Dr. John Tanner is a middle school principal at Waters Middle School. He spoke with TeachFX along with other school leaders to talk to us about why student voice and equity matter.

Why did you choose to focus on twin goals student voice and equity?

• Honoring someone’s voice is about recognizing their humanity. It’s a way to say their story matters and they have a place at the table.

• Our school motto is “empower, achieve, lead”. Empower means everyone has value, their voice matters, and they have agency. To achieve, we want to cultivate their voice and confidence.

• This past year brought equity to the top of my plate. George Floyd, disparate impact of COVID. Whose voice gets heard? Who gets to tell the story? 

• As school leaders, we do have agency to improve student voice and equity. 

How do you see the particular equity challenges at Waters? 

• I want a school where all students feel challenged, engaged, and safe.

• For all students to have a voice, each teacher has to have a voice. 

• We have to define terms: Diversity is different from equity and inclusion. 

• There are still many students who are not performing well or engaging in class or in the school culture.

• If we’re talking about a more equitable society, we have to create more equitable classrooms. 

Why talk? 

• Expression is a big focus. We celebrate writing too. But voice itself is the most frequent and authentic form of communication in life. We’ll talk more than we write in life, so students have to practice it. Proof of and gateway for thinking. We need to create opportunities for them to practice that.

How do you know it’s actually happening? 

• Have to see that in the classroom. Frequent classroom visits. We want to see who is talking, how much they are talking, and the quality of their discourse.

• Take bite size chunk e.g., warm much questions. Make them relevant and relationship focused and through that have every student saying something right away in class.

• We also want to be looking at lesson plans, because these things have to be planned for. There has to be a central question. 

• We ask teachers to measure student talk privately with TeachFX too.

What do you see as top 2-3 challenges as you look to lead instruction in a new direction?

• Pace of change in response to the current situation is the top challenge this year. The big challenge that comes from this is staying focused on what really matters: relationships, engagement, instruction.

• Creating culture of candor and collaboration. 

Waters has champions and some folks who are still coming along? 

• It’s about celebrating people and letting them take ownership. Resistance isn’t obstinance. It’s sometimes misunderstanding, fatigue, etc. You have to work patiently with folks and seek to understand the root cause of resistance. 

• You also have to be clear about the WHY.

Group discussion and Q&A

How are you elevating student voice?

• Struggling with student voice because of physical environment with masks and shields with social distancing protocols. 

• We’re manufacturing opportunities through things like PearDeck to force response and then create elaboration opportunities. 

• Looked at behavioral data. Our data showed differences in understanding of respect, then we modeled behavior we’d like to see. 

• Formed an equity team of students and a parent community. Student committee came up with mission and vision and took ownership of their environment and building.

• Behavior dropped over 50%. Students became more vocal.

• In middle school, writing is still developing, so students are almost entirely interacting verbally with each other. 

• Doing Socratic seminars, equity teams. 

• Masks and classroom sizes have been smaller.

• I use the sign language “I love you!” and we’re teaching the kids that!

• Therapy dog! He’s been keeping kids in good spirits. 

Developing school culture:

• Vision has to have force of action. Leader has a big role to play in that. If the leader doesn’t believe in it, it’s not going to work.

• “Nobody likes change except a baby with a poopie diaper.” I advise folks, “don’t use the word change. Look at what you’re doing and try to incorporate ‘new things’ into what you’re doing.”

• Your teachers are your classroom. You model to them every day how you want them to be treating their students. I work really hard to have metacognitive moments. 

• 7 second rule: Whomever you approach that day, you treat them really well for the first 7 seconds because you have no idea where they came from, what their day is like. Treat them like friends first and then you can address the other things. 

• Equity — most teachers tell you everyone talks in my classroom, but then when you show them what that actually looks like, they realize they don’t know that.

• Relationships are everything. That’s the foundation of the school. Morning meeting every day in every class and every kid gets to speak. Most classes are non-threatening. Every kid gets to talk. They learn to talk and trust each other. That makes the class a safe environment. Teachers learn to do that in faculty meetings where we model that for them. 

• Next year with full classrooms. We have to be really prepared with how we will do classroom management. Thinking about that already now. Root cause: were expectations clear? How did the teacher respond? Do they understand what they are doing and how it impacts others?

How do you want school to be different as you return to school in fall? 

• Northern NJ is all remote. Will be hybrid after spring break. We’re 7-8 grade.

• The biggest concern is what building and relationships will look like. 

• Our 7th graders have never set foot in the building.

• Want to support students emotionally, not just academically. 

• ⅓ white, ⅓ Hispanics, ⅓ Black. Referral issues. Root of that is relationships. 

• We take our teachers around the district to show them where our students are coming from. That’s been a powerful thing.

Final thoughts

• There is healing that will have to happen. Teachers and students will need to learn and relearn. We can’t take that for granted. Be patient with our colleagues and each other. 

• We’re trying to avoid saying “going back to normal” because it wasn’t always good either. There are some things we don’t want to go back to.”

Want to learn more about TeachFX at your school? Let us know!