Kiss Your Brain

I know, I know. I've heard it all.

• "But my student with X disability can't Y"

• "They aren't ready to learn that"

• "They're on a ___-grade level. They can't do that"

I understand that there's nuance to this conversation, but let's at least agree on one thing:

If you take a student that is below grade level and you only expose them to below grade level content all year, where will they end the year?

You guessed it! Still below grade level. 🥴

When I first heard that, it blew my mind. I had been operating from a deficit mindset, thinking about my students from a lens of what they couldn't do. It even showed up on the IEPs I wrote- explaining when a student fell short of grade level expectations.

I started to talk about my students in regards to their capacities, instead. Progress reports started to read more positively, even with the same data. "Jackie can name 22 out of 26 letters! (pretend I listed all the letters here)" sounds a lot more encouraging than "Jackie cannot name K,Q,U, or V."

You get my point?

The capacity to access grade-level material is more related to the teacher's skill in differentiation than it is the child's perceived ability.

Teachers, I commend you. This is a grueling and thankless job. And you keep showing up.

Y'all are out here making miracles out of a stack of copy paper, some glue sticks, sharpies, and hope.

You deserve the support you need to attain the goals you have for you and your students.

I've heard the stories,

• coaches that tell you to "only take 2 minutes for the exit ticket" or "start small group rotations" without showing you what the fuck they mean

• coaches so hands-off that you forget you have one

• one coach for a large caseload of new teachers, unable to give everyone the support they need

There are so many more, but you get the gist. Not every coach is created equal, and not every school district protects the sanctity of the coaching cycle. Hell, not every school leader believes in coaching.

At KYB Coaching, we celebrate the work you do. And we help you grow your practice so you can feel confident in reaching any learner.

I know some adults who might argue with me here, but we have to learn how to take a look at the big picture and realize we’re all in this with the best intentions –some of us have different definitions of what it means to be acting in students' best interests and some of us have different priorities or levels of urgency.

The world is what it is, but it doesn't have to be. We can make choices, like being patient and kind with one another, that will have huge ripple effects across the board and will help us fight for a better future.

Operating with the assumption that people are trying their best usually results in them...trying their best. And who doesn't love a self-fulfilling prophecy like that?

This belief is best embodied in one of my favorite quotes from educator and philosopher Paulo Freire:

“Whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning.”

Wow. What a yummy quote.

Teaching and learning are such vulnerable and transformative experiences. They require trust, dialogue, and the understanding that more than one thing can be true at the same time.

Even if an educator teaches the same curriculum many years in a row, there will always be unique understandings and experiences depending on the group of students in the classroom. How cool is that? Even with the exact same curriculum and the exact same room with the exact same teacher, learning experiences will vary based solely on the kids.

It's this magical mixture of teacher and learner that creates an environment where everyone has opportunities to grow.

Coaching is a process that makes us contend with our core beliefs, and trust is necessary for that to work. I have to believe that you want to grow and you have to believe that I am here to help you.

Establishing trust is one of my favorite parts of teaching and coaching. I will always make time for us to grow our coaching relationship, whether it's in through a structured greeting or it's gabbing at the end of a meeting. I value the moments we take to connect and get to know one another.

If we trust each other, you will be more willing to take risks in the classroom and try new things and I will only suggest ideas that I know you'd be interested in trying-and that's the whole point of coaching! Meeting educators where they are and helping them grow from there.

It warms my heart to know that people, big and little, trust me to help them grow.

There isn't much else to be said.

Look, you will be able to read my lengthy treatise on how capitalism ruined education in the U.S. soon enough, so I'll be quick here.

Yes, in a society where people can have businesses as a way to make money to survive, those people need to make a profit. What they don't actually need is millions of dollars to sit upon like Scrooge McDuck.

If we thought about our communities and what actually benefits them instead of what could make one person a lot of money, the world would be a better place. That's why the prices at Kiss Your Brain are calculated solely based on what I need to cover my expenses- not on how much I think I can convince you to pay for them.

Tl;dr capitalism sucks, and I don't let it dictate how I run this business

I saved the best for last.

No matter how much people try to deny it- education is political.

It's political because the founding fathers were convinced that public education was necessary for a true democracy.

It's political because knowledge is power and governments use schools as a way to influence the public of certain "truths".

It's political because teaching people to think critically is something that authoritarian and fascist governments are terrified of. And I believe something that fascists are terrified of should be something we do more.

It's political because our government has equated diversity, equity, and inclusion with hate speech against white Americans. 🙄

We have to show up and teach the children of our future that it's okay to be who they are. Unfortunately, that's now a radical act that could have consequences. And we have to do it anyway. For the children.

For our future.