So I think that all of us are really committed to making an impact.
That's why we go into education.
And I think that there are ways to stay connected to education even when the classroom becomes
a space that is not the space you want to be in anymore.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
You can probably imagine from this opening clip that today is an episode very close to
my current life experience, as well as the life experience of many educators I know.
That is why I'm so happy to have an expert with us today who has a bird's eye view of
what is going on in education in all aspects, inside the classroom, in administrators' offices,
and outside the classroom.
I'm so glad you're here for this important conversation today with this amazing accomplished
guest, star Saksine, Ted Speaker, author, former classroom teacher, educational consultant,
and all around educational guru.
Our conversation is one I wish I could have every single day at school and in every single
school building.
I'm so glad you're here for it.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of Life Snacks Lesson Plan.
I'm Rachel and I started this podcast during my 29th and last year as a high school teacher.
The goal of my work with Life Snacks Lesson Plan, as well as my Live and Learn Patreon,
is to create a connection where we are all teachers.
We all have lessons and stories to share that can help others.
I'm so fortunate to be able to extend the four walls of my previous classroom to an
unlimited audience where we can all learn from each other.
And my guests are some of the most inspirational people with the best stories and lessons I
know, which is why I want to share them with you.
Their words are something everyone should hear.
It is my hope that you are able to take away something from each episode to apply to your
own life, whether that be a career search, path to a more fulfilling life, or new ideas
on current topics.
It is my pleasure today to introduce Starstackstein to you and we were trying to figure out how
long it's been since we've known each other.
It's probably about 10 years.
I don't think we've ever met in person, but we have been corresponding quite a bit back
and forth.
I was in one of her books back in the day and we met kind of on what was then known as
Twitter.
There used to be a journalism chat.
I believe it was on Thursday nights through the journal.
Yeah, a jurred chat.
Hashtag, jurred chat, through the Journalism Education Association, which we both were
involved in, and it was super fun.
Actually kind of miss that collegiality because it was teachers all over the nation joining
together to talk about what we were passionate about since many of us who teach journalism
or have taught it, our silos and our building.
It was a really nice way to connect.
So that's how we met each other.
I have stayed in touch with her journey.
Like I said, I think I provided some artifacts for a book along the way, but I will let Star
talk about her background a little bit and then we'll launch into the episode today.
All right.
So the high level cliff notes is I was a New York City public school teacher, high school
English and journalism for about 16 years.
In that time, I was in a few schools, but I would say that the school that I did the
most amount of time in was where we met when I was in a school that actually focused on
journalism.
From there, I was an instructional coach at a different high school for a year, and then
I was a school district leader for two years as a humanities curriculum director.
After the leadership role, I went into full-time consulting and then COVID happened.
And during COVID, I was working with a small publishing house.
And so in addition to writing my own texts, I was actually like a developmental editor
for other folks, which was a really nice marriage because it was one of the things I loved most
about teaching, helping writers find their voices and be clearer and sort of tell a whole
story about compelling.
And then from there, I was introduced to my now current business partner at Mastery Port
Folio, where I'm the COO and we help schools with mastery learning.
And that's still happening, but not as a full-time gig.
And I also now work for educators rising a part of PDK where we help states and systems
grow their own educator pipeline.
Yeah, that's awesome.
And on the side, you've done a TED Talk, correct?
You've written 16 books, you said?
Yep, 16.
Level 17th on the horizon.
Okay, so she knows her stuff in education, and she has kind of the broader picture outside
of the classroom, having been in the classroom for 16 years and then stepping out and kind
of looking with a bird's eye view kind of down at the whole picture of what's going on in
education and what has changed.
So I really value that perspective, and I'm so excited to have her here today.
So back in the day, now we were kind of talking about it before we started recording a little
bit, but when you were in the classroom, what is maybe a memorable moment or what you think
fondly of when you look back at your time as a teacher?
So I think what I loved most about the classroom was the synergy.
I taught mostly 12th graders, so they're adults.
They're on the precipice of adulthood.
And trying to get them to love literature, because I taught journalism, but I also taught
AP literature.
And so trying to both keep voice and choice at the front of everything we did over the
course of the time that I was in that position, I hadn't really worked hard to make it truly
student-centered.
And my journalism class was really the thing that taught me how to do that.
I'm like, if my newspaper kids could run class by themselves, why can't my AP Lit class do
the same?
So I shifted significantly away from testing and moved to a project-based environment where
every single thing we were doing was student-led and directed.
And as long as they had the capacity to talk about and reflect on how their learning met
objectives, we were all good.
And when I did my national board certification, that was a real shift for me, where I saw
the power of better cognition and how much it helped to improve my practice as an educator
and as a learner, the opportunity to relook at things that I had done and really take
another thing.
So when I think about these experiences in the classroom that really make my heart grow
a few sizes, I think about the learning conferences that I was doing with my students, how much
I learned about them as people through those experiences and how rich those conversations
ended up being and influencing the way class actually looked.
Because once you get a little taste of that, you want it to sort of be everywhere.
And I used to look forward to my newspaper classes because there was so much excitement
in the room.
Every kid was completely engaged because they weren't doing anything they didn't want to
do.
They were really making choices about what they wanted to be writing about or if they
weren't writing, they were involved in some other capacity that I think that level of
autonomy made class a lot of fun.
So when the bell rings and the kids don't get up to leave, you had this overwhelming
feeling of contentment.
And when I think about the classroom and my time in the classroom, that's really what
I take with me.
The risks I took when I started getting rid of grades and really putting kids even in
the co-construction of curriculum in class with me.
So by the last year I was in class, kids were actually designing projects with me along
the line of whatever objectives they needed to meet.
And so instead of me using a unit plan of something that I had done a million times,
I would give the unit plan to the kids.
I would break them up into groups and I would say, you come up with something better, we'll
vote on it as a class and whichever project you think is going to make the best sense
for all of you, we will do as a class.
And it really, I wish I would have gotten to that point 10 years earlier than I did.
But I mean, it took 15 years to get to that point.
I don't know how comfortable I would have been at the beginning giving up control of
everything.
But by the end I was like, kids can, let's give up control of everything.
I don't know, I learned a lot more that way.
And I think that's, yeah, those are the big ones.
I think the repetition of seeing that work year after year, you're like, yes, this can
work, right?
And then you get that confidence and I would 100% agree with what you're saying, having
taught polls, English and journalism as well as much as you can in fusing that structure
of that journalism classroom and even the rubric by which we are still evaluated on
at my school.
It is the more autonomy you give kids, the better you're going to score.
So it's actually the less, less they're hearing the teacher, right?
And more the students are running the class, you actually score higher, which is encouraging.
I really liked that.
I did a previous episode on my AP capstone training where that really is the model that
you're talking about is giving the students the voice and choice, you stepping to the
side guiding them through the process.
And I think that's what kept me in education so long is definitely having a taste of that
model and seeing it definitely is the only kids who don't get out of their desk for the
belt are those journalism kids, they would stay an extra hour if they could by choice.
So I love that I agree it's definitely what has kept me in the game this long.
So when you look back, you've had a long career that has taken different paths.
What is if you had to pick one highlight and this can be time after the classroom as well,
something that kind of sticks out to you in your role, general role as educator because
you are still educating, I would say my favorite thing to do now is working with teacher teams,
like as a part of developing more nuanced assessment practices.
So like I go into schools now and I call job embedded consulting.
So I don't just go in and inspire, I actually go in and get my hands dirty with teams.
I like to be in classrooms.
So we do learning walks.
And then from the learning walks, we build goals based on what we see.
And then we choose one or two strategies that we're going to implement to build the collective
efficacy of a group.
And then from there, we look at the data we collect after they've done that strategy a
bunch of times.
And so for me, it is extraordinarily gratifying as an instructional coach to watch teachers
have the same kind of success I had in the classroom and see them get reinvigorated because
it's hard to take that first step to like letting go of control and putting kids in the
driver's seat.
So I would say in recent years, one school in particular that I worked with for four
years, five years, just watching their journey and the same way I would feel pride for my
students who have done a lot of really cool things.
Like when I see these teachers doing the amazing things that they're doing, it really brings
me a lot of joy.
So I love being an instructional coach.
For me, that's the best role, whether I'm housed in a school and working with the folks
who live in that space or I'm an outside instructional coach who comes in to support.
I take the job pretty seriously.
And anything I could do to make a teacher's life easier is what I'm happy to do.
I really wish education had more funds to make these types of positions possible because
it's so important, again, to have somebody who can look at it from the outside and come
in and help.
So you have achieved a lot, obviously, but I know you're not done.
You're still in there getting your hands dirty.
So what is an upcoming goal or two that you have in your career?
So I would say that something I'm still working on is getting the opportunity to really promote
these ideas about alternative assessment.
And an outgrowth of that has been student advocacy.
So I'd been working with families as well to help them navigate school systems if they
have children with special needs that require alternative assessment.
I would say that I want to continue speaking and writing about it.
If I had the opportunity to do another TED Talk, I did my TED Talk almost 10 years ago
now and I think my thinking is in a very different place than it was back then.
And I think that there's so many ways.
I think what we need to do right now is kind of break the box on what we think traditional
education is and start reimagining what education could be.
And I'd like to be a part of that in whatever way I can be because like we were talking
about before, I think traditional educational systems are unsustainable at this point.
And I also think that technology and life has changed enough that we have to really
think about the way education looks now so that we could really serve our kids and also
our educators in a way that is advantageous to everybody.
Do you want to just give us a little glimpse of what your TED Talk was about?
Because I'll link it in the show notes in case people watch it.
So my TED Talk was about giving upgrades and it happens like while I was still in the classroom.
So it's all about the journey of understanding what it feels like to be like a type A student
myself and growing up being great obsessed myself and understanding the damage that did
and like looking back as an adult being able to see in hindsight that that wasn't the best
way to be in.
I actually, as much as it looked like on paper that I was doing really well, if you would
have asked me what I actually learned, those are two very different questions like how
did you do and what do you know?
And I just, I think after having my son too and watching him in school and seeing his
challenges, it definitely helped me want to double down on giving my students the best
possible learning experience.
So the TED Talk is really about that journey and the positive outcomes of getting rid of
grades and shifting the way class looked for a truly student learner led environment.
And just the amount of incredible success I had on account of it once I was able to move
past just entering a grade into a great book.
It's so funny that you mentioned having your son or watching your son's educational journey.
And I know now that I have like-minded guests on my show because Michael Hernandez mentioned
having his daughter in class and watching how she was reacting to his assignments.
And I know now that I have a daughter who's graduating high school this year, it really
does as an educator when you see what they're doing at home or you can really hear them
talking about what they're doing in school, it really does kind of open your eyes to why
are we doing it this way and wanting to-
My son, they'll put his teeth first honestly because he used to come to- he was acutely
aware of what I was preaching, what I do preach.
And he went to a very traditional school system and I think was extremely frustrated that
he knew kids out there had me as a teacher doing these very alternative things.
And meanwhile, he's stuck in a classroom kind of doing things the way we've always done
them which didn't work for him.
And I mean, he's in college now and he's doing very well.
He's a bright kid.
But I think he really would have thrived in like an alternative setting where he could
have been driving his own like almost like a gamified in some way where he was moving
at his own pace, choosing what he was doing.
I think that would have served him a lot better.
And kids should have that experience regardless of whether or not their parents are tapped
into resources to get that for them.
Do you hear that from other educators since you talked to a lot of them that that's one
of the frustrations?
I know it's one of mine is that I have had all this amazing training and have been able
to see the workings of how the journalism classroom works.
And just like you said, have wanted to apply it.
But I can only do that myself.
I can talk to other colleagues about that.
And I certainly have colleagues who've been capstone trained and have seen the power that
it can transform a classroom.
I did a whole episode on my evaluation this year with a brand new assistant principal.
And she's like, what do you do to get kids to do this?
And I was like, and I think one of the frustrations is that you can only make so much of a difference.
And that to me is like one of the things that you said the model is going to have to be
turned upside down at some point.
And I just wonder if that's really weighing on teachers as well.
Well, I mean, I think a part of that too, though, is because I've had administrators
ask me the same question, like, how do you get kids to be so engaged and so autonomous?
And I'm like, I don't know that I can take credit for that.
I think it's just a matter of setting up a space where their natural curiosity is valued
and providing opportunities for them to explore in a way that's going to be meaningful to
them and having the freedom from my leaders to do those things because I'm trusted as
a professional.
And I think in that capacity, when you say you want to be able to spread it, I think
that that was the reason I went into leadership.
People kept telling me, you will have the opportunity to not just influence the 150 kids you have
in your own classroom throughout the day, but you'll be influencing all of the kids
in the classrooms that you're helping the teachers with.
And I think the same with consulting.
Like the more rooms that I'm in, the more teachers I'm supporting, the more kids that
I'm having an impact on.
And I think that that's really been a driving force is like just helping people know that
there are alternatives.
Right?
Like sometimes you just don't know what you don't know.
And I'm not saying that you have to do it my way or, but there's one right way to do
it.
I think on the contrary, I think that there are dozens of right ways to do it.
And it's about knowing those different ways, knowing what your kids need and then creating
a culture and an environment that that can thrive in.
And I think that that has to do also with us being really aware.
I've always been a reader.
Like, you know, we met on social media.
And now that everyone blogs and everyone has podcasts, we really have no excuse anymore
for not staying informed about really cool things that are happening in different spaces.
Maybe two decades ago, that could have been something that we said was more challenging,
like books take a lot longer to come out than a blog post.
And so, you know, I do think also when we model the things that we preach and we truly
live inside of that, like, like this is what I'm saying I'm doing.
This is what I'm actually doing.
And this is what I'm helping people to do.
And those three things completely align.
It's a lot easier to get buy in when you could speak from your own personal experience of
what worked and almost sometimes more importantly, what didn't work and what you learned from
that to not make those mistakes again.
Right.
I think and it goes back to kind of what you said before is that takes time.
I mean, you're not going to be a first or second year teacher and feel comfortable making
that kind of change in your classroom.
So it definitely takes time.
Other teachers I think are coming a lot more prepared than maybe we did.
That's so true as well and mentorship programs and things like that.
Okay.
I'm going to let Star take a little bit of a break here.
And then when we come back, she's going to share a lesson with us from one of her recent
books.
To those of you who have followed me for a while, you know that I value mental and physical
wellness.
Personally, I've worked with a few different coaches over the years and even been one myself.
If you are looking for education and support in your own wellness journey, I would love
to invite you to the wellness community I am currently in that keeps me accountable daily
with my nutrition and movement.
If you are a Facebook user, you can search for our free group called team M G. This group
is led by my coach, Megan Grimord, who is a certified trainer and nutrition coach.
She offers lots of education and support for your wellness journey.
If you want to get to know coach Megan more, you can follow her on Instagram at all lower
case Megan M E G A N underscore Grimord G R I M O R D or even listen to her on episode
10 of the podcast.
She has also created a discount code for my listeners.
Just go to her website www.team-mg.com and enter code lesson plan 10 to get $10 off any
of her premium coaching packages for the first month.
Coach Megan is a busy mom like me who works full time, so I appreciate her practicality
mixed with some tough love to keep me going.
During our break time, I usually stop to answer a question or two from the ask the teacher
anything.
You can submit these on our website at life's next lesson plan dot com or just DM me on social
media if you have questions.
I really have enjoyed answering these.
So today, first one is how do you choose the guests you feature on your podcast?
Now when I started this kind of in my mind with the topic of my podcast being life's
next lesson plan, I wanted my guests to somehow be related to education and I'm not a famous
celebrity so I only have access to a certain group of people.
But as I've mentioned many times before, the stories that I have collected over 29 years
as an educator I think are so powerful and meant to be shared.
So I started by choosing former educators first and then former students of mine and that
has kind of morphed a little bit into anybody who I think would have an important lesson
that I think my audience would enjoy.
And so while a lot of my guests still are related to education in some way, all of my
guests I think are teachers and storytellers in their own right.
And so I choose people who I think have a message to share that I feel is helpful and
important and hopefully that you agree as well.
You can always suggest topics for future episodes as well as guests on our website as well.
Second question is what inspired you to create life's next lesson plan during your final
year of teaching?
So some days I'm like, why are you doing this to yourself?
Because I'm teaching full time and commuting two hours a day and recording three episodes
a week.
But it's a blessing, definitely.
The biggest thing to me that I have heard from people who have left the classroom is
is a really rough transition giving up your identity, especially after almost three decades.
And this has allowed me, even though I'm still in the classroom right now, to stay connected
and will allow me to stay connected to education in some way.
Although my next role, which I don't know yet, might as well.
I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet.
And so this is going to be a way to still be involved in education and have conversations
about education and still teach in some way and have guests who can teach.
As you can tell in this episode today, wow, there are so many important conversations
surrounding education that need to be heard.
And so I think it's going to help bridge that transition out of the classroom.
And if I'm being honest, it has been a nice distraction.
I can't get bogged down on day to day things at school because I have to promote the podcast.
I have to record the podcast.
I have to reach out to people about sponsoring the podcast.
So it's definitely been hectic, but it's been a great diversion as well.
Keep those questions coming.
I really enjoy answering them.
We are back from our break and Star is ready to give us her lesson.
It's just one small snippet from her most recent book.
I think this will really speak to people who are kind of in the mindset that I have been
in education, just like what else is out there.
And she has an entire book.
She's an expert, so we're going to let her explain a little bit about that.
So I think that all of us are really committed to making an impact, that's why we go into
education.
And I think that there are ways to stay connected to education, even when the classroom becomes
a space that is not the space you want to be in anymore, which is how making an impact
outside the classroom was kind of born.
When everybody was starting to think that maybe it was time to walk away for a little
bit, I kind of think of it as like a love letter.
So what I would recommend is if you're at that place where you really feel like I need
something different, this isn't working for me.
There are a bunch of different things you can do to help navigate where to go next.
The first thing I would do is really think about your current job.
What do you love most about it?
Take some time to brainstorm and really write down the things that you love that you want
to keep doing and then maybe have that other list on the other side of things that make
your job something you don't enjoy doing.
The next part that I talk about is thinking about your resume and the way that you communicate
with the world about what you do.
So once you have determined the thing that you're most passionate about, the things you
want to do, the things you don't want to do, the next step is revising your resume to really
support and build up those particular skill sets that you do really well.
I think that it's okay in a resume to pick and choose what experience you put on there
and determine what actions and what information is really going to be most advantageous.
I'm sure all of you have had the experience of applying for things now where you don't
even get a call back.
It's like total ghosting.
You don't even get acknowledgments of the fact that you submitted a resume.
So I think it's really important to make yourself stand out.
And also, network, because you never know who the person is that's going to introduce
you to your next opportunity.
And I say that like, I used to joke that my superpower was that I could find and exploit
loopholes like that was my superpower.
And then a mentor of mine said, your superpower is knowing when to say yes.
And I had never thought about it that way, but it's very true.
And I think that as you're on this journey outside of the classroom, you need to think
about how broad you want to spread your net in terms of how close you want to be to a
traditional school or if it's like adjacent education in that like, all right, I don't
want to be in the classroom, but maybe I want to go back to get my certificate in counseling
or change the subject area that I'm teaching in or become a leader or an instructional
coach, I mean, there are tons of roles inside of a school that aren't classroom teachers.
But if you want to leave the traditional environment altogether, and tech is one really easy way
to do that, I'm sure you use tools in the classroom now and you've built relationships
with the providers of said tools, right?
What I would do is exploit those relationships.
That's why we build them so that when it comes to a point where you need to ask for something,
the person knows you well enough, knows your skillset well enough, and you could feel comfortable
to say, hey, can you make an introduction?
Do you think there could be a good synergy here?
LinkedIn is like of all the social media platforms, I would say that LinkedIn is probably the best
one to be on for this particular lesson on how to build your career pathway, because
that's really where you're going to network if you're not getting to local conferences
or national conferences.
I would say still try to present in that passion area that you're really interested in spending
time with, because you could also go into consulting, which I write about in the book
as well, how you can be a consultant, get speaking gigs, and that's still very much
education work.
Although I don't work with a school system anymore, I work with many school systems.
I have the opportunity to do a lot of different work, and I think if you're a person who loves
the excitement of a classroom because every day is different and you're interacting with
a lot of different things, consulting could be a real answer, because every school system
that you come into is going to be very different.
You have to insert yourself in a way that you have to be a good listener, you have to
build really good relationships, you have to make yourself invaluable to the team you're
working with so that they want you to come back again.
Most importantly, you have to make the professional learning useful to them in a way where you
become indispensable.
You don't ever want to be that person where they're like, yeah, it's a repeaty today,
I don't want that.
You want to walk into a school and the teachers see you waiting in the lobby and they get
excited about the fact that you're going to be working with them.
I think that's another thing.
You might not be aware that coaching outside is a real thing, and you don't even have to
travel the way that you used to now that the world is accustomed to using virtual environments.
Here are my quick tips.
Be aware of who you're talking to.
Don't be afraid to start seeking out things that don't seem like a natural fit.
Maybe you love writing curriculum.
So reach out to a company that writes curriculum, maybe not in textbooks, because I mean, in
my humble opinion, people shouldn't spend so much money on textbooks, but standards are
always changing and there's always realignment opportunities.
So thinking about places where content is being created, there are so many jobs in content
creation now.
Maybe you love social media.
You want to be a brand ambassador for something and you want to spend time doing that.
So really what it is is taking time to do some research on all the possibilities of
what's out there.
That's specifically what my book really talks about.
It talks about 10 different chapters on different things you could be doing if you don't want
to be in the classroom and still engaged in education in a way where you're still touching
student lives and you're still touching teacher lives too, if that's something that's important
to you.
And from there, it's just about knowing when to say yes.
Yes, awesome.
Can you just say the title of that book one more time for us?
Yes, ma'am.
It's making an impact outside the classroom, a complete guide to exciting job possibilities
for educators.
Okay.
And I will link that in the show notes for everybody.
And can you give us a little preview of what you're working on for your next book or is
it a secret?
No, it's not a secret at all.
So we have one book, me and three amazing women have a book coming out at the end of
February called Solving School Challenges, the Everything Guide to School, like it's
a leadership book that takes every problem that is prominent in schools right now and
offers solutions that we actually got from people who are doing it.
So it is both elevating and celebrating things that are working all over the country while
also helping people who don't have those solutions yet to get those.
So like chapter one is all about retention and how to get teachers and leaders and staff
to stay in different things schools have done successfully to keep teachers happy in the
positions they're in, just as one example.
And that's really exciting.
That comes out on February 28th.
And then the book that I'm working on right now with Michael McDowell is like an action
playbook in the moment moves with assessment.
So like I see something happening, I get this data and this is what I can do to make sure
kids get what they need because we've learned that although teachers are really good at
collecting data, they aren't always good at doing things with the data they collect.
So that's so true.
Yes.
Wow.
Well, so many pieces of helpful advice today and hopefully you'll see some book sales from
the listeners because I know I want to dig in, especially to the book you just talked
about in your lesson today.
I always appreciate having these deep conversations about, you know, and education is so important
and change in education is so important.
So I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me and allow your message to
spread a little bit wider today.
Thanks so much Rachel.
This was fun.
I'm so glad that I could introduce you to Star today and her broad experience.
She's someone whose philosophy of education really aligns with mine and the fact that
we've never met in person serves as a powerful reminder to use social media and networking
to find those like-minded people to connect with.
Be sure to check out all of her amazing work and opportunities for learning in the show
notes.
Are you connecting with us yet on social media, on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, at Life's
Next Lesson Plan?
Be sure to check out our Live and Learn Patreon if you're looking for more content as well,
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don't miss any of the exciting events we have going on.
As always, thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time.