Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:00:00]:
All right, so for today's topic, we are talking about why good teachers leave and what great leaders do about it. I've been doing a lot of work. If you've been following me enough, you know that I am really big and deep into sense of belonging. That's very important. And we'll kind of talk about the formula a little bit later in this live stream. But sense of belonging doesn't just apply to the students. Very important that we also keep in mind that our staff play a pivotal role in creating a sense of belonging. And we as leaders need to make sure we need to ensure that our students and our staff feel as if they have a strong sense of belonging.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:00:41]:
So do you want to bring up to your attention? I'm excited. I'm really excited about this because if you read my first book, Leading Equity, Becoming an Advocate for all students, I put my heart and soul into that one. And then I also put my heart and soul into into the second book, which is what are you bringing to the Potluck Leader's Guide to Inclusion and Belonging? What's so great is like you're getting a sneak preview right now because I don't even have book cover hasn't even been designed yet. So that's coming soon. But at the same time, I want you to be aware that this book is coming out. It is available for pre order, should be later this month if it doesn't happen within the next week. Cause I'm at the mercy of Solution Tree. If it doesn't happen this week, then probably early next week I'll have that link.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:01:25]:
Pre order will be available of course. Support your boy. Would appreciate that. This is really good book for those individuals who are looking for information on how to create and cultivate a sense of belonging at their school. It doesn't happen overnight. It does take time. But this is something that's going to. This book is going to give you a lot of the tools and strategies that you need.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:01:44]:
There's leadership activities and I break it down from a sense of think about a potluck. Think about you go to a potluck, you have the opportunity to bring your own dish. But if we're not intentional with our efforts to bring in that dish to the potluck, it can just be lost as another dish that is part of cass casserole. Friendly, if you will, casserole heavy or nothing but carbs. But we gotta be intentional with our efforts. So it's almost as if we're just rushing through bringing something that we can and I get it. The caveat is always there. You're like, look, this is all I had time to prepare.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:02:18]:
This is all I had the means for when it comes to bringing in a potluck dish. So I totally understand. So I always like to give that caveat. But I want you to think about it from a metaphorically stance. If you are a student, if you have kids, if you're a parent or guardian, you have kids who are entering into that space every single day. Do you want them to receive the general what everybody else is getting? Or do you want that teacher, that staff member, that school leader to provide a intentional effort care those special ingredients, if you will, that that time it takes to prepare, to make sure that the food is ready to go and it's going to be to the liking and it's going to nourish that child. That's what this book is all about. Which leads me to my next thing.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:03:06]:
I have this event. It's coming up starting in October. We're going to do five sessions, five monthly sessions. They're hour long. I'm going to record them so you'll have access to them. Afterwards, you'll get a signed copy of my book, some printable tools, discussion prompts and reflection questions. And of course, I'm going to give some templates and strategies you can implement right away. I am not one of those individuals that's going to tell you to just do better.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:03:30]:
It's more than just do better. I'm going to give you those tips and tools on how to be better right now. I've been in school leadership for several years. I've been a teacher, started off as a history teacher and work my way through the system. And so I want to provide a lot of those firsthand experiences that I have and I'll share some of those today. But just in general, make sure you sign up purposeful247.com down there at the bottom. Join the belonging to the table leadership experience with myself. All right, let's get into today.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:03:59]:
All right, today's goals. I'm here to help leaders understand the root causes of teacher attrition. We talk about, yes, we need to recruit qualified staff, but we also want to retain them. And it cost us so much in regards to time, energy, resources and efforts when our teachers leave, however, we are dealing with times where education may not be as appealing as it was when I started in education in 2008. I remember the days where teacher jobs were. It was harder in 2008 for me. It was harder for me to get a job. Now, we're seeing a lot more positions are opening and we're seeing a lot more teachers are leaving.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:04:35]:
And. And I'm going to give you some stats as to why that is. But it's important that we keep in mind that if we lose our best teachers, we lose our best shot at student success. Because who are the ones that are going to impact our students the most? That's right. Those adults that are in the classrooms, the paraprofessionals, the teachers, the custodians, we all play a part. And so when they are leaving, we need to think about what can we do before they walk out that door. What is the biggest reason teachers leave your school or district? I'm gonna throw that out there. What do you think are the biggest reasons teachers leave school or district now? Because I will say this, it's not always what you think.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:05:18]:
And there's gonna be research that's gonna support this. I'll say one thing, actually, I'll say a few things. One, burnout contributes to teachers wanting to leave. You have lack of autonomy. Teachers not feeling like they have. They're so inundated with all these different processes in which they can't really. Like, it's not fun anymore. Like, I'm constantly being micromanaged.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:05:41]:
I'm constantly having someone looking over my shoulder or I feel afraid to teach certain lessons because I don't feel like I have the authority or the ability to do what I love to do. Like, I love math or I love science, but I don't have the comfort level, if you will, to be able to do these things on my own time, in my own way. Poor admin support, not feeling as if they have the support from the school leadership to, again, if they have some challenges, if they want to teach something, that's going to really provide some different perspectives, are they going to have. Does the school leader have their back? Of course. Pay sometimes is a factor as well. I should do a whole session. I should do a whole session on pay to teacher pay. So that can also be a thing.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:06:28]:
And of course, sometimes there's just no opportunities for growth. If we look at our statistics when it comes to those who are in leadership and who they look like. Okay, not often are we seeing a lot of folks that look like myself. Not often are we seeing a lot of women in a lot of these positions as well, especially women of color. And we can really dig into that. But that's not what today's session's about. These are just some of the reasons why teachers are leaving. I'm gonna give you a little bit of research because this is really important when it comes to why paying attention matters.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:06:58]:
So for us, sometimes as, and I've done this as a school leader, we think that it's really important for us to recognize. Oh, okay, well, maybe the teachers don't feel as if they're being recognized. And so this is something, A small win that I can do as a school leader is to acknowledge my teachers, acknowledge the great things they're doing. We'll kind of dig into that a little bit deeper. But some of the things is just a matter of just paying attention to little stuff doesn't necessarily mean that a staff member has to tell you something. But just being able to recognize, you know what? I notice that the water cooler seems to be out of water all the time. Or I notice that the copier machine seems to be missing paper. Just little stuff.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:07:37]:
Or, or I just walk through some certain classrooms and I recognize that maybe the, the flag is, is, is hanging off or just like little stuff where a teacher can see, oh, shoot, my school leader is paying attention to those little things. And sometimes those little things can make such a difference when we pay attention. Doesn't necessarily mean that a teacher has to come up to you or a staff member has to come up to you and tell you, hey, this needs to fix. But if we're being proactive as leaders and we're, we're, we're asking those questions and we're doing our observations. I was having a conversation earlier this week and I tried to tell them, look, look, I'm very observant. I'm paying attention to stuff. I, I'm going to notice little things. I'm going to take little notes.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:08:18]:
I'm going to do these type of things because I genuinely care. And when teachers, their administrator genuinely cares, that's going to make a difference. All right, let's dig in that, dig into that a little bit more. Because there were some studies that were done back in the 1920s. They're called the Hawthorne studies. And what they discovered, they did this right? They, they, they, they did work such as trying to figure out where are some ways that we can increase the productivity. So they, they increased, they provided more break times. They even increased the pay.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:08:53]:
And yes, the productivity actually improved. But it wasn't because of what they thought it was. It wasn't because of the pay or the additional break time. What they noticed was workers felt like someone was finally paying attention to them. They felt seen. I'll say that one more time, because I feel like some people didn't hear me when I said this. Workers felt like someone was finally paying attention. So, yes, they did increase the pay.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:09:24]:
Obviously, that makes a difference. Yes, they did provide breaks. More breaks. Yes, that makes. But just the fact that leadership noticed that these are some areas for growth. The staff, the workers felt seen. So here's the big takeaway. When people feel seen, they show up differently.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:09:43]:
That applies in education as well. So we're Talking about the 1920s, and still today, in the 2000s, it still applies. Because, let's be real, school leaders are often under pressure to track all kinds of numbers. We got test scores, we got attendance rates. We got graduation percentages. We have all this pressure. And yeah, sometimes that pressure falls on our teachers. We tell our teachers, look, you need to get your test scores up.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:10:09]:
You need to get to reading your math scores up. We do this a lot. But one thing that gets overlooked sometimes when we're looking at all this data is how do teachers actually feel about working at the school every day? Are the teachers pulling up to the parking lot, grudgingly waiting maybe 20 minutes in the parking lot because, oh, man, I gotta. I gotta go in here again. Or are they hopping out the car? Are they excited to come to work today? Right now, I am a person who loves kids. I love to be around students. That has always been part of that. Filling my cup, if you will, when it comes to education.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:10:50]:
So pulling up to a school is an opportunity for me to jump in that classroom or jump in the hallways and high fives, handshakes, whatever I have going on with individual relationships that are created with students that are walking through the campus, those are things that excite me. So a lot of times what happens is that will keep us there, but is it a sustainable thing? A lot of teachers will say, look, I have really great relationships with teachers. I'm sorry with my students, but I'm frustrated that my copier machine doesn't work or my printer doesn't work, or my smart board is so outdated the software needs to be fixed. So these little things that takes me away from doing the things that I love, which is connecting and teaching and learning with and for my students. So the Hawthorne effect reason why I bring this up is because it's. If we start to pay attention to those little things, we start paying attention to those little things, your teachers will feel seen, they will feel heard. So I'm gonna give you a strategy, something that you can do now if you're out of school already. If it's summer break for you, this is something that you can implement next school year if you're still in school.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:11:57]:
Oh, God bless you if you're still in school, by the way. But if you're still in school, maybe you can do this today, Tuesday, maybe you can do this tomorrow. Okay? But these are some little things that you can start doing. So a weekly obstacle meeting once a week, gather your teachers, even for 10 to 15 minutes and ask each person to share one small barrier they ran into that week. So this is something I always find very important because sometimes, I mean, I. I mean, I remember these days as a teacher, like when the principal walks into my classroom mid lesson, how I sometimes would feel. I'm. I'm one of those kind of guys.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:12:32]:
I would sometimes, I mean, even if the kids were on point, you think about those times when your classroom is not going the way you want it to go. And then that just happens to be the time that the principal walks in or your assistant principal walks in. But those times when, when leadership walks into your classroom, feel a certain way, especially if they walk in with a clipboard and all these different things, those are kind of things that can provide a little bit of anxiety for a lot of staff members. Now, one of the things that I learned as a school leader is, is yes, it's very important to spend time going, making my rounds, observing your informal, of course, your formal observations, but just talking to a staff member without that pressure, or at least creating a space for your staff members to let them know it's cool to share, you ain't got to be buddy, buddy. There's always going to be a hierarchy. There's always going to be a level of boundaries or barriers, if you will, when it comes to that relationship. But creating opportunities where you're saying, hey, listen, I just want to chat with you. Is there anything that I can do that will make teaching, make your experience here at the school better? It could be things like a broken printer, unclear sub plans, or the dismissal process might be confusing.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:13:42]:
I remember we did a fire drill at my school and we had a safety coordinator. One of the teachers was a safety coordinator. We practiced and we had an idea as far as what it was going to look like. We talked about it and we even warn our teach our students. We say, look, there's gonna be a fire drill tomorrow at such and such time. Even students knew. So it sounded good on paper. We had it all planned out.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:14:03]:
We even had staff meeting, met about it and everything. Fire Drill happens. And there was still a lot of uncertainty. I knew like I'm timing it, I had, I had the loud horn on and everything and, and I could tell there's some areas for growth. So after we did this fire drill and I could see people were lost, people didn't really know where to go. And again they knew it was coming. But there were still some challenges that needed to be gone over. So I debriefed with the group and I said what are some areas? And so we started talking about, well, we actually need someone that's going to stand outside right in front of the school to guide the teachers or the students certain direction or we actually need maybe more walkie talkies.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:14:40]:
At that time we didn't have walkie talkies. So it's just like, oh, let's just use the cell phones. But that it's just for little areas for improvement. And again, these aren't necessarily formal things all the time. Sometimes it's just a one on one conversation, sometimes it' because not everybody's going to speak up at a staff meeting. But being intentional, going back around and asking, hey, Mr. Jones or Mr. Mr.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:15:01]:
Williams or Ms. Sanchez, ask them these kind of questions, what can make things better? And then allowing them that space, inviting them to talk to you and share that information. Now, as a leader, you're making a few promises. You're promising that you're going to commit to fixing at least one issue before the next time you meet this. So, so there's a responsibility, accountability on your end. Now here's why this, these things are important. It shows teachers that their daily frustrations matter. It creates momentum through small wins.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:15:31]:
These are small things that you can do sometimes. And it turns complaints into collaboration. Of course you're going to build trust and build more rapport with your staff members as they can see, oh look, this principal really cares. This principal is actually taking the time to get to know me and they're taking the time to understand what are some barriers or some things that I have been working on or I need some support in. And then also they see that you're following through with those things, not in trouble, they're not at risk on a performance improvement plan. But these are just opportunities that are informal for us to again create those small wins. Now let's go into this a little bit more because I'm going to bring you a little bit of statistics and as far as why good teachers really leave. So we talked about already some of them feel unseen and, and just a little things in which, like, I love what I do.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:16:23]:
I love teaching. However, I don't feel seen or heard. Herman, Stormont and Gimmie. I hope I pronounced those names correctly. They did a research study, and they surveyed teachers, said 78 have thought about quitting their profession since the pandemic. And the reasons, Lack of administrative support, excessive workloads, inadequate compensation, and challenging student behavior. So if earlier, if you're thinking, yeah, burnout. Teacher pay autonomy.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:16:51]:
Yeah, research supports that. So these are just some of the things. Now the next thing I want to talk about is when we. When we're thinking about pandemic. Let's go back. Let's. Let's backtrack five years because all this full circle is going to make a lot of sense. When the pandemic happened, I remember those days as a teacher, my.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:17:10]:
My kids. And see, my son was in first grade and my daughter was in fourth grade. Now, keep in mind, math is not my strongest. So fourth grade math had to try to remember how to. How to do all these little different things. And she was doing. Man, what was she doing? Like, something crazy. Probability.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:17:26]:
I couldn't remember how to do probability in fourth grade math. I remember I gave my son. He had a bunch of worksheets. I gave him the worksheets. I walked away. So, all right, son, I'll be back. I said, I'll be back in like an hour to check on you. He's in first grade.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:17:40]:
Keep in mind. So, of course, within five minutes. Daddy, I don't know what to do. Can you help me? This was a time when as parents, as guardians, we were struggling. Then, of course, as teachers, we were struggling. So we were seen as heroes. Oh, teachers are doing this. In spite of everything that's.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:17:57]:
We're on the front lines. There's a risk of us getting Covid. And then, of course, when we came back to school, mask on and desks need to be six feet apart. Should we go hybrid? Should we stay? So there was a lot of praise, if you will, back in 2020, 2021. Right now, however, what happens, we go back to school in person. Learning resumed. And so now those same things that we were kind of talking about before the pandemic, students being behind and gaps and achievement gaps and opportunity, all these different things that we were talking about, having these conversations, they're coming back. And not only are they coming back, I would argue they were coming back stronger.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:18:33]:
Because during the pandemic, this was a time when, even though we've been saying this all along, we've been Talking about it, we started to discover, oh, there's students who don't have technology at home, or there's students that don't have Internet access, or there's students that don't have access to this or access to that. I think a lot of that was brought to attention during the pandemic. Again, they were always challenges, but people really started to notice, I guess key players, if you will, really started to notice. And so as a result, teachers, educators are looked at a certain way. But then when we go back to school, school in person resumes, then the question is, are they still heroes? Because then we started to get into a culture war thinking about time frames. So during 2020, you had George Floyd happen again, you had the pandemic, you had all these different things. We had a huge surge of anti racism education. We had a surge in a lot of areas.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:19:30]:
And so what happens next is we see a lot of push back. Now, the push back was a lot of political stuff. I'm not going to dig too deep into this, but these are some factors as to why teachers are leaving book bands. If I'm an educator and I want to teach certain topics, certain curriculum, and, and this is what I want to do, and I got a book band. I've been teaching this book for years. I just read an article here in Phoenix that they're wanting to get rid of to get To Kill a Mockingbird, for example. Now, of course we can, we can argue there's content within that book, language that's in that book. Those are challenges.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:20:03]:
But of course you have teachers who've been teaching To Kill a Mockingbird and they have approached it in different ways. And I've, as a podcaster, I've, I've had several interviews with individuals, especially my ELA teachers, who have used To Kill a Mockingbird as an example in various ways. One had a social justice approach to it, another one had another approach to it. And so. But it can be a challenge when you're trying to find content that's going to be relevant to students. The book the Hate U Give, for example, is another one where some places have banned that book. Now this is a young adult book that appeals to especially a lot of folks of color, specifically our black folks, which will be culturally relevant in the classroom. However, if that book is banned, that's going to cause challenges and problems.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:20:48]:
So you got a lot of teachers that are going to leave because they can't teach or use the curriculum that they want. Which leads to my next point, such as issues of Race and racism. And we see TikTok, we see Instagram. You see those reels out there where there's all these challenges happening right now. We have issues with, on a global scale. You, you got issues with Palestinian class, there's a war in Israel. And, and there's, there's challenges. There's Ukraine.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:21:14]:
You got folks that are coming into the schools from Ukraine. Then we have challenges locally with ice. And there's all these different issues that impact who our kids, they impact our students, they impact their families. A lot of teachers are at places where, like, I, I don't know if I can support certain things. I, I want to say certain things in my classroom, but it's gonna cause issues or I've said things. And then going back to the other point where it's like they felt like they didn't have leadership support. So it's like I'm. I wanna address these areas.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:21:45]:
However. However, I don't feel like I have the support from my leadership in order to address, bring in this type of awareness. So you have those type of things. Then of course, you have policies on LGBTQ student rights. Don't say gay laws. And all these different things that impact who our students. And a final one, school safety. We saw a lot of school shootings.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:22:09]:
Saw a lot of mass shootings. We saw. And we still see, I say saw, as if it was passing, as if it doesn't still happen. It may not always be highlighted. And that's the thing about the media, right? So you'll see a sling, like, all of a sudden, everyone is. There's. There's all these school shootings. This just happens to be what the media is highlighting at the time.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:22:26]:
They still continue to happen. Right. But safety has become a concern as well. So these are just, again, a lot of these are political challenges that are out there, but they contribute to educators wanting to lead the profession and find other areas for pay or not pay. Other areas. Excuse me, other areas for education or whatever. They, they love to. On a professional side.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:22:53]:
That's what I'm trying to say. Professionalism. I had to, had to talk about those kind of things because we don't always mention those underlying issues that, that cause a lot of teachers to leave. Okay. So overall, see a lot of teachers feeling micromanaged, feel unheard and overwhelmed. Last summer, a big thing that we were seeing was a lot of teachers were told, you have to literally plan your lesson plans for the entire year. You have to have those lesson plans available for a whole year. How are you going to be able to like your units, everything needs to be broken down like to the T for a whole entire year.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:23:29]:
And who's going to review those things? Often in those situations they were going to be reviewed if, if, if reviewed because if you got 50 kids or sorry, 50 teachers and you got to go through, let's call it 30 lesson plans because school year is about 30 weeks. That's a lot. So they may not even be reviewed for real for. They just need to be ready, they need to be there. Life happens. And any good teacher is going to tell you, you know what? I don't teach the exact same way, exact same thing each year or each semester or each marking period because my classroom is going to look different, my student population is going to look different. And if I want to call myself culturally responsive or if I want to be someone that is student centered, I have to make adjustments for the school year. How can I prepare adequately, prepare for school year And I haven't even seen the kids yet, I haven't met them yet.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:24:16]:
But you want me to produce a whole entire school year's worth of lessons, units and tell you all these different things. I don't even know what they want to know. I don't even know if it's going to be relevant to my students. So sometimes teachers feel overwhelmed. They feel like they're expected to do less, I'm sorry to expect to do more with less and still be grateful for it. And I've had a lot of conversations with teachers where they'll tell me, I'm afraid I'm going to say the wrong thing. Maybe in the past I messed up. I, I, I, I meant to have the best intentions.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:24:46]:
Unfortunately I didn't say the right thing. A parent overheard it or maybe I got screenshot it something I posted. Again, best intentions. It didn't go well. So as a result I told myself I'll never do it again, I'll never say that again. Because if I do and we, we trying to eat, I might lose my job, which means I can't pay my rent, which means I can't, you know what I'm saying? Like these are the things that are in teacher's mind. Like is it worth it with all the stuff that's happening? Let's move in to a little bit more because I want to, I want to move into the belonging disconnect. When I move into the belonging disconnect, this is something that is really important because if we're not careful as leaders, again, best intentions, if we're not careful as leaders, we might fall victim to a belonging disconnect.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:25:29]:
I'm going to give you an example. Let's just say hypothetically, for kicks and giggles, you got two schools. School on the left, school on the right, same salary, same benefits. But here's the kicker. One school loses 40% of its teachers every three years, and the other keeps 95%. Same school, same salary, same benefits, but one loses 40% of his teachers every three years and the other keeps 95%. So question I have is, what's the difference? Because clearly it's not about the paychecks. Often what happens is it boils down to basic working conditions.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:26:04]:
It's what psychologist Frederick Herzberg called the hygiene factors. The hygiene factors. These are the things like making sure that your staff have working equipment, making sure that they have been properly trained and onboarded, clear and fair policies, the paperwork. Their. Their. Their work responsibilities is manageable. See, there's the responsibilities that we have as teachers, like with the lesson planning in classroom discipline, classroom management, rather. There's.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:26:33]:
There's communication with parents. There's. There's those things. And a lot of us, especially our folks of color, our folks that speak multiple language, have those unassigned, if you will, responsibilities such as having to translate, such as given. Being given all the students that are, quote, unquote, challenging. That's happened to me. I was put into a teaching position where there wasn't a lot of male teachers. And so the leadership at that time gave me all the boys and all the.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:27:01]:
All the. Basically all the students that a lot of other teachers were having challenges with. They were in my class the next year. So, yes, I get to teach. I love the teaching. Great. But then I have a classroom with 30 kids that would arguably be some of the most challenging, at least according to reputation, according to prior experiences from other teachers. So they're all in my room, and I get some of the logic behind that.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:27:22]:
But can you understand how, as a teacher, I might have had to work harder in certain areas than my counterparts? So while they're able to create their lessons. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Classroom management. I had to create the lessons. Boom, boom, boom. Classroom management looked a lot different. Now I'm down for a challenge.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:27:39]:
I'm out about that life. But is that a sustainable model? Is that really what we want to do for our teachers? Oh, this, this teacher has a certain skill set. Oh, they're really good with this area or this group of kids. So they get that type of situation placed in front of them. They're not compensated for it and they're still expected to perform and provide their duties at the same level as everyone else. Now, I'm a person that says this is a mindset I have because I'll do it. Because my mind is always if I don't do it, who will? So let's say, for example, we had a my situation where there was a I got a bunch of boys that are put into my classroom. Majority of the boys were thrown in my room.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:28:16]:
So that's great. I'll take on challenge. Of course, I'm a male educator. It makes sense. It makes sense. But my challenge was you still hold me to the same standards. You're not accounting for the situation that I'm in. It's not necessarily an equal situation when it comes to my counterparts.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:28:33]:
All right, let's move on. Here's another thing. Real world. Real world. Example. Imagine starting your morning fighting a jam copier, skipping lunch to cover for a missing substitute, staying late to refile paperwork because the system crashed and I put in their parentheses again. And then meanwhile, leadership launches a new poster campaign about how much they appreciate teach. So you you're dealing with these working conditions, arguably hard or harsh working conditions.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:28:58]:
However, social media posts all these different oh yeah, we appreciate Teacher Appreciation Week. And I would argue Teacher Appreciation Week should be more than just one week. But that's a whole nother whole nother thing. At the end of the day, it's exhausting. And over time, the daily grind pushes good teachers out the door. At the end of the day, great teachers don't just want a job, they want to belong. So in my book, I have done a lot of research in regards to creating a sense of belonging to and the formula was created from a lot of the research that I've been doing for my new book. What are you bringing to the potluck? Coming out soon, by the way.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:29:31]:
But the formula is these three these three things. In order for anybody to have a sense of belonging, whether it's your student, your staff, or whoever, sense of belonging needs three things. That individual has to feel accepted, they have to feel supported, and they have to feel included. These are the three cannot have it without these three accepted, supported, and included. I talk about this in the book because this should be the foundation. If you're saying, look, I want to create a school, I want to cultivate my school to have a strong sense of belonging. This is the starting point. These are three areas that you have to make sure are intact.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:30:02]:
I can feel accepted. But then I may not feel included. I might feel supported, but then I may not feel accepted. I got to have all three of these. Now, that means that a pizza party or inviting folks to, I don't know, teacher of the month, whatever it might be, there. There might be some acceptance, but they may not feel included within the process for a new policy, or they may not feel included in other areas. So again, you got to have all three of these. So here's why often this gets misunderstood, because if we're not careful, we might be speaking two different languages, if you will.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:30:37]:
School leadership might be thinking one thing. You might as a teacher, they might be thinking something else. So I. I want to pose out a couple questions, and if you're a school leader listening to this, I want to ask you three simple questions. Think about being a teacher yourself. Let's say you're a teacher at your own school. Not an admin, not a coach, just a teacher. I want you to think.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:30:58]:
Can you answer yes to these three questions? I'm not gonna put them on the screen, but I want you to think about these questions. Does anyone really know me? And not just your, oh, I know what you do, your department role, your lead, whatever. Well, what motivates me and what I care about is that something that's known by the leadership that is in the building. Again, you're imagining that you're a teacher. The next question I want you to think of if you are a teacher is, does my voice shape decisions? Okay, not just the surveys that are often anonymous, but do. Do I really have influence? Do I see my ideas reflected in the policies and practices around me? The last question I want you to ask yourself is, if you were pretending, imagining that you were a teacher, is what I do here valued beyond test scores? Tell you what, man, somebody need to play where's the organ at? Here's the thing. We say stuff such as, all right, we've got a new policy in which we're going to do new curriculum. So teacher pushes back.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:31:58]:
I can't complete, I can't implement this new curriculum. In a school leader's mind, that might translate to resistance. But if they pride a little bit, what they might discover is it's not resistance necessarily. It could just simply be the teacher saying, I want to teach it. I just can't find a working laptop, or the materials aren't ready, or I'm spending my planning time chasing down supplies. Sometimes there's that disconnect with communication and it gets misunderstood. That's why I want you to ask those three questions Do I feel valued if I was a teacher? Do I feel valued if does my voice really matter beyond just surveys? And am I an individual who's looked at more than just someone who's going to help with test scores? We talk about the dangers of teaching to the test. We talk about how we gotta be careful because if we only teach to the test, then we're only preparing students for test taking skills, but not life outside of school.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:32:54]:
We want them to be prepared to make the decision to go on to college, military, a job, whatever it might be, whatever life is after high school. But if we spend all our time teaching them to the test, make sure they can answer multiple choice, short answers, is that preparing them for adulthood and life outside? So those are some things that get misunderstood. So let me give you a strategy, and again, I'm not one of those people to just tell you to do better. I'm here to give you some strategies. Longing, check ins. And we talked about those three questions. I'm gonna give you three more questions. Let me give you full screen so you can see this, this is important.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:33:23]:
You'll see three questions to guide conversations. When you go in to talk to those teachers, I tell you, make sure you're doing those checks, informal checks. Ask them, hey, what's working right now? I do this right? Ask them, what is working for you right now? Where are you stuck or feeling unseen? And finally, what's one small change that would make your job more sustainable or joyful? We talked about why this is so important and it is your job as a leader to follow up with this. Don't just ask these questions and then move on and forget about it. I'm a person, I got to take notes. I'm walking in with my notepad. My staff makes fun of me. They'd be like, yo, hey, what's he doing with that notebook? But I know that's where I, I take notes.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:34:03]:
Those things are, are important because I'm not gonna remember everything if I see, let's say I, I do five classroom visits and I've interacted with other staff members, students, boom, boom, boom. I'm not gonna remember everything, but I want to be able to follow up with them next week and say, hey, I heard what you said. I made that change for you. Here's a pro tip. Don't try to solve everything on the spot. Sometimes just take, just listen. Sometimes you got to just take notes. Again, I'm a person who's a note taker.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:34:26]:
And then follow up one thing within a week, that Action builds trust. The next part is appreciation does not equate to retention. This is a mistake that we make. Teacher of the year, Teacher of the Month. Now I'm not taking away from these award. I think these things are very important. I want to. I'm gonna throw that caveat because before y' all jump.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:34:44]:
Dr. Akins, teacher of the month. I love the parking spot. I get it. I'm with you. I love the parks a lot too. I totally understand. However, however, that does not equal retention.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:34:57]:
Does not equal retention. So I want us to make sure that we, we separate that so you might be motivated to win a next award or appreciate. Some of us could care less about in extrinsic motivations. Some of that's just not a thing. But some of us do. Like they do matter, right? But surface level recognition isn't the same thing as real motivation. Right? Most school recognition programs, by the way, are like putting a band aid on a broken arm. Now I'll give you an example of what that could look like.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:35:24]:
Got a teacher named teacher of the month. You have staff meeting, the picture goes on the bulletin board. Principal gives her a coffee mug and she gets a that coveted reserved parking spot for the month. However, behind the scenes she's covering classes during her prep, is outdated curriculum materials and hasn't had a one on one with her admin all year. What does this teacher do? Smiles and says thank you. But inside she's thinking to herself, listen, you celebrated me in public, but you don't support me in practice. So that's surface level recognition. It looks good.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:35:59]:
That's what I'm saying. I'm not taking this away from y' all. It looks good, but it doesn't meet her actual needs. Real motivation would mean checking in to ask what's working, what's hard and what would make her job more sustainable. Because a mug is nice but, but time. I would say trust and even some resources or tools. Those are the things that keep great teachers from burning out. I've done this as a leader, made this mistake.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:36:26]:
I just assume, oh, because again I'm personally, I like to get those rewards. I do. But I remember there was a time when we were like, I'm telling some, some challenges we ran into. We were doing this thing where it's like, okay, at the end of the month we were going to recognize those who had high stats when it came to academic progress. These teachers had a certain percentage and so they're, they're making growth. Students doing well, boom, boom, boom. So as a Result, we were going to give them certificates, maybe put their name on the wall, that whole nine. But then we actually asked the teachers like, do you want this? Because after a couple months, weren't really seeing a lot of that needle being moved as far as other teachers.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:37:06]:
It was kind of like the same teachers kind of got recreated. Nice. And we're trying to see, well, what else do we need to do? And they say we don't. We, we could care less about a mug, we care less about a trophy, a coveted trophy that passes around because we have a parking spot, but a trophy that sits on this teacher's desk for the month. You want maybe some time off, it would be nice. But in actuality, they, they, they could care less. Some of it just boils down to just being seen. And so I, I had to understand that because again, that might have been something that would have been motivational for, for me.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:37:34]:
But again, it does not equal retention. The other piece to that is only the teachers got recognized, got a whole team, got paraprofessionals, you got support here, you got admin, you got your secretary. You had all these different positions, but only the teachers were getting recognized. So, so what does that mean for my secretary? What does that mean for other individuals? Finance person, special ed. So you just never, you just never had an opportunity. So it was very, very skewed. And it goes back again to the idea that most schools recognition programs are like putting a band aid on a broken arm. I had teachers just tell me, look, I just need support for some of the parents or some of the students.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:38:13]:
I'm having a difficult time connecting with students. I'm having some attendance challenges. These are areas that would help me where I feel like those type of things matter as opposed to getting a new certificate or a parking space. Here's the thing. Recognition without resort. Oh, oh boy. Hang on. Recognition without resources is just branding.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:38:35]:
That's all it is. And we've all seen it. Social media post celebrating teachers above and beyond going after boom boom. Oh yeah, great. Rah, rah. I want to recognize this teacher who in spite of everything or certificate. It's in a staff lounge. Of course.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:38:49]:
Only staff's gonna see that. A surprise shout out at a faculty meeting. Again, I'm not taken away from you. I want to be very clear. These things are good, these are very important, but they do not equal retention. Getting a shiny something something or a recognition or shout out does not say, mean or guarantee that that teacher won't leave you full screen. So you can see at the bottom there. That same teacher walks back into a classroom without working tech, outdated materials or barely enough time to plan their lesson.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:39:18]:
All right, give me another strategy time back. Tuesdays weekly leadership commitment to give staff 30 minutes back, no strings attached. What could I look like, Sheldon? Well, I'm glad you asked me that question. That could be simply canceling a non essential meeting. It could be having leadership cover those duties such as your lunch or your bus hallway activity, lunch duties and all that. Or blocking off time for uninterrupted planning. Made this mistake approaching the teacher. Oh, I know exactly when their planning period is, so that's the time I'm going to go talk to the teacher.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:39:49]:
Sometimes planning period is an opportunity for them to go the bathroom. Elementary teachers, y' all know what I mean. But it also sends the message, we see you, we trust you, and we know your time is your most valuable resource. Now let's get to the tail end of today's talk because again, I'm all about giving you support. I'm not here just telling you to do better. It's way more than that. At the end of the day we have to be mindful that or acknowledge rather that that often we just need a culture repair. Okay.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:40:21]:
And I'm going to share with you three things that you can do for culture repair. Again, if we're thinking about ways that we can cultivate strengthen our sense of belonging not just for our students, but also for our staff so we can retain them. First one I want to give you is a hygiene audit. This is fun. I'm going to give you a quick fun story. Take a day, live the life of a teacher. Some of us as leaders, we haven't been in the classroom in a while because I always good to to say stay on par or at least kind of see what the working conditions were. So had an art teacher that called in sick.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:40:54]:
We couldn't find a sub. So I said all right, I'll be our teacher for the day. I went to to school and I quickly learned a few things. One, wasn't any sub plans available. I'm a history teacher. I don't teach art. This is no shade on the teacher. Teacher had an unexpected they had to call in.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:41:08]:
It was late. They just didn't have time to prepare for for a sub plan. So I say okay, sub plans definitely. We got to make sure all teachers have plans available in case something comes up because we don't always just plan ahead and know when we're going to call in. Like we don't Always know when we're going to be sick or when an emergency takes place. So that was the first thing that I noticed. So I went through the day. I had to make some print.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:41:31]:
I had to. Had to print some copies, and I had trouble getting paper. Couldn't find. There was nothing in the copy machine. Asked around like, where do we keep? And I should know this, right? But at the same time, there's like, little stuff that I picked up on that I was like, okay, this might be just a small, small snippet of what it's like for a teacher. The other thing is those duties I talked about, like the lunch duty and not really realizing that sometimes the teachers don't feel like they get enough of a break. Sure. This is part of the date is you signed up for.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:42:02]:
This is. So if, if, if they're not doing lunch duty, somebody's got to do it. There's a recess, whatever it is. So I get it. I totally understand. However, what are some areas that I could do to improve upon a teacher's experience? So again, maybe covering a little bit of those duties. Hey, listen, don't worry about lunch duty today. I got you.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:42:21]:
Don't worry about bus duty today. I'll take care of it for you. Go home. And not because they did something special, but just because I care. I recognize it's not always. It's not always a fun day or something that we look forward to those additional duties. I just want to teach. I just want to be in front of kids.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:42:36]:
That's all I want. I don't want to do all the extra stuff. But if we can kind of look at it from their lens as a teacher and take that assessment and, and. And implement some small. Again, small wins. So taking the time to do a hygiene audit. What's not working? What. What are.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:42:49]:
Are. Are. Are there issues with tech that the art teacher had an iPad, so everyone has. Has iPads. All teachers, however, charter didn't work. It wasn't a charter. I had to. I had to go find a charger.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:43:00]:
And then I realized that, that that iPad needed to stay plugged in. It's one of those kind of things, situations. You couldn't really take it off on its own or if the battery would just die. That teacher hadn't. Like, I didn't know that. But these are things that I discovered. So, okay, I need to make sure they have work in technology, like little stuff and imagine how appreciative that teacher is or was when they see like these little stuff were made just from Me spending a day in the life of that art teacher. Next one is act visibly, fix a small pain point every week.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:43:29]:
Again, we have a lot of challenges out there. Sometimes as leaders, we feel inundated with a lot of stress from accountability measures from our bosses, from states regulations, from maybe parent challenges, guardian challenges, students, discipline, behavior, blah blah, blah. Right? There's a lot of stuff that we have going on and now we're getting told by teachers or staff members, hey, this needs to fix. Here's some challenges. Boom, boom, boom. And we might feel overwhelmed. So don't feel like you have to change everything in one night. A lot of stuff takes time, but commit to maybe one small win every week.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:44:05]:
Some things are going to take longer than others, but at least make that commitment and show that action. And the last one, Grow together. Let teachers co lead innovation. Provide that voice. Don't just give out surveys. Anonymous. We do the climate surveys every year, which I should do a whole webinar on that. Climate surveys going beyond just the climate survey.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:44:23]:
Okay, do that at the end of the year, beginning of the year, whatever it is, and not really utilize that information. It's okay, I need to do better, but not really digging deeper into that, but giving teachers more autonomy and giving them more opportunities to grow. From a professional development side, I talk about a lot of professional development and some things that we can do. One of the things that has been very beneficial for me when it comes to doing workshops is having a better understanding of what is relevant when it comes to professional development. A lot of teachers just want, how do I handle certain scenarios, certain situations. Here's a challenge that I have in my classroom. What should I say? What should I do? Going back to a lot of the teachers feel as if they may say the wrong thing and so they might be afraid. No one just wakes up in the morning and just go to school and say, I, I want to deal with some challenges today.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:45:09]:
We don't, we don't do that. We don't come prepared for that. Catches us off guard. So a lot of teachers just want to know, look, if this situation does occur, sometimes it's, if it occurs again, how do I handle it? What should I have done? What should I do? You won't know these things if you don't make those intentional practices to grow together. So here's the thing. If you want to learn more as far as get some more resources, there's a culture repair kit on purposeful247.com or you can just scan that code. But this is a free resource. If you're ready to put into action.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:45:39]:
Download this thing here and it gives you some some information that I've shared to you today. Gives you staff survey, hygiene audit, 90 day timeline templates and prompts for you. Scan that code or again you can always go to purposeful teaching. I'm sorry purposeful247.com the last thing I want to leave you with. Great teachers don't leave because they're tired of kids. They leave because they're tired of feeling invisible. You can change that one small shift at a time. You can change that.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:46:10]:
But you got to be intentional. Staff got to feel seen, heard and feel valued within your school, within your organization. Because remember, recognition does not equal retention. That's all I got for you today. I hope you can catch me on next time I do a live stream. Like I said before, if you haven't signed up, we do have the early bird going on for the bringing belonging to the table. So make sure that you jump on and sign up for that. That's something that if you got a team of five, you got a team of 10 sign up for that.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:46:41]:
June 30th is when prices will change. So that's the last day to take advantage of the early bird special. If you need a purchase order, let me know. I got you. I will. I can set that up for you. Just let me know. Shoot me an email.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:46:56]:
You can find all that information on the website, but you get five zoom sessions, one starting one each month. Starting in October you get a signed copy of the book. What are you bringing to the table? I'm sorry? To the potluck. You get printable tools, discussion prompts and reflection questions. Of course templates and strategies you can implement right away. That's all I got for you folks. I will catch you on the next live. Take care.
Dr. Sheldon Eakins [00:47:18]:
Enjoy the rest of your day.
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Leading Equity delivers an eye-opening and actionable discussion of how to transform a classroom or school into a more equitable place. Through explorations of ten concrete steps that you can take right now, Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins offers you the skills, resources, and concepts you’ll need to address common equity deficiencies in education.
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