Hallway Conversations

This week we are delighted to have a long-time listener and friend of the podcast joining us for a conversation: master educator, Al Bandstra. Al teaches 6th grade at Sioux Center Christian School, and has written substantially about effective classroom management. His forthcoming book is about what he calls “infectious behaviors,” and this conversation is all about what Christian educators can do to address the challenges of individuals and groups that aren’t behaving as we hope and expect they will. We share a variety of stories we’ve experienced, and Al shared with us from his ongoing research and exploration of ways he has found success to address challenging behaviors and broken relationships. If you have ever had a student–or group of students–that has been a challenge for you, we are confident that you’ll find both stories of solidarity as well as words of encouragement here about classroom culture, appropriate authority for teachers, and even acknowledging our own humanity.

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

This week we are joined in the hallway by our friend and colleague, Gwen Marra. Dr. Marra teaches courses in Dordt’s undergraduate Teacher Preparation Program and Master of Education Program related to early childhood education and literacy. Her academic focus is especially on supporting all learners in developing essential skills for literacy. The hallway crew keeps hearing about “the Science of Reading,” and we have a varied understanding of what this means. Since we wanted to learn more, we connected with our resident expert on all things literacy! Gwen shares from the deep well of her education and experience to help us understand better. We hope that by listening in you’ll likewise be informed and better equipped to understand what research actually says about how people learn to read, and how we can help all students learn and succeed with literacy.

• Dr. Marra mentioned the Sold a Story podcast in this episode. You can listen to the whole podcast here: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/
• Dr. Marra also mentioned the book Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. You can find it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Fish-Tree-Lynda-Mullaly-Hunt/dp/0142426423
• Dr. Marra mentioned several resources for teachers and parents, which you can access here:
  • Reading Rockets: https://www.readingrockets.org/
  • International Dyslexia Association: https://dyslexiaida.org/
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

This week we are privileged to host our friend, Darryl De Boer, as a special guest. Darryl is a longtime leader in Christian schools, and currently serves as Director of Learning at Surrey Christian School in Surrey, British Columbia. Darryl is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education where he serves as the Director of Teaching for Transformation. Darryl is one of the co-creators of Teaching for Transformation (TfT), which is a framework being used by many Christian schools across North America to more intentionally ground their curriculum, instruction, and professional development to a Christ-centered biblical worldview. In this conversation, Darryl shares about the development of TfT, the core practices that are integral to TfT, and many other topics related to teaching and leading Christianly. Darryl’s wisdom, thoughtfulness, and passion are on full display in our conversation, as is his way of encouraging and agitating (in the most positive sense!) to help schools become more intentional about taking seriously the integral nature of faith and learning. No matter your role in education, if you are part of a Christian school, we’re confident you’ll be encouraged and challenged by listening to this conversation!

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

We start off today’s episode by checking in about our spring break shenanigans; we were all out traveling, and found it a wonderful time to recharge–a good reminder for us (and hopefully for you too!) that we need to take breaks, get a change of scenery, and recharge. The main topic for our discussion today came from Dave’s questions: “What is teacher leadership? And how do teachers function as leaders in school?” We discuss different ways that teachers can function as leaders–for good, or for ill–in school, even if they don’t have a formal title. We hope that this conversation will prompt some valuable discussion in your own hallway about the ways you and your colleagues serve as leaders in your school.

• In today’s episode, Abby mentions an excellent piece from Cult of Pedagogy entitled Find Your Marigold. We recommend you read it! You can access it here: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/marigolds/
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/
• In the past few episodes, Matt has mentioned an upcoming webinar with Dr. Owen Webb about restorative practices. This webinar is free, and we urge you to join in and learn.
  • More information about the webinar is available here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1600343174138846?ref=newsfeed
  • You can register here: https://dordt-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NdZFsoTsSiuEAF58gvGfcA#/registration

This week we are privileged to host our friend, Chad Dirkse, as a special guest. Chad is a longtime school leader in Christian schools, and currently serves as Head of School at Annapolis Area Christian School where he serves more than 870 students and 100 staff. Chad is an expert in management and has a wealth of wisdom to share about both recruiting and retaining really excellent faculty members, and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to ask him a lot of questions. From Chad’s high-level idea of “revering the profession” to specific advice to leaders for how to both recruit new faculty members as well as retain great teachers, we know you’ll be blessed and encouraged, whether you are a school leader, a board member, or a teacher yourself.

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

We took the show on the road recently as we had the opportunity to provide some professional development workshops with our friends at Sioux Falls Christian School, and while we were there, they invited us to record an episode with their whole PreK-12 faculty. We had a great time, as usual! (Our apologies for the slightly less-than-optimal audio quality that comes with recording in a large room.) The theme of the professional development day was “empowered learning,” so we leaned into that as our theme for this episode as well. We start with a silly check-in question about songs we randomly find ourselves singing–you know you want to hear these! From there we share stories about our own teachers who empowered us as learners in our own school journeys. And, of course, as we usually do when we record live, we solicited questions from the crowd related to empowering learners. We hope that you will find encouragement and ideas for how you can empower you own students as you listen in!

Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

In this episode we begin with a check-in about our favorite fashion choices from our high school days that we kind of wish would come around again. (You might be surprised…or maybe not at all!) From that silliness, we take a hard turn into a very serious topic–power in the classroom. Dave set the stage by sharing a quote from a book that got him thinking about the nature of power, how teachers use their power, and the way students respond. We think through our own growth as teachers and how we needed to assert power at some points in our teaching experiences. This got us talking about the way we grow as teachers throughout our careers, the difference between “power” and “authority,” and even how teachers can share power with students without diminishing their authority. We hope this episode will help you reflect on the power held by teachers, and ways to use your authority appropriately in light of your office as Christian educator.

• Dave brought up the book On Christian Teaching: Practicing Faith in the Classroom by David I. Smith. We urge you to read this book if you haven’t already: https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Teaching-Practicing-Faith-Classroom/dp/080287360X/
• Abby brought up the book Hacking School Discipline by Nathan Maynard and Brad Weinstein. You can learn more here: https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-School-Discipline-Responsibility-Restorative/dp/1948212137
• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

Welcome to Season 8! We’re excited to be back with you for another set of hallway conversations. We start off with a check-in about what sparked joy for us since the last time we’ve been recording, and we hope this is an encouragement for you all to practice check-ins with your students and/or colleagues as well. Matt brought the question for our discussion this week, asking us to think about how things have changed–for better, or for worse–since we began teaching. There are so many things we named from the “Good Old Days,” from technologies, to student engagement, to interactions with parents, and so many more. We hope that listening in to this conversation will prompt some reflection for you about the changing nature of our profession.

• Hallway Conversations is sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education. You can learn more about the good work CACE is doing at https://cace.org/

It’s Christmastime! Thanks so much for listening in throughout 2023, friends, and we hope that this Christmas season will be full of peace, love, and joy for you. We hope that this short episode is a word of encouragement that will bless you as you close out 2023.

• We are taking a break for a few weeks, but will be back in the studio in late January with some new and exciting things to share with you! Look for new episodes around the beginning of February.
• In this episode, Dave mentions his newsletter, and a story about Advent devotionals he included there. If you would like to read (or subscribe) you can do that here: https://drdave.substack.com/p/doubt-at-christmas

This week, kind of an old-school Hallway Conversation like we did back in the early days of the show: Dave springs a question about assessment on Abby and Matt, and we just think out loud together about what assessment really, and what it is “for.” In particular, a conversation Dave had with a friend who is a K-12 teacher sparked a wondering about “just how much time should we devote to assessing learning vs. actually teaching the content?” We hope the discussion might prompt some wondering of your own–and that you might have a hallway conversation with a colleague about your own assessment practices.

• Exciting news for us! We have an official sponsor: the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education! You can find out more about CACE and the good work they are doing at https://cace.org/