SPEAKER_03 0:24

All right. Welcome to Ed Leadership on Tap. How are we doing today?

SPEAKER_04 0:28

We're getting closer to uh Thanksgiving break there, Dr. G. I can feel it.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

Are you looking forward to it?

SPEAKER_04 0:35

You're feeling that it's November today. We can feel that it's November today. Absolutely. How about you, sir?

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Doing great, man. Doing great.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Good.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

All right. So let's get started with some feedback from uh last week's episode. Did we get any feedback?

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Yeah, we did get some feedback and excited to check that out. We got uh something from an administrator named Julie who said uh this season two, episode six was a great one. Hearing Tony talk about campus district alignment gave me so much clarity on how to better partner with our HR department instead of seeing them as a roadblock. And I think that was a really cool point because it is someone who's really on the same side. They're trying to set us up for success um just through a different lens.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Yeah, and how many times have we heard, oh man, if only HR would just listen to me, you know? Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Oh, yeah. Well, it's like when the campuses talk about, you know, the people up at the admin building. It's it feels like an us them thing, even though everyone's really trying to work toward the same goal. Right. All right. How about our feedback on our on tap segment where I know we took a look at some of our first jobs?

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Yes, we got uh feedback from Laura. That was a very popular topic.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

It was. There was so much feedback on this one. Yeah, first job was uh some some hot uh hot takes here for sure. Yes, some cool first jobs, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Laura, Dave, just like you, she threw newspapers here and there. But her official first job was at 16, working at Learner's, which is now New York and Company. She says she loved it and always looked her best.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

Okay. Um, I had one from longtime listener Nancy, worked at a dress shop and sold dresses and ladies' wear. Worked there for about two and a half years.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

I heard from Angela, she was scooping ice cream at Brahms. I appreciate that. She was only 14, and so she got to leave early every night. Appreciate her uh joining the workforce early and scooping that ice cream.

SPEAKER_03 2:28

All right. Gary, his first job was at Pioneer Seed. Now, I had no idea what that was, so I had to look it up, and this is what I found. When someone from the Midwest says that their first high school job was at Pioneer, they almost certainly worked as a seasonal corn detacher.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

For decades, hiring thousands of teenagers for a few weeks every July has been an iconic rite of passage. It is notoriously exhausting character-building manual labor. If that was their job, their daily routine involved waking up at 5 a.m.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

No, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Crews of kids gather early in the morning to board school buses or vans that take them out to the seed fields. And then from there, they walk miles through muddy rows of tall corn plants reaching up to manually manually yank the pollen-producing tassels off the female rows of corn.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

This sounds like a story that our grandparents would make up to get us together.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Now, this ensured that the plants cross-pollinate correctly to create pioneers high-yield hybrid seed. So, Gary, you taught us something today.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

Yeah, learned something new. And uh I don't ever want to do that job.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

No, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

I heard from uh our good friend Miranda. Um, her first job that actually withheld taxes, working assembly line in a carpet sample place, putting those little different colored carpet samples on the boards that they sent to Home Depot and other carpet retailers. $4.25 an hour, hot, boring, and she knew she was going to college. The conditions and the grown adults struggling to take care of their families on that pay was eye-opening and made her motivated to finish her degree. No doubt.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

I had no idea that someone got paid to put those little carpet squares on there, but I guess it makes sense. I'm gonna share my favorite one of all. Um, this is from our friend Alan, who we who we know well. He said he was slinging weenies at the hot dog house, hot dog stand. And so I've never heard of the hot dog house, but I'm I'm sure it's a fantastic product and just uh, you know.

SPEAKER_04 4:41

Nothing wrong with a good hot dog. Absolutely. And then we heard from Gary B. Um, his uh first one was mowing lawns and working at Kmart, the blue light special.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

Kmart. Wow, layaway really.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Yeah, I hadn't yeah, I haven't heard of Kmart in a long time.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

You really appreciate something when you had to wait till to get it off layaway. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

What do you know about layaway? Did they have that when you were there? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

I caught some of that layaway.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

All right, listeners, thank you so much for the feedback. We had so many more responses that we can't air them all because we'd need an entire episode on that.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Yeah, lots of great feedback this time. Really appreciate everybody everybody who wrote in. Yeah, I loved hearing the different jobs.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

All right, so let's get started with our episode.

SPEAKER_04 5:26

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 5:35

All right, thank you for joining us to edle on tap. Today we have a very special guest, Dr. Whitney Hexett, who is currently an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Laverne. She is an educational anthropologist and the author of the book Just Talk to Us Normally, a leader's guide to organizing schools that elevate students. She specifically works with district schools and teacher leaders. Dr. Hexeth, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me today.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Yeah, we're excited for you to be here. Really appreciate you joining us. And we'll go ahead and hop right in. I'd love to hear more about um your path to where you are now. What got you involved in education? What got you interested in the topic that that led you toward this book?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah, I mean, that could be a really long story or a short story. Um, but kind of the medium story, I guess, is when I was an undergrad, I was an anthropology major and very quickly became interested in education uh because anthropology is, you know, studying people and cultures around the world. And I took a class on controlling processes and how things in our society can really control and shape us without our even realizing it, and came to appreciate that things like curriculum and tests and other things like that can really shape children and childhood. And meanwhile, I had always loved working with children as like a nanny and a tutor and a babysitter. And so then that sparked a lifetime in education where I've been a teacher, an educational researcher, now a professor and a parent. And, you know, I've really appreciated that schools can shape our experiences and our actions, but also our deeply held thoughts, values, and beliefs. And so that's part of what motive me motivated me to write this book is that leaders, educational leaders, have such power to change culture and to change kind of the way children are treated and taught. And so they deserve a whole lot of support in that work because it's tricky work.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Yeah, we often talk about culture here on the podcast and the importance of having a positive culture in schools. Um, talk to us a little bit about why you decided on the title. Just talk to us normally. Does that have a specific significance?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah, I really love the title and I really can't take credit for it. I um so as part of the research that informed this book, you know, this book was based on research that I've conducted in schools in a couple different countries across time. And something that I did after being a teacher's assistant in elementary schools for several months, I took a video of kind of a quote unquote typical day in a given classroom and then edited that video down to about 20 minutes and then showed those videos of different classrooms that were in different types of school systems in different national contexts. I showed them to different leaders, teachers, and students. And one student in Canada was watching a video of a classroom different from her own, and she was observing something that no adult who had seen the video picked up on. She observed that the teacher was talking to her students as if they were babies. And this nine-year-old girl, still very young, said, just talk to us normally. We're not babies anymore. And her classmates agreed with her. And in in making that comment, she pretty much summed up my entire purpose in writing this book. And she was able to see it a lot earlier than I saw it.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

You know, if you if you want the right answers, ask the kids, right? I mean Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

Man, that that that is uh that is uh amazing. You know, I I am I I love the anthropology background. One of my, I'm gonna go sidebar a little bit, one of my favorite classes in undergrad. I took a cultural anthropology class from Dr. Prinz, and it was one of my favorite classes I took. And and obviously with anthropology, you can go in a plethora of directions. So, what kind of drew you to study in schools and write this book to guide leaders?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, I mean, I think that like I agree with you. I love anthropology, and that controlling processes class was actually taught by Laura Nader, Ralph Nader's big sister. Oh wow, yeah. Um, which is just, you know, just amazing. Um I think that anthropology really helps me tackle the problem that I wanted to tackle in this book, which is that we as a society tend to underestimate our young people. And that is particularly true when they are young and black, or when they are young and a recent immigrant, or when they are young and, you know, female, for example. This book tells a couple of different stories, but one story is how to change culture. And leaning on my background in anthropology, I talk about, you know, previous anthropologists and sociologists have talked about when you're changing culture, you kind of need to move from, you know, we start off with offering explicit ideologies, which are kind of these explicit standards for how you're supposed to think, act, feel, et cetera. We see that often in religion. And then with time, these ideologies become more tradition. They become more our habit and our way of practicing. But if someone were to ask us about it, we could point back to that ideology that kind of informed why we're doing what we're doing. But then with more time, that tradition can become common sense, which is our deeply held assumptions and beliefs that we can't even question because we don't realize that they're there. And so that is the culture change that I talk about in schools. I talk about the work that educational leaders can do that eventually transform the common sense, not just of teachers, but also of students around kind of their role and their ability in the classroom.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

That's cool. And I know that you mentioned uh exploring schools in multiple countries as you're uh as you did research for this book. So if I'm correct, you studied um IB and Montessori schools in both the US and Canada. What surprised you most when you compared the schools in those different locales?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Yeah, I, you know, I chose so to be really clear, this I hope that this book is read especially by public school educators. You know, that that is who I really am hoping to support. And so people might wonder, well, why the heck is she talking about IB and Montessori? And that's a good question. And I have several reasons. Um, one reason is that both international baccalaureate or IB and Montessori are very counterculture. And when we look at a drastically different way of teaching and learning, it helps us to kind of better hold a mirror up to our own practice and reevaluate our own assumptions and practice around our work. And another reason that I offer up IBM Montessoria's cases in this book is that both of these systems operate around the world. You can find their schools in the US, but you can also find them in Mongolia, in China, in France, you name it. And yet, even though they've both successfully spread around the world, they've done this in very, very different ways. And so it's a really nice way to illustrate a point I make in the book, which is that there are many options, many paths forward when trying to change culture. And leaders have options around how they want to engage in that work. But another thing I point out is that depending on the decisions you make, when you're working towards culture change, it has different implications for you as a leader and also for your teachers and your students.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

Um, let me, I'm gonna kind of go off script here again. When you look at culture, um, you know, what would you say, you know, because our our principals and and people that we kind of talk with are always, you know, looking at that cultural piece, what would you say are maybe top three cultures that you've kind of seen in very successful schools?

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Or characteristics of highly successful cultures? Are there common trends that emerge?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Well, it's a great question. I think that just really generally what what I'm pushing for and what I'm observing is when a school system or a school, depending on what level we're operating at, right? Like whether we're operating at district level or school level. But I think it's really successful when again we are reconsidering our assumptions around young people and what they're capable of. Um, and I think that's a really important and necessary starting point.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

That's great. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

You spoke earlier about and and just now about assumptions and perceptions, and you gave the example about the teacher that was talking to her students like they were babies. What other evidence have you seen of these perceptions and assumptions that adults have towards children?

SPEAKER_00 15:25

You know, actually, so I was working, you know, most of the research that I focused on in this book, the bulk of it is based on my work in four different elementary schools, a Montessori school in the US and one in Canada, and an IB elementary school in the US and in Canada. As I mentioned before, I had these videos that I was showing in focus groups. That was one of my research methods I was leaning on. And when I was going back to listen to those focus groups, I was really cringing at the fact that I really mirrored the assumptions and expectations of whatever context I was in. So if I was in a school context where they had really high expectations and assumptions of children, I reflected that. And if I was in a context that was a bit more infantilizing for whatever reason, I could also hear that in my own, my own tone, in my own talking to the children in that context. As painful as that was to realize about myself, that to me really underscored my entire purpose for writing this book, which is that it is brutally hard to change culture. It is brutally hard to change our reflex assumptions and treatment toward other people, especially young people. And so a main story that this book tells is how can we use systems to help with that culture change? Because it's too Herculean of a task for a given individual. We need to kind of activate our systems to support us in that work.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Yeah, I totally get what you're saying about the difficulty in changing culture, because as a new person going into a new environment, the easy part is to just adapt to that culture, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 17:16

So part of the framework uh looks at how adaptable, aligned, or specified a school's infrastructure is. You know, if if you kind of give us a cliff notes version and explain that kind of in plain terms for a principal, what what are you looking at with that?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah, I would so love to explain that because unfortunately, a term that I talk a lot about in this book is educational infrastructure. And that is just a mouthful. It's a really clunky term. Um, and it's like a real turnoff, I think. But really, what educational infrastructure is, is it is the water we swim in as educators. It is everything that we use to organize and support teaching and learning. So that includes a curriculum or a test or a standard or an instructional coach or structured time for collaboration or professional development. It's any and all of that. And so I offer a framework in the book about infrastructure and the decisions leaders can make around how adaptable it is, how aligned it is, and how specified it is. So when I'm talking about adaptable, let's take the example of a curriculum. You know, when we're looking at a curriculum and its adaptability, it's like can a teacher really adjust this based on the needs of her specific learners? Or does this curriculum have to be implemented in exactly the same way no matter where it's being rolled out? And then alignment is looking at how do all the different moving parts of our infrastructure work together? So we have a curriculum that's working towards a given goal, but are teachers also getting professional development around that curriculum that supports them in working towards that goal? Is there alignment between the two? And then we also, I also talk about how specified something is. So for an example, for example, with a curriculum, you know, is it is it telling the teachers not just what to do, but also how to say it? Is it getting that nitty-gritty with the details? Or is it more high level in general? And I I make a point. I'm not trying to say that high adaptability or high specificity is better or worse than the low version of those things. Rather, there are different decisions you can make around each of these, and that has implications for educators and students alike.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Yeah, what what are uh some of the trade-offs there when infrastructure is highly specified? Uh, for example, you've got a tightly scripted curriculum versus a more adaptable version of that model.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Absolutely. That's a great question. Um, and I'm with you. Like what what uh to your points, it's like everything I show in the book is that there are a lot of different decisions we can make around our infrastructure. And those different decisions are fine, but they do have very implic, very real implications for the work of leaders, for the practice of teachers, and for the experiences of students. So, for example, in my book, I talk about how there's high specificity that can really move the needle and shift beliefs that not only that teachers have around students, but also that students hold about themselves. And I saw examples of that in the elementary schools I was in. So I did see some real advantages of specificity and kind of really elevating people's beliefs around children and their capabilities. But a very real trade-off, and we've seen this with some of our, you know, with some of these really specified reforms that have come out over the past several decades. If something's really specified, that can be really insulting to a teacher and her autonomy that she wants to have over her instruction in her classroom. And so if you are going to have a really highly specified support, I think an important first step is you need buy-in from your community before you get that specified. Like you need teachers and parents and students, everyone involved to feel good about the thing that you're specifying around so that they're willing to kind of relinquish some of the autonomy that can come with that.

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Yeah, I think I think there is definitely a balance with all of that. You know, as you're kind of looking and if you had a magic wand and and you you had, I don't know, 10 first year principals or assistant principals sitting in front of you that wanted to shift culture. What's the first thing you would tell them to look at with their school's infrastructure?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Oh gosh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

I mean, I think that's I know that's that's a loaded, loaded question there.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yeah. I mean, if we're just gonna look at the framework that I offer around these levers of infrastructure and how adaptable, aligned, or specified it is, I would say that in it maybe one first step is to think about that adaptability lever. Right. So if you are a first-year principal and you're offering up, you know, a given curriculum for all of your teachers to implement, what are the what what are the decisions you're making around, is this supposed to look the same across all of the classrooms, or am I going to offer some space and leeway for this to be kind of adjusted and adaptable to a given classroom or group of learners? There's no right or wrong or easy answer to this. A point that I show in my book is I offer up examples of leaders who made different decisions around adaptability. And what we see in these cases is that when you permit high adaptability, and when you let kind of leaders and teachers below you really adjust things based on their context, what that means is that you really need to capacity build for them. You need to make sure that they have the skills and supports they need in order to adapt in ways that work toward the larger goal. Or you could say, no, I want low adaptability. I want everyone doing this kind of the same way, but then it's really on you to create the buy-in around it, to build enough support so that there is shared practice and understanding, and to make sure that all of this can be sustained across time. So, you know, one big point I make is adaptability is kind of the first thing you need to think about. And depending on the decision you make, this really affects the work that you need to assume as a leader and the challenges that you're most typically going to be faced with.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Yeah, that's cool. I like the idea that, you know, it's not necessarily promoting one approach over the other, but saying depending on the one you choose, you're gonna have to establish a foundation in different areas based off the route you go.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Absolutely. And I I mean, I will say kind of a an implicit lesson in my book is about this idea of comparison. So we in our society tend to use comparison a lot. And in schools, we often use it to compete or to rank or to penalize or to incentivize. And I'm saying, you know, there's a there's a real advantage of using comparison not to compete, but rather to reflect and hold a mirror up to our own practice. And so if we look at examples of different decisions made around teaching and learning, we don't need to necessarily do what other people are doing, but in seeing what they're doing, we can better understand what we're doing and make any adjustments that we think are necessary.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

I really like that idea of comparison serving a productive purpose. I think about the the PLCs that I sit in or the or the meetings with teachers, and when we bring up data, it can become and feel so threatening because the the inevitably the teacher in the room that's got the the data that doesn't you know look as strong as others, you know, it becomes defensive and it sort of shuts down a conversation that can be productive if we if we depersonalize that a little bit and and look at it as okay, this is just information. Um, and this information can help us all get better if we use it in the right way.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Yeah, that can happen, especially if you don't have that culture present of, hey, we're all here to learn. Right. Right. Absolutely. So in doing some research uh about your research and your book, uh I noticed several articles uh dealing with the term power asymmetries. And and and I know that you state uh in your literature that uh you try to focus on that. Could you um explain that to us a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Well, I'm very flattered uh because this book, I intentionally wrote it for educators and educational leaders. Um, but also when when you're a professor like I am, you have to write a lot for other researchers. And not everyone reads those articles, so I appreciate that you look some of those up. Um, something also part of this research that I talk about in the book, a big focus I had was on this idea of mutual respect, which based on my research and everything I read, I define that as the work of disrupting power asymmetries between adults and children, but also among diverse groups of children. You know, I love talking about that. And that also is very complex, complicated work because respect, like culture, is a term that we use a lot. And there are a lot of different ways to define it and a lot of different ways to enact it. And different versions of respect might be needed at different points in time for different students. So it's this ongoing thing that you need to manage and reflect upon. And I can say more about that if you want, but I also, you know, don't need to ramble on respect too too much.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Yeah, when you say different kinds of respect situationally, different kinds of respect, will you just elaborate on that a little bit and tell me what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yeah, and and again, this is based on this same research. Um, what I found based on both, you know, things that I read prior to doing this research, but also what was kind of surfacing in the research itself, is I talk about three different dimensions of respect: equality, autonomy, and equity. And so an example is equality. You know, as a teacher, I want to make sure that all of my students learn about the Holocaust, for example. I think that's a really important shared learning experience we have. That's an example of equality. Autonomy is I as a teacher want to make sure that my students get as much choice and voice as is possible. So, yes, I need them to learn about the Holocaust, but maybe they can choose the partner they work with on this project. Maybe they could choose one of three books related to the topic. Maybe they can choose how they communicate what they've learned. And then equity can mean a lot of different things. Um, it can mean both, you know, that that everyone is getting what they need, which might look different across different learners. And it's also making sure that students who are underrepresented are getting more represented. They see themselves in kind of the materials that they're teaching and learning with. And so those are different dimensions. And in my writing, I've talked about how sometimes those things can be at odds with one another, right? If you want to make sure that uh your black and brown students in the room, if there's just a few of them, if you want to make sure to uplift their voices and make sure they have a seat at the table and at the conversation, you might be withholding some autonomy and kind of taking away some of students' agency around decisions they make so that you could ensure equity, for example. So, so all that to say, there are different ways to enact respect and it you kind of need to manage it across time and across different learners because there's no one way you can get fixated in this respect work.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

Yeah, and I think it's unfortunate that, you know, in during these times, when you talk about equality, autonomy, and equity, some of those terms are not uh looked upon very uh positively.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Yeah, absolutely. My book is supposed to be a support for educational leaders, and I do acknowledge that depending on where you were situated, this culture change, this work of respect, this work of elevating our young people, especially our marginalized young people, it can be really hard to do. There are a lot a lot of hurdles with which leaders and teachers are faced. And so I hope that the book, through several tactics within it, can be a true support for the leaders who are on the front lines of that work.

SPEAKER_04 30:27

So, in in your research and and you know, not just in your book, but throughout all of your research, you you've had the opportunity to observe, talk with, listen to a wide variety of leaders. So, what do you see as three things that you've seen the best leaders do consistently?

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Ooh, that's a good one. I think one is to observe. I think it is important, especially for a new leader when coming in, uh, to take time. And this is hard, you know. We we as humans want to act, we want to muck with things as soon as we can. Um, but to take time to sit on our hands and to just watch and observe how things are going and try to see both the strengths and the opportunities for improvement in a given context for a given person, withholding judgment as long as possible. You know, a second thing would be to talk to as many different people as you can before you engage on this work. And so, you know, we we need to talk to the other leaders who are in the mix. We need to talk to parents, especially the student, the parents who, for many good reasons, can't show up to school as often as some other parents. We need to talk to the students first and foremost. It doesn't matter if they're young, they have a lot of wisdom to share. And so really wrapping everyone up in the conversation before deciding how to move forward. And then maybe the third thing, just to be cheeky, is they should maybe buy my book and share it with their leadership teams because I'll help them take it from there.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

Absolutely. There you go. Yeah, no, I I think we've talked about this on our podcast before. When you step into that leadership role, you sometimes have the burden of feeling like you have to have all the answers. And it's okay to sit back and observe and listen and you know, watch what's going on. You know, obviously there's some low-hanging fruit that, you know, can be fixable, quote unquote. But I I think that observation, and you know, I think all of us, when we stepped into our principal role, one of the first things I did is set up meetings with staff, PTA, um, other leaders, just to, you know, what's going well, what are things that we can improve on? And and uh it was uh it proved very valuable. So I I love that you said that.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

So we've also talked on our podcast about people that have influenced us in the past and uh in our path to where we are now. So looking back at your own experience in schools, who was it that talked to you normally?

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Oh, that's just wonderful. And honestly, I think when you ask that, I just if I close my eyes, I were to see a montage of really wonderful educators and people who did talk to me normally. And they did every step of the way, right? And so starting from when I was very small, an elementary school teacher, and then across every level of schooling, including people who were talking to me and convincing me that I could write this book because I myself am first gen, you know, there wasn't hardly any higher education experience in my family. And there certainly was no one writing a book. And so there were folks who talked to me normally every step of the way and assumed that I did deserve to be in that space, that I could do those things. And all of that just kind of underscores that it takes a village to change this culture, to change our assumptions and treatment of young people. And we need people at every level doing this work.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

And I know that research is something that you know doesn't stop for the researcher. So as you have kind of wrapped up this book and are beginning to talk about it and and and share it with others, what are some things? Are there things that you see as extensions of the work or things that you're currently working on or researching uh beyond the scope of what you include in the book?

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Yeah, thank you for asking that. So in the program that I teach in at the University of Laverne, we have so many doctoral students right now in our ed leadership program, and we are teaching them how to do action research, which is, you know, they are all full-time either teacher leaders, school leaders, or district level leaders. And so we're teaching them to really look at their site, talk to a lot of their community members, and figure out a persistent problem that's in their site that they want to tackle. And then they develop a change initiative that begins to tackle that problem. And then we teach them some of the research methods they need to evaluate whether and how and for whom that change initiative is working as they had hoped. And so, being their professor, teaching them action research, I want to practice what I preach. And so, something that I have been getting into recently is WIPAR, which is youth participatory action research. And I am launching this new project in two different elementary schools near me that's called a youth leaders project, where I will be working with fourth and fifth grade students, teaching them leadership research and advocacy skills, and then supporting them as they identify a problem within their given classroom or school or community, and I can kind of help them work towards the change that they desire.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Very cool. And what better way to uh you know talk to a talk to a student normally than than make them a co-researcher and make them someone that is is exploring, you know, serious real world topics like that.

SPEAKER_04 36:21

Yeah, you're you're setting up a whole bucket of future researchers here. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Exactly. But I will say my mentors who have done similar work, they're like, careful, you reap what you're what you sow. And I have three semi-feral little boys who I'm trying to treat in this way. So we'll we'll just see how things go once they're teenagers.

SPEAKER_03 36:44

So if a school leader or a district leader was interested in buying your book, where can they get that? Is it available on Amazon?

SPEAKER_00 36:52

It is, yeah. So if you were to type just talk to us normally into Amazon, you would find there's both an ebook and a paperback version. You can also find it on several other websites as well, but Amazon's probably the easiest and most straightforward. So, yes, I would love for folks to buy it. Like I say, this book, you know, in a perfect world with my magic wand, this book would be read in leadership teams, either at the school or district level. There are there's a framework within it, there's reflection questions and kind of diagnostic tools within it. And so my hope is that it really supports a leadership team in thinking through the culture change they desire for their students and then thinking about the path they want to take towards that culture change.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

All right. So if a campus or district leader is listening right now and is looking for their next book study, this is this is the way to go, huh?

SPEAKER_00 37:48

It sure is. Thanks for thanks for uh making that plug for me.

SPEAKER_04 37:52

Absolutely. So is there anything as we kind of wrap up, is there anything that um that we didn't ask you that you'd love to share? And then we are going to hop into what we call our on tap segment and would like to know if you'd like to stick around for us.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Sure. All right. I mean, I think the the final thing I want to say is, you know, just a message to my target audience, so the educators and educational leaders. First, I I hope that you understand your power to transform not just actions towards students, but also beliefs towards students. And two, I hope you understand that there are many paths forward in this work. Of course, there are implications of every decision you make. Um, and my book kind of talks through some of those implications. And number three, I just want to acknowledge that this work is really hard, which is why something I try to do to support leaders is thinking about how to use your systems to affect this culture change because it's very hard for individuals. But using our systems and working with our teams, we can engage in this work.

SPEAKER_03 39:05

Well, Dr. Hexeth, thank you so much for joining us. Very powerful message. You know, I think as leaders, we can fall into a trap of limiting ourselves when we're trying to develop ourselves to those books that are, you know, motivational, how to be the best leader. Yeah. And we neglect those that are re more research-based. Yeah. And I think we can fall into that trap. I did that at when I was still working, but it's it's a balance of 50-50. You you need those motivational books, but you also know need those that are research-based. So thank you so much for joining us. And I guess with that, let's get started with on tap.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

All right. So for our on tap segment today, and and Dr. Hagseth uh didn't mention this earlier, but her her extensive background, uh, where she went to universities, um, has some uh very important traditions. So undergrad Cal Berkeley, correct?

SPEAKER_00 40:07

That's right. All right, both bears.

SPEAKER_04 40:08

Uh master's degree at Stanford.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Yes. And then the enemy.

SPEAKER_04 40:14

Yeah, right there. Yeah, the band is on the field. How can you let this happen? I mean, with within I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

But the blood runs glue.

SPEAKER_04 40:22

Okay, all right. And then your uh doctoral work was at University of Michigan, correct?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 40:29

All right, so we have a plethora of uh big sporting events here. So what our first question is, is what does everybody here believe is the best college tradition? So, Gilbert, you want to kick us off?

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Sure. You know, I've always been impressed by the University of Wisconsin, the start of the fourth quarter, when they play jump around and the entire student section and sometimes the entire stadium is just up jumping around.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

Big House of Pain fan, are you, Dr. T?

SPEAKER_03 41:00

I I am, yeah. Yeah. So it it's uh it's actually on my bucket list. Fourth quarter university. Yes, sir. Okay, so that would be mine.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Dave, how about you? What is yours?

SPEAKER_04 41:11

So, as as you guys are aware, um, there was some Metallica in my youth, um, and probably still today in my 50s. Um, I am a huge fan of Virginia Tech's walkout song when they uh the Lane Stadium there in Blacksburg, Virginia, they play Inner Sandman. Um, that was started, and they did a small little segment on ESPN about it. Started August 27th, uh, started the 2000, 2001 college football season. Um, and they got a brand new video board uh there at uh Lane Stadium, and they all were talking, you know, what is going to hype everybody up? And that song came out, and uh it is still played what 26 years later. And here recently, within the last year or so, uh, Metallica came and played the stadium there at Virginia Tech. Oh, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Yep. All right, I'm gonna go uh as I've often done on this show, I'm gonna cheat and say too, but I'm I'll say them really quickly. Um, you know, I'm gonna start out with the personal one and say Aggie Muster. I went to Texas AM. Uh Muster is uh occurs in April every year, and anyone who has ever been a student at Texas AM that passes away the year before, their name is read on a roll call and someone says here on their behalf, you know, we we consider that the greatest tradition. But one that's really caught my attention recently is in Iowa. If you guys have seen the Hawkeye wave um there in the in the second half of the games, there, you know, the entire stadium. It's the stadium's located next to a children's hospital. The entire stadium turns and waves toward the hospital where the where the kids are waving back. Just a really cool tradition uh that I've enjoyed. So mine is less rock themed than you guys, but but those are those are two pretty cool ones, I think. Yeah. Dr.

SPEAKER_04 42:50

Heggseth, what do you have on your uh best college tradition?

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Well, I love hearing these, and I actually being a California girl, when you say Aggie, I think of Davis here in California. So it's good, it's good to hear these different things. Uh, but for me, you know, my undergrad was at UC Berkeley, and I really love a tradition they did at their football games, which is the entire student section got cards that were different colors and different cues, so that, you know, during a point in the game, we could make really cool images across the entire section. And actually, when I was studying abroad my final final year at Berkeley, some of my friends stole some of those cards and sent me a package with them in it so that I could take the football game with me. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Participate from wherever you're at. That is awesome. Exactly. And one of the things that I loved here, I think was it last week? Cal Berkeley rolled out the Grateful Dead helmets. Oh, that's cool. Yes. Very cool tradition.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yeah, you gotta love it. Yes, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Part two of this thinking about college fight songs uh that you really enjoy. So, Dr. G, you want to kick us off? What's a college fight song? You appreciate that's right.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

And and among the three of us, we kind of decided that we would not select our own because if if you were to ask me, I would say, of course, Texas fight.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Nobody likes that one.

SPEAKER_03 44:11

Crow, which one would you say?

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Oh, you the Aggie Warham is uh you know unparalleled. We know that.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

And Dave, do they do they have a uh fight stuff?

SPEAKER_02 44:19

K-State has the wall bash cannonball. There you go. That's that's too hard to say. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

So we couldn't pick our own. So I went with uh University of Notre Dame Victory March. All right. So that was written in 1908 by two Notre Dame alumni, and it was actually copyrighted in 1928, and in 2022 the lyrics were changed from While Her Loyal Sons Are Marching to While Her Loyal Sons and Daughters to be more inclusive.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Oh I like it.

SPEAKER_04 44:53

I like it. I went with Rocky Top uh for the University of Tennessee. It is technically not their official fight song, but it's become kind of the tradition at the University of Tennessee. Um it was actually first recorded by the Osborne Brothers in 1967, and a little known fact, it is the only college fight song to appear in the country top 100 charts by Lynn Anderson in 1970.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

Wow. All right, we can appreciate that. All right. I think Dr. Hegseth will like mine based on our doctoral work. I went with Michigan, the Victors. Um, you know, yeah. Great, great fight song in general. Uh, little known fact here, uh, President Gerald Ford, who was a Michigan alum, actually would request that the U.S. Navy band play this instead of Hailed to the Chief during his presidency. So uh it was also played at his funeral procession. Uh so he he represented Michigan well during his time serving as president.

SPEAKER_04 45:48

And Dr. Hexeth, what do you have on your uh best fight song?

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Well, you know, I'm glad that folks were representing some of my schools because I followed the rules. He told me not to pick, you know, a song from one of my schools. And I even went as far as to pick a song from one of our enemies. So USC is is an enemy of Cal's, University of Spoiled Children, but their fight song, if Fight On, is pretty intimidating. I mean, it's not so intimidating that we can't beat them, but it but it is a bit intimidating. So that's what I went with.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Well, it's gotta be a good one for someone from a rival school to give them credit for it at all. Yeah, and you heard me bash Texas fight song, and I can't say anything nice about them. So I'm really impressed that you were able to, and that means that means they've got a great fight song. But you know, we I was I just want to kind of wrap us up here, Dr. Hexeth, by thanking you once again for coming on to share more about your book. We hope everyone will run out and buy a copy and share that with uh with their campuses, with their uh districts as well, uh, for as part of their next book study. And just thank you for sharing that message with us and joining us uh for some fun college conversation today, too.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was great chatting with you all.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

If you have questions about today's episode or questions to Dr. Hegseth, be sure and email them to us.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

That's info at edleadershipontap.com, info at edleadershipontab.com.

SPEAKER_04 47:11

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SPEAKER_03 47:17

Or you can send us a voicemail or a text. If you see a button that says send us fan mail wherever you listen to your podcast, hit that button and it'll take you right to where you need to go. We'd also appreciate some feedback on your favorite college tradition and fight song. Until next time.

SPEAKER_04 47:37

Keep leading.