A Conversation with Timothy Shanahan

Dr. Timothy Shanahan talks to us about a framework for our teaching, understanding our students and classroom contexts, translating research to practice, and professional learning for real impact. Tim is known for his work in the connections between learning to read and learning to write, literacy in the disciplines, and improving reading achievement. You can learn more about our guest on his active blog at shanahanonliteracy.com.

To cite this episode:
Persohn, L. (Host). (2021, Feb. 2). A conversation with Timothy Shanahan. (Season 1, No 13) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/B6F0-AAFD-3BDB-A376-52EC-6

Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Transcript

Lindsay Persohn: 0:11

Education Research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. Classroom caffeine is here to help. Each week I invite a top education researcher to sit down and talk with teachers about what they have learned from years of study. This week, Dr. Timothy Shanahan talks to us about a framework for our teaching, understanding our students in classroom contexts, translating research to practice, and professional learning for real impact. Tim is known for his work and the connections between learning to read and learning to write literacy in the disciplines and improving reading achievement. You could learn more about our guest at the end of this episode, and on his active blog, at Shanahan on literacy.com. So, pour a cup of your favorite morning drink. And join me your host, Lindsey person for classroom caffeine research to energize your teaching practice. Tim, thank you for joining me, welcome to the show.

Tim: 1:22

Very much happy to be here.

Lindsay Persohn: 1:23

Tim from your own experiences and education. Will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?

Tim: 1:31

Oh, goodness, I'm certainly one of them was a realization that I've been doing this for a long time. First of all, this is a I've been actually teaching reading or studying reading that for more than 50 years. So it's something that it's a pretty big part of my life. But I remember, you know, I been doing consulting and visiting classrooms and so on almost from the beginning of my career, literally when I was 18, 19 years old. So I was doing that a lot. And I was known as a pretty good staff developer and that kind of thing. But then I started to notice something even though I've been doing this for a long time, and I was so thought to be good. The fact was, when I was working with schools, achievement wasn't necessarily going up, you know, we would, I'd go in and show people how to teach vocabulary betters that have to do some cool thing with reading comprehension. And people would do it. So school systems like me, you know, people would cooperate and wouldn't complain about having the professional development. So that was a plus. But even though we were doing things that were research based, and that made sense, it wasn't actually fixing anything. And, you know, I initially I didn't even notice it, but at some point, I started to say, Well, this is dumb. What good is to do this terrific stuff, if it doesn't make any difference to kids learning, and started to try to figure out what was going on? Why was I not succeeding in the ways that I wanted to succeed? And what I figured out with a bit of analysis was that I would get somebody to do the terrific things with vocabulary, assuming that they were doing all the other good things they were supposed to do. And the teachers were looking and going, Oh, vocabulary, that must be what the school system wants us to do, you know, we'll drop the phonics stuff we've been doing or we won't do this comprehension thing that we were doing. And so you were always replacing one good thing with another Well, that doesn't make anything any better. You know, if you were investing your money, and you owned a really good stock that was going up, if I get you to sell that stock and buy another equally good stock that's going up, you're going to lose money, because you had to pay to buy and sell the stocks, and you're in the same place you were before. So that isn't really helpful. And so when I figured that out, I changed up everything. And it continues to to reverberate to my career that I figured out that you had to it was never enough to go in and show people how to do anything, no matter how terrific it was, without putting it into the context that it belonged in. And so I did that by building a framework, and started using that in my consulting work with schools. And it ended up I mean, by the time I sort of backed away from doing as much of that kind of consulting or something like 350 schools that were using this framework, and then it led to the Chicago Public Schools coming to me and asking me to leave the university and come to the school system, not as a consultant, not as the guy who was going to come in and say here's some cool things you guys can do. But to come over and actually do those things myself. And that framework just made a huge difference we were able to raise in Chicago, I mean, I was responsible for 437,000 children. And we raised achievement, you know, dramatically with following what I had figured out is that that framework, I don't think I ever look at any kind of school reform without thinking of it in terms of that framework. So that would be one. One thing that's made a huge difference in my career, and certainly has changed the learning lives of lots of kids in some pretty important ways.

Lindsay Persohn: 5:46

Well, and as you said, I think that can change the thinking of a lot of people, you know, it seems so fundamental right? That we can't drop the ball and all the other good things are happening. But I, I can, as you're describing this, I can see it in my own past experiences, right, that as soon as the latest and greatest, the new best thing, here it is, this is what we're doing. But we can't negate all the other great things that we're already doing as well.

Tim: 6:12

And so if somebody isn't showing you where this goes, or if you don't have a scheme for oh gee, I really like this that could replace A but it can't replace B, you know, I'll I'll change this part of my teaching to facilitate that, but I can't change it over here. That's really important. And so, you know, I figured out, I started looking at the research literature really hard and saying, what is it that really makes a difference in kids achievement, if you try to do look, at every little study, you start to lose the forest for the trees, you really have to figure out, like I say, a framework of some kind. And it became clear to me that there were only three things that were raising achievement, that anybody who was succeeding didn't matter what they were doing, they were doing one, two, or three of these three things. And if they didn't do one, two or three of those, nothing happened. And if they did one, two or three of those, often, things got better. And so that was really important. And those three things, quite frankly, one is amount of instruction. How much experience with something kids get do with academic learning kids get, the more they learn. If you put more time in math, don't be surprised if kids learn more math, you put more time in social studies. Oh, you know, we cut back on social studies, because these tests and we were worried about the test. Yeah. But if you keep that social studies time, and your neighborhood schools cut it, you're going to your kids are going to learn more social studies, you know it. So time is hugely important. We don't talk about it enough. We don't pay enough attention to that. But the amount of instruction, and we're careless with instruction, we often allow it to slip away. So that's a biggie. A second big one is, it's the curriculum is what we teach. And so you know, the amount of teaching and what it is that you're teaching with that time, those two things together are extremely powerful. It matters. If you spend very little time with, say primary grade kids teaching something like decoding. Don't be terribly surprised if your kids have a big gap. There are particular things that research has identified that are really useful for kids becoming readers. If you wanted to talk to me today about science education, instead of read it. And we talked about what should kids be learning in science, it would become evident very quickly that that's a value judgment, that what you're teaching science is really, what does your community want kids to know? Should they know more life science? Or should they know more physical science? different communities might settle that differently? That's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. Social Studies, same thing. Should we kids be studying American history? Or should they be studying world culture? Well, we want them to have some of both, but what's the mix? What about art and music? Do we want them to have the performing arts or the plastic arts? You know, we're more interested in them drawing and painting and things like that? Or do we want them to sing and dance and you know, play instruments? Those are choices that are every one of those who go well, I really like or I want my kids to have, and that you know, that's just fine. When it comes to something like reading. It isn't like that there are particular things that science shows us that because it's a skilled activity. There are particular things that if you teach those kids do better, and so it's absolutely essential that certain things be in there. I often use use an analogy What if the states instead of pushing read instead of promoting bicycle riding, they wanted everyone to learn to ride bicycles. You wouldn't want some teacher saying, Well, I'm willing to teach that. But I don't teach braking. I don't like braking. He has ridiculous. Well, it's certainly the same thing when a teacher says, Well, I don't want to teach fluency. I don't you know, I don't enjoy. I don't care fluency you or not, you've got to teach that kids. So what you teach us is critical. So the amount of teaching what you teach, and the third one, and it's the smallest one in terms of payoff. But partly that's because it's so hard to measure. But it's how well do you deliver this instruction, it's the teaching itself. It's, it's the it's not about what you teach. It's about how you teach it, you and I get in a teaching competition, your kids learn more, guess what you're doing differently than I am. Maybe you got more discussion out of the kids, maybe you explain that more clearly than I did, maybe you had more exercises and observe the kids more carefully, so you could correct their mistakes. Anybody who improves kids reading achievement fixes, either increases the amount of teaching focuses on some parts of the process that maybe we're being neglected or not delivered very well before, or have found a way to present that information more effectively or more efficiently. That's all there is. There's nothing else. Those are the three things. And so you start to look at those and say, well, then when I go in and show people how to do this terrific thing, what happens. And what happens is maybe they cut back on the amount of time that they devote to some essential skills that now I've pushed off the head off the map. Hmm, well, that's not what we want. Yeah, we buy a new reading program. How does that fix things? Well, it could fix things by increasing the amount of instruction but it could wreck things by cutting back on the amount of instruction, our old program included vocabulary, this one doesn't that do so much with it, you know, at the maybe it gives guidance to the teachers and how to deliver it better. Maybe the quality of the lessons isn't as high as in your previous program. And so it actually can go down. So it can go either way. It really is kind of an important notion. So once you start thinking like that, then you start doing things like setting amounts of time for instruction, and how you're going to protect that how you're going to divide that among the key things, and what what are those key things? Do you know how to teach them all? are they all the same. And once you have that teachers actually worrying about those things and focused on those things. achievement can start to go up. And we did it in Chicago, as I say, 600 schools, we saw just dramatic changes, as I add in a number of smaller districts when I was just there as a consultant.

Lindsay Persohn: 12:56

that formula you give us those three elements, I think really do help to bring our focus back to what's what's important about what we're doing in schools. I've had a lot of great conversations about relationships with kids and relationships with colleagues. And obviously, all of those things are important in a somewhat different way, right? Because you're really giving us kind of this formula for a school day. Where are we putting our time? What are we doing during that time? And who is delivering it to us?

Tim: 13:26

Absolutely. And doing those things doesn't mean you stop being nice to kids, Or the smile. kind of thing. It's not Oh, my God, he just wants to run these kids through like they're in a factory. No, not at all. But the, if you don't give them enough instruction and key things, you're not giving them a chance to succeed. I mean, what?

Lindsay Persohn: 13:51

Why would we do that? Right? I think I think your message here about about time is a particularly critical point, because I think for some time now teachers have felt extremely micromanaged when it comes to their time. And but I think the message you're sending is a bit different than that. It

doesn't mean it's 10: 14:07

02, we better move over to math, right? But instead it means the proportion of time we spend on subjects is is directly in proportion to achievement in those subjects.

Tim: 14:19

Exactly. And so what that means is say, I think it gives you more flexibility, not less flexibility. If you look and you say that what I've always done, have always since I figured this out, I insist insist in my schools that we deliver two to three hours a day of reading, writing instruction, two to three hours a day, you know, 120 to 180 minutes. And if you're talking Middle School in high school, you might as well just say 120 minutes because I've never seen anybody do any more than that. So you know that that 120 people so why don't you have a specific time? Well, because it's flexible. There's some schools that are More challenge than others. If I were working in a in a high poverty school, you know, a school serving, you know, a very high proportion of kids whose families are low in education and don't have a lot of resources to support their kids, I'm going to probably want more time, not less time, I'll go to the three hours a day. Well, doesn't that mean, they're not going to have social studies or science or art. Now, actually, if you take an average school day in the United States, which is for elementary, which is typically according to the Department of Education, six and a half hours, even if you go up to that maximum time, this is what then I still have three and a half hours a day to teach those other things. And if you start doing the math on that, you still end up with time leftover. It's like, wait a minute, oh, can that be, we don't use the time well, and and so we need to pay attention to that. If I were a first grade teacher, again, I'd probably want more time than if I were a fifth grade teacher, for teaching, reading, that kind of thing. So you there's flexibility like that, it doesn't matter. The studies have never found that it matters what part of the day, I know there's, there are people out there who will tell you that the important stuff has to be taught in the morning, which is terrific for the kids who are kind of awake in the morning. It's not so terrific for the ones who come in, you know, kind of woozy because they've been up late or they're you know, there was gunfire in their neighborhood or their you know, something that was keeping them up, you know, they might not be fresh till the afternoon, to tell you the truth, nobody has been able to consistently find any kind of a pattern to that. And so it you could do reading for an hour in the morning, and then do another hour in the afternoon. Gee its different on Tuesdays because we have library time or computers, you know. So it gives that kind of flexibility. It just, I think if when people know that that kind of time is important, and that they're required to give that kind of time. And that that time needs to be divided in some reasonable way, among those key things that need to be taught. They start to they can rethink their school day, dozens of different ways. And I think that's, that's the kind of flexibility teachers should have.

Lindsay Persohn: 17:17

I think it helps us to simplify what becomes an extremely complex process, right? School scheduling is just an insane process, really, you know, with all of the moving parts, but whenever we boil it down to this rather simple kind of formula, I think it does help us to streamline that.

Tim: 17:33

Oh, absolutely. It gives you more power.

Lindsay Persohn: 17:37

So Tim, what would you like teachers to know about your research, you've already shared some really wonderful and useful bits with us. But you've got a lot more to share, I'm pretty sure.

Tim: 17:48

Well, these days, probably the stuff that I've spent the most time on. And most recently, these arguments over science of reading and you know, that kind of thing, which are a we're kind of back to control issues, I guess if we talk about those, you know, who decides these things? And how should we decide? And where does research fit in this? There's there's been out certainly a lot of ink spilled in the media and not you know, in the newspapers and magazines and on the airwaves and so on over this idea of there being the science of reading, and schools need to follow it, whatever that happens to be and people arguing whether who science it is, who controls the science and so on. So I've been kind of pressed in the service to write about that kind of thing recently. And that's getting some interest in response, it's the field of education is not typically a research driven field, you know, with the COVID 19 debacle going on, and people you know, we're, we're getting to hear out an awful lot about how scientific decision are made and how medical research is done, which I think is healthy for people to know about. Six months ago, eight months ago, scientists had really brilliant ideas on how to make a vaccine. Why didn't they just make it and get it out there for us? They had these terrific ideas, but because that isn't how they do it in medical science and medical science, it's not enough that you have some really cool ideas, you actually have to try them out to see if they if you can make them work. And then if you can, you've got to make sure that you know it doesn't do harm. And so you're just gonna have to wait. They're there. They're very patient about it. They're willing to say we really think this is gonna work but we can't do it this year. And we can't do it because we're not certain. We think it will work. We have good reasons to believe it will work. But we know that in the past when we've had those kinds of ideas A lot of times they don't work. In education, it's a little different. Somebody comes up with a cool idea. And that's what everybody should be doing. We're not going to try it out, we're going to have everybody do it now. Why wait? And and that's, that does harm. I think it makes it makes teachers seasick and things are constantly change. Oh, yeah, we're supposed to do that. Now we're just supposed to have the kids read. Now we're supposed to teach this now, you know, it's like, come on, we should be holding the science of reading to the same kinds of standards that we hold the science of medicine, which is, it's not enough that you have a good idea, you actually have to try this idea out with kids, you have to show that you can make it work, you've got to replicate that so that we can actually trust that it wasn't just a one off that you were lucky to you were able to press it into service. And you'd probably need to do it on some kind of scale, at some point where you can, you know, it's one thing for a teacher to look and say, that's kind of cool, and he made it work I can do, it's another thing to say, and therefore all the teachers in Florida should do this, or all teachers in the United States should do this, you need to do some trying it out on scale. And that just, those aren't standards that we really use in education. They don't even come up it's this is either scientific, or it isn't. And that's sort of the level of the argument. And so I wrote a piece recently that was in reading research order, like, not a piece of research itself. But I was asked to essentially weigh in on this set of issues. Most of what's talked about today, as the science of reading, is psychological, cognitive, neurologic, neurological studies that are brilliant, fascinating stuff, that give you all kinds of clues about how people read and how they might learn to read. And none of which should be translated into instruction, without the kind of process that I'm talking about where you actually try this, make this work and show that you can replicate it. And so there, there's people out there promoting this science of reading, because there's this really cool study of the brain. And I'm saying, as cool as that study might be, let's see if somebody can actually turn it into an instruction that will work that will actually make kids lives better. And if you can't figure out how to do that, then that ought not to be part of a science of reading instruction. And so that I was, I was very surprised that people even thought that was controversial. But

Lindsay Persohn: 22:51

well, there's plenty of this research that really can't be translated to practice, right? You know, they're, we're not doing brain imaging in classrooms and things like that. So you know, we, we have to find the utility in order for it to have utility. And in my view,

Tim: 23:08

there's an entire body of research. And it's not just those studies out of psychology and neurology, as an edge, I have done a number of large correlational studies that give you some sense of direction, but you could not just apply them in the classroom, you should not just apply them in the classroom. So it's even your research in the field of education. This, the studies that should be translated into widespread classroom practice, really, at some point have to be experiments, you actually have to try this thing out, some kids are gonna do it, some kids aren't, some teachers are gonna do it, or schools are gonna do it, some aren't, and have to see what happens as a result of those changes. And if if those changes don't lead to anything good, then we ought not to be running around telling everybody they should do that. And so, you know, I'm not saying that there's no value to these studies. But they those other those kinds of studies that people are claiming is the science of reading, really have two benefits to give us not neither of them, can be translated right into the classroom. On the one hand, you look at those, and they can give you insights, they can see if it works like that, if the brain is doing that, and wonder if we taught it this way, if that would be better. That doesn't get you all the way there. But if it were a place where innovation can come from, that's, that's valuable. The studies that they've really been making a big deal out of I don't think are doing that. They do something else. It's also valuable, and it's the second thing. They can help explain why certain instructional things work. They don't tell you what to do. They just tell you why those things are working. If I want to stay with a medical analogy where I started, think of something like aspirin. Doctors started giving aspirin to patients in the 1890s. It wasn't until the 1980s or 90s, almost 100 years later, when people did studies where they went, and we know why it works. And that was important, because then they could start to say, well, gee, if it works like that, that might not be it's so safe for children. Maybe we shouldn't give as much aspirin to kids as we were doing. And so they changed that up. But the idea of aspirin, we knew it worked. You know, there was no question aspirin was helping people it was doing pain relief. But it was a long time later before we knew why. We've got a ton of studies showing that phonics instruction is really beneficial to beginning readers. Some of these studies about how the brain is operating or how kids learn statistical information. Those tell us how that works, or why those things are work that would explain why explicit phonics instruction propels the kids forward faster than just hoping the kids figure that out. Ah, that's useful too. And it might give you either new insights, how to shape that instruction in the future. Or it might give you some warnings like with aspirin, maybe you shouldn't use it in certain situations. But the fact that somebody thinks the brain works a particular way doesn't tell me anything about what kids in the New York City public schools or the Los Angeles public schools ought to be doing. It might 15 years from now, when people have translated into teaching and then evaluated the effectiveness of that. Sometimes the idea itself is great, but the translations are terrible. That it's, it's the instructional people who have screwed up, it's the original research was accurate. But our scheme to do it doesn't work. And I can think of some examples of that, too. You got these great ideas. But when you actually try to put them into practice, they don't work so well.

Lindsay Persohn: 27:07

When I also think the idea of scaling a study, you know, it works in a controlled environment. But I'm thinking in particular about those three factors you gave us earlier, once we plug a different teacher into that model, someone who has a different personality or a different style, it shifts everything right, it really is a seismic shift in the way that idea works. And, you know, the the the skill, or warmth or experience of one teacher doesn't necessarily translate to the skill or warmth or experience of another teacher. So you know, I think that's something that we're maybe not quite cautious enough about to plug in that human aspect. And of course, kids are different, too. You know, we know they're largely the same in many places. But as you mentioned earlier, they're also very different depending on where they're from, you know, not just personally but but generationally, you know, where they've come from.

Tim: 28:04

one of the fears of applying research, which is really what we're talking about, how, how does research really apply to the classroom, there is just a set of rules, and we follow the rules. And you know, teachers hate that because they look and go, Well, I think I'm a better teacher than him, right? You know, I'm nicer to the kids or, you know, whatever, I have a better relationship with them, I think they trust me more. And those things do matter. If you're experimentally trying things out, you're really going to assign, you know, different groups to different treatments, that stuff should equalize out if you're, if your treatment is making any difference. But, but, frankly, this again, I'm going to say it should operate more like the medical model it 100 years ago, doctors actually hated the idea of applying research to medicine, they thought it was going to take away their professionalism. They thought that, you know, what they brought to their patient was individual and special. And that this idea of there being sort of rules or standards, based on these studies was interfering with their relationships with their patients. You know, we look 100 years later, and thank goodness, that they didn't do that. They do follow standards of practice. There are particular treatments that they're going to use in particular situations. But they observe that this is what the physician brings that the research can never bring the physician. Yeah, they give you the standard treatment, but then they watch what happens. And if you don't have the standard response, gee, this, this particular medication works 86% of the time, you're in the 14%, you're not in the 86%. The doctor pays attention to that and goes, gee, we don't have a standard of care for that. I think what we're going to try here is and we saw that a few weeks ago, a month or two ago when the President would say what what did they do, they didn't go in with the standard of care. They said You know, we've got the standard of care, but we've got some extra stuff that we're trying out, we want to see if we can make those work, they do things like that. And that's what we should be doing as teachers, you know, oh, I deliver those comprehension lessons, the way that they told me to when I tried to do those as well as I can, I don't just buy the notion that they work automatically, because the research says, so I get, I have to really make them work. That's really what research tells you in our field. Not that it works. But that it can work that you can make it work, I can make that work, but I can pay attention. And if it's not working, maybe I can sweeten it somehow, maybe I could increase the amount of instruction that I give the kids, maybe I could, maybe that is working with this kid, if I came at it a different direction, he might understand it, that kind of thing.

Lindsay Persohn: 30:48

Well, and what you say to him, really makes me wonder if that is often the piece that's lost in translation, this idea that it can work, because I know my experience in schools, you know, when you are given the newest shiny curriculum, well, often, first of all, it's kind of just dropped off to you. And you know, you get a good luck with that. And we don't even think about the learning curve that comes with with learning new curriculum, but then add to that this this caveat that yes, this can work, but you have to be a critical consumer and and a critical teacher of, of the, the delivered or prescribed curriculum.

Tim: 31:27

Absolutely. And so since our kids differ in various ways, it's important when you look at those original studies, or people are, you know, like me are spouting off about some research finding, oh, gee, you know, I worked with a class that's all African American kids or I work with a class that's all second language learners, or, you know, you said that study was done with seven year olds, but I work with nine year olds or 12 year olds, oh, you know, what, what do we know about that? You know, it's, it's the kids can vary. That's one thing that teachers I worry about, because when they hear research based or scientific, I think a lot of times they think as long as I go through the motions that they've told me to, that's supposed to work. And that that sort of implies that in those original studies, that's what the teachers were doing. But typically, in those original studies, people were really pushing them to do a really good job of it than to, you know, people were watching coming in and observing, you know, think about when you've gone through a new curriculum adoption, are people coming in and observing you in those first few months to see how you're applying. So what will they do often in their studies, because they want to make sure that it works, we all have exactly the same attitude in the schools. We know this can work. That's exciting. Now let's see if we can make it work, which is going to be hard, hard work. I used to tell my teachers in Chicago, if you visited someplace where you have a friend and another school or something, and they're doing some terrific thing, I have no idea whether we can do that or not. But if you show me something that is been done over and over and over again, say 38 times in different studies, I'm pretty darn sure we can make that sucker work. You don't have to work out. But you know, there's something there's a much higher chance that we can be successful. And that's really how we should be using research to increase the possibilities to increase our certainty that what we're doing can can pay off for kids. But watching it, you know, holding it accountable, not just oh, well, we do that. Now, if the kids don't do any better, there's nothing we can do. Yes, there is. Let's make sure you're really doing whatever the thing is. I, many years ago, I was visiting some parts of the country and I was speaking to teachers in the morning, and there was a lunch break. And then there was no more work with the teachers. And a whole bunch of teachers sort of gathered around me at lunch that they had a question that they wanted to answer. Their school district was buying some new middle school reading program, that they wanted to know my opinion, and if it was gonna make things better for their kids. And and, you know, which I normally, you know, stay away from altogether,

Lindsay Persohn: 34:21

Prophet, Tim Shanahan.

Tim: 34:24

But then they told me what the program was that the district is buying. And I said, good research, I don't know the program myself, but research on that program says it's pretty good. It's been effective. And people can make it work. And so you guys should be able to make that work. That's not a bad thing that your district has done. But I certainly have a question for you. What's the length of your middle of your ELA class? And they said, Well, 45 minutes. I said, Okay. Are you aware that the program that they bought is a 90 minute program, and that that's what's been studied, that's what's been effective. And they said, yeah, we knew that but the district isn't going to change the, you know, the length of six, Well, okay, I have a prediction is not going to work. You, you, you started out, you pick something that's really sensible, but then you're not going to try to use it in the same way that it proved to be effective. Now, whether you can get some effective as effectiveness of the path of the program, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's, you know, I would certainly not be able to hold this program accountable for effective if you only teach one of my questions, which half are going to teach, are they giving you guidance on that? Well, now we just have to figure that out ourselves. Which means every class would be his own mess.

Lindsay Persohn: 35:48

Right? We've got an hour lunch plan for you, but you've got 30 minutes to do it. How does that work out?

Tim: 35:55

Right, do that too often in education, sometimes that's an individual teacher, sometimes that's an entire school district, you know, so I can't really blame one person, it's who's making those particular decisions. We need to be smarter about applying research. So that's one of the things that I've been working on. I think that's really important stuff.

Lindsay Persohn: 36:17

Well, Tim, we've talked a lot about teachers and and what teachers do and what teachers don't do. And we know there are a lot of challenges in education right now. A, given those challenges and the climate of today, what message do you want teachers to hear?

Tim: 36:35

Ah, you know, I know how discouraging it's got to be for folks right now. I guess I'm a bit discouraged myself about what's going on. Let's go back to my little framework of those three things that have to be done, what has happened during, you know, this pandemic, and, you know, cutting back of schools and people, you know, trying to do this stuff online, and so on and so forth. Certainly, the probably the first obvious thing is kids are getting less reading instruction, and are probably doing less reading. And that there are all kinds of places that comes in closing of libraries, school policies that say, we're going to teach online, but the kids can't have the textbooks because we're afraid they won't come back, you know, that kind of stuff, is, these are decisions being made by individual teachers, these are often statewide district wide decisions. We're not treating this instructional experience as an essential. We we treat restaurants and bars as being more essential than kids reading. I think that's a huge mistake. So you know, this, this time issues a big one, some parts of reading, are easier to teach at a distance. And that's true at maybe particular grade levels, too. I mean, I, man, if I were a first grade teacher, again, trying to teach beginning read into a group of six year olds, man, oh, man, I don't know if I could do that online. You know, I know, there are parts of it, I could do online. But there are parts, that would be harder, and therefore I might not be doing those as much. I don't see school systems stepping up and saying, Well, if we're going to worry about word learning, you know, in learning how to decode and that kind of stuff, or we're going to worry about fluency or comprehension or writing, are we making sure that our teachers know how to do that kind of thing? Are we you know, getting them together, even after the spring, when, you know, people had just done the best they could you know, how many districts pull those teachers together to share ideas and to see if they could come up with routines that we're who's managing to do writing with their young kids? How are you making that work? What kinds of writing, you know, I don't see a lot of that going on. And I feel like I should. So there are a bunch of those kinds of things, and certainly quality teaching, which I think looks a little different. The way that you and I are connected right now over these machines than it does if we're in the same room and, you know, I can I can I feel like I can monitor you more closely. I feel like I can see what's going on I you know, I sometimes you can't see it in the face and see it in the body getting more and more rigid. And as the kid is getting upset or you know, not so sure what's going on. I talked to some teachers in the spring, who told me that, you know, by last March, they said, they knew their classes they knew you know, which kids to call on in certain situations. They know who could lead the other kids into the discussion. You know, they knew who would respond, but they said when they were working online, they would ask questions of these these participatory kids, and they'd get Yeah. No, kids are just totally inhibited. And I don't know, if they're afraid of being on camera, they don't know, you know what's going on, or if they're just feeling isolated, but they that the teachers are saying they're completely different. I got to do some live training with about 500 800, teachers, something like that during the summer. So I asked them this, this show of hands, I told them about what these teachers were telling me and wondering if anybody thought they'd seen the same thing. And it was like, maybe 90% of the hands went up in the rooms. And so I went, Hmm, this is something real, that normally in a classroom, I wouldn't have to contend with. So how do you quality teaching means you actually get the kids to participate in the lessons? So what do we have to do to get the kids to participate? How do we not lose them. And there are some, you know, depends what programs and you know, what zoom and, you know, there are so many of these different things, some of them are better instructionally than others. I don't, I'm not someone to evaluate that. But I'm told, some of them have breakout rooms, and some don't, some you can pull the kids and some you maybe can, but not as easily, and so on and so forth. And I don't see districts necessarily moving these decisions around based on what's what's working best for the teachers. But essentially, this idea of not a lesson that you might just do for 20 minutes, maybe needs to be 10 minutes with some polling of the kids, because in a real classroom, you would have been watching them, you would have been circulating among them, you would have broken out of what you were doing at 10 minutes anyway, because the kids would have been not responding the way that you wanted them to. In this, they'll you know, you see 30 little faces, and while you maybe don't see all 30, maybe you see 18 little faces, the other 12 you think that there but you can't even see them, being able to stop and get the kids to respond to things, ask some questions that you wouldn't normally ask to check out your directions and so on. And we've been trying out seems to work a lot better. building out. So quality instruction is shifting a bit. So I look at the time issues, the content issues and the delivery issues. And I say there are big changes there. And people are kind of overwhelmed right now. So they're not helping you, you're kind of on your own teachers. It's, I do think that's getting better, I think it'll improve over time. And you know, we will this COVID thing isn't going to last forever. Don't give up keep plugging at it. And to the extent that you're able to, I know I was talking to some teachers out in the western part of the country, they've actually started to you know, they're not waiting for their states or the districts to put them into chat rooms with colleagues, they're, you know, they're getting groups of teachers together, 50 100, teachers online, having discussions of these kinds of things. I'm not a big tech guy. So I'm not the guy who knows how to do that. But these teachers are figuring that out. And I would argue for you trying to do that, get your group together and start talking about some of this, I think you can feel more in control, you can be more in control with that. If your districts doing great take part be a big part of that. If they're not see, you know, whether you're professional groups, or even just friends of yours around the community, or the state or whatever would want to talk, get that going.

Lindsay Persohn: 43:41

I think in a lot of ways this has turned into a grass roots opportunity for professional development. You know, I think we're all thinking differently about practice right now and about how we meet the needs of every student. And certainly there are many students who have been disadvantaged by the pandemic and all of the changes, but I think there are some students who are actually at an advantage, it may be much smaller in number, but, you know, working from home is likely working for lots of kids and and their families, quite honestly. So I think that again, we're back to that really fine grained understanding of what's good for people as individuals and for their particular circumstances. But, you know, with all of the free webinars that have become available throughout the pandemic, I know, I think almost every night last week I was attending or talking at some sort of education related event, which, which, you know, I think that we're doing that differently than we did before. And if we can capitalize on those things that are good about the changes we've made in the last few months, and then hopefully get back to some of the old practices that also we're really great. We may have something here you know, we may really be on to something,

Tim: 44:54

it's gonna be breaking out of the isolation. I mean, obviously, you're not isolated or you wouldn't be connected. With five different groups and five days, unfortunately, there are a lot of kids who feel really isolated right now. And I'm afraid a lot of teachers do as well. I think participating in this kind of a podcast is a good thing for teachers to do. But I also think they're learning a lot, stuff that nobody's ever known. And it's, they need to find some avenues where they can share that. And I know, there are some things like that. But, you know, putting those together, getting all the fourth grade teachers in your district together, just you know, send the notes around to each other is a really smart idea. And so it does give opportunities for that kind of thing. It could be very empowering. If they get to break out of that,

Lindsay Persohn: 45:49

you've actually given me a really good idea of how we might get some listener participation around this podcast. I mean, I can imagine putting a call out to fourth grade teachers around the country and you know, just letting them talk to each other about what's working and what isn't. And sometimes, I think we also just need opportunities to vent and share experiences and understand, like you said, that social connection and to know that, no, we're not alone, you know, we may be sitting in separate spaces. But that doesn't mean we're, we're alone. In fact, my yoga teacher says, We're not social distancing, we're physical distancing, we can still have social experiences, they just might look a little bit different now.

Tim: 46:29

In the past, teachers often feel like, well, there are, you know, there are 1000s of teachers out there. And if you're, especially if you're a new teacher, you're sure everybody knows more than you. This is a situation, nobody has gone through. This isn't what you know, I talked about that teacher who was telling me about the lack of response, I went and looked up the research on that. I was curious, you know, I'm sure that people who study this must know about it, nothing, no, no articles on that no information on that at all. There, I know that there are these gurus running around the country saying, Oh, they know how to do this, they've never done it before, either. So this is a situation, you could be a rookie teacher doing this and have some insight or figure out something that nobody else has figured out. And so sharing that information with each other has a value is much higher than what it would have had in the past. And I really encourage teachers to, to try to share, what are you figuring out? What did you do, you know, gee, the teacher who, when they got offline can call the kid or send them an email to because he was worried that she was losing them. And, you know, she hung on to him. By doing that, finding out how people are solving those kinds of problems is really critical, and they are solving them. It's just that they shouldn't have to solve all of them themselves. So you know, creating the kinds of situations you're talking about is something that I certainly strongly encourage you to do. And teachers don't have to wait, they can start doing that right now.

Lindsay Persohn: 48:06

I think that's such a critical point to that, that, you know, if we think oh, I'll do that next school year. I know for me, that ends up on a to do list that is long buried by by the time next school, turns the corner. So I think that we your message for teachers to connect and connect now. And let's talk about what's working for us, is such a critical aspect of not only the time we're living in, but I really think that's a message for all times right to find your find your people, right, find your tribe and connect with them and share ideas.

Unknown: 48:42

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lindsay Persohn: 48:45

Well, Tim, it has been wonderful speaking with you today. I thank you so much for your time, and I thank you for your contributions to education.

Tim: 48:52

I've enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Keep doing this. And to all your audience. You know, I guess I'll say what I usually say when I'm meeting people in person. I'm glad to have you here today. But thank you for what you do every day. Your work is really important. Thanks.

Lindsay Persohn: 49:09

Thank you. Dr. Timothy Shanahan served as a member of the advisory board of the National Institute for Literacy under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and he helped lead the national reading panel convened at the request of Congress to evaluate research on the teaching of reading and a major influence in reading education. He also chaired the National Literacy Panel for language minority children and youth and the National Early Literacy Panel, and he helped write the Common Core State Standards. He is a 2007 inductee into the reading Hall of Fame and has been awarded the William S grey citation for lifetime achievement. The Albert J. Harris Award for outstanding research on reading disability from the International Literacy Association, the P David Pearson award for scholarly impact from the literacy Research Association, the Milton D. Jacobsen readability Research Award, the Amoco Award for Outstanding Teaching and the University of Delaware's Presidential Citation for outstanding achievement. He co developed project flame, a family literacy program for Latino immigrants, which received an Academic Excellence Award from the US Department of Education. His 2012 article the Common Core ate my baby and other urban legends, received the Distinguished Achievement Award for learned article from the Association of Educational publications. Tim is the author or editor of more than 200 publications on literacy education, including the books teaching with a common core state standards for the English language arts, early childhood literacy and developing literacy in second language learners. Tim is a past president of the International Literacy Association, and has served as the director of reading for Chicago Public Schools. He's also a first former first grade teacher. Tim is now a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was founding director of the UIC center for literacy. You can find him online at Shanahan on literacy.com where he maintains an active and informative blog. For the good of all students, good research should inform good practice and vice versa. listeners are invited to connect with the show through the website at classroom caffeine.com. If you've learned something today, or just enjoyed listening, please subscribe, like and share this podcast. I raised my mug to you teachers. Thanks for joining me