Becoming A Better Advocate
We've all had it happen. We know that there's something that a learner needs, or something in their life needs to change but we need the other adults in our lives to be on board with us. How can we make that happen without becoming the O and M police and without us getting walked all over?
In this podcast episode:
Introduction
Advocating and fears
A framework to recommend
Outro
Transcript of the Episode:
Introduction
We see this happen all the time, a teacher is rushing to get to the place they need their entire class to get to. A student with a visual impairment is being pulled along by another student or paraprofessional as the teacher tries hurriedly to wrangle the other students. The O&M specialist or the TVI happens to see this. Instantly our blood boils. You can feel the tightness in our chest. And one or two things usually happens in that moment for us either to choke it down and don't say anything. Possibly get mad later. Possibly complain about it to other people, but not to the teacher. Or we say something to the teacher immediately. And it usually goes a little something like this as a passive aggressive note to the student. Hey, Johnny, why don't you show your teacher how you can use your cane? In that moment, the specialist is not thinking about what the learner or the teacher need, but their own agenda. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But does it get us the results that we want in the long run?
If this has been you, I totally get it. I've been there. We've all been there. What happens in those tiny infringements is that it erodes the trust from the teacher. And those infringements count against us. We can't keep pulling from our relationship bank with that person, if we keep doing that.
But on the flip side, if you don't say anything at all, then it just keeps happening. So what do you do? Now, I can share this with you because I will tell you that. I feel like that was the paradox of my professional life. Probably for the first five to eight years. So much so we've talked about this before. I have it tattooed on me. I Literally do. I have tattoos on my wrist, in Sanskrit, one says strength and one says serenity. Because for me, my 20s were all about figuring out how to go through my professional life, being strong, but not a capital B, and being serene, but not walked all over. Where was that balance? I saw so many people being the O and M police. And in that moment, when those people would walk by the teachers and the students would snap to. And then afterwards, those people would leave. And the teacher would secretly complained to me about it.
Did we actually make progress with that? I'm not so sure. But the way that I was doing it wasn't making any progress either because I didn't think anybody and then I just got mad. And then who knows neither of those ways of advocating for our learners really get us where we want to go. If you've had any issues getting your learner's to generalise their skills, or increase their skills, then it might be high time to start advocating for the things that they need.
Advocating and fears
One reason why we don't and the main reason that I didn't is because I was scared. And if you have any fears around advocating or if you have… or if you have been the O&M police, and you have fears that cause you to advocate in a way that you do. That's where we're going to look first.
I want to look at why, why are we acting the way that we're acting? For me, I used to believe that in order for me to be an advocate for someone, I had to be perfect. It was like this unconscious thing that I used in order to keep me safe. Like my perfectionism does. My reasoning and my requests had to be absolutely flawless. And I was so scared that someone would point out a flaw in my stance, and it would crumble. I mean, I just did the second guessing of myself a few weeks ago, I put out a post, those truly unlike me, calling out politicians for using our LGBTQ+ youth, as pawns, and most of what I said, was factual and found from reputable sources. All of the numbers in there were found from reputable sources, I didn't make them up out of my head. But some of it, like the pollen part is my own interpretation. And I fully stand behind it at the time of this recording. But man was I so scared.
And that, in and of itself is a social media post isn't in direct advocating that post does very little good, little good for anybody else. It only does good when the people seeing that post, then feel like they can advocate for their learners. Because I am taking a stance, that's all it does, doesn't even direct advocating. And I still had a moment of fear before hitting the Post button for each place that I posted it. It was all out of fear.
Now I wonder if you have some fears too. You can pause this and just think about it. I want you to think about the times where fear and anxiety have habitually held you back or cause you to act in a certain way. For me, it's holding me back. So that's why I said it in that way. But for you, it's something else it could be being too fierce. For me, it might be not talking up in meetings, or using indirect language like I think we may need to before my words. Or maybe you apologise for your opinion, or you degrade your own stance by laughing or typing out lol in your emails and texts. For some of us, it may be that we become too demanding. We need answers right away.
I just want you to know that all of that is normal, especially for females. It's our primal instinct to be a part of the group so we can keep ourselves safe. Our primal brains and nervous systems are wired for connection. As women back in the day, if we were kicked out of our community, we were literally left to die. So no wonder so many women are people pleasers. What happens then, let's look at the just the numbers here. When we get an entire profession of women, and then we still see a disproportionate number of men at the top, you can tell that it's not because the men were better teachers to begin with. And some of it is because women take on more household duties and invisible tasks. And it's not just because you need a different degree in order to be a principal. It's because men are socialised to be leaders. And in order to be an advocate, you have to step into your leadership. But we are not taught that. From the time that we are in school. Think about how the school system is run. If you went to a public school, you went into a building that probably had doors. The younger that you are the less of windows and open space that you probably had. If you were in grade school and high school, up until the 70s or 80s, or even early 90s. You probably had little courtyards and things that you could go out to schools are not built that way anymore. Just looking at the numbers here.
So let's put this into perspective. male versus female. There are 5.5 million teachers there were in 2018. Pretty sure there is less now let's just go with those numbers. So we do the math. That means there are 4.18 million female teachers and 1.32 male teachers. On another source, which I couldn't find the exact a year from, so these numbers aren't the most accurate, but it gives us a good idea. So in this other source, you have 43,625 principals in the United States. Have that they said 51.8% of them are female. So that's 22,600 Female principals, right? We're doing pretty good. And 41, so those numbers don't add up, point something percent for male. That's 18,235 Male principals. Okay, cool.
Here's how it breaks down and where you can see the discrepancy. And why I want you to understand that if you don't feel like you are being the leader, for your learner's that, you know, you can be especially if you are female, this is normal. And it can change out of all those numbers. That shows that 0.5% of female teachers become principals, 0.5%. But 13% of male teachers become principals. Again, this is not the most scientific data. But that number is staggering. And it proves the point that if you have a hard time, getting people to listen to you, if you have a hard time getting recognised within your school, and if you have a hard time being the person who people congratulate at staff meetings, without overworking yourself, there's a good reason for that. And it's simply because we're not taught how to be impactful leaders.
Impactful leaders can be more direct, without having it look bad. And they don't stress out about trying to people please their peers or their bosses. They can make change further, learners faster, because they understand how to advocate better. I've been harping on the fact that we are not with our learners very much. Yet we are the experts in the room. And that causes a disproportionate amount of stress for us. Just like invisible labour does in the home.
A framework to recommend
As teachers, we are not taught these skills, I had to learn them through creating businesses and having to learn how to have crucial conversations, how to hire people, how to fire people, how to do customer service, how to sell. When I first started teaching, I was so afraid to stand up for what I believed in, it would keep me up at night. And now I have the skills to make the change and have people respect me for my opinions. Now how I do that is not step by step. So I have notes here. But it's more of a framework. And the framework that I'm going to recommend is a Radical Candor. That book by Kim Scott provides a framework to help us find the balance between too nice and too aggressive. I'm going to describe this diagram that's in the book for you. So you don't read it because it's a little corporate kind of a book.
Once again, imagine a grid that's split up into four quadrants, from the middle and the origin point on the Y axis up and down axis, you go up from the origin, it's care personally, down from the origin point is just a bunch of what looks like would be a cuss word there. So like you just don't care about that person, you're angry at that person. And again, from the origin point, now on the X axis, horizontal axis, we're going to go over to the left, and that's silence. And for me, that's a little bit where burnout comes. And then over to the right is challenged directly. So what you have on the top left, we're going to go counterclockwise, is ruinous. Empathy doesn't help anybody. It's where you care about the person and you show them that you care about them. You don't say anything about what they're doing. Then below that, on the bottom left is manipulative insincerity. Where this is where the passive aggressiveness can come in, where you're not sharing them, that you care about them. And also, you're not telling them what they're doing wrong. Moving over to the right side, on the bottom, we have obnoxious aggression. That's where you're not showing that people that you care about them, but you're very much so challenging them directly.
All three of those thus far, will not get you the results that you want. But that's what's been modelled in front of us by our peers most often. The people that get the furthest in any profession, especially in teaching when it's all relationship based, they may or may not know it, but they practice radical candour. Now radical candour on this diagram, remember, it's four quadrants sits at the top and on the right side, it's where you show people that you care about them personally, and to challenge them directly. If you're a visual learner, I suggest you go Google this so that way, you can see what it looks like.
So how do you do that? How do you show people that you care about them and still challenge them directly? First, you have to learn better communication skills, and impacting independence, there's an entire module on how to communicate better so that you are heard by your peers. So that way, you guys can become a team that makes things happen. The first step in these skills is just getting out of your own way, and listening to the other person's perspective, before you speak. Start out the conversation by showing the person that you care about them as a full person that you're on their side. But from there, you have to be direct, and not only asking for what you want them to do, but the consequences that can happen if they don't do it, of these consequences. I mean, we're not anybody's boss. These are peers, parents, it's not like I'm going to tell on you. But here's what happens to my learner when you don't do this. Because they may not know or see it.
So for example, in the scenario that I shared earlier, I would give the teacher that moment to have their hurried rush, whatever, wherever they're going, and then later, reach out to the teacher and ask them to talk. In these conversations, and in meetings, it's important to have your data as readily accessible and available as possible. Using the New Mexico inventory or a Google form that you can quickly reference will help you get your point across because people like to see numbers, they like to see why. How is this impactful? What does it matter to me?
During the symposium, Meg Robertson taught us how to be the experts that we truly are and she suggested advocating on a broader scale. Man, I love that. Because our learners need so much more than us asking for a different kind of cupholder. She suggested advocating on a broader scale, like getting involved with your AAR board, going to city planning meetings, going to conferences, outside of our profession, getting to know those people around you. So that way, you can help make a bigger impact in the lives of your learners. And in her chat, I remember this specifically, she mentioned that even as a mother, who has been through the full journey of raising her now teenage or out of the house, I believe daughter. She never felt like she had the time. So if you're feeling like man, I have so much on my plate, how do I have the time to add in more meetings, she reminded us that we have to make the time. Because we do even down to making the time to gather our data, we have to make the time for these things so that they don't just flow right past us. It's important that we continue to advocate for our learners so that way we can continue to make a significant impact in their lives, and do so in a way that doesn't burn us out.
I really hope that this was helpful for you today. The big thing here to remember is that you can be radically candid and have these crucial conversations. There are books on these subjects that will help give you the communication skills that you need. If you're an impacting independence, which will open on April 7, you can just check out module five, and see how it all plays in together from your specific standpoint as a specialist.
I hope that this was helpful for you today. If you're ready to step into an even more impactful version of yourself, join me on April 7, for a workshop that will give you step by step tools to increase your learner's skills through generalisation. We don't have the page up yet, but we will soon. And so this workshop, what it's going to do is help give you an understanding of how to communicate with others in a way that they can hear you what you're probably doing wrong and easy ways to fix it. This is going to help all O&M specialists and Vi specialists. Yes, it's ACVREP accredited and we will have the replay up over six days after the actual webinar.
We don't have the page up yet, but once we do, I will be sure to let you know. And if you want to be the first on that waitlist, just send me a DM on Instagram that says waitlist and I will get you on the list to let you know as soon as it opens. If you've been to this presentation before, I urge you to come again, because you'll hear things from a different perspective. And the content has been updated slightly to meet us match where we are right now in our teaching and in the field. I hope that that was helpful for you. Okay, friends, I will see you next week. I hope you use this to take a step forward.
Outro
You know that feeling when you've been rushing around all day. Your kids need food your students need to be scheduled. It's five minutes before your next lesson, and you have no plans. Teaching during a pandemic has had many challenges. Wouldn't you agree? One of which being it takes so much longer to plan for a remote O&M lesson, then he did to plan for a face to face lesson. But that's not a problem anymore because my friend we have got you covered. Your Allied Independence community stepped up. And we've bundled together eight remote O&M lesson plans that can be taught virtually or distance all created by your community and customisable to your individual students unique needs in five minutes or less. You want ‘em? I know you do. All you have to do is go to Allied Independence online.com forward slash remote R E M O T E and grab your copy. Eight free O&M lesson plans so you can start spending your time doing what you do best and that my friend is teaching.