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Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of our podcast. My name is Chris McNutt, and
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I'm part of the Progressive Education nonprofit Human Restoration Project. Before we get started,
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I want to let you know that this is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are
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Kevin Gannon, Anna Wentlent, and Daniel Holman. Thank you for your ongoing support. You can
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learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org,
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or find us on social media and YouTube. Today, we are joined by Nawal Qarooni. Nawal is an
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educator, writer, and adjunct professor based in Jersey City who founded and operates NQC Literacy,
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a consultancy firm serving pre-K through eight school leaders and teachers in holistic literacy
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instruction, equity-driven practice, and family engagement. She also serves on several committees,
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including the National Council for Teachers of English Committee Against Racism and Bias,
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evaluates manuscripts for Reese Witherspoon's Lit Up program, and advises the Library of
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Congress Literacy Awards Advisory Board. Her recent book, Nourishing Caregiver Collaborations,
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Elevating Home Experiences in Classroom Practices for Collective Care, is a deep dive into how
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educators can celebrate and elevate students' families while encouraging shared reflections
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and connections to what's happening in schools. So thank you for joining us today, Nawal.
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I am so thankful to be here with you today.
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All right. So let's dive into this thing. I'm really excited to talk to you about the book
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because I think that family collaboration is something that many educators, including myself
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when I was teaching, really struggle with. It can be kind of a difficult process. It's something
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that a lot of folks aren't trained in. At first, at least for me, it's just very awkward to have
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to call home and talk to folks and invite people in and learn more about their backgrounds as well.
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So I really appreciated how this book is very reflective and interactive. There's a lot of
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activities for thinking critically about students' families and bringing in that perspective.
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So I wanted to open up by talking about Colleen, which is the metaphor that you used throughout
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the book. It's at the beginning of every single chapter. How does that relate? How does this just
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kind of structure the work? Well, when I was thinking about myself and
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what holds me and what grounds me, I do often think about objects because my family
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didn't have much from their past because they're immigrants and they didn't bring much. They came
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before the 1979 Iranian Revolution and then didn't know that they were going to stay because then
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the revolution happened and they never upgraded back. We're not one of those families that has,
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you know, tons of family heirlooms, but what we do have, especially because my father's side of the
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family, most of their items were lost in the Iran-Iraq War that was subsequent to the revolution
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in the eighties. And so what we do have are few, but really important to me, gilims.
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And these gilims are super wonky and irregular and handmade and often vegetable dyed.
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And each of these gilims tell a story. The person who created those gilims may have looked out of
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the windows and seen a cow or might be, you know, telling a love story that they're thinking about
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while they're doing the weaving. And so you see these random objects or these kind of telltale
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signs of different storytelling in the rug that holds you and grounds you. And I thought to myself,
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you know, this is how education should go. It should be grounding and natural and personal
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and also flexible and nimble and, you know, not packaged and from a factory, but tailored to the
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person who was creating it and for the people who are, right. So, and that they're meaningful. And
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so that is how I kind of anchor my teaching pedagogy anyway.
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CB Yeah. I think that that makes a lot of sense as the book is very much,
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it's nuanced, right? There are a lot of different things in this where I keep
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reaching for. I'm just going to grab it because I just have to have something in my hands. So
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there's just so many different parts of this work that really dive into ways that we can think about
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classroom practice differently when it comes to literacy, but also family engagement. But I
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really appreciate how in the work, if you're listening on the podcast, I'm holding up there's
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a table. There's a bunch of different tables and reflective activities. It's very visual.
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And something that I was kind of taking away is that the design of the book itself is reflecting
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that Kaleem kind of aesthetic, I guess, or vibe. I think, was it your cousin that designed this?
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It's beautiful. I love how like colorful it is and easy to read. I hate like, boring looking books.
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So this is this is exciting.
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CB Thank you. That was also important to me. I think so much of how we learn is visual or
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for some people and it is important to digest better. And she did an incredible job of just
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mirroring that experience.
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AC So with that said, let's talk a little bit about just some overall themes and topics that
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you discuss within the work. So one thing that I noticed is that the framework of each chapter
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is essentially divided into a bunch of different, I suppose, like keywords or verbs. So reflecting,
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honoring, connecting. And as I was reading through those different verbs, the one word
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that really stuck out to me was the word exalting, which is a word I don't typically
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associate with education, let alone families, at least in this context. So could you provide
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a little more detail on what it means to exalt a family?
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CB I really love that you identified that because it's one of my favorite words,
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especially to use with families, because I hold families on a pedestal. I put families higher than
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anything when it comes to what's the most important for us in terms of how we get to know
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our students as educators, when it comes to why things matter, because a family determines that
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and shapes and crafts that for their child, based on their own experiences often with education,
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and informally. And so if you have a family that has typically excelled in formal education,
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they will operate differently than a family who has felt alienated from the traditional school
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system. And they will operate differently from a family who had a totally different system in a
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different country. And they will operate totally differently if they don't feel part of the fabric
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of the community that their child is in, right? All of this is determined based on the caregivers,
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but we don't recognize that, nor do we typically think about that when we're approaching and
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getting to know just the child, right? So it makes up so much of the child. And exalting because
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all families have been teaching their children strong literacy skills and learning skills,
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regardless of the formal education. So much of this work is around debunking the myth that
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education is synonymous with classroom teaching. What is authentic literacy practice versus
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schooled literacy practice? If I think on a continuum, schooled literacy practice being
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like worksheets and or isolated words on a class list weekly versus authentic literacy,
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like knowing the word, defenestrate, because you are a Dungeons and Dragons or a Magic the
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Gathering fan, because that's an authentic practice. And so that comes directly from my son,
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right? And so I think families naturally and authentically do this. And during the pandemic,
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I really recognized that because I was privy to so many family experiences on Zooms and watching
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families interact. And I realized that families were educating their kids the same way that
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teachers were trying to educate their kids and that we were doing the exact same things,
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that caregiving and educating is actually synonymous. Yeah, yeah. And in terms of
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debunking those myths, too, I think it helps demystify the idea that, sadly, it's starting
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to take a dark twist with this, but a lot of folks consider families to perhaps not be involved with
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education at all. And as a result, folks don't reach out to families about what's going on in
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the classroom. It just creates this almost cyclical doom loop where I perhaps was not that involved
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in the classroom because I feel like I shouldn't be involved because no one was reaching out to me.
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And then the educator says, well, I'm not going to reach out to them because they're not involved
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in the classroom. That's totally true. And we have so many preconceived notions and biases around
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families and their engagement levels, when really the truth is that we should redefine what engagement
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is because it's not what we deem as educators to be involved. If a family is attending something,
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that doesn't make them an involved and engaged parent. If a family doesn't engage some, you know,
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doesn't attend a report card pickup, it might be because they have four kids and they travel
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for work, or it might be because they're juggling multiple jobs and they have a sick parent at home
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as well. But we don't know and see every single one of those nuances. Instead, typically, accidentally,
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inadvertently, we write off families. And we say, you know, that's a really, no, that family doesn't,
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that family, right? And so we kind of label them. And so a lot of the beginning of the book, you know,
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goes through thinking about your biases and thinking about your own stereotypic, you know,
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stereotypical kind of like thinking frames around family should look, sound or act and whether or
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not you have that in your mind, what you imagine a family who's very engaged looks like. And just
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like break that down completely. Just drop it. Yeah, it's probably just good advice in general
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for everything. It reminds me a lot of like, like frary and style thinking of like, what are the
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like, what's the cultural capital who's being policed in the classroom from like a student level,
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let alone at a family level, the kind of speaking of I think it's a pretty good segue to talking
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about that you describe them as wars that families engage with, with school. And you talk about in a
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variety of different lenses. And I really liked the labeling of these fearful tentative, compliant,
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transactional and toxic engagement. I don't even know where to really frame this question at. But
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I just wonder if you could talk more about what that looks like. And what does that mean?
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Well, in all of my interactions with schools and families across the country, I realized that,
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no, like you said, this work is so nuanced, because no two populations are the same,
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nor is the teacher body and the population the same, right. And so this all was determined and
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based on how that shook out. If the teaching body was super different than the, you know,
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different than the families, like how, how their relationships melded together was very based on,
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you know, whether or not there were similarities, differences in understanding and empathy around
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the family situation. And so a toxic, you know, sort of engagement is one where families might
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demand things. And, and or families feel that they have, oh, they can overstep in agency, right,
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they can overstep in a variety of ways, because they know best, this might be because they are
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paying customers in a private school, this might mean because they, you know, know the systems
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differently than other families. And so they're able to make demands. This could be in the climate
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of book banning, this can be in a variety of places, but if there's a really kind of toxic
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back and forth between, you know, some school bodies and, and the families, but then think
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about the families who just don't know, like think on the other end of the spectrum, they don't know
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what kinds of questions to ask, they don't know where they have the agency, they don't even
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potentially families might not even realize that they can ask like, what services are my child
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entitled to? Which is why, like, I give a whole bunch of questions to give to families around
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agency, around process, around individuality, so that they know what kinds of questions to ask,
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other than like, how's my kid doing? And, you know, we just don't want the transactional
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kinds of engagement, because we know that relationship building is like the core of all
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good teaching, and that that extends to families. And so those labels are meant to have teachers and
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districts, admin, think about all the ways that families might engage and where you want to fall
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on the spectrum, you know, where do you want your families to fall? And I think the heart of it all
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is constantly remembering that we want the same things for children, like we want the same things,
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like our goals are the same, but somehow these barriers are up, and the barriers might be up
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for a variety of reasons, whether that's because they feel the families feel at a deficit, or the
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families feel very entitled. And so how can we bring down the barriers? When I was interviewing
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in Chicago for the original point of this project was that I was, you know, piloting this program
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in Chicago Public Schools with funding and during the pandemic, there were adults like families who
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told me, I don't want to sit in chairs that are too small for me and have the teacher stand above
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me and talk to me and give me the expectations for my first grader, because I'm a big walking man,
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I'm not interested in sitting in a very teeny tiny chair. And even that dynamic was like,
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it created an environment that changed the way that those families wanted to engage
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in the schools, you know, and so it's just meant to for us to think.
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Yeah, no, it's, it's fascinating that you bring that up, because it's very similar to the work
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that we're seeing on the ground. So HRP, the way that we conduct a lot of our work is through
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empathy interviews. And part of that process is going into schools and having community focus
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groups or community empathy interviews, we'll bring in caregivers, family members, community
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members, etc. and talk to them about the future of education, how they feel about schools, etc.
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And what we find is exactly what you're saying that first off, everyone wants what's best for
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their their kid, like no one's coming in and saying, you know, that they want everything to
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be the way that it is. They want to see more engaging classrooms, they want to see more hands
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on learning, they want to see a lot of things that I think a lot of folks consider to be common sense.
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But what's most shocking to me is that we work in a lot of, I suppose, very conservative areas,
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we work in a lot of very small rural schools. And I'm always nervous as I'll get out both looking
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the way that I do, very nerdy, kind of liberal coded guy, but also bringing up things like
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social justice work, DEI work, because it's part of what we do. And I'm always nervous as
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I'll get out that I'm going to mention this, and I'm just going to be running out of town,
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and that we're gonna start talking about critical race theory or something random.
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That's never been the case, fingers crossed. Every single time, families will tell us, no,
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that's what I want for my kid. And then they'll get into like the nuances of maybe why they
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harbor some problematic beliefs. But it's nothing that we can't work with, in order to help their
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kids really have a worldwide lens, diverse lens, folks that engage with empathy and kindness,
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and more. I love that the interviews is definitely part of all of this. I love that. I think we don't
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do maybe enough as as educators to just ask to ask to ask to ask it or and there's not the space
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like there's often not space across the daytime calendar year. And so it's important to like
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think about when are the times where we can invite families in I really encourage schools
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to not have the first parent teacher conference be parent teacher conference, but more it to be
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like a caregiver collaboration session where we're co creating something we're learning about the
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families we're like, because those grades and quotes from the beginning of that session like
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is very snapshot and not useful, not as useful as knowing the families knowing what their dreams
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are for their children, knowing what their like cultural background is, what they can contribute
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and what they do as a family and what literacy practices they already are engaging in as a
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community that will teach you and tell you so much more about the child that will then be able to,
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you know, so yeah, I love that. Yeah, I mean, it's, as you said, it moves away from being
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transactional, which kind of leads you into writing a book that almost feels insurmountable,
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which is about like, how do we connect with human beings? And like, which is like one of the most
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complicated tasks, potentially, that exists. And that's a task that is partially, partially trained,
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I mean, you can read about it, but also something that you learn by doing, because it does involve
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a lot of failure, I suppose. Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up because I do, I get I do,
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you know, family lab sites where I'm inviting families into schools and classrooms. And then,
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you know, the teachers who I work with continue this. And every single time teachers will say like,
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but what if a family says something that like breaks my heart makes me cry, or I feel uncomfortable
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addressing, you know, we'll do things like draw neighborhood maps with our families or draw like,
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you know, special place, because you know, draw a special place with your kid, you fill this page,
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that then becomes part of the brainstorming. So the kids, so families know then what the writing
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brainstorming looks like. No kid has a paper that's, you know, empty, because they're sitting there
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with their family members and or they're like going down memory lane, right? There's always
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something that's like kind of emotional. And there's there's failure in that. And or there's
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like discomfort in it. And every time the answer is just like, okay, then you sit there. Like,
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then you sit and you reflect. I mean, there's not, there's not much more to do beyond when
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you connect with humans, there's like discomfort in it, and there's going to be but there, you know,
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if there's like a safe place for it, and there's a place for families to come and say and do their
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the reward will be reaped much bigger than maybe potentially the like, many discomforts around,
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like we didn't have a bed, we don't, you know, there were there were a lot of things around that,
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that the teachers felt discomfort around, but it, it wasn't uncomfortable for the families
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potentially to share. It was just like sharing the reality. And then, you know, so it's just it's
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eye opening, nuanced, important, emotional, of course, because when you're dealing with families,
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it's like always emotional, I think. Yeah, I would imagine that the co creation of those activities
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as well, and framing it around kind of learning by doing or experiential learning, whatever you
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want to call it, opens up the door for a more caring conversation, because when it is transactional,
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and like, for example, you're calling home and saying, you know, so and so has an F in the class,
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whatever that might be, you're, you're really much creating like a dichotomy, where it's teacher
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assigning kid label, as opposed to it just being, oh, here, we're engaging in dialogue together,
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there's no purpose of this beyond just the connection. And I would imagine that would
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lessen the chances that you would have kind of an adverse or kind of toxic relationship
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that develops early on. It's kind of like an evolution of the idea of call home and say
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something nice about the kid at the first week of school, toward let's have an event and actually
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like bring people in and really engage with them. Totally. And they're really low stakes. And they're
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really kind of there. I say at the beginning, there's no right or wrong answers. This is just
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joyful. It's just to have fun. You see palpably like everybody's shoulders go down because the
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families think that they're like on test for what they're supposed to like learn or create or do.
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And it's like, not that it's actually just like a joyful creation of something. So I, you know,
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I brainstorm all these ideas with teachers were like, what are the what are the family lab site
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co creation, like little opportunities across the calendar year that we can look at your curriculum,
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look at what you're going to be teaching and or, you know, craft these little experiences,
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in addition to the other things that we do, typically, and traditionally, we're not throwing
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the baby out with the bath water, it really is kind of a collectivist approach of all these
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different things, because you'll catch different families in different ways, you'll meet different
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families in different ways, just like we meet the needs of all of our students in different ways.
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And the coolest thing to see is people on the internet running with these family lab sites
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after I work with those teams. I mean, it is so fun. It makes me want to cry. It really makes me
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want to cry. I mean, I feel like it really meets people in the moment. I mean, I would imagine just
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practically that a lot of especially younger families are not using their phone, like they're
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not calling in. I can count like on one hand, how many phone calls I make in any given like
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three to six month period. We're connecting and like online, obviously, but also, like through
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text and apps and just a variety of other means. And I would imagine that having those family lab
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sites helps just really make more transparent what's going on at school. Because like we know
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that the vast majority of families think that their public school is amazing, but they think
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that other public schools maybe aren't so great. That's just the general opinion. But it doesn't
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mean that it doesn't hurt to have folks come in and see what are the practices of the classroom,
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because you are very much talking a lot about what I would describe as progressive education.
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Like you're talking about moving away from one and done grades. You're talking about moving by
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through a process where kids iterate on assignments. A lot of those assignments
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are more hands on. So it's the caregiver connection isn't just so parents are involved,
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which is important. But it's also that we can change some pedagogy and invite families along
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in that process. Yeah, it's like a layered sneak, sneak, sneaky, to say these are also really
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important values in education. And those values, by the way, are often lived out in families and
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family experiences by walking down the street and looking at a mural and noticing lots of different
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things and asking questions. And if they're not, it's super easy to ramp that up and support our
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work as progressive and, you know, kind of like thoughtful educators. Well, you know, someone who
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has no time, someone who only has like the commute to school with their children. What are the things
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like when I do these? Part of this has been really interesting, because now I do a lot of family
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facing work that's not educator facing. But now I'm like meeting with families and libraries and
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different like kind of refugee organizations. And like, I'm working with families in a bunch
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of different ways. And so families will say things like, but my kid is stuck to their phone, how can
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I communicate with them then? And how can I build communication during a time when my kid is
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constantly on TikTok? And so we think about what are the literacy practices that that kid is learning
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in those moments? And what are the ways that a family can engage with their kid in that way that
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is boosting learning still? And so I love to just engage in the practice of a really simple
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T chart, like what do families do all the time with their kids? Or what do interactions look like?
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And on the right hand side, what learning is happening? Or what learning could be happening?
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And you can name it down to like the standard for schools and districts that need to go there.
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But you can also do just like, this is nonfiction learning, this is fiction learning, this is
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conflict resolution, this is empathy building, like families who go to a sporting event with their
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kid, families who are going to a soccer or a play, like what are the things that happen in those
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moments that then can translate into really awesome writing in the classroom, really awesome
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thinking, right? Like there are, but families need that confidence boost and that validation
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and teachers need to know that all families are doing that, even if it's like dysregulation,
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even if it's emotional dysregulation or your perceived, you know, family dysfunction,
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like if you, because I don't want that to get in the way either.
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And it seems like, at least in my experience, once you crack that code, you have more family
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involvement in your classroom than you really know what to do with, which helps from a systemic
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level when it comes to things like projects, like for example, I would all the time have folks come
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in and talk about the work that they do, they would help work on projects with kids, they would
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volunteer many hours of their time, often more than really I needed to come in and work with us,
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which was really beneficial to me as a teacher, because just pragmatically, you'll never have more
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well-behaved kids, because kids don't mess around with other kids' parents usually, but also they
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learn a whole lot because it makes it more real world. This is a person who's not an educator,
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typically, they're someone who just lives in the quote unquote real world, and they're explaining
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a very similar concept to hopefully what I was talking about the day before, and it just adds a
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lot of legitimacy and credibility in addition to having that family connection, which is so important.
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I think that so much of it is looking at your calendar across the year, looking at your units,
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looking at all the things, and then figuring out when you can have families in, figuring out when
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you can invite, and so like when you can invite families in a very kind of low-level ask that
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feels like little, like here's a little invitation or a bigger one, like are you going to have them
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involved in a project or an activity in the building, or are you going to like think across
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your year so that there are lots of different opportunities in different levels and like amounts
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to really like tap into the expertise of like the whole adult community, because then every teacher
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says to me, it's wild, there are more like collaborative partners, it's like I have all
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these other teachers, because then that call that you're making to the parent is not in isolation
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when you say like, by the way, this wasn't turned in and or it's been becoming a pattern, because
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you know that parent pretty well, you know all the things that are happening with that parent,
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right? I always give the example of when we moved from Chicago to Jersey City, we had kids in
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different schools, so I experienced the transition to a new school in a bunch of different ways,
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and I had an experience where my daughter was like being dragged, I had to drag her down the
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sidewalk to get her to school, and she didn't have the right tights, and she was super upset
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that she didn't have her uniform, and the teacher did not even know that like we were living out of
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bags for several months, as we were like transitioning between houses, and for like a
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place to live with our family of six, right? And there wasn't even like a conversation,
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it wasn't even like what is your living arrangement, how are you living, what is it,
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how does that affect this child, is she like an only child, does she want a four, oh she squeezed
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in the middle, like these are all things that like you need to know about your kid, and or right,
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like versus another school where it was like there was an entire conversation, there were forms,
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there were like you know Google forms, there were all these like how can we create a sense
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of belonging, like there was a lot of, and so this is completely up to you, this is like within the
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locus of control of your classroom, you know? So yeah, it can look a lot of different ways,
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and it makes for a very different experience for the child.
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So speaking to that, this is probably a very loaded and complicated question,
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but I would imagine that part of what makes this work easier is when it scales into the culture
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of the building as opposed to it feeling like all of that weight of involving families rests on one
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teacher's shoulders. How do you help schools, how do you feel like this book can assist educators
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in bringing more people into that conversation, so it can be a shared task as opposed to it just
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being like you're my thing that we're doing? Yeah, that's a really good question. It's not
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super loaded because now I've been doing it for long enough to know where it takes off and where
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traction happens. It happens when there's an excited cohort of teachers with a supportive
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administration behind them, because they need time to think alongside each other about different
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invitations that can exist, and then they have to try it out. They have to like spend some time
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thinking about the systems that exist and if it's working or not, and maybe tweak it. They need to
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think about the language that they use in the classroom, so like caregiver conferences or like
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guest reader we're not saying anymore, instead we're saying like guest storyteller, because how
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might you inadvertently be like alienating someone who thinks that the word reading like sends up
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red flags, right? Which has like happened in my spaces, and so they need time and so you need
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administration to like be on board and to say like this is a project that we are is part of we're
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weaving into the fabric of our school, but I have found that year after year if you have a small
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cohort of teachers doing it together potentially like reading the book or thinking about it together
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at least you know doing some then the showcases make it so that their colleagues are interested
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in joining, because what we do is of course showcase this across the year in so many different
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ways. There's been like really really cool collaborative projects with families that then
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lead to like little QR coded conversations that you can scan as you're walking by so you can hear
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the families interacting with their kiddos and you see the actual like you know labor come
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come out visually in like totally interesting ways that people are excited about latching onto, and so
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after three years there tends to be like full school shift if you start with a tiny cohort
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that's dedicated. Yeah the coalition of the willing is a very strong group and it it also helps too
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with the sustainability of the impact right because as you invite more people into the fold
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if one of those folks retires or leaves to join another school or whatever that might be
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all of those practices don't go with them because that is always the fear of any kind of
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cultural shift especially I mean obviously like these huge positive systemic shifts
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that because they all rest on one person then disappears. Yeah so with that said I'm curious
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about like what's the what's the big picture so you've written the book you're working with all
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these different schools like what's your what's your why of doing this where do you hope this
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goes in 10 years 20 years like what's the big picture aspirational question that you're hoping
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to remedy or solve? Oh my goodness that's such a good question was that was that on the list
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oh my goodness okay um I what I really hope is just for for schools like it would be amazing to me
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if all pre-service teachers read this so that number one it was part of the way that we learn
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to teach you know my why is very much families should not be disconnected from knowing the
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children and they are part of the collective care framework that we need to collectively grow
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strong critical thinkers and amazing humans right and so families are part of that work
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I think that it you know it would be a win to me if family engagement was redefined completely so
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that no school in the country believed that family engagement was attendance and no school
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in the country believed that family engagement was picking up you know a report card or because
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when the definition is defined from the school that is incorrect I want I want the strength to
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always be an unapologetic reverence and an unapologetic positive regard for families
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recognizing their cultural capital and the funds of knowledge that they're bringing
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figuring out how to better teach the students as a result the children as a result because we
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know them so deeply and then it being a cycle of care like that is my hope I don't know in
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practical terms I think at the very minimum we all need to shift language and we all need to shift
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you know our invitations we all need to check our biases around families we like we need to look at
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our texts to make sure they're representing all kinds of families and family structures like
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these are all things that feed into the work but I want it to start from from from pre-service I
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want all teachers to know this because it's it's harder when we're doing so much already and then
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we're also saying and don't forget families that it's not an afterthought it's not something to
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tack on at the end it's not a checklist and that was like part of the publication of this book
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there were companies that wanted it to be publication companies that wanted it to be
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publishing houses a checklist like a this is how you engage with families but it's just not it's
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just not the work the work is nuanced it's very journalistic it's very um it's it's like heart
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driven um and I'm like speaking as a mother of four young kids who have like experienced so many
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different school situations um and like what do you want for your own children all children are
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our children and speaking to pre-service teachers I think I don't I don't know how far down we want
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to go down this path but what's interesting about what you're saying is that I mean a really common
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critique of teacher preparation programs is that they are uh not I guess realistic enough or grounded
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in reality like they're all theory based but at the exact same time part of my personal fear of
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that is that the way that you would shift back to a more pragmatic style of teaching and learning
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in pre-service is not typically towards what you're saying it's toward the more transactional like
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if a kid you know starts speaking too loudly in class how do you uh get them to stop as opposed
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to how do you learn more about them right um because that it is not a checklist but yet so
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much of education is formulated in checklists and that behaviorist mindset is so intertwined
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into how school systems operate especially pre-service um kind of like disciplinary
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policies one of the most horrifying things I've ever done is I I went back and got my career
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technical education certification so I was teaching for about 10 years I went back and got
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digital design certification and as part of that process I had to go back to school and I was in
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courses with folks who were all transitioning on a more traditional careers to become educators
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and the way that those classes were taught made me lose a lot of faith in in how pre-service
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education was working because it was all rooted in how do I control this space um I mean we were
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there were I had to share this one tangent example uh we watched uh this this youtube video where
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this guy unironically was saying that you should squirt kids with water bottles and they sleep in
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your class because it will be funny and the kids will laugh at them and yeah my eyes were the same
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way I was like I'm sorry like like what are we doing here um and it that like kind of like
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adultist style like oh like we have all the power they don't it's funny it's silly uh let's like
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control kids and find interesting ways to control kids is very very very different than this idea of
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love and care and humanity um I don't know where I'm going with this but it's just I mean I think
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where you're going with this is you know the center of all of the work that we do as educators should
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be caregiving I mean even in pre-service like that's a shift that needs to happen it should
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like caregiving and educating is the same because if you list the things that families do and you
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list the things that we hope to achieve in the literacy classrooms they are the same like they
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are the same and that is like something that I think we are like completely missing if you get
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this book if anybody gets this book it does not need to be does not need to be read all the way
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through it you can try the ideas in one chapter other than that I would just say that I have um
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a ton of conversations with kid lit authors whose books I recommend um that families have been using
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with fidelity like just having listening to these conversations I have had families reach out to me
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and say it was so interesting for me and my kid to co-read the book and then listen to the author
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because I think really thinking about the round reach of all the different individuals who support
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growth of children's literacy skills is so critically important um and so I don't know
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just I I would just say like my last thing is don't disregard any adult in a child's like
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literacy experience you know when we think about collective care it can be the bodega owner it can
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be the spiritual community leader it can be anyone who is there to debrief with the child to talk
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through emotional literacy conversations to all of those people contribute to the child and are
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valuable for then springboarding the same kind of learning that we're doing in the classroom um
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so I don't know I really do believe in the collective there is an entire chapter in the
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book on that um and so I thank you for interviewing me because you are part of my collective um and
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and that's it
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thank you again for listening to our podcast at human restoration project I hope this conversation
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leaves you inspired and ready to start making change if you enjoyed listening please consider
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leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player plus find a whole host of free resources
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writings and other podcasts all for free our website humanrestorationproject.org thank you
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