20 Minutes of Teaching Brilliance (On the Road with Trust-Based Observations)

Welcome to 20 minutes of teaching brilliance on the road with Trust Based Observations.

Every week while training school leaders, Craig Randall, the developer of Trust Based Observations, witnesses brilliant teaching during their 20 minute observations.

Wanting to share that teaching brilliance with others, we talk shop with those teachers, learning what they do that is so impactful.

We hope you enjoy.

Craig: Hi, and welcome to another edition of 20 Minutes of Teaching Brilliance on the Road with trust-based observations.

Oh, a couple of months ago, I was back at Briarwood School in Houston, Texas, and it is an independent school.

I. That really focuses on students with learning disabilities, a lot of reading dyslexia type disabilities as well as a DHD, but then even within Briarwood school or next to, or attached, or you're connected.

I know that there's another school called Tuttle School, which is.

Really more of a special needs school, but I'll let you dig more into sharing what that's about in just a minute.

Isaiah and Isaiah Glen is our guest today, and Isaiah teaches in the special needs school and we got to watch him and just the way he worked with the kids and what he was doing was.

Like, it was brilliant to me and so I just really wanted to have him on the podcast and be able to talk about what he's, what him and his work and what he's doing, because I think there's good stuff to be learned from it for all teachers, not just special needs teachers.

So with that, Isaiah, would you please introduce yourself?

Maybe talk about your career path or arc, how you got into teaching, what you're doing now, what drives you, all that good stuff, just so they listeners can start to get to know you.

Isaiah: Yeah.

Craig, thank you for having me on your show.

I really appreciate it.

I'm really grateful to be here.

I'll share a little bit about how I got into teaching.

I'll be concise.

It's, it's actually a very interesting story.

I wasn't looking for teaching.

I was actually working in my church and I was looking for a job.

And I my, my mentor has made a pretty good name for himself within special education.

And he put in a few calls for me got me set up with a job at the TU school.

And the day that I showed up this was back in 2021 when teachers were dropping out of school left and right and I showed up and I applied to be a teacher assistant.

And when I showed up for orientation, I was the only new hire that showed up.

even among the teachers the homeroom teachers that they had hired there, they had all dropped out that morning.

So when I showed up, they had actually asked me what I felt about the challenge of actually being a homeroom teacher that

Craig: wow.

Isaiah: Yeah.

Then I was I had my bachelor's.

I was working on my master's in counseling.

So they felt like, hey, that I would be a good fit to being a homeroom teacher.

They called my mentor and they said, Hey, we're just gonna give you all of the nooks and crannies and all of the bolt and nuts about just being a teacher.

So that's how I got into teaching.

So it was destiny, so, yeah.

And now currently I've graduated with my master's in Marriage and family therapy and I've been working towards getting my license.

And right now I've just been looking more how to just have a bigger impact in this field of marriage and family therapy.

So I've been doing a lot of research into it and just trying to figure out how I can be a part of just growing this field more so.

Craig: So this might not be a long term thing for you.

Isaiah: Yeah.

teaching may not be a long-term thing for me, but teaching education has actually taught me a lot and it's actually taught me a lot about myself.

It's taught me a lot about my career.

It's even showed me how I can use education to make that impact within marriage and family therapy and some things that have been lacking just in this field.

As well.

So, I feel like I've had my foot in two different doors, so

Craig: Yeah.

Yeah.

Nothing wrong with that.

So tell me about, like, you, you show up expecting to be a TA in a field you haven't really worked in before, and then you find out you're going to be teaching.

What was that first year like?

Isaiah: Oh man.

it was a lot of learning.

A lot of learning.

I made a lot of mistakes.

I was really grateful that the team that was around me, that they were patient with me, and that they just walked me through the victories and also the mistakes as well.

And I learned a lot from the mistakes that I made.

But that year I learned so much about what teachers go through just on a day-to-day basis.

My wife was working in public school at that time, and I couldn't relate beforehand to what.

To some of the things that she was going through.

But when I got into teaching, I was able to really see a lot of the stressors that teachers do go through.

Whether it's not only just with the kids, but also even just the infrastructure of the school.

Craig: Teaching is hard work, and.

And you're teaching in special ed and your background wasn't really in special ed either, was it?

Isaiah: No my background was not in special ed.

Craig: Yeah.

So let's dig into when you were there that day.

And so like maybe just to give a little bit of a perspective on your class before we start to go into specifics.

Do you want to talk about what your class is?

Like at least the kids that you were working with that day.

So we, so the listeners have a perspective.

Isaiah: Yeah.

So I teach life skills at the total school and we call it life zones because there are four different zones within the class.

So we focus on.

Hygiene.

We focus on coaching or cooking along with kitchen safety.

And then also cleaning, including laundry.

And then we also focus on social skills, which is the last zone that we focus on.

So this class has, it's played a really big part in the kids' lives and helping them to grow those semi independent and those independent skills that they need.

Just throughout their life.

So, the class that I was teaching the day that you came in, I was teaching actually the younger kids.

And they're actually our youngest class.

this is like K through first.

And since our school works a little bit different, you'll kind of see, you know, K through K or kindergarten, first grade, second grade kind of group together.

And so that's where we were at.

So the group that you saw that day we focused on, we can't necessarily do some of the things that I do with other students like the high school students or the middle

Craig: Right.

You're not cooking and cleaning as much with the little ones like that.

Isaiah: we're not cooking and cleaning, we're not boiling water on the stove or you know, anything of that nature.

So we take baby steps with them, which is very helpful.

And so that day we were specifically working on social skills and

Craig: let me jump in.

Okay.

And, because that's exactly where I wanted to go next was that and the social skills you were working on, and I mean, and some people might think they're basic things, but they're.

Their greetings and handshakes and hugs and the appropriate versus the inappropriate ways to do that.

And I mean, and we're talking about kids that ultimately, some of them might be living independently or semi-independently with support and.

Just to give our listeners a perspective on why we were teaching, how to shake hands or say hello or the appropriate length to give a hug.

So when you're working with those students and it's hard work for sure with those kids,

Like I think just relationships and then managing the behavior of those kids is.

Is vital.

And so do you wanna maybe talk about a little bit of the connection between what you're doing and the role that plays in it?

Isaiah: Yeah.

You know, you have a good point, Craig, when you mention how important social skills are, because, you know, if someone were to walk in and, saw me working on handshakes, I don't know if they would you know.

More so see that as like, Hey, I don't think this is maybe something we should do at school.

Maybe this is something you should do at home.

Or you know, hey, this is just naturally something that people should know.

But you know, I even myself and I have found that actually there's a lot of people even amongst my friend, my friends groups.

Who aren't so good at meet and greets.

And, you know, this is, you know, this is a skill that you would kind of think that people would just have just naturally, but we don't.

And so working on the skill with them and seeing how they've been able to grow with it, and also even seeing my own experience with meet and greets and my own experience with holding conversations.

Starting conversations, ending con conversations.

I've even realized for myself that I've needed growth in this area.

So they've really actually honed in on being able to give that proper meeting, greet, making eye contact not shaking someone's hand.

Really hard.

The first day that we tried this, one of the students had actually took his stomach, he pressed it into my hand.

And I think for him, this was kind of his first time really doing a proper meeting greet.

And from there I realized, okay, hey we, you know, this is something we really have to work on because hey, you're eight years old now, but eventually you'll be 15.

Or you'll be 21 and you'll need to know those skills about how to meet and greet especially in social settings.

Craig: You know, I think something that's really interesting, whether you're teaching a special needs class or not that you said that really struck me is oftentimes we can make assumptions about where our students are.

And those assumptions can be wrong.

And the most common assumption that I think we can tend to make is assume the students know more than what they do.

And we have to find out where they're at first and then adjust what we're doing to where they're at.

So some kids stick in his jamming his thumb or finger into you, that's not okay, but you would think, oh, they know how to do that.

And so you might have had an assumption, but then you immediately had to adjust your assumptions.

And then adapt to that as well.

But let's get back to like the relationships and behavior management working with those kids.

And just talk to me about some of the things that you're doing with that, with those kids when you're in there and getting them to work.

Because like even, I mean, I. Like some of those kids, they need for them to have movement or the re reor reminders or ignoring behavior or proximity control or routines and the use of praise.

All those things that you're doing in there, like that class isn't function with all that.

So just talk about that role in, in your class.

Isaiah: Yeah, Craig you know, you really hit it on the nail with that 'cause there's a lot of those different things going on all at once.

And even when you came in that day and you saw even some of the behavior that was going on, sometimes it is hard to work with that, like work with student by student.

When you have two students, you know, climbing on a wall and you got another student jumping on the bed, or, you know, whatever the case might be, I I really, for one, I like to call it getting into position where I start to get myself into a place where I'm here, where I am aware, where I can understand if I'm being patient or not, because, that's where I will start.

And then from there I'll get very creative in how I may help the students with their behavior.

Like one of the things that actually we had to do recently was one of the students was jumping on our bed in the in my class.

And so

Craig: Just to be clear, so people know the bed is like as part of the cleaning and hygiene and learning how to make beds and all that.

Just so we're perspective for the listeners.

Okay.

Please go ahead.

Isaiah: thank you, Craig.

And you know, it's easy to want to get loud or it's easy to wanna try to raise your voice to get the student, you know, off the bed.

But what I did was I had one of the teacher assistants go over there with them and I just asked him, I said, can you sit on the bed?

I said, put your bottom on the bed.

And then I went back to the other students and I kept teaching.

And he just kind of sat there and I think he was surprised because he thought I was going to give it more attention.

But it's moments like that that are special for our students.

And even that day that you came in, we had a few students.

That their behavior as they see new people walking in, they wanna start shining.

So being able to try to get their attention back on me, whether it's through I start engaging myself in like a funny behavior.

Maybe I might start moving my feet very quickly.

Maybe I might start tapping my shoulder or maybe I might tell 'em, Hey guys, you know what?

We're going to go outside of the classroom real quick and then we're gonna come back in.

All of those different things it's, again, it can sound different but it works.

and I try to pull out everything I can to help.

Craig: And sometimes you have to.

Isaiah: Yes.

And sometimes you have to, whether it's, I've taken students to the track before to go walk and then just come back to class with them, so,

Craig: You know, on the form we, under each of the nine areas of pedagogy, it, as for the listeners, it's it, we have, we call it toolbox possibilities, and we list the strategies that could fit under those categories, and it's a big list.

And.

What you're saying is we have to have a big toolbox in order to successfully work with our students, because different situations call for different things.

Sometimes it calls, like you said, for patience.

Sometimes it calls for like a hyper-awareness.

Marzano has this phrase with itness, which means like, I've got eyes in the back of my head and I know everything that's going on at the time, so I'm working with a group.

I see this kid wander over there.

I gotta know how to deal with that while still not losing the other group.

And so you use, so I've got the awareness to know that.

And then in the moment, what are you doing?

This is a kid that probably wants some attention and sometimes, as we know, negative attention is better than no attention.

And so he is jumping on the bed.

And so you ignore it and then you, but then you just make it, Hey, sit down.

And then you're not engaging him Beyond that ignoring, you're ignoring beyond that, which.

It doesn't give him what he wants, but it accomplishes the goal because now the class can function again.

And it's also the use, the effective use of your teaching assistant.

And then, like you said, sometimes humor distraction, positive distraction, all those different things factor into the use of it.

Why don't we jump into, because I think it ties into it whether you're in a special needs classroom or not.

Some of us have access or get, have the ability or privilege to be able to work with teaching assistants.

And in your class you've got multiple teaching assistants in there, especially with the younger students.

And that class doesn't function unless you're all working together.

So do you wanna talk a little bit about how that piece works?

Isaiah: Yeah.

Teacher assistants, man, they do not get enough credit that they deserve because they are very helpful.

And I. Yes.

They're underpaid, man.

Yeah, the teacher assistants I've realized that the class is it's two is truly better than one and having two minds in there together and me and usually every teacher assistant that comes into my classroom.

We are talking about the students, we are making a plan for the rest of those 30 minutes of class.

We're making a plan for each student and then we're just bouncing off of each other.

They have been very helpful, man.

I've been in situations where whether a student ran out of class or even as I mentioned, the student jumping on the bed, it's hard to try to maintain focus and keep teaching the class when you have another student that kind of runs off and you don't have anyone else there to really just help you.

And the teacher assistants have helped in those moments, and then they've also even helped whenever.

I want to be able to split up the group of students and I would like to have more intimate learning with them.

If I try to do, if, you know, if it's a group of 10 and I want two groups of five, the teacher assistant is very helpful and being able to kind of take this other group and then teach them whatever I

Craig: them.

Teach them too.

Yeah.

Isaiah: Yeah.

Yeah.

Craig: So I'm hearing a lot, I'm hearing like collaboration and planning sometimes ahead.

Sometimes planning in the moment.

But I also heard you say, I like, I'm not the expert.

I'm learning from them.

Sometimes they might know an individual kid better than you do and so, and.

They bring value, and we don't want to underestimate them because they're teachers too.

Their title might be teaching assistants but they're in there and they're teaching the groups, all of that together.

And without that, it's a disaster.

And especially like with those little ones like that, like if you tried to teach that class that day and you've got a couple kids waiting and then they're doing the, a lot of it was practice learning by doing right.

And how to shake hands, how to say hello, how to.

They give a hug how long to give a hug and all that kind of stuff.

And without them it just, like, it wouldn't have, wouldn't have worked.

Let's talk about like, so really there were three main skills that you guys were doing that day, the social skills, and it was, I think it was a greeting with the shaking hands.

It was a hug length hug, like what's an appropriate or a not appropriate hug.

And,

Isaiah: and it was a hit.

Craig: Oh, okay.

Meet and greet.

Oh, and then there're short hugs.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, so, so as you're doing that, when you're working with them individually, that's learning by doing, and it's hands-on learning by doing because they're practicing it as they're doing it.

Right.

And so as you're doing that, you're, every time you're doing that, you're assessing the student, you're giving, you're modeling, you're giving instructions, you're modeling.

But you're also even talking them through it as they're doing that, and then you're giving them feedback as you're watching them do it.

So do you wanna talk about like, the whole process of making them understand that, practicing with that, giving them feedback to help them learn to do those things in the right way,

Isaiah: You know, that phrase learning by doing.

This is a way that I learned and this is something that has helped me along the way and helping them to give them feedback in the moment so that if they do make a mistake in the moment, I can help them and guide them back to where they need to be.

It's it's helpful because I believe that today is important when it comes to learning and some of those things that we were engaging in, I wanted them to.

Not only to know how important of what we were doing was, but also I wanted them to be confident, even if they did it wrong as well.

And I wanted them to stay confident.

And so my tone, my body language the way my body was positioned and even how I coached them through it, it was me really thinking about their confidence and their level of confidence, because I have two students in that class.

That I know that their self-esteem is very different than some of the other students.

It's that it is much lower.

So I want to teach to kind of who they are and then also not try to break their spirits as well.

Craig: So, so getting into the specifics though, like when we're in there, you're having to like, you're having to coach them and give them feedback in the moment, like.

It's only five seconds.

Oh, 1, 2, 3.

I mean, like, talk about that piece because we have to be super specific to help them get there.

So do you just, you wanna talk about that piece a little bit too?

Isaiah: Yeah.

We do have to be very specific to get there.

I wanted to give them time limits because I didn't want them guessing about.

Okay, what does a short hug look like?

Some of them make a short hug as a long hug.

Some of our students, you know, they'll say it's a short hug, but it's a ten second, you know, 22nd hug or even handshakes.

You know, we've worked on handshakes.

Some of them may think, Hey, you can just give a handshake to any stranger or anybody.

But having those specifics, I can almost think of it like guardrails that.

You know, that helps them to really determine, okay, what can I do and what can I not do?

What's helpful for this and what's not helpful for that or for this activity.

So those, having those seconds and or putting those guardrails.

On a long hug.

On a short hug, again, it may see some it may appear to be something that's small but you it's very hard to understand how the other person.

Whoever you're greeting if what a short hug is for them or what's a long hug for them?

So I've told them several times, Hey, in class, here, in life zones this is how long a short hug is compared to a long hug.

So when you give someone a short hug, it's just two seconds.

That's it.

And even though they want to give long, longer hugs, I tell them just keep it short and keep it to two seconds because you never know.

What the other person perceives as a short hug and so on, so.

Craig: And beyond that, we're also talking about.

The kids who is adults or whatever, there, there's gonna be extra challenges and then, and there are gonna be different perceptions depending on the person that's there.

And so if we wanna make their life as smooth and successful as possible as adults, then little things like this matter and in terms of the perception and their feeling and being accepted in their work environment, in their school environment, in their home environment, all those different things as well.

So it even adds an extra layer of importance to it as well.

Isaiah: Yeah.

Yeah, it does.

Craig I I didn't really appreciate even this activity until I started doing it myself.

And I've been doing it a lot with my coworkers.

I've been doing it a lot with my family.

Practicing just meet and greets.

Again, it can sound as something that's very basic, but whenever you learn it man, it truly does define the moment even more and it truly does help the other person remember you a lot better than just you were just a random person on the street or somebody that they just bumped into at the grocery store.

So,

Craig: Yeah.

No, I appreciate it.

Hey, so.

You've experienced trust-based observations, and I know you're a newer teacher, but it's different than what you've experienced before.

I'm just wondering what you think of of trust-based observations,

Isaiah: Man.

I,

Craig: style observation.

Isaiah: yeah.

I love it, man.

I've never seen anything like it.

That day that you came to the Briarwood school and.

Even being in the moment and being able to learn more about TBO I was actually blown away by a lot of the beliefs and the principles that you had.

Within TBO.

I have really enjoyed the fact that you want to be able to give teachers an opportunity to have a lot of autonomy within trust-based observations.

And then also.

Something that I think a lot of people would find like, do engaging in TBO is that you'll find that the person that's you know, observing you, they don't offer any correction.

And to me

Craig: it.

Suggestions, but yeah.

But yeah.

Isaiah: But you're surprised by that.

Craig: To every time, oh, this, but how about this, but how about this?

Isaiah: yes.

This, but how about this?

Yeah.

And to me, man, it just goes against our culture.

It goes against a lot of the business culture a lot of the school culture that a lot of teachers experience.

I mean, you're kind of expecting someone just to correct you.

Or to give you correction every single day or give you correction every observation.

But man, this is really incredible.

I was really blown away, and how deep it goes.

Yeah.

Craig: And a lot of what we're doing is really we're highlighting the strengths of what we saw as, as well.

You know, one of the things that you said is that it goes.

Against like a business and school culture of correction.

I think the way we traditionally do observations where we put them on that rating scale I is it's like a performance based culture and thinking we'll get more out of them if we require this performance and more rigor.

And, but I think what people are missing, and I, gosh, I think Houston Independent School District is now starting next year gonna require your pay is gonna be dictated solely by the students' test scores, which.

It flows me away.

Up the well intended how flawed that process is and I think what's happened is we've had people who are business people think, oh, I have the answer.

It's more accountability.

But the thing is, we didn't get an education because we want to make money.

Like, oh, if I do this much better, I'm gonna get 6,000 extra dollars like that.

That's not what drives us.

We're here to make a difference in people's lives, not to make money.

If we wanted to make money, I mean, not that we don't all want good money in our job, we wouldn't have gone into teaching.

Like I just find it insulting to think that when we tie performance or whatever into pay, what we're really saying is that, oh, well, we know you're not really giving your best.

But if I offer you this incentive now, I'll get my best out of you.

Like it.

I'm not sure I could find.

Anything more offensive than that?

And it's also, it's not what works.

I was listening to an Adam Grant book and he was talking about performance culture versus learning culture and at NASA and the two space shuttles that blew up.

And he said it's because it's all about performance and that makes people tick the boxes and not be creative.

And when we do.

This kind of a model, these traditional kind of models, it limits us.

But if we take that out of it and we focus on learning, then you feel like you said, autonomy, it gives you autonomy to explore and find the answers.

Not that we can't support and give you a suggestion for an answer, but you can find them way more on your own when you're not worried about it as well.

Isaiah: Oh yeah.

You know, I What you said about creativity I truly believe, man, what a lot of districts are doing now with this performance based measure, like you said, is that they're limiting the.

Creativity.

And man, it, it not only affects the teachers, but now it also affects the students as well.

Craig: Because the class is all about teaching to the test instead of allowing the students to explore and learn and be interested, and kids aren't liking school as much.

Isaiah: Yeah.

Yes.

Man I can't count on my fingers how many times I've heard Kids, you know, say, I don't want to be at school, or I'm at school just for my friends.

I rarely hear kids now say that they're at school because they wanna learn, or because education is exciting and similar to you, man, it's very frustrating.

It's sad to see and it's really sad to watch.

Craig: Well, we're trying to change it and luckily at Briarwood and t we've been able to hopefully have an impact that maybe can spread.

Listen, some of our listeners might wanna learn from you and so for them to do that, would you be willing to share your professional work contact in case anybody wants to reach out?

Isaiah: Yes.

Yeah.

You can contact me at I Glen, and that's Glen with two Ns, and that's GLEN n@briarwoodschool.org.

Craig: I-G-L-E-N-N at Briarwood, B-R-I-A-R wood school.org.

Isaiah, thanks so much for that.

Thanks so much for being a part of the podcast today.

It was a pleasure to be in your class and it was great to get to talk to you today.

Have a great day.

Isaiah: You as well, Craig.

You have a great day as well, and thank you for your time.

Craig: Thanks.

Bye-bye.

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