see each other.
I just send you audio recordingsof my voice every week.
So along with the cool jazz, the cool Jthat was a great suggestion, by the way.
For those of you who don't listento the audio version of the
(00:40):
Marshall Memo, well that's on you.
That's your problem.
But you should.
All right.
So we have, so Jenn and I have Kimhere for a really special reason.
Jen.
Jenn, you wanna talk aboutwhat we're doing here today?
Jenn David-Lang (00:53):
Sure.
Oh, so now I'm both co-hostand I'm also guests.
Dr. Mike Doughty (00:57):
Yeah.
So.
Jenn David-Lang (00:57):
Alright.
Um, well, Kim and I, a few years back, um,he graciously invited me on to co-write
a couple of books best of Marshall Memobooks where we chose some of the topics
that school leaders care the most about.
And we comb through thousands ofarticles in his archives to find the
best 10 to 15 articles on each topic.
(01:19):
And we put them into books.
And books are great.
You know, I love books.
Um, but you can't justadd a chapter onto a book.
So we are fortunate to get a grantto put all of that content up onto a
website, best of marshall memo.org.
So now it's all available for free.
But it's also, we canchange and we can add to it.
So, um, I don't know howmany chapters we have.
(01:40):
Kim, do you know how many
Kim Marshall (01:42):
now?
We have 25.
Jenn David-Lang (01:44):
25.
And so just this month weare uploading a new chapter.
Kim suggested that we focus on the topicof supporting new teachers because it is.
So important, and it's alsotimely this time of year.
You gotta think about how you'regoing to support and onboard
and welcome your new teachers.
Uh, now, right now we're recordingthis in May, but when you welcome your
(02:07):
teachers back in August and September.
So we're here today to talk about this newchapter, which will be uploaded shortly.
Dr. Mike Doughty (02:13):
And I have, I have a dog in this fight because Jenn knows,
uh, in September, my daughter started herfirst teaching job teaching third grade
at the Rochester School for the Deaf.
So I am watching a first year teacher.
From the other side, so I can'twait for this conversation.
(02:35):
Let's just jump right into it.
So, you know, what were some ofthe, as you were looking through
the best of articles, what weresome of the themes that emerged
related to supporting new teachers?
I.
Kim Marshall (02:47):
One of them was looking back on my own experience, starting
as a sixth grade teacher many yearsago in a Boston public middle school,
and just what a really rough timeI had and how little support I had.
I remember the assistant principalsaying, you got through to February.
Usually February is the hump.
You know, if you could passFebruary, you'll be okay.
Meanwhile, he was not helping mevery much and I was very naive.
(03:09):
And so I just, you know, thinking aboutwhat would've made the difference for
me, I barely survived this first year.
Like what kind ofstructures in the school?
What kind of support?
Of course I wanted to send all themisbehaving kids to the office,
but that's not the solution.
So we hunted around through the archivein all kinds of different categories
like e teaching, discipline, you know,school climate, professional working
(03:30):
conditions, all those things to try tofind the very best articles that would.
The support, uh, you know, a new teacherand, and help them get through that,
what is often a tough first year.
Jenn David-Lang (03:41):
So, yeah.
And then what we do once we gather allthese articles is we sort of organize
them into, into themes so that they are,um, so you could read a chunk of them
together so that, you know, the firstarea is the whole idea of onboarding.
You know, those first few daysand weeks when you're bringing.
The new teachers on as well asprofessional working conditions.
So that was sort of the first group.
(04:02):
So Kim, should we talk aboutsome of the articles in
Kim Marshall (04:05):
the, the first section?
Sure, sure.
Well, there, there's, there's awonderful program which actually was,
uh, implemented at a high school that'sabout a mile away from where I'm right
now, where both of my children went.
Brookline High School.
In Massachusetts, and it was just avery thoughtful way at this point.
This high school was getting25 new teachers a year and they
realized that they really hadto gear up and create a program.
So they put these two teachers onspecial assignment, Margaret Metzker
(04:29):
and Gail Davis, and they just createdthis whole program that involved,
you know, uh, generally remind me ofsome of the things like a monthly,
uh, meeting, uh, classroom visits.
Yeah.
Uh.
Where do I find the Xerox machine?
You know, like where's mykey, all, all kinds of stuff.
From the sublime to the, the mundane.
Jenn David-Lang (04:46):
Yeah.
Can I tease a few of those out?
Because I do think, you know, for ourlisteners, there are great takeaways.
Um, one of them is they havenew teachers observe veteran
teachers, which immediately I.
Not only shows you, okay, hereare some ways to do routines and
procedures and not send all the kidsto the office like Kim was doing.
Uh, no, I was doing that too.
Um, and um, but also buildingrelationships, right?
(05:08):
Because often there's some tensionbetween veteran teachers and our newer
teachers, so that's a great idea.
Um, my one, my favoriteis this monthly seminar.
Um, I tap some of your teacher leaderswho are really strong teachers.
Pay them the stipend and see if youcan get them to meet with your new
teachers once a month or, I, I reallythink once every other week where there
(05:30):
are some topics that you're discussing,whether it's classroom management
or, um, you know, nuts and bolts.
I can't remember, you know, how I ask fora book or, you know, questions like that.
But then also like, let's share somechallenges that we're dealing with.
You know, I've got a, a parent who'sreally difficult or we have parent-teacher
conferences coming up and I don'treally know how to talk to parents.
So I think the monthly seminar,the observing veteran teachers.
(05:54):
Um, and then the other thing is the,the coordinators of this, um, monthly
seminar, uh, Gail Davis and MargaretMedsker, they observe the teachers.
Yes, new teachers, yes, to give feedback,but also to tweak their program to
figure out what are they strugglingwith and what else should we be doing.
So I thought that was brilliant andthey capped it off with an overnight
(06:15):
retreat, not at the end of the year,but when the first quarter grades were
turned in, which I think is a wonderfullittle mini celebration and also bonding.
So there are a lot of great,uh, suggestions there.
Dr. Mike Doughty (06:26):
So let's get this one outta the way.
There's two things wegotta get outta the way.
First there's gonna be the, well,these new teachers, they're so
busy, there's so much to do.
Time, right?
That's the first one.
And then we're talking aboutteachers on special assignments.
So that's an expense.
So what about the people who are saying,well, listen, we can't, we can't put
(06:47):
any more demands on these new teachers'time, and how are we gonna pay for this?
Kim Marshall (06:54):
Hmm.
Well, it is very simple.
You just go to the best of marshallmemo.org website and it's all there.
It's free.
Obviously you wanna findsome funds for this.
Uh, and we're not encouraging bankrobberies or anything like that, but
just, you know, clever use of funds.
But, but again, the beauty of this, ofthis website is that all this sort of very
concrete information is, is right there.
(07:15):
And by the way, another time saver.
Uh, and it's a huge thing with newteachers is of course, using chat,
GBT, uh, you know, getting teachersto make effective use of artificial
intelligence for lesson planning,for, you know, for creating lists
of stuff, for even for addressing.
You know, I've got this third graderwho's confused about this particular
concept and he's interested in,you know, formula One racing.
(07:36):
Give me some ideas and it willdo it, which is pretty amazing.
Jenn David-Lang (07:40):
I also think another way to save time is simply
by having your new teachers meetafter school or during lunch.
You are preventing so many other problems.
So for example, um, there's anarticle here by Paul Bamberg
Santoyo, and he teases out.
Um, what we should beworking on with new teachers.
For the first 90 days, he has onestrand for, you know, rigor and
(08:03):
content, and he has one strand for,you know, classroom management.
And he has, um, whoever issupervising new teachers, uh, slowly
introduce, uh, the different topics.
And so hopefully the thinkingis if you have your rigor and
your classroom management moreunder control, you're saving.
So much time with dealing with,you know, you wake up on November
(08:24):
one and you, you didn't put anyclassroom procedures into play.
So that's one thing for time.
Um, and, uh, yeah.
And also relationships.
Just, you know, broken relationships wherenew teachers don't have anyone to turn to.
And there's a statistic in this,uh, chapter that we put together
where researchers found that11% of first year teachers leave
(08:46):
by the end of the first year.
And 20 to 40% of new teachersleave within the first five years.
So that's a very expensive proposition tolose a teacher and have to replace them.
So that's another way to save money isactually to get your teachers to stay.
Kim Marshall (09:03):
Well, let's jump Yeah, go ahead.
Let's jump ahead to one ofthe other articles, which is
crying in front of your kids.
Uh, so there's this very poignantarticle by Jennifer Gonzalez, uh, when
she was a new middle school teacher.
Uh, you know, things were goinghaywire in the classroom and
somebody, you know, hit somebody else.
And so, you know, just, I mean, thingswere going on and, and she felt like
(09:24):
the tears coming and she fled and, youknow, cried in the, in the ladies' room
while someone else covered her class.
And, and then she had some very practicalstuff about what do you do, you know,
when you feel like you're gonna cryin front of the kids and is that okay?
Uh, and she had had a very specifictechnique, which I will not give away.
You know, for how to handle thatsituation when your gorge is rising.
(09:45):
And, and you just have to, because alot of teachers, maybe they don't fry in
front of the kids, but then they go homeand cry at night and you know, at home.
Uh, and you know, so, so I thinkthere's very practical stuff there too.
And I.
Jenn David-Lang (09:58):
Yeah, if I could step back from what Kim is saying,
you know, so, so in this chapter orsection, it's not really a chapter.
I guess if it's online, there arefour parts and the first two parts are
geared more toward the school leaders.
So school, uh, leaders who are listeningnow, suggestions for structures and
procedures and programs to put inplace to support those new teachers.
And then the second two, uh, sections.
(10:21):
Are really, teachers themselves could readthese and you could pass these along to
them because, you know, imagine being afirst year teacher and perhaps, you know,
welling up and practically crying in frontof the kids, and then having a leader
who's supportive of you saying, you know,here's a couple of articles about what
some, some teachers went through theirfirst year, including teachers who then
became, you know, teacher of the year.
(10:43):
Um, so they're not, they're inspirational,but they're also very practical with some
tips for the new teachers themselves.
Dr. Mike Doughty (10:52):
So can we go back to the leaders?
So let, let's, you know, if, if we'regonna tell, obviously we want the
leaders to take a look at, at, at whatyou've put together and, and curated,
because honestly, that, that iswhere the value is these days, right?
All the information is out there.
The problem is, you know,getting to what you need.
(11:12):
So if we were going to.
You know, provide other takeaways forschool leaders to support this work?
What, what would we tell them?
Kim Marshall (11:23):
I would go straight to the issue of scheduling, uh, you know,
scheduling the, the third grade teachers.
I hope your daughter's team of thirdgrade teachers has a meeting time.
And you know, I was just talking to ateacher the other day who says, I never
have time to meet, which is ridiculous.
So getting same subject,same, same grade level.
I. You know, teachers, algebra teachers,whoever it is, you know, the time to meet
during the school day, uh, you know, then,and being able to put their heads together
(11:47):
and then creating the PLC environment.
You know, PLC is sort of an overused term,but you know, where teachers who teach
the same subject, whether it's, you know,Shakespeare plays or whether it's, you
know, world history or whether it's, uh,you know, the Holocaust or whatever it is,
you know, they, they, they have time toput their heads together and say, Jenn.
You know, your kids did better atthat part of the quiz we gave, or the
(12:08):
essay we wrote, or the artwork we did.
What did you do?
And teachers begin to share likethat, like, so the structure of the
meetings is just, I discovered as aprincipal, I mean the schedule's the most
powerful document in the whole school.
I.
Dr. Mike Doughty (12:19):
Well for scheduling too.
I remember as an elementary schoolprincipal and starting in a building,
I had already been a principal.
I started in a a different building,changed districts, and the sch, the
master schedule, it was K five buildingand the master schedule was built
around the special area teachers.
In fact, it was a group of specialarea teachers whose job it had
(12:40):
become to create the master schedule.
So you can imagine what that was like.
You know, the music teacher got to have.
All the first graders on one day andall the second graders on another
day, and then what does that do?
That eliminates the possibilityof common planning time.
And I remember, I remember it being sucha, not a fight, but it, it was a struggle
(13:01):
to get people to change their mindsetaround, no, we need to prioritize teachers
being able to meet during the school day.
Because I think there's this belief onthe part of some administrators that,
wow, we don't need to build it in.
If they wanna meet, they'll do it anyway.
Right.
Right.
Kim Marshall (13:15):
Absolutely not.
But then from the point of view of thespecialist teacher, of course that means
that I now have a first grade class,first period, then I have a fifth grade
class, then I have a second grade class.
Then I, so I mean, you can see why theywanted to do that, but you know, in
scheduling, you know, no one has ever,you, you never satisfy all the people.
All the time.
And so, so you gotta do kind of an aLincoln thing there, but it sounds like
(13:38):
you got your hands around that one.
Dr. Mike Doughty (13:39):
Well, yeah, you have, sometimes you have to split the
baby and it, and it, and it worked.
Right.
You can, you can find a balance there.
Maybe it's not plant commonplanning time every day.
Maybe it's three days a week.
So I think, I think the messagehere is, is for, like you said,
Kim, the, the master schedule is.
Is the holy grail of being ableto, to do any of this work.
(14:02):
And I think sometimes it just takesa second to, takes people a second
just to look at it in a different way.
Mm-hmm.
Jenn David-Lang (14:09):
And also, the other mindset change is I.
When you're working on the schedule as away to support your new teachers, that's
a structural thing for the whole year.
And I think sometimes when we thinkabout new teachers, we think about,
oh, a few days before the kids come,we're gonna have a special meeting with
the new teachers to give them theirkeys and tell them their password.
Right?
Walk them around the building.
(14:29):
But that is just.
It's the tip of the iceberg that if wewant our teachers to stay for the year and
beyond, we need to think about support asnot a one and done thing, not a few days
before, even a few days into the year.
So scheduling is a way to think aboutit for, you know, for for the year.
So I think there are otherlarger structural, um.
(14:52):
Changes that you canmake to to think about.
You know, think about the PD thatyou provide throughout the year.
Is any of it targetedfor first year teachers?
Sometimes we focus a lot on,oh, let's do lots of PD on ai.
Everyone's talking about ai,but as a first year teacher.
You may not know the first thingabout, um, you know, organizing
(15:13):
students into groups, right?
Or lining them up to go to lunch.
And so sometimes there's this leap.
So are we providing targetedPD throughout the year?
Um, so, so there areother changes like that.
Um, we might have coinstructional coaches.
Let's say you have a group ofinstructional coaches who are coaching
a wide range of your teachers.
Well.
(15:33):
Do we wanna pick people specifically whohave expertise and can work with first
year teachers or second year teachers?
And are you just like, I mean, Iremember when I was coaching first
year teachers and the principal neversupervised me or checked in with me.
So given these high rates of teacherturnover, maybe as a school leader,
you wanna spend more time overseeingor meeting with your instructional
(15:53):
coaches or your mentors who areworking with your first year teachers.
So just, we have to start thinkingabout it as like a, a year.
You know, a several year commitmentto supporting these new teachers.
Kim Marshall (16:05):
One of the other articles deals with the question of whether, uh,
you know, administrators are sort ofcoddling the not so good teachers in the
school and keeping them on and, and notactually getting some people to exit the
school to make room for, for fresh blood.
You know, like your daughter, likeother good, good new teachers who
bring fresh energy and so forth.
(16:25):
'cause that's one of the best thingsabout new teachers is the energy.
You know, they have the energy, they havethe ideals in idealism in many cases.
And so.
That's a tough article to read, but,you know, we, we deliberately looked
for articles that were very, sortof hard hitting and practical for
administrators as well as for teachers.
And by the way, one of the featuresof the, of the website is, uh, you
know, once you get into the bestemotional memo website and look at
(16:47):
this particular, uh, section, is youactually have access to all the other.
24 chapters two, and oneof them is on scheduling.
And so, you know, you can go to thatsection and see, oh my gosh, there's all
these ideas about block scheduling andother things, and what are the trade-offs?
And so, so you have, you have the keysto all the other things, you know,
making learning stick, uh, you know,curriculum, unit planning, all those
(17:08):
things that a, the administrator mightwant to, you know, direct teachers
toward her, look at themselves.
Dr. Mike Doughty (17:13):
And, and I think even with approaching it with some
intentionality too, you know, I remember,and Kim, you probably remember as a
principal too, you know, there were,there were times where I can look back
and think about some faculty meetingsthat were really great, really well
organized, and I can think of some that I.
You know, five minutes beforethe meeting I was thinking,
what am I gonna do in here?
So, you know, even, you know, eventhinking about it like a classroom, right?
(17:36):
You know, if you're, depending onwhat you're doing in that faculty
meeting, maybe you group the teacherskind of by experience and put the
more experienced ones together.
Maybe you do heterogeneousgroups sometime.
You know, I think even just thinking aboutit in terms of the adult learning of.
The staff in the building.
Mm-hmm.
Jenn David-Lang (17:54):
And to differentiate the, the learning, the same way teachers
are differentiating the students.
When Kim was talking about, you know,some of the, the best teachers, the
most highly effective teachers areleaving, you might think, well, how
would I even know if a first yearteacher is going to be highly effective?
And Kim asked me earlier, justtoday, we were meeting about
something else, and he said, youknow how, how can you tell, right.
(18:16):
You know, if a teacher'sstruggling and it's October.
And I said to him.
I think I would look at two areas.
You know, I would look at how, howwell are they responding to feedback?
Right.
You know, are they, it's not thattheir skill is so different in October
than it was in September, right?
But it's, are they, are they attemptingto incorporate feedback, learn from the
(18:38):
feedback, learn from their peers, learnonline so that they can make some changes.
And then the other part I thinkis relationships with students.
You know, are they, do they have amindset where they, a growth mindset about
their students and do, are they reallybuilding and forging those relationships?
And what I would say, um, one of thearticles, the article about effective
(18:59):
teachers leaving, there's this verypainful quote where a highly effective
elementary teacher who was leaving said,if he, the principal would've said,
what's it gonna take for me to get you to.
Stay.
That's all he had to do.
And what I would suggest, I haveoften suggested that school leaders
hold stay interviews rather thanexit interviews with their teachers.
(19:23):
You know, around March, you know,saying, I value you, I want you to stay.
But for new teachers, I read ina different book, and Harry Wong
All and Rosemary Wong have abook about new teacher induction.
And they say those interviewsshould happen in October and.
In November, not because a teacher isa fully formed professional by October,
(19:44):
November, but if you have a sense, thisis a teacher who I want to stay, then
you can let them know and you can alsofind out then what are your biggest
struggles, you know, oh, you're reallystruggling with work-life management.
Okay, we could do something about that.
Or, oh, you're really strugglingwith which discipline issues to deal
in the, within the classroom andwhich to send off to the office.
(20:05):
We can deal with that.
So find out, or.
Who you think are your new teacherswho you'd like to stay, have these
interviews where you ask them, youtell them, I would like you to stay.
What's it gonna take?
How can I support you?
And then do something about it.
Kim Marshall (20:18):
I was in a large school in Minnesota earlier this year, and
they were having a ceremony wherethey, the whole faculty was in this
large room and they were callingteachers up, uh, in groups, uh, uh, uh,
around their longevity in the school.
And the final guy who was calledup had been there for 45 years and,
you know, got this standing ovation.
And thinking back, I mean, probably,you know, what's the difference
(20:40):
between a teacher who will stay along time and a teacher who will quit?
At Christmas of that year.
And often it's that question,you know, what would it take?
Getting in there, giving them support.
And there's this myth that weshould leave the new teachers alone
and we'll get a, freak them outif we come into their classrooms.
No, uh, we get in there a lotinformally, you know, not with a
laptop or the pad of paper, thechecklist, but getting in there and just
(21:01):
watching, giving them encouragement.
I remember a teacher in room 12 in ourschool who had that, uh, uh, the uppe
at, at the end of every sentence, youknow, that it went up, you know, so she
sounded so tentative with her secondgraders and I said, no, you're in charge.
You may be 22 years old, but you'rejust a little piece of advice like
that can make all the difference.
Dr. Mike Doughty (21:19):
Well, and I think too, and from what we know
about the generations that areentering the workforce right now,
they want feedback and, and Ithink we ignore that at our peril.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Uh, in my day, I didn't want
Kim Marshall (21:32):
feedback.
No, I, no, I was good, but I needed it.
Same.
Yeah.
Jenn David-Lang (21:40):
And it was a different time, right?
People weren't coming inand watching us teach.
Right.
That wasn't the norm.
We hadn't yet had a Kim Marshallwith, you know, his mini observation.
So it just was not happening.
Kim Marshall (21:51):
Hmm.
Yeah.
The lead quote in today's Marshallmemo is from John King, who
just published an amazing book,uh, called Teacher to Teacher.
And, uh, he, he talked about how at theage of 12 both of his parents had died
and he was, you know, bouncing from familymember to family member in New York City
and, and really about to go over to, uh,you know, some really not so good stuff.
(22:12):
And he talks about the teacherswho literally saved his life.
Uh, it's a very moving book.
I dunno if either of you haveseen this, just came out.
Uh, and, uh, he is, uh, he's amazing.
I've seen him
Dr. Mike Doughty (22:21):
tell the story
Kim Marshall (22:22):
and
Dr. Mike Doughty (22:23):
Oh, and it, it, it's super, super powerful from when
he was commissioner in New York.
Right, right, right.
Yeah.
So in terms of, so we'vetalked about what we can do.
I. Kind of for the administrators,or at least what we want the
administrators to focus on.
And I think it shouldn't belost that, you know, people take
(22:43):
jobs for a variety of reasons.
You know, money, status, opportunity.
But people leave jobs typically for onereason and it's usually their supervisor.
Yep.
So I think it focusing on what theleaders can do is, is really, really big.
But then, you know, in terms of the.
(23:04):
What a new teacher might gainfrom exploring some of the
work that you've curated.
What, what's the hope there?
I.
Jenn David-Lang (23:15):
Well, the articles are very different, so there's lots of
different pieces from different people.
But, um, you know, in one piece thereis reference to Elena Aguilar's book
about building resilience and thereare 12 ways of building resilience,
and that's probably another indicatorof whether teachers will stay, is,
you know, do they have the skills todeal with the job that we all know is.
(23:38):
Very difficult, and particularlyin, in your first year.
And that involves, youknow, people and emotions.
And so, you know, do one suggestioneither for the leader is you could go
through Alan's aguilar's book onward.
I summarized that for the main idea too.
A lot of crossovers.
Um, and you could focus on oneskill a month for your new teachers.
(23:59):
Um, or you can have them read eitherthe article or the book themselves, you
know, uh, things like how can you, um.
Focus on the bright spots, right?
What were the good things from the day?
How can you, um, learn toride the waves of change?
How can you, uh, have smallcelebrations celebrate small wins?
How can you acknowledge andbetter understand your emotions?
(24:22):
I. How can you reframethe events from the day?
Right.
You know, this girl roll her eyes at you.
You know, it's a way to re reframe that.
Um, and so I think developing some ofthese resilience skills and hearing
how other people have done that is oneway for, for new teachers to start.
Dr. Mike Doughty (24:39):
Hmm.
Kim Marshall (24:42):
So, how's your daughter's first year been?
Dr. Mike Doughty (24:45):
She, I don't, it depends on the day.
Typically.
She loves it and she can't say enoughabout her students and which tells me
that she entered the right profession.
You know, most of, most of what shetalks about is about her students and,
and their joy and that kind of stuff.
Um, but yeah, I mean, the same thingsyou would, you would think about.
(25:05):
I did ask her the otherday, I said, what, what?
You know, what's the biggest.
Sort of obstacle that, that you, youknow, kind of, you know, is in your way.
And she didn't hesitate.
She just said it.
It's the gossip among staff.
Mm-hmm.
Like, and, and I said, that's interesting.
I'm like, well, how do you navigate that?
And, and she said, well, you know, Itry to stay out of it and whatever, but
(25:26):
I, I think it, it's interesting when,you know, because that it depends on
the environment and the building too.
You know, and you have.
Different buildings have differentpersonalities to some extent.
But I think, you know, even just having,listening to her talk about that and, and
sort of, you know, work it over in herhead that, okay, I recognize that this
is an obstacle and I have to do thingsabout it and not let myself get sucked in.
(25:50):
But I've also been in,I've been intrigued by.
The extent to which she is using chatGPT to help, because when she was in
college as an English major and chat, GPTcame out, she was flat out against it.
That was not a thing.
She didn't want her workin there, none of that.
But since she started teaching, she'sdefinitely using it and I think,
(26:12):
and I think that is making the wholeexperience for her much less unpleasant.
Kim Marshall (26:20):
Hmm.
Like, I
Dr. Mike Doughty (26:20):
think, I think back probably for all three of us, tho,
those first couple years, the, theplanning and the amount of work you
had to do ahead of time was just.
So onerous that, uh, it was,I, I just remember that.
And I think it's, there's no
Jenn David-Lang (26:35):
curriculum, no standards.
So you were just searching, searching thispoem, should I teach that math problem?
You know, and not searching online, you
Dr. Mike Doughty (26:43):
know, and, and especially if you're in a school or a
district without, uh, a standards basedin prioritized curriculum, you know?
And there's a lot of districtsthat they claim they have
curriculum, but it isn't so yeah.
Yeah, I think it's, it's been interestingand I, and I wonder, were there other, you
know, themes that emerged in terms of, youknow, specific, you know, you asked about,
(27:07):
you know, kind of Emma's first experience.
You know, have there been other thingsthat have come out where new teachers
have identified the, the areas thatare the most troublesome for them?
Kim Marshall (27:22):
I think without a question, it's, it is cluster management.
I mean, I think that's the thing thatEd schools, uh, schools of education
are doing such a terrible job.
I mean, I, and I came in withthis naive belief that if I was a
nice person and had an interestingcurriculum and things would be fine.
And it took the kids about twodays to figure that one out.
And so discouraging to see, Iremember this girl looking at me
as you know, was there was allkinds of problems in the class and.
(27:45):
And she just looked at me like,have I gotta see this movie again?
I've, I've seen this movie before.
You know, young naive teachers coming inand thinking they could change, you know?
And I wanted to change the world.
Yeah.
That was the thing.
I mean, people said, you know, youmight say to a new teacher, you
know, thank you for your service.
You know, like you, you wouldsay to somebody in the military.
But the problem is, you know, you gottabe good to serve, you gotta be effective.
(28:10):
And I think that's where PaulBamberg Santoyo's article is.
Maybe one of the most interesting onesin this section is just, you know, here's
what you do in the summer before theycan, you know, here's what you do in the
first 60, you know, the first 30 days.
Here's what you do in the next.
So one thing at a time, and you know,just getting organized, classroom
management, you know, but then curriculumexpectations and, and a wonderful
article leading off, uh, this, uh, thefirst article in this today's Marshall
(28:32):
memo is by Isabel, uh, Stevensonabout, uh, the instructional task.
Like what is the meaty thing thatyou're asking the kids to do?
'cause that's where we lose a lot of kids.
It's boring.
It's too hard, it's too easy.
It's trivial, you know, how do youget a meaty task into their hands
and, you know, so that the kids reallystart getting intellectually engaged.
And by the way, back to chat, GBT,the big challenge with chat GBT is
(28:56):
the kids are all on it, especiallyhigh school and college kids.
And the question is, willthey do the, the mental work?
Just the hours and hours of work tobecome a good writer and a good thinker.
And that's, that's my big worry right nowis that there's too many, too much, too
much scaffolding, too much support forthe kids, great for the teachers, but for
the kids to really acquire those skillsthat it took us many years to acquire.
(29:18):
I. The brain,
Jenn David-Lang (29:20):
Kim, that's the next one on ai.
Yeah, that'd be,
Kim Marshall (29:23):
that's a good
Dr. Mike Doughty (29:23):
chapter
Kim Marshall (29:24):
or a good, well, actually, I already have a special issue on it.
A 9 97 from a few, few months, acouple months ago is just pulling the
other, all the stuff so far about that.
But that's one of the sectionsis, you know, is, is, is, are
we, is it gonna make kids lazy?
Dr. Mike Doughty (29:39):
Yeah.
Well I worry about the braindrain too, because, you know.
We, and, and folks you know of, ofour ilk, have enough experience to
be able to look at the output fromgenerative AI and say, that's garbage.
Mm-hmm.
Versus if you don't have any of thatbackground knowledge that that's,
I worry about that moving forward.
Jenn David-Lang (30:00):
That goes back to the scheduling and making sure
that new teachers are workingin teams with other leaders.
And with other teachers and, and Ithink that solves, you know, you,
you asked Mike what other challenges.
I think, um, isolation is anotherhuge one because you can spend the
whole day as the only adult in the, inthe room with kids and you don't get
(30:21):
appreciate, you know, it's rare, right?
Kids are not coming up to us andsaying, thank you for your service.
Most of the time, certainly.
Your first few months.
Um, and so there's agreat sense of isolation.
And so by being on a teacher team or aPLC, you get the nuts and bolts advice.
You can share your, youknow, your findings on GPT.
And a more veteran teacher cansay, oh, that'll never fly.
(30:43):
I. But also it's just, it's companionship.
And when, and you, when you flipthe question and say, what is it?
When you see a teacher who hasbeen there right, 44 years, likely
they have strong relationshipswith colleagues on the staff.
Dr. Mike Doughty (30:57):
Absolutely.
And I had, I remember kids come
Jenn David-Lang (30:58):
and the kids go, but the teachers are there year after
Dr. Mike Doughty (31:01):
year.
Oh, a hundred percent.
And I, I, I remember one of those.
You know, during one, my first coupleyears of teaching, we had this guy,
he just, you know, I was 22, 23years old, so he was ancient, right?
Like older than my parents and I just 41.
And I just remember him older thanI am right now, as a matter of fact.
And I remember him saying, youknow, along those lines, so listen,
(31:24):
you know, we work together here.
We don't play hide and teach.
Hmm.
That's a nice one.
I like that one.
That is a good one.
So the, the website is thebest of the Marshall memo.
Uh, you've added the sectionon supporting new teachers.
Um, any, what, what's the next one?
Is, is it, have you startedthinking ahead on that one?
(31:45):
'cause we're gonna, we're gonna link toit in the show notes so people can Well,
Jenn David-Lang (31:48):
we we're, we, we still haven't finalized.
We're putting this one up andboth this month and next month.
I know people listen to podcasts forever,but we're gonna do some chapter chats.
About this chapter where we, um, weinvite people to come read part of
it online and discuss it with us.
Um, but no, I don't know.
Maybe, maybe the AI one is the next one.
Kim, do you have an idea for Well,
Kim Marshall (32:09):
I think the immediate, yeah, we're taking a breath now, but
I think the immediate thing is lookingat the other 24 on, on the website.
Yeah.
I mean there there is, there's about900 pages of, well, I don't, that's a
discouraging number, but there's a heck ofa lot of wonderful, wonderful stuff there.
My, you know, my.
My favorite is making learning stick,the whole science of memory, you
know, just the retrieval effect,the spacing effect, and so forth.
(32:29):
I mean, there's such good advicefor teachers who have this idea
that, you know, if I teach them.
You know, that's it.
Uh, grant Wiggins used to call it thea the educator's egocentric fallacy.
I taught it, therefore they learnedit, you know, but there's a one,
one kid in a thousand who, who willremember everything you say, you know?
And then what are your techniques,specific techniques to get stuff
to stick in kids' memory and thento have you stick in their memory.
(32:52):
So when they come back.
From college or their job, they giveyou a big hug and they remember you
because you know, going through Kto 12 kids, kids encounter about
a hundred different educators.
You know, 66 classroom teachers and thenall the other people, the principal,
you know, the security guard, thecafeteria ladies, everyone else, and.
And we only remember avery small number of those.
(33:13):
So how can these new teachers be oneof those who kids will really remember
and come back and because that's theteacher's gold, you know, when a teacher,
when a kid comes back as an adult andsays, you really made a difference to me.
You know what John King is saying?
Out of these teachers in Brooklyn,you know, who, who, who changed his
life, you know, kept him from, youknow, he, he said is, there's no
question without these teachers, Iwould be either dead or incarcerated.
(33:35):
Now.
On
Dr. Mike Doughty (33:38):
perfect way to end.
Uh, Kim, thank you for, uh, beingso generous with your time and, uh,
for engaging with Jenn in this greatwork to make all this available to
people because I think, honestly, it,this is what the profession needs.
We, we, we know we know whatto do, we know what works.
(33:58):
We just need to getpeople to do more of it.
Kim Marshall (34:01):
Hmm.
Yeah,
Dr. Mike Doughty (34:02):
thanks Mike.
Okay, well,
Kim Marshall (34:03):
wonderful to talk and, and by the way, none of this
would've happened without Jenn.
She is the organizing genius behind,uh, these two books and now this
website, and I just take my hat offto her skills and, and knowledge
and, and ability to, uh, push me andget this stuff in really good shape.
So it's something that people can use.
I thought I was the only one.
Jenn was pushing to do work.
(34:27):
Uh, she's amazing.
Jenn David-Lang (34:30):
Thank you for the kind words, but I think we know Kim
Marshall is the genius behind the genius.
But anyway, um, thanks again, Mike.
We really appreciate it.
And hope people have a moment tocheck out gua marshall memo.org.
Dr. Mike Doughty (34:44):
Thanks for listening to this episode of The
School Leadership Show, a podcast foraspiring and practicing school leaders.
Send your comments, questions, and showideas to me, mike@schoolleadershipshow.com
and please consider rating thepodcast in iTunes and leaving a
comment and definitely pass theshow along to your colleagues.
Welcome back, everybody to The School Leadership Show.
Trying something new here today.
Little little, little.
Video.
Action.
Hi Jenn.
Jenn David-Lang (00:15):
Hi Mike.
I'm here as Cobos today.
Also two new things.
Dr. Mike Doughty (00:19):
Two new things, and we also have with us.
Many of you might recognize Kim Marshall.
How you doing, Kim?
Very good.
We, we never get totalk and see each other.
I just send you audio recordingsof my voice every week.
So along with the cool jazz, the cool Jthat was a great suggestion, by the way.
For those of you who don't listento the audio version of the
(00:40):
Marshall Memo, well that's on you.
That's your problem.
But you should.
All right.
So we have, so Jenn and I have Kimhere for a really special reason.
Jen.
Jenn, you wanna talk aboutwhat we're doing here today?
Jenn David-Lang (00:53):
Sure.
Oh, so now I'm both co-hostand I'm also guests.
Dr. Mike Doughty (00:57):
Yeah.
So.
Jenn David-Lang (00:57):
Alright.
Um, well, Kim and I, a few years back, um,he graciously invited me on to co-write
a couple of books best of Marshall Memobooks where we chose some of the topics
that school leaders care the most about.
And we comb through thousands ofarticles in his archives to find the
best 10 to 15 articles on each topic.
(01:19):
And we put them into books.
And books are great.
You know, I love books.
Um, but you can't justadd a chapter onto a book.
So we are fortunate to get a grantto put all of that content up onto a
website, best of marshall memo.org.
So now it's all available for free.
But it's also, we canchange and we can add to it.
So, um, I don't know howmany chapters we have.
(01:40):
Kim, do you know how many
Kim Marshall (01:42):
now?
We have 25.
Jenn David-Lang (01:44):
25.
And so just this month weare uploading a new chapter.
Kim suggested that we focus on the topicof supporting new teachers because it is.
So important, and it's alsotimely this time of year.
You gotta think about how you'regoing to support and onboard
and welcome your new teachers.
Uh, now, right now we're recordingthis in May, but when you welcome your
(02:07):
teachers back in August and September.
So we're here today to talk about this newchapter, which will be uploaded shortly.
Dr. Mike Doughty (02:13):
And I have, I have a dog in this fight because Jenn knows,
uh, in September, my daughter started herfirst teaching job teaching third grade
at the Rochester School for the Deaf.
So I am watching a first year teacher.
From the other side, so I can'twait for this conversation.
(02:35):
Let's just jump right into it.
So, you know, what were some ofthe, as you were looking through
the best of articles, what weresome of the themes that emerged
related to supporting new teachers?
I.
Kim Marshall (02:47):
One of them was looking back on my own experience, starting
as a sixth grade teacher many yearsago in a Boston public middle school,
and just what a really rough timeI had and how little support I had.
I remember the assistant principalsaying, you got through to February.
Usually February is the hump.
You know, if you could passFebruary, you'll be okay.
Meanwhile, he was not helping mevery much and I was very naive.
(03:09):
And so I just, you know, thinking aboutwhat would've made the difference for
me, I barely survived this first year.
Like what kind ofstructures in the school?
What kind of support?
Of course I wanted to send all themisbehaving kids to the office,
but that's not the solution.
So we hunted around through the archivein all kinds of different categories
like e teaching, discipline, you know,school climate, professional working
(03:30):
conditions, all those things to try tofind the very best articles that would.
The support, uh, you know, a new teacherand, and help them get through that,
what is often a tough first year.
Jenn David-Lang (03:41):
So, yeah.
And then what we do once we gather allthese articles is we sort of organize
them into, into themes so that they are,um, so you could read a chunk of them
together so that, you know, the firstarea is the whole idea of onboarding.
You know, those first few daysand weeks when you're bringing.
The new teachers on as well asprofessional working conditions.
So that was sort of the first group.
(04:02):
So Kim, should we talk aboutsome of the articles in
Kim Marshall (04:05):
the, the first section?
Sure, sure.
Well, there, there's, there's awonderful program which actually was,
uh, implemented at a high school that'sabout a mile away from where I'm right
now, where both of my children went.
Brookline High School.
In Massachusetts, and it was just avery thoughtful way at this point.
This high school was getting25 new teachers a year and they
realized that they really hadto gear up and create a program.
So they put these two teachers onspecial assignment, Margaret Metzker
(04:29):
and Gail Davis, and they just createdthis whole program that involved,
you know, uh, generally remind me ofsome of the things like a monthly,
uh, meeting, uh, classroom visits.
Yeah.
Uh.
Where do I find the Xerox machine?
You know, like where's mykey, all, all kinds of stuff.
From the sublime to the, the mundane.
Jenn David-Lang (04:46):
Yeah.
Can I tease a few of those out?
Because I do think, you know, for ourlisteners, there are great takeaways.
Um, one of them is they havenew teachers observe veteran
teachers, which immediately I.
Not only shows you, okay, hereare some ways to do routines and
procedures and not send all the kidsto the office like Kim was doing.
Uh, no, I was doing that too.
Um, and um, but also buildingrelationships, right?
(05:08):
Because often there's some tensionbetween veteran teachers and our newer
teachers, so that's a great idea.
Um, my one, my favoriteis this monthly seminar.
Um, I tap some of your teacher leaderswho are really strong teachers.
Pay them the stipend and see if youcan get them to meet with your new
teachers once a month or, I, I reallythink once every other week where there
(05:30):
are some topics that you're discussing,whether it's classroom management
or, um, you know, nuts and bolts.
I can't remember, you know, how I ask fora book or, you know, questions like that.
But then also like, let's share somechallenges that we're dealing with.
You know, I've got a, a parent who'sreally difficult or we have parent-teacher
conferences coming up and I don'treally know how to talk to parents.
So I think the monthly seminar,the observing veteran teachers.
(05:54):
Um, and then the other thing is the,the coordinators of this, um, monthly
seminar, uh, Gail Davis and MargaretMedsker, they observe the teachers.
Yes, new teachers, yes, to give feedback,but also to tweak their program to
figure out what are they strugglingwith and what else should we be doing.
So I thought that was brilliant andthey capped it off with an overnight
(06:15):
retreat, not at the end of the year,but when the first quarter grades were
turned in, which I think is a wonderfullittle mini celebration and also bonding.
So there are a lot of great,uh, suggestions there.
Dr. Mike Doughty (06:26):
So let's get this one outta the way.
There's two things wegotta get outta the way.
First there's gonna be the, well,these new teachers, they're so
busy, there's so much to do.
Time, right?
That's the first one.
And then we're talking aboutteachers on special assignments.
So that's an expense.
So what about the people who are saying,well, listen, we can't, we can't put
(06:47):
any more demands on these new teachers'time, and how are we gonna pay for this?
Kim Marshall (06:54):
Hmm.
Well, it is very simple.
You just go to the best of marshallmemo.org website and it's all there.
It's free.
Obviously you wanna findsome funds for this.
Uh, and we're not encouraging bankrobberies or anything like that, but
just, you know, clever use of funds.
But, but again, the beauty of this, ofthis website is that all this sort of very
concrete information is, is right there.
(07:15):
And by the way, another time saver.
Uh, and it's a huge thing with newteachers is of course, using chat,
GBT, uh, you know, getting teachersto make effective use of artificial
intelligence for lesson planning,for, you know, for creating lists
of stuff, for even for addressing.
You know, I've got this third graderwho's confused about this particular
concept and he's interested in,you know, formula One racing.
(07:36):
Give me some ideas and it willdo it, which is pretty amazing.
Jenn David-Lang (07:40):
I also think another way to save time is simply
by having your new teachers meetafter school or during lunch.
You are preventing so many other problems.
So for example, um, there's anarticle here by Paul Bamberg
Santoyo, and he teases out.
Um, what we should beworking on with new teachers.
For the first 90 days, he has onestrand for, you know, rigor and
(08:03):
content, and he has one strand for,you know, classroom management.
And he has, um, whoever issupervising new teachers, uh, slowly
introduce, uh, the different topics.
And so hopefully the thinkingis if you have your rigor and
your classroom management moreunder control, you're saving.
So much time with dealing with,you know, you wake up on November
(08:24):
one and you, you didn't put anyclassroom procedures into play.
So that's one thing for time.
Um, and, uh, yeah.
And also relationships.
Just, you know, broken relationships wherenew teachers don't have anyone to turn to.
And there's a statistic in this,uh, chapter that we put together
where researchers found that11% of first year teachers leave
(08:46):
by the end of the first year.
And 20 to 40% of new teachersleave within the first five years.
So that's a very expensive proposition tolose a teacher and have to replace them.
So that's another way to save money isactually to get your teachers to stay.
Kim Marshall (09:03):
Well, let's jump Yeah, go ahead.
Let's jump ahead to one ofthe other articles, which is
crying in front of your kids.
Uh, so there's this very poignantarticle by Jennifer Gonzalez, uh, when
she was a new middle school teacher.
Uh, you know, things were goinghaywire in the classroom and
somebody, you know, hit somebody else.
And so, you know, just, I mean, thingswere going on and, and she felt like
(09:24):
the tears coming and she fled and, youknow, cried in the, in the ladies' room
while someone else covered her class.
And, and then she had some very practicalstuff about what do you do, you know,
when you feel like you're gonna cryin front of the kids and is that okay?
Uh, and she had had a very specifictechnique, which I will not give away.
You know, for how to handle thatsituation when your gorge is rising.
(09:45):
And, and you just have to, because alot of teachers, maybe they don't fry in
front of the kids, but then they go homeand cry at night and you know, at home.
Uh, and you know, so, so I thinkthere's very practical stuff there too.
And I.
Jenn David-Lang (09:58):
Yeah, if I could step back from what Kim is saying,
you know, so, so in this chapter orsection, it's not really a chapter.
I guess if it's online, there arefour parts and the first two parts are
geared more toward the school leaders.
So school, uh, leaders who are listeningnow, suggestions for structures and
procedures and programs to put inplace to support those new teachers.
And then the second two, uh, sections.
(10:21):
Are really, teachers themselves could readthese and you could pass these along to
them because, you know, imagine being afirst year teacher and perhaps, you know,
welling up and practically crying in frontof the kids, and then having a leader
who's supportive of you saying, you know,here's a couple of articles about what
some, some teachers went through theirfirst year, including teachers who then
became, you know, teacher of the year.
(10:43):
Um, so they're not, they're inspirational,but they're also very practical with some
tips for the new teachers themselves.
Dr. Mike Doughty (10:52):
So can we go back to the leaders?
So let, let's, you know, if, if we'regonna tell, obviously we want the
leaders to take a look at, at, at whatyou've put together and, and curated,
because honestly, that, that iswhere the value is these days, right?
All the information is out there.
The problem is, you know,getting to what you need.
(11:12):
So if we were going to.
You know, provide other takeaways forschool leaders to support this work?
What, what would we tell them?
Kim Marshall (11:23):
I would go straight to the issue of scheduling, uh, you know,
scheduling the, the third grade teachers.
I hope your daughter's team of thirdgrade teachers has a meeting time.
And you know, I was just talking to ateacher the other day who says, I never
have time to meet, which is ridiculous.
So getting same subject,same, same grade level.
I. You know, teachers, algebra teachers,whoever it is, you know, the time to meet
during the school day, uh, you know, then,and being able to put their heads together
(11:47):
and then creating the PLC environment.
You know, PLC is sort of an overused term,but you know, where teachers who teach
the same subject, whether it's, you know,Shakespeare plays or whether it's, you
know, world history or whether it's, uh,you know, the Holocaust or whatever it is,
you know, they, they, they have time toput their heads together and say, Jenn.
You know, your kids did better atthat part of the quiz we gave, or the
(12:08):
essay we wrote, or the artwork we did.
What did you do?
And teachers begin to share likethat, like, so the structure of the
meetings is just, I discovered as aprincipal, I mean the schedule's the most
powerful document in the whole school.
I.
Dr. Mike Doughty (12:19):
Well for scheduling too.
I remember as an elementary schoolprincipal and starting in a building,
I had already been a principal.
I started in a a different building,changed districts, and the sch, the
master schedule, it was K five buildingand the master schedule was built
around the special area teachers.
In fact, it was a group of specialarea teachers whose job it had
(12:40):
become to create the master schedule.
So you can imagine what that was like.
You know, the music teacher got to have.
All the first graders on one day andall the second graders on another
day, and then what does that do?
That eliminates the possibilityof common planning time.
And I remember, I remember it being sucha, not a fight, but it, it was a struggle
(13:01):
to get people to change their mindsetaround, no, we need to prioritize teachers
being able to meet during the school day.
Because I think there's this belief onthe part of some administrators that,
wow, we don't need to build it in.
If they wanna meet, they'll do it anyway.
Right.
Right.
Kim Marshall (13:15):
Absolutely not.
But then from the point of view of thespecialist teacher, of course that means
that I now have a first grade class,first period, then I have a fifth grade
class, then I have a second grade class.
Then I, so I mean, you can see why theywanted to do that, but you know, in
scheduling, you know, no one has ever,you, you never satisfy all the people.
All the time.
And so, so you gotta do kind of an aLincoln thing there, but it sounds like
(13:38):
you got your hands around that one.
Dr. Mike Doughty (13:39):
Well, yeah, you have, sometimes you have to split the
baby and it, and it, and it worked.
Right.
You can, you can find a balance there.
Maybe it's not plant commonplanning time every day.
Maybe it's three days a week.
So I think, I think the messagehere is, is for, like you said,
Kim, the, the master schedule is.
Is the holy grail of being ableto, to do any of this work.
(14:02):
And I think sometimes it just takesa second to, takes people a second
just to look at it in a different way.
Mm-hmm.
Jenn David-Lang (14:09):
And also, the other mindset change is I.
When you're working on the schedule as away to support your new teachers, that's
a structural thing for the whole year.
And I think sometimes when we thinkabout new teachers, we think about,
oh, a few days before the kids come,we're gonna have a special meeting with
the new teachers to give them theirkeys and tell them their password.
Right?
Walk them around the building.
(14:29):
But that is just.
It's the tip of the iceberg that if wewant our teachers to stay for the year and
beyond, we need to think about support asnot a one and done thing, not a few days
before, even a few days into the year.
So scheduling is a way to think aboutit for, you know, for for the year.
So I think there are otherlarger structural, um.
(14:52):
Changes that you canmake to to think about.
You know, think about the PD thatyou provide throughout the year.
Is any of it targetedfor first year teachers?
Sometimes we focus a lot on,oh, let's do lots of PD on ai.
Everyone's talking about ai,but as a first year teacher.
You may not know the first thingabout, um, you know, organizing
(15:13):
students into groups, right?
Or lining them up to go to lunch.
And so sometimes there's this leap.
So are we providing targetedPD throughout the year?
Um, so, so there areother changes like that.
Um, we might have coinstructional coaches.
Let's say you have a group ofinstructional coaches who are coaching
a wide range of your teachers.
Well.
(15:33):
Do we wanna pick people specifically whohave expertise and can work with first
year teachers or second year teachers?
And are you just like, I mean, Iremember when I was coaching first
year teachers and the principal neversupervised me or checked in with me.
So given these high rates of teacherturnover, maybe as a school leader,
you wanna spend more time overseeingor meeting with your instructional
(15:53):
coaches or your mentors who areworking with your first year teachers.
So just, we have to start thinkingabout it as like a, a year.
You know, a several year commitmentto supporting these new teachers.
Kim Marshall (16:05):
One of the other articles deals with the question of whether, uh,
you know, administrators are sort ofcoddling the not so good teachers in the
school and keeping them on and, and notactually getting some people to exit the
school to make room for, for fresh blood.
You know, like your daughter, likeother good, good new teachers who
bring fresh energy and so forth.
(16:25):
'cause that's one of the best thingsabout new teachers is the energy.
You know, they have the energy, they havethe ideals in idealism in many cases.
And so.
That's a tough article to read, but,you know, we, we deliberately looked
for articles that were very, sortof hard hitting and practical for
administrators as well as for teachers.
And by the way, one of the featuresof the, of the website is, uh, you
know, once you get into the bestemotional memo website and look at
(16:47):
this particular, uh, section, is youactually have access to all the other.
24 chapters two, and oneof them is on scheduling.
And so, you know, you can go to thatsection and see, oh my gosh, there's all
these ideas about block scheduling andother things, and what are the trade-offs?
And so, so you have, you have the keysto all the other things, you know,
making learning stick, uh, you know,curriculum, unit planning, all those
(17:08):
things that a, the administrator mightwant to, you know, direct teachers
toward her, look at themselves.
Dr. Mike Doughty (17:13):
And, and I think even with approaching it with some
intentionality too, you know, I remember,and Kim, you probably remember as a
principal too, you know, there were,there were times where I can look back
and think about some faculty meetingsthat were really great, really well
organized, and I can think of some that I.
You know, five minutes beforethe meeting I was thinking,
what am I gonna do in here?
So, you know, even, you know, eventhinking about it like a classroom, right?
(17:36):
You know, if you're, depending onwhat you're doing in that faculty
meeting, maybe you group the teacherskind of by experience and put the
more experienced ones together.
Maybe you do heterogeneousgroups sometime.
You know, I think even just thinking aboutit in terms of the adult learning of.
The staff in the building.
Mm-hmm.
Jenn David-Lang (17:54):
And to differentiate the, the learning, the same way teachers
are differentiating the students.
When Kim was talking about, you know,some of the, the best teachers, the
most highly effective teachers areleaving, you might think, well, how
would I even know if a first yearteacher is going to be highly effective?
And Kim asked me earlier, justtoday, we were meeting about
something else, and he said, youknow how, how can you tell, right.
(18:16):
You know, if a teacher'sstruggling and it's October.
And I said to him.
I think I would look at two areas.
You know, I would look at how, howwell are they responding to feedback?
Right.
You know, are they, it's not thattheir skill is so different in October
than it was in September, right?
But it's, are they, are they attemptingto incorporate feedback, learn from the
(18:38):
feedback, learn from their peers, learnonline so that they can make some changes.
And then the other part I thinkis relationships with students.
You know, are they, do they have amindset where they, a growth mindset about
their students and do, are they reallybuilding and forging those relationships?
And what I would say, um, one of thearticles, the article about effective
(18:59):
teachers leaving, there's this verypainful quote where a highly effective
elementary teacher who was leaving said,if he, the principal would've said,
what's it gonna take for me to get you to.
Stay.
That's all he had to do.
And what I would suggest, I haveoften suggested that school leaders
hold stay interviews rather thanexit interviews with their teachers.
(19:23):
You know, around March, you know,saying, I value you, I want you to stay.
But for new teachers, I read ina different book, and Harry Wong
All and Rosemary Wong have abook about new teacher induction.
And they say those interviewsshould happen in October and.
In November, not because a teacher isa fully formed professional by October,
(19:44):
November, but if you have a sense, thisis a teacher who I want to stay, then
you can let them know and you can alsofind out then what are your biggest
struggles, you know, oh, you're reallystruggling with work-life management.
Okay, we could do something about that.
Or, oh, you're really strugglingwith which discipline issues to deal
in the, within the classroom andwhich to send off to the office.
(20:05):
We can deal with that.
So find out, or.
Who you think are your new teacherswho you'd like to stay, have these
interviews where you ask them, youtell them, I would like you to stay.
What's it gonna take?
How can I support you?
And then do something about it.
Kim Marshall (20:18):
I was in a large school in Minnesota earlier this year, and
they were having a ceremony wherethey, the whole faculty was in this
large room and they were callingteachers up, uh, in groups, uh, uh, uh,
around their longevity in the school.
And the final guy who was calledup had been there for 45 years and,
you know, got this standing ovation.
And thinking back, I mean, probably,you know, what's the difference
(20:40):
between a teacher who will stay along time and a teacher who will quit?
At Christmas of that year.
And often it's that question,you know, what would it take?
Getting in there, giving them support.
And there's this myth that weshould leave the new teachers alone
and we'll get a, freak them outif we come into their classrooms.
No, uh, we get in there a lotinformally, you know, not with a
laptop or the pad of paper, thechecklist, but getting in there and just
(21:01):
watching, giving them encouragement.
I remember a teacher in room 12 in ourschool who had that, uh, uh, the uppe
at, at the end of every sentence, youknow, that it went up, you know, so she
sounded so tentative with her secondgraders and I said, no, you're in charge.
You may be 22 years old, but you'rejust a little piece of advice like
that can make all the difference.
Dr. Mike Doughty (21:19):
Well, and I think too, and from what we know
about the generations that areentering the workforce right now,
they want feedback and, and Ithink we ignore that at our peril.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Uh, in my day, I didn't want
Kim Marshall (21:32):
feedback.
No, I, no, I was good, but I needed it.
Same.
Yeah.
Jenn David-Lang (21:40):
And it was a different time, right?
People weren't coming inand watching us teach.
Right.
That wasn't the norm.
We hadn't yet had a Kim Marshallwith, you know, his mini observation.
So it just was not happening.
Kim Marshall (21:51):
Hmm.
Yeah.
The lead quote in today's Marshallmemo is from John King, who
just published an amazing book,uh, called Teacher to Teacher.
And, uh, he, he talked about how at theage of 12 both of his parents had died
and he was, you know, bouncing from familymember to family member in New York City
and, and really about to go over to, uh,you know, some really not so good stuff.
(22:12):
And he talks about the teacherswho literally saved his life.
Uh, it's a very moving book.
I dunno if either of you haveseen this, just came out.
Uh, and, uh, he is, uh, he's amazing.
I've seen him
Dr. Mike Doughty (22:21):
tell the story
Kim Marshall (22:22):
and
Dr. Mike Doughty (22:23):
Oh, and it, it, it's super, super powerful from when
he was commissioner in New York.
Right, right, right.
Yeah.
So in terms of, so we'vetalked about what we can do.
I. Kind of for the administrators,or at least what we want the
administrators to focus on.
And I think it shouldn't belost that, you know, people take
(22:43):
jobs for a variety of reasons.
You know, money, status, opportunity.
But people leave jobs typically for onereason and it's usually their supervisor.
Yep.
So I think it focusing on what theleaders can do is, is really, really big.
But then, you know, in terms of the.
(23:04):
What a new teacher might gainfrom exploring some of the
work that you've curated.
What, what's the hope there?
I.
Jenn David-Lang (23:15):
Well, the articles are very different, so there's lots of
different pieces from different people.
But, um, you know, in one piece thereis reference to Elena Aguilar's book
about building resilience and thereare 12 ways of building resilience,
and that's probably another indicatorof whether teachers will stay, is,
you know, do they have the skills todeal with the job that we all know is.
(23:38):
Very difficult, and particularlyin, in your first year.
And that involves, youknow, people and emotions.
And so, you know, do one suggestioneither for the leader is you could go
through Alan's aguilar's book onward.
I summarized that for the main idea too.
A lot of crossovers.
Um, and you could focus on oneskill a month for your new teachers.
(23:59):
Um, or you can have them read eitherthe article or the book themselves, you
know, uh, things like how can you, um.
Focus on the bright spots, right?
What were the good things from the day?
How can you, um, learn toride the waves of change?
How can you, uh, have smallcelebrations celebrate small wins?
How can you acknowledge andbetter understand your emotions?
(24:22):
I. How can you reframethe events from the day?
Right.
You know, this girl roll her eyes at you.
You know, it's a way to re reframe that.
Um, and so I think developing some ofthese resilience skills and hearing
how other people have done that is oneway for, for new teachers to start.
Dr. Mike Doughty (24:39):
Hmm.
Kim Marshall (24:42):
So, how's your daughter's first year been?
Dr. Mike Doughty (24:45):
She, I don't, it depends on the day.
Typically.
She loves it and she can't say enoughabout her students and which tells me
that she entered the right profession.
You know, most of, most of what shetalks about is about her students and,
and their joy and that kind of stuff.
Um, but yeah, I mean, the same thingsyou would, you would think about.
(25:05):
I did ask her the otherday, I said, what, what?
You know, what's the biggest.
Sort of obstacle that, that you, youknow, kind of, you know, is in your way.
And she didn't hesitate.
She just said it.
It's the gossip among staff.
Mm-hmm.
Like, and, and I said, that's interesting.
I'm like, well, how do you navigate that?
And, and she said, well, you know, Itry to stay out of it and whatever, but
(25:26):
I, I think it, it's interesting when,you know, because that it depends on
the environment and the building too.
You know, and you have.
Different buildings have differentpersonalities to some extent.
But I think, you know, even just having,listening to her talk about that and, and
sort of, you know, work it over in herhead that, okay, I recognize that this
is an obstacle and I have to do thingsabout it and not let myself get sucked in.
(25:50):
But I've also been in,I've been intrigued by.
The extent to which she is using chatGPT to help, because when she was in
college as an English major and chat, GPTcame out, she was flat out against it.
That was not a thing.
She didn't want her workin there, none of that.
But since she started teaching, she'sdefinitely using it and I think,
(26:12):
and I think that is making the wholeexperience for her much less unpleasant.
Kim Marshall (26:20):
Hmm.
Like, I
Dr. Mike Doughty (26:20):
think, I think back probably for all three of us, tho,
those first couple years, the, theplanning and the amount of work you
had to do ahead of time was just.
So onerous that, uh, it was,I, I just remember that.
And I think it's, there's no
Jenn David-Lang (26:35):
curriculum, no standards.
So you were just searching, searching thispoem, should I teach that math problem?
You know, and not searching online, you
Dr. Mike Doughty (26:43):
know, and, and especially if you're in a school or a
district without, uh, a standards basedin prioritized curriculum, you know?
And there's a lot of districtsthat they claim they have
curriculum, but it isn't so yeah.
Yeah, I think it's, it's been interestingand I, and I wonder, were there other, you
know, themes that emerged in terms of, youknow, specific, you know, you asked about,
(27:07):
you know, kind of Emma's first experience.
You know, have there been other thingsthat have come out where new teachers
have identified the, the areas thatare the most troublesome for them?
Kim Marshall (27:22):
I think without a question, it's, it is cluster management.
I mean, I think that's the thing thatEd schools, uh, schools of education
are doing such a terrible job.
I mean, I, and I came in withthis naive belief that if I was a
nice person and had an interestingcurriculum and things would be fine.
And it took the kids about twodays to figure that one out.
And so discouraging to see, Iremember this girl looking at me
as you know, was there was allkinds of problems in the class and.
(27:45):
And she just looked at me like,have I gotta see this movie again?
I've, I've seen this movie before.
You know, young naive teachers coming inand thinking they could change, you know?
And I wanted to change the world.
Yeah.
That was the thing.
I mean, people said, you know, youmight say to a new teacher, you
know, thank you for your service.
You know, like you, you wouldsay to somebody in the military.
But the problem is, you know, you gottabe good to serve, you gotta be effective.
(28:10):
And I think that's where PaulBamberg Santoyo's article is.
Maybe one of the most interesting onesin this section is just, you know, here's
what you do in the summer before theycan, you know, here's what you do in the
first 60, you know, the first 30 days.
Here's what you do in the next.
So one thing at a time, and you know,just getting organized, classroom
management, you know, but then curriculumexpectations and, and a wonderful
article leading off, uh, this, uh, thefirst article in this today's Marshall
(28:32):
memo is by Isabel, uh, Stevensonabout, uh, the instructional task.
Like what is the meaty thing thatyou're asking the kids to do?
'cause that's where we lose a lot of kids.
It's boring.
It's too hard, it's too easy.
It's trivial, you know, how do youget a meaty task into their hands
and, you know, so that the kids reallystart getting intellectually engaged.
And by the way, back to chat, GBT,the big challenge with chat GBT is
(28:56):
the kids are all on it, especiallyhigh school and college kids.
And the question is, willthey do the, the mental work?
Just the hours and hours of work tobecome a good writer and a good thinker.
And that's, that's my big worry right nowis that there's too many, too much, too
much scaffolding, too much support forthe kids, great for the teachers, but for
the kids to really acquire those skillsthat it took us many years to acquire.
(29:18):
I. The brain,
Jenn David-Lang (29:20):
Kim, that's the next one on ai.
Yeah, that'd be,
Kim Marshall (29:23):
that's a good
Dr. Mike Doughty (29:23):
chapter
Kim Marshall (29:24):
or a good, well, actually, I already have a special issue on it.
A 9 97 from a few, few months, acouple months ago is just pulling the
other, all the stuff so far about that.
But that's one of the sectionsis, you know, is, is, is, are
we, is it gonna make kids lazy?
Dr. Mike Doughty (29:39):
Yeah.
Well I worry about the braindrain too, because, you know.
We, and, and folks you know of, ofour ilk, have enough experience to
be able to look at the output fromgenerative AI and say, that's garbage.
Mm-hmm.
Versus if you don't have any of thatbackground knowledge that that's,
I worry about that moving forward.
Jenn David-Lang (30:00):
That goes back to the scheduling and making sure
that new teachers are workingin teams with other leaders.
And with other teachers and, and Ithink that solves, you know, you,
you asked Mike what other challenges.
I think, um, isolation is anotherhuge one because you can spend the
whole day as the only adult in the, inthe room with kids and you don't get
(30:21):
appreciate, you know, it's rare, right?
Kids are not coming up to us andsaying, thank you for your service.
Most of the time, certainly.
Your first few months.
Um, and so there's agreat sense of isolation.
And so by being on a teacher team or aPLC, you get the nuts and bolts advice.
You can share your, youknow, your findings on GPT.
And a more veteran teacher cansay, oh, that'll never fly.
(30:43):
I. But also it's just, it's companionship.
And when, and you, when you flipthe question and say, what is it?
When you see a teacher who hasbeen there right, 44 years, likely
they have strong relationshipswith colleagues on the staff.
Dr. Mike Doughty (30:57):
Absolutely.
And I had, I remember kids come
Jenn David-Lang (30:58):
and the kids go, but the teachers are there year after
Dr. Mike Doughty (31:01):
year.
Oh, a hundred percent.
And I, I, I remember one of those.
You know, during one, my first coupleyears of teaching, we had this guy,
he just, you know, I was 22, 23years old, so he was ancient, right?
Like older than my parents and I just 41.
And I just remember him older thanI am right now, as a matter of fact.
And I remember him saying, youknow, along those lines, so listen,
(31:24):
you know, we work together here.
We don't play hide and teach.
Hmm.
That's a nice one.
I like that one.
That is a good one.
So the, the website is thebest of the Marshall memo.
Uh, you've added the sectionon supporting new teachers.
Um, any, what, what's the next one?
Is, is it, have you startedthinking ahead on that one?
(31:45):
'cause we're gonna, we're gonna link toit in the show notes so people can Well,
Jenn David-Lang (31:48):
we we're, we, we still haven't finalized.
We're putting this one up andboth this month and next month.
I know people listen to podcasts forever,but we're gonna do some chapter chats.
About this chapter where we, um, weinvite people to come read part of
it online and discuss it with us.
Um, but no, I don't know.
Maybe, maybe the AI one is the next one.
Kim, do you have an idea for Well,
Kim Marshall (32:09):
I think the immediate, yeah, we're taking a breath now, but
I think the immediate thing is lookingat the other 24 on, on the website.
Yeah.
I mean there there is, there's about900 pages of, well, I don't, that's a
discouraging number, but there's a heck ofa lot of wonderful, wonderful stuff there.
My, you know, my.
My favorite is making learning stick,the whole science of memory, you
know, just the retrieval effect,the spacing effect, and so forth.
(32:29):
I mean, there's such good advicefor teachers who have this idea
that, you know, if I teach them.
You know, that's it.
Uh, grant Wiggins used to call it thea the educator's egocentric fallacy.
I taught it, therefore they learnedit, you know, but there's a one,
one kid in a thousand who, who willremember everything you say, you know?
And then what are your techniques,specific techniques to get stuff
to stick in kids' memory and thento have you stick in their memory.
(32:52):
So when they come back.
From college or their job, they giveyou a big hug and they remember you
because you know, going through Kto 12 kids, kids encounter about
a hundred different educators.
You know, 66 classroom teachers and thenall the other people, the principal,
you know, the security guard, thecafeteria ladies, everyone else, and.
And we only remember avery small number of those.
(33:13):
So how can these new teachers be oneof those who kids will really remember
and come back and because that's theteacher's gold, you know, when a teacher,
when a kid comes back as an adult andsays, you really made a difference to me.
You know what John King is saying?
Out of these teachers in Brooklyn,you know, who, who, who changed his
life, you know, kept him from, youknow, he, he said is, there's no
question without these teachers, Iwould be either dead or incarcerated.
(33:35):
Now.
On
Dr. Mike Doughty (33:38):
perfect way to end.
Uh, Kim, thank you for, uh, beingso generous with your time and, uh,
for engaging with Jenn in this greatwork to make all this available to
people because I think, honestly, it,this is what the profession needs.
We, we, we know we know whatto do, we know what works.
(33:58):
We just need to getpeople to do more of it.
Kim Marshall (34:01):
Hmm.
Yeah,
Dr. Mike Doughty (34:02):
thanks Mike.
Okay, well,
Kim Marshall (34:03):
wonderful to talk and, and by the way, none of this
would've happened without Jenn.
She is the organizing genius behind,uh, these two books and now this
website, and I just take my hat offto her skills and, and knowledge
and, and ability to, uh, push me andget this stuff in really good shape.
So it's something that people can use.
I thought I was the only one.
Jenn was pushing to do work.
(34:27):
Uh, she's amazing.
Jenn David-Lang (34:30):
Thank you for the kind words, but I think we know Kim
Marshall is the genius behind the genius.
But anyway, um, thanks again, Mike.
We really appreciate it.
And hope people have a moment tocheck out gua marshall memo.org.
Dr. Mike Doughty (34:44):
Thanks for listening to this episode of The
School Leadership Show, a podcast foraspiring and practicing school leaders.
Send your comments, questions, and showideas to me, mike@schoolleadershipshow.com
and please consider rating thepodcast in iTunes and leaving a
comment and definitely pass theshow along to your colleagues.
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